Bodies of Data challenges the promise of big data in knowing and organizing people by explicating how data are made and theorizing mismatches between actors, data, and institutions. Situated at a large public university in the United States that hosts approximately 30,000 undergraduate students, this research ethnographically traces the development and deployment of an app for student success that draws from traditional (demographic information, enrollment history, grade distributions) and non-traditional (WiFi network usage, card swipes, learning management systems) student data to anticipate the likelihood of graduation in a four-year period. The app, which offers an interface for students based on nudging, is the product of collaborations between actors who specialize in educational technology. As these actors manage the app, they must also interpret data against the students who generate those data, many of whom do not neatly mirror their data counterparts. The central question animating this research asks how the designers of the app create order—whether through material bodies that are knowable to data collection or reorganized demographic groupings—as they render students into data.<br><br>To address this question and investigate practices of making data, I conducted 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, using participant observation and interviewing with university administrators, data scientists, app developers, and undergraduate students. Through a theoretical approach informed by anthropology, science and technology studies, critical data studies, and feminist theory, I analyze how data and the institution make each other through the modeling of student bodies and reshaping of subjectivity. I leverage technical glitches—slippages between students and their data—and failure at large at the institution as analytics to both expose otherwise hidden processes of ordering and productively read failure as an opportunity for imagining what data could do. Predictive projects that derive from big data are increasingly common in higher education as institutions look to data to understand populations. Bodies of Data empirically provides evidence regarding how data are made through sociotechnical processes, in which data are not for understanding but for ordering. As universities look to big data to inform decision-making, the findings of this research contradict assumptions that data provide neutral and objective ways of knowing students.

A “one-size fits all” approach often characterizes discussions of conservatism amongst African-Americans. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to provide a more nuanced account of black conservatism in the United States by examining how it is articulated within three distinct contexts, the intellectual, the political and the social. Second, this study focuses on challenges African-American conservatives face in each of the three spheres as they operate within a larger white conservative movement that purports to adhere to the principle of “colorblindness.” The dissertation not only makes clear the fallacy of that principle, but also, demonstrates how conservatism falls prey to what is termed here, the “inescapability of race.

In this work, I present a conceptual framework for understanding how international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) become powerful international organizations (IOs), and how their pursuit of legitimacy leads to the formation of specific kinds of organizational cultural proclivities and dysfunctional tendencies that shape how these groups behave as international actors. Despite their increasing prominence in international affairs, INGOs remain largely understudied by International Relations (IR) scholars; my work provides a theoretically driven and empirically supported analysis of the power and performance of these actors, thus filling the existing gap in the IR literature. Relying on the basic tenets of sociological institutionalism, I argue that there is an indissoluble relationship between the ways in which an INGO becomes powerful and its ultimate performance outcomes.

This thesis presents the findings from an ethnography of stem cell science based on fieldwork with researchers in two connected laboratories in Scotland and the United States. It explores stem cell scientists' complicated interactions with live stem cell cultures within national projects of translational regenerative medicine. This analysis both draws upon and contributes to the social studies of biomedicine, reproductive studies and science and technology studies. I examine how stem cell scientists, involved in an international research initiative, navigate the challenging landscapes of translational regenerative medicine and attempt to transform fragile live cell cultures into successful biotechnical, medical and economic products. By considering translational regenerative medicine as an effort to reformulate the relationship between biology and technology in terms of applicability and utility, I illuminate tensions between the specific practices of care that enable stem cell growth in vitro and the elusive goals of national projects of biotechnological innovation. A major focus of this study is the means by which scientists in the two laboratories manage the inherent uncertainties of both cell culture and translational science. By exploring how researchers react to unstable and unpredictable cellular behaviour in the laboratory, while also managing the expectations of government and external funding bodies, I provide a portrait of the complex sociality of contemporary bioscience. In addition to the international collaboration between the two laboratories, I explore scientists' interdisciplinary work with medical specialists and public engagement with stakeholders in regenerative medicine. In doing so, I pay attention to the ways in which scientists themselves deal with and reflect on the relational and interdependent nature of their endeavours. Drawing on twenty-two months of ethnographic fieldwork and fifty qualitative interviews, I show how stem cell scientists' new engagement practices also inform scientific work and the care of stem cells in the laboratory. In short, I argue that translation of science across different sites at once creates and depends on new social relations between stem cells, people and communities. After providing an overview of the literature, central questions and methodology that frame this thesis, I introduce the opportunities and challenges that translational regenerative medicine goals create for the care of stem cells in vitro. From there, I zoom out beyond the tissue culture flask to demonstrate how the necessity for science applicability creates new responsibilities for scientists to connect with stakeholders in regenerative medicine outside of the laboratory. I conclude that a consideration of scientists' ties and societal links is significant for an understanding of the connection between the biological and the technological.

