This research aims at investigating the impact of the identity change on consumption. An identity change is defined as the acquisition of a new identity after a life change event. For instance after the birth of the first child the new identity as parent is acquired and a woman can define herself as a mother. Despite marketing research recognizes that individuals’ identity is unstable and susceptible to change, the investigation of the identity change is still in its infancy. Furthermore, marketing research did not investigate the contextual effect of the new as well as the old identity on individuals’ reaction toward identity-marketing. In order words, whether people show a more favorable reaction toward product related to their new or their old identities after an identity change is still unclear. In order to answer this question, five studies are conducted. Results show that when the new identity substitutes the old one, people show a more positive reaction toward new-identity related products, while when the new identity is added to the old ones, people show a more positive reaction toward old-identity related products. This is the case also when the new identity accounts for high levels of identification (study three) and when the old identity is squeezed by the new one (studies four and five). A new concept, the identity strain, is then introduced and discussed.

This work focuses on analyzing the impact of the security barrier or Wall built between Israel and the West Bank on the Palestinian Christian population of the municipalities of Bethlehem and Beit Jala. Consequently to the disorders and violence arisen during the Second Intifada, the Israeli Government began the planning and construction of a 712 kilometers-long barrier. Although scholars, activists, and the mainstream public opinion interested in the Israeli-Palestinian issue often address the Wall in terms of a technology of occupation or as an antiterrorist technology, in this research I wish to unveil a more complex dimension to the Wall’s presence. Thus, in this work I adopt and adapt a theoretical framework of Latour’s concept of assemblages in as much as it allows to challenge the notion that agency belongs solely to human actors while it embraces the idea that things also exert power. Furthermore, through the concept of assemblages, we are able to develop a cooperation between the phenomenological and the materialist approaches. Through this framework, the Wall is not just a tool in the hands of the Israeli government and army, but it exercises an agency of its own, which intertwines with the agency of the materials and the people who live in its proximities and interact with it. Against this backdrop, we unpack the label “Wall” into its one-word definitions given by the interviewees and separately analyze the different actants that are involved in said definitions and thus exercise agency within the assemblage called Wall. In particular we address its agency in appropriating of land, in exercising control and surveillance, in causing separation, in stirring acts of sumud or steadfastness from the Christian population, in stimulating the development of a new Christian shrine between its cement slabs.

My Ph.D. thesis consists of three research papers focused on actors’ identity as social outcome, its intrinsic multidimensionality raised by multiple identity-shaping sources, and the relationship between identity dimensions and market performance. The first paper offers an overview of the literature on identity, social identity, and two identity-determining tools – social categories and network relations. It discusses how identity emerges from multiple identifying social forces that determines its multidimensionality. The second paper qualitatively explores the idea of multidimensionality in Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Through interviews with New York-based artists and producers, and secondary data analysis, EDM is unveiled as a field in which complex interrelations and exchanges occur among its actors. This complexity is then transferred to identity, and the word Sound emerges as vernacular term to refer to that multi-sided element that allows mutual recognition and collaboration – EDM actors’ socially constructed, multidimensional identity. Finally, the third paper tests four hypotheses relating EDM releases’ performance to external categorization, alliance portfolio, and their interaction. Regression models test: 1) the relationship between EDM releases’ Grade of Generalism (the weighted number of spanned styles) and commercial performance, 2) the relationship between releasing artists’ Relational Pluralism (the number of commercial partners) and releases’ performance, and 3) the combined effect of Generalism and Pluralism on releases’ performance. Results show a curvilinear relationship between both Generalism and Relational Pluralism and releases’ performance, and statistically confirm the existence and relevance of identity multidimensionality, especially from an inter-temporal perspective. Overall, my Ph.D. dissertation introduces the idea of multidimensional identity, and explores it in qualitative and quantitative terms. Moreover, the dissertation presents and unveils Electronic Dance Music as novel and relevant context for organization research.

Over the past decade, the world of social media is evolving at warp speed. In light of this rapid evolution, investigating social media users behaviour is top of the agenda for many managers and marketing researchers today (Kaplanand Haenlein, 2010). Indeed, still there are several areas in which we believe social media channels such as social networking, e-commerce, s-commerce, and blogs will make the most trivial evolution in years to come. Given the background provided about social media platforms adoption and strategic usage, there are some interesting and relevant topics that are particularly relevant in research on consumer behaviour towards these geo-information platforms and await further empirical exploration. Firstly, considering the cross-cultural aspects in studying the LBSN adoption on mobile phones, in a relationship social context, is a key driver of the growth and success of mobile LBSN and is even crucial to telecommunication operators to implement these services. Secondly, recently s-commerce is considered as a new form of social media that has arisen which due to its social features seem to have a great power of influence on consumers’ purchasing decision-making process. The marketing area has thus evolved from a time where marketers had the power of influence to today where consumers have a greater power of influence on their peers (Jaffe, 2010). Finally, with the advent of 4G mobile devices and the mobile location based advertising, consumers’ preferences can be pre-identified and advertising content can therefore be delivered to consumers at the right time and at the right place with the right message (Chen and Hsieh, 2012). Therefore, it becomes necessary and reasonable to enhance our understanding about the role of mobile advertising in mediating consumers shopping experience, since we begin to find ourselves bringing our mobile devices everywhere we go.

