The aim of this thesis is to investigate some significant examples of the process by which jazz has been shaped by the music industry and government and their ideas of the place of jazz within American culture and society. The examples demonstrate that the history and traditions of jazz are not fixed entities, but rather constructions used to understand and utilise issues of race, national identity, cultural value, and musical authenticity and innovation. Engagement with such issues has been central to identifying jazz as America’s music, as it earned this status from its worldwide popularity and its identity as an innovative black American art form. Recognition for jazz as American music, in conjunction with its improvisational nature, consequently led to the identification of jazz as ‘democratic’ music through its role in racial integration in America and in its representation of American democracy in government propaganda programmes. The different histories of jazz and its status as democratic, American music have all been especially important to the development of House Concurrent Resolution 57 in 1987, referred to as the Jazz Preservation Act (JPA). Authored by Congressman John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, the JPA defined jazz as a ‘national treasure’ that deserved public support and inclusion in the education system. Few in the industry have criticised the recognition and public subsidy of jazz, but many have found fault with the JPA’s definitions of jazz and its history that have dictated this support. While the JPA has essentially continued the practice of shaping jazz through ideas of its place within American culture and society, it has provided immense resources to promote a fixed history and canon for jazz. Specifically, the JPA has promoted jazz as the American music, taking a particular stance on the histories of race and discrimination in the industry and the definitions of authentic jazz that had been sources of disagreement, competition, and creativity since the release of the first jazz record in 1917.

Mental health problems in individuals and in the Scottish population are less well defined by routine data and diagnostic criteria than are physical health problems, but they have similar relationships with social gradients. Primary care in Scotland in recent years has been given an emphasis on health inequalities and on prevention and is also expected to provide frontline services and ongoing support to patients with mental health problems. Addressing health inequalities and inequalities in mental health are thought to require action on social circumstances as well as on biological conditions. However, the health service works within an established biomedical culture influenced by the strong medical workforce system and the broader political emphasis on accelerated economic growth. Policies express a general expectation that all public sector services have addressing health inequalities built in to their functions, but there is evidence to suggest that primary care has not yet found its place in meeting this expectation. To date there have been few concrete proposals for action and no guidelines for primary care to address health inequalities. The study set out to identify the contribution that primary care can make to reducing and preventing inequalities in mental health. Interpretive policy analysis was used as the framework for the study. In contrast to traditional policy analyses, which take an objective approach to comparing policy interventions, interpretive policy analysis can help to synthesise perspectives or reframe debates. It regards stakeholders’ interpretations of policy as drivers for change on the ground rather than the policies themselves. Stakeholders are described as being within three “communities of meaning” of policymakers, implementing agencies and service users, and each grouping can have several internal communities making different interpretations of the same policy. There were four communities of meaning relevant to this study: policymakers; primary care strategic staff; primary care and mental health frontline professionals; and services a patient might encounter. The policymakers’ perspectives on health inequalities and inequalities in mental health were drawn from an appraisal of nine health and social policies current at the time of the main study period (2002 – 2006). The other three communities were identified within one Community Health Partnership in the West of Scotland. Data were collected using document analyses, observation of a primary care mental health needs assessment and interviews with 21 frontline primary care and mental health professional staff from 14 disciplines. Identification of the services a patient might expect in relation to inequalities in mental health was elicited through frontline professionals’ responses to a vignette. All nine policy documents in the appraisal included aims to tackle some aspects of health inequalities, but inequalities in mental health were barely mentioned. The documents presented a disjointed picture of definitions for inequalities that lacked a clear overall interpretation of inequalities in health. They also proposed actions which often did not flow from the definitions and clouded the identification of expectations on primary care for addressing inequalities in mental health. For example, documents suggested that poverty, area deprivation and other social circumstances were linked with health inequalities, but the emphasis for action was skewed towards individual lifestyles and organisational change. The confused policy picture was mirrored by similar disjunctions between definitions and actions among strategic and frontline professional staff. In addition, there were clear differences between definitions identified in policy documents and those given by professionals, suggesting that frontline professional staff appeared to draw information about mental health and inequalities from public media and practice experience rather than from research and policy. Observation of a mental health needs assessment included an appraisal of the local strategic context and additional interviews with key senior staff. The observation found that inequalities were not considered for action in the mental health needs assessment nor in most of the other local strategic processes. This was despite some key strategic staff’s individual perspectives that social inequalities can impact on mental health, and despite information about local social and mental health inequalities being made available. The observation concluded that the culture of the organisation was not conducive to tackling inequalities in mental health. Frontline and strategic staff were generally unclear about identifying a patient’s social circumstances which might put them at most at risk of developing mental health problems. Although some frontline professionals linked mental health and social inequalities in defining health inequalities, most were unlikely to intervene on addressing a patient’s social circumstances. While frontline professionals and strategic staff almost universally defined health inequalities as differential access to services, few indicated that they would take action to ensure access, for example, following a patient’s non-attendance. The culture of the observed primary care organisation was not conducive to driving change on inequalities in mental health, and its contribution to reducing and preventing inequalities in mental health is at an early stage. Interpretive policy analysis identified disjunction and gaps in understanding and leadership to address inequalities in mental health at policy, planning and practice levels, but also identified potential areas for development. The study concluded that some of the building blocks are already in place for the primary care organisation to respond to policy leadership on inequalities in mental health should that time come.

