One of the most basic human questions is whether there is a divine presence with which we can interact, and, if so, how do we communicate with this presence and how should the results of our communication be manifest in our lives? This study is an exploration of how one community has sought to answer these questions in their practices. The researcher adopts an ethnography of communication perspective, informed by cultural discourse analysis, cultural communication, speech codes theory, and the coordinated management of meaning, to explore the communicative practices of members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in the United States, with a focus on the practices of participants at a meeting of unprogrammed, liberal Friends. This research seeks to answer questions about these Friends’ practices in their meeting activities, including: When are the phrases “gathered” meeting, “corporate discernment” or “spiritual journey” used by Quakers? What are the forms of communication identified with these terms? and Are there deep cultural meanings about communication, sociality, and personhood active in communication about or during these practices? Data are drawn from approximately a year and a half of participation in the meeting community and include field notes on participation in meetings for worship, articles in a Quaker publication, and recordings of meetings for business, of interviews, and of Friends telling their “spiritual journeys.” This work seeks to contribute to scholarship on cultural communication, religious communication, decision making, silence, narrative, and identity and suggests comparisons with the practices of other religious traditions. Most importantly, it attempts to provide a descriptive and interpretive account of how it is that Quakers understand communication with a spiritual presence to be fundamentally based in expectant group silence, understood as listening together, which in turn is the foundation for the process through which they reach agreement in meetings for business on corporate social action. Findings include the identification of distinctive characteristics of “gathered” meetings for worship, the description of elements of a Quaker style of speaking, and the formulation of a Quaker code of communication, including cultural premises of value and norms for acting in the community.

Since at least the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, security has emerged as a major political paradigm built upon an expansive definition of state control emphasizing not only the mere policing of violations of law, but the means through which the state asserts itself as a particular political entity through the militarized management of social actors both inside and outside its borders. Through an analysis of the case of Colombia's Democratic Security policy, this dissertation documents the transformations of social mobilization within the boundaries of the newly politicized, and newly globalized, security state. The research builds upon six months of ethnographic work and in-depth interviews with Valle del Cauca regional chapters of pacifist feminist grassroots network Women’s Peaceful Route, with human rights advocacy organization Permanent Committee for Human Rights, and with afrodescendant movement Process of Black Communities. Analyzing the work of these organizations, this dissertation assesses the uneven impact of security policies on social actors claiming territorial, cultural, and political rights. Through these organizations the work illuminates how security is gendered and racialized, while it is strongly resisted by the movements’ challenge to the model of citizenship promoted by the state. The research poses that, no longer able to see human rights work in terms of the defense of individuals, social movements have instead redeployed the concept of human rights as a mode of articulating radical democratic demands reflecting a collective social struggle. Illustrating the connections between neoliberal development and security, and its impact for afrodescendants and women’s claims for rights and recognition, the dissertation shows how global discourses on security influence the constitution of new social identities through the constant re-iteration of the question 'who is the terrorist,' and the subsequent re-articulation of new parameters of citizenship. Beyond Colombia’s case, this research advances existing scholarship regarding the technologies of statehood in the post September 11 era, at the same time that it contributes to an understanding of social mobilization in the context of global and hemispheric governance.

Locally oriented food has recently gained considerable popularity as an alternative to the industrial food system. Current scholarship on local food has typically focused on direct-to-consumer (DTC) arrangements, such as farmers' markets or CSAs. Yet other players besides producers and consumers engage with locally-oriented food. Food vendors (restaurants, retailers and grocers, and value-added food processors) have recently entered the scene and locally-oriented farm-to-vendor arrangements constitute one of the cutting edges of the development of local food systems. This dissertation studies one such local food system in southern New England. Utilizing a mixed methods approach entailing social network analysis, in-depth interviews, fieldwork observations, and GIS analysis, this study interrogates how direct-to-vendor (DTV) local food systems operate. I show through the literature review that though local food systems hold considerable promise, they are not inherent mechanisms of sustainability. Next I turn to the question of what "counts" as local, examining the range of distances farms and vendors within this region travel to sell or purchase food, and asking what are the forces and conditions that influence this range of travel? The greatest influences are number of ties to other local food entities, what type of farm or food-vendor they are, size, and urban proximity. I then focus on key participants in the area of study. What are the challenges and constraints around developing a vibrant locally-based food system? These participants face continual pressure to expand their size and markets, emulating the dominant food system and thereby undercutting their sustainable potential. However, these participants also find ways to overcome what are sometimes contradictory interests to forge a functional locally-based food system based on reciprocity and trust. Due in part to price premiums on local food many local food participants tend to be white and have high incomes and levels of education. In the final empirical chapter I ask: in what ways do these inequalities manifest systematically? By geospatially mapping the locations of local food outlets against census data on race, income, and education, I show that racial and class advantages are perpetuated in terms of people's proximal access to these local food outlets.