Fin dagli anni '80 del XIX secolo, centinaia di migliaia d'italiani lasciarono la loro terra per cercare migliori opportunità nelle repubbliche sudamericane. Ma non furono i soli, poiché le persecuzioni attuate dai governi della penisola contro la minaccia sovversiva, spinse anarchici e socialisti a fuggire all'estero. Molti attivisti, quindi, scelsero l'Argentina e il Brasile come punto d'arrivo. Questa studio analizza il ruolo svolto dagli anarchici emiliani e romagnoli nella formazione dei movimenti libertari in Sudamerica, così come il loro rapporto con le società locali e con gli altri immigranti dall'Europa / Since 1880s, hundreds of thousands of Italians left their country to look for better opportunities in South American republics. But not only poor peasants go abroad in those years. Fast growing of anachist movement in Italy become a real problem for ruling classes, and governments pursued activists as they were criminals. Then, anarchists chose the exile way, and many of them pointed to Argentina and Brazil. This work analyses the role of Emilia and Romagna's anarchists in the South American libertarian movements' development, and their relationships with local societies and European migrants.

This study aims to measure the impact of protein and amino acid fermentation on the composition and metabolic output of gut microbiota. Although dissimilatory pathways have been described for most amino acids, microbial degradation routes within the gut microbiota are relatively unexplored. The objectives were (1) to characterize amino acid breakdown by the colonic microbiota, (2) to determine the fermentation products formed from individual amino acids/protein (3) to examine how amino acid metabolism is impacted by the presence of a fermentable fiber (prebiotic inulin) and finally (4) to evaluate with an in vivo model (trout fish) diet:microbe interactions and the development of gut microbiota during fish farming. Interactions between the healthy human intestinal microbiota of the distal colon and different combinations of nutrients were simulated using in vitro pH-controlled anaerobic batch cultures of human faeces. Combining high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA amplicons, with high-throughput 1H NMR, changes in faecal microbiota composition and metabolic output were measured. During exogenous substrate microbial fermentation (e.g. beef, Trp or fish feed) in the large bowel bioactive compounds (harmful or beneficial) are produced. Many factors affect the gut-microbial metabolism including pH, type and quantity of growth substrate (e.g. protein/carbohydrate) and make up of the gut microbiota. Considerable interindividual variation was observed in response to different digested substrates but over all, the beneficial impact of prebiotic fiber fermentation on production of bioactive compounds from amino acids/proteins was confirmed in this study. In trout, although our dietary intervention with essential oils had little impact on the gut microbiota, the study showed for the first time a dramatic shift in the composition and diversity of the gut microbiota in juvenile, compared to adult fish. Thse observations may have relevance in designing dietary strategies to reduce chronic diseases like colon cancer and heard disease and for fish farming respectively.

