This thesis adds a complex account to existing climate change engagement literature, which captures the ways that interactions with, and interpretations of, climate change emerge across the spaces and practices of day-to-day life. The empirical research for this thesis was based in Penryn and Falmouth, two small adjoining coastal towns located in the county of Cornwall, in the southwest of the UK. Fieldwork across a number of sites including schools, community groups and the local fishery engaged participants in a wide variety of research interactions. A combination of ethnographic and autoethnographic techniques were applied to produce complex, nuanced and personal accounts of interactions with and reflections on climate change that emerged in a day-to-day context. This study employed the innovative use of a personal research archive to facilitate the process of sense making across a body of highly detailed and contextual data. Through the use of thematic coding, links between data collected in diverse research encounters has been drawn together to produce meaningful narratives of climate change engagement in day-to-day life. These narratives capture the adaptive, imperfectly situated and inconsistent engagement responses that emerge as a result of the challenging nature of climate change and the inevitable, multiple pressures of the day-to-day context. The research approach taken in this study, and the findings set out in the thesis make contributions to three main areas of climate change engagement literature. Firstly, it explores the way that climate change is situated and understood in the context of day-to-day life. Secondly, it considers the implications of conceptualising climate change engagement as either a ‘process’ or a ‘state’. Finally, it extends existing analysis of ‘barriers to engagement’, locating them within the complexity of the day-to-day context and identifying them as part of essential interpretive iterations of engagement.

Till denna studie har vårt empiriska material baserats på sex individers utsagor. Vi har valt att göra en kvalitativ intervjustudie för att undersöka individernas upplevelser kring ett fenomen. Val av ämne inspirerades av samhällsdebatten som förs kring flyktingar, asylsökande och immigranter. Det har deltagit sex informanter i studien och de har alla varit bosatta i Sverige i över åtta år. Tre av informanterna som deltagit i studien kom till Sverige som ensamkommande asylsökande och tre kom på grund av anknytning till anhörig.  Studiens mål var att lyssna till informanternas egna upplevelser och utsagor. Baserat på detta blev syftet med studien att förstå hur individer som immigrerat till Sverige upplever integrationen samt vilket stöd som finns att tillgå.  Vi har lutat oss mot tidigare forskning som innefattar begreppen integration och “vi” och “dom”. Vi har även använt oss av begrepp som handlar om vardagsrasism, kultur och tillhörighet. Med hjälp av tidigare forskning och begrepp har vi jämsides med det empiriska materialet analyserat och fått fram resultat. Resultatet visade att integrationen är komplex och att våra informanter har uppfattat detta. Informanterna ser att samhällsstödet har hjälpt dem att bli en del i det svenska samhället. Samtidigt har informanterna stött på olika hinder vad gäller integrationsprocessen. Detta var något som visade sig i form av vardagsrasism, utanförskap,  och anpassning av den nya kulturen. / The empiric data is based on six individuals’ statements. We have chosen to make a qualitative interview study to investigate individuals' experiences of a phenomenon. The selection of study field was inspired by the social debate about refuges, asylum seekers and immigrants. There have participated six informants in the study and they have been resident in Sweden for over 8 years. Three of the informants who participated in the study, came to Sweden as an unaccompanied asylum seeker and three came because of connection to kin. Our goal was to listen to the informants' own life experiences and statements. Based the statements, the purpose of the study was to investigate how people, who have immigrated to Sweden, experiences the integration process and what kind of social support is available for their integration. We have leaned towards previous research, for instance, the concepts of integration and the meaning of "us" and "them". We also used the concept which relates to everyday racism, culture and connection. Using previous research and concepts we have alongside the empirical material analyzed and produced results. The results showed that the integration is complex and that our informants have comprehend the phenomenon. They think that the social support has helped them to become a part of the Swedish society. At the same time the informants encountered various obstacles in terms of everyday racism and the adaptation of the new culture

