In this thesis I explore performances of empowerment in the work and artistic persona of Londonbased hip hop duo Poetic Pilgrimage. By using intersectionality, critical race and performance theories, I sketched a possible reading of their performance of religion in the complex context of their positionality as black, british, women, muslim converts and performing artists. I looked specifically at how performance shapes possibilities of cultural and religious interpretations of race, religion, nationality, gender and the arts. The question that guides me is: how do they shape their Empowerment with their Performance? After becoming familiar with the material, I realised that one way of answering this question is by looking into how they relate to an intersectional idea of Empowerment, namely how they relate to race and gender in their islamic art (religion/occupation/class) and how Empowerment is directly connected with Performance, it is the Performance that enables their Empowerment: artistic Performance that shapes their ethnographic Performance of muslimness, womanhood, black womanhood, muslim womanhood, women artistry, britishness, etc. So in this text, it is their Performance of categories and themes that constitute strategies and processes or Empowerment. My focus of Empowerment is on representation, which makes me define Empowerment as the act of learning to Love yourself and others in positive ways. This is inspired in the work of Audre Lorde. And it is reflected in Poetic Pilgrimage's own stance, as revealed by the opening statement of this thesis, We have no LOVE OF SELF. My focus on Performance means that I distance myself from constructs of identity markers that are not sensitive to construction and deconstruction. My underlying approach is to reflect on how Poetic Pilgrimage are and have been constructed by deconstructing them, question them. Taking into account that I cannot not think intersectionally, all themes under scrutiny here deal with ways in which Poetic Pilgrimage expose, explore and create islam and the arts of Performance to forge possibilities of Empowerment, in a way that I attempt to research all categories intersected. In the first thematic chapter (black european islam), emphasis is put on race and in the second thematic chapter (modesty is the new cool), focus turns to gender, though understood in relation to each other and to other categories, such as nationality, class, occupation, ethnicity. In terms of material, I focus on the final product (on stage/videoclips), having Poetic Pilgrimage's Performance on facebook as public artistic persona as a framework for the event of artistic Performance itself. Performing self, or everyday life Performance using artistic means is the trade mark of hip hop culture, which Poetic Pilgrimage are a part of.

O objetivo deste estudo é investigar como as tecnologias do vídeo podem ser mediadoras de novas formas de aprendizagem e socialização. A pergunta central que procura responder é como e por que razões o ateliê de vídeo, utilizando-se de estratégias de criação e produção, contribui para a formação de jovens de segmentos populares, moradores de bairros periféricos da Grande São Paulo. Neste processo de investigação procuramos: a) verificar a importância do audiovisual no contexto sócio-cultural juvenil e identificar tendências, temas e processos educativos; b) verificar em que medida a mediação através das práticas e procedimentos da produção de vídeo é um ato educativo. Convivemos durante 10 meses com 18 jovens inscritos em um programa de formação de uma organização não governamental, cujo objetivo era desenvolver conhecimentos sobre as tecnologias do vídeo digital para apoiar a ação coletiva e fortalecer a expressão juvenil. Realizamos uma pesquisa qualitativa, pois é um estudo de caso sobre um grupo de contornos bem definidos. As técnicas de cunho etnográfico nos aproximaram do contexto social e cultural que nos interessava observar e nos auxiliaram na tradução da linguagem do sujeito na sua forma mais espontânea ao explicitar o seu universo cultural durante um percurso de aprendizagem. Concentramos a análise da pesquisa nas falas dos jovens em três momentos específicos: nas redações do processo seletivo ao entrar no projeto; nos espaços de reflexão durante as atividades de criação; e, nas entrevistas individuais ao sair do projeto. Para entender o campo no qual se processam essas formas de aprendizagem e