Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Localism'

This thesis examines the formal introduction of Localism in the South West county of Cornwall, UK. Using data taken from three distinct areas of the county, this work critically analyses strategies of Localism, where it takes place, who is involved and how it is performed. This research is contexualised within an era of localism, advocating the devolution of political governance with the aim to produce sustainable democratic communities. Changes to local government in 2009 saw Cornwall Council restructure from a two-tiered to a unitary local authority. The previous six district councils and one county council were dissolved and instead, Cornwall was divided into nineteen Community Network Areas with one centralised council. These Areas were provided with dedicated Localism officers, administrative and public service facilities and given the remit to employ the ethos of Localism to everyday interaction between the local authority and citizenry. This introduction of a formal style of conducting Localism followed the then Labour Party’s design for a Third Way; for revolutionising governance to make it increasingly civic-focused and for devolving local decision-making in the hands of communities. The findings of the thesis conclude that Localism has been a largely top-down endeavour by government and as such, widespread bottom-up governance has not been able to emerge through governmental structures. Local resistance to these structures, and the rigid frameworks and targets introduced by Localism, have meant that parts of Localism appear and disappear at certain moments. The ideological vision for Localism has therefore been interrupted, however it is through localism with a small ‘l’, historically part of the day-to-day operations of those at the heart of civic engagement, such as town and parish councils, which has emerged as pivotal in on-going local governing opportunities.

This thesis examines the new regime brought in by the Localism Act 2011 for promoting and maintaining standards of conduct of members of English local government. It asks how practitioners can improve their practice in the implementation of new legislation addressing the issue of standards of behaviour of locally elected politicians. The legislation was highly controversial in reversing the approach taken by the previous Labour government of a national oversight regime and addresses the issue of public confidence in local elected representatives by leaving decisions to take action regarding standards to local authorities. This is a form of localism. The thesis adopts the methodology of action research combining two specific elements of insider action research and participative action research. This is achieved through reflective consideration of own practice and working with a regional partnership of public sector professionals charged with the responsibility of administering and applying the legislation to deal with complaints. The participants are at the most senior level of their professions and they contribute through rigorous semi structured interviews supported by public sector performance indicators. This provides robust qualitative and quantitative data which enables an original assessment of the implementation of a controversial piece of legislation. The thesis provides evidence to support the finding that the Localism Act's duty on local authorities to promote and maintain standards of conduct of members is subject to local culture and by the removal of the national oversight of the former Standards Board, Standards for England and the Audit Commission, standards can only be maintained and improved by close regard to the Committee for Standards in Public life guidance and practitioners working together as in the sample partnership applying best practice Critical Success Factors and actions to promote the raising of standards of elected members. This thesis identifies such Critical Success Factors and provides a narrative of the author's improvements in practice as the research proceeds. As action research is used as the method, it is intended that the findings of the research will be fed into further action research cycles.

Localism places a special value on the local, and is increasingly prominent as a political doctrine. The literature suggests localism operates in three ways: bottom-up, top down and mutualistic. To assess its impact, localism needs to be seen within the broader context of multi-level governance. Here localism is examined in relation to three major themes: place, public value (PV), and institutional design. Regarding place, a key distinction is drawn between old and new localism. Old localism is about established local government, while new localism highlights the increasing room for manoeuvre that localities have in contemporary politics. This enables them to influence wider power structures, for example through trans-local organizing. With regard to public value, localist thinking makes a key contribution to core PV domains such as sustainability, wellbeing and democracy, as well as to others like territorial cohesion and intergovernmental mutuality. As for institutional design, the study is particularly concerned with ‘sub-continental’ political systems. A set of principles for the overall design of such systems is proposed, together with a framework of desirable policy outcomes at the local level. This can be used to evaluate how effective political systems are at creating public value in local settings. The thesis presents a comparative study of localism in two significant, sub-continental clusters: India/Kerala/Kollam and the EU/UK/England/Cornwall. Both can be seen as contrasting ‘exemplars’ of localism in action. In India, localism was a major factor in the nationwide local self-government reforms of 1993 and their subsequent enactment in the state of Kerala. In the EU, localism has been pursued through an economic federalism based on regions and sub-regions. This is at odds with the top-down tradition in British politics. The tension between the two approaches is being played out currently in the peripheral sub-region of Cornwall/Isles of Scilly. Cornwall’s dilemma has been sharpened by Britain’s recent decision to leave the EU. The thesis considers the wider implications of the case studies, and presents some proposals for policymakers and legislators to consider, together with suggestions for further research.

Post 1997, the New Labour administration wanted to foster innovation in local government to reduce bureaucracy and modernise the public sector - part of the Local Government Modernisation Agenda (LGMA). One keystone of that agenda was to introduce a power of first resort for local government (DCLG, 2008). Authorities could regard this power as a license to offer creative and innovative solutions to local problems, to engage in any function that did not break the law. New Labour’s new discretionary power was called the Power of Well-Being. Despite central government’s aspiration, evidence shows that less than a fifth of local authorities have used the Power of Well-Being. This thesis provides a comparative investigation across four local authorities into their use of the Power of Well-Being. The aim of this research is to assess the impact of the Power of Well-Being on local authorities’ autonomy, their attitudes towards discretionary power and local authority officers’ attitudes towards risk. From the four case study authorities, it was clear that the attitude of senior officers - and the culture of an organisation - was the greatest determinant of whether to engage the Power of Well-Being. The research found that the role of legal officers and the attitude of senior officers or members is crucial in the successful engagement of discretionary legal power. In local authority’s that are devoid of cultural ambition within the organisation, risk averse legal officers acted as ‘gatekeepers’ to block usage of the Power of Well-Being. Where an organisational culture of ambition does not exist, the withdrawal of discretionary funding tends to limit the level of engagement in discretionary activity. However, where stability occurs there is a greater likelihood of discretionary activity. The implication of this research on a future discretionary power, and local government’s autonomy, is that the most significant hindrance to the success of a discretionary power would be officers’ and members’ attitudes. The Power of Well-Being technically enabled authorities to break from tradition to engage beyond their traditional boundaries; in practise, this was not the case. Successful engagement in discretionary activity would require officers and members to be fully aware of the practicalities of use of a discretionary power.

This study explores the Portland music scene as a context in which local identity is constructed and communicated in a globalized world. Specifically, neo-localism is utilized as a theoretical lens through which the impacts of globalization were explored. Portland bands (n=8) were interviewed concerning their experiences in the local music scene. The results showed that participants conceptualized local identity as being 1) based in community, 2) culturally saturated and 3) connected to musical production. Further, results showed that participants were increasingly aware of this local identity, were aware of a global perception of this local identity and were aware of other local identities. Overall the results from this study support neo-localism as a useful conceptual lens for understanding local identity for Portland bands.

This thesis is a study of attitudes to regional and national identity in Kabylia, a Berber-speaking region in northeast Algeria, and among Kabyle migrants in Paris. I illustrate how Kabyles nurture a fragile balance of nationalism and regional particularism through a primarily moral notion of local community, and extend it to an alternative vision for an Algerian nation which they believe has been debased by a corrupt state regime and Arabo-Islamic ideology since national independence. The thesis is based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork divided between two places – Paris and a large village in Kabylia – and reflects my interest in how people ‘imagine’ national community through their experience as members of smaller social groups. Many Kabyle activists today formulate an alternative vision of Algerian national politics as a federation of several regionally based affective communities, each maintaining internal solidarity. This echoes a tendency in French colonial writings on Kabylia, discussed in the opening chapter, to conceive of the region as an island, intensively connected yet defensive of its autonomy. As citizens of the existing Algerian state, many Kabyles contest assimilation by claiming to represent Algeria’s ‘true past’, and investing contemporary governance initiatives with its values. They represent the radical difference that this implies with metaphors of the Kabyle community as a family within ‘public’ national life, and accuse the state regime of reversing this relationship by adopting a language of coercive authority appropriate only within the family. The transmission of Kabyle values today relies heavily on music, and especially political song, which I demonstrate – beyond its role in disseminating dissident ideas – acts as a vehicle for a type of secular revealed knowledge widely seen as the purest embodiment of Kabyle morality. Beyond the hollow rhetoric of Western liberalism that some see in Kabyle activism, I set out to demonstrate that the particular narrative of identity that I examine, in stressing regional uniqueness at the expense of recognition from a centralized state, also reflects anomalies inherent in the concept of ‘nationalism’ itself as a compromise between the requirements of external co-operation and internal allegiance.

The Localism Act (2011) was intended to bring about radical decentralisation, encompassing reforms to the planning system to make it clearer, more democratic and effective. Neighbourhood planning was introduced to address the democratic deficit experienced by communities under previous governments. Neighbourhood plans, the main plank of the new legislation and intended as a robust addition to the plan hierarchy, were envisaged as empowering and enabling communities to control the type of development in their area. This research focusses on the delivery of neighbourhood plans from the perspectives of policy actors, planners and communities. With Northumberland forming the main case study, three sub-case studies have been used; two neighbourhood plan Front Runners are compared with the successful rural regeneration initiatives of a Development Trust. These are used to examine the extent to which the neighbourhood planning process is bringing about the changes vaunted by the government. The research was conducted using semi-structured, in-depth interviews and content analysis together with participatory and visual appraisal tools in the case study areas in the north and west of Northumberland. Drawing on collaborative planning theory and theories of neo-endogenous rural development, the research indicates that, through the collaborative processes of delivering neighbourhood plans, a regeneration of local governance institutions may be emerging. This thesis argues, however, that the processes of localism, expressed through neighbourhood planning, cut across entrenched patterns of land-use, land ownership and power relations in Northumberland. The thesis also argues that to fully understand the processes of localism and neighbourhood planning, the underlying socio-economic and political context in which neighbourhood plans are developed must also be considered. It is further contended that the decentralisation, community empowerment and control of development promised through the new localism legislation remain largely rhetoric and a guise for centralist control.

