Interpretations of the Nationalist Revolution in modern Chinese history, especially the so-called “Nanjing decade” (1927-1937) are dominated by theoretical notions which see the state as autonomous in its relationship to society. This autonomous state model, the dissertation argues, finds its roots in the voluntaristic ideas of Talcott Parsons. Arguments based on Parsons’s ideas view the Nationalist Revolution as abortive. The dissertation rejects these views and develops an alternative perspective based on the construction of a quasi-market model of social relations. The theoretical underpinnings, in contrast to Parsons’s ideas, are termed “de-voluntaristic.” These arguments suggest that individuals participate in, and have influence on, the operation of the state. The application of a quasi-market model suggests that there was a major transformation in Chinese society during the Nationalist period. The dissertation argues that the Nationalist Government after 1927 did not continue to achieve the initial objectives of the Nationalist Revolution which, it is suggested, aimed to build a quasi-market society. The revolution, however, was not abortive. It transformed the political system. In the Imperial tradition of government, local elites protected local communities against state encroachment through their involvement in property management. After 1927, the Nanjing Government adopted a “free market” approach to political affairs, and centralized the use of military and legal power to protect property against labour and the peasants. Peasant demands for rights to the land they tilled, a key element in Sun Yat-sen’s programme for the revolution, questioned the brokerage market economy, in which local elites acted as the intermediaries of contractual partners. Workers, in the context of industrialization, and with support from Communist organizers, attempted to improve working conditions. Peasants and workers contested the power of active elites that grew in the new political order established by. the Nationalist Government. The Nationalist State abandoned the traditional role of the Chinese state to protect the well-being of society. Deeply influenced by new elites, it protected capital accumulation and safeguarded the sanctity of contracts. The Nationalist Revolution ultimately failed as it was unable to resist the invasions of the Japanese, or the alternative social formulations of the Communist movement.

This dissertation is a video ethnography of the enculturation and learning patterns among children on three school playgrounds in the Central Region of Ghana, West Africa. It includes a) a discussion of colonialism on the redefinition of Ghanaian cultural identity in relation to play culture and the school curriculum b) performance-based case studies of six singing games, which comprise a description of sound and structural features and an explanation of cultural forms evident in singing games and c) a discussion on the role multimedia technologies (video, audio, and computer technologies) played in configuring my explanations and the explanations of all participants: children, teachers, and community members. Goldman-Segall' s "configurational validity" is the conceptual basis of this ethnography of Ghanaian children's music cultures. Configurational validity is a collaborative theory for analyzing video documents that expands on the premise that research is enriched by multiple points of view. Performance stylistic features of singing games emerge that reflected the marriage of two music cultures, indigenous Ghanaian and European. These include: speech tones, onomatopoeia, repetition and elaboration of recurring melodic cliches, portamentos or cadential drops, syncopations, triplets, melisma, polyrhythms, vocables, anacrusis, strophic, circle, lines, and partner formations. During play, the children were cultural interlocutors and recipients of adult cultural interlocution as they learned about accepted and shared social behavioural patterns, recreated their culture, and demonstrated the changing Ghanaian culture. The culture forms that emerged include community solidarity, inclusion, ways of exploring and expressing emotions, coordination, cooperation, gender relations, and linguistic code switching. For children in Ghana, knowledge is uninhibited shared constructions; knowledge grows when every one is involved; and knowledge is like "midwifery." I recommended a teaching style that encouraged the expression of children's wide ranging knowledge by a) offering opportunities for cooperative learning through group work, b) encouraging continuous assessment, c) establishing stronger ties with the adult community, and d) recognizing that the ability of children to hear, interpret, and compensate for dialectic differences in closely related languages can be used to enrich the language arts curriculum and also e) recognizing that the cultural studies curriculum can be enriched by the ability of children to re-create hybrid performing arts cultures.

This study seeks to explain the relationship between civic associations and attitudinal social capital---norms of trust and reciprocity---within the context of an authoritarian state. In contrast to many post-industrial nations, Nigeria boasts a vibrant civil society but seems to possess little attitudinal social capital. A deeper understanding of this relationship is offered by considering how an association's structure influences members' attitudes and how this relationship is impacted by a repressive regime. These relationships are tested using both statistical data and a qualitative study of three associations. The findings support the hypothesis that certain structural characteristics are more conducive to the fostering of attitudinal social capital but that the presence of state repression undermines this process. Furthermore, it is shown that pro-democracy associations are essential in creating the space necessary for trust and cooperation between citizens, even when they do not foster these norms amongst their own membership.

