This is an ethnographic study of visitors to the island of Iona on the west coast of Scotland, popularly reputed to be a 'special' place. Using qualitative data obtained through interviews and participant observation, it explores the situated category of the 'special' as visitors apply it to Iona: analysing its form, its key elements, the process of its construction, and its application across a range of interactions and settings on the island. The thesis argues that the ascription of 'specialness' to Iona is a visitor narrative of belonging, a form of visitor 'work', and a way for Iona's transient subjects to participate in the ongoing, everyday life on the island. The thesis marks its origins in the idea of tourists as producers (chapter 1), the academic field of religion and tourism (chapter 2) and the field site of Iona (chapter 3). It then 'turns', arguing that the theoretical frameworks used in religion and tourism cannot be readily applied to the case of visitors on Iona, and advocating a shift to the vocabulary of the 'special', borrowed from visitors and theorised in light of the work by Ann Taves (chapter 4). In its second half, it provides a systematic study of specialness on Iona through an analysis of various 'moving parts': its form (the story; chapter 5), its contents (safety; connectedness and a sense of being 'out-of-time'; chapter 6), its construction (the processes of gazing and possessing; chapter 7), its functions (enabling visitors to make 'homes' and mark their 'place' on the island; chapter 8), and its implications for wider studies of religion and tourism (chapter 9). In offering a malleable conceptualisation of specialness with broad explanatory value, in considering visitors to be agents and producers of their own experience, and in providing an in-depth ethnography of narratives about a significant and contemporary visitor destination, this thesis aims to expand the scope of the 'Religion and Tourism' nexus in which it began.

At the top of the hierarchy, construction project managers emphasise that safety is a key priority; and at its bottom, front-­line workers do not turn up to work to get hurt. Yet, somewhere within the organisation it goes wrong, as accidents still occur. Research has suggested that unsafe acts contribute to over 80% of accidents, and hence reducing or eliminating unsafe acts should take a significant step forward to improving construction safety. While it has been recognised that the vast majority of accidents are still caused by unsafe behaviour, research has shown that organisational and cultural factors considerably affect unsafe work behaviour. This study aims to provide insights on unsafe acts that were committed by construction mangers and operatives; as well as providing insights on the effects a multinational workforce has on unsafe behaviours. Hence, the content within this thesis has purely focused on ‘unsafety’ rather than safe practices, and there were many good safety practices on the QC (Queensferry Crossing). It is the premise that by concentrating on ‘unsafety’, theoretical and practical insights can be gathered for safety improvements in the construction industry. This investigation explores this problem on a large multinational construction project in the UK, the QC. The contractors of the QC, Dragados of Spain, Hochtief of Germany, Morrison of the UK and American Bridge, represent Forth Crossing Bridge Constructors (FCBC). Adopting an interpretive paradigm, this study used a qualitative approach through ethnographic methods. A moderate participant observer approach was implemented; where the researcher adopted a role as a member of the H&S department and frequented the research setting between one and three times a week for almost three years. The contribution of this research is the in-­depth ethnographic insights into the complexity of unsafe acts. The insights revealed that: there was a blame culture, creating an environment that was very difficult to learn from; that some cost-­saving strategies appeared to increase safety risks; some H&S rules were viewed as excessive and inflexible by construction workers, and therefore their were times when workers used their own judgement about when to follow the rules; there were communication barriers with migrant workers, and the one in six translator policy used in an attempt to overcome this was far from ideal; and that the different ways of working that foreign subcontractors had meant they were difficult to manage, monitor and adjust. The findings revealed that there were two main underlying themes that were influential in the undertaking of unsafe acts: firstly, the perceived compensation culture and secondly, tight financial budgets. The fear of compensation claims appeared to prompt the H&S rules that were viewed as excessive, and took away ‘common sense’ from some procedures. The operatives desired more of a common sense approach, and felt at times they needed to break the rules in order to complete the job. The fear of claims also appeared to lead to the unconscious adoption of a ‘Person approach’ perspective, which concentrates on individual error and blame, and as far as possible uncouples organisational responsibility from an individual’s unsafe acts. This approach is inextricably linked to a blame culture, where accidents were under-­reported, misreported and reported late. The second theme was tight financial budgets. Previous research has explained that the competitive tendering process in the industry can discourage contractors from factoring into bids the cost of performing the work safely. In this research study, there appeared to be additional risks taken for schedule or cost reasons. Directors and senior managers acknowledged there was significant pressure for production, construction site managers believed the budget they were working with was too tight, and construction operatives explained that a phrase used on site was ‘just get it done’. To cope with production pressure construction site managers used undercover and informal reward schemes, referred to as ‘Vegas Time’ in this study. These schemes strongly incentivise production, potentially at the cost of safety. Ethnographic insights also revealed the areas where cost saving strategies appeared to increase safety risks, such as temporary designs, labour shortages, machinery and equipment. One of the most obvious cost-­saving strategies was to employ a cheap multinational workforce. However this led to many challenges with communication and different work practices, which was also perceived as an additional safety risk. The theoretical implications of this research work is that to avoid additional safety risks from occurring due to cost-­saving strategies, occupational health and safety considerations should be planned and priced for in more detail during the tender stage. Also, the eradication or reduction of the perceived compensation culture would increase the likelihood of adopting the System perspective to unsafe acts, rather than a Person approach, which is inextricably linked to a blame culture.

