This thesis presents interdisciplinary work on indigenous Mexican migration from a gender perspective. It uses a conceptual framework drawn from Agarwal (1994) and Kabeer (2001) to explore the role of transnational migration in the transformation of gender relations and identities and to enrich our understanding of the link between transnational migration and empowerment. Based on innovative multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in the Mixtec town of Santiago Cacaloxtepec, the Zapotec town of San Bartolomé Quialana; both located in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico; and the state of California, US; this research presents a high resolution comparative analysis of changing gender relations in the communities of origin and diaspora due to indigenous (mainly) male migration. Migration from both communities is transnational, gendered and undocumented; indigenous men are still seen as the natural subjects of migration, especially when this is international, but nowadays indigenous women are also expected to migrate at least while they are single. Longer-term absence of male inhabitants has been understood as a determining factor which progressively re-constructs gender relations, increases female participation in political life and is a catalyst for women's empowerment. However a close scrutiny of the socio-political context of the communities, the dynamics of migration and a desegregation of female respondents by age/generation allows this research to argue that not all women are sharing equally in the shifts in gender relations. Moreover, while transnational migration is found to be both initiating and contributing to processes of women’s empowerment, its significance is differentiated by the location, age, civil status and migrant experiences of women, and it is not the only factor at work. In the diaspora, changes in gender relations have been observed in favour of women, as they take advantage of new opportunities in employment and education and men are obliged to participate in household work. Important processes of empowerment were detected among male and female migrants who have found opportunities that they could not have obtained in their communities of origin. However, their clandestine status still jeopardizes their transformative achievements. Transnational migration has also served as an opportunity to re-construct and question the forms of femininity and masculinity practised in the communities. Femininity has ceased to be represented only through motherhood and marriage, to give way to more active and transformative expressions. Dominant forms of indigenous masculinities have been based on elderly-wisdom power arrangements; however the trajectory of transnational migration is seeing them give way to a masculinity represented by the younger "brave" and experienced migrant.

This thesis investigates whether women's empowerment affects children's wellbeing in two developing countries: Mexico and India. The first chapter provides a background on women's empowerment. The second chapter evaluates a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, which provides poor women in Mexico with tools to be better mothers, in terms of its impact on birthweight. The third chapter analyses whether empowered women, referred as those who have progressive gender attitudes, are more likely to have a firstborn girl in Delhi, India. Specifically, the second chapter evaluates PROGRESA-Oportunidades, a program that pays mothers cash in exchange of their investment in their children's human capital: education, health, and nutrition. Using quantile regressions, the chapter finds a positive and significant program effect, but babies at the upper tail of the conditional birthweight distribution seem to have benefited the most. Moreover, maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with a 459-gram decrease on birthweights at the 20th percentile of the conditional distribution, completely wiping out any program benefits. This effect is not picked up by least squares regression estimates, which is the technique used by previous literature on the subject. The third chapter turns to India, a country that has lost millions of girls to sex-selective abortions. The chapter first constructs a women's empowerment (progressivity ) index using a latent factor model, and then assesses whether progressive women are more likely to have a firstborn girl in Delhi. The latter territory has, unlike the Indian average, 'missing' women even among first order births. The results show that a one-standard deviation increase in the progressivity index is associated with a 5.8-percentage point increase in the likelihood of a firstborn girl relative to women who have not yet given birth.

