This thesis reports on research regarding the influence of family structure on young people’s engagement in physical activity. It focussed on understanding how young people’s physical activity dispositions were constructed within wider structural forces that impacted on their ev…
This thesis provides an ethnographic analysis of how Greek gay men experience the ways in which their sexuality is subject to ‘negotiation’ in the family and the military, how these ‘negotiations’ influence and sometimes even inhibit the creation of an LGBT movement. The experie…
This thesis explores the subjective experience of ageing with a particular focus on midlife. I argue that midlife signifies an important phase of transition in the life course which is often characterised by essential changes in personal circumstances. Although many of these cha…
Interactive TV, a new media service based on an amalgamation of traditional TV watching and Web-based features, has turned consuming TV programmes and value-added services into an individual and interactive experience. This research aims to stimulate thinking about the changing …
This thesis seeks to contribute to the literature on Walter Benjamin and Jean Baudrillard, but not to merely retread old debates. It is concerned instead with a re-evaluation of the work of both thinkers in a particular context: the experience of the new cultural spaces, of twen…
"'Love's Labours': Extreme Metal Music, and its Feeling Community" proposes an understanding of the nature of subcultural investments in music. It explores the distinct character of Extreme Metal music and the subcultural world that surrounds its fandom. In particular, it is con…
Sweden as the great welfare state where everybody is equally welcomed and cared for has for long been the prevailing view. Although Swedish integration policy seems to confirm this view, this is far removed from many people’s experienced reality. I argue that part of this dishar…
This thesis explores online sociability practices in a discussion website for feminist activists in Central and Eastern Europe. It examines the constitution of identity, community and social action focusing on interactive, generic, technological, and discursive context of online…
The promotion of 'active' ageing in later life has been a key development in recent health policy. These changes not only challenge the prevalent view of old age as an inevitable process of biological decline but signify the tendency of lay and expert discourses to increasingly …
The main purpose of the following inquiry is to emphasise the importance of a phenomenon long neglected by the majority of the human sciences, the artefact; each one of us, no matter what age, sex or culture, is in contact with artefacts every moment of our lives yet despite thi…
This thesis offers an analysis of how conceptions of responsibility have affected social responses to HIV/AIDS. The central premise of this work is that how responsibility for the disease is presumed has a determining impact upon policy and individual reactions to the epidemic. …
This thesis considers the ways in which the dominated, marked and suffering body (the controlled body) has been represented and employed in recent mainstream cinema. Noting a shift from narratives that depict escape and the alleviation of torment to ones that highlight subjectio…
This research analyses the role and action of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreements (TRIPS) and pharmaceutical patents in the public health network of Djibouti, by using an approach largely inspired by actor-network theory (ANT). In doing so, it addresses issues tha…
This thesis examines the emergence of the Irish Catholic diaspora in the industrial diocese of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the evolution of the West Riding's forgotten Irish rugby clubs, 1860-c 1920. In addition to considering the contributions of Irish immigrants in the h…
The health experiences, and the lived experiences in general, of homeless young women have largely been overlooked. In seeking to redress this situation, the research findings presented in this thesis support those from other homelessness studies; the sample's health was poor. H…
This research aims to find out the factors as well as the mechanism of young people’s self-destructive behaviour in Taiwan. The research employed a mixed methodology- both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In the quantitative study, a self-reported questionnaire sur…
This study explores the applicability of different conceptual models to two different policy sectors in Scotland; education and health, with specific reference to SHARE a specially designed school sex education programme. The study also draws on the policy network literature to …
This study explores the international diffusion of new technology i.e. changes over time in the extent to which world output is produced using, or world consumption is made up of products incorporating, specific new technologies. This topic has received relatively little attenti…
The aim of this PhD was to explore the social representations of heroin and heroin users. There are an estimated 300,000 heroin addicts in the UK today (NTA, 2008) and despite the normalisation of other illicit drugs (Parker, Aldridge & Measham, 1998) this group remains marginal…