La tesi ricostruisce la vita e la dottrina politica di Mary Astell (1666-1731), pensatrice politica, filosofa e teologa inglese. La sua riflessione costituisce un capitolo essenziale ma poco esplorato della storia costituzionale e del pensiero politico inglese. Malgrado il suo conservatorismo anglicano, Astell incarna una critica proto-femminista al patriarcato. Questa critica, pur essendo specialmente affilata nel pensiero di Astell, è condivisa, al netto di alcune significative differenze, anche da altre importanti pensatrici tra metà Seicento e inizio Settecento. Essa è definita come antipatriarcalismo materiale, in quanto mette in discussione i rapporti materiali di potere tra i sessi e si oppone all'antipatriarcalismo formale di Locke. L'antipatriarcalismo materiale si lega all'irruzione femminile nella sfera pubblica in formazione, durante la grande ribellione degli anni Quaranta del Seicento, che è contestuale allo sviluppo di una agency femminile in campo economico e giuridico. Insieme al dibattito politico-religioso, dunque, si considerano i trattati giuridici, i manuali di condotta, le petizioni e le profezie femminili del secolo delle Rivoluzioni, al fine di ricostruire il contesto giuridico e sociale a cui appartengono Astell e le altre donne “straordinarie” del tempo. In questo scenario Astell elabora la sua teologia politica, che implica una critica delle politiche di tolleranza e del tentativo dei dissenzienti e dei whig di riscrittura della storia. Astell teorizza la necessità dell'ordine politico, laddove tutto il potere è nelle mani di Dio e del re, Suo vicario sulla terra. L'autorità divina assoluta consente di pensare un'eguaglianza radicale delle anime davanti a Dio, condizione che rende la subordinazione delle donne agli uomini impossibile da sostenere. Questa rivendicazione dell’uguaglianza delle donne emerge con forza nel dibattito sull'educazione, in cui Astell interviene proponendo la creazione di un ritiro filosofico-religioso femminile che inauguri una sfera pubblica separata in grado di preparare le donne ad affrontare la società degli uomini. / The thesis investigates the life and political thought of Mary Astell (1666-1731), English political thinker, philosopher and theologian. Her reflections constitute an essential but rather unexplored chapter of English political thought and Constitutional History. Despite her Anglican Toryism, she embodies a proto-feminist critique to early modern patriarchy. While this critique is most consistently advanced by Astell, it is shared, notwithstanding some significant differences, by other outstanding female thinkers of the Century of Revolution. It can be defined as material antipatriarchalism, insofar as it questions the material power relations between the sexes and opposes the formal antipatriarchalism of Locke. Material antipatriarchalism is strictly linked to the female irruption into the emerging public sphere during the great rebellion of 1640s, which concurs with women's economic and legal agency. Therefore, together with the political and religious debate, legal treatises, conduct books, female petitions and prophecies of XVII and early XVIII century are taken into account in order to reconstruct the judicial and social context to which Astell belongs. Against this backdrop Astell elaborates her own political theology, which entails a critique of toleration policies and of the dissenters' and Whigs' attempt to reinterpret the English past. Astell theorizes the necessity of political order, whereby all power is held by God and the King, His vicar on earth. Absolute divine authority, in turn, paves the way to the radical equality of all souls in front of God, a condition that makes women's subordination to men unsustainable. The claim to women's equality is strongly reflected in the educational debate, where Astell intervenes proposing the creation of a philosophical-religious retirement that should lead to a separate public sphere able to prepare women to confront the male-run society.

Lo Stato non riesce più a proporsi quale unico attore del campo politico, e all'interno di quest'ultimo emerge la città globalizzata come polo di una politica oltre lo Stato. La tesi elabora dunque il concetto di città globalizzata ricorrendo a un approccio genealogico. Vengono individuati una serie di passaggi all'interno dei quali si mostrano linee di forza, rotture e mutazioni del suo divenire storico. L'analisi si muove analizzando il pensiero di autori vissuti in tali momenti, inserendoli all'interno della discussione di una sequenza di episodi che dalla città antica attraversano la modernità giungendo a oggi. Si dimostra come tutte queste capacità e problemi sviluppatisi storicamente si presentino simultaneamente all'interno della città globalizzata. La dissertazione è sviluppata seguendo la tensione tra la semantica dello Stato in relazione alla città. In questa direzione si mostra come la città globalizzata sia progressivamente divenuta forma di governo, società e territorio dello Stato – potendo dunque oggi configurare forme di parziale autonomia rispetto ad esso. Viene inoltre indicata una traiettoria che dalla città-mondo giunge alla città globalizzata passando per la metropoli e la città globale, discutendo come ciascuno di questi profili urbani indichi uno specifico assemblaggio dal quale si possono dedurre le mutazioni dei rapporti di potere nonché delle forme economiche e della guerra. La città globalizzata non è dunque il convergere verso un'unica forma di tutte le città del mondo, indicando invece una tensione con l'urbanizzazione planetaria contemporanea. Essa è piuttosto una griglia di intelligibilità politica per cogliere sistemi policentrici e multiscalari, attraversati da conflitti asimmetrici. La tesi si muove sui confini di numerose discipline, proponendo metodologicamente la formula seeing like a city e sostenendo la necessità di politicizzare il campo degli studi urbani e di urbanizzare il pensiero politico per poter articolare con maggiore complessità la costitutiva relazione tra città e scienze sociali. / The State is no more the unique actor of the political field. So, the globalized city is emerging as a new subject within the political arena. This thesis elaborates on the globalized city's concept through a genealogical approach. Within a series of tipping points, it shows the historical emergence of this new kind of city. The analysis focuses on many political thinkers that lived in that series of topical moments, from the ancient city to nowadays planetary urbanization. The dissertation is elaborated following the specific tension between the lexicon of the State related to the city. Than, it demonstrate that the globalized is historically become a form of govern, a society and a territory for the State. So, nowadays it shows some kind of autonomy in respect to it. Secondly, the thesis discuss the trajectory that goes from the World city to the Globalized city, passing through the metropolis and the global city. Each of this urban profile shows a specific assemblage through which it is possible to understand the transformation occurred in the economical and political relationships, and also the transitions in the war paradigm. The globalized city does not mean that every city on the planet is following the same model. Rather, it shows a tension in respect to the planetary urbanization forms. Instead, the globalized city is a grid to grasp politically the contemporary polycentric and multiscalar systems, that are crisscrossed by new asymmetric conflicts. In terms of methodology, the dissertation is elaborated on the boundaries of many disciplines, and it proposes a “seeing like a city” as a way through which to politicize the urban studies field and to urbanize the political theories. This is, finally, a way to gain more complexity on the fundamental link between social sciences and the city.