This thesis explores the concept of ‘deracinated localism’, as a big, dialectical, conceptual frame, in order to think through small towns - and community research - in a period of economic downturn, using the northwestern post-industrial town of Todmorden as an example. It is an ethnographic study. The thesis examines how small towns have been viewed as erroneously contained units, in terms of how the historical literature of community studies approached them, but also in terms of how declarations of particular kinds of localism emerge from ‘holistic’ community groups on the ground in Todmorden. This thesis argues, by spending time with - for instance - those practicing informal economies in a post- industrial context, that these rhetorical, ‘ways of life’ forms of community tend to over-write and eclipse particular ‘ways of being’, which are characterised by ‘getting by’, and are produced by relatively weak flows of capital, through an area some distance from metropolitan centres. It also argues that a particular kind of ‘degentrification’ is being symbolically enacted here, as the expansion of the middle classes slows, although this ‘degentrification’ is coupled with a symbolic attempt to gain access to resources and agency. In this there is a sense that class divisions have been both preserved and overcome in Todmorden, as the advocates of a spiritualised rustic production incubate classed disgust in their discourses, and working class groups resist this with ambivalence. At the same time, very complicated class narratives emerge from - for instance- those practicing informal economies, which are neither straightforward nor simplistically binary (i.e. ‘working or middle class’). A further dimension of this thesis is the fact that the site of study is the author’s ‘home town’ - although this is not straightforward either - and so the methodological issues around ethics, biography, autoethnography, reflexivity, the familiar and strange, private troubles and public issues, are explored in relation to the ethnographic work carried out. Drawing on interviews, participant observation and visual archives, it also works through the key paradigms of the rural and urban, provincialism, race and racism - including extreme fascism - asian community politics, gender, sexuality and moral communities, in order to build a picture of an opened-out small town, which is both provincial and transnational. These contradictory complexes generated my key framing idea of ‘deracinated localism’, via which we might think through the tangles of global flows, and more symbolically entrenched, older forms of community, which still exist, essentially as traces of the older industrial period. Other forms of community politics and conflict are explored, for instance supermarketisation, in order to further place Todmorden as just another global node in a globalised field, at the same time as inwardly, most of the community networks here attempt forms of symbolic resistance to the divorce of global power and local politics, a divorce which is too vast to be seen ‘in the local’, and yet constructs and re-constructs it every day. These forms of resistance are often not clearly understood from within, but instinctively applied, and an underlying purity and toxicity discourse emerged throughout the research, as various individuals and groups attempted to impossibly bracket themselves apart from each other, and from this unseen global power, on a small-scale local landscape which is reproduced and therefore framed by these larger, global flows.

Recent scholarship has pointed to the rise of localism in Hong Kong and provided detailed analyses of its most representative social movement, the 2014 Umbrella Movement. However, the impact of localism in Hong Kong on ordinary mainland Chinese's understanding of Hong Kong-mainland China as a united national community remains under-researched. This thesis aims to fill the gap in the literature by investigating how localism impacts the unity of the Chinese as a national community on a local and national scale, focusing on the protests in Hong Kong in 2019, as known as the Anti-ELAB movement or ‘No Extradition to China’. In doing so, it moves away from the Hong Kong-centric view on Hong Kong issues in relation to the convergence or divergence of national identity and proposes a new perspective with the potential to contribute both empirically and theoretically to the scholarship on localism vis-à-vis nationalism and on the construction of national identity following the territorial reunification of a formerly separated region. Specifically, the thesis analyses mainland netizens’ and localists’ discourse, including slogans, labelling, stereotyping, and general opinions, and examines the dilemma of the localist movement in Hong Kong and the attitudes and opinions of mainland Chinese while engaging with Hong Kong issues. The discourses are assembled from news reports and Weibo posts. The analysis centres on three axes suggested by Onodera: the presence of bottom-up and top-down nationalism, the understanding of Western values, and the ‘enemy’ of the nation. It reveals the struggle to distinguish ‘us’ and ‘them’ within the national community, the narrative on interpreting the relationship between the mainland and Hong Kong, and the conflicts between pro-Western and pro-regime ideas in contestation over the formation of identities.

This study examines county identity in the art culture of Britain between c. 1820 and 1939. In doing so it tests the validity of the prevailing historiography of culture. This historiography emphasizes the growth of the state, homogenization of class identity and the importance of 'Britishness'. This thesis examines the historiography in relation to the artistic community of Northumberland between the establishment of the Northumberland Institution for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in 1822 and the Second World War. It argues that county identity, its forms and its survival, were as much due to internal factors as nationwide trends. It also asserts that much of the relevant historiography needs to be adapted to take into account the continuing strength of county identity and needs to see this county identity as often being as important as class in all areas of the art world. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the progression towards a 'nationalization of culture' was not always smooth or one way and that the idea of a growth in 'Englishness' and class identity needs to be reviewed.

The local food movement has become a prominent force in the U.S. food market, as represented by the explosive expansion of direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketplaces across the country. Concurrent with the expansion of these DTC marketplaces has been the development of the social ideal of localism: a political and ethical paradigm that valorizes artisanal production and smallness, vilifies globalization, and seeks to recapture a sense of place and community that has been lost under the alienating conditions of capitalism’s gigantism. Supporters of localism understand the movement to be a substantial political and economic threat to global capitalism, and ascribe distinct, counter-hegemonic attributes to localized consumption and production. However, critics argue that localism lacks the political imagination and economic power to meaningfully challenge global capitalism, and that it merely represents an elite form of petite bourgeois consumption. While scholars have debated this issue feverishly, there is a dearth of empirical cases measuring whether or not actual local consumers understand their local consumption within the political and ethical frame of localism, leaving much of the discussion in the realm of esoteric theorizing. This study seeks to uncover whether or not local consumers interpret their local consumption habits within localism’s moral framework by using an original survey instrument to gather primary data, and conducting an exploratory quantitative inquiry.

Problems with food insecurity, such as a lack of access to healthy and affordable food in low-income neighborhoods, has been an ongoing challenge in New Orleans. The damages inflicted by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent citywide flooding on the local food system reduced the numerical count of operational full-service supermarkets and grocery stores throughout the city. The result has been a widespread presence of food deserts and grocery gaps, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. This thesis explores the emergence of food localism practices by food advocacy professionals as a capacity-building tool for New Orleans residents to increase community food security and develop a sustainable local food economy. This paper finds although alternative agro-food networks have increased the availability of healthy and locally produced foods in New Orleans, it provide evidence demonstrating their limited capacity to regularly provide healthy or affordable food in a similar manner to grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods.

The theme of devolution has been taken up by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition from May 2010. This study demonstrates the enduring nature of the problem of devolving responsibility. The primary concern is to make an original contribution to the literature on the development of new localism by focusing on two contrasting Kentish examples of networked community governance: Downswood Parish Council and Kings Hill Parish Council. Downswood Parish Council's structure of governance is representative of the sometimes difficult central-local relationship. At Kings Hill the dual struggle for power includes a third partner, the private service provider (developer of Kings Hill). The study seeks to show that traditional social capital theory provides few insights into citizens' motivations to invest in social capital as a public good. Theories of leadership and club goods are introduced to provide an explicit theoretical account of the links between social networks and individual motivations. It will be argued that these theories make it possible to depart from Robert Putnam's belief that social capital is a bottom-up initiative in governance. The main findings show that both models of parish governance are remarkably good at generating and mobilising/expanding social capital. But it has to be emphasised that it is not in the interest of those holding power to just give it up. Instead, once community activists have gained the residents' support it is up to them to take power, and at times be critical of government policy. This is exactly what the parish councillors did on several occasions.

Pennsylvania's northeast frontier---a region embraced by the upper reaches of the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers---was the scene of a bitter and, at times, bloody backwoods dispute. Here Yankees (settlers and speculators holding deeds from Connecticut land companies) fought Pennamites (settlers and landlords who claimed land under Pennsylvania) for land and authority. This contest began in the 1760s and lasted till the first decade of the nineteenth century and, for a time, pitted Connecticut against Pennsylvania in a bitter jurisdictional conflict. This study focuses on the dispute after the revolutionary war when the federal government awarded the contested territory to Pennsylvania and when Connecticut claimants, who became known as Wild Yankees, violently resisted the imposition of Pennsylvania's authority and soil rights.;This study explores agrarian unrest in northeast Pennsylvania and adds to existing backcountry scholarship by demonstrating that the revolutionary frontier was not only the scene of a battle over land and authority but also the locus of a struggle over identity and the definition of local culture. It analyzes how frontier expansion, the Revolution, class conflict, and disputes over property intersected with the daily lives of ordinary men and women by examining the small-scale social networks (family, kin, and neighborhood) that delimitated their lives.;This study makes two closely connected arguments. First, it contends that backcountry inhabitants' local lives---the social relationships, economic networks, and sources of authority that operated on a face-to-face level---framed their aspirations as well as their perceptions of the Revolution and social conflict. This parochial world view, or localism, played an important role in shaping frontier expansion and frontier unrest. Second, it argues that localism, though it had always been present in agrarian society, became a paramount ingredient of identity and ideology in the backcountry between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Rapid frontier expansion combined with the Revolution to create a distinct parochial world view among settlers that can best be described as revolutionary backcountry localism .

