This thesis considers the nature of pottery and its wider roles in the Highlands and Northern Isles of Scotland from 2500-1800 BC. The period under study represents a key moment in British prehistory with the introduction of metallurgy and wide-ranging changes in society. Since the inception of early Bronze Age studies pottery has played an important role in examinations of identity and chronology. As identified by several scholars there has been a recurrent emphasis on a select number of interpretive themes and regions such as Wessex and Aberdeenshire. This has marginalised certain areas creating an imbalance in our understanding of the tempo and dynamics of change during the period. Recent reviews have begun to address this issue, highlighting the importance of regional studies to our overall understanding of change in the later 3rd millennium. At present, there is no synthesis of ceramic material from the Highlands and Northern Isles that considers the diverse array of pot types and the contexts in which they are found. In response, this thesis aims to characterise the range of ceramic types, their contexts and associations. Through the course of this thesis a series of detailed regional datasets and interpretations are constructed. This is coupled with a review of the longer-term ceramic sequence across the study area, situating the advent of novel pot types within the existing ceramic repertoire. Secondly, this thesis examines the dynamics of ceramic similarity and difference, and what this reveals about regional preferences and identities alongside broader intra and supra regional networks. Drawing on recent relational approaches this thesis explores how ceramic categories came into being, persisted and dissipated at a range of scales. These approaches highlight the fluid nature of change and the need to consider pots as elements of wider assemblages. Through this examination it is possible to detect distinct trends in regional ceramics, allowing for the construction of narratives that extend beyond defining visual similarities, contributing towards understanding the wider significance of similarity and difference.

This thesis examines the mobility patterns of 613 participants from the At Home/Chez Soi Research Demonstration Project on Mental Health and Homelessness who were surveyed in five Canadian cities (Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montréal, and Moncton). Participants’ mobility histories are treated as life courses: visualized using a GIS spatiotemporal analysis and complemented by examining their self-described reasons for movement (n=1,750). I contend that homeless mobilities are complex, entangled, and multiple. To better understand these mobilities, I apply relational theoretical perspectives to literature from the mobilities turn. I conceptualize mobility as composed of the relations between various actors. These relations coordinate amidst social differences, histories, and orderings of power. Together, actors and the relations between them, become more than the sum of their parts. To see mobility relationally, is to say that mobilities have emergent properties that reproduce, deepen, or ameliorate marginalization for those experiencing homelessness. I identify a series of actors and their relations composing homeless mobilities via time-space mapping, descriptive statistics, and the exploratory coding of survey data. I conclude by detailing a relational view of homeless mobilities while suggesting that expulsion is one emergent property of this system. / October 2016

<p>In April and May 2015 Nepal suffered two massive earthquakes of 7.5 and 6 5 magnitudes in the Richter scale, killing 8856 and injuring 22309. Two years later in September 2017, Puerto Rico underwent the Category 5 Hurricane Maria, killing an estimate of 800 to 8000 people and displacing hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans (Kishore et al., 2018). This dissertation project is the comparative study of Nepal’s and Puerto Rico’s networked communities, their actors, participants (Potts, 2014), and the users (Ingraham, 2015; Johnson, 1998) who used crisis communication practices to address the havoc created by the disaster. Using a mixed-methods research approach and with framework created with the Assemblage Theory (DeLanda, 2016), I argue that disasters create situations in which various networked communities are formed into transnational assemblages along with an emergence of innovative digital technical and professional communication practices.</p>

(résumé en français)<p><p>Le diagnostic de Rem Koolhaas sur les métropoles actuelles montre une ville générique, sans fin, sans identité, sans passé, sans rues, la seule activité qui reste est le shopping et la condition « in-transit » devient universelle. À cette analyse manque une partie très importante, la condition biopolitique de la métropole, qui expliquerait plusieurs des caractéristiques de ce Junkspace, comme le fait qu’il contient la possibilité de résistance face au générique.<p>À la lumière de ce constat et suivant les directions de pensée que Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari ouvrent dans Mille Plateaux, cette thèse propose d’identifier les intervalles témoignant de la dimension biopolitique du Junkspace au travers d’une mobilisation de la théorie des agencements comme hypothèse pour la théorie architecturale et urbaine. Le postulat général est que ces intervalles seraient des territoires entre-deux qui fonctionneraient comme des laboratoires d’agencements témoignant d’une pratique architecturale politique redéfinissant le rôle même de l’architecte. <p>Trois axes de recherche sont déployés. Le premier interroge la pertinence d’une pensée architecturale en termes d’agencements dans le contexte des transformations actuelles des territoires. À la suite d’un croisement avec la pensée de Deleuze et Guattari l’architecture se comprend dans son processus d’agencement et réagencement. Le second axe interroge la dimension biopolitique du Junkspace identifiant les points critiques de ses agencements et évaluant le paradoxe de l’entre-deux. Le troisième axe met à l’épreuve le potentiel des territoires entre-deux de créer des opportunités pour de nouvelles configurations spatiales.<p><p><p>(english abstract)<p><p>Rem Koolhaas’s diagnostic of the modern metropolis shows a generic city with no end, no identity, no past, no streets where the only activity remaining is shopping and the « in-transit » condition is becoming universal. An important part is missing from this analysis: the biopolitical condition of the metropolis, that could explain a number of Junkspace’s characteristics, like the fact that it contains the possibility to resist the generic condition. <p>In the light of this review and in accordance with the philosophical directions that Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari draw in A Thousand Plateaus, this research intends to identify the intervals witnessing the biopolitical dimension of Junkspace by rallying the assemblage theory as hypothesis for the architectural and urban theory. The general postulate is that these intervals are in-between territories functioning as laboratories of assemblages that show a political and resistant architectural practice redefining the very part of the architect. <p>Three lines of research are deployed. The first one questions the relevance of an architectural assemblage thinking in the context of the current territorial transformations. Operating a crossing with Deleuze and Guattari’s thought, architecture is understood as a process of assembling and re-assembling. The second line of research is questioning the biopolitical dimension of Junkspace identifying the critical points of its assemblages and evaluating the in-between paradox. The third research line is testing the in-between territories potential to create opportunities for new spatial configurations. <p> / Doctorat en Art de bâtir et urbanisme / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished