This study is a qualitative examination on the impact of mobile banking, commonly known as MPESA on the lived experiences of the marginalised poor of Bukhalalire sub-location in western Kenya. Using Capability Approach as the guiding theoretical framework, this research project answers Denzin's (2003) call to performance, a performance which contributes to a more 'enlightened and involved citizenship'. It is 'revolutionary' in that it 'enlightens citizens to the possibilities' of MPESA by staging dramatic texts or performances rewritten from the interviews with the poor. These Performances make sites of oppression visible in the process, affirming an oppositional 'politics' that reasserts the value of self-determination and mutual solidarity. Here, the project explores Performance Ethnography to interrogate and evaluate specific, social, educational, economic and political processes as mechanisms that affect the adoption and successful implementation of MPESA as a poverty eradication strategy. The research work conducts focus groups to draw out dimensions of concerns which this research construes as a capability set, then interviews persons in poverty to establish, firstly, what the dimensions of concerns are and the relationship between them, effectively corroborating the findings from the focus group then secondly establish how MPESA is impacting on those dimensions of concern. The research then uses performances to bring to the front the voices of the poor, making visible sites of oppression in one sense and on another, sites of opportunities within MPESA. This exercise answers the research question in evidencing how Performance Ethnography illuminates dimensions of concerns within a Capability Approach study and as research tool it provokes the interviewer and the interviewee to self examination and reflection, seen thus, the performance becomes vehicle for moving persons, subjects, performer, and audience members in new, critical, 'political' spaces, a space of hope that transcends the conservative politics of neoliberalism rescuing the radical democracy. As such, it 'tells a true and previously untold tale' effectively calling for social transformation.

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This dissertation presents an instrumentalist’s perspective on cognition and meta-cognition in music performance. The goal of the study is to identify and apply methods of inquiry that are phenomenologically resonant with instrumental practice. The first chapter, situating the study in the context of the writer’s musical training, examines ways of studying and representing performance knowledge. The second chapter presents a case study of the preparation of Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque for Two Flutes (1959-1960). Using grounded theory methodology, this chapter investigates the role of gesture in the negotiation of musical understanding. Chapters 3 through 5 draw on Herbert H. Clark’s joint activity theory of language use to conceptualize music-making, taking into account context, process, and other domains of musical activity. Finally, Chapter 6, in addition to re-defining "virtuosity" for the 21st century instrumentalist, presents a set of philosophical considerations for cognitive studies in music performance.

This dissertation presents an instrumentalist’s perspective on cognition and meta-cognition in music performance. The goal of the study is to identify and apply methods of inquiry that are phenomenologically resonant with instrumental practice. The first chapter, situating the study in the context of the writer’s musical training, examines ways of studying and representing performance knowledge. The second chapter presents a case study of the preparation of Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque for Two Flutes (1959-1960). Using grounded theory methodology, this chapter investigates the role of gesture in the negotiation of musical understanding. Chapters 3 through 5 draw on Herbert H. Clark’s joint activity theory of language use to conceptualize music-making, taking into account context, process, and other domains of musical activity. Finally, Chapter 6, in addition to re-defining "virtuosity" for the 21st century instrumentalist, presents a set of philosophical considerations for cognitive studies in music performance.

This dissertation presents an instrumentalist’s perspective on cognition and meta-cognition in music performance. The goal of the study is to identify and apply methods of inquiry that are phenomenologically resonant with instrumental practice. The first chapter, situating the study in the context of the writer’s musical training, examines ways of studying and representing performance knowledge. The second chapter presents a case study of the preparation of Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque for Two Flutes (1959-1960). Using grounded theory methodology, this chapter investigates the role of gesture in the negotiation of musical understanding. Chapters 3 through 5 draw on Herbert H. Clark’s joint activity theory of language use to conceptualize music-making, taking into account context, process, and other domains of musical activity. Finally, Chapter 6, in addition to re-defining "virtuosity" for the 21st century instrumentalist, presents a set of philosophical considerations for cognitive studies in music performance. / Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies / Graduate