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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
This theisis analyzes the ways in wich the skaters take ownerships of urban space through motion-generating forms of ownership and property in urban spaces. For this, the research drew on an ethnographic work with the population of skateboarders in order to follow the route of these subjects using a dynamic three-dimensional by metropolis: the body, the skatepark and de city. In this study, therefore, sought to follow the experience of the skaters do in the city, between the smooth and striated from the way they deal with your body to forms more dense clusters in areas predetermined for this practice, even in broader dimensions of sprawl in different lanes, squares ande streets of the metropolitan region of São Paulo
Esta Dissertação tem como objetivo analisar os modos pelos quais os skatistas se apropriam do espaço urbano por meio de movimentos geradores de formas de apropriação e de propriedade sobre o espaça urbano. Para isso, a pesquisa valeu-se de um trabalho de cunho etnográfico junto ao universo de skatistas com o objetivo de acompanhar o itinerário destes sujeitos através de uma dinâmica tridimensional pela metrópole: o corpo, a pista e a cidade. Neste trabalho, portanto, buscou-se seguir a experiência dos skatistas em fazer cidade, entre o liso e o estriado, desde o modo como lidam com seu corpo, passando por formas mais densas de agrupamentos em espaços pré-determinados para sua prática, até em suas dimensões mais amplas de espraiamento por diferentes pistas, praças e ruas da região metropolitana de São Paulo

Italy and Italian football have captured the imagination of writers and fans across the globe. The Italia ’90 world cup reaffirmed Italy’s standing as a world power in football. It also marked a turning point in global sport. At the end of the twentieth century, global sport underwent a period of profound transformation. In parallel to similar process taking place elsewhere in politics, economics and society, sport was entering a period of de-regulation and commodification, which impacted national leagues and local fans. Despite the intensification of transnational global networks resulting from de-regulation, individual nation states still hold significant power. Likewise, national leagues are still significant to football clubs despite the growth of global markets and transnational competitions. Yet these global processes of commodification and de-regulation have impacted fans in vastly different ways. This thesis provides analysis of Italian football in relation to the impact of the changing global political economy. Through analysis of the Italian political economy, it will identify the complex personal networks operating across Italian business, politics and football. This has witnessed the emergence of a number of significant charismatic leaders who operate across these networks and utilise patronage to gain an advantage. These patrimonial networks were initially successful, as Italian football quickly adapted to the changing global economy. However, it has not capitalised on this early success. Italian clubs are struggling financially in relation to their European peers. This has been compounded by a series of crises have impacted Italian football. The crises within Italian society and football have impacted the engagement of fans. Political engagement has fallen and this is replicated in the stadiums. The historical failure of the Italian state to impose itself has been further undermined by globalisation processes. Traditional regional identities have been reinforced as globalisation has further weakened the nation state. Changes to the patterns of consumption have combined with these traditional identities and has led to a greater particularisation in society. Individualism and regionalism have grown, and this has led to a decline in engagement with wider public life and social capital. One aspect of this decline has been demonstrated by several high profile violent incidents, and deaths at Italian matches. The impact of this decline will be addressed in relation to the formation of supporters’ groups and the match-day experiences of fans. Ultimately this decline is financially affecting the clubs which further contributes to the overall crisis within Italian football.

This thesis concerns the making and remaking of localism, by which the thesis refers to the experience of group identity expressed through commitment to community, in rural Northumberland. Specifically, the research investigates the process of becoming, or claiming to be, or being seen as, a local person, and of belonging to a community. It examines how the processes of making, verifying and ascribing such identity claims occur and in what situations and contexts. The research contributes to the sociology of local identity and ‘belonging’, using a broad ethnographic methodology focused around public events. Through participant observation and analysing some relevant documents, it examines how ‘incomers’ and ‘locals’ cooperate to organize and attend these events and how they provide a time/space through which solidarity or otherwise is performed and identities are related to the outside world. The thesis argues against binaries such as public and private, insider and outsider, local and incomer, and instead proposes that there are layers of belonging, gradations of relationship and many points of interconnection. Further, division and cooperation are different ways in which groups and individuals choose to connect, and both are forms of attachment and interrelationship existing along a continuum of belonging. A person can commit and connect over time through volunteering and acquiring local knowledge about the place. However, often it is those who are socially on the fringes, the incomers, who are most assiduous in performing what passes for local. History is important for understanding prevailing social conditions, and some current events were analysed in an historical context. Many commentators have drawn boundaries around their area of study. However this thesis argues that the boundaries, geographic and social, move depending upon context, time, situation and the social location of those involved, including the researcher. The conclusion brings together a set of interconnected findings, and presents the distinctive main arguments about belonging and the local in the thesis. First, birth is not an absolute criterion for belonging and incomers can become ‘local’ in the sense that they can move inwards into their own construction of place. Second, rather than focusing on boundaries alone, the centre of what is bounded is seen as being as important as the boundaries in assessing what it means to be local. Third, while looking into the historic past is a valuable tool in understanding prevailing social conditions, attention must also be paid to the evolving future and how such perceived changes impact on the social. Fourth, there are varied routes to belonging that allow a person to move from outside towards inside. However, the routes to belonging are complicated and cannot be patterned. Fifth, the boundaries are permeable and expand to the global and contract not only to the local, but to the isolated, following an annual rhythm. The result is research which contributes to the sociology of localism and ‘belonging’ in relation to community and self in contemporary Britain.

This thesis focuses on the dilemma caused by visible differences which are used etic-ly to envisage a group as an ethnic group. The Arvanites are a group of Albanian speaking Greeks who have been living in Greece for one thousand years. They are thought to have come to Greece as mercenaries. The Great Empires gave them lands where they eventually settled down in payment for their service. Throughout the centuries they have maintained their language. However, with the Age of nationalism, they slowly transformed their identity from a regional localised ethnic identity to a Greek national identity. As a result, the Arvanite language, Arvanitika, is in decline at the present time. I set out to explore the ways in which ethnicity or non-ethnicity is practiced and examine the construction of a Arvanite/Greek national identity and offer this as a case study through which we might further our understanding of the practices and politicisation of identity in a context of the Greek nation but more generally in any national context where ethnic identities are not recognised by national, super-national or international forums. The accomplishment of the Greek national model has been examined intensively in terms of it formation, foundation and historicity and its relationship to Europe and in opposition to other national entities such as Turkey. However, such approaches may explain the Greek invention of nationalism from a political and historical point of view but such approaches miss the cognitivisation of national, local and ethnic identities through action and practice in everyday life. Moreover the actors have forgotten much of their local history which may have given them the propensity to choose to participate in or even subordinate their own ethnic identities for an alternative prestigious, in this case, national history and identity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the village of Gogofis in North Eastern Attica, I consider mundane acts of everyday life such as, patron/client systems, kin-like relationships, names and naming of people and the processes of memory production and reproduction, as well as practices associated with food and landscape within the framework of the Arvanites’ relationship to the nation state. I then investigate the Arvanites’ relationship to Albanian immigrants, and to the state to better qualify the Arvanites as Greeks or as ethnic Albanians. I conclude that the Arvanites consciously embrace and maintain their Greek identity through banal processes while having an alternative outlook with regards to the Albanians whom the Arvanites envisage as representations of their past selves. Thus, instead of seeing them as a threatening ‘others’ or simply as sources of cheap labour, they see them as part of their own village, representing future villagers, future Greeks, and future memories. The Arvanite should not be understood as just a passive ethnic group who has submitted unawares to symbolic violence. Rather they are active participants in the nation state and see both social and cultural capital advantages in maintaining the nation. Finally, although this thesis focuses on Arvanite/Albanian/Greeks constructions and expressions of ethnic/local and national identity, it may be considered a framework for any ‘ethnic’ group and their relationship to a state in which the said, group inhabits and participates but fundamentally does not ‘fit’ essentialised categorisations of national membership.

This thesis seeks to address a research gap concerning the relationship between the Localism Act 2011 and planning’s central purpose of achieving sustainable development. In addition it uses a physical example in urban space to illustrate the main arguments, and in doing so adds to the growing literature on the various outcomes since the Localism Act was enforced across England in 2011. The thesis asks four inter-related questions: Firstly, regarding the theoretical bases of sustainability and localism from the various ontologies of ‘scale’ and ‘the natural’; secondly, regarding the general conflicting assumptions within localism and sustainable development; thirdly, regarding the ways in which sustainable development is inherently multi-scalar; and lastly how our case study example highlights the need for policy-makers to examine the often overlooked trade-offs which exist in normative sustainable development models. The thesis also demonstrates the role that site-specific research can play in grounding theoretical and policy discussions. The research is situated in the rapidly changing sub-region of East London, particularly in the shadow of the 2012 Olympic regeneration of Stratford and the Borough of Newham. We take the example of a failed upgrade due the Localism Act, of a multi-scalar and multi-functional ‘Greenway’ to consider the relationship between localism and sustainable urbanism in the context neo-liberalism. Methods comprise site-based analysis in the form of walking, photography and note-taking, the analysis of national, metropolitan and local planning documents, as well as interviews with officials related to policy and design in the area and local residents. The research finds that national and metropolitan conceptions of sustainable development are weighted differently to those at local scales. In addition the Localism Act exacerbates planning capacities between Local Authorities and the communities they serve. There are some opportunities for neighbourhood planning but these are dependent on local capacities, widening already-existing socio-spatial inequalities. The thesis concludes by destabilising the widely used idea of sustainable development as a ‘balance’ between social, economic and environmental needs. Viewing sustainability through a scalar lens, in our case using a physical site and the policy of Localism, we are able to reveal the material differences between sustainable development agendas which have been criticised for masking over conflict in a post-political manner for the continuation of ‘status quo’ economic development trajectories.

While localism is a particularly important aspect of Congress' mandate that broadcasters serve "the public interest, convenience or necessity," the history of US radio broadcasting exhibits persistent tensions between nationalism and localism, which have intensified in recent decades. Current concerns about the loss of localism in US radio broadcasting invite us to reinterpret US radio history from a local perspective. This dissertation traces the tensions between localism and nationalism in US radio broadcasting through four forms of radio broadcasting constructed specifically to serve localism and the public interest: the 10-watt Class D license, full power public radio as typified by National Public Radio, the Low Power FM (LPFM) license established in 2000, and the controversial use of low power radio by religious broadcasters. The Class D license, US public radio, and LPFM all originated with the stated objective of serving the public in meaningful ways which commercial broadcasting cannot. Yet to date, each of these has failed to meet this goal, whether due to legislative action, organizational failure or conflict amongst broadcast entities. Further, each of these case studies illustrates the conflict between nationalism and localism ever-present in efforts to establish radio broadcasting services that adequately and meaningfully serve local publics. Through a critical-historical analysis of the tensions between nationalism and localism in US radio broadcasting, this dissertation offers an understanding for the reasons and implications of the continued failure of radio's ability to serve local communities in the United States. In doing so, I look to the failures of the past to suggest how we may revise the current LPFM license to effectively serve local publics.