O objetivo principal desse trabalho foi o de descrever e compreender a maneira pela qual se constituem em mantém-se as formas de sociação de uma organização chamada Casa da Cultura Digital em Porto Alegre (CCD). Para tanto, os objetivos específicos foram: descrever as sociabilidades e conflitos como formas de sociação; descrever as peculiaridades da forma se organizar da CCD; e, compreender os significados que a CCD tem para seus integrantes. Estes objetivos estão embasados nos direcionamentos das “lentes teóricas” utilizadas que buscam compreender os estilos de vida e as formas de viver em conjunto permeadas por uma saturação do indivíduo em meio às objetificações da vida moderna, as quais podem lhe constranger. Em certos casos, tais objetificações são chamadas de formas de sociação: maneiras pelas quais as pessoas associam-se umas com as outras e desenvolvem conteúdos – entendidos como motivações ou interesses – que se abrigam em uma determinada “forma”. Quando uma lógica racional-instrumental, que faz parte de tais objetificações, dá sinais de saturação, emerge uma forma de viver em comum estética, lúdica e presenteísta que, de certo modo, opõe-se às institucionalizações, ao gigantismo e ao imperativo da eficiência. Um exemplo dessa expressão acontece em tribos pós-modernas, as quais revelam um modo de ser e estar com os outros dotado de uma razão sensível. Neste trabalho, estão em foco estas duas noções: formas de sociação e tribos contemporâneas à luz do exemplo de uma organização de natureza associativa, que busca realizar eventos, palestras e encontros para informar a população sobre cibercultura, uso dos meios digitais e o universo hacker - não restrita a isso. A partir de uma aproximação etnográfica com esse campo, foi possível notar sinais de uma exacerbação das sociabilidades, dos conflitos e de algumas peculiaridades da forma de organizar as tarefas, tais como: a rejeição de formalizações, de hierarquias, certa aversão às relações demasiadamente monetarizadas, bem como o modo de uso dos espaços físicos e do ciberespaço. Tal forma de ser e de organizar-se revela aspectos de um grupo que busca expressar-se em sua criatividade, demonstrando, para além disso, uma tentativa de se opor às formas de trabalho centralizadoras e pouco criativas, formatando um espaço divergente. Nesse jogo de formas, entre proximidades e afastamentos, o sujeito mostra que quando não encontra a satisfação nos ambientes “tradicionais”, este busca maneiras de expressão concretizadas em uma organização que se aproxima da metáfora da tribo contemporânea, constituindo uma forma de sociação, a qual revela negações e rearticulações de formas de gestão. / The main objective of this work was to describe and comprehend the way through which forms of sociation are constituted and maintained in an organization named Casa da Cultura Digital (CCD) situated in Porto Alegre. Thus, the specific objectives were: to describe sociabilities and conflicts as forms of sociation; to describe the peculiarities of the way CCD is organized; and, comprehend the meanings that CCD plays to its members. These objectives are based on the directions of the “theoretical lenses” which search to comprehend the life styles and forms of living together permeated by a saturation of the individual amidst the objectifications of a modern life, which can constrain him (SIMMEL, 2005b). In certain cases, these objectifications are named forms of sociation: manners through which people associate with one another and develop contents – understood as motivations and interests – that accommodate in a certain form. When an instrumental rationality, which is part of those objectifications, displays signs of saturation, an aesthetic, playful, and presentist way of living emerges in a certain way opposing to an institutionalization, a gigantism, and an efficiency imperative. An example of this expression happens in “post-modern tribes” (MAFFESOLI, 2010b) that reveal a form of being with others permeated by a sensitive reason. In this work, both notions of forms of sociation and contemporary tribes are in focus from an example of organization named Casa da Cultura Digital, an association which seeks to perform events, lectures, meetings to inform the population about cyberculture, the use of digital means and the hacker realm – not restricted to these themes. This form of being and organizing reveals a group that seeks to express itself in its creativity, sensitiveness, hedonism, and presentist interactions, which demonstrate, beyond that, an attempt to oppose centralized and less creative forms of working, thus, formatting a different space. In this play of forms, between proximities and distances, the individual shows that when the satisfaction is not found in “traditional” realms, he searches for forms to express himself that are actualized in an organization which approaches the metaphor of a contemporary tribe constituting a form of sociation, which reveals denials and re-articulations of ways of managing.

