The thesis explores narratives constructed by participants about an organization’s identities. I examine how identity-relevant statements were deployed as exercises in power, serving to legitimize and promote their authors. Framed within an interpretive paradigm, the research adopts reflexive approaches to consider participants’ understandings. I draw on organizational identity theory and empirical studies to explore the multiplicity and conflicting nature of identity in organizations. Literatures on organizational narratives, storytelling and power are also considered. The ethnography is set in a public sector organization in which I worked: the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA). Its role was to deliver the Government’s reforms to private pension provision in the UK; the reforms came into force in October 2012. The narrative data constructing the research were collected through semi-structured interviews with 60 members of the organization, transcripts of organizational events and a diary I recorded for a year. These data are augmented by a series of vignettes that weave in accounts of my experiences while working for and researching PADA. The analysis of narrative data is constructed in three chapters, each of which explores identity-relevant narratives from different perspectives. The first analysis chapter examines narrative data through five concepts: reflexivity, voice, plurivocity, temporality and fictionality. The second analyses identity narratives in two organizational events and the third explores my understandings of the organization’s identities from an autoethnographic perspective. The discussion chapter provides three readings that interpret the data through different lenses: narrative and storytelling, organizational identity and autoethnographic erspectives. I then make concluding remarks, including ideas for future research and the contribution of my research to the study of organizational identity. The primary contribution of the ethnography is to scholarship at the intersection of identity and power in organizations and specifically how identity-relevant narratives are deployed as exercises in power by participants. There are also contributions to narrative research methods, including the value of researching identity ethnographically. Additionally, I suggest practical contributions to literature on understanding issues of culture and sense-making in public bodies and how employees from different sector backgrounds (public and private) interact within a public sector context to deliver government reforms.

This thesis outlines a personal attempt to explore leadership in a holistic manner that recognises the contribution of both individuals and the collective whilst remaining sensitive to contextual factors. It endeavours to do this through presentation, analysis and discussion of two empirical studies of leadership, informed by distributed and practice perspectives, which regard leadership as a shared and contextually situated social process. The thesis begins with an overview of leadership theory and research, proposing that the time is right for a reframing of the field of leadership studies in order to redress the balance accorded to individual and collective accounts of leadership; review how we recognise, reward and develop leadership; and revisit our methodologies and approaches to leadership enquiry. The first empirical study investigates perceptions and experiences of leadership in the UK higher education sector, proposing that whilst leadership may be considered as widely dispersed, the notion of ‘distributed leadership’ also carries a powerful rhetorical function that may mask an uneven distribution of power, resources and rewards. The second empirical study explores the notion of ‘leadership-as-practice’ in three large, complex organisations outside the HE sector, and reveals the significant impact of discourse and sensemaking in shaping perceptions, experiences and the accomplishment of leadership for middle-senior level operational managers. The discussion chapter draws together the various themes explored in the thesis, in particular demonstrating the significance of issues of discourse, identity and purpose in making sense of the elusive nature of leadership practice. It is argued that a holistic representation of leadership remains difficult to achieve because of the manner in which grand Discourses and micro-level discourses of leadership interact to attribute the social process of leadership to the actions of individual leaders. The thesis concludes with a series of recommendations that highlight the value of a somewhat eclectic approach to leadership theory, research, practice and development that facilitates the emergence and recognition of contextually-appropriate ‘hybrid configurations’ of leadership.

This qualitative, cross-sectional study centres on professionals in the field of educational development, which has been and continues to change significantly in contemporary higher education. Twenty-eight teaching and learning professionals in three broad classifications from 19 Canadian higher education institutions were interviewed. Data was collected to both describe the formal structures and roles and elicit understandings regarding how the individuals see their roles, identities and social power. Consistent with other international findings, and influenced by the broader changes in higher education, Canadian teaching and learning professional roles appear to be expanding in both depth and breadth. The findings reflect a number of changes and tensions associated with their organisational structure, role design and role classifications. Although they come from a variety of academic backgrounds, the findings indicate a common identity is evolving, underpinned by a set of shared values, strong professional association identification and a shared purpose of bridging and translating needs towards the enhancement of teaching and learning. While respondents described using a variety of power bases and influence tactics to generate change at the individual, group, organisation and system levels their attempts to influence used primarily soft power bases rather than harsh power bases (Kipnis, 1984). The findings support previous research that indicates there is a relationship between roles (structure) and identity (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002, Dutton et al., 1994, Ibarra, 1999, Sluss and Ashforth, 2007) and provide evidence to support the theorised link between identity and action (Alvesson et al., 2008, Ibarra, 1999). Further, it is argued, the interconnectivity of role, identity and power, was expressed through respondents’ attempts to make sense of and in many cases change the social evaluations of them, their team and their work in an effort to legitimise a unique organisational space and enable them to accomplish their change oriented goals. In light of these findings, a theorised process of how an organisational space for teaching and learning work may be legitimised and a visualised “middle space” for teaching and learning work is presented.

