The town of Amherst, Massachusetts is home to the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, and Hampshire College, institutions that have greatly influenced the town’s prolific history of political activism as well as the high educational attainment and economic status of the majority of its residents. Often hailed as a liberal utopia, research on the political mobilization occurring in this town provides insight into the process and limitations of ally politics: when most of the residents of Amherst are White, how do they engage in racial justice activism? When most of the residents are wealthy and/or highly educated, how do they engage in challenges to capitalism’s structural inequalities? In this thesis, I approach these questions by examining the political mobilization process of myself and others in three organizations: Coming Together, Re-Evaluation Counseling (RC), and the student organization, UMass Alliance for Community Transformation (UACT). I explore how Coming Together focused on antiracism in a process of focused personal reflection about racial identity and personal antiracism practices, and how that process silenced the people of color in the organization, was vii detrimental to my own mental health, and demobilized many potential-activists. In an effort to understand this organization better, I explore the practices of personal reflection and the vision of social change in RC, an organization which greatly influenced Coming Together. I argue that the more holistic and rigorous personal reflection in RC was more empowering, although taxing of energy. Finally, I contrast these experiences with the political mobilization I experienced in the UACT introductory course, Grassroots Community Organizing (GCO). I argue that the ongoing facilitation in critical personal reflection, relationship- and community-building, and practice in activism work in GCO was politically mobilizing and simultaneously produced a community culture of anti oppression. Ultimately, this thesis argues that effective activism against racism requires activism against capitalism, and vice-versa, and that highly intentional anti-oppression community-building can denaturalize, and mobilize participants against, the capitalist ideologies of alienation and competition. In order to do this comparative work, I rely heavily on the methods of participation observation and, rooted in Black feminist anthropology, autoethnography.

Oppression of voice has continued for displaced Syrians, beyond the ‘kingdom ofsilence’ under the Assad dictatorship, in the form of dominant media narratives, oftennegative, which fail to represent their lived realities. This case study explored the waysin which storytelling, within the program #MeWeSyria, creates a space for Syrianvoices in southeast Turkey and how this space could be transformative. The researchfocused on the process of storytelling, as a process of voice (Couldry, 2010) rather thanthe stories themselves as media products. Eleven semi-structured interviews wereconducted with members of the #MeWeSyria community, from three different levels:participants, facilitators and staff. Analysis considered the characteristics of the#MeWeSyria space, in relation to providing a space for the process of voice to flourish,in light of Wheeler et al.’s (2018) ‘transformative storywork’, and demonstrated theways in which this space could be transformative on personal, interpersonal and broadercommunity-societal levels. This research suggests that #MeWeSyria creates a space forSyrian voices by operating as a Syrian-led, participatory, community space whichcreates the conditions for the process of voice to flourish. In this space, personal andcollective consciousness and a sense of agency is developed, which are revealed as thestarting point for engagement in action for further change, on interpersonal, communityand societal levels. #MeWeSyria is shown to defend, at its core, voice as value(Couldry, 2010), the right of each person to tell their own story and the principle thatevery voice matters.

The Stolpersteine memorial art project commemorates individual Holocaust victims by placing small brass plates outside the last known place they freely lived or worked. To date around 70,000 of these ‘stones’ have been laid across 24 countries, making it the largest decentralised monument in the world. The work grows by virtue of community action from relatives, neighbours and activists. This paper examines how the memorial form functions in a specific context. An ‘unofficial' version has been running in Vienna since 2005, termed Stones of Remembrance. It shares key characteristics with Stolpersteine but the approach in the Austrian capital is distinctly different, with local interpretations. This case study into the Vienna experience investigates public response to these stones drawing on research material that includes interviews with specific stakeholders and the general public who encounter them on a day to day basis. It highlights Austria’s role in the Holocaust, and struggle to belatedly come to terms with its complicity in what happened on local streets. Key questions are whether placing history at a neighbourhood level engages the public more actively than centralised state actions? How do people understand and engage with these pieces and are they effective sites of memory, reflection or imagining? Public response in Vienna suggests that memorial stones might be valuable communication tools not only for remembering the past, but for the present too - as reminders of past abuses that can serve as warnings for the future. As an example of a participatory approach to memory work Stones of Remembrance / Stolpersteine can have relevance as a communication for development and social change tool, with potential application in other post conflict contexts.

