This study explores how highly educated refugees in the U.K. perceive the relation between their post-migration experiences and their psychosocial well-being. A literature review of the migration and psychological health area and the widely-used stress and coping approach revealed that the “vulnerable” and “passive” images have all too often been assigned to refugees when discussing their psychological health, and that the latter have often been approached as beings detached from their social context. The aim of the research was to explore the participants’ own perceptions (or “lay narratives”) of their experiences and their well-being. These were used to converse with the stress and coping concepts and with the images related to psychological activism, an alternative stress and coping perspective that views people as active agents who try to take control of their life, instead of mere passive recipients of stress. The study is based on constructivism, and accordingly the emphasis is put on the subjective world of experience and the researcher critically reflects on how the social context shapes the participants’ perceptions. The empirical work consists of two studies. In the first one, semi-structured interviews were carried out with fifteen young and highly educated refugees in the U.K. The findings highlight how the participants used the stress and coping concepts and the images related to psychological activism, so the value of such concepts is reconfirmed. But a deeper critical look reveals that the semi-structured interviewing may have strongly directed how the participants discussed their perceptions and that it was unclear how these perceptions are formed in social interaction. Consequently I conducted additional empirical work to carry the emerging issues further. In the second study, autobiographical narrative interviews were carried out with another group of fifteen highly educated refugees in the U.K. The findings reveal that they made sense of their experiences and their well-being through three distinctive stories. The stories of hope and survival presented by two subgroups of participants suggest a more balanced view of refugees, one that is not necessarily “vulnerable” and “passive”. These participants made sense of their experiences and well-being through the elements of “hope, persistence and activism”. But the story of disappointment presented by a third subgroup revealed that some participants did not perceive their experiences and their well-being through a positive lens. It also highlighted the need to further explore how they formed their perceptions in social interaction. Indeed, it was shown how the social context, particularly negative attitudes they received at the community level, was largely responsible for their narrative of disappointment. The theoretical contribution of this research lies in exploring how the participants, through their own narratives, made sense of the concepts of stress and coping. The methodological contribution refers to the bridging of ideas and previous work from other disciplines and to the innovative application of narrative interviewing to this population. A major practical contribution is that this research offered a channel for refugees to talk about their experiences and their well-being in their own words. Furthermore, possible explanations emerge on why some refugee groups can indeed seem “vulnerable” and “passive” and this has important implications for those who design and implement interventions aimed at enhancing the well-being of refugees.

This thesis seeks to explore and understand how people perceive and experience the village pub. There has, over the course of time, been a general decline in the social and economic importance of the village pub as well as in their number. The decline in number has accelerated in recent years and been the focus of much media attention with some reports claiming that it has negative consequences for rural life (see, for example, Hill, 2008; Scruton, 2006). Despite this there has been very little social science research conducted on this topic. This research helps to fill this knowledge gap. By using empirical data, principally collected in villages in Lincolnshire and from various groups (mainly newcomer residents, long-standing residents and publicans) to explore multiple representations of the village pub this thesis provides an in-depth exploration and interpretation of the values underpinning the research participants’ representations and experiences of the village pub. In doing this, the thesis shows that village pubs are seen and experienced as adding value of different kinds – economic, social, and cultural, and that the different groups attach different levels of importance to these kinds of value. It also shows that, whilst the different kinds of value can work in the Bourdieusian interpretation as capital, and be self-expanding and inter-convertible, they can also work to undermine one another. By showing how the village pub is seen through the lens of nostalgia and the rural idyll and that contradictions exist between how the village pub is remembered or imagined and how it ‘really’ is, this thesis contributes to rural studies literature and, more specifically, to that which engages with the cultural turn as well as to pub literature. The thesis also offers a contribution to practice. It does this first, by imparting knowledge, to different groups, on the types (economic, social and cultural) of diversification that can be used to help sustain village pubs, especially in Lincolnshire; and second, by showing those groups that beliefs and practices around diversification have important consequences for the sustainability of village pubs.

From the late-thirteenth through late-fifteenth centuries, among the most frequently produced and widely disseminated books in England were unofficial, common law statute-based miscellanies known as Statuta Angliæ or ‘statute books’. In ca. 1470, a large format, de luxe, yet highly standardized, version of this codicological genre emerged; likely produced on a speculative basis, it survives in approximately two dozen exemplars. This thesis takes as its focus a member of this latter group: Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Richardson 40 (ca. 1460– 70). After reviewing current scholarship on these codices—examining several key issues and clarifying previous descriptions to enhance our understanding—it endeavours to establish a likely provenance for MS Richardson 40, exploring the ways in which both the manuscript and the broader genre resonate with the life of the proposed patron, Philip Mede (d. 1476), merchant, twice MP, and thrice Mayor of Bristol.