socialização buscamos aportes teóricos que forneceram ferramentas úteis para problematizar e cruzar conceitos comuns às áreas de educação e comunicação. Trabalhamos com abordagens de autores como: Jesús Martín-Barbero, Guillermo Orozco-Gómez e Mauro Wilton de Sousa, na área de sociologia e comunicação; José Machado Pais, Alberto Melucci, Regina Soares e Marilia Pontes Sposito, na área de sociologia e juventude; além de Fernando Hernández, na área de cultura visual e educação. Neles, encontramos idéias convergentes que reconhecem novos modos de apropriação dos códigos audiovisuais, pois consideram a relação entre a juventude e as tecnologias da comunicação mais complexa do que um processo funcional de acesso intuitivo, naturalizado pela onipresença das mídias. Seguindo essa linha de pensamento, acreditamos que os jovens decodificam, com maior ou menor qualidade, a realidade presente e que, portanto, desenvolvendo novo olhar sobre o mundo, aprendem de outro modo. O diferencial desse processo estaria no ato de mirar e mirarse, qualidade própria do vídeo uma vez que os procedimentos da produção do vídeo se associam às práticas culturais juvenis e se relacionam com formas de socialização em processos de identificação e pertencimento, desde que, intencionalmente, compreendidos como método de aprendizagem e intervenção. / The goal of this study is to investigate how video technologies can mediate new ways to learn and socialize. The core question it aims to answer is how and why a video atelier contributes to the education of low-income class youths living in poor suburbs of Great São Paulo, using video creation and production strategies. In the investigation process I have sought to: a) examine the relevance of audiovisual resources in youths\' sociocultural context, and identify educacional trends, themes and processes; b) examine to what extent mediation through video production practices and procedures is an educative action. I have worked during 10 months with 18 youngsters enrolled in an education program offered by a non governmental organization whose objective was to develop knowledge about digital video technologies in order to support collective action and strengthen juvenile expression. It has been a qualitative research, since the case study is about a group with a well-defined configuration. Ethnographic techniques have been used to approach the social and cultural context I was interested in observing, and have helped in translating the subjects\' most spontaneous manner of speaking when explaining their cultural universe along the course of learning. Research analysis has been focused on youths\' speeches in three specific moments: their writing during qualification to enroll in the project; considerations expressed during creation activities; and individual interview when leaving the project. To understand the field where these ways of learning and socializing are processed I have resourced to theories providing useful tools to question and intersect concepts akin to both education and communication areas. Authors whose approaches have been used are: Jesús Martín-Barbero, Guillermo Orozco-Gómez, and Mauro Wilton de Sousa in the sociology and communication area; José Machado Pais, Alberto Melucci, Regina Soares, and Marilia Pontes Sposito in the area of sociology and youth; and also Fernando Hernández in the area of visual culture and education. I find in them converging ideas that recognize new ways to appropriate audiovisual codes, because they consider the relation between youth and communication technologies to be more complex than an intuitive functional process made natural due to medias\' omnipresence. Along this line of thought I believe that young people can decode with a better or poorer quality the actual reality, and therefore by developing a new regard upon the world they will learn in a new way. The difference of this process is in the act of looking and looking at oneself, a quality inherent to video since video producing procedures connect to youth cultural practices and relate to socialization modes in processes of identification and belonging, provided they are intendedly understood as a method of learning and intervening.