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Al-Dahiyat, Emad Abdel Rahim. "Towards legal recognition of intelligent software agents : should we think outside the box?" Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2006. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=236213.
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It is argued that it is no longer convincing to classify the advanced generations of software agents as passive transmission tools, and that the traditional paradigm of face-to-face communication may not readily fit the intelligent agent technology that is evolving with an ultimate aim of eliminating any effective human involvement in the electronic contracting process. It is also argued that the idea of custody might seem inappropriate where the harm is a function of many factors, or when an electronic agent has a malfunction or operates in a manner unintended, unauthorized or unforeseen. It is argued that the introduction of “one-size” regulation without sufficient consideration of the nature of electronic agents or the environments in which they communicate might lead to a divorce between the legal theory and technological practice. In the third part, it is concluded that it is incorrect to deal with electronic agents as if they were either legal persons or nothing without in any way accounting for the fact that there are various kinds of electronic agents endowed with different levels of autonomy, mobility, intelligence, and sophistication. Throughout this thesis, we insist on the importance of establishing a reciprocal cooperation between law and technology so that law interferes in the earlier stages, rather than waiting the technological outcomes and then struggling to accommodate novel issues in an outdated legal framework. Law is also strongly advised to take into account the role every party plays in producing the action in question, consider the type of problem that caused the damage, and then use different standards of responsibility depending whether the action is done autonomously by an unattended software, or whether it is done automatically by an attended software. On the other hand, this thesis advocates that it has become necessary to re-evaluate the legal status and role of intelligent software agents in electronic commerce.
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Young, Christine E. "The Use of Outside Agents to Improve Special Education Service Delivery: A Mixed-Methods Analysis." VCU Scholars Compass, 2018. https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/5646.
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Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, states created statewide systems of support, in collaboration with existing agencies, to deliver targeted assistance to districts and schools identified as in need of support. With limited personnel and resources, state education agencies partnered with outside agents to address the needs of a growing number of low-performing schools. Support and services for low-performing schools were designed to increase opportunities for schools to meet academic content and achievement standards for all students. Strong outside agents (skilled in systems change, knowledge of interventions and capacity for relationship-building) have been shown to produce changes in low-performing schools, but the long-term effect of those changes is unclear. One barrier to the implementation of the statewide system of support, and to any useful evaluation of its impact, is the presence of vulnerable populations, such as students with disabilities. Because low-performing schools tend to have larger student populations identified with academic risk factors like disability status, understanding how the partnership between state education agencies and outside agents improves outcomes for students with disabilities, specifically, is essential in evaluating the overall impact of the statewide system of support.
The purpose of this research is to examine how a mid-sized state’s implementation of the statewide system of support provision, as outlined in The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, by incorporating an existing regional training and technical assistance system, one focused specifically on improving special education, impacted instructional delivery for students with disabilities.
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Sonderegger, Silvia. "Principle-agent problems with type-dependent outside options." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2005. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1963/.
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The literature on adverse selection has until recently concentrated on the case where the agent's outside option is type-independent, implying that all types of agent receive the same payoff should no trade occur with the principal. Unfortunately, this assumption is not innocuous. If it is relaxed, the properties of the optimal contract can change dramatically. This thesis characterizes the impact of type-dependent outside options in three different settings. First, we explore the notion that a worker's prospects in the labour market may be influenced by his employment history. Under these circumstances, employers may incentivise their employees by randomizing over the probability with which current employees are retained. We identify a set of sufficient conditions for this to be the case in a two-period employment relationship, where the employee's ability is private information and both parties are risk-neutral. Although randomization is seldom observed in the real world, our results suggest that employers may optimally introduce some ambiguity over the conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to be retained. Second, we study competition in price-quality menus within the context of an horizontally differentiated duopoly, where each firm also operates in a local, monopolistic market. It is assumed that the consumer's (unobservable) valuation for quality is determined by the nature of his preferences over horizontal (or brand) product characteristics. We find that, if competition between the two firms is sufficiently fierce: (1) the equilibrium quality schedule exhibits bunching and (2) the equilibrium contract features overprovision of quality for sufficiently low types. Thus, with respect to the monopoly setting, competition may introduce new types of distortions, namely upward distortions. Third, we analyze the conflict of interests that arises between employers and employees with respect to the adoption of innovations that change the nature of the skills relevant for production. If an employer decides to adopt a new technology, he will also replace his specialist workforce. Thus, although a current employee has access to superior information concerning the efficiency of the new technology, he also has an incentive to misreport it. We show that if (1) the employee's expected utility from alternative employment is lower when the new technology is superior and (2) the employer cannot commit to retain the employee if the new technology is adopted, no renegotiation-proof contract exists, which induces the employee to truthfully reveal his information. In the special case where the employee can ex-ante commit to make his information publicly available (commitment to transparency), access to external sources of information can result in the employer's choice of technology being less efficient than otherwise.
