No description available.

A critical investigation of the public/private distinction as it has been conceived in Anglo-American political thinking in the second half of the 20th century. A broadly held consensus has developed amongst many theorists that public/private does not refer to any single determinate distinction or relationship but rather to an often ambiguous range of related but analytically distinct conceptual oppositions. The argument of this thesis is that if we approach public/private in the search for analytic or conceptual clarity then this consensus is correct. Against this I propose that a number of the most dominant invocations of the distinction can be understood to express public/private as an irreducibly political dialectic that mediates the relationship between the subjective and objective side of social and political life. By locating these conceptually diverse invocations within a broader and more determinate framework of the historical development and contestation of the boundaries which establish the conditions for subjectivity, as the assertion of political agency, on the one hand, and which demarcate, police and defend these particular boundaries, as part of the objectively given character of social life and institutional organisation, on the other hand, then a more determinate character to public/private can be recognized. I then seek to explore the capacity of this model to capture and explain the peculiar post-war problematisation of public/private amongst a number of new left thinkers in Britain and America.

The assigned territory is situated in the City of Brno, in the city district of Židenice. From the west it is limited by the railway track Brno-Židenice, from the east by Koperníkova Street, from the north by Lazaretní Street and finally from the south by Bubeníčkova Street. Its area is approximately 45, 480 m2 which is 4,55 ha. From the urban perspective it is an intensive development in a separated block of the city with a protection zone. Total area is permeated by a few lines for pedestrians. The pedestrian zone provides better permeability of the area and better accessibility of the trade parterre. The buildings connect to surrounding development and respect the density of the integrity of the area. Intensive housing structure is regarded as "the city of short distance". The achievement of high density of housing development combines lots of various functions and relatively small built-up surface. While high-quality environment is preserved, people can find job oportunities in the intensive housing development without the need for transport. For achievement conception of compact city applies space urban planning. The shape of the estate directly impacted the principle of the proposal together with the city planning context of the current buildings. In the protective zone there is established a huge park with water reservoirs. The walk-through trade parterre is filled with many various functions, on its walkable roof is created a semi-public zone with skylights and freely introduced verdure. On the walkable roof there are independent blocks of apartments and public facilities. In the northern and southern corner are located public-service utilities and in the middle of this area there is a nursery and a kindergarden. In structural terms the building it is about cast-in-place concrete reinforced frame based on a white concrete foundation which has one underground level and five above-ground levels.

The thesis uses the case study of the experience of middle-class northern white women in America during the period 1800-1860 to explore several issues of wider significance. Firstly, the research focuses upon the dynamic relationships between the culturally-constructed categories of public/formal and private/informal power and participation at both the practical and symbolic levels, suggesting ways in which they intersected on the lives of women. Secondly, consideration is given to the validity of the stereotyped view that 'domestic' women were necessarily disadvantaged and dominated relative to those who aspired to public political and economic roles. Thirdly, the relationship of religious belief to these two areas is discussed, in order to discover its relevance to the way in which women both perceived themselves and were perceived by others. In seeking to explore these issues, the research has analysed the patterns of social and cultural change in the era under question, indicating how those changes influenced the perceptions and experiences of both women and men. Their reactions in terms of discourse and activity are located as strategies of negotiation in redefining both social role and participation for the sexes. The rhetoric of 'separate spheres', which was used by men and women to order their mental and physical surroundings, is reduced to its symbolic constituents in order to illustrate that the distinction between male and female arenas was more perceptual than actual. The motivating forces behind the activities and ideas of women themselves are investigated to determine the role of religion in the construction of both female self-images and wider negotiational strategies. The context of nineteenth-century social dynamics has been revealed by detailed analysis of extensive primary sources originated by both women and men for private as well as public consumption. Feminist tools of analysis which enable the conceptualisation of 'meaningful discourse' as including female contributions have further enhanced the specific focus on how women constructed their own world-views and approaches to reality. 'Traditional' approaches and tools are shown to have seriously skewed and misrepresented the reality and variety of both discourse and female experience in the era. Great efforts have been made to allow women to speak in their own words. This has produced an insight into a richness of female social participation and discourse which would otherwise be obscured. The research indicates that women were indeed actors and negotiators during the period. Those women who advocated as primary the duties of women in the domestic and social arenas were by no means setting narrow limitations on female participation in both society and discourse. The religious impulses and eschatological frameworks derived by women (varied as they were) served to order and renegotiate reality and meaning, whilst they produced female roles and influence of great significance. Women were not passive victims of male oppression. Religion can thus be perceived as a positive force which women were able to approach both for its own sake, and for their own particular ends.