This dissertation is concerned with the extent to which the use of information and communication technology can (re-)create social capital and local community in an urban environment. Will the new technologies lead to new forms of social inclusion or to the creation of a digital divide? How have social networks, social support, trust and sense of community been affected by the rapid development of the Internet? In the literature there is disagreement between writers who see the technology as a new basis for social inclusion, social capital and community (e. g. Wellman, 1997; Rheingold, 2000; Lin, 2001) and others who see it as a threat, leading to new forms of exclusion and a decline in face-to-face contacts ( e.g . Slouka, 1995;Stoll, 1995). A combination of qualitative and quantitative data from a study in a relatively disadvantaged area of Stockholm is used to evaluate the impact of two computer projects, a Local Net and an Internet Cafe. Each of the projects was aimed at encouraging digital inclusion and at enhancing social contacts and the sense of community. The findings show that Local Net largely failed to achieve its goals and was abandoned two years after its inauguration. In its place an Internet Cafe was established, which seems to be achieving many of the goals that were set out in its prospectus. Visitors to the Cafe, who include many representatives of disadvantaged groups, have acquired useful computer skills. The IT-Cafe, with is provision of subsidised public access, in formal support and training, makes its visitors feel more included in the Information Society as well as in the wider society. The visitors also have more local friends, express stronger social trust and perceive less tension in the than non-visitors. The Internet Cafd is regarded as an offline as well as online meeting-place with positive impacts on social integration, and Internet use is associated with networking, exchange of support and information seeking.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, August 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-96).

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-93).

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Psychology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Dianne M. Tice, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Psychology. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 20, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 46 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Montana, 2007. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Oct. 1, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-90).

This dissertation, “The Value of Dust: Memory and Identity at Italy’s Margins,” is a transnational cultural history that studies the role cultural institutions in Italy’s borderlands play in defining, defending and memorializing a conception of Italian identity (italianità) at the margins of the Italian State, from the turn of the twentieth century to the contemporary period. This study examines the relationship between literature, language, Italian identity, marginality, and memory in the Italian community of Istria and its exile community in Trieste. By drawing on archival and ethnographic data, as well as textual analysis, it traces the cultural production of Italian organizations and intellectuals in Trieste and Istria from the late Habsburg period to the postwar period, and analyzes two sites of memory established in Trieste after the community’s uprooting there after World War II. It explores how the narratives surrounding specific cultural artifacts— from literature and folklore to a musical and museum exhibits — and cultural organizations operating in the Julian March borderland act in service of the project to reinforce a certain vision of italianità and contribute to a discourse on Italianness in a contested borderland. I first analyze the discourse of a 1913 collection of writings sold to raise funds for the Lega Nazionale (the National League)— a cultural organization in the Adriatic borderland tasked with the defense and promotion of all things Italian — in order to expand the scope and purview of our discussion of italianità, not only geographically but thematically. I demonstrate that studying the different conceptions of Italianness that emerge in the writings of 14 participants in the pamphlet can help further illuminate the link between cultural identity and marginality. By putting all these disparate voices together — the contributors to the Lega Nazionale pamphlet from the borderland and not, asked to write on “Italy”— it becomes clear that a unified image of italianità does not emerge. By widening the canon on the nation and expanding the scope of what is considered when thinking about Italianness, we are left with a mosaic of diverse interpretations, the definitive proof that there is not one way to interpret Italian identity and that we should take further care when we treat it as an overarching, hegemonic idea. To these border writers, Italy is coded in terms of language, education, cultural patrimony, patriotism, cuisine, local dialect, geography and the metaphor of twilight. Next, I explore the “civilization” promoted in the Civic Museum of the Civilization of Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia (Trieste, Italy) and analyze how Istrian folk literature (1877-1977) was appropriated by folklorists, demologists, historians, politicians, intellectuals, musicologists and writers for a specifically political purpose. I examine the prefatory materials found in the introductions to editions of Istrian folktales and show how they are intimately involved in the "recovery" of ancient links to Italy through folklore. The political motives of folklore were thus to figuratively excavate the italianità in folklore at the margins of the State, in order to underscore "indigenous" Italian roots and fold these territories into the national project. The Civic Museum, too, demonstrates a similar insistence on connections to Italy, by selectively assembling a mono-ethnic representation of Istria and through the recreation of peasant environments. Lastly, I analyze an important site of memory for the exile community of Trieste, Magazzino 18. A warehouse-museum of the Istrian exodus at the Old Port of Trieste, Magazzino 18 was established through the efforts of I.R.C.I., which also organizes tours of the site. The objects contained within this site participate in the repackaging of contemporary history in a contested borderland. This constellation of objects—brought by Istrians as they left their homeland in the postwar and often pertaining to the domestic sphere—has been used by the exile community to construct a historical narrative that inscribes its history into that of the Holocaust. I explore how this liminal community sought to solidify its ties to the Italian nation from the periphery and later establish its victimhood in the postwar. My research identifies the use of narratives that expose the community’s reliance on the tools of Holocaust memorialization, insisting on a frame of uniqueness and competition and thereby undermining attempts of intercultural understanding. I argue that the preferred narratives of this exile community elucidate anxieties about self-definition, and bring these anxieties into conversations about trauma, recognition, and the obfuscation of the fascist past in Italy. By studying the various ways people interpret Italianness in an ethnically, culturally and linguistically heterogeneous zone, I elucidate how this identity is adopted and transformed in different ways by the different communities residing there, exploring the specificities of the work each of these entities—whether discursive or material—is attempting, their commonalities and differences, and how and when they are effective. I show that there are different forms of italianità, of senses of belonging to the Italian nation, and that the Italians of these border regions decenter Italy and place it into a wider context of the Adriatic and beyond. In doing so, I develop a methodology that can be applied to other contested areas where groups have battled over questions of identity to show how a marginalized community can come to occupy a main role in debates on contemporary politics and memory.

