This thesis is an investigation of elite normative masculinity in medieval Scotland. The attempts of medieval men to claim, enforce or deny personal obligations within homosocial relationships provide evidence of how aristocratic Scotsmen ought to have behaved. These obligations appear in documentary and literary sources and indicate the importance of the relationships associated with them. Charters and bonds of friendship, fealty, and indenture, and three fourteenth-century literary sources, the Liber Extravagans, Gesta Annalia, and The Bruce, provide evidence of normative expectations of men in medieval Scotland. These sources present a picture of an ideal man whose interactions with other men were governed by expectations of loyalty, honesty, bravery, wisdom, and valour. It is also apparent that while courtly chivalry was an influential normative source, its precepts were of secondary importance to the welfare and protection of one’s dependants. This study contributes to the growing body of work that emphasizes the importance of understanding manliness and male experiences as a gendered, constructed, and important force within society. / Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Ontario Graduate Scholarship

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The promise of devolution was to ‘do politics differently’ by creating a more plural, consensual and participative political landscape underpinned by the Scottish Parliament’s founding principles of openness, accountability, sharing of power and equal opportunities. In this context, it might be expected that post-devolution Scotland would provide a fertile environment for fostering innovation in family policy-making. Using a case study approach to critically analyse the policy processes of both the family law reforms and the sexual health strategy, the research uses Kingdon’s multiple streams framework to explore:- - the extent to which devolution has enabled civil society to participate in the policy process - how political activity by civil society impacts on government policy - whether or not devolution has fostered innovation in family policy-making. - who is influencing the family policy agenda in post-devolution Scotland The multiple streams framework offers a useful entry point for analysing the public policy process but Kingdon’s claim for the independence of the three streams of problems, policy and politics is problematic since these were found to be inter-related with a symbiotic relationship between the policy and politics streams. This supports work by Kendall (2000) which found a greater degree of connectedness between the policy and politics stream. The findings indicate that devolution has created a more fluid space for civil society participation in family policy-making but a paradoxical effect has been to increase the potential for interests to clash in the public sphere. And although progressive reforms were implemented in both cases, the formal policy instrument of primary legislation to implement the family law reforms facilitated engagement of a wider range of actors, enabled fuller debate of the issues and provided more checks and balances on the system than the informal policy instrument of the expert reference group used to develop the sexual health strategy. Devolution has not reduced conflict in family policy debates – the family continues to be a site of contestation and in the policy processes observed in one of the case studies, the combined forces of religion, politics and a distinctive media presence coalesced to create a ‘radioactive’ political climate. This had a direct effect on the policy process inside government which in turn, shaped the tone and content of the final policy output raising questions about the extent to which post-devolution Scotland can be regarded as providing a fertile environment for fostering innovation in family policy-making.

This thesis focuses on the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland (CERES), based in Edinburgh, which was funded by the Scottish Executive and Scottish Government to develop several programmes to promote equality in education. Drawing together the disparate approaches to anthropology of organisations, the methodology has included both a focus on a small core group of workers as well as the flow of the materials produced throughout a larger network. Rather than conduct fieldwork at various locations as network or policy studies emphasise, I chose to work for two years with CERES due to their geographic and creational centrality to the ‘mainstreaming equality’ initiative. Beginning at a time when questions of identity in Scotland flourished as a result of devolution, increased immigration and the UK publication of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, the mainstreaming equality projects signify the Scottish Executive’s attempt to uphold its duty of promoting race equality. CERES managed three of the seven funded mainstreaming equality projects. The production of these resources contributes to a campaign through which the Scottish Government has worked to reformulate understandings of what it means to be Scottish. This is achieved by drawing upon the myths of a new and egalitarian Scotland in order to displace the myth that there is no racism in Scotland. Within this context, the research’s central questions revolve around this creation in the stages undertaken at CERES. Examining the Centre’s daily tasks, this research demonstrates that although commissioned to contribute to the same overall initiative, the way in which CERES depicts equality is ultimately very different than the approaches developed within the government. The materials created by CERES, which unlike One Scotland, do not include national symbols, have engaged with the complexities of equality and discrimination more than the media campaigns yet have had a smaller audience. Once the idea is developed it encounters further manipulation, both physical in the case of teaching tools and ideological in working to make the identities included reflect Scotland through statistics and discussions of subjects already embedded in the national curriculum. From the vantage point of the creation process, this ethnography contributes to the anthropology of organisations and highlights the legal and policy negotiations undertaken across various levels of governance.

