Policy in Scotland, as in the rest of the U.K, aims to enable people with learning disabilities to access the same opportunities as other citizens. This thesis explores the meanings and experiences of citizenship and inclusion in the lives of people who challenge services the most, whether because of profound impairment, vulnerability or perceived risk to others. Case studies were conducted with 14 individuals with learning disabilities who were assessed as needing at least one-to-one support in their day centre or supported living setting, or who were considered difficult to discharge from long-stay hospital. Through interviews and observations I sought to identify the barriers to and safeguards of inclusion in their daily lives. Perspectives on the issues affecting service provision were obtained through telephone interviews with commissioners in 28 out of 32 local authorities in Scotland, conducted at the time of ‘The same as you?’ review. I argue that the notion of the rights-bearing citizen should be extended to embrace vulnerability, differences in capacity and the need for advocacy in order to develop practices that do not systematically marginalise some people within a new normalcy of active citizenship. I also reflect on my own learning about the conduct of inclusive research from working with study participants with high support needs.

The pioneering policy of boarding-out harmless, chronic insane patients in the community was implemented formally by the Scottish Board of Lunacy in 1858, following the passage of the Lunacy (Scotland) Act, 1857. Up to 25% of registered pauper and private patients were boarded-out under the terms of this Act. Despite the innovative nature of the system, the number of patients involved and its marked impact on Scottish lunacy administration, the policy has received little systematic attention this century. This study undertakes, therefore, a detailed assessment of the nature of boarding-out, the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients, the status, role and responsibilities of guardians, and the extent and effect of official supervision. The system was endorsed firmly by the Scottish Commissioners in Lunacy, who advocated its widespread adoption throughout the country. However, despite official encouragement, boarding-out came under sustained attack from certain medical and parish officials and from the general public. Facilitated by extensive recourse to contemporary medical journals, official lunacy reports and parish records, this study assesses the beneficial aspects of the system, and in addition offers a critique of prevailing shortcomings. Physicians from across the world came to see boarding-out in practice. The nature and success of international family care policies, and the extent to which the Scottish system was imitated overseas, therefore, are considered. Boarding-out continued to be utilised in the 20th century, albeit with a gradual transformation in its nature. The changing nature of boarding-out is examined, and its gradual decline, and replacement by the less closely organised policy of community care explored, thereby enabling tentative analogies to be drawn between the two systems.

The New Right's critique of the welfare state has generated considerable interest in the history of alternative forms of welfare provision. Recent work has focused upon the continued existence of voluntarism alongside the growth of twentieth century state welfare. In doing this, it has reacted against the tendency of post-war social welfare writing to concentrate exclusively on the statutory social services. This thesis, therefore, adds to a growing body of writing on inter-war voluntary social action. However, it differs from the work of others by focusing upon the interplay of voluntary and statutory sectors in the face of war, industrial unrest and mass unemployment: in other words the upheavals of the early twentieth century. The main body of the research not only deals with the part played by both sectors in the delivery of social services, but also places voluntarism in a wider social context by exploring its ideological response to working-class assertiveness. Indeed, the belief in a British national community with interests that transcended class or sectional divisions was a common feature in voluntarism's attitude towards the above challenges and their implications for social stability. Thus, by highlighting the class objectives of the middle-class volunteer, this thesis avoids treating voluntary groups as simply the deliverers of social services in partnership with the state. As middle-class organisations operating within civil society, the charities covered in the pages ahead are placed alongside the state and capital in the defence of the existing economic and social order. Differences may have existed amongst charities over the correct mix in the statutory-voluntary welfare mix, but, as this thesis seeks to prove, this should not blind us to voluntarism's commitment to an over riding class interest.

This thesis employs a third wave feminist perspective to consider the regular crises experienced by British librarianship concerning professional status and issues of theory and practice. It proposes that librarianship, particularly within the public library, is being contested by a range of external and internal forces with immense significance, and that such processes have occurred at other periods of major change, notably the late nineteenth century and the late 1960’s and early 1970s. It explores the gendered roots of such manifestations, and reviews the critiques and other possibilities offered by earlier feminist waves, with those of second wave feminism seen as of particular significance, but limited to their ability to offer satisfactory insights. Contemporary librarianship is identified as vulnerable because of its difficulty in accepting the gendered nature of its nineteenth-century construction, when the activities of American librarians like Melvil Dewey has profound effects on its ongoing form, components and practitioners. Ongoing debates about librarianship’s professional status are viewed, using second and third wave feminist insights from sociology and other theoretical positions including queer theory, as outcomes of late Victorian notions of gender roles that have embedded structures, framework and behaviours within librarianship that still continue. It is argued that the librarianship ratified by the professional library associations resists ideological challenges to its construction and maintenance, with feminism the pivotal example under consideration, and that relevant activity taking place in settings outside the mainstream is frequently invisible. This is proposed as limiting the possibilities of librarianship and the work of librarians, within what is defined as a feminised occupation. A twenty-first century interpretation of librarianship informed by feminism is proposed, and considered through the utilisation of an original concept, gendertopia, derived from Foucault’s heterotopia, that describes the transformative potential of libraries and aspects of librarianship. To undertake this investigation the experience and actions of women librarians within mainstream British libraries were explored through field-work, along with the activities of three contemporary British women’s libraries that operate outside the mainstream and which derived form different periods of twentieth century feminisms. The author has been actively involved in some of the activities described, and to reflect this and feminist research methodologies, the development of which are described, an explicit theoretical position is taken that integrates autobiographical and fictional material.