By separating the local from the global, extant historiography fails to capture a total sense of how Africans engaged with change in the 19th and 20th centuries. Existing approaches are Eurocentric in assuming that global forces like colonialism, racism, nationalism and capitalism were the only issues that Africans confronted and thought about. A more complete history of social change is one which integrates local concerns and ideas, expressed in local languages and cosmologies, with Atlantic discourses. The history of Abeokuta in Western Nigeria had been written in a modernization model which interprets the Egba past as how a modern missionary-created elite tried to transform the society from a traditional one. By focusing on elite discourses in a wider scope than the modernization premise, a more complex history emerges in which European influence and colonial power were only part of many forces and resources which the Egba struggled over, modulated and coped with. Power in 19th century Abeokuta was invented by the construction of a national identity, history and traditions to legitimize a central monarchy. The interests of ruling elites converged with those of colonial power towards consolidating these innovations and political centralization. However, other displaced elites always contested such constructions. The crises and violence of the early 20th century were therefore not simply anti-colonial resistance. They were complicated expressions of political dissent against local, colonial and global forces of domination, and reactions to socio-economic challenges. Public health discourse reveals that the Egba did not conceive of European medicine as a dichotomous binary to local medical practices. Rather, it represented an addition of choices to a corpus of medical options. Similarly, Atlantic ideas like democracy and modernization were reduced to local understanding such that they correlated to local knowledge. Modernity for the Egba was therefore not about becoming like Europe; but about pursuing life‘s best-options in the variety of free and forceful influences. Egba society was shaped in the multiple struggles among elites advancing various claims and deploying instruments of power. This history transcends the colonial and renders Africans much more fully as actors in the making of their lives and society.

Abstract The present study analyses the role of women in the Roman Catholic Church and the main question addressed is: “How do women construct and maintain an adult Catholic identity in the light of social, political, economic and religious changes?” In order to answer this question I began with grounded theory which enabled me to locate my research in the everyday lives of the study participants. In the course of the research I made a methodological shift to an institutional ethnographic approach in order to better understand the women’s lives as Catholics. One of the major tenets of an institutional ethnographic approach is that in modern bureaucratic organisations the authority and instructions of institutions and organisations are carried via the texts they produce. These texts can be written texts or they can be videos, film, etc. Because they carry the authority of the institution or organisation texts have the power to shape people’s lives and co-ordinate their everyday activities with multiple others, without, however, wholly determining them. In common with other major organisations the Roman Catholic Church is a large, worldwide organisation which relies on the texts it produces to carry its instructions and authority into the homes, churches and personal lives of its members. The greatest production of written texts by the Catholic Church in the modern era took place at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). While many feminist scholars have dismissed the Council proceedings as saying very little about women in particular, I argue that the Councillors’ writings in several major texts have strongly and specifically impacted the lives of contemporary Catholic women. Consequently, while all the texts produced by the bishops at the council can be considered of interest to practising Catholics generally, in this study I have chosen to focus on texts that related to issues that have proved to be of particular interest to the participants of this research study: the role of the laity in the church, Mariology and marriage. In order to carry out the research involved in this study I interviewed thirty women in Australia and thirty women in Ireland between the ages of 55 and 19 years of age. The Australian women immigrated to Australia during the years 1970 and 1997. All of the participants had been baptised into the Roman Catholic Church as babies and they all underwent a similar socialisation process growing up in Ireland.