Public involvement in health services is an area of policy where ostensibly good intentions appear to repeatedly fail in implementation. Since the late 1990s public involvement in the UK NHS has been subject to frequent reforms, and this has continued in Scotland since devolution. Reformers have criticised mechanisms for being subject to manipulation by managers, parochial in their outlook, and crucially, ‘unrepresentative’ of the wider public. Academic literature has responded primarily by seeking to ‘fix’ the problems of public involvement, offering typologies and models of participation intended to apply across a wide range of settings and to the entire ‘public’. Taking a different route focused on the complexity of a single case, this thesis explores the multiple meanings and goals contained within the public involvement agenda in Scotland, and argues that these are far-removed from the way that many individual patients seek to influence their health-care in the everyday. In particular this project illuminates the creative and political potential of citizens’ interactions with public services. Research comprises an interpretive case study of the implementation of public involvement policy within one Community Health Partnership in Scotland, and a nested case study of interviews with ‘ordinary’ young adults in the area. Fieldwork across twelve months included semi-structured interviews with staff, participants, and young adults; observation of public and private meetings of the Community Health Partnership and the Public Partnership Forum; and analysis of local reports and plans for public involvement. Given a low level of awareness or interest in public involvement, interviews with young adults concentrated instead on accounts of using health services. Rather than simply illuminating ‘non-participation’, the resulting data act as a lens through which public involvement policy can be seen anew. Public involvement is depicted as an unevenly embedded assemblage of actors and materials pursuing a range of goals, including the strengthening of public influence and the diversification of the public voice. I argue that many current participants in the Public Partnership Forum seek not to change the NHS, but to serve or assist it, and accordingly that their actions can best be understood as work or volunteering, not as activism. Finally, drawing on the reported experiences of my young adult interviewees, I argue that the transition from individual patient to participant is an unlikely one, revealing a range of alternative (oppositional) tactics available to individuals who feel unhappy with some aspect of their care. I conclude by arguing that NHS staff confront the inherently chimerical nature of participatory projects within public services. By operating without a sense of what amount or degree of participation is ‘good enough’, public involvement re-interprets my young adult interviewees as apathetic nonparticipants, and NHS managers and staff as failed engagers. The thesis uncovers the neglected, often-mundane everyday realities of public involvement as both governmental practice and citizen participation. In doing so it troubles the growing literature on contemporary forms of citizen participation and engagement, demonstrating the need for a critical approach to an ostensibly compelling policy agenda.

Within these 100 years, 1860-1960, in the east of Scotland, a highly specialised woodworking industry closely associated with flax and jute manufacturing, grew from modest beginnings to a position of some importance in the economy of this country. Eventually it declined to a point of virtual extinction leaving few traces of the unique skills and innovatory processes it once employed. The principal products of this industry, bobbins and shuttles, have been fundamental to the crafts of spinning and weaving for thousands of years but the industrialisation of the textile trade in the 19th century stimulated a demand for very large quantities of these components manufactured to engineering standards of precision. Consequently there emerged in mid-century an industry which, in the early years, served the flax and jute mills of Scotland and later, the far larger operations in India which by 1914, had achieved the world leadership in jute manufacturing. This research sought to examine the reasons for the growth and decline of this Scottish trade, its unusual methods and remarkable skills and the long-lasting connection with India it enjoyed. The investigations were centred on the Gateside Mills, a firm in Fife typical of those involved, whose records originated in the late 19th century. This material together with evidence from other sources provided not only an insight into the industry overall and the working conditions of those employed, but also an account of the conduct of a comparatively small company with extensive overseas trading interests, in times of peace and war.