This study examines the concept of local food and the discourses surrounding the concept, both of which have played a significant role during Kentuckys agricultural restructuring. Since the mid-1990s, Kentucky farmers who were dependent on tobacco production began to struggle financially after the substantial reduction of quota allotments, and they were encouraged to diversify their agricultural production. Subsequently, practices of producing, marketing, and consuming locally-grown food were implemented. Drawing primarily on qualitative data, this study investigates the meanings of Kentuckys local food discourse development in four dimensions: 1) the political economy of tobacco production and the structural change of Kentuckys agriculture; 2) the role of diverse actors who prompted the adoption of local food; 3) the construction of local scale and micro-scale politics for marketing local food at farmers markets; and 4) the symbolization of local food at county food-related festivals. Kentuckys tobacco production declined not only because of the national anti-tobacco movement, but also because of a constellation of causes including the influence of a free-trade ideology that decreased American burleys competitiveness with global markets, and the increase of part-time farmers that led local tobacco farms to struggle with labor shortages and meeting production demands. Farmers opposition to tobacco controls and their discourses were transformed to attract supporting small food-producing farms, which ultimately merged with societal interests in the production and the consumption of local food. Commoditized local brands at increased direct-sale venues such as farmers markets, however, became political entities as regulations and surveillance were required to maintain their definition of local food. Semiotic interpretation of county food-related festivals in Kentucky shows changes in how people attach their place-identities to agricultural products and how they understand local food. Although the distribution of venues is spatially uneven, the production and the consumption of local food have gradually been adopted throughout Kentuckys landscape over the last decade. To maintain the success of localized markets, this study proposes three potential requirements: 1) the credibility of and the transparency for understanding local food; 2) the resource investment to support future producers; and 3) the expanding adoption of community food security ideals.

Esta pesquisa traz 3 estudos independentes, sobre temas ligados às questões do que é nacionalização partidária e como nacionalização, regionalização e localismo são afetados por e afetam os sistemas eleitorais e partidários. Mais especificamente, no capítulo 1 proponho uma nova definição teórica de nacionalização dos partidos e sistemas partidários. Argumento que tal conceito pode ser dividido em 4 dimensões, que são a nacionalização da organização partidária, da oferta eleitoral, da demanda eleitoral e dos resultados eleitorais. Em seguida, aplico esse quadro teórico ao caso brasileiro para mostrar como, de fato, maior precisão conceitual altera a leitura empírica que se faz de um sistema. No capítulo 2, exploro uma das consequências da nacionalização partidária, que vem sendo teorizada pela literatura mas nunca testada de modo direto. Trata-se da ideia de que nacionalização seria o que conecta as circunscrições eleitorais e faz as proposições de Duverger passarem do nível local ao nacional. Para testar isso, incluirei nacionalização dos sistemas partidários pela primeira vez num modelo de número de partidos - aptos lidar com problemas de endogeneidade que vêm impedindo autores de fazerem isso. Assim, será possível provar e demonstrar que a não inclusão de nacionalização vem causando viés de variável omitida nos modelos da literatura. Quando esse é corrigo, através da inclusão de nacionalização por um sistema de equações simultâneas, altera-se algumas das interpretações canônicas sobre a fragmentação partidária. Por fim, no capítulo 3 reavalio a ideia comum de que sistemas eleitorais com voto pessoal levariam candidatos a ter apoio eleitoral geograficamente concentrado, portanto localista. Ofereço uma discussão teórica e evidências de que tal padrão territorial não é a regra do que vem ocorrendo, por exemplo, em sistemas de lista aberta. Além disso, tanto concentrar votos como espalhá-los vem dando dividendos eleitorais e poucos candidatos conseguem atingir patamares altos de concentração, a um nível que prediga real aumento nas chances de eleição.
This research oers 3 independent studies on the questions of what is party nationalization, how nationalization, regionalization or localism are aected by and aect the electoral systems and the party systems. More specically, in the 1st chapter a new theoretical denition of party and party system nationalization is presented, dividing such concept into four dimensions - the nationalization of party organization, of the electoral supply, of the electoral demand and of the electoral outcome. After that, such a theoretical framework is applied to the Brazilian case to demonstrate how, in fact, more conceptual precision can alter empirical readings about a given party system. The 2nd chapter explores one of the consequences of party system nationalization, which literature has theorized but never tested directly. Namely, the idea that party nationalization would be what puts the electoral circumscriptions together and what makes Duvergerian propositions move from the local to the national level. To test that, party system nationalization is included for the rst time in a model of eective number of parties, after handling endogeneity problems that have prevented scholars from doing the same. With such inclusion, it will be proven and demonstrated that omitting party nationalization from models of number of parties, which is a common practice, incurs in omitted variable bias. In fact, such correct inclusion of party nationalization trough a system of simultaneous equations corrects that bias, altering some of the canonical interpretations about party system fragmentation. Lastly, in the 3rd chapter I reevaluate the common idea that electoral systems with personal voting would lead to geographical concentration (i.e. localization) of candidates\' electoral support. I oer a theoretical discussion and then empirical evidence that such territorial pattern is not the rule of what happens for instance in open-list PR. Besides, both concentrating and spreading votes are electorally protable results and very few candidates achieve levels of concentration that predicts eective increases in the odds of being elected.

This thesis investigates the nature of participatory democracy offered by the UK’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government between 2010 and 2015. Primary and secondary data are employed to consider citizen participation in Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs), a community-led planning initiative introduced under the Localism Act (2011). This explores the nature of participation on offer, and how citizens are simultaneously encountering and creating new democratic spaces, navigating legislative frameworks, managing relationships with governance partners, and seeking to secure their own interests. An interpretive policy analysis methodology is employed, highlighting how the interpretations of core participants play a central role in determining the content and direction of NDPs and the dynamics of local participation. The findings highlight the instrumental approach adopted by many participants in light of their previous experiences with local government, the expectations and norms of the planning system, and on-going uncertainty concerning ‘light touch’ regulation. Participants report rudimentary processes of co-production, however the crucial supporting role of Local Authorities remains uneven and largely unaccountable. The findings pay particular attention to the ways in which the participatory space is structured both implicitly and explicitly by the discursive framing of participation, the regulations, and national policy makers, local government officers and private consultants. Overall a picture of bounded participation is presented - with contestation largely bracketed out, ignored or otherwise managed within participatory spaces. As a result, the post-2010 localist agenda can be seen to be a form of centralism wielded at the local level. Despite this, positive changes are identified at the citizen/state nexus, with some communities seeking to co-opt the process and achieve a vision for their neighbourhood beyond the scope of land use policies, whilst evidence of increased community resilience, nascent collective identities, and enthusiasm concerning local democracy are also identified. The thesis contributes to on-going debates concerning democratic innovations by building on Mouffe’s theory of agonistic pluralism and exploring the extent to which present forms of participatory democracy display signs of agonistic practice. A model of agonistic participation is set out, reorienting the macro level insights of agonistic pluralism, with the empirical data concerning citizen participation at the micro and meso levels. This incorporates practical lessons from deliberative democracy, and seeks to move beyond increasingly well rehearsed debates between the two traditions to promote a positive sum approach that allows citizens to secure their interests and combat hegemonic practices by determining the nature of their own participation.

This research examines the sustainability and participatory objectives of the UK’s planning system in a geographical context. It aims to explore the relationships between communities and place, and the connections between national government, local governments and communities in planning processes and outcomes. It also considers the role of planning in shaping places and communities, and how planning endeavours to include communities in decision-making through encouraging participation in community activities. This thesis argues that there is a gap between planning policy and rhetoric and the implementation of policy within specific community contexts. The research is a piece of collaborative research conducted with the planning department at North Devon Council (NDC). Through developing an original empirical case study of data from parishes within North Devon, planning’s sustainability and participatory agendas are examined through the framework of second homes considered a distinct yet related form of tourism (Jaakson, 1986). The research unpicks popular understandings of second homes through quantitative and qualitative research and argues that there are nuanced existences and experiences of second home properties, compounding the difficulty of defining these properties that produce both non-permanent residents and semi- permanent tourists. Exploration of the socio-economic contributions of second homes within host communities suggests that second homes have potential to contribute unsustainable traits, particularly social impacts, to host communities while also having potential to bring positive, predominantly economic, contributions. The empirical research demonstrates that notions of community from resident and policy maker perspectives illustrate that place is not necessary to understanding or experiencing community but has a key role in framing both policy and North Devon residents’ perceptions of community. Through examining the most recent round of democratic renewal in the planning system, issues of power and responsibility within planning functions are reviewed. It argues that the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition neighbourhood planning obligations reveal a dichotomy between community desire for power and the realism of heightened responsibility.

A central concern of media scholars such as Ben Bagdikian and Robert McChesney is the undemocratic potential of the U.S. mainstream media system, dominated by a small number of highly consolidated, multinational, corporate media firms. In this context, other scholars, including Chris Atton, John Downing, Stephen Duncombe, Nina Eliasoph, and Clemencia Rodriguez, have argued for the importance of citizens' media, defined as citizen-run, non-profit, independent media projects that may have greater democratic potential. Since the majority of research into citizens' media has focused on media from urban cities, this thesis offers discussion and analysis of a progressive citizen'­s paper, the New River Free Press, located in a rural, Appalachian community that is home to a large technical, military, state university. After first reviewing major scholarly criticism of mainstream media in a democratic society and characteristics and debates about citizen'­s media, this thesis uses interviews of key staff members and textual analysis of archived past issues of the New River Free Press to situate the paper in the citizen'­s media literature. Ultimately, this thesis locates citizens' media as a necessity for democratic societies, suggesting methods of resistance against undemocratic practice and the further consolidation and monopolization of the global media system.
Master of Arts

In 1833, enraged vigilantes expelled 1,200 Mormons from Jackson County, Missouri, setting a precedent for a later expulsion of Mormons from the state, changing the course of Mormon history, and enacting in microcosm a battle over the ultimate source of authority in America’s early democratic society. The purpose of this study is two-fold: first, to reexamine the motives that induced Missourians to expel Mormons from Jackson County in 1833; and second, to explore how government authorities responded to that conflict. Past studies of the Mormon expulsion from Jackson County have argued that Mormon communalism collided with the Jacksonian individualism of Missouri residents, causing hostility and violence. However, in recent years, studies have questioned many of the conventional notions of law and governance in the antebellum era, in particular the argument that Jacksonian society was dominated by an individualistic, egalitarian, laissez-faire creed. Although Jacksonian America was a society in transition, communities continued to emphasize a tradition of localized self government, communal regulation, and distrust of outside interference. Therefore, this study explored how the local orientation of law, regulation, and government in antebellum Missouri contributed to the setting of violence and to the ways local, state, and federal authorities responded to the Mormon expulsion. An analysis of the Jackson County conflict through the lens of American localism reveals the extent to which Mormonism challenged customary notions of local sovereignty, authority, and control.