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / O trabalho teve como objetivo analisar as experiÃncias potencializadoras desenvolvidas pelos jovens e as jovens participantes dos grupos Meninas do Rap e Meninos e Meninas de Deus, do bairro Jangurussu, a partir de uma reflexÃo sobre os saberes e prÃticas no interior das culturas juvenis que nele fazem reverberar. Interessou-nos investigar em quais espaÃos cotidianos estariam ancorados os canais de potÃncia, criatividade e expressÃo dessas juventudes em face a uma realidade de violÃncia e exclusÃo social. Utilizou-se o mÃtodo etnogrÃfico com elementos prÃximos a uma cartografia, na qual o aspecto relacional entre pesquisadora e âobjetos de pesquisaâ sÃo levados em conta, a partir de um caminho investigativo que primou pela observaÃÃo participante no prÃprio cotidiano das juventudes. Para fins de investigaÃÃo analisou-se a narrativa de dezoito jovens, sendo seis de cada grupo cultural pesquisado, alÃm do contato com moradores e moradoras do bairro Jangurussu. Como resultados analisou-se as dimensÃes educativa, cultural, afetiva e socializadora como instÃncias capazes de fomentar resistÃncias e produÃÃes de sentido restituidoras do sonho e da esperanÃa, e fortalecedoras da cultura juvenil do Jangurussu. Aspectos como o trabalho, a escola e a famÃlia sÃo avaliados como importantes, funcionando como palcos de tensÃes e rupturas. O grupo se traduziu como potÃncia de reorganizaÃÃo simbÃlica â interna e externa â com notada influÃncia de uma socialidade com base nos afetos, na solidariedade, na amizade, ludicidade, no diÃlogo e acolhimento das diferenÃas. Percebeu-se uma aÃÃo educativa com forte elementos de uma auto formaÃÃo, com relevantes implicaÃÃes do ponto de vista de gÃnero, sinalizando para o surgimento de novas feminilidades e a criaÃÃo de um corpo ressignificado, bem como novas redes de interaÃÃo com o outro e com o bairro. No Ãmbito da cultura, comparecem prÃticas concretas formativas, tais como o futebol e o rap, demonstrando que os movimentos de experiÃncia de si, se conectam e sÃo fortalecidas por um trajeto educacional claro onde se plantam devires sociais a partir da formaÃÃo dos sujeitos. / This study aimed to analyze the experiences of empowerment developed by young people that take part in the groups: Meninas do Rap (Rap Girls) and Meninos e Meninas de Deus (Boys and Girls of God), from Jangurussu neighborhood with a reflection on the knowledge and practices within the youth culture that make reverberate in it. We used the ethnographic method with elements coming from a cartography, in which the relational aspect between researcher and "research subjects" are taken into account, from an investigative way that has excelled by a participant observation in the youths quotidian. For purposes of research we analyzed the narrative of eighteen youngs, six of each cultural group studied, in addition to contact with residents of the Jangurussu neighborhood. As results, we analyzed the educational, cultural, emotional and socializing dimensions as instances able to foster resistance and productions of meaning, to rescue the dream and hope, and empowering the youth culture in Jangurussu. As results we analyzed the dimensions educational, cultural, emotional and socializing as instances able to foster resistance and productions sense of dream and hope, and empowering the youth culture of Jangurussu. Aspects such as work, school and family are assessed as important, working as stage tensions and ruptures. The group is translated as power symbolic reorganization â internal and external â with noticeable influence of sociality based on affection, solidarity, friendship, playfulness, dialogue and acceptance of diferrences. This is an educational activity with strong elements a self training, with relevant implications in terms of gender, signaling the emergence of new femininities and the creation of a body reframed and new networks of interaction with each other and with the cultural bairro. Culture Under attend specific training practices, such as football and rap, demonstrating that the motions of experience itself, connect and are strengthened by a clear educational path where social becomings plant from the formation of the subject.

The thesis speaks about European Union Community programmes for the 2007 - 2013 budgetary period, that are focused on youth, education and culture. To be specific that means Youth in Action, Lifelong learning programme, Culture and MEDIA 2007. It deals with the actions of these programmes, with the conditions that the projects to be funded through the programmes have to fulfil, and with the recommendations for the applicants.

