This thesis conducts a conceptual genealogy of love in sociological thought. It traces the passage of a positive logic of love: a disappearing logic conceived in Goethe's art, cultivated from the social science of Comte and Marx to classical non/Marxist sociology, and finally extinguished by late/modern reflexive sociology. Recovering the lineage of Comte, Durkheim and Parsons, it defends an economic politics of love in the positivist tradition against the political culture of classical sociology and the bio-politics of current sociology. After the demise of Marxist political economy, it examines a new order of love transversal to the socialist and capitalist organizations. The tripartite thesis argues that the sociological tradition has been tarrying with a social order of love evolved from Goethe's ethic of death and renunciation. This order expresses a disorganizing phenomenology of fate as the modern world traverses from the fated causes. to fatal consequences of love. In the causal loop, the fated-fatal order of love encounters the act, freedom and risk in a multiple unfolding of reality with minimal difference. Part I explores how a religious-political belief of fetishism practiced by Comte and Marx comes across its fate in the historical act. Part 11 explicates why a cultural-political calling for fraternity theorized by classical non/Marxist sociologists runs up against its fate in sexual freedom. Part Ill reveals that a bio-political interest in reflexivity methodized by late/modern sociologists tumbles upon its fate in social risk. In conclusion, however, the thesis suggests that an event of posthumous life after the liberation of humanity continues to occur in a state of emergency because the passion for fate escalating from social science to sociology is driven by an unrequited love of Humanity.

Skönhetsideal är ett område som är aktuellt i dagens samhälle. Skönhet har genom alla tider haft en stor inverkan på framförallt kvinnor. Syftet med vår uppsats är att studera, förstå och förklara åtta unga kvinnors upplevelser och attityder till det rådande skönhetsidealet samt vad det är som påverkar kvinnorna till att de vill eller har genomgått skönhetsförändringar. Uppsatsen har sin utgångspunkt i våra frågeställningar som är följande: (1) Hur upplever unga kvinnor det rådande skönhetsidealet? (2)Vad är drivkrafterna som gör att unga kvinnor genomgår skönhetsförändringar? Undersökningen är en kvalitativ studie baserad på semistrukturerade djupintervjuer med åtta unga kvinnor i Halmstad. Reflexivitet i det moderna samhället, objektifiering och intrycksstyrning, användes som teoretiska perspektiv. Dessa teorier är sociologiska analysverktyg som har använts för att förstå och förklara kvinnors attityder till det rådande skönhetsidealet. Resultatet visade att de unga kvinnornas upplevelser av det rådande skönhetsidealet innebar att man som kvinna ska vara ung, smal, vacker och vältränad. Dagens rådande skönhetsideal visade sig vara det ideal som ansågs vara mest hälsosamt, jämfört med tidigare skönhetsideal. De unga kvinnorna blev i största utsträckning inspirerade av sociala medier när det kommer till skönhet. Kvinnorna var positivt inställda till skönhetsoperationer och plastikkirurgi ansågs vara ett medel för att förbättra utseendet samt stärka kvinnors självkänsla samt självförtroende. / The beauty ideal constitutes a significant part of today's society. Beauty has throughout the time had a great impact on women in particular. The purpose of our paper is to study, understand and explain eight young women's experiences and attitudes towards society’s ideal of beauty, and what it is that makes them want to or go through beauty changes. The study has its starting point in our two questions: (1) How do young women experience the current beauty ideal? (2) What are the driving forces for young women to undergo beauty changes? This study, is a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with eight young women in Halmstad. Our theoretical perspective used are reflexivity of modern society, objectification and impression management. These theories will be the sociological analysis tools in order to understand and explain women's attitudes to the current ideal of beauty. The results indicated that the young women's experiences of the current ideal of beauty meant that the women should be young, slim, beautiful and fit. Today's current ideal of beauty proved to be the ideal that was considered most healthy, comparing to previous beauty ideals. The young women were very inspired by social media when it comes to beauty. The women were positive about cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery was considered out to be a tool to improve the appearance and enhance women's self-esteem and self-confidence.

This research suggests that Child and Youth Care based reflexive practice contributes to crucial shifts in perspective in both international and national staff in humanitarian contexts, and blurs the line between beneficiaries and practitioners in humanitarian intervention. I maintain that national staff (people hired in country by international organisations) to care for affected populations in humanitarian contexts are a distinct group within a vulnerable population, and with whom integrative, focused efforts in practitioner development must be made. Specifically, this research suggests that an emphasis on reflexive practice with this group in Malawi, Sierra Leone and Sudan facilitated small but crucial increments of human change processes which led to increased responsibility as part of developing practitioner identity and wider social change. All of this is important if effective practice towards targeted beneficiaries and humanitarian protection aims are to be fully realized.