This thesis focuses on the development of a malaria vaccine as an avenue to explore global health partnerships. In the last twenty years, public-private partnerships have become a prominent organizational form in global health. Hundreds of large transnational collaborations and countless smaller collaborations between the public, private and non-profit sectors have been established. Partnerships have been supported by the large increase of donor funding for research and control of infectious diseases in impoverished countries and many aim to develop or provide vaccines, medicines or interventions. Analysts generally agree that partnerships are saving many lives and revolutionizing drug and vaccine development for infectious diseases. However, while partnership is a notion that connotes equity and mutuality, often global health partnerships operate in contexts that involve vast disparities in power and resources and there is little known about the impacts of partnerships on the places where they operate. This raises the questions: How do global health partnerships operate in practice? What are their impacts in the places where they operate? Addressing these questions, this thesis examines a partnership established to develop the most advanced malaria vaccine, named RTS,S. Based on 17 months of ethnographic research in Tanzania and interviews with representatives of partnering organizations in Belgium and the United States, I trace the development of the RTS,S vaccine from laboratories to its clinical trials across Africa. I explore the social relationships formed between private companies, philanthropic institutions and non-profit organizations in the North, and research institutions and communities in north-eastern Tanzania, where a malaria vaccine clinical trial was conducted. Analyzing the impacts of the malaria vaccine partnership, I focus on community development, construction of infrastructure, the building of human capacity, provision of health care and extraction of data. The focus on partnerships is intended to improve understanding about this ever-increasing social, political and economic formation in global health, and contributes to discussions and debates about how partnerships operate and their role in international development, global health governance and transnational medical research.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 (HSCA12) represents one of the more dramatic reforms in the history of the English National Health Service (NHS) in terms of scope and pace. The flagship of the policy was the replacement of Primary Care Trusts with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs): General Practitioner (GP) led “membership organisations” with responsibility for planning and purchasing most NHS care. A new “arm’s length” body, NHS England (NHSE), was created to authorise and oversee CCGs. The purpose of this research was to critically explore the ideational content of the HSCA12 and consider it in relation to social practices at the organisational level of a CCG: to provide a detailed, contextualised account of a CCG’s early operation, paying particular attention to the implications of its officially intended status as a membership organisation. By problematising the HSCA12, I have highlighted how CCGs and the GPs that constituted them were presented as an emancipatory force saving the NHS from ineffectual managers that lacked clinical and local knowledge about what patients needed; membership organisation status was bound up with this claim of local representation, and the policy attempted to orchestrate engagement from GPs as members through normative devices and governance systems including legislation and assessment programmes. However, the policy elided the difference between GPs as individuals and GP practices and left ambiguous precisely who or what constituted a member. Thirteen months of fieldwork using ethnographic methods (meeting observations, interviews, documentary analysis) were carried out with a case CCG: Notchcroft. The policy delineated “the membership” and “the governing body” as sub-groups within the CCG, but I found many others were involved in CCG governance processes and created “the governing core” concept to describe them. Confusion in the policy over exactly who was a member was paralleled in the CCG. The governing core, many of whom were GPs, were involved in performance assessment processes of GPs in order to fulfil a legal obligation to NHSE. This represented a further redrawing of the GP/state relationship and was a source of identity dissonance. The governing core also actively transmitted national policy norms about what it meant to be a member to the broader membership. By trying to “sell” CCG membership and encourage engagement they were attempting to legitimate the organisation and their roles within it. Notchcroft CCG’s unusual structure, with two levels (districts and locales) below central committees, appeared inefficient. This structure developed as a response to previous national commissioning policies. The institutional logics approach—employed as an analytical lens—proved useful in explaining its endurance: districts were containers for identity and interests to be protected, whilst locales were established and maintained as local “self help” organisations to support quality improvement. The initial purposes of districts and locales thus represented different logics of action that appeared self-evident to those involved, although they were less obvious to an external observer. In time, these initial logics were eroded, and districts and locales were given additional functions. These findings illustrate the emergent tension between national policy and local enactment, and demonstrate how local socio-historical context plays an important role in shaping how policy is realised in practice.