Abstract The present study analyses the role of women in the Roman Catholic Church and the main question addressed is: “How do women construct and maintain an adult Catholic identity in the light of social, political, economic and religious changes?” In order to answer this question I began with grounded theory which enabled me to locate my research in the everyday lives of the study participants. In the course of the research I made a methodological shift to an institutional ethnographic approach in order to better understand the women’s lives as Catholics. One of the major tenets of an institutional ethnographic approach is that in modern bureaucratic organisations the authority and instructions of institutions and organisations are carried via the texts they produce. These texts can be written texts or they can be videos, film, etc. Because they carry the authority of the institution or organisation texts have the power to shape people’s lives and co-ordinate their everyday activities with multiple others, without, however, wholly determining them. In common with other major organisations the Roman Catholic Church is a large, worldwide organisation which relies on the texts it produces to carry its instructions and authority into the homes, churches and personal lives of its members. The greatest production of written texts by the Catholic Church in the modern era took place at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). While many feminist scholars have dismissed the Council proceedings as saying very little about women in particular, I argue that the Councillors’ writings in several major texts have strongly and specifically impacted the lives of contemporary Catholic women. Consequently, while all the texts produced by the bishops at the council can be considered of interest to practising Catholics generally, in this study I have chosen to focus on texts that related to issues that have proved to be of particular interest to the participants of this research study: the role of the laity in the church, Mariology and marriage. In order to carry out the research involved in this study I interviewed thirty women in Australia and thirty women in Ireland between the ages of 55 and 19 years of age. The Australian women immigrated to Australia during the years 1970 and 1997. All of the participants had been baptised into the Roman Catholic Church as babies and they all underwent a similar socialisation process growing up in Ireland.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Psychology, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 213-232).

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of English, General Literature and Rhetoric. / Includes bibliographical references.

Our ability to perceive our environment through prejudge mental attitudes is a necessary capacity in order to survive in a social environment. However, how we utilize this capacity, and whether it promotes equality or inequality, is to a large extent dependant on our perception of ourselves in relation to our surroundings. Through critical social theory, this thesis aims to explore and compare attitudes exhibited by the Swedish educational system, towards the socially constructed phenomenon of adolescent students in upper secondary school, speaking their voice. The production of knowledge is problematized regarding the relationship between theoretical regulatory texts of norms, ideals and requirements, versus active implementation in practice. Through metaphysical questioning of reason and norms, discrepancies of intention, lack of consideration for power relations and pernicious ignorance, is problematized and reflected upon, as possible factors reinforcing attitudes of negative stereotyping, identity prejudice and inequality, evoking questions concerning human and children’s rights. Enactment of fear and silencing through reference to status and authority, rather than data actually sustaining a stand through scientific reason and justified knowledge, positions the adolescent student as the subaltern, and perpetuates adultism through imbalance within the dyadic power relation. Through three case studies, chosen due to their compatibility to the frames of a pre- case study initiating attention to the subject at hand, this study exemplifies identity prejudice and institutionalized hegemony through epistemic violence, marginalizing the student to the status of the subaltern. Thereby suffocating both the development of the student, as well as the institutional system´s own purpose and legitimacy, by jeopardizing the confession to scientific reason and justifiable knowledge. It is thus aspects of our ethical and political epistemic conduct this study addresses, by problematizing the cross-boundary interface of research, politics and practice. Findings indicate negative prejudice credibility deficit administered towards students, through social injustice of epistemic violence, fortified by the educational institutions and their regulatory authorities through obscurantism, by neglect of scientific reason and justified knowledge, when constructivist stands implemented as ontological realities, are questioned through critical thinking.

This thesis explores the political use of branding in international relations by focusing on the branding exercises of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the State of Qatar over the last two decades. In most of the existing literature, branding is theorised as a representational and instrumental practice that is strategically used to increase a country's competitive edge. Adopting a critical constructivist lens to the study of International Relations (IR), this thesis challenges this reading and argues instead that branding is a productive and inherently political practice that (re)produces dominant interpretations of state-identity rather than merely describing them. Based on the core constructivist claim that much of politics revolves around the competition to give meaning to the world, this thesis argues that the version of the state promoted through branding is neither neutral nor brand new, but inherently politicised and tied to the conversation and legitimation of the incumbent political regime. Inspired by the ongoing practice turn in IR, the starting point for the analysis is a focus on the display of the state through a range of everyday practices long ignored by IR scholars. In particular, it focuses on how the political leadership in both Kazakhstan and Qatar has used the urban development of their capital cities, the hosting of international sports events, and the construction of 'world-class' universities to present new ideas about their state to various inter/national audiences. Using an original data corpus of multimodal primary and secondary material, the analysis traces how branding practices produce and normalise a certain interpretation of Kazakhstani and Qatari statehood, and then interrogates how we can understand this interpretation as politicised and tied to the interests of the regime. The goal of the analysis is twofold. First, this thesis aims to elucidate how relevant instances of state- branding unfold and travel across different empirical contexts (Kazakhstan and Qatar) and cases (urban development, sports and education). Second, it aims to push current scholarly understandings by (re)conceptualising branding as a genre of contemporary identity politics, and produce broader insights about the characteristics and mechanisms of this increasingly normalised - yet often as politically non-salient dismissed - practice of international relations.