The subject of this diploma thesis is a comparison of the influence of socially pathological phenomena on the price of a real estate and subsequent suggestion of solution of this problem. The social environment can have a negative or a positive effect on the real estate market, depending on the nature of its transformation. The location is characterized by physical, social and economic factors. One of the aims of this thesis is to capture and compare these impacts in a selected area of the city of Brno in local context. It focuses on socially pathological phenomena connected to crime and parameters that affect crime occurrence.

This case study research examines the impact of transmedia storytelling on the global reach of Korean-pop (K-pop) group BTS (Bangtan sonyeondan) and how narratives within the transmedia storyworld can motivate the audience to seek individual and social change. This study is inspired by the rise of BTS in the global music industry. The group came with a solid brand image, highlighting sincerity and authenticity that captivate audiences worldwide. BTS consistent messages—that intersect with sustainability issues—about the importance of loving oneself, equality, social justice, anxiety, and wellbeing are communicated through multiple platforms and travel across language and cultural barriers. To understand the context, this study uses the concepts of transmedia storytelling and audience engagement by Jenkins (2006, 2007, 2012, 2014), Gambarato (2019), Broesma (2019), and Askwith (2007), to name a few. The method used to conduct this research is the analytical and operational model of transmedia design by Gambarato et al. (2020). The findings are that transmedia storytelling —with spreadability, drillability, extractability, and immersion characteristics—is an effective communication strategy that significantly influences the global reach of the group. Further, the camaraderie between BTS and ARMY generates fan activism—an epitome of individual change due to the fondness to BTS, as the act of identification and the attitude of giving back to the intimacy that BTS members provide to the fandom.

Doctor Educationis / This is a doctoral thesis in which the effectiveness of selected educational approaches in facilitating adult learning, using cattle farmers in the Onamhinda village was tested. In this study I tested three educational approaches of content centred, learner centred and situation centred for their ability to facilitate learning, which could bring about change in society. I used cattle farmers as a target group because the livelihood of farmers in north central Namibia depends on agriculture, mainly millet and beef production. The study began by discussing the selected approaches in relation to the relevant learning theories as a basis for the theoretical framework of facilitating adult learning and to support the hypothesis that certain educational approaches, if used under the right conditions, will facilitate significant learning among the target audience. The research design used in testing this hypothesis followed an action and qualitative design. It followed an action research design in order to get participants involved in their own learning, to put into practice what has been learned and be able to evaluate and discuss their progress. Through a qualitative design the study explored a much broader phenomenon of facilitating adult learning on a large scale and enabled reliable data collection to be undertaken for a study conducted in an environment where there were no tight controls over the learning process. An educational programme for cattle farmers was developed and used as a tool in testing the educational approaches. The educational programme utilised a combination of learning techniques to provide a means of learning for cattle farmers, which included a radio course of 12 lessons, self help facilitated study groups, printed materials and demonstrations by experts. In addition, a feedback system was built into the educational programme to enable participants to ask questions and experts to respond to such questions. The educational programme materials were written in the local language of Oshiwambo, and the research study was organised around a study group of 17 participants and two facilitators as well as a participant observer. A participant observation research method was used to observe and collect data during all learning sessions of the educational campaign. Furthermore, four months after the educational campaign a summative evaluation was conducted to assess the impact of the educational programme on the target audience and to learn more about how these types of approaches facilitated learning among farmers. The analysis of data explored whether such learning was significant enough to bring about social change and sustainable development. The study assisted in creating an opportunity for rural people to learn collectively and influence each other for positive change and to enable them to participate fully in their own development. It proved that using a combination of educational approaches and incorporating well developed communication strategies adult educators will be able to provide enhanced learning opportunities and reach even the remotest human being alive. Recommendations are given for successful implementation and replicating the educational approaches at a large scale and for other vital adult learning opportunities in the country and elsewhere.