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Alfredsson, Malin, and Astrid Arnamo. "Att vara socionomkonsult : En professionell outsider?" Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för socialt arbete - Socialhögskolan, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-157973.
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The usage of agency social workers in Sweden have increased during the past few decades and there is a lack of research on this topic. This study aims to describe how the agency social workers experience the work within the swedish social services and how it affects their role with regards to their deviant type of employment. The study is comprised of qualitative interviews with seven agency social workers who have differentiated experience in social services assignments. The results of the study is based on thematic analysis and Becker’s theory of outsiders. The results show that the agency social workers don’t necessarily regard themselves as outsiders in a negative sense, but rather in a positive way. However, they tend to use strategies to avoid behaviour that can appear deviant and therefore avoid being labelled as outsiders. This includes for instance living up to both formal and informal expectations, being careful when it comes to criticizing the hiring organisation and being cautious in their involvement in social relationships to the permanent staff. Opposed to previous studies, these results indicate that the agency social workers expresses more positive experiences in relation to the hiring organisation.
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Jenkins, Kerry Claire. "Outside directors experience and the effect on company value : a South African study." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2013. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/outside-directors-experience-and-the-effect-on-company-value-a-south-african-study(cba327db-83af-43e2-ab44-e3da8a0bb5a8).html.
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In this thesis I investigate the impact of outside directors experience on company value. I do so by looking at a clear event, company delistings in the time period 2003 to 2011 in South Africa, a country with arguably imperfect institutions. Based on qualitative and quantitative research I am able to establish that director experience is indeed associated with company value. The qualitative analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with over 30 highly experienced, independent non-executive directors who have/had seats on over 150 South African listed company boards. Their responses confirm resource theory dependency and provide information on the nature of experience, its relevance during delisting and under other circumstances, as well as insight into the type of experience lacking on boards in corporate South Africa. The results of this research can be of practical use to nomination committees and has implications for future South African governance code reforms and/or guidelines.
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Schellhas, Hans. "The Designer as an Agent for Social Change: Creating an Alternative Communications Model Outside of the Marketplace of Private Media Ownership." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1186772616.
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Ricks, Joi Elizabeth. "Living outside the box: sustaining the lifelong community through universal design." Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/34732.
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We all want to live in a healthy community. Each of us has his or her own image of what such a community should look like. That image is shaped, in part, by our reaction to the communities in which we now live or used to live. However we often take for granted the elements of communities that enable and sometimes disable many of us to remain active in a community for a lifetime. For older residents, a lifelong community would include elements that help them to maintain independence and quality of life. The physical characteristics of a community often play a major role in facilitating our personal independence. In order to combat the growing challenges and health concerns facing the American lifestyle this research proposes a set of design guidelines that promote sustainable lifelong communities that are universally designed for people of all ages and levels of physical ability.
The purpose of developing a set of universal design guidelines for lifelong communities is to alleviate many of the physical barriers and challenges that prevent some Americans from active involvement in the community. The methods employed to develop these guidelines were based on literature review and analysis. This research was incorporated into a new body of practical standards that was tested against a real life community in Decatur, Georgia. These standards were edited and revised to appropriately accommodate the necessary adaptations that were discovered during the evaluation phase. The resultant guidelines are presented with the intention of becoming a usable guide for planning agencies such as the Atlanta Regional Commission and other local and national community design facilitators.