This thesis explores how presuppositions and assumptions can affect policy making, by investigating if anti-trans and 'gender critical' rhetoric may have affected the now reversed NHS policy ‘Amendments to service specification for gender identity development service for children and adolescents’ which directly influenced the still in use Karolinska University Hospital policy, ‘Policyförändring gällande hormonell behandling till minderåriga patienter med könsdysfori inom Tema Barn’. By using the Foucauldian inspired poststructural WPR policy analysis method by Bacchi and Goodwin, it was uncovered that the underlying assumptions and presuppositions of the hegemonic ‘truths’ the representation of the problem relied on, assumed dominance through an increase of anti-transgender and anti-gender-diverse rhetoric in political and public debates, and in media. A monumental aspect of this is the Bell v Tavistock case and its now overturned first ruling, which was used to legitimise anti-transgender and anti-gender-diverse policies and politics. The point of departure for these ‘truths’ is the publication of The Transexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (1979) by Janice Raymond, which inspired TERFs, as well as far-right politicians, who echo the intention to limit gender-affirming treatments, and the centres where they are performed, in order to morally mandate it out of existence.

The Diploma thesis "The Rise and Fall of New Labour: A Political Ideology or a Just a Trend?" focuses on the analysis of a British political course called New Labour. The research focuses on internal and external factors that had allowed this ideology to dominate the British politics over the last 13 years under the established brand of Labour Party. This thesis constitutes a comparative case study, based on the theoretical assumption of time, as well as economic and social constrains of the New Labour phenomenon. The circumstances which back in 1997 allowed the election triumph of New Labour, are often similar to those, that let to its decline a decade later, amid the new social, economic and political climate, caused its decline. This hypothesis is confronted with a secondary research based on the evaluation of broader economic, social and political influences. While the study has proved the validity of the New Labour idea in times of favorable economic and political circumstances, such as the combination of divided opposition and economic boom, it has also shown its failure in the times of economic downturn. Although the vision of New Labour was rejected by the current Labour Party, research and the governing coalition prove that the ideology can successfully operate in combination with...

No / The trust in the relations between Islam and Great Britain has been strained since the attacks on the London public transport network. The attack was committed in the name of Islam. The documentary about Muslims in Great Britain describes the joint history since the 16th century, the arrival of the first Islamic immigrants. For the presenter, the British Muslim Anila Baig, tolerance between the cultures and the religious communities is the only way to a peaceful Great Britain. Unconventional and very entertaining.

Yes

No description available.

This thesis compares political constructions of migrants across different welfare regime types, based on Esping-Andersen’s (1999) Three worlds of welfare capitalism. Previous comparative research into welfare regimes has not included the Social Democratic regime, leaving a gap to further explore and clarify. This paper does so by examining the relationship between welfare regime type, national identity and constructions of migrants in a Social democratic regime and a Liberal one. The central question is: how do different welfare regime types construct migrants in policy debate? To answer this, this study applied a modified version of Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ analytical framework to parliamentary debate in a Social Democratic regime (Sweden) and a Liberal one (the UK) and then compared the results. This approach focused on implicit representations of problems. Results showed that threat construction around migration in both cases conforms to Esping-Andersen’s (1999) regime models, fitting well with institutional theory and welfare chauvinism.

The dissertation is a multi-method study on current and common challenges to liberal democracy facing governments and societies on both sides of the Atlantic, with a particular emphasis on disaffection with democracy in Europe. It examines the factors that have led to disaffected publics in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Greece, by looking at political and economic developments that unfolded over the last decade including the Eurozone and Greek crisis, the Trump Presidency and the Brexit vote to leave the EU. By looking closely at these events, a number of factors are put in the forefront of analysis, such as globalization, European integration, domestic party politics and populism, and the rise of authoritarian politics. The dissertation draws evidence from a large pool of public opinion data on a number of issues relating to the quality of government and democracy, in-depth interviews with high-ranking officials and political actors in Brussels and Athens, discourse analysis of political statements and party manifestos, and employs literature underpinning the concepts applied in the research as analytical frameworks. Looking at the discontent relating to democracy in three particular contexts, the following insights can be drawn: public disaffection in the United States is primarily attributed to factors such as the indirect effects of globalization. However, further research shows that globalization has been more of a populist narrative taken out of its real context and consequences to garner further political support for populist leaders both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Public disaffection in United Kingdom is seemingly stemming from the perceived disadvantages of EU membership, and its connection to global economic forces. Hence anti-establishment politics, and nationalist populism turn out to be major factors contributing to disaffection and help explain voters’ attitudes both regarding the Brexit vote and the Trump Presidency. Finally, the Greek case sharply illustrates how all of these factors have been at play during the management of the Greek economic crisis adding to further delegitimization of the European project. This was on the one hand manifested by the EU’s turn to neoliberal economic policy and neoliberal globalization, austerity politics, and the dismantling of the welfare state following the IMF’s economic prescriptions. On the other hand, what makes Greece distinct is its particularly troubled past of adversarial politics pertaining to the country’s political system, state and reform capacity, and not least the special character of the relationship between citizens and the political class, which has been traditionally marked by low levels of trust towards political parties and national governments. In this context, both the effects of the economic crisis and crisis management across the national and supranational context, further contributed to the citizens’ disaffection with democracy in Greece. / 2023-09-01T00:00:00Z