This dissertation examines the introduction of social phobia into France. My analysis is concerned with how this diagnosis, which is inconsistent with the psychoanalytic model that dominates French psychiatry, is increasingly being accepted by French physicians and patients. I argue that the diagnosis social phobia offers physicians and patients a justification for life difficulties that was not provided by existing diagnoses such as phobic neurosis, obsessional neurosis or 'normal' shyness. / In 2003-4 I carried out one year of fieldwork in North America and France. During this time I conducted participant observation and interviews with clinicians and members of a social phobia support group. Throughout this thesis, it is my objective to understand the disorder from three perspectives: historical, ethnographic, and sociocultural. / First, I examine French psychiatrists' claims that social phobia has existed in French psychiatric literature since the nineteenth century. I investigate the efforts of these French psychiatrists to prove that the diagnostic category has a legitimate place in French medicine. Second, I look at how a small group of Parisian psychiatrists who practice cognitive and behavioural therapy are fighting for greater awareness and acceptance of social phobia. Promoting social phobia is a means of spreading awareness of their therapeutic model. Their aim is to unseat psychoanalysis from its dominant position in French psychiatry. Many individuals prefer cognitive and behavioural therapists' explanations of social phobia symptoms to those of psychoanalysts because they are less stigmatizing and their predicted outcomes more optimistic. But many French clinicians reject the diagnosis social phobia and prefer psychoanalytic explanations for patients' symptoms. Some see it as a 'fashionable' disorder overly promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. Third, I investigate how social phobia is related to cultural behavioural ideals and societal expectations. I look at how these factors lead more people to become concerned about the symptoms of social phobia than in the past. / In the end, I explain that French physicians and patients are choosing social phobia from among other possible labels for this set of symptoms. The way that they describe this diagnosis, however, blends multiple therapeutic models and they create an explanation of the disorder which most thoroughly and positively describes patients' experiences.

At the intersection of institutional, local and personal perspectives, this thesis explores what it means to build a Healthy Community in the Canadian Arctic hamlet of Igloolik, Nunavut. It observes that neither the dominant concepts of critical theory nor those of institutional health promotion can sufficiently account for the ways in which Healthy Community discourse and values are adopted and engaged locally. / Contextual semantic analysis is used to examine the health promotion values of 'community,' 'participation' and 'empowerment' in the narratives of Inuit interview participants. Along with historical and ethnographic data, these narratives suggest the ways in which health promotion and wellness values are variously adopted, redirected or infused with particular meaning in the context of both personal and political experience. / By destabilizing the consensus implied by institutional health promotion discourse and by recognizing the multiplicity of meanings and practices surrounding the Healthy Community, it can continue to inspire innovation in healthcare strategies.

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Attending to the felt quality of experience, this work looks at how a community of Mexican campesinos go about thew life While cultivating coffee, trying to make sense of how villagers feel, know, and understand the world "on their own terms". The aim is to work through (and from) the plane of the body, a narrative strategy that seeks to convey some of the give an take of everyday life; the joy and salubrity that are often bounded in moments of good health, the sorrow and pain that poverty entails. But since "well being" is not "culture five" but guided by moral and aesthetic constraints, I map out the cultural "building blocks" to see how local notions of health and illness tie into feelings of integrity or fragmentation. Last, we look at what social ideals underscore notions of personhood and how these shape local experiences of land.

Traditional communities in most Third World countries today are facing the influx of all industrialized economy which is leading to the introduction of new building technologies, infrastructure and modern communications. This has resulted in a change in the built environment of traditional settlements. / There are many dynamic factors which help to shape the decisions people make about the physical nature of their built environment. The linking of these decision-making factors to the external forces influencing society is very important to arrive at a clear understanding of how traditional forms give way to new ones. This thesis links global and local forces in interaction in the small mountain community of Karimabad, Hunza in Northern Pakistan, which is experiencing the effects of a capital economy and the new social and cultural milieu which accompanies it. Added to that the community has also been subjected to the effects of international tourism and development projects. The thesis shows, how, under the influences of these factors, the local traditional house form has transformed in terms of change in building materials and housing layouts. / This study was also carried out with the view of linking local perceptions of change, with the actual physical changes in housing. The thesis attempts to show how the ordinary household in Karimabad makes its decisions for change, and views the outside world and their place in it, and how this change is reflected in the changed house forms and building materials. This research also draws on the theoretical framework and references of how globalization is affecting traditional settlements on the periphery. / The findings of the study point to a strong link between external influences, especially of media, tourism, and international development institutions, and the changed house forms and materials. It also shows that it is not possible to isolate individual decision-making from external influences, especially where material culture is concerned.

In the period between the granting of self-government in 1923 and 1938, the 'native' policy formulated by Europeans in colonial Zimbabwe had three dimensions. The first was a land and agricultural policy designed to restrict competition from Africans in the produce market. The second was a labour policy addressed at the chronic labour shortages in the European mining and agricultural sectors. The third was a series of control measures seeking to impede black political organization. The goals of these policies were largely achieved by 1938 due to a combination of government initiatives and the impact of the depression. Part of this success was directly due to the effects of the depression; as economic conditions improved, Africans regained some of their economic autonomy and reasserted themselves politically.