The project will explore Cittaslow as an alternative to traditional urban development. Sprawl and consumption of non-local resources are discouraged with Cittaslow and preservation of culture and history become the tangible benchmarks of the community. It will explore the history of Cittaslow as a movement and an organization; as well as its influences on existing member cities and the criteria used to distinguish them from others. The City of San Luis Obispo is used as a case study to determine whether existing conditions measure up to Cittaslow criteria.

Abstract The concept of ecological building is not clear. The concept, which belongs to thematic context of sustainable development, is difficult to understand because it combines two individual concepts which originate from two different sciences. The word ecology implies to organism's interaction mechanisms and to ecosystem dynamics, whereas the word building implies to architecture, artifacts and semantics. In ecological building the whole interaction dynamics has to be reassessed. The interaction between artifacts and environment conveys the same principles as the interaction between organism and ecosystem. Buildings and towns have the same kind of genotypic and phenotypic features as organisms have. Genotypic features can be paralleled to materialistic, atomistic, features. Phenotypic features result from the interaction process, in which the modifying environment consists of culture, local conditions, style and time. Localism is crucial in the context of ecological building. Localism is a geographically defined entity, but also it is primarily a process. In this research the connection between ecological building and localism has been examined in two neighbourhood units. Buildings in Rovaniemi (Ounasrinne) and in Mikkeli (Peitsari) built on non-profit and social housing basis were selected. The criticism against the ontology of ecological building is based on the questionnaires and the personal interviews, which were targeted at the tenants of the selected tenements, selected designers, contractors and the board of the real estate companies. In addition, the managing directors of the real estate companies and the representatives of the Finnish Housing Fund and the Ministry of Environment were interviewed. Migration during the entire lifecycle of the tenements, which is an indicator of localism and sustainable development, was researched by analyzing the registers of occupants. The research revealed that the actors have defined the concept of ecological building in different ways. Most often ecological building is related to material features. Ecological material is not automatically related to high quality material and local materials are not the first priority. The responsibilities are contradictory in the implementation of ecological building. The primary presumption seems to be that the state is responsible for the implementation. Environmental consciousness and ecological building have positive status. In the future the mode of building, which is assumed to be ecological, will increase and environmentalism is regarded as a benefit in business competition (contracting and designing). The research also revealed that the need for change in values, which is usually connected to the thematic of ecological building and the sustainable development, is groundless; the actors think that the nature as such conveys intrinsic value. Instead, ecological issues should be an interest, which affects the decisions made during the process. The tools, which are used in the process, should more effectively support the implementation of ecological building. Free will is not sufficient any more. The research revealed that the periods of occupancy are short in the examined tenements and we can talk about new kind of nomadism. In these neighbourhood units lifelong occupancy is not realism. The renovations, which have been designed according to the tenant's will, must be revaluated, because the median period of occupancy is approximately 1½-2 years. Technical renovations did not lengthen the periods of occupancy in Ounasrinne, vice versa. In neighbourhood units attention must be paid to the tenements; the support for housing should be defined locally according to the actual tenement sizes
Tiivistelmä Tutkimuksessa ekologisen rakentamisen ja paikallisuuden välistä yhteyttä on tutkittu kahdessa lähiössä. Tutkimukseen mukaan valittiin yleishyödyllisen rakennuttamisen ja sosiaalisen asuntotuotannon kohteita Rovaniemen Ounasrinteeltä ja Mikkelin Peitsarista. Ekologisen rakentamisen ontologian kritiikki perustuu kysely- ja haastattelututkimukseen. Paikallisuutta ja kestävän kehityksen tematiikkaa indikoivaa muuttamista vuokratalojen koko elinkaaren aikana tutkittiin talokirjojen avulla. Tutkimus paljasti, että toimijoilla on toisistaan poikkeava käsitys ekologisen rakentamisen sisällöstä. Useimmiten ekologisuus liitetään materiaalin ominaisuuksiin. Ekologista materiaalia ei mielletä automaattisesti laadukkaaksi eikä paikallisia materiaaleja priorisoida. Ekologisen rakentamisen implementoinnissa vastuukysymykset ovat ristiriitaiset. Ensisijaisesti edellytetään, että valtio on vastuussa ekologisten tekijöiden implementoinnista. Ympäristötietoisuus ja ekorakentaminen koetaan myönteisesti. Tulevaisuudessa ns. ekologiseksi rakentamisen oletetaan lisääntyvän ja ympäristötietoisuus on kilpailuetu liiketoiminnassa (urakointi ja suunnittelu).Tutkimus paljasti, että kestävän kehityksen tematiikkaan ja ekologiseen rakentamiseen liitetty vaatimus arvomuutoksesta on perusteeton; toimijatahot arvostavat luontoa sen itsensä vuoksi. Sen sijaan ekologisuudesta pitäisi tulla intressi, joka ohjaa prosessin aikana tehtäviä päätöksiä. Prosessin hallinnassa käytettyjen työkalujen on selkeämmin tuettava ekologisen rakentamisen implementointia. Tutkimus osoitti, että tutkituissa vuokrataloissa asutaan lyhyitä aikoja ja voidaankin puhua uudesta nomadismista. Näissä lähiöissä elämänkaariasuminen ei ole realismia. Asukkaiden toiveiden mukaiset korjaukset tulevat myös uudelleen arvioitaviksi, koska asumisaikojen mediaani on 1½-2 vuotta. Tekniset korjaukset eivät muuttaneet asumisaikoja Ounasrinteellä; päinvastoin. Lähiöissä tuleekin huomioida asuntojakauma asumistukia määritettäessä

The importance of protecting democracy and free speech in the world has never been moreparamount than in a time like now, when pro-democracy and independence movements areon the rise and democracy is declining. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the potentialstrengthening of the local identity in Hong Kong in relation to the 21st centurypro-democratic protests and the postmaterialist generation. This will be put in contrast toChina’s more totalitarian way of governing and resistance to democracy. Of which the globalcity of Hong Kong has been a special administrative region (SAR) within the one countrytwo systems design since the 1997. The investigation of the local identity is based on theWorld Value Survey's data set from 2005, 2014 and 2018. The survey data is analysed withstatistical tools of regression analysis, correlation and comparison over time. This study findssome correlation between the postmaterialist values and identity but no correlation betweenthe Hong Kong local identity and the pro-democracy movement. The results further suggest amoderate strengthening of the Hong Kong identity in the form of an increase in inherentpride, which this thesis contends may be induced by the clash of the values imposed bymainland China. This possibility requires further research as the identity of an autonomouspart of a nation, for example Hong Kong, is of importance for civic participation anddemocracy as a whole.

This thesis examines the development of firefighting in NSW from its establishment as an organised activity in the 1850s to the mid 1950s, when the origins of the contemporary arrangements of firefighting first emerged. In particular, it focuses on the dynamics at play in the relationship between different ‘forms’ of labour in the industry over that period, namely, paid, quasi-volunteer and volunteer firefighters. Whilst independent volunteer fire companies, largely based in Sydney started off strongly in NSW in the mid nineteenth century, by 1910 they had disappeared from urban firefighting. Following the lead of the Fire Brigades Board (Sydney) [1884-1909], the Board of Fire Commissioners of NSW [1910-] adopted a more British approach to firefighting with unified command and control, with rigid structures and discipline applied across the State. Eventually, its large jurisdiction and financial constraints led to its inability to cope with post WWII urban expansion. This opened the way for volunteers to re-emerge in urban firefighting in the form of bush fire brigades. Throughout the period studied, there were a myriad of tensions and, at times, sharp conflict between the different forms of firefighters. This manifested itself both on the fireground and in the relationship that the various groups had with their respective ‘managements’. Paid, quasi-volunteer and volunteer brigades used a range of strategies to legitimate their positions as the ‘protectors’ of their communities. Localism was a crucial factor in this context, as tension between centralised and local control was often the root of their differences. The importance of community and localism cannot be overstated, given the spatially embedded nature of firefighting.

