This thesis examines dominant feminist discourses emerging from liberal media, the academy, and activist networks in contemporary Britain. In particular, it traces stories and representations of feminism’s recent past (from the 1960s onwards) which are constructed and reproduced through these sites, analysing where and how issues related to race and racism are located within - and outside of - such narratives. It is based on empirical research analysing popular, academic, and activist books, newspaper articles in The Guardian and The Observer, as well as interviews with feminist activists and students of women’s and gender studies courses. Given that there is an extensive history of women of colour-led organising in post-war Britain, including an autonomous black women’s movement in the 1970s and ’80s, and the growth at this time of black British feminism both within and outside of the academy, the thesis interrogates dominant narratives which continue to construct British feminism as a story belonging to white women. Drawing on black and postcolonial feminist theory, it analyses the articulations of feminist politics emerging from these sites through an anti-racist lens. It demonstrates that the way the historical narratives are constructed and gain currency has a significant influence on contemporary feminist theory and politics, with whiteness reproduced as the hegemonic lens through which British feminism is understood. The thesis argues that white feminist racism haunts the dominant narrative of British feminism – as something which is repeatedly erased or evaded each time it is brought to view – and it calls for white feminist academics and activists to reckon with the long history of racism and imperialism which has been integral to the British feminist project since its inception.

The submission, comprising nine outputs, ranges from journal articles and a book to a podcast and a radio programme. The accompanying commentary aims to contextualise the submitted work, demonstrate that it constitutes a coherent whole and that it makes a significant, original contribution to the field of cultural studies. The submission and commentary contest the idea that the voice has become less important than text and image in an era that has come to be known as one of 'secondary orality'. The outputs set out to demonstrate that, although metaphorical and narrative meanings of 'voice' have come to displace a sense of the audible voice in popular discourse as well as in many scholarly texts, it remains a prime and powerful modality in both human communication and new technologies. Applying the approach of psycho-social studies to the voice in a novel and original way, the outputs draw on semi-structured interviews, archive research and cultural analysis to argue that, despite the discursive absence of the audible voice, a study of vocality can enrich our understanding of both face-to-face and electronically-mediated communication. The commentary describes the phenomenological orientation of the outputs. Using the interdisciplinary approach of psycho-social studies to explore aspects of the cultural sphere, the submission is thus situated in the emerging strand of psycho-cultural studies: the commentary argues that, despite the methodological problems this throws up, it constitutes a valuable and apt addition to the study of voice. It suggests that gendered ideas of the voice may lead to an essentialism that can be countered by understanding the voice as a medium for the performativity of gender. Challenging the common polarisation of eye and ear and the idealisation of the voice, it traces some ways in which the voice is culturally-constituted, especially the radio and cinematic voice. The appendix documents not only the outputs' origins but also their wide impact.

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Abstract Purpose – Technological innovations continuously impact the daily routines of consumers. In the case of mobile devices, their multifunctionality revolutionizes possibilities for consumers, for example by conducting mobile payments at a point of sale (proximity payments). Despite the advantages of mobile payment services, the number of users of these services is very low among German consumers. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine barriers which impede German consumers from adopting proximity mobile payments by applying the theory of innovation resistance. More specifically, this paper analyzes these obstacles regarding the usage barrier, value barrier, risk barrier, tradition barrier, image barrier and the added information barrier. Methodology – By utilizing a quantitative research approach with online self- completion questionnaires, 152 answers from German consumers were collected and statistically analyzed in order to empirically test the model of innovation resistance. In addition, the characteristics age and smartphone usage behavior of the participants were analyzed for examining further characteristics of the consumers. Findings – The results indicate that out of the examined six barriers, the tradition, risk and value barrier have proven to be significant in influencing the adoption intention of the questioned German consumers towards mobile payment services. Additionally, a connection between the characteristics age and smartphone usage behavior and the adoption intention could be detected. Research implications – A key finding is that an innovation resistance behavior among German consumers towards mobile payment exists according to this study. This paper provides recommendations for service providers for reducing the identified barriers and the consumer resistance for a successful breakthrough of the innovation of mobile payment. Originality/Contribution – This paper contributes to theory by applying the less studied perspective of innovation resistance to the research field of mobile payment, which is a novelty. Furthermore, insights into German consumers were given helping service providers to develop effective marketing strategies to meet the need of the consumers. Keywords – Mobile payment, proximity mobile payment, innovation resistance, adoption barriers, German consumers, smartphones