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Wilson, Alexander James. "Engi maðr skapar sik sjálfr : individual agency and the communal creation of outsiders in Íslendingasögur outlaw narratives." Thesis, Durham University, 2017. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12627/.
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This thesis examines how Íslendingasögur out¬law narratives engage with socio-political concepts of community and the individual. It demonstrates that the sagas discussed share key anxieties over the deep structural problems in society, which are shown to restrict the individual agency of their protagonists, a restriction that motivates the transgressive behaviour of these individuals. The thesis suggests that these texts force their audiences to consider how each of their protagonists, despite his desire to live on his own terms, has his life and fate primarily defined—or indeed created—by the other members of his community. The introductory chapter details important trends in literary-critical scholarship about Íslendingasögur outlaw narratives, particularly trends that have caused problems for analysis of the texts’ socio-political dimensions. Chapter two reviews the usefulness of interpreting Gísli Súrsson as a primarily anachronistic figure within his contemporary society; it argues that such an interpretation overly downplays how the society of Gísla saga is shown to be defined by conflicting systems of communal expectation, which underlie Gísli’s approach to vengeance. Chapter three discusses how Grettis saga shows that various social constructs, including outlawry, are used reductively by Grettir’s society to frame him as a figure of Otherness; it demonstrates that the text implies that society’s use of these constructs to create outsiders is a fundamentally problematic method for dealing with difficult individuals. Chapter four demonstrates how Harðar saga juxtaposes the extra-legal Hólmverjar with normative Icelandic society in order to highlight fundamental structural problems that affect both communities in their capacity to provide stable environments for their individual members. Chapter five discusses Fóstbrœðra saga’s treatment of sworn-brotherhood as a symbolically extra-legal community; it also shows how Þormóðr uses his status as an outsider to subvert familiar notions of normativity and Otherness, thereby gaining advantages in his dealings with society.
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Chen, Chia-wei. "Two essays on multiple directorships." [Tampa, Fla] : University of South Florida, 2008. http://purl.fcla.edu/usf/dc/et/SFE0002509.
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Björklund, Frida, and Hanna Dahlström. "Why have an Active Board of Directors? : A Quantitative Study of SMEs." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-124661.
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In Sweden all limited liability companies are required to have a board of directors. The board of directors’ task is to manage the business of the firm, but in recent years boards have been subjected to critical review in the media, questioning the tasks and structure of the board. Further, there are differences in the regulations regarding limited liability companies, depending on whether they are private or public companies. Moreover, a majority of the research within the area of corporate governance has been conducted on public companies. However, corporate governance in small and medium sized enterprises (SME) has in the last 30 years become a field of interest. Several scholars and doctorates have used different board roles to explain e.g. the tasks, demographics, and financial performance. The board roles are mainly derived from the agency-, resource dependence-, and stewardship theory. Many papers have come to the conclusion that a board of directors who performs their task, and/or have a certain board demography is beneficial to the firm. Hence, the board and its activity is of importance, however, a general image is conveyed that boards in SMEs rarely are active, but rather are seen as a necessary mean in order to have a firm. Due to this, the research question in this thesis is: What motivates small and medium sized firms to have an active board and are boards in Norr- and Västerbotten active? The criteria for having an active board has been derived from antecedent research and are further recommendations from StyrelseAkademien. Three different board roles have been used with the purpose of explaining the motivation behind having an active board. Further, this thesis has had a quantitative method, and in order to gather data a survey was sent out to board members in Norr- and Västerbotten. The results show that the motivation behind having an active board cannot be explained through the roles network and service of the board. The control role could partly explain the motivation behind having an active board of directors in SMEs in Norr- and Västerbotten, having a negative relationship to board activity. Moreover, due to the opposing results in terms of whether or not boards are active, an unambiguous answer could not be found. However, 49.1 percent of the sample is considered to be active. Lastly, the finding support that in order to have an active board, the firm must recognize a need to include outside directors.