The relevance of places to people has been questioned in recent times, as the world has become increasingly globalised and people more mobile. The aim of this research was to explore the relationship between sense of place and people’s behaviour in ‘ordinary’, everyday places. This contrasts with much prior research, which has focused on ‘special’ places, such as national parks and impressive landscapes in order to investigate the components of sense of place. Most people do not live in such places, but inhabit ordinary places in (sub) urban contexts. The research questions were: How does sense of place manifest in an ordinary, everyday landscape? In what ways can social learning impact upon the dynamics of sense of place? Can a more salient sense of place affect people’s attitudes towards and behaviour within their local area? Using an action research approach, pre- and post-interviews and three workshops to create a sustainable future vision at a neighbourhood level of scale, and the town as a whole, were held with fourteen residents of East Bolton, in the North West of England. The activities were designed to facilitate interaction between the participants, so that meanings attributed to places could be shared and discussed. This approach allowed participants to see familiar places in new ways and to share perspectives. The key themes that emerged from this research were: the importance of childhood places; the impact of mobility – both physical and social mobility; the interdependence of places at various scales; and also self-efficacy and people’s ability to influence their surroundings. A key finding was that sense of place can be made more salient for people in ‘ordinary’ landscapes, particularly if people are given direct experience of their places and opportunities to share and reflect on their perceptions relating to place. Social learning, however, takes time and requires resources to create opportunities to influence the salience of sense of place. The findings point to the value of promoting social learning through engagement activities. Planners, regeneration project officers and citizen groups could utilise sense of place as an organising principle to explore place meanings and as a catalyst for stimulating local action. Participants found it more difficult to discuss sense of place at the neighbourhood level of scale than the town level of scale, partly owing to their differing conception of boundaries and lack of awareness of the neighbourhood beyond the home. This has implications for implementing the localism agenda, suggesting that local action and visioning needs to be situated within activities nested at a range of scales in order to be most effective. The drive towards localism may lead to more self-organising and activism emerging from outside of the formal planning system and becoming a force for collective place shaping. Thus, the benefits of developing a more salient sense of place may also have impacts in less formal ways, such as greater interest and involvement in neighbourhood affairs and increased capacity-building, from which community action could potentially emerge.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Kentucky, 2007.
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This thesis brings together a series of existing and ongoing pieces of research, conducted over a period of some years. There are five primary aims. The first is to construct a coherent empirical picture of the social organisation of space in rural South Australia by the early 1980s, at the outset of a period of turmoil and rapid change. The second is to bring together two relevant but disparate levels of theory (globalisation/structural change and localism/place attachment), to understand the impact of the rural crisis of 1984-94 on rural communities, families and individuals. The third is to trace the context and development of the crisis itself, the resultant poverty, demographic change, and reduced socio-economic viability of communities. Fourthly, the theoretical and empirical findings are applied to the search for an altered accommodation between society and space, through which a modified and regrouped but still essentially intact rural society can survive beyond the crisis. Finally, I reflect on the methodological contribution and limitations of the thesis, and also on the ethical concerns and values confronting an academic researcher reporting on a local- or micro-level social tragedy, concealed and rationalised by national macro-level success. Chapter 1 deals with fundamental concepts and epistemology. Chapter 2 sketches the evolution of the South Australian rural habitat up to the 1980s. Chapter 3 examines macro-level theory on globalisation in the structuralist and political economy traditions, which seek to explain the forces changing the politico-economic ground rules within which rural communities have to operate. Chapter 4 examines theory relating to the world of the individual person and his/her most immediate social reference groups - family, neighbourhood and community. It presents a model of place-making, and evaluates the contributions of various disciplines towards understanding specific aspects of this process, particularly rural sociology, social and humanistic geography, structuration theory and theory relating to human territoriality. Chapter 5 reveals how individuals and local social groups actually occupied space and developed place-attachment in rural South Australia in the early 1980s. It draws on field studies carried out between 1979 and 1986, and on a 1982-83 postal sample survey of 2000 rural households. Chapter 6 traces the course of a decade of almost continuous rural crisis, from about 1984. It shows how the global economy and political decisions (international, national and State) flowed through to rural people and places. Demographic and economic impacts are examined at State level, with a regional example. Chapters 7 (quantitative) and 8 (qualitative) examine the changes wrought by the crisis on rural society and the social organisation of space. They draw on a 1992/93 replication of the previous postal survey to demonstrate the persistence and continuity of major features of the rural society, but also the fragility of the current spatial organisation. The widespread rural poverty in the early 1990s and its impact on the state of rural morale are demonstrated, along with perceived changes in key community characteristics, and divergence of the economic from the social organisation of rural space. Chapter 9 assesses requirements for a socially sustainable rural Australia, in the light of the last ten years� developments in rural research. It argues the need for the focus of localism to be re-defined upwards from individual community to regional level Finally in Chapter 10, I reflect on the contribution and limitations of the thesis, and on the wider problem of the role academics could, should and do play in relation to the deeply meaningful social transformations we purport to study.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico
Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender de que modo a Torcida Cangaceiros Alvinegros se posiciona dentro do universo das Torcidas Organizadas de futebol cearenses, notadamente as qual abrangem os dois principais times da cidade de Fortaleza: o Cearà SC e o Fortaleza EC. Metodologicamente, observou-se esses torcedores em dias de jogos, dentro dos estÃdios e em seus entornos. Realizou-se entrevistas com integrantes, alÃm de questionÃrios com componentes dos Cangaceiros e tambÃm com de duas Organizadas tradicionais: a Cearamor e a TUF, constituindo assim uma abordagem qualitativa, com viÃs tambÃm quantitativo. As Torcidas Organizadas podem ser divididas em dois grupos: as "tradicionais" e as "alternativas". Enquanto as primeiras surgiram a partir da dÃcada de 1980, estas Ãltimas aparecem jà nos anos 2000. Os Cangaceiros afirmam ser uma âtorcida diferenteâ em relaÃÃo Ãs tradicionais. Para isso, lanÃam mÃo de dois discursos principais: o de âmovimento cultural nordestinoâ e o de condenaÃÃo à violÃncia fÃsica. Entretanto, constatou-se que os Cangaceiros estÃo em um movimento constante de aproximaÃÃo e distanciamento em relaÃÃo Ãs Organizadas tradicionais. Se em alguns momentos eles buscam uma diferenciaÃÃo, em outros demonstram desejo de se inserir no campo das torcidas, compartilhando de certos capitais comuns à Organizadas tradicionais. Menos do que uma contradiÃÃo, esse movimento indica estratÃgias conscientes de inserÃÃo e de reconhecimento dentro desse campo.
This research aims to understand how the football cheerleaders named âCangaceiros Alvinegrosâ position themselves in the universe of cheerleaders in the brazilian state of CearÃ, mainly those who support the two principal teams from the city of Fortaleza. Methodologically, âCangaceirosâ were observed in the stadiums and in its surrounds. It was realized interviews with this group members, and also questionnaires with âCangaceirosâ and members of the cheerleaders Cearamor and TUF Itâs a qualitative and quantitative aproach. The cheerleaders groups can be categorized into two types: the âtradicional cheerleadersâ (Organizadas tradicionais) ad the âalternative cheerledersâ groups (Organizadas alternativas). The âtradicionalâ appeared in the 80s; while the âaternativesâare from the 2000s. âCangaceirosâ say that they are a âdiferente type of soccer fansâ, based on two speeches: the âcultural movimentâ about the Northeast region of Brazil, and the condemnation to physical violence. However, it was noticed that âCangaceirosâ are in a constant moviment of approaching and distancing to âtradicional cheerleadersâ. In some moments they try to affirm themselves as âdiferentesâ, but in other times they try to enter the field cheerleaders groups, sharing certain types of capital that are typical in âtradicional cheerleadersâ groups. This isnât a contradiction, but a conscious strategy of insertion and recognition in this field.

A key theoretical debate underlying the now defunct Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation known as the Fairness Doctrine is conflict over what constitutes the right to freedom of speech: a positive or negative conception. Similarly, since repeal of the Doctrine, other FCC measures to uphold the “public-interest” standard in broadcasting have relied on a positive conception of speech. This thesis demonstrates the history of this debate through court cases, news reports, scholarly articles and historical documents. It then is argued that the positive-right nature of these regulations is problematic philosophically, constitutionally and practically. The positive-right conception lends itself to an uncomfortable level of paternalism on the part of government regulators, a constitutional abridgement of negative-right speech and a tedious involvement of government in regulation that can lead to a chilling effect on speech. The conclusion then suggests further areas of research related to the topics covered in the thesis.