In terms of both production and consumption, video games and gaming are a significant phenomenon in Russia, a fact acknowledged by the authorities and mainstream media. Although internet use in Russia has been a point of academic interest over the past few years, scholars have been slower to research video games despite their increasingly popular position in the media ecology of the region. Similarly, despite the abundance of theory and data on gaming in North America and Europe, game studies researchers have hardly skimmed the surface of the cultures, preferences and activities of gamers further afield. This dissertation investigates the online gaming sphere in Russia, presenting an empirical study of the industry, providing insight into gamers themselves, and analysing the media and political discourses surrounding gaming in Russia. In this study, I draw upon survey data, forum, website, and blog posts, user comments from gaming forums and analyses of local games to construct a picture of gaming activity and identity amongst gamers. In particular, I show how Russian-speaking gamers present themselves as members of a distinct subcultural group. Online gamers who participated in this study are shown to consume and discuss games in ways that can differ from elsewhere in the world, but they still retain common beliefs about the importance of expertise, taste and self-discipline within the gaming community. They display a great deal of knowledge about the games and communities available to them locally, while also consuming foreign games in selective and critical ways. For the reader conversant with game studies work, the dissertation constitutes a challenge to West-centric theories of gaming and gamers and demonstrates the importance of cultural context in shaping gaming practice. Throughout the dissertation, interactions between global and local, media and subcultural definitions of ‘gamer’ are crucial to understanding how gaming plays out in a Russian context. The self-definition of gamers differs greatly from mainstream media concepts of gamers. I contextualise discourses of the gaming self within an analysis of how the Russian media presents gamers as young people in need of moral and emotional guidance. Moreover, I show how contemporary media assessments of games and gamers have much in common with earlier moral panics about Western-inflected media and subcultures, such as rock music and style. Ultimately the gaming landscape in Russia is shown to be full of tensions, and the task of this dissertation is to identify, assess and compare these disparate discourses.

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The present study focuses on the activity of the Young Communist League (Komsomol) to promote the communist project during the so-called Thaw period in the Soviet Union (1953-1964). The term ‘communist project’ describes the complex temporal triangle in which the relevance of the present was rooted in its relationship to the heroic past and the bright future. Young people were supposed to emulate the heroism of previous generations while fighting remnants of the undesired past. This was presented as a precondition for achieving the communist future. The structure of this study reflects the chronology of the communist project. It analyzes the rhetoric used by the Young Communist League to promote the communist project and explores the strategies used to mobilize youth for building communism. The first chapter focuses on the organizational structure of the Komsomol and assesses its readiness for this task. Despite attempts to strengthen horizontal communication and control, streamline administration and reorganize its structure, the Komsomol remained hierarchal and bureaucratic. The second chapter explores the promotion of past heroism in rituals, social practices and the use of public space. The third chapter is also concerned with the past; it describes the Komsomol’s fight against ‘remnants of the past’, primarily religion and deviant behaviour such as hooliganism, heavy drinking and laziness. The final chapter focuses on the Komsomol’s attempts during the Thaw to bring about the future: its efforts in the economy, moral, political and cultural education, and the realm of leisure.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how youth culture influences the attitudes and motivations of African-American junior college students who have aspirations to complete postsecondary credentials to advance their socioeconomic status but do not persist. In this study, youth culture was defined as the values, norms, and practices shared by African-American youth between the ages of 18-24, indicative of the way they chose to live life and make decisions. The independent variables were Academic Self-Concept, Student Educational Experience, College Bridge Programs, Academic Advisement, Faculty Involvement and Interaction, Extracurricular Activities, Youth Culture, Family Support, Socioeconomic Status, Black Media, and Social Media; the dependent variable was student persistence. The specific tradition of inquiry was the comparative case study approach because it dealt with the exploration of cases in a real life setting over time through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information. The researcher also utilized interpretive/theoretical frameworks to guide the study. The study took place at two public colleges within the University System of Georgia, one rural and the other urban. The participants included 12 students, 2 academic advising directors, and 2 faculty members. The study consisted of three types of instrumentation—interviews, direct observations, and focus groups. To analyze data, the researcher interpreted and coded statements from the interviews and focus groups from which themes were developed. Significant statements were also clustered into defined themes. The results substantiated and expounded upon the relationships between the independent and dependent variables. Using the qualitative data collected, the researcher created an Analysis Matrix organized with the three data sources, 20 themes and 5 categories. The researcher found that youth enrolled in college have a strong desire to persist but encounter many internal and external pressures which make persistence to graduation challenging. Although colleges may be equipped with the tools and resources necessary to promote persistence, many are deemed inappropriate to the needs of African- American students. The conclusions drawn from the findings suggest unlike their majority counterparts, many of these students spend their first semester trying to untangle feelings of belonging and fitting into college culture.