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This thesis identifies the shared pool of narrative resources, which constitute the public discourses and cultural meanings of the sport of boxing, in order to examine how individual boxers engage with them when performing their narrative identities. It is argued that the shared pool of narrative resources for boxing contain myths and legends that are taken for granted and yet heavily invested in by boxers and academics alike. This project explores how individual boxers engage with these resources in order to make sense of their own experiences and to formulate their narrative identity. The thesis asks how a thorough investigation of the shared narrative resources, and their use by boxers, provides new insights into what the sport of boxing means to boxers, and how shared resources are engaged with in order to perform idiosyncratic ontological narratives. This project makes a unique contribution, as it is the first project of its kind to fully consider the relationship between the individual accounts provided by boxers and the narrative resources available to them. It pays particular focus to the narrative resources as they relate to amateur and professional boxers alike. Through a performance ethnography, and qualitative inquiry approach, research data was collected and co- constructed over a period of three years. This data informed the reading of boxing texts in order to ascertain what the shared pool of narrative resources were for boxers, and how individuals used and engaged with them. This project found that the narrative resources of boxing were powerful, persuasive, and provided vocabularies of motives for individual boxers. The shared pool of resources, whilst constitutive of the cultural 2 meanings of boxing, were engaged with by individual boxers to tell stories about the desire for transformation, communion, respect and generativity.

This study is concerned with how mothers, who have been referred to a children's centre for support with parenting, interpret their interactions with professionals including midwives, health visitors, social workers and family support workers. Previous studies have concentrated on unhelpful, "them and us" othering practices, this project aimed to consider mothers' interpretations of interactions, exploring verbal and non-verbal interactions as well as identifying what interactions with professionals that were helpful or not and why? To explore mothers' stories, I designed an arts based performance ethnographic methodology. Through the use of theme boards and stream of consciousness writing in a drama group context, text was collected over an eighteen month period from 16 mothers. Initial review, editing and distilling of text was carried out with participants, generating 18 scenes for a play performed together in front of a live audience. Text not used in the play was further analysed using narrative analysis and produced an overarching metaphor of a 'dance of compliance'. The dance explores images of mothers navigating steps of vulnerability, risk and compliance. Inhabiting the dance were many overlapping victimizing narratives exposing stories of parenting support presented as life enhancing in a context of scarcity. I found that the women kept dancing not because they were empowered but because the dance is obligatory, driven by the systematic production of unhelpful signs that come to constitute their reality. Theoretical perspective/s used in analysis highlight how children's centres could become a space for symbolic exchanges of support bringing into the light steps of fortitude and humanity. Recommendations for practice centre on the need for professionals to engage in empathic interactions whist always looking for opportunities for mothers to participate in the day to day activities of parenting support.

This study is a qualitative examination of my lived experiences and the lived experiences of my immediate family in sport. Using critical race theory (CRT) as my guiding theoretical framework, this research project answers Denzin’s (2003) call to advance “a radical performative social science” that “confront[s] and transcend[s] the problems surrounding the colour line in the 21st century” (p.5). As such, the purpose of this project was to explore issues of race, culture and power within our lived sport experiences and to present these experiences in such way so as to unpack the tensions associated with being an Aboriginal person living in today’s Canadian society.

This study is a qualitative examination of my lived experiences and the lived experiences of my immediate family in sport. Using critical race theory (CRT) as my guiding theoretical framework, this research project answers Denzin’s (2003) call to advance “a radical performative social science” that “confront[s] and transcend[s] the problems surrounding the colour line in the 21st century” (p.5). As such, the purpose of this project was to explore issues of race, culture and power within our lived sport experiences and to present these experiences in such way so as to unpack the tensions associated with being an Aboriginal person living in today’s Canadian society.