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This study examines the transitions to adulthood of a group of 19 young women of mixed age, social class and ethnic backgrounds, from two adjacent ‘outer-urban’ neighbourhoods in the post-industrial city of Birmingham, UK. It focuses on three distinct, and inter-related, spheres of transition: education and training, employment and independent household formation, including family of origin, housing, couple relationships, marriage and motherhood. Using the concepts of reflexivity, the appearance of choice and intersectionality, the study aims to shed light on the role of individual agency and structural inequalities in shaping the research participants’ (RPs’) life chances. It examines how RPs interpreted their available 'choices', the structural constraints - related to gender, social class and ethnicity - they encountered, and the strategies they employed during their transitions. An intersectional approach illuminates the multiple, co-constituted, ways in which gender, social class and ethnicity operated in RPs’ lives. Using a critical ethnographic research methodology, data was gathered through participation observation at a local youth centre and repeated semi-structured interviews with RPs, over a 20-month period. Additionally, several one-off interviews were conducted with practitioners to build a picture of the context in which RPs lived their lives. The findings indicate that while RPs frequently articulated notions of choice, their actual options were often heavily bounded. Structural constraints related to gender, social class and ethnicity shaped many aspects of their experiences of compulsory and post-compulsory education, the labour market, and transitions from familial dependence to independent households. Despite this, RPs consistently strove to make the ‘right’ choices to achieve positive life outcomes. Although this included remaining flexible in the face of uncertain futures, diverse opportunities, constraints and subsequent strategies were observed along social class and ethnic lines. This study is relevant to sociologists, journalists, policy makers and others interested in the experiences of young women growing up in materially disadvantaged areas, in the context of widening inequality. The findings illustrate that an intersectional approach enables a more nuanced understanding of young women’s transitions to adulthood in the post-industrial city. This makes a compelling case to incorporate intersectional approaches into the study of youth transitions more widely.

Drawing on Bourdieu (1990, 1994, 1998) and Layder (1993, 1998) this study provides a critical realist account of the organisational habitus of managing ethnic diversity in Germany. Using a multilevel, contextual and relational analytical framework, I interpret and operationalise Bourdieu's key concepts, field, habitus and symbolic violence in the organisational context in order to examine macro, meso and micro level influences on the organisational habitus of managing ethnic diversity in Germany. The aim of this study is not only to contribute to an understanding of the organisational habitus of managing ethnic diversity in Germany, but also to understand the resistance of organisations to manage ethnic diversity, since organisations in Germany still do not view managing ethnic diversity as pertinent. Lastly, this study examines the implementation of the diversity management concept in the German context as well as the underlying organisational habitus of managing ethnic diversity in order to understand if the inclusion of ethnic minorities is achievable through the management of ethnic diversity in the German context. In order to do so, this study employs multiple data sources: documentary data, semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, visual data, a focus group, oberservations, a research diary and a single company case study of a German subsidiary of a North American Multinational Corporation (MNC). The thesis demonstrates the importance of considering history and particularly the treatment of history in organisational research, since this study illustrates that the organisational habitus of managing ethnic diversity is trapped in history, to be precise in the treatment of the German Nazi-past. Moreover, the thesis reveals two underlying hidden mechanisms, which guide and constitute the organisational habitus of managing ethnic diversity in Germany. These mechanisms are symbolic violence and integracism, which both undermine the overdue proposal of race equality, equal opportunities and the management of ethnic diversity at work.

An organization trusted by consumers enjoys a number of benefits. Unfortunately, instances of trust-damaging events involving organizations happen often. Damaged consumer trust in an organization has numerous negative consequences for the organization and for consumers. Currently, there is a paucity of theory about consumer trust recovery. So, understanding why and how consumer trust recovery occurs is timely, and theoretically and practically relevant. However, the findings from this study suggest that we need to distinguish between two kinds of consumer trust recovery. The first (I call it unconscious consumer trust recovery) refers to trust recovery that occurs without the consumer being fully conscious of it. In other words, a consumer is aware of their damaged trust during the scandal, but is not aware that their trust in the organization has improved. The consumer does not think about his or her recovered trust, just as they did not think about their level of trust before the scandal. The consumer trust is habitual. The second (I call it conscious consumer trust recovery) refers to an improvement in damaged trust where the consumer is fully conscious of their trust recovery. In other words, in conscious trust recovery the consumer is aware that the scandal damaged their trust in the organization. Also, after the scandal, in contrast to unconscious trust recovery, in conscious trust recovery the consumer is also fully aware that he trusts the organization as much or more than during the scandal. My aim is to inductively develop a theory explaining each type of consumer trust recovery. To do so, I use Charmazian grounded theory methodology, because this methodology is developed for theory-building from data and is aligned with the philosophical underpinnings of this study. The empirical context for this study is the meat adulteration scandal (“the horse meat scandal”) in 2013 in the UK. I collect and analyse empirical data about both types of trust recovery in an organization from 31 consumers that experienced both types. My analysis shows that when consumers perceive the scandal as less important, they experience unconscious trust recovery. This happens because the reduced importance of the scandal leads to a shift in consumers’ attention, which in turn leads to their inattentiveness to the scandal. Consumer inattentiveness is an immediate antecedent of unconscious trust recovery. Conscious consumer trust recovery occurs because consumers see cues indicating to them that the food retailer has improved product control systems, which in turn leads to consumer perceptions of the organization’s renewed ability. Consumer perception of renewed ability is an immediate antecedent of their conscious trust recovery. My findings lead me to make three main theoretical contributions to the theory of trust recovery in general and to consumer trust recovery in particular. The first contribution lies in showing that there are two types of consumer trust recovery in an organization, not one, as previously conceptualised, and that the same consumers can experience both types. The second contribution is a theory of unconscious consumer trust recovery in an organization that involves three concepts: consumers’ perceived importance of the scandal, consumers’ shift of attention, and consumer inattentiveness. The third contribution is the finding that conscious recovery of consumer trust occurs even when existing theory of trust recovery would predict that it would not. This study can help managers aiming to repair consumer trust in an organization by identifying a set of antecedents and underlying mechanisms that can guide such trust repair.