本文環繞香港都市的一個邊緣社區，探討深水埗居民的生活。從當地人的角度，研究後工業社會的弱勢居民，怎樣體驗，應對及理解他們的生活情況。透過了解居民的日常生活，本論文旨在探究在社會結構與文化進程的互動下，如何令深水埗成為香港中心的邊緣社區。研究顯示在香港不斷轉變的政治經濟環境下，深水埗的地區性發展、低成本經濟、居民的組合，以及居民的心態和行為，都是構成邊緣社區的重要因素。 / This is an ethnographic study of a marginal neighbourhood of Hong Kong, Sham Shui Po. It focuses on the everyday lives of Hong Kong's urban poor in Sham Shui Po. By taking an insider's point of view, this study examines how underprivileged residents experience, manage and think about their lives in post-industrial urban Hong Kong. This study seeks to understand the social structures and cultural processes that contribute to Sham Shui Po's marginality in the centre of Hong Kong by exploring the lives and livelihoods of underprivileged residents. I show how Sham Shui Po's regional development, low-cost economy, residential composition, as well as the mindset and behaviour of its residents all contribute to making of a marginal neighbourhood in the context of post-industrial Hong Kong. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Christopher Cheng. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-155). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Sham Shui Po as a marginal neighbourhood in Hong Kong / Poverty / Marginalisation / Reproduction of poverty / Neighbourhood / Methodology / Fieldwork / Limitations and ethical concerns / Thesis organisation / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- THE SETTING --- p.22 / Central position yet marginal character / Living in a tong⁴ lau⁴ / Geographies of centrality and marginality / Sham Shui Po and the modernisation of Hong Kong / Neighbourhood characteristics / Chapter 1 --- The tong⁴ lau⁴ streets / Chapter 2 --- Street markets and the leftover effects of yesteryears / Chapter 3 --- Low-cost economy and residents / Chapter 4 --- Community service agencies / Sham Shui Po as a unique setting / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- SIX POOR FAMILIES --- p.46 / Introducing six Sham Shui Po families / Case 1 Uncle Leung--An earlier generation Chinese migrant / Case 2 Ms. Tang Yuk-yip--A Mainland welfare mother / Case 3 Uncle Mok--An elderly Hong Kong man / Case 4 Uncle Kwok--A remarried Hong Kong father / Case 5 Patrick Lau--A low-income Hong Kong father / Case 6 Makala Sariwa--A Filipina single parent seeking asylum / Variations in social marginalisation / Hidden in society: Unfulfilled promises, shame and social debt / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- SURVIVAL STRATEGIES --- p.72 / Survival strategies / Strategy 1: Low-cost lifestyle / Strategy 2: Initiatives of a marginal neighbourhood / Strategy 3: Sharing and mutual exchange networks / Strategy 4: Institutional services / The relationship between the different strategies / Surviving in Sham Shui Po / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- POVERTY AS LIVED EXPERIENCE --- p.101 / Becoming poor / Fate and situational determinants of poverty / Being poor / Celebrations / “Being poor may do you some good!“ / Shame, guilt and loss of face / “We aren’t that poor!“ / Aspiring to overcome poverty / Valuing educating / Moving on / Explaining and challenging the notions of inequality / Chapter CHAPTER 6 --- CONCLUSION: A MARGINAL NEIGHBOURHOOD --- p.123 / Chapter 1 --- Historical development / Chapter 2 --- Low-cost economy / Chapter 3 --- The people of Sham Shui Po and the making of a “mixed place“ / Chapter 4 --- Marginal lives, marginal livelihoods / Chapter APPENDIX 1 --- REFLECTIONS ON FIELDWORK --- p.130 / Chapter APPENDIX 2 --- SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MY INFORMANTS --- p.132 / Chapter APPENDIX 3 --- SUPPORT SERVICES & ORGANISATIONS --- p.134 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.149

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