The ongoing process of economic integration in Europe and beyond has already led to profound changes that are likely to manifest themselves further. Within Europe, formerly centrally planned economies have joined the European Union (EU) with the intention to ultimately introduce the common currency. On a more global scale, marginalised farmers in developing countries seek to become integrated in the world trading system to lift themselves out of poverty. However, issues surrounding economic inequalities are no longer exclusively confined to emerging economies. Indeed, awareness of income inequalities and their impact on the domestic economy is increasing among industrialised nations. This dissertation seeks to contribute to these topical debates in the form of three self-contained essays. The first essay is concerned with monetary integration in Europe. More specifically, we consider the EU member countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) that seek to adopt the euro in the foreseeable future. Our analysis is based on a global VAR (GVAR) model to investigate to what extent central banks in CEE follow the European Central Bank’s lead. We look in another core chapter at the economic implications of the Fair Trade (FT) movement. This is a fairly novel topic to the economics profession and we thus aim to provide intuitive insights. One of the key elements of our trade model is that FT generates and hinges upon economic inequalities. We combine these two aspects in the third core chapter. In particular, we analyse how monetary policy operates in an environment which is characterised by wage inequalities using a New Keynesian model that features heterogeneous labour. The third essay is motivated by the case of the United States, where, similar to many European countries, there is strong empirical evidence for rising internal economic divergence. Overall, the thesis not only combines and investigates topical issues, it moreover does so employing various techniques with the intention to also make contributions on the methodological level. We conclude the monograph by highlighting policy implications and by providing directions for future research.

This is a socio-legal study about law, empowerment and access to justice for women domestic workers in Pakistan. There are no official statistics available on the number of women working in this informal employment sector, neither are there any in-depth research studies carried out on the subject of women in domestic service in Pakistan. Therefore this exploratory study attempts to fill the gap in existing literature by providing information about the profile, nature, working and living conditions of women domestic workers. It provides a starting point towards an understanding of the situation of women in domestic service by listening to their voices and lived experiences. By using feminist legal perspectives, Islamic perspectives on woinen's work and legal pluralism, the present study questions the efficacy of law as a tool for empowering women domestic workers in their struggle against exploitative treatment in the workplace. Grounded theory methodology is followed to collect empirical data about domestic service in Pakistan. Semi-structured group and individual interviews have been carried out at four sites in Karachi and Peshawar, Pakistan. A few case studies have also been included to substantiate some of the major themes arising during fieldwork. Listening to voices of women in domestic service has provided an opportunity to uncover the hidden lives of women domestic workers who work in the privacy of homes. The present study also explores the nature of domestic service, dynamics of employer-employee relations and complexities of class, gender and multiple identities impacting on these relationships. The study finally argues that in the presence of plural legal frameworks formal law alone cannot empower women in domestic service. Therefore for an effective implementation of law it is equally pertinent to look into non-legal strategies so that access to justice can be made possible for these women.