The importance of innovation networks in health information system transformation has been recognised in research. It has been agreed that better-organised innovation networks can be related to better results of patient information system transformation. However, current research do not know much about how those innovation networks are organised, especially the structure of teamwork and information exchange in innovation networks. Thus, this study aims to improve the understanding about how innovation networks are organised and the influences on innovation results. Based on innovation network theory, this study develops and integrates three aspects, network dynamics, network structure and network influence, to explore innovation networks in patient information system transformation. Network dynamics represent complex interactions among people in the process of innovation; network structures show each person's roles and connections in the network; and and network influences link network structures to patient information system upgrade outcomes. Following this theoretical framework, this study answers three research questions: 1) what are the network patterns appearing frequently in network dynamics? 2) What are the patterns of the network structures? 3) To what extent innovation networks can influence the innovation outcomes? The data are collected form four patient record transformation projects in China. This study adopts network analysis method to demonstrate the fabrics of collaborations among the participants in innovation and quantify the regular network patterns and structures. Then, this study uses network regression modelling to explore the relations between innovation networks and innovation outcomes. This study contributes to innovation network research and by presenting 1) the patterns of innovation network dynamics. It demonstrates various patterns of innovation networks in each innovation stages; 2) the innovation network structures. This study identifies five types of brokers and two structures co-existing in the innovation network; 3) network influence. This study suggests that network structures significantly influence the outcomes.

Esta dissertação de Mestrado está vinculada a minha formação como professora/bióloga e, principalmente, à minha atuação como educadora ambiental. A partir de aproximações com o campo dos Estudos Culturais, dos Estudos Culturais da Ciência e de estudos com inspiração foucaultiana, passei a problematizar as práticas discursivas que foram me constituindo num determinado tipo de educadora ambiental, bem como o processo de enunciação que engendra os discursos ambientais que atravessam diferentes instâncias sociais, inclusive a escola. Neste estudo, compreendo a Educação Ambiental como uma produção de práticas sociais, interpelada por discursos e práticas de diferentes instâncias culturais que se articulam, se confrontam e, que posta em funcionamento, constitui determinadas subjetividades. Com esses entendimentos e questionamentos, busquei conhecer e problematizar práticas de Educação Ambiental que atravessam o cotidiano escolar e produzem efeitos sobre os alunos. Inicialmente, apresento as problematizações sobre a minha trajetória como professora/bióloga/pesquisadora e as motivações que me levaram a optar pela temática da Educação Ambiental para fazer este estudo, bem como as ferramentas conceituais que sustentaram as análises. No segundo momento, realizo um rápido mergulho histórico sobre a emergência da Educação Ambiental e sua articulação com o campo da Educação Escolar. Transito pelas diferentes matizes que, atualmente, permeiam as abordagens de Educação Ambiental. Busco interrogar enunciados postos em funcionamento nas práticas pedagógicas e nas proposições da temática ambiental presentes nos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais. No terceiro momento, apresento uma reflexão sobre as atuais abordagens de cultura, especialmente a noção de cultura como recurso, imbricando-as com as questões ambientais. Discuto como as sociedades ocidentais contemporâneas, caracterizadas pelo consumo, capturam as questões culturais e ambientais, agregando valores e conceitos