La revocación del mandato representativo es un derecho político fundamental, imbricado en el principio democrático, porque las facultades o atribuciones que confiere integran el estatuto jurídico-político del ciudadano al estar referidas a la participación popular en los asuntos públicos, concretamente al control y exigencia de responsabilidad política de los representantes públicos. Esta tesis doctoral presenta la hipótesis referida en el título: el fundamento de la revocación del mandato representativo reside en la soberanía popular. ¿Qué implica? Primero: la revocación tiene alma democrática y su no reconocimiento constitucional entraña una restricción de la libertad política, inasumible en el Estado democrático; segundo: la institución revocatoria no es propia ni exclusiva del mandato imperativo y tercero: el mandato representativo no implica transmisión o alienación de la titularidad ni del ejercicio de la soberanía sino sólo la delegación o la comisión del ejercicio de los poderes públicos. Este trabajo de investigación pretende dar respuesta a cuestiones capitales de la teoría democrática: ¿por qué el pueblo es el soberano?, ¿cuál es el origen del fundamento democrático de la soberanía? y ¿qué significa la soberanía popular? Debemos partir de estos sólidos cimientos para poder explicar el significado y las implicaciones jurídico-constitucionales del mandato representativo. Y, finalmente, analizar por qué la revocación del mandato representativo es una exigencia indeclinable del principio democrático. En esta tesis surcaremos la Historia de las ideas políticas, atravesaremos la ideología constitucional, nos sumergiremos en la teoría del Derecho y nos asomaremos a la antropología en busca de los argumentos que nos permitan aseverar, con rigor científico, que la revocación del mandato representativo es inherente a la soberanía popular, clave de bóveda del constitucionalismo democrático. / The revocation of the representative mandate is a fundamental political right, embedded in the democratic principle, as it confers powers and functions that integrate the citizen’s legal-political status by regulating popular participation in public affairs, particularly with regard to the control and the political accountability of public representatives. This doctoral thesis presents the assumptions outlined in the title: the basis for the revocation of the representative mandate lies on popular sovereignty. What does this imply? Firstly, the repeal has a democratic soul and its non-recognition in the constitution involves a restriction of political freedom, which is untenable in the democratic State; secondly, the revocative institution is not part nor it is exclusive of the imperative mandate; thirdly, the representative mandate does not imply the transmission or the alienation neither of the ownership nor of the exercise of sovereignty, but the delegation or commission of the exercise of public powers. This research seeks to answer crucial questions of the democratic theory: why are people sovereign? What is the origin of the democratic foundation of sovereignty? What does popular sovereignty mean? It is from this sound basis that the meaning and the legal and constitutional implications of the representative mandate should be explained. Finally, it is also important to analyze the reason why the revocation of representative mandate is an irrevocable requirement of the democratic principle. Throughout this thesis we will retrace the history of political ideas, we will go through the constitutional ideology, we will dive into the theory of law and we will take a look at anthropology, in search of arguments that will allow us to assert with scientific accuracy that the revocation of the representative mandate is pertinent to the people's sovereignty, a keystone of democratic constitutionalism.

This research aims to identify the guidelines that are opposed to Judaism in the body of the work Dialogue with Trypho of Justin Martyr, using the methodology engendered by Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson in their work, The Established and the Outsiders. As a result, our research intends to contribute to unveil another aspect of Justin’s work, considered by many scholars as a proselytistic tool; by taking it as a document builder of the Christian identity trough its dissociation from Judaism. For this reason, this thesis investigates and reviews the socio-cultural and political environment that gave rise to Roman Christianity, taking into consideration Christian internal conflicts and the resulting dichotomies within the Roman Christian community, as a result of its departure from its Jewish matrix.