In 1880 the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) consisted of largely autonomous local trade societies seeking unilaterally to regulate the terns and conditions under which engineering craftsmen were employed. The Executive Council (which spent most of its time administering the system of centralised benefits) consisted of part-time members drawn from, and elected by, the London members. In 1892 the first full-time Executive Council was elected as part of a general reform of the Society's government; the reforms did not change the A. S. E. 's craft character rather they were designed to improve the execution of traditional policies. As the climax of a long campaign for the eight-hour day the Executive Council called a strike of its London members in 1897. The ensuing dispute, which the Employers extended to all districts, lasted thirty weeks, and was ended on the terms laid down by the recently formed Engineering Employers' Federation (EEF). Under the terms of settlement the A. S. E. accepted a procedure for avoiding disputes and Management's right to prerogative over matters Which previously it had claimed unilateral control. The Society disaffiliated from the T. U. C. because of the Parliamentary Committee's failure to tobilize trade union support for the engineers eight-hour struggle. Affiliation was made to the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) in the false hope that this Federation would augment the A. S. E. 'a industrial strength. It is convenient to discuss the A. S. E. 's reaction to the 1897-98 defeat and its consequences under headings which indicate the main themes. Technical change From the mid-1880's something approaching a revolution occurred in machine technology based upon improved high speed steels. The establishment of the EEF and the sustained attack upon craft methods of production can be largely explained by the employers' determination to fully exploit the new technology. Government Constitutional authority within the A. S. E. was divided between the Executive Council, a lay Delegate Meeting, and a lay Final Appeal Court. There was no policy making body. The Society was governed according to the rule book which was unaffected by the terms under which the 1697-98 dispute was settled. Consequently it was difficult for the Executive Council to develop collective bargaining and to restrain district committees, from acting in breach of the agreement, but within the rules of the Society. Both the Delegate Meeting and the Final Appeal Court tended to defend local as against central decision making authority. The Executive Council's action in 1903, withdrawing benefit from members of the Clyde striking against a wages reduction, led to a serious weakening in their authority. Three Executive Councilmen were defeated when seeking re-election, the Final Appeal Court partially over-ruled the Executive's benefit decision, and the 1904 Delegate Meeting limited the Council's right to intervene in district matters. In 1912 after a complicated dispute the Delegate Meeting dismissed the Executive Council from office. This assertion of authority by a rank and file body was not overtly influenced by syndicalist ow industrial unionist ideas. Industrial Policy The Executive Ceuneil intermittently and uncertainly tried to develep collective bargaining to replace lest unilateral regulation while powerful district committees attempted to retain their previous methods of operation. In 1902 the Executive concluded the Carlisle agreement for controlling the introduction of the premium bonus. This proved to be an unpopular agreement and probably discredited collective bargaining. The Executive elected in 1913, to replace the one dismissed by the 1912 Delegate Meeting, after a ballot vote of members, ended the Carlisle Agreement and the general agreement with the EEF. Eventually the York memorandum was approved by the members, which although it incorporated provisions which speeded up the procedure for avoiding disputes, continued those aspects which to many ASE members, were the humiliating terms under which the Society had been defeated. After 1898 with the Society formally precluded from negotiations on management matters an informal system of work place, industrial relations began to develop based upon district committees and the widespread appointment of shop stewards. Polities During these years the A. S. E. became involved in politics for the first time. All ballets on political questions were very small. The A. S. E. affiliated to the Labour Party but neither the Independent Labour Party (ILP) nor the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) were active within the Society. George Barnes (General Secretary 1896-1908) was an influential supporter of the Socialist trade union alliance upon which the Labour Party was established. In 1914 the A. S. E. members voted against raising a political levy under the 1913 trade union act. From the turn of the century most officials and active members supported the Labour Party and it was sometimes argued that the Society's problems (which were industrial) could be solved by political action. How, was never clear. The developing sympathy among A. S. E. members for a view of trade union democracy which favoured control exercised through district or workshop organisation casts some light on the development of the shop stewards movement during the War.

This thesis analyses the media coverage and dominant institution responses to the media and protest tactics employed by three different protest groups. The three case studies examine the interactions between protest groups, their political targets, and the mainstream media. It pays particular attention to each group's media and protest tactics, and how their messages transition from protest action into media coverage and political debates. The three different protest groups comprise of a Cardiff community campaign to save a pub called Save the Vulcan, the environmental direct action group Plane Stupid and their protests against airport expansion, and the mass protests of G20Meltdown against the G20 summit held in London in April 2009. This thesis analyses the media coverage of each group using the concept of political opportunity structures to ascertain the influence of the political and media context on protest groups and their actions. Interviews with activists involved in all three protest groups, and ethnography conducted from within one of the groups, namely, the Save the Vulcan campaign revealed differing attitudes towards the choice of media and protest tactics. All three groups were aware of their portrayal in media coverage, and actively geared their tactics towards attracting media attention. The research analysed protester communications on the internet and leaflets to explore how they represented their issues. A content analysis of British newspaper articles examined the impact of each group's media and protest tactics on press coverage. Offical documents from the dominant institutions of the police and centralised political institutions were examined to ascertain the debates surrounding the issues. On the basis of these empirical findings and discussion this thesis argues for a revision of the theorisation of political opportunity structures. This grants increased recognition of media coverage and importance of protest group aims and goals in the assessment of their success and failure to communicate their messages. Finally, the thesis argues that political and media opportunities do influence the success and failure of protest groups, but it is the effective use of media and protect tactics that puts protest groups into a position to succeed or fail.