En Europe francophone, la définition de la bande dessinée s'effectue aujourd'hui à l'aune de la qualification artistique. Comme objet culturel, les représentations de la bande dessinée contribuent à l'organisation de l'activité en fonction de l'opposition classique entre reconnaissance artistique et reconnaissance professionnelle. Cette opposition modifie la qualification de l'objet et de sa personnalité autour de laquelle se structurent différents types d'activité, de celle des commentateurs à celle des producteurs. Le processus de construction historique d'une qualification artistique de la bande dessinée s'oppose à la reconstitution du processus de professionnalisation de ses acteurs du même point de vue. D'autre part, cette opposition se traduit dans la sphère de la production dans l'apprentissage de savoir-faire spécifiques permettant de réduire la tension des valeurs contradictoires en jeu dans l'activité. L'articulation des enjeux contradictoires de l'artification et de la professionnalisation dans l'expérience de l'attachement à l'activité met en jeu une conception de l'identité personnelle qui se déploie en marge des bandes dessinées. / In the European French-speaking area, the definition of comics requires nowadays an artistic qualification. As cultural objects, comics' representations contribute to the organization of activities following the classical opposition between artistic and professional recognitions. This opposition transforms the qualification of the object and its personality, around which different kinds of activities of both the commentator's one and the producer's one, are organized. The historical processes of artistic elaboration go against the reconstruction of the actor's professionalization processes on the same historical grounds. In addition, this opposition implies the learning of some practical knowledges in the productive area in order to reduce the tension between contradictory values at stake in the activity. The articulation of contradictory aims or goals in experiencing attachment towards the activity (i.e. relating, on the one hand, to the “artification” and, on the other hand, to the professionalization) involves a conception of personal identity which is open out along comics' margins.

Performance ethnography on disordered eating that weaves poetry and stories.

abstract: This thesis examines the jazz jam session’s function in the constitution of jazz scenes as well as the identities of the musicians who participate in them. By employing ritual and performance studies theories of liminality, I demonstrate ways in which jazz musicians, jam sessions, and other social structures are mobilized and transformed during their social and musical interactions. I interview three prominent members of the jazz scene in the greater Phoenix area, and incorporate my experience as a professional jazz musician in the same scene, to conduct a contextually and socially embedded analysis in order to draw broader conclusions about jam sessions in general. In this analysis I refer to other ethnomusicologists who research improvisation, jazz in ritual context, and interactions, such as Ingrid Monson, Samuel Floyd, Travis Jackson, and Paul Berliner, as well as ideas proposed by phenomenologically adjacent thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Karen Barad. This thesis attempts to contribute to current jam session research in fields such as ethnomusicology and jazz studies by offering a perspective on jam sessions based on phenomenology and process philosophy, concluding that the jam session is an essential mechanism in the ongoing social and musical developments of jazz musicians and their scene. I also attempt to continue and develop the discourse surrounding theories of liminality in performance and ritual studies by underscoring the web of relations in social structures that are brought into contact with one another during the liminal performances of their acting agents. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music 2019

The question that I investigate here is what emotion work is performed by child protective investigators in order to be successful at their work, and how do they manage these emotional challenges within a community of their peers? Many different workers, from airline employees (Hochschild, 1983) to mortuary science students (Cahill, 1999) to 911 operators (Shuler & Sypher, 2000), have been studied to examine strategies and effects of emotion management. Yet scholars do not agree on whether emotion management at work is positive or negative. For my research, I conducted interviews with ten investigators and observed a night unit of child protective investigators in a Central Florida Sheriff's Office. I observed three different types of strategies, which I discuss in detail: office based strategies, field based strategies, and personal strategies. Office based strategies include group humor, practical support and sharing experiences. Field based strategies include calming down the parent, enlisting the client, and distancing humor. Personal strategies include accentuating importance and blaming the parent. In the conclusion I summarize my research and discuss the finding that both novice and veteran child protective investigators use these strategies. I end with policy recommendations and I stress the importance of building a supportive professional community through further training.

The purpose of the ethnographic narrative project was to understand ourselves and our students in a more in-depth manner. The ethnographic narrative project has allowed me to explore myself, my students, my classroom, the community I teach in, and the link each of these has to social justice. In order to best serve our students as educators, we must comprehend all of the funds of knowledge our students possess and utilize these facets to aid their learning. I have found that understanding my students cultural, social, academic assets is critical to fulfilling their needs both as students and individuals. I have also explored my own strengths and areas of growth as an educator and solidified my teaching identity. As educators we must not only teach our students academic skills teach social and emotional assets as well.