Traditional knowledges and ways of living in harmony with the Earth and among species have been disregarded, discarded, and destroyed as industrialisation, capitalism, and globalisation have pervaded, all maintained in part by the Cartesian split which dissociates body from mind, heaven from Earth, nature from culture. These hegemonic layers of control have served to bind the fate of the Earth’s eco-systems, including human life, to the global capital economy which thrives on growth and development at any and all costs. This feminist, arts-informed inquiry brought an embodied lens to the stories of eco-activism and inquired as to the role of embodied ways of knowing and their role in eco-activism and the toll of activism upon women eco-activist bodies. This research inquiry interviewed thirteen women eco-activists, conducted four art-making focus groups, and used embodied reflexivity as part of the analysis process in order to find new understandings and knowledge to add to the limited literature on embodiment, embodied ways of knowing, and women’s eco-activism. Furthermore, this research sought to identify and articulate the ways in which activism practice can be more sustainable for activists and intended to add to the growing awareness body/mind connection and unity consciousness for activists, educators, and others working towards social change. The key findings of this research indicate that embodied knowledges counter fragmented ways of living, foster sustainable practices, and offer guidance and direction to live more harmoniously with, and on, the Earth and to practice activism. It also expands our understanding of women’s embodied ways of knowing and illuminates our understandings of how bodies can guide and show alternate ways of living, and practising activism, that are sustainable. This inquiry further added to the growing awareness of body/mind connection and unity consciousness with a focus on activists, educators, and others interested in finding ways to live with, rather than on, the Earth. / Graduate / 0329 / 0453 / lisa@lisamortimore.com

This thesis presents a critical analysis of the dilemmas of doing a PhD in the social sciences from the perspective of discursive psychology. It aims to contribute to qualitative studies of higher education, especially work in the sociology of education on social science doctoral research and training, and discourse analytic work on the dilemmas of education. It argues that there is a crucial bias in the literature on doctoral study. Much of the theory and research on doing a doctorate has been written and carried out by doctoral supervisors and established academic researchers, rather than doctoral students themselves. As a result, researchers have tended to study supervisor rather than student dilemmas and have left certain gaps in their studies, including the experiential dimensions of doctoral research, the discursive construction of postgraduate identities, and the patterns of ideology and power at play in doctoral student life. The present doctorate on doing a doctorate attempts to fill in these gaps, and at the same time introduces a distinctive critical, discursive, and reflexive take on postgraduate education. Detailed discourse analyses are carried out of in-depth semistructured interviews with PhD students in various psychology and social science departments in the United Kingdom. The analysis pays attention to the conversational, rhetorical, and ideological patterning of doctoral postgraduate discourse. In particular, it concerns the academic identity work done by the postgraduates, the ways in which they manage particular interactional, selfpresentational, and ideological dilemmas in their talk, and the different forms of power that are at play as they carry out their doctorates. In addition, a form of practical, analytic reflexivity is developed in the thesis, whereby the authors' own methodological and interviewing practices are analysed, along with text of the thesis itself. The general argument is that the topic of postgraduate academic identity proves a good case study for the investigation of some of the hidden dynamics of power, as well as the use of wider ideological values, in the construction of identities in contemporary institutional settings.

Technology used in the Swedish workplace is perceived to be controlling, gener- ally still difficult to use, and with a low degree of usability. Even though the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has been concerned with researching different ways of developing usable systems for at least half a century, there seem to be problems with the diffusion of the results into practice. One of the possible approaches to developing usable systems is user-centred design, and in this thesis I am concerned with the issue of introducing user-centred design and usability work in public authorities and institutions. I will present work done in two different research projects with a focus on change, where the aim has been to introduce or enhance usability work. Through a lens of social construction- ism and reflexivity I will explore the outcome of the projects and the implica- tions for the introduction of user-centred design in practice. Furthermore, I will explore whether the focus on the introduction of usability work might hinder the formation of a sustainable change in the organizations interested in devel- oping usable systems. The research question then becomes; can we introduce usability work in organizations? The answer to this question is no. Instead, we need to change our perspective from introduction to situated reflexive change: focusing on sensemaking and a situated process of ongoing change, where the stakeholders in the organization themselves must play an active and responsible part. This entails a shift from dualism to duality and a reconsideration of what our usability methods can con- tribute with. Furthermore, I will explore possible approaches to working with situated reflexive change with tools that are familiar in the field of HCI, but with an expanded scope. In particular I will discuss field studies conducted by system developers as a tool for making sense of usability issues, personas as a tool for inducing reflexivity in and on practice, and usability coaching as a sensemaking tool for both organizational stakeholders and researchers in order to understand and reflect upon change. / <p>QC 20130118</p>