Background. Despite consistent evidence that the Irish people living in Britain face a significant health disadvantage, when compared to white British people on a range of health indicators, the reasons and underlying generative mechanisms, need further uncovering. Design and Objectives. This research uses a mixed strategy design compatible with a critical realist perspective. The extensive/quantitative research component aims to evaluate the demi-regularity that Irish people in England have poorer health than the British general population. It engages in a secondary analysis of data from the Census 2001 Individual Licensed SARs, using self-reported Irish ethnicity and self-reported general health. The intensive/qualitative research component explores the generative mechanisms shaping Irish health experiences and inequalities in England, and Coventry in particular, including the contribution of, and interaction between, generative mechanisms of structural and identity/cultural aspects of ethnicity. It carries out an in-depth primary analysis of thirty-two semi-structured interview accounts from two generations of Irish men and women in Coventry, using a framework analytical approach. This is elaborated within a model of ethnicity as structure and identity developed in accordance with a critical realist and sociohistorical perspective. The research is realized through a collaborative community based participatory approach. Results and Conclusions. The extensive findings provide further evidence for an Irish health disadvantage in England, with some differences by country of birth, and provide clues to generative mechanisms for the demi-regularity found. The intensive findings concur with the extensive analysis and show that generative mechanisms from structural and identity dimensions of ethnicity 1) contribute to the health inequalities and/or experiences of first and second generation Irish people in England, 2) interact in complex ways, 3) are impacted by the socio-political context, i.e., British colonialism and a world capitalist economy, and 4) are shaped by interweaving forces of structure and agency.

This thesis considers the character and development of clerical social criticism in England between c.1540 and c.1640. It draws principally on a number of sermons and treatises that offered critiques of the prevailing structures of wealth and power or exhortations to the fulfilment of charitable obligation. The paradigm through which these texts were constructed was that of ‘complaint’, a genre that was particularly vibrant in medieval discourse and in the sermons and ‘commonwealth’ tracts of the 1540s. It will be argued that rather than eschewing this tradition, late sixteenth-century preachers appropriated and refashioned its structures, themes and authorial positioning in response to far reaching economic, social and religious change. Particular aspects of socio-economic change, and of their effects on the clergy in particular, are examined in the introduction. Among the themes that are particularly germane to this thesis are the history of the enclosure movement; increasing commercialisation; and changing attitudes towards the poor. The first chapter assembles a number of printed texts in order to re-examine the trajectory of clerical complaint literature in the context of these developments. The second chapter considers the potential for social and political criticism in sermons preached at the county assizes, a sub-genre of ‘occasional’ sermons that until recently has received little attention from literary scholars or historians. The latter half of the thesis offers three case studies of selected sermons by three different authors. The intention of these chapters is primarily to examine the interaction between a text and its particular local context, although attention is also paid to broader social, political and discursive developments that help shed light on the historical meaning of these sermons. It is thus hoped that this study will contribute particularly to the ongoing interdisciplinary work of ‘contextualising’ the early modern English sermon and of reconstructing the role and status of the parish minister. Rather than a ‘voice in the wilderness’, it is concluded, the clerical moralist was an active agent in the discursive interpretation of economic change, and in the fashioning and communication of the reputation of powerful individuals.

Despite increasing academic and media attention paid to dark tourism – the act of travel to sites of death, disaster and the seemingly macabre – understanding of the concept remains limited, particularly from a consumption perspective. That is, the literature focuses primarily on the supply of dark tourism. Less attention, however, has been paid to the consumption of ‘dark’ touristic experiences and the mediation of such experiences in relation to modern-day mortality. This thesis seeks to address this gap in the literature. Drawing upon thanatological discourse – that is, the analysis of society’s perceptions of and reactions to death and dying – the research objective is to explore the potential of dark tourism as a means of contemplating mortality in (Western) societies. In so doing, the thesis appraises dark tourism consumption within society, especially within a context of contemporary perspectives of death and, consequently, offers an integrated theoretical and empirical critical analysis and interpretation of death-related travel. The study adopts a phenomenological approach and a multiple case studies design with integrative and complementary methods of covert participation observation, semi-structure interviews (n = 64) and survey research (n = 419), as well as a focus group and a diarist account. As a result, the thesis explores the fundamental interrelationships between visitors and sites that offer a representation of death. In particular, the research examines these relationships at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum & Memorial (Oświęcim, Poland), WTC Tribute Visitor Centre at Ground Zero (New York), Body Worlds exhibition at the O2 Arena (London), and the Dungeon visitor attractions (York and London). The research finds that in a contemporary secular age where ordinary and normal death is sequestered behind medical and professional façades, yet abnormal and extraordinary death is recreated for popular consumption, dark tourism plays a mediating role between life and death. Ultimately, therefore, the thesis argues that dark tourism is a (new) mediating institution within secularised death sequestered societies, which not only provides a physical place to link the living with the dead, but also allows the Self to construct contemporary meanings of mortality, and to reflect and contemplate both life and death through consuming the Significant Other Dead.

The Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution has provoked researchers to find new ways of engaging with the emergence of popular organizations and movements who are highly mobilized and seeking new forms of popular power and the deepening of democratic practices both within the country and for the Latin American region. This research project argues that at the core of the Bolivarian Revolution is an urban revolution in which barrio residents play a key role in the transformation of the country. Drawing on the work of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, Neil Smith, Doreen Massey, and Edward Soja, among others, it is argued that a spatial analysis of urban social relations, while usually reserved for the study of capital’s role in producing contemporary cities, also allows research to visibilize how popular organizations act as agents in the production and transformation of urban space in their own right. At the center of this study is the Urban Land Committee movement, which by drawing on what Lefebvre has called ‘lived space’ knowledges, has evolved from an organization that primarily sought land titles for barrio inhabitants to a national movement that is currently pursuing the ‘right to the city’, that is, decision-making power over urban space. Through an investigation of the movement’s strategies, and with an understanding that these strategies are inherently spatial in nature, it is possible to ask how the movement is transforming urban space in Venezuela. Ultimately, the work of the Urban Land Committee movement has implications both for theories about the production of urban space and for the construction of popular power in the Bolivarian Revolution.

There is a growing consensus that the currently dominant economic practices, which excessively rely on incessant profitability‘, fails appropriately to value ethical components of environmental problems: valuation of bearers of intrinsic value (e.g. all creatures), or again bearers of inherent and instrumental value (e.g. species and ecosystems). This has led to a systematic defect in relevant decision-making with diverse associated economic, social and environmental disbenefits. Although the UN formulation of sustainable development (as opposed to the currently dominant development paradigm) provides us with guidance on formulating an alternative framework for sustainable development, it involves some serious problems. Some of these problems suggest the need for revisions, while others seem fatal to the definitions as they stand. This study argues that a different revision, suggested by the basic needs approach, can surmount the various problems, and present and defend a revised definition accordingly. The revised account recognises economic inequality and social injustice as the underlying causes for environmental injustice and thus appropriately focuses on the principles of environmental justice. This conveys a framework for corresponding systemically the interconnectedness between the seemingly competing aspects of sustainable development, the dynamic flux between development needs and environmental limits. I defend Attfield‘s version of biocentric consequentialism, which supplies a strong theoretical basis for such an ethically informed and comprehensive policy framework for sustainable development. Furthermore, I tackle different approaches to security and argue that it is hardly possible to attain a sustainable future,while disregarding the human security view in its wider sense. The study examines in close detail the applicability of the proposed policy framework for sustainable development to developing countries, with special reference to Bangladesh. It offers a list of recommendations for Bangladesh and concludes that a sustainable future for Bangladesh (and developing countries at large) is for the most part reliant on the successful implementation of recommendations of the broad general kind made in this study.

This thesis investigates gendered power relations, including violence, control and coercion, within teenage heterosexual relationships, and broader relationship cultures. It focusses on upper-middle class 14-16 year olds, whose sexualities – unlike those of working-class teenagers – are seldom seen as a social problem. It explores the interactions of romantic and sexual experiences with classed identities and social contexts, based on data generated within a large, high-performing state comprehensive in an affluent, ethnically homogenous (white) area of south-east England. The research, conducted in and outside school, used a mixed-methods approach, incorporating in-depth individual and paired interviews, and self-completion questionnaires. It draws on insights from feminist post-structural approaches to gender and sexualities, and is situated in relation to work that explores the negotiation of gender in “post-feminist” neoliberal societies. Despite (in some ways, because of) their privileged class positioning, these young people faced conflicting regulatory discourses. Heteronormative discourses, and gendered double standards, still shaped their (sexual) subjectivities. Sexuality was very public and visible, forming a claustrophobic regulatory framework restricting movements and choices, particularly girls’. But inequalities and violences were often obscured by powerful classed discourses of compulsory individuality, with young people compelled to perform an autonomous self even as they negotiated inescapably social networks of sexuality. These discourses could exacerbate inequalities, as participants denigrated others for vulnerability. A significant proportion of participants reported controlling, coercive or violent relationship experiences, but girls especially downplayed their importance. Girls shouldered the burden of emotion work, taking on responsibility for both their own and partners’ emotions. Sexual harassment and violence from peers were often regarded with resignation, and sometimes led to further victimisation from partners or peers. Policing of sexuality was bound up with classed prejudices and assumptions; participants’ performances of identity often rested on dissociation from the working class. Young middle-class people’s heterosexual subjectivities sat uneasily with educationally successful, future-oriented subjectivities; sexuality was an ever-lurking threat to becoming an educational and therefore classed success.