Utopin har sedan århundranden tillbaka figurerat som tankemodell för det goda samhället. Tidigare som moderna sociologer har hävdat nyttan med ett utopiskt tankegods, särskilt som kritisk social teori med syfte att förändra människans sociala villkor. Senare forskning har visat på att element i science-fiction har ett praktiskt värde för flera aspekter av sociologiskt intresse, exempelvis inom organisationsutveckling, praktiskt lärande och modeller för hållbarhet. Men trots påvisad nytta har varken utopiska idéer eller modern forskning inom science-fiction fångat den sociologiska akademins intresse. I föreliggande studie utforskas anti-utopia eller dystopins potential som spekulativ sociologi, - en dystopisk social fantasi, i förhoppningen att nå nya insikter och perspektiv. Genom en tematisk analys av dystopisk litteratur påvisas att element i dystopiska narrativ kan användas inom sociologiska intressen i utvecklande syften, som avancerande analysmodeller eller som vägledning vid formulerandet av kritiska sociala teorier eller hypoteser. Vidare hävdas att analysmodeller innehållande både utopi och dystopi blir mer nyskapande, flexibla och progressiva, samt att de kan avancera den sociala fantasin genom att tillföra en alternativ form av riskbedömning.

Der vorliegende Band beschäftigt sich mit dem Verhältnis von Ordnung und Wandel mit Blick auf verschiedene der vorgenannten Facetten. Es nimmt damit ein Thema auf, das für Gert-Joachim Glaeßners wissenschaftliches Wirken prägend ist. Glaeßner hat sich immer wieder aus unterschiedlicher Perspektive mit der Frage beschäftigt, wie politische Ordnungen mit gesellschaftlichem Wandel umgehen, ob politische Systeme zu Reformen fähig sind, diese vielleicht sogar anstoßen können, oder ob sie Veränderungen behindern.

Petra Janouchová - Hellenisation of Ancient Thrace based on epigraphical evidence Abstract: More than 4600 inscriptions in the Greek language come from Thrace, the area located in the Southeastern Balkan Peninsula. These inscriptions provide socio-demographic data, allowing the study of changing behavioural patterns in reaction to cross-cultural inter- actions. Traditionally, one of the essential indications of the influence of the Greek culture on the population of ancient Thrace was the practice of commissioning inscriptions in the Greek language. By using quantitative and systematic analysis, the inscriptions can be studied from a new perspective that places them into broader regional context. I use this methodology to assess the concept of Hellenization as one of the possible interpretative frameworks for the study of ancient society. Using a spatiotemporal analysis of inscrip- tions, this research shows that epigraphic production cannot be solely linked with the cultural and political influence of Greek speaking communities. However, the phenome- non of epigraphic production is closely connected to the growth of social complexity and consequent changes in the behavioural patterns of the population. The growth in social complexity is followed by an increase of epigraphic production of public and private...

Diploma thesis from sociology of sport maps the basic socio-demographic characteristics of czech runners, with the emphasis on runners between the ages of 30 - 50, which form the most significant part of running segment. Aside from these characteristics it also deals with running habits, preferences, favourite locations for running, motivations and aspirations regarding not only new race events but also its evolving running equipments and last but not least the increase of informal running groups - light communities. The vital part is closer look on history of sociology in regards to sport in the Czech republic, and also as a part of world sociological tradition. It shows that even traditional sociological theories can be applied when some processes in society are scientifically studied. In methodological part the concept of free time is used, as well as a new look on alternative tourism - travelling for running events. As a part of second running wave the concept of light communities is examined, too. Moreover, this work shows the closer look on runners' satisfaction in life in comparison with economically active population in the Czech rep (Nov 2018, CVMM). In terms of quantitative methodology the data are collected (n = 626) via respondent driven sampling approach at various places, e.g. on...