This thesis looks at three of Belgrade’s music scenes: indie pop, electronic dance and hip hop and their relationship with themes such as politics, trans-localism, the night-time economy, authenticity and gender, with special attention paid to Belgrade’s nightlife that has recently been proclaimed the best in the world by various media outlets (Vogue, BBC, The Guardian). The thesis illustrates how these themes like politics, trans-localism and the night-time economy shifted Serbia’s post-Socialist period and rejuvenated the music scenes in Belgrade The project aims to contextualise Belgrade’s music scenes in the transitional, post-conflict and neo-liberal period of Serbia’s social-political and cultural development in the 1990s and 2000s. The Belgrade music scene is used as a case study, as Belgrade is the city with the most developed music scenes in Serbia but can also be used as a benchmark for musical trends in the country and in the region. This is also due to the fact that most of musicians who want to make it in the industry eventually either end up living in Belgrade or have regular concerts in many of the popular Belgrade venues, thus becoming part of the Belgrade music scene. The research presented in this thesis was also inspired by the fact that in the past ten years Belgrade has been named as one the best places for nightlife in the world, with a Vogue article comparing it to Berlin (2017) and a Lonely Planet article proclaiming Belgrade to be the top party city in the world (2019). Moreover, a 2019 BBC article placed Belgrade among top five creative cities in the world (2019). Belgrade nightlife owes this media attention primarily to its vibrant music scenes. This connection between music and the city has been present in Belgrade since the first days of rock’n’roll in the 1950s and is something that today is attracting both the locals and the tourists in search of boosting their subcultural capital (Thornton, 1995), a term based on Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) theory of cultural capital, which discusses different phenomena such as hipness, fashionable haircuts and being in the know. The research itself focuses on three main music scenes that build on the legacy of Belgrade’s rock’n’roll years – indie pop, electronic dance and hip hop. The questions addressed in this project are: 1. What is the relationship between global and local? How much are the music scenes in Belgrade influenced by the styles Anglo-American scenes? 2. Taking into consideration the role of rock’n’roll music in socialist Yugoslavia and 1990’s Belgrade social protests in the period of Balkan wars, can such music still have influence or make changes in society? 3. With a growing number of media headlines about Belgrade’s nightlife, can we say that Belgrade’s nightlife has been commodified? The reason why these research questions guide this study is as follows: the first question is there to see how much of the Belgrade scene is unique or authentic in comparison to other such scenes around the world, thus broadening the scope of contributions to the global research of scenes. The second question is closely connected to the time when this scene was created, which is during the 1990s when anti-government social protests were the norm in Belgrade. This question is asked to see how much political change affected the creation of the scenes and how much music has influenced changes in society. It is suggested that this kind of scene would not be formed today, as contemporary Serbian society is not affected by a totalitarian regime and wars. This gives us a clue how different today’s scenes are from those created during the 1990s. The third question is important because it is looking into the aspect of Belgrade’s nightlife that has been the city’s trademark for the past ten years or so. The question is posed to see whether this characteristic of Belgrade’s music scene has changed over the years and become commodified, something that happened to Berlin’s nightlife, for example, and what kind of challenges Belgrade’s scenes faced because of that. The ethnographic approach used in the thesis is uncovering the everyday narratives of music scene participants and the tensions arising within and between different scenes as they struggle to adapt to the new cultural economy in Serbia (and particularly in Belgrade). In that sense, the three case studies make sense in terms of how they help to expose and scrutinise these tensions. The value of this ethnographic approach is seen in how the participants of the music scene reacted to war and social upheaval in the country during the 1990s. It is also seen later on, in times of peace, when nightlife and parts of the scene were commodified to an extent that they lost touch with the original scenes from the 1990s. It also shows how people within the scenes were dependent on each other, where social networks were sometimes more important than managers and major labels. Additionally, it demonstrates how a battle-born scene in the 1990s has gone through a specific period of adapting to the new reality of a transitional economy in Serbia, and in the process is showing elements of a very specific local milieu. It also illustrates how the post-war period prompted a boom in the night-time economy where many people with subcultural capital were discovering Belgrade and putting it on the world map of nightlife resorts. Overall, this is a significant study because it is the first time the history of Serbian popular music has been studied in depth in English and from an empirical perspective. The thesis provides a rare study of an Eastern European music scene making the transition from socialism to a post-socialist state. In doing so, the scene incorporates neo-liberal elements including gentrification and branding, commodification of the night-time economy. Thus, this thesis presents a singular case study of the New Europe(ean) lifestyle as expressed through musical taste and scene membership. Ultimately, this is a study of how music and culture in an Eastern European country have responded to such changes – and also how they coped with and adapted to a situation of war. The thesis itself consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 is entitled “Music, Place and Identity” and examines current literature on subcultures, place and identity; Chapter 2 provides an overview of the methodology applied in the field research informing this thesis; Chapter 3 is entitled ‘’The History of Popular Music in Serbia from 1956-1990” and explores the historical part of popular Rock’n’Roll in the period of Yugoslavia with developments in folk music. The last three chapters are data chapters and deal with the analysis of the three individual scenes selected for study in this thesis: Chapter 4 is entitled ‘’ How social protests and social networks forged a scene in Eastern Europe: The case of Belgrade’s Indie Pop scene’ and analyses the Indie Pop scene; Chapter 5 is entitled ‘’ From Local Scene to New Berlin: The Case of Belgrade’s Electronic Dance Music Scene’’ and analyses the EDM scene; and Chapter 6 is entitled ‘’When Street Culture Meets Milieu: The Case of Belgrade’s Hip Hop Scene’ and analyses the Hip Hop scene. Chapter 1, “Music, Place and Identity”, surveys the existing literature on popular music, place and identity and music scenes, as this literature is centrally relevant for my research of Belgrade’s music scenes. The chapter is divided into several topics/themes that are used to analyse the proposed scenes. It starts off with the history of research into subcultures, beginning with both the Chicago and Birmingham School of subcultural theories followed by research into post-subcultures, introducing concepts such as neo-tribes, milieu, and music worlds. A separate section is dedicated to work that has been done on music scenes. Other sections in the chapter discuss the literature on social networks and music worlds, milieu and local identity, authenticity, national identity, music as a factor for political change, and music venues. The chapter concludes with a section dedicated to how this literature is connected to the Belgrade music scenes featured in my study. Chapter 2 discusses the main research methods used both in the process of conducting fieldwork in Belgrade and in the process of data analysis. The chapter describes the use of qualitative methods, with a section outlining the use of semi-structured interviews in ethnographic research. It goes on to describe the method of sampling, starting with choosing gatekeepers and their use in helping me create a snowball sample. The next section discusses how rapport was established with the research participants, focusing on the friendship method used when conducting interviews. It also discusses the use of insider knowledge in research. The chapter ends with a description of the analysis and writing up stages of the thesis production. Chapter 3, “The History of Popular Music in Serbia” chapter covers the Rock’n’Roll period from 1956 to 1990 in Yugoslavia. It also provides a short introduction to Serbian folk music from the 1960s to Turbo-folk in the 1990s. Several sources used for this chapter are books about the Rock’n’Roll period in Yugoslavia and have been translated here for the first time into English. The chapter starts with a discussion of Yugoslavia as a communist country, which was at the same time open to western influences and music coming from the UK and the USA. It starts with a description of bands from the 1960s, including many cover bands, and then moves on to the 1970s when subgenres like progressive rock, psychedelic rock and hard rock had their representatives within Belgrade’s music scenes. A separate section is dedicated to New Wave, a scene that has had a lasting effect on Belgrade’s contemporary scenes, and which is still regarded as the golden age of music in Yugoslav history. The chapter mostly deals with Belgrade’s music scene, although what was happening at the time in Croatia and Slovenia is also briefly discussed. The second part of the chapter is dedicated to the developments in folk music, starting with Newly Composed Folk Music (NCFM), which was dominant in the period from the 1960 to the 1980s, and ending with Turbo-folk, which was the main folk genre by the 1990s. The second part of the thesis presents three case studies of specific music scenes in Belgrade. Chapter 4 focuses on Belgrade’s Indie Pop Scene, particularly how social protests and social networks forged this scene in Eastern Europe. One of the main themes is the connection between the indie pop scene and social protests in Belgrade. With an overview of socially aware songs and the protests held in Belgrade during the 1990s and up until 2000, when democratic changes occurred. The chapter also discusses the role that Indie Pop musicians played within anti-government protests. The next section discusses whether the current indie and indie-inspired music of Belgrade has the ability to spark a change in society the way it did 20 years ago. The next section of the chapter discusses the New Serbian Scene that was formed in 2007. There is a section on media support of the music scenes in Belgrade, from the period when more traditional media were supporting the scenes like TV, radio and magazines, to the Internet-based media including music webzines. The next two sections talk about the role of social networks in the Indie Pop scene, the ex-Yugoslav region and the connection of the bands within the region. The last two sections of this chapter talk about the use of Serbian or English in the songs within questions of locality, and sustainability. It discusses how foreign English sounds in Indie Pop songs, or how local Serbian sounds in them. The chapter also discusses whether Indie Pop musicians can make a living out of music. Chapter 5 focuses on EDM, beginning with an account of the evolution of the electronic music scene in Belgrade. It specifically talks about the evolution of the synth-pop strand of the scene, its beginnings in the 1980s and why it does not have the same popularity in the 2000s. The second section of the chapter discusses the emergence of DJ scene in the 1990s. It focuses on the club Industrija, the most popular venue in the electronic music scene in the 1990s and discusses what dancing represented for Belgrade’s clubbers in the 1990s. The next section of the chapter discusses the changes in the scene during the 2000s, focusing on the technological developments that affected the scene and the role of the DJ in the new millennium. It also briefly discusses why only a few DJs create their own music in Belgrade. One section in this part of the chapter is dedicated to the global versus local discussion in Belgrade’s EDM scene, raising the question of authenticity in this scene. The next section is dedicated to ge der and LGBT issues in the scene, the underrepresentation of female DJs in the scene and the connection of LGBT people and electronic music, respectively. A substantial part of the chapter is dedicated to Belgrade’s nightlife, which has been making headlines in the foreign press, because it was discovered by many tourists and foreign journalists alike, and where it has been compared to Berlin and given the nickname ‘the New Berlin’. The chapter then elaborates on what similarities there are between Belgrade’s and Berlin’s nightlife, and what this in turn can tell us about the EDM scene in the Serbian capital. Chapter 6, the final case study chapter, focuses on Hip Hop and begins with an outline of the evolution of this music scene in Belgrade, presenting the three historical waves of Hip Hop artists in Belgrade. The second section of the chapter is dedicated more to the second wave of rappers that had many examples of conscious rap and how these rappers became the voice of young people in Belgrade. It also discusses the differences and similarities between this kind of Hip Hop and Punk music. The following section of the chapter is dedicated to more nationalistic rappers in the scene, such as Beogradski sindikat and Marlon Brutal, and where this nationalistic attitude comes from several years after the democratic changes in Serbia, which occurred in the year 2000. The section “Remember the 1990s” talks about the lasting effects of the Dizel subculture and Turbo-folk, popular in the 1990s, on the third wave of Hip Hop artists. It also elaborates on how this change of sound and aesthetics happened in the third wave of rappers, as compared to the previous generations of rappers and what it tells us about young people and Hip Hop fans in Belgrade today. The last section of the chapter talks about the theoretical framework of milieu for the Hip Hop scene, and the change of Hip Hop artists and fans from snobs to omnivores. This thesis presents an analysis of three music scenes from Belgrade that have rarely if ever been a topic of focus in academic research. Through the medium of this thesis, representatives of each of these scenes are given a chance to talk about the meaning-making their adherent scenes have provided. The thesis paves the way for a new understanding of Belgrade’s music scenes as scenes in transition with links to other similar scenes across Europe. Thus, this research is also relevant for a broadening of our understanding of the value of the trans-local scene concept in the context of the New Europe.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Hum, Lang & Soc Sc
Arts, Education and Law
Full Text

In recent years localisation has risen on the agenda in the humanitarian sector. It is seen to have great deal of benefits including being more cost efficient, more sensitive to culture and context and offers quicker responses. Opponents to this claim that it is too difficult to know whichactors can be trusted and that there is a risk that they do not comply with the humanitarian principles. In addition to this, concerned voices have risen that criticise the use of the term ‘local’. It lacks a common definition and is often used without a discussion of who it refers to. Changing this is of vital importance if the humanitarian sector wants to work against the power imbalances that remain from colonialism. Critical localism is a theory that criticises this arbitrary use of ‘local’ and sets out a framework for a variety of factors that should be taken into consideration when discussing and defining the ‘local’. This thesis is a case study conducted through a theoretical thematic analysis thatinvestigates if the localisation initiative Local to Global Protection complies with the guidelines of critical localism, with an additional focus on Eurocentric presence in academic work. The results from this study can be used to shed light on the problem with an arbitrary portrayal of ‘local’ while also offering real examples from the humanitarian field on how to avoid it. The findings showed that the initiative complied with the guidelines to a large degree. Its strongest area was the way ‘locals’ were presented from their own point of view instead of letting large international actors present their view of them. The part that showed most room for improvement was the lack of representation of the authors own bias in the portrayal of the ‘local’.