à venda de produtos e imagens, através de anúncios publicitários e do marketing ecológico/ambiental, articulando-os com práticas de Educação Ambiental, que atravessam, ou não, os espaços escolares produzindo efeitos na produção de um tipo particular de sujeito – sujeito/consumidor/ecológico. No quarto momento, apresento o processo de construção da pesquisa, na qual utilizei ferramentas de cunho etnográfico, bem como os questionamentos sobre o próprio fazer investigativo - os caminhos metodológicos percorridos com seus labirintos, tessituras e combinações de possibilidades que se configuraram nesta dissertação. Na última parte da dissertação, apresento o movimento que realizei na tentativa de mapear uma escola pública – como um texto e contexto atravessado por práticas de Educação Ambiental -, bem como as problematizações acerca do discurso de Educação Ambiental que circula neste espaço escolar. Discuto como a escola lida com o discurso ambiental nas práticas escolares cotidianas e seus possíveis efeitos no modo de pensar e agir dos sujeitos/alunos naquele ambiente. / This paper is linked to my formation as a teacher/biologist and, mainly, to my involvement with the environmental education. Considering the approach with the field of cultural studies, of science cultural studies, and Foucault – inspired studies, I started to problematize the discursive practices that constitute me in a certain kind of environmental educator. As well as the process of enunciation that engenders the environmental speeches that cross different social instances, including schools. In this essay, I see the Environmental Education as a production of Social practices interpellated by speeches and practices from different social instances that are articulated and faced by themselves and, when it starts working it constitutes certain subjectivity. Considering these understandings and questionings I tried to know and problematize everyday practices of Environmental Educational that cross our schools and produce effects on our students. At first, I introduce the problematizations throughout my trajectory as a teacher/biologist/ researcher, also, the motivations that took me to focus on the thematic field of Environmental education to study and to do my research, as well as the practical tools that sustained the analysis. The second moment I talk about the emergency of environmental education and I give a brief historical background about it .And its articulation with the field of school education. I travel, quickly, through different shades, that, nowadays, are in the middle of the Environmental Education approaches. I try to question the statements that are in pedagogical practices and the propositions of thematic environmental that are in the National Curricular Parameters. Or the third moment there is a moment of reflection about the current approaches of culture, specially the notion of culture as a resource, imbricating environmental questions. I discuss how the contemporary occidental societies characterized by consume, capture the environmental and cultural questions aggregating values and concepts to the products that are sold, through advertising, publicity and Environment ecological marketing, articulating them with the Environmental educational practices that cross, or not, the school spaces producing effects in the production of a specific kind of person – character/ consuming /ecological. The fourth moment, I show the basic steps in the process of making the research, using ethnographic tools as well as the questions about my own research practice – the methodology ways I passed with its labyrinths, structures and combinations of possibilities that configure this dissertation. In the last part of the dissertation, I try to map the public school – as a text and context crossed by practices of Environmental Education – as well as problematizations related to the speech about the Environmental Education that is around the school space. I discuss how the school deals with the environmental speech in the everyday school practices and its possible effects in the way of thinking and acting of the characters/ students in that environment.