David Garrioch estimates that in 1789 two thirds of the Parisian population came from other parts of France, yet historians have shown comparatively little interest in how these migrants interacted with the wider Parisian population and the Parisian authorities during the revolutionary period. Migrants were drawn to Paris in search of work opportunities that were unavailable in their own province, or to support their families during the hiatus in the agricultural season or during periods of economic crisis. Using a wide range of source material this thesis explores the experiences of migrants from a variety of French provinces and from Savoy, exploring the different types of migration and the ‘push and pull’ factors behind a move to Paris. It will examine the ‘failed migration experience’ and the challenges faced by migrants on their journey to Paris and in the first few weeks and months of settling in and finding work and accommodation in Paris. Factors behind a successful migrant experience will also be considered, highlighting the importance of the migrant network in Paris and in the provinces in helping the newly arrived migrant become established through the provision of work and accommodation. The thesis will show how provincial and foreign migrants were portrayed in cultural source material from the late Seventeenth to the Nineteenth century. An investigation into contemporary accounts of the personality, physical appearance, family life and work habits of migrants will illustrate how common stereotypes like the ‘petit ramoneur Savoyard’, the ‘Paysan Perverti(e)’ and the ‘vagrant’ were constructed, making migrants stand out from the wider Parisian population. The case study of Fanchon la Vielleuse shows the interaction between cultural and historical representations of migrants and how these could become embedded in the popular mindset. These stereotypes will be a continuing theme throughout the thesis and will provide a context in which it is possible to understand the attitudes of the wider population and the authorities towards migrants. In using police and judicial records from the pre-revolution and revolutionary periods it is possible to compare and contrast such stereotypes with the genuine migrant experience. The thesis will explore the attitudes of the Parisian authorities towards these migrants in the discourses on crime and public safety, charity and poor relief, and the debate on nation, citizenship and identity, tracing both changes and continuities in their approach from the Ancien Regime to the Revolution. It aims to uncover how the Revolution impacted on migration traditions and how migrants responded to this monumental series of events, including an analysis of migrant agendas and their understanding of and response to the Revolution and the changing judicial process. This provokes an examination of the relevance of the Revolution to the ordinary migrant in Paris. Was this a step towards the realisation of a French Nation at the expense of multiple regional identities, or did migrants remain unconvinced by this collective identity?

The prevalence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes is increasing world-wide being most evident in non-industrialised populations, and in deprived communities and minority ethnic groups, residing in the "affluent west". In the UK, the South Asian population, and in particular the Bangladeshi community, are up to six times more likely than the general population to have Type 2 diabetes. In Tower Hamlets East London, the prevalence is higher than both the London and England average; with over half of the cases being Bangladeshi. There is strong evidence that it is the interaction between an altered lifestyle, associated with economic development and urbanisation, which has triggered this massive increase in the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes. Genetic causes, and poor foetal and infant nutrition, are also seen as contributory factors. Central to this thesis was the preposition that obesity and Type 2 diabetes are largely preventable and amenable to a wide range of public health prevention strategies. Too often a reductionist medical approach has been taken with the focus on individual behavioural change and few links to the culture of food and eating, or to the broader social, political, or economic context in which people live. This trans-cultural study utilised qualitative approaches over three phases: paired interviews, in-depth semi-structured interviews and multiple pass dietary recall; drawing upon current social science and public health nutrition paradigms to investigate the contextual factors influencing food choices and physical activity, as perceived by the community itself and key informants, as well as the trend in eating patterns between two generations of British Bangladeshis. Multiple drivers were revealed to be influencing food and activity choices with the community being significantly affected by urbanisation, being immersed in an obesogenic environment, the degree of acculturation into the British society and changes to the patriarchal structure of their community. The policy framework at the time of this research reflected an epistemological dilemma of a social issue continuing to be addressed with a largely clinical solution and the perception of a Government which despite outward appearances to the contrary, remained committed to the personalisation of the health agenda. The most recent change to the Coalition Government has seen this paradigm continuing, jarring sharply with the lived realities of the community and the overwhelming evidence that the obesity and diabetes epidemics cannot be dealt with by promoting behavioural change and individualised treatment alone. The long lasting theory in Public Health that the social dimensions of health need to be addressed in conjunction with biological determinants has been confirmed with a complex web of interactions weaving together to influence the choices being made, highlighting the interconnectedness of diet and culture, and the relationship to a culture in transition. The vast array of factors have substantial implications for further development of food and public health policy for this community relating to the prevention diet related non-communicable diseases, as well as for professional practice.