In this dissertation I argue that self and social transformation attempted by self-change in order to produce and change the material conditions of the human world and the changing of material circumstances, in mutual relations, eventuates only partial change/transformation. I have pointed out that this partial transformation, based on a materialist view of self and social activity, contributes to the continuation of self and social oppression. I have presented empirical evidence for this argument in the case study of Saamstaan women's housing collective in Namibia. By “self-change” or “becoming” active and collective participants in changing material conditions of their lives, that is, securing houses for all members of the collective, they experience a sense of authentic self-change and changing material conditions. Simultaneously, they are faced with the disappointment, frustration, mental disharmony, and oppression both within and the social, when individual collective members choose not to abide by the ideals of sharing labor and paying off loans, once they acquire their houses. Transformation/change is occurring but the process of full liberation from oppression is not. I have pointed out that the contradiction between self and material changes which are assumed to be positive, good, and empowering and the accompanying pain and grief due to individuals' failings to abide by the ideals of the collective arise owing to the unchanged non-material, non-conceptual inner condition of possessive selves. If the self and social transformation is to be free of pain and grief, the approach needs to be one which provides for skills in ensuing material change and skills in letting go of possessive selves. I have presented the Abhidhamma approach as an alternative for bringing about self and social transformation from liberatory space within and the social. While in this dissertation I have extensively discussed inner liberation, it does not privilege inner over social transformation. Rather, this is an approach which considers both inner and outer/social transformation as inseparable and interdependent processes. Thus, I take the position that letting go of possessive self, and self-change and changing of material conditions must occur simultaneously, with equal weight, to achieve full liberation from oppression.

Across Eastern Europe sweeping changes happened in the 1990s. Although the field of economics became preoccupied with the region during the decade, mainstream analyses were confined to prescribing policies rather than understanding change with their historical and institutional context. This dissertation examines transition processes with a historical perspective using the French Regulation School as a theoretical framework. The conclusion reached through the research is that a neoliberal-integrationist strategy of accumulation was adopted in the 1990s, and although growth has at least been temporarily restored in Hungary, the country remains on the periphery of the global capitalist system.

This dissertation presents an alternative understanding to current works exploring the creative class. Extant views of the creative class portray it as a concentration of individuals and organizations producing clusters of interconnected cultural activities fostering positive socioeconomic change in the communities where they are located. By contrast, this dissertation articulates the creative class as time evolving geographical organizing of networked creative individuals whose presence over time in a community may or may not foster positive socioeconomic change. The creative class is thus conceptualized as contingent and continuously evolving processes whose emergence at any one point in time may or may not be sustainable over time. Framed theoretically through a nexus between strategic management, economic geography, and economic sociology, the unfolding of a creative class is explored as location specific phenomenon illustrating mutually co-constructing processes of organizations and their environment. It focuses –as its exemplar- on local socioeconomic processes enacted by an assortment of artists and artisans in a small New England (USA) former mill town. A case study was derived from data collected for over four years in fieldwork through a multi-method approach. Underpinned by interpretative notions, methodology included participative ethnography and social network analyses, where quantitative and qualitative data functioned in a complementary way. Exploring relationships between artists and artisans and their organizing attempts to become members of the community, observations focused on mundane situations through which these processes were enacted. Social network methodologies contributed to mapping processual linkages between community members, while further ethnographic work contextualized relationships uncovered through social network analyses. The resulting case study presents a narrative about the unfolding of a potential creative class as dynamic bottom-up phenomenon whose socioeconomic consequences cannot be guaranteed by formal planning. Artists and artisans struggle to become a community of creative practice and become acknowledged as such by their neighbors when their organizing opens up socioeconomic change. These processes, which may lead to a sustainable cultural economy in this location, are not independent or exogenous to the place. They are part of the local history, influenced by shared and ongoing socioeconomic processes, and specific to locality.