<p> This dissertation examines how poor black South African women in rural areas organize themselves to address their poverty situations and meet their practical needs &ndash; those that pertain to their responsibilities as grandmothers, mothers, and community members &ndash; and assesses their organizations' effectiveness for meeting women's goals. My research is based on two groups that are members of the South African Rural Women's Movement. They are the Sisonke Women's Club Group (SSWCG) and the Siyabonga Women's Club Group (SBWCG). A majority of these women are illiterate and were <i>de jure</i> or <i> de facto</i> heads of households. Based on interviews and participant observation, I describe and analyze the strategies that these women employ in an attempt to alleviate poverty, better their lives, and assist in the survival of their families, each other, and the most vulnerable members of their community. Their strategies involve organizing in groups to support each other's income-generating activities and to help each other in times of emergency. Their activities include making floor mats, beading, sewing, baking, and providing caregiving for members who are sick and for orphans. I conclude that, although their organizing helps meet practical needs based on their traditional roles as women, it has not contributed to meeting strategic needs &ndash; to their empowerment as citizens or as heads of households. </p>

Esta dissertação de Mestrado está vinculada a minha formação como professora/bióloga e, principalmente, à minha atuação como educadora ambiental. A partir de aproximações com o campo dos Estudos Culturais, dos Estudos Culturais da Ciência e de estudos com inspiração foucaultiana, passei a problematizar as práticas discursivas que foram me constituindo num determinado tipo de educadora ambiental, bem como o processo de enunciação que engendra os discursos ambientais que atravessam diferentes instâncias sociais, inclusive a escola. Neste estudo, compreendo a Educação Ambiental como uma produção de práticas sociais, interpelada por discursos e práticas de diferentes instâncias culturais que se articulam, se confrontam e, que posta em funcionamento, constitui determinadas subjetividades. Com esses entendimentos e questionamentos, busquei conhecer e problematizar práticas de Educação Ambiental que atravessam o cotidiano escolar e produzem efeitos sobre os alunos. Inicialmente, apresento as problematizações sobre a minha trajetória como professora/bióloga/pesquisadora e as motivações que me levaram a optar pela temática da Educação Ambiental para fazer este estudo, bem como as ferramentas conceituais que sustentaram as análises. No segundo momento, realizo um rápido mergulho histórico sobre a emergência da Educação Ambiental e sua articulação com o campo da Educação Escolar. Transito pelas diferentes matizes que, atualmente, permeiam as abordagens de Educação Ambiental. Busco interrogar enunciados postos em funcionamento nas práticas pedagógicas e nas proposições da temática ambiental presentes nos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais. No terceiro momento, apresento uma reflexão sobre as atuais abordagens de cultura, especialmente a noção de cultura como recurso, imbricando-as com as questões ambientais. Discuto como as sociedades ocidentais contemporâneas, caracterizadas pelo consumo, capturam as questões culturais e ambientais, agregando valores e conceitos à venda de produtos e imagens, através de anúncios publicitários e do marketing ecológico/ambiental, articulando-os com práticas de Educação Ambiental, que atravessam, ou não, os espaços escolares produzindo efeitos na produção de um tipo particular de sujeito – sujeito/consumidor/ecológico. No quarto momento, apresento o processo de construção da pesquisa, na qual utilizei ferramentas de cunho etnográfico, bem como os questionamentos sobre o próprio fazer investigativo - os caminhos metodológicos percorridos com seus labirintos, tessituras e combinações de possibilidades que se configuraram nesta dissertação. Na última parte da dissertação, apresento o movimento que realizei na tentativa de mapear uma escola pública – como um texto e contexto atravessado por práticas de Educação Ambiental -, bem como as problematizações acerca do discurso de Educação Ambiental que circula neste espaço escolar. Discuto como a escola lida com o discurso ambiental nas práticas escolares cotidianas e seus possíveis efeitos no modo de pensar e agir dos sujeitos/alunos naquele ambiente. / This paper is linked to my formation as a teacher/biologist and, mainly, to my involvement with the environmental education. Considering the approach with the field of cultural studies, of science cultural studies, and Foucault – inspired studies, I started to problematize the discursive practices that constitute me in a certain kind of environmental educator. As well as the process of enunciation that engenders the environmental speeches that cross different social instances, including schools. In this essay, I see the Environmental Education as a production of Social practices interpellated by speeches and practices from different social instances that are articulated and faced by themselves and, when it starts working it constitutes certain subjectivity. Considering these understandings and questionings I tried to know and problematize everyday practices of Environmental Educational that cross our schools and produce effects on our students. At first, I introduce the problematizations throughout my trajectory as a teacher/biologist/ researcher, also, the motivations that took me to focus on the thematic field of Environmental education to study and to do my research, as well as the practical tools that sustained the analysis. The second moment I talk about the emergency of environmental education and I give a brief historical background about it .And its articulation with the field of school education. I travel, quickly, through different shades, that, nowadays, are in the middle of the Environmental Education approaches. I try to question the statements that are in pedagogical practices and the propositions of thematic environmental that are in the National Curricular Parameters. Or the third moment there is a moment of reflection about the current approaches of culture, specially the notion of culture as a resource, imbricating environmental questions. I discuss how the contemporary occidental societies characterized by consume, capture the environmental and cultural questions aggregating values and concepts to the products that are sold, through advertising, publicity and Environment ecological marketing, articulating them with the Environmental educational practices that cross, or not, the school spaces producing effects in the production of a specific kind of person – character/ consuming /ecological. The fourth moment, I show the basic steps in the process of making the research, using ethnographic tools as well as the questions about my own research practice – the methodology ways I passed with its labyrinths, structures and combinations of possibilities that configure this dissertation. In the last part of the dissertation, I try to map the public school – as a text and context crossed by practices of Environmental Education – as well as problematizations related to the speech about the Environmental Education that is around the school space. I discuss how the school deals with the environmental speech in the everyday school practices and its possible effects in the way of thinking and acting of the characters/ students in that environment.