Informal carers provide the majority of care for older people living in the community. The provision of care can be very stressful and is said to have an adverse affect on caregivers’ health. Policy has recognised the need to support carers and a key objective has been to improve service provision for them. Research has shown that service intervention can prevent the breakdown of care and admission to long term care. However, relatively few carers and older people use formal services. While the low uptake of support services is documented, it is not fully understood. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of informal carers of older people who received no support services. It focused particularly on the question: why when caregiving is portrayed as being stressful, do carers continue without support from formal service providers? Purposive sampling was used to obtain a sample of unsupported carers of older people, who were interviewed three times over a period of two years. For this longitudinal study a predominantly qualitative approach underpinned by the principles of grounded theory was chosen with a quantitative component included in the second stage. The study used a range of methods including focus groups, interviews and self-completion questionnaires. The main source of data was individual in-depth interviews, while self-completion questionnaires and literature provided secondary and tertiary sources of data. Data were analysed according to the principles of grounded theory. The study found that carers were motivated by a strong sense of duty and a desire to maintain their independence and control over their lives and the caregiving situation. They regarded formal services as authoritarian and intrusive. Acceptance of support was associated with feelings of failure and a potential loss of control.

This thesis explores the development of midwifery in Glasgow and the West of Scotland between c.1740 and 1840.  It draws upon a wide range of published and archival sources, including personal diaries and correspondence, local newspapers and trade directories, lecture notes and casebooks, and the minutes of numerous institutions.  The first three chapters are concerned with the practices, characteristic and regulation of midwives, who, prior to this period, were neither certified nor examined, and acquired their skills through experience.  An integral part of their role in the birthing chamber was to ensure that certain rituals, believed to mitigate the risks and agony of labour and to protect mother and child against supernatural agencies, were observed, and chapter one is devoted to an exploration of these rituals.  In 1740 the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (FPSG) imposed a system of compulsory examination and licensing for midwives throughout Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire and Dunbartonshire, and chapters two and three analyse the impact of this scheme and the personal and professional characteristics of the women thus licensed. The remaining three chapters consider the development and significance of formal lectures in midwifery for both female and male practitioners, which were advertised in the Glasgow press from the 1750s.  Midwifery lectures were introduced at Glasgow University in the late 1760s, and by 1817 every medical and surgical graduate of the University, and every male licentiate of the FPSG, was obligated to have studied midwifery. Despite these developments, midwifery in the West of Scotland was not completely transformed by 1840.  The licensing scheme for midwives was difficult to enforce and easily eschewed by those who assisted at childbirth only occasionally, therefore only a minority of midwives were licensed.  As formal instruction became more sophisticated and comprehensive, professed midwives gradually rejected the FPSG’s scheme in favour of accreditation through lecture courses, and the licensing regulations were abandoned altogether in the 1830s.

Racial and ethnic residential segregation are persistent features of urban areas throughout the world. This study focuses on the search behaviour of owner occupier households in the Belfast Urban Area, an area segregated on the basis of religion. The study was initiated under the premise that household search behaviour was important in the context of a spatially segregated housing market, and is a research area that has been neglected at least as far as Belfast is concerned. The overall aim of the research is to develop a better understanding of how owner occupied households made their housing choices against such a segregated background. For many years, the literature has recognised the two-way relationship between mobility and urban form and, at the same time, it has acknowledged that residential decision making is inherently conservative in nature. The US evidence on racial search and mobility behaviour indicates that such behaviour is supportive of the existing patterns of separate living. This observation set up the basic proposition for this study; namely, Catholic searchers in the BUA will exhibit search behaviour similar to that of black households in comparably segregated urban areas in the United States. The literature on racial differences in search suggests that black household search is less efficient and more costly than that of whites. In particular, blacks are seen to search for longer than whites, during which time they view a similar number or fewer dwellings, but over a more restricted range of areas. In terms of information use, the evidence is that black households make extensive use of existing information channels. In particular, informal sources such as friends and relatives, which serve to reinforce the localised nature of search, and estate agents are important sources of information for minority searchers. The evidence is also clear that black households tend to end up in black areas.