Studien undersöker dövkompetensens betydelse (kunskap om döva, teckenspråk och deras kultur) för döva i mötet med rättsväsendet. Syftet är att visa vilka konsekvenser som avsaknaden av dövkompetensen kan få. För att få svar på studiens frågor valde jag en kvalitativ och explorativt forskningsansats för att undersöka respondenternas uppfattning och upplevelse av mötet med rättsväsendet. Kvalitativ intervjustudie med döva med teckenspråk som sitt första språk. Som har varit i behov av samhällsstöd och upplevt avsaknad av dövkompetens. Åtta personer intervjuades och därefter gjordes en analys för att tolka och förstå döva som upplevt denna avsaknad av dövkompetens. Som analysredskap har jag valt vardagsrasism och audism som teoretiska utgångspunkter. De slutsatser jag har fått fram av respondenterna är att bemötandet de fått i mötet med rättsväsendet egentligen inte är enskilda handlingar, eftersom dessa enskilda handlingar upprepas av olika enskilda personer. Till följd av avsaknaden av dövkompetens har konsekvenserna oftast blivit allvarliga och till och med förödande för några av respondenterna. / The study investigates the meaning of deaf competence (knowledge of deaf, sign language and their culture) when deaf people encounter the justice system. The intention is to outline the consequences of the lack of deaf competence. I´ve chosen a qualitative and explorative research approach in order to reach the answers of the study, to examine the respondents’ perception and experience in the encounter with the justice system. Qualitative interviewstudy with deaf people who´s first language is sign language and who´s been in need of support from the society and experienced the lack of deaf competence. Eight people were interviewed and then an analysis was made to interpreted and understand deaf people who´s experienced the lack of deaf competence. As tools during analysis I use everyday racism and audism theoretical smarting points. The conclusion I´ve reached from the respondents is that the treatment they’ve received from the justice system actually isn´t individual actions, due to these individual actions being repeated by various individual people. The lack of deaf competence as a result of the consequences are often become serious and even devastating for some of the respondents.

This dissertation is an exploration of the practice of social digital gaming, using a mixed methods approach with complementary data and analytical methods. The main themes are the prevalence and meaning of gamers’ experiences of social gaming and the underlying structures limiting or assisting social gaming, both material and social. Applying an everyday perspective, focus is on gamers’ day-to-day practices and experiences. Studies I and II enquire into relational aspects of social gaming based on interviews and survey data. Study III investigates the relationship between game design and gamer agency and its importance for social interaction with strangers, using in-game participant observation. Lastly in Study IV, building on interviews, female gamers come to the fore as their gender construction in an online game is examined with the aim of understanding the connection between online and offline. The main result concerns how social gaming takes place in various social relations. How gaming comes to be―what it means―is dependent on the relations between gamers, be they family members, real life friends, Internet friends or strangers. In these interactions, gender and sexual identity are realized; in the relations between gamers, physical proximate or online. Finally, virtuality is shown to be a social accomplishment of the people engaging in games rather than a property of the games themselves. Focus on the relational unveils how gaming comes to be in the process of interaction, a process at the same time dependent on underlying structures, i.e. games as designed platforms with certain affordances for social behaviour. We are able, thus, to reconcile the social constructivist position that (social) gaming is created in the relations between gamers engaging in games with the more formalist approach that games are rule based structures. Games create a foundation for interaction that can further develop into the creation/maintenance of relationships and identity. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript. Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

Art is everything what people do with time and space is a theoretical text, which includes some of the author’s ideas on contemporary art situation and its definition. The work could be interesting for the people working in the sphere of humanities, as much as to everybody else living in this world. / "Menas yra viskas, ką žmonės daro su laiko ir erdve" - teorinis tekstas, kuriame galima atrasti kai kurias autoriaus mintys apie šiandieninę situaciją su menu ir apie šio termino definiciją. Darbas gali būti įdomūs kaip žmonėms, dirbantiems humanitarinių mokslų srityje, taip pat ir visiems kitiems žmoniems gyvenantiems šiame pasaulyje.