Esta dissertação de Mestrado está vinculada a minha formação como professora/bióloga e, principalmente, à minha atuação como educadora ambiental. A partir de aproximações com o campo dos Estudos Culturais, dos Estudos Culturais da Ciência e de estudos com inspiração foucaultiana, passei a problematizar as práticas discursivas que foram me constituindo num determinado tipo de educadora ambiental, bem como o processo de enunciação que engendra os discursos ambientais que atravessam diferentes instâncias sociais, inclusive a escola. Neste estudo, compreendo a Educação Ambiental como uma produção de práticas sociais, interpelada por discursos e práticas de diferentes instâncias culturais que se articulam, se confrontam e, que posta em funcionamento, constitui determinadas subjetividades. Com esses entendimentos e questionamentos, busquei conhecer e problematizar práticas de Educação Ambiental que atravessam o cotidiano escolar e produzem efeitos sobre os alunos. Inicialmente, apresento as problematizações sobre a minha trajetória como professora/bióloga/pesquisadora e as motivações que me levaram a optar pela temática da Educação Ambiental para fazer este estudo, bem como as ferramentas conceituais que sustentaram as análises. No segundo momento, realizo um rápido mergulho histórico sobre a emergência da Educação Ambiental e sua articulação com o campo da Educação Escolar. Transito pelas diferentes matizes que, atualmente, permeiam as abordagens de Educação Ambiental. Busco interrogar enunciados postos em funcionamento nas práticas pedagógicas e nas proposições da temática ambiental presentes nos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais. No terceiro momento, apresento uma reflexão sobre as atuais abordagens de cultura, especialmente a noção de cultura como recurso, imbricando-as com as questões ambientais. Discuto como as sociedades ocidentais contemporâneas, caracterizadas pelo consumo, capturam as questões culturais e ambientais, agregando valores e conceitos à venda de produtos e imagens, através de anúncios publicitários e do marketing ecológico/ambiental, articulando-os com práticas de Educação Ambiental, que atravessam, ou não, os espaços escolares produzindo efeitos na produção de um tipo particular de sujeito – sujeito/consumidor/ecológico. No quarto momento, apresento o processo de construção da pesquisa, na qual utilizei ferramentas de cunho etnográfico, bem como os questionamentos sobre o próprio fazer investigativo - os caminhos metodológicos percorridos com seus labirintos, tessituras e combinações de possibilidades que se configuraram nesta dissertação. Na última parte da dissertação, apresento o movimento que realizei na tentativa de mapear uma escola pública – como um texto e contexto atravessado por práticas de Educação Ambiental -, bem como as problematizações acerca do discurso de Educação Ambiental que circula neste espaço escolar. Discuto como a escola lida com o discurso ambiental nas práticas escolares cotidianas e seus possíveis efeitos no modo de pensar e agir dos sujeitos/alunos naquele ambiente. / This paper is linked to my formation as a teacher/biologist and, mainly, to my involvement with the environmental education. Considering the approach with the field of cultural studies, of science cultural studies, and Foucault – inspired studies, I started to problematize the discursive practices that constitute me in a certain kind of environmental educator. As well as the process of enunciation that engenders the environmental speeches that cross different social instances, including schools. In this essay, I see the Environmental Education as a production of Social practices interpellated by speeches and practices from different social instances that are articulated and faced by themselves and, when it starts working it constitutes certain subjectivity. Considering these understandings and questionings I tried to know and problematize everyday practices of Environmental Educational that cross our schools and produce effects on our students. At first, I introduce the problematizations throughout my trajectory as a teacher/biologist/ researcher, also, the motivations that took me to focus on the thematic field of Environmental education to study and to do my research, as well as the practical tools that sustained the analysis. The second moment I talk about the emergency of environmental education and I give a brief historical background about it .And its articulation with the field of school education. I travel, quickly, through different shades, that, nowadays, are in the middle of the Environmental Education approaches. I try to question the statements that are in pedagogical practices and the propositions of thematic environmental that are in the National Curricular Parameters. Or the third moment there is a moment of reflection about the current approaches of culture, specially the notion of culture as a resource, imbricating environmental questions. I discuss how the contemporary occidental societies characterized by consume, capture the environmental and cultural questions aggregating values and concepts to the products that are sold, through advertising, publicity and Environment ecological marketing, articulating them with the Environmental educational practices that cross, or not, the school spaces producing effects in the production of a specific kind of person – character/ consuming /ecological. The fourth moment, I show the basic steps in the process of making the research, using ethnographic tools as well as the questions about my own research practice – the methodology ways I passed with its labyrinths, structures and combinations of possibilities that configure this dissertation. In the last part of the dissertation, I try to map the public school – as a text and context crossed by practices of Environmental Education – as well as problematizations related to the speech about the Environmental Education that is around the school space. I discuss how the school deals with the environmental speech in the everyday school practices and its possible effects in the way of thinking and acting of the characters/ students in that environment.

Ukraine’s foreign policy has puzzled observers since the dissolution of the Soviet Union due to its unusual inconsistency. This inconsistency exhibited itself in contradictory decisions by the Ukrainian executive carried out within a short period of time, which signalled either greater cooperation with Russia and relative cooling of relations with the West, or integration into Western institutions and worsening of the relations with Moscow. This study aims to explain the inconsistency by examining the sources of Ukraine’s foreign policy through process-tracing in four policy cases: Ukraine’s renouncement of nuclear weapons (1991-1994), the status of the Black Sea Fleet (1991-1997), the Odesa-Brody pipeline (2002-2004), and the 2006-2009 gas disputes. Contrary to dominant interpretations of Ukraine’s foreign policy vacillation that emphasise the role of external influences, especially that of Russia and the West, this study concludes that Ukraine’s inconsistent foreign policy decisions are best explained by domestic factors – intra-executive divisions and the influence of vested interests on policy-making. The work relies on the use of primary sources including archival research, elite interviews, and Ukrainian and Russian newspaper reports.