Recent debates about environmental governance emphasize the roles of participation, evidence and deliberation. Authors have discussed how deliberative theory can deepen commitments to public participation in policy debates. Evidence, however, is often presented as neutral and objective fact, and on this basis is privileged in policy debates, preemptively defining environmental problems and solutions. Under this circumstance, how can policy processes take deliberation seriously? How can the politics of evidence be identified and openly addressed by participants in policy processes? These research questions are addressed by analyzing three cases of environmental governance mechanisms, in the developing country context of Paraguay. The cases were selected for their emphasis on evidence and participation in decision-making. Also, each brings into question the politics of evidence, as their policy implications have raised debate and contention. The specific governance mechanisms explored in this study are: 1) land classification for conservation and rural development; 2) land use planning scenarios generated with a computer modeling program; and, 3) the development of global certification standards for soy production within the ‘Roundtable on Responsible Soy’. Each is seen as a means of addressing what is widely seen as rapid and extensive environmental degradation in Paraguay, and also the historic and continued exclusion of much of the public in environmental decision-making. The principal findings of my analysis are that i) public participation in environmental governance is often constrained by what is considered evidence; and ii) evidence is considered such because it is assumedly based on fact, but evidence-based arguments are influenced by social and political factors. As a result of these findings, I argue for a new approach to environmental governance – critical deliberative governance. A reflexive, non-essentialist approach to knowledge strengthens deliberation, by making explicit the social basis for authority and credibility, and opening up its tenets to debate. This critical approach to knowledge is vital for a democracy in which normative arguments are not effectively closed off by formal and authoritative expertise.

The increasing interest in the cultural economy is part of an attempt to invent new industrial development strategies that comprises a capacity to transform locations. In policy-making, the cultural economy is commonly framed from an economic perspective that salutes the role of the cultural economy and the dynamics of entrepreneurship in processes of urban and regional developments. Moreover, explorations of cultural economy and entrepreneurship are mainly represented by studies of Europe and North America. This thesis departs from such a normative perspective, and critically examines the links between a situated music economy, its cultural entrepreneurs and social change in West Africa. The empirical investigation of West African hip hop musical practitioners is framed by the notion of “community of practice”. The situated practices of these cultural workers and their music production ecology are investigated – methodologically – from a grounded perspective in order to grasp the originality of their materiality and aesthetics. The empirical focus of this thesis research is Dakar, one Francophone West African urban locale, which is contrasted with the ‘test case’ site of Ouagadougou. The case study locations are ‘experientially situated’, and over seventy semi-structured interviews were conducted with a range of participants both directly and indirectly involved in the hip hop music economy. Underpinning this research is the starting point that using “community of practice” as a conceptual framework offers a theoretically informed empirical basis for situating cultural entrepreneurship in the context of the West African music economy. In response, this thesis introduces the transcultural dimension of Hip Hop to frame its radical culturalisation of the West African music economy. This is done by singling out the political, social and theoretical significance of how hip hop entrepreneurship has become a force to be reckoned within social change in Francophone West Africa: this is a significant contribution of the thesis.

Public policy regarding innovation in the Canadian value-added agri-food sector does not appear to meet its intended outcomes. Rather than being a commodity producing nation, Canada has attempted to focus its attention on adding value to products that increase economic returns. Innovation capacity and ability to capture opportunities appear to be limiting factors. This research therefore conducted a general review of the food system in Canada with a specific focus on innovation in the functional food and natural health products’ (nutraceutical) sector. The findings are based on interviews with forty representatives of the key actor groups in innovation: industry, academia, government and civil society. The research concluded that the food system is comprised of complex demand networks that include global players working on various elements of innovation. The growing complexities are causing challenges for all actor groups. One major challenge is the lack of a common understanding of the concept of innovation within or among the actor groups including policy-makers. This finding puts into question any policies and measurements currently in place. The research adds new knowledge by expanding the multi-dimensional definition of innovation to include human elements. The research also shows that federal policy as it affects innovation in the Canadian high value-added agri-food sector is not evidence-based. A paradigm shift is required in policy-making to a solutions-led approach that results in public and private policies targeting solutions for a healthier Canada combining human, environmental and societal benefits.