Large corporations largely control food production and distribution in the global food system and have generated a desire for locally produced food. Although small independent producers still contribute to regional food systems, there is little understanding about how they distribute and market their products. This thesis uses both semistructured interviews to investigate the distribution practices of urban, family, and regional producers in the New Orleans region and discourse analysis to disclose how localist discourse shapes producers marketing practices. The discourse analysis discovered that the web presence of local New Orleans restaurants, farmers, and Crescent City Farmers Market targeted concepts that reflect localist beliefs and values. It was also established that small producers respond to consumer demands, but still have the power to shape the regional food system through negotiating informal contracts and striving to enter into the niche market.

Dans cette thèse nous analysons l'évolution et les mutations subies par trois sous-systèmes de l'industrie de machines et équipements agricoles au sud du Brésil à travers l'analyse de certaines caractéristiques structurelles de l'articulation territoriale. Notre approche a été celle de la dynamique du territoire. C'est ainsi que nous nous sommes engagés à identifier la dynamique existante dans la création de connaissances et de technologies produites et provenant de l'extérieur. Dans le Chapitre 1 nous étudions l'origine de la discussion concernant le développement localisé dans les pays émergents, dans le but de montrer la pertinence de la littérature marshallienne pour analyser la réalité brésilienne autour de l'expérience des APLs. Dans le chapitre 2 nous couvrons un large ensemble de facteurs qui semblent pertinents pour la compréhension de la relation entre industrie et agriculture ainsi que du développement de l'industrie de machines et équipements agricoles dans la région du plateau du Rio Grande do Sul. Dans le chapitre 3 nous nous consacrons à l'étude du fonctionnement des trois sous-systèmes de la métal-mécanique (Avant-récolte, Récolte et Après-récolte) face aux stratégies des entreprises. Le chapitre 4 est consacré à l'analyse de chacun des trois sous-systèmes autour de quatre points clés : l'organisation de chaque sous-système (les différentes entreprises, les associations commerciales, industrielles et agricoles et les relations entre elles, la technologie, les stratégies d'appui à l'innovation et le marché du travail) ; l'évolution récente du développement et de la spécialisation productive et les relations avec les institutions (le Sebrae et la politique des APLs, les obstacles au développement de l'industrie dans chaque sous-système). Dans ce dernier chapitre nous mettons en relief les points communs entre les trois sous-systèmes sur les mutations et ruptures que l'industrie a connues et l'analyse de la dynamique existante dans chaque sous-système. En conclusion, nous arrivons au constat que, pour favoriser le processus de développement local, une politique d'accompagnement est plus cohérente pour prendre en compte les spécificités et les besoins de chaque territoire afin de réunir les conditions nécessaires à l'émergence des vrais facteurs d'un territoire.

Dans cette thèse nous analysons l'évolution et les mutations subies par trois sous-systèmes de l'industrie de machines et équipements agricoles au sud du Brésil à travers l'analyse de certaines caractéristiques structurelles de l'articulation territoriale. Notre approche a été celle de la dynamique du territoire. C'est ainsi que nous nous sommes engagés à identifier la dynamique existante dans la création de connaissances et de technologies produites et provenant de l'extérieur. Dans le Chapitre 1 nous étudions l'origine de la discussion concernant le développement localisé dans les pays émergents, dans le but de montrer la pertinence de la littérature marshallienne pour analyser la réalité brésilienne autour de l'expérience des APLs. Dans le chapitre 2 nous couvrons un large ensemble de facteurs qui semblent pertinents pour la compréhension de la relation entre industrie et agriculture ainsi que du développement de l'industrie de machines et équipements agricoles dans la région du plateau du Rio Grande do Sul. Dans le chapitre 3 nous nous consacrons à l'étude du fonctionnement des trois sous-systèmes de la métal-mécanique (Avant-récolte, Récolte et Après-récolte) face aux stratégies des entreprises. Le chapitre 4 est consacré à l'analyse de chacun des trois sous-systèmes autour de quatre points clés : l'organisation de chaque sous-système (les différentes entreprises, les associations commerciales, industrielles et agricoles et les relations entre elles, la technologie, les stratégies d'appui à l'innovation et le marché du travail) ; l'évolution récente du développement et de la spécialisation productive et les relations avec les institutions (le Sebrae et la politique des APLs, les obstacles au développement de l'industrie dans chaque sous-système). Dans ce dernier chapitre nous mettons en relief les points communs entre les trois sous-systèmes sur les mutations et ruptures que l'industrie a connues et l'analyse de la dynamique existante dans chaque sous-système. En conclusion, nous arrivons au constat que, pour favoriser le processus de développement local, une politique d'accompagnement est plus cohérente pour prendre en compte les spécificités et les besoins de chaque territoire afin de réunir les conditions nécessaires à l'émergence des vrais facteurs d'un territoire
This thesis concerns the evolution and mutation suffered by three subsystems of agricultural machinery industry and agricultural implements in the south of Brazil by analyzing certain cultural characteristics of articulation of territory. The approach was the territorial dynamic. The aim was to identify the dynamic which exists in the creation of knowledge and technology produced outside the territory. In chapter 1 we studied the discussion about the local development of emerging countries, with the objective to show the pertinence of the marshallian literature to analyze the Brazilian reality with the experience of the Local Productive Arranges (APLs). In chapter 2 a wide range of factors were studied to the comprehension of the relation between industry and agriculture, with the development of the machinery and agricultural implements in the plateau region of “Rio Grande do Sul – RS” - Brazil. In Chapter 3, the aim was the study of the operation of three subsystems in the metal mechanical industry in relation to the strategy of the industries. In chapter 4, each subsystem was analyzed (pre harvest, harvest and postharvest) considering four key points: A) Organization of the subsystem: the different industries and the commercial associations of industry and agricultural and their relations; B) The technology of support for innovation; C) the job market; D) The recent evolution of development and productive specialization and the relations with the institutions responsible for this segment in Brazil (Sebrae and APLs) and the obstacles to the industry development in each subsystem). In this last chapter the common points of the three subsystems about the mutation and ruptures that the industry met and the analysis of the existing dynamic in each subsystem. So, in conclusion, it was found that in order to favor the local development, a follow up is more coherent to consider the specification and the needs of each territory in order to unite to the necessary conditions to favor the arise of the essential variables of a territory

Ce manuscrit s’intéresse principalement à l'influence de la répulsion entre électrons libres sur la réponse optique des métaux. Les modèles de matériaux classiques considèrent que la réponse d'un métal est locale -- c'est à dire que la réponse en un point dépend exclusivement des champs en ce point. La prise en compte de la répulsion entre électrons conduit à adopter une description dite non locale de la réponse métallique. Cette thèse explore de façon théorique et numérique les effets de la non-localité sur les propriétés optiques de nanostructures métallo-diélectriques dans le visible et le proche infra-rouge. A l'aide d'un modèle hydrodynamique il est montré que, de façon surprenante, les modes d'interstices plasmoniques peuvent être sensible à la non-localité pour des épaisseurs de plusieurs dizaines de nanomètres. Il est également montré que le plasmon de surface lui même peut être sensible à la non-localité à condition de considérer une interface entre le métal et un diélectrique d'indice suffisamment élevé. Nous proposons et étudions (théoriquement) ici plusieurs configurations simples et réalistes (coupleurs à prisme et à réseaux) pour la mise en évidence expérimentale de la non-localité sur des structures dont les échelles caractéristiques sont de l'ordre de plusieurs dizaines ou centaines de nanomètres. Enfin, dans une seconde partie du manuscrit, le formalisme et les considérations numériques nécessaires à l'étude du rayonnement d'un dipôle dans une structure multi-couche sont présentés en détail puis validés grâce à des comparaisons de dyadiques de Green, diagrammes de rayonnement, et taux d'émission avec des cas disponibles dans la littérature
This manuscript is mainly focused on the influence of repulsion between free electrons on the optical response of metals. Classical material models consider that the metallic response is local -- i.e. that the response at a given point only depends on the fields at this point. Taking into account the repulsion between electrons leads to a so-called non-local description of the metalic response. This thesis explores in a theoritical and numerical way the effects of non-locality on the optical properties of metallo-dielectric nanostructures in the visible and near infrared. Using a hydrodynamical model it is shown that, suprisingly, the modes of plasmonic gaps can be sensitive to non-locality for thicknesses of several tens of nanometers. It is also shown that the surface plasmon itself can be sensitive to non-locality provided that an interface between a metal and a sufficiently high refractive index dielectric is considered. We propose and study here several simple and realictic setups (prism and grating couplers) which would allow to experimentally observe the impact of non-locality and which have characteristic scales of tens or even hundreds of nanometers. Finally, in a second part of the manuscript, the formalism and numerical considerations necessary for the study of a dipole radiation in a multi-layered structure are presented in detail and then validated thanks to comparisons of Green dyadics, radiation diagrams, and emission rates with cases avaible in the literature

My thesis tackles two related problems that have taken center stage in the recent literature on concepts: • What are the individuation conditions of concepts? Under what conditions is a concept C₁ the same concept as a concept C₂? • What are the possession conditions of concepts? What conditions must be satisfied for a thinker to have a concept C? I will develop a pluralist and contextualist theory of concept individuation and possession: different concepts have different individuation and possession conditions, and contextual factors play a crucial role in determining what concepts we attribute to other subjects when we ascribe propositional attitudes to them. In chapters 1-3, I defend a contextualist, non-Millian theory of propositional attitude ascriptions. Then, I suggest contextualist theories of ascriptions can be applied to the problem of concept individuation/possession. In particular, I use contextualism to provide a new, more effective argument for Fodor's “publicity principle”, according to which concepts must be shared in order for interpersonally applicable psychological generalizations to be possible. Publicity has important implications: in particular, it is inconsistent with existing versions of holism, on which concepts cannot be shared by ordinary thinkers. Nonetheless, in chapters 4-5 I show how holism can still play an important role in our best theory of concepts. More specifically, I argue that the tradition of appealing to modes of presentation in order to give an account of “Frege cases” is in fact committed to holism. To develop a version of holism that will give a successful account of Frege cases without violating publicity, I suggest we should adopt my pluralist-contextualist picture: on that picture, the concepts involved in a Frege case will be holistically individuated and not public, while other concepts will be more coarsely individuated and widely shared. In chapter 6, I will develop this view further by contrasting it with other pluralist theories (Weiskopf) and with rival theories of concepts, such as the localist views defended by Peacocke, Rey and Jackson.