I use my art practice in conjunction with environmental behaviour research and Michel de Certeau’s practice of the everyday, to enable a re-examination of socially engaged art and through art to activate environmental behaviour change. Questions Clarify contemporary debate about demonstrable and desirable aspects and issues of socially engaged art practice and through my own practice identify its key characteristics. Examine the claim for change offered by many socially engaged practitioners. Context The socially engaged artist operates outside of the gallery, in everyday lives and real situations, often engaging in issues of meaning to society at large, where participation and facilitation of dialogue are the common characteristics. I identify participation, the ambition of social change, aesthetic representation and a failure to communicate beyond the participative event as key considerations. (Bishop 2004; Bourriaud 2002; Kester 2004; Kwon 2004) I propose an aesthetic of presence, to recognise community as a creative vernacular and as pooled knowledge. Drawn from Michel de Certeau’s research into everyday life (Michel de Certeau 1985; Michel de Certeau et al. 1998a) this also provides a refocusing on participation through conversation and describes rupture events, which signify change occurring. Method This thesis compares research in an alternative field, environmental behaviour, which investigates the impediments to change (the value-action gap), how change happens and identifies the change agent, as essential to encourage change at a personal level. (Ballard and Associates 2005b; Darnton et al. 2006) I use the value-action gap, the tension point between knowing about climate change and failing to make changes in our own behaviour, (Blake 1999; Darnton 2004b; Kollmus and Agyeman 2002) as a direct impetus to make participative artwork that examines the idea of a sustainable lifestyle. My art practice recognises a three-stage process: an admission of my own environmental behaviour; encouraging reciprocal participation and conversation and enabling personal reflection; representing conversation offering shared vernacular knowledge and enabling others’ engagement with the artwork and behaviour change. Equating the socially engaged artist with the environmental change agent, I synthesised the Model for Change Agents (S. Ballard and Ballard 2005a; Ballard and Associates 2005b) with research on participation in the arts (Matarasso 1997), as a basis for understanding how participation occurs and how change could happen in socially engaged artworks. An analysis of pilot artworks extends this model to identify the conditions for change, which also equate to the aesthetic aspects of the artwork, in a new model for Practice, Participation and Progression. Outcomes I propose key characteristics for socially engaged practice based on analysis of contemporary commentators and the model for practice, participation and progression. The role of the socially engaged artist is identified as comparable to the change agent. Representing conversation, addresses an issue of socially engaged practice to communicate beyond documentation of the event’s provocation and participation. I develop discussion of the discursive site beyond participation itself to a community of common sensibility and pooled knowledge as a demonstration of personal agency that is able to redefine the public ideal and challenge dominant culture. Re-presenting conversation is a means of sharing knowledge, stimulating change and expanding community. Contributing to environmental behaviour research my art practice reveals our ability to abstract behaviour, identifies our main areas of concern within lifestyle, our motivations for making change and the importance of the preservation of personal agency. I also comment on de Certeau, identifying the problems with individual resistance through the everyday, exploring mini-rupture events signaling change and proposing a reversal of the aesthetic of absence to an aesthetic of presence creating a new narrative that utilises personal agency.

Le roman La ballade de Gilbert raconte l’histoire d’un homme dont la tranquille normalité du quotidien est perturbée lorsqu’il découvre qu’un de ses collègues de longue date fréquente des prostituées. Afin de retrouver son confort, il incite clandestinement ce collègue à se chercher une conjointe, mais cette quête devient peu à peu une profonde obsession qui bouleverse encore plus l’équilibre de sa vie routinière. À travers ce récit s’articule une réflexion sur le quotidien, sur les limites entre l’ordinaire et l’extraordinaire, le familier et l’étrange. L’essai Le quotidien dans Molloy de Samuel Beckett reprend le thème du quotidien afin d’analyser le dialogue entre le familier et l’étrangeté dans ce roman. Molloy présente de nombreux scénarios communs (Eco), qui correspondent très sensiblement d’un point de vue cognitif aux habitudes qui façonnent le quotidien d’un individu. Cet essai explique comment Beckett subvertit ces scénarios pour laisser place à une étrangeté derrière laquelle le familier demeure reconnaissable. / The novel La ballade de Gilbert tells the story of a man whose quiet and ordinary life is troubled when he realises that one of his long time colleagues is seeing prostitutes. To re-establish his comfort, he secretly tries to encourage this colleague to find a mate, but this quest becomes a relentless obsession that overturns even more the order of his life. A reflection about everyday life and the limits between the ordinary and the extraordinary, the familiar and the uncanny, is proposed through this narrative. The essay Le quotidien dans Molloy de Samuel Beckett also touches everyday life by the analysis of the dialogue between familiarity and strangeness. Molloy shows numerous examples of common scenarios (Eco), which correspond very closely, from the cognitive point of view, to the habits that shape an individual’s everyday life. This essay explains how Beckett subverts these scenarios to show a strangeness behind which familiarity remains visible.