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosphy (PhD) / This research applies Bourdieu’s theorising of habitus and cultural capital to understand how class mediates young people’s reflexivity and perceptions of risk. It engages with the theories of reflexive modernity, primarily with the work of Beck and Giddens, who both describe recent processes of individualization, detraditionalization and the increasing importance of the concept of risk. The study seeks to critically engage with Bourdieu’s project, reworking some of his key theoretical ideas such as the possibility of ‘reflexivity’ itself being a new form of embodied cultural capital. It also engages with works that see discourses of risk as central to neo-liberal governmentality. The research entails 380 surveys and nine focus groups at three distinct secondary schools in a large regional Australian city – a public high school in an outer suburb low socio-economic area of the city which offers a specialist sports program; an inner suburb academically-selective public high school where pupils gain an offer of enrolment only through rigorous academic testing; and an expensive private college in the middle of the central business district. Year Eleven and Twelve students (16-18 years) at the three schools were asked about their ambitions; the obstacles they think may stand in the way of achieving their ambitions; and about their perceptions and experiences of inequality and risk. The risks discussed include the problems involved in the day-to-day life of young people as well as their engagement with larger risk discourses about technology and the environment. The data highlights how inequality is experienced or denied by some, and analysed from a distance by others. Reflexivity is present regardless of class position, but is expressed in a variety of ways. There are clear and subtle distinctions in engagement with micro and macro level risks. Overall, the data highlights how class continues to shape practice, perceptions and emotions.

This thesis interrogates my and others?? creative praxis using the tools of the Internet, webcam, blogging and digital video, to elucidate possibilities for communication. I examine whether these tools are productive for my creativity and others?? in increasing communicative spaces and building social networks amongst the complexities of globalised culture. Many cultural commentators consider the Internet as a new kind of public sphere, developing community, strengthening the lifeworld and providing ethical discourse. The Internet, however, is a context not without problems. Still, less that one quarter of the world??s population has access, and computer illiteracy and governance (to name only a few) contribute to its limitations ?? this dichotomy is central to my investigation. I demonstrate that information communication technologies (ICTs) such as the Internet are radically altering our everyday lives and mediation is increasingly pervasive. I argue, therefore, that our globalised context demands alternative communicative spaces to mainstream media that allow diversity, plurality, intersubjectivity and new forms of interrogation. I ask whether the Internet can assist in the development of social networks and newest social movements (NSMs) by increasing civic bonds and communities. I posit communicative action, reflexivity and praxis as productive tools for a critical practice. I suggest that these theories are influential in researching the Internet??s potential in generating social awareness. I argue that the Internet can be used to construct social spaces and, in conjunction with creativity, can increase its productive capacity in developing diverse and ethical communicative contexts.

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is a unit that manages the most critically ill, complex and unstable patients in the hospital. As a result, the ICU is characterised by a high degree of clinical and organisational unpredictability and uncertainty. In Western discourse, uncertainty is often portrayed as problematic, and as something to be controlled and reduced. This research challenges this discourse by examining the productive relationship between certainty and uncertainty in the work practices of ICU clinicians, and subsequently, how intensive care clinicians utilise uncertainty to construct order in a highly unpredictable work environment. To understand how order can coexist with ICU’s unremitting unpredictability, complexity theory is used to frame this investigation. This research engaged an emergent, interventionist methodology, deploying multiple methods. Using ethnography, video-ethnography, and video-reflexivity, this research relied on clinicians’ participation in the construction and analysis of video data of the ICU clinicians’ work practices. This resulted in clinician-led practice change in the ICU. This research suggests that methods need to be deployed adaptively in order to deal with the complexity of ICU, in addition to the moment-to-moment emergence of events that require the researcher’s own work plans to be revisited. Moreover, in order to gain traction with, and understand highly complex and changeable environments, the researcher needs to also enter and experience uncertainty herself. Using complexity theory as its analytical tool, this research shows an inseparability of uncertainty and certainty in the ICU which is labeled ‘un/certainty’. Three main conclusions emerge from this research. First, un/certainty predominates in intensive care, and due to this, ordering is a process rather than a final state. Un/certainty is at the heart of the adaptive practices that clinicians enact. These adaptive practices are highly interconnected to the changes that the ICU environment may require, and thus produce a dynamic order in the unit. Second, the researcher herself, in order to come to terms with the complexity and un/certainty of the ICU environment must also enter un/certainty in order to gain traction with the ICU environment: unpredictability and complexity cannot be studied from a neat and disengaged distance. Third, the presence of un/certainty in the ICU can be significant and enabling rather than disabling for clinicians in their ongoing pursuit of dynamically ordering practice. The contribution of un/certainty to frontline practice is as a central driver to managing change and complexity. Therefore it should be positively revalued by health services researchers, policy makers and clinicians alike.

The policy shift towards sustainability has led to increased diversity of stakeholders in land management. This thesis explores how capacity building projects affect the way stakeholders are included in emerging platforms for change. It does so by combining action research and narrative analysis in a case study of a project that aimed to develop social capability in rural Victoria, Australia. The thesis concludes with ways to improve capacity building methodologies and the reflexive performance within platforms for change.