This is a study of folklore in fishing communities using oral narrative as its major source, and analysing the evidence using the methodologies of both oral history and ethnology to illustrate the identity of the group studied. I am particularly concerned with the type of folklore which historian Leonard Primiano describes as ‘vernacular religion’, i.e. rituals and beliefs which demonstrate the religious, spiritual life ‘as lived’ rather than that which is prescribed by the church. The study encompasses fishing communities in the North-East of Scotland, the Outer Hebrides and Shetland, which represent both the historic and contemporary centres of the Scottish fishing industry. It is my contention that we can learn a great deal about fisher identity — its substance and mechanism — through the study of personal narratives, the stories fishermen tell about themselves, their heritage, their environment and their skills. The major themes of this study are faith and fear, the former encompassing a range of strategies — some supernatural, some rational — which fishermen employ to cope with the latter. In building a picture of fisher identity, I also contextualise fishermen’s supernatural and spiritual beliefs within the larger community of those who operate at sea. In turn, I consider the factors which isolate fishermen from society at large, and those fishers have used to deliberately isolate themselves from the landward community, and even from other fishermen, often their economic rivals at sea. This study demonstrates that belief/faith, as it is lived, is a major facet of fisher identity in Scotland. Those beliefs and the working environment are what create, shape and define the fishers’ identities, both the larger, communal ‘macro’ identity and the smaller, individual ‘micro’ identity, separating them from those who work and live on the land. The expression of the fisher identity extended back into the past and forward into the future by the continual telling and retelling of personal narratives while their context exists: the sea.

<I>Phytophthora cinnamomi </I>var. <I>cinnamomi, Pythium ultimum </I>var. <I>ultimum </I>and <I>Pythium undulatum </I>were successfully isolated from naturally regenerating <I>Pinus sylvestris </I>forests across north Scotland. Molecular and morphological characterisation enabled accurate identification of these Oomycetes to the variety level. <I>In vitro</I> and glasshouse pathogenicity trials demonstrated that under artificial temperature, light and water regimes the Oomycetes had the potential to reduce plant growth and cause chlorosis of the <I>P. sylvestris</I> foliage after two months. Soil pH was also determined as having a significant effect on <I>P. sylvestris </I>growth in terms of foliage colour and dry mass. Biological control <I>in vitro </I>experiments with <I>Bacillus subtilis</I> and <I>Pseudomonas fluorescens</I> produced significant inhibition of Oomycete growth but on transfer to the glasshouse trials, antagonism was not observed. This study was undertaken to establish the presence of fine root pathogens, namely those belonging to the Oomycetes, within regenerating <I>Pinus sylvestris</I> forests in northern Scotland. The identify of the pathogens was determined using morphological and molecular biology techniques. The virulence of the fine root pathogens on <I>Pinus sylvestris </I>seedlings (1 + 0) was then determined by a series of <I>in vitro</I> and glasshouse trials. Interactions between soil pH and bacterial biological control agents were also tested against each of the pathogens. Pathogen trials were undertaken to show the potential effect of the Oomycetes on <I>Pinus sylvestris </I>seedlings. The glass house trial was scored on foliage colour and dry weight of seedlings 18 months of age, grown in pH amended Irish moss peat. In comparison to the control, inoculation with <I>P. cinnamomi</I> caused a significantly greater frequency of chlorotic/dead seedlings. In contrast, inoculation with <I>P. undulatum </I>(syn. <I>P. dimorphum</I>) resulted in a greater number of healthy seedlings than the control. No significant difference in the proportion of healthy and chlorotic/dead seedlings was found between the bio-control bacteria groups. pH was found to have a significant effect on seedling growth. At pH 7, compared to pH 3, there was a significant greater likelihood of the seedlings being chlorotic/dead.

This thesis reports on an evaluation of competence-based vocational education practice in Scotland, with particular reference to Scottish Vocational Qualifications. The research was undertaken between 1996-1999 and included a national survey of higher level SVQ students in Scotland, an analysis of national database on N/SVQs and case study research with providers and students. It was found that participation in the 'new vocationalism' was highly gender patterned, had little impact on education and training targets and was skewed in favour of particular awards and occupational groups. The criterion-based assessment methodology proved more time-consuming for the students than the staff, with the emphasis on producing paper-based portfolios of evidence. A particular concern emerging from the research was the superficial nature of learning taking place on competence-based vocational education programmes and the role of the Local Enterprise Companies. These findings are discussed in the context of the growth in 'outcome-based' approaches to education adopted by policy makers in Scotland. It is argued that the narrow instrumentalist employer-led standards used to underpin education practice are ill-suited to developing a highly skilled professional workforce for the next century.