Sabang used to be a small, marginalized Philippine fishing village that in the span of three decades became a well-known international sex tourism site. This thesis deals with the implications of tourism (including sex tourism) and how it has become embedded in the daily life in today’s Sabang. The thesis highlights the local populations’ diverse reactions to the various changes associated with tourism growth, in particular how various symbolic, moral, and spatial boundaries are constructed and maintained. The ethnographic material examined in this thesis builds on several periods of fieldwork, in total 18 months, that were carried out between 2003 and 2015. Analytical tools found in tourism anthropology and in particular the branch of postcolonial tourism studies has guided the discussion and analysis of the socio-cultural effects of becoming a tourism town. This thesis argues that complex networks of boundaries are significant in maintaining a sense of order and social cohesion in times of change. Notions of cultural differences are expressed through the narratives and behaviors of the various inhabitants, and contribute to the maintaining of boundaries within and between groups. From the beginning of tourism growth commercial sex has been central and has become a significant factor in the tourism economy. While residents acknowledge their dependency on the go-go bars, the business of the night is framed so as not to defeat the inhabitants’ struggles to maintain local community’s sense of morality, or at least to set up boundaries between the outsiders’ immorality and insiders’ morality. Tourism has also offered opportunities to challenge conventional social hierarchies and local seats of power, and there are also recurrent discussions about who has the right to control resources and who can claim entitlement to a place now shared by people from all over the world.

This dissertation examines everyday life in selected works by Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, and Katherine Mansfield. It builds on recent scholarship by Bryony Randall (2007) and Liesl Olson (2009), who have argued that modernism marks a turn to the mundane or the ordinary, a view that runs contrary to the long-established understanding of modernism as characterized by its stylistic difficulty, high culture aesthetics, and extraordinary moments. This study makes a departure from these seminal critical works, taking on a feminist perspective to look specifically at how modernist authors use style to enable inquiry into women’s everyday lives during the modernist period. This work draws on everyday life studies, particularly the theories of Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, and Rita Felski, to analyze what attention to the everyday can tell us about the feminist aims and arguments of the literary texts. The literary works studied here include: Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage (predominantly the fourth volume, The Tunnel), Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and The Waves, and Katherine Mansfield’s “Bliss” and “Marriage à la Mode.” This dissertation argues that these works reveal the ideological production of everyday life and how patriarchal power relations persist through mundane practices, while at the same time identifying or troubling sites of resistance to that ideology. This sustained attention to the everyday reveals that the transition from Victorian to modern gender roles was not all that straightforward, challenging potentially simplistic discourses of feminist progress. Literary technique and style are central to this study, which claims that Richardson, Woolf, and Mansfield use modernist stylistic techniques to articulate women’s particular experiences of everyday life and to critique the ideological production of everyday life itself. Through careful analysis of their various uses of modernist technique, this dissertation also challenges the vague or uncritical uses of the term ‘stream of consciousness’ that have long dominated modernist studies. This dissertation makes several original contributions to modernist scholarship. Its sets these three authors alongside one another under the rubric of everyday life to see what reading them together reveals about feminist modernism. The conclusions herein challenge the notion of an essentializing ‘feminine’ modernism that has largely characterized discussion of these authors’ common goals. This dissertation also contributes a new reading of bourgeois everydayness in Mansfield’s stories, and is the first to discuss cycling as a mode of resistance to domesticity in The Tunnel. It argues for the ‘mobile space’ of cycling as a supplement to the common symbol of feminist modernism, the ‘room of one’s own.’ The reading herein of Woolf’s contradictory approach to the everyday challenges the accepted view among Woolf scholars that her theory of ‘moments of being’ has transformative power in everyday life. This dissertation also makes a feminist intervention into everyday studies, which has been criticized for its failure to take account of women’s lives. / Graduate / 0593 / tarastar@gmail.com

The aim of this dissertation project is to describe the ways people experience parenting a deaf child who uses a cochlear implant. Within a framework of social science studies of disability this is done by combining approaches using ethnographic and netnographic methods of participant observation with an interview study. Interpretations are based on the first-person perspective of 19 parents against the background of their related networks of social encounters of everyday life. The netnographic study is presented in composite conversations building on exchanges in 10 social media groups, which investigates the parents’ meaning-making in interaction with other parents with similar living conditions. Ideas about language, technology, deafness, disability, and activism are explored. Lived parenting refers to the analysis of accounts of orientation and what 'gets done' in respect to these ideas in situations where people utilize the senses differently. In the results, dilemmas surrounding language, communication and cochlear implantation are identified and explored. The dilemmas extend from if and when to implant, to decisions about communication modes, intervention approaches, and schools. An important finding concerns the parents’ orientations within the dilemmas, where most parents come up against antagonistic conflicts. There are also examples found of a development process in parenting based on lived, in-depth experiences of disability and uncertainty which enables parents to transcend the conflictive atmosphere. This process is analyzed in terms of a social literacy of dis/ability.