This thesis examines the historical geography of lunacy in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Using a wide variety of sources, the objective is to construct an expansive picture of the manner in which those labelled as “mad” were treated and managed in this peripheral region of mainland Britain, from the Medieval Period to the late-Victorian period. The scope includes Medieval Celtic manuscripts, nineteenth-century folklore collections, Lunacy Commissioners’ reports, Sheriff Court records, asylum case notes and various other documents besides. These sources open windows on a variety of vocabularies, writings, stories and proclamations through which madness was socially constructed, and then substantively treated, in this remotest of regions. In effect, the thesis sets regional folklore, as a way of accessing the “traditional” worlds of Highland madness from the “bottom-up”, in counterpoint to the likes of Lunacy Commissioners reports, as an instance of the “modernising” of these worlds through medical-institutional means from the “top-down”. The interlocking binaries here are to an extent then scrambled by exploring different dimensions of this interaction between “bottom-up” and “top-down”, charting continuities as well as breaks in attitudes and practices, and thereby constructing a tangled picture of how the Highlands have come to tackle this most challenging of human conditions. The account that follows is thoroughly informed by the historical, social and spatial context of the Highlands, always recognising that madness and its responses must be seen as indelibly placed, contextually shaped and ‘read’ through the region. While the historiography of madness and psychiatry has already considered the Scottish Lowlands experience from various angles, the Highlands have remained all but untouched and their archives unopened. This thesis begins the task of addressing this serious lacuna.

Scottish convalescent homes, established between 1860 and 1939, provided short-term care for around two to three weeks for patients recovering from trauma, surgery, or illness either at home or in hospital. In 1870, there were just seven convalescent homes, mainly in the West of Scotland, with an annual admission rate of 4000 patients. By the 1930s this had risen to over sixty convalescent homes that cared for more than 34,000 people annually. Despite the massive growth of Scottish convalescent homes, lack of accurate data about the topic has led to a variety of misunderstandings over their origins, purpose, function and development. This thesis reclaims the hitherto forgotten or misunderstood history of the convalescent homes in Scotland between 1860 and 1939. An extensive survey of the convalescent homes uncovered a wide diversity of individuals and organisations involved in their sponsorship. This ranged from independent promoters, hospitals, religious and temperance organisations, to Co-operative and friendly societies. The survey also revealed considerable geographical and chronological diversity in the extent of overall convalescent home provision. During the nineteenth century, few doubled their purpose was to return the deserving sick poor to health and productive life. Confusion over their definition arose during the twentieth century when various mutual assurance organisations began to sponsor homes. The mutual assurance societies were less willing to associate their convalescent homes with institutions for the poor. They were also more flexible in their admission homes with institution for the poor. They were also more flexible in their admission policies and admitted patients for both rest and recuperation from illness. Sponsors of new children’s convalescent homes during the twentieth century were also reluctant to differentiate between those in convalescence and ailing children needing a country break. An association thus developed between holidays and time spent an convalescent homes. Although there were similarities between the experience of a holiday and the regime of a convalescent home, such as the focus on fresh air, healthy diet, recreation and exercise, in other respects they were quite different. The structured routine provided by most convalescent homes centred on a return to health whereas holidays stressed freedom and recreation.

This thesis examines Lowland public opinion towards the Highlanders in mid-nineteenth century Scotland. It explores attitudes present in the contemporary newspaper press, and shows that public opinion was divided by three basic perceptions: 'contempt', 'sympathy' and 'romance'. An analysis of the main newspaper files demonstrates that during the Famine years up to the Crimean War, the most prevalent perception was that of contempt, regarding the Gaels as an 'inferior' and often 'useless' race. The study also describes the battle which sympathetic journalists fought against this majority perception, and shows their disillusionment at what they saw at the time was a hopeless struggle. Within the same period, romanticised views are also examined in the light of how the Highlands were increasingly being turned into an aristocractic playground as well as reservation park for tourists, and a theme for pre-'Celtic Twilight' poets and novelists. Through the examination of various attitudes in the press, the thesis also presents the major issues debated in the newspapers relating to the Highlands. It draws attention to the fact that the question of land had already become a point of contention, thirty years before the 1880s land reform movement. The study concludes that in all the three sections of public opinion expressed in the press the Highlanders were seen as essentially a different race from the Lowlanders. This thesis aims to work within the so far unexplored field of newspaper materials in the mid-nineteenth century, showing the uniqueness, power and richness of these sources for the evaluation of the range of Scottish public opinion. (DXN008,523)

The hypothesis at the heart of this thesis is that long-term economic growth depends on the discovery and development of new ideas and technologies which enable innovation resulting in increased productivity. As technological innovation generally results from research processes instigated and performed by those with higher levels of education, it becomes important to analyse higher education as an economic actor as well as a symbolic institution of cultural and elite reproduction. The thesis compares the development of higher levels of human capital in East and West Germany over the period 1945 – 1990: states with two very different and competing myths of democratic legitimacy and radically opposed social, political and economic systems but both convinced that human capital development held the key to reconstruction and economic growth. In highlighting the imperatives for reform and outlining the main changes which took place in higher education within the strictures imposed by competing ideologies, the thesis assesses the effectiveness of human capital investment in terms of the success of the economic objectives identified by both countries. The thesis finds that the initial hypothesis is proven, albeit that its effectiveness was mitigated by a number of external economic shocks and internal social and political factors which, in the end, led to the demise of the East German regime.