This case study encompasses the issues of cultural difference, moral orders, and the public and private accounts of the conflicted patterns of interaction that occur when differing, often incommensurable, ways of being human and living a life of dignity and honor are not rendered comparable. Instead, these ways of being in the world promote and privilege a type of "us and them" $\...$ "we're right and you're wrong" diatribe that (re)creates and increases the socio-cultural tensions on the island of St. Croix. The focus of this research was on the narratives about the patterns of interactions between "Locals" (Black/Crucian men and women) and "Expatriates" (White men and women); "Relief workers" (White/"Off-Islander" men) and "Islanders" (both "Locals" and "Expatriates"); and, most importantly, between "Local" (Black/Crucian) men and women and how these practices are associated with tourism and the racial/social/political tensions on the island. Narrative data obtained through field interviews with people who live on or are presently working on St. Croix were analyzed by interpreting the data in light of Pearce and Cronen's (1980) CMM conversational model of analysis. CMM helped me to look at the narratives about communication practices in which people (re)create, manage, and transform social reality and to interpret how these discursive practices (re)create problematic ways of living. CMM also provided a way of describing how some people where "stuck" in their conflict or were able to reframe their situation to break free from the conflict. This way of interpreting narrative data illuminated the dual and sometimes triple cultural patterns and associated lifestyles, social class, and relationships that the Black Crucian men and women have to make sense of in the living of their lives. Without CMM analysis of the data, the distinctions between the "us and them" relationships would not have been identified nor would the gender related issues of black Crucian men and women have been associated with tourism practices. Key findings are categorized into the following topic areas: (1) use of physical space, (2) "us and them" situations and the acculturation process of Black Male and Female Crucians, (3) tourism as a catalyst for change, and (4) the changes brought about by the devastation of Hurricane Hugo.

I argue that structural racism offers a unique explanation of durable racial inequality. However, the lack of consensus over the meaning of structural racism makes it difficult to theorize its explanatory power. To overcome this challenge, I develop an account of structural racism in terms of racially oppressive social structures. Structural racism explains durable racial inequality insofar as it motivates agents who benefit from relations of race-based advantage/disadvantage to act in ways that preserve those advantages. This motivational effect of structural racism ensures the support of enough advantaged agents to maintain racial inequality. I develop this explanatory claim with reference to a recent sociological case study of a U.S. high school in which white parents support social practices that reinforce racial disparities in students' educational attainments. Given its explanatory power, structural racism is key for developing a comprehensive analysis of the resilience of racial inequality, and for devising effective strategies to solve this social problem.

Women are conspicuously absent from the top tiers of Corporate America, representing less than five percent of executive level positions. Despite changing family roles and increases in education, workforce participation, and career commitment, women are not assuming organizational positions of leadership and power. Research suggests three theoretical perspectives for causal explanation, each with its own implications for organization development strategies: the person-centered, organization-centered, and gender-organization-centered views. Recent demographic, economic, and social change has altered the face of labor and consumer markets motivating corporate leaders to initiate responses to attract and retain women managers. This study provides a synopsis of the corporate responses of 110 of "The Best Companies for Women" (Zeitz and Dusky, 1988). The purpose of this research is to define the extensiveness and developmental level of programming to promote women manager's upward mobility in these bellwether companies, and to determine organizational characteristics or antecedents that may be conducive to efforts supporting women managers. The research is a quantitative analysis based on responses to a mailed survey consisting of 36 questions addressed to corporate executives. Data analyses include descriptive statistics summarizing and reporting the findings, and correlational statistics testing the hypotheses. Results indicate that the sample organizations are addressing women's underrepresentation in upper-level management through the development of extensive, fairly highly evolved programs. The trend is shifting from exclusively individual-centered approaches toward organization-centered and combination strategies representing integrated, multi-pronged solutions. These organizations recognize the need to alter structural barriers limiting access based on gender, and are accepting their responsibility to change. Findings suggest that programs promoting women's upward mobility are supported by companies tending to: be large and non-unionized, have higher proportions of female workers/leaders, have high levels of EEO accountability and CEO support for women's agendas, maintain a high degree of formalization including EEO tracking systems, and exercise innovative management practices within moderately hierarchical or flattened organization structures. Hypotheses testing indicates significant positive associations between company size, level of EEO accountability, CEO involvement, and formalization of EEO record-keeping systems, and the level of corporate policy development to advance women's status.

I examine the relationship between social structural factors and political behavior by applying the concept of social cleavage in American society. Lipset and Rokkan (1967) developed the concept of social cleavage to explain the influence of social structure on political behavior in the 1960s. They suggest that social cleavage emerged in Western Europe in the 1920s and persisted until the 1960s. Some scholars claim that the influence of social group membership is not as influential in predicting voting behavior in elections as it was in the 1960s, while other scholars argue that social cleavages are still important in explaining individuals’ choices in elections. Additionally, many scholars believe that issue-based factors reduce the influence of social structure on voting behavior. I first analyze the voting trend of classes, religious groups, and regions, and their magnitude of cleavage since 1980. Second, I examine the influence of economic and cultural factors on Presidential voting. Third, I estimate the relative size of the effects of economic and cultural factors on Presidential voting. Fourth, I demonstrate the influence of economic and economic factors on social cleavages. The findings show that social group membership and geographical residence are significant factors in Presidential elections between 1980 and 2008. Political cleavage based on religious group membership is the greatest. Voters also have more distinctive political preferences based on micro-regional residence compared to macro-regional residence. The binary logistic regression analysis showed that economic and cultural factors are significantly associated with Presidential elections between 1984 and 2008, and that the magnitude of social cleavage changed when economic and cultural variables were included.