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Johnson, Alfred B. "Net work : social networks, disruptive agency, and innovation in Howells, Fitzgerald, Heller, Pynchon, and Gibson." Virtual Press, 2006. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1343471.
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This study uses concepts from network science to analyze the agency of outsider characters who cause change or disruption without necessarily securing economic or political power for themselves. Network science as theorized by thinkers like Duncan Watts (Six Degrees, 2003) and Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (Linked, 2002) explains social networks in terms of social structures: clusters of people, bridges between them, pathways through them. Michel Foucault (The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1971) suggests that new notions must enter public or personal awareness on "surfaces of emergence"—institutions like families and social groups. Michel de Certeau (The Practice of Everyday Life, 1974) looks at inventive ways that users repurpose products, both industrial and cultural, and so become "secondary producers." To analyze the influential-outsider agency of the fictional characters featured in this study, I theorize the clusters, bridges, and pathways of network science as surfaces of emergence on which "secondary productions" can appear and then spread through a social network.The introductory chapter explores and explains the general application of network science to literary criticism. In subsequent chapters, I use a networks-based approach to examine the agency of William Dean Howells's Tom Corey (The Rise of Silas Lapham, 1884), F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby, 1925), Joseph Heller's Milo Minderbinder (Catch-22, 1961), Thomas Pynchon's Pierce Inverarity (The Crying of Lot 49, 1965), and William Gibson's Cayce Pollard (Pattern Recognition, 2003). These characters do unusual things with and from the subject positions in which they find themselves, and—whether or not they are or remain marginalized characters in their social systems—they are innovative and influential in ways that other characters do not understand or anticipate. All five novels depict the diffusion of innovative ideas and practices as a process of unplanned, non-coercive social negotiation, where innovation can originate with any person or group of people in the social network and is dependent on the complex interaction of liminal notions and mainstream thinking. The networking approach to these novels clarifies the ways that their authors have imagined social networks to function and the particular interactions they have imagined to lead to change or disruption.<br>Department of English
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Müller, Niklaus Thomas. "Corporate governance, outside equity and outside control /." 2001. http://www.gbv.de/dms/zbw/350668094.pdf.
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Chang, Shu-chi, and 張舒綺. "Multiple Principle-Agent and Independence of Outside Director." Thesis, 2012. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/07153763900216221877.
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碩士<br>朝陽科技大學<br>會計所<br>100<br>Considering that board of directors to reduce the agency problem is efficiency measurement indicators. Therefore, in this paper analyze the settings of the external board of directors. The first, it will reduce the possibility of agency problems. The second, internal directors emptied of assets, the theoretical analysis of whether to execute the supervision of outside directors. In this paper, conclusions can be summarized as follows：The first, as the non-independence of outside directors did not exercise an oversight and only have to give principal a control of reward. Therefore, the outside directors is avoid to principal have self-serving motives in hollowed assets or agent problem, the outside directors will set the incentive contract or incentive compensation to indirect control of the principal, principal with the interests of shareholders consistent, and enhance corporate performance. Second, when principal set the agent''s basic salary system, we have got three different results. Third, under the supervision of independent outside directors, inside directors engaged in hollowed assets, will consider their own profits and the impact of legal sanctions, and then decide to emptied assets. Fourth, under the strict supervision of outside directors, inside directors may be self-serving motives and agents of interest arising from collusion. Due to inside directors is based on legal sanctions, inside directors will be based on the agent collusion and collusion, the outside directors found that the size of the probability of and hollowed assets.
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Wu, Cheng-Kuang, and 吳正光. "Multi-Agent Systems and Outside Threats－Application of Game Theory." Thesis, 2009. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/00194810196639404520.
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博士<br>國立中央大學<br>資訊管理研究所<br>98<br>In intrusion detection systems (IDSs), a software sensor is installed in a host of network to identify intrusions and viruses in order to prevent from entering the host by analyzing system calls. Homeland security advisory system (HSAS) is developed by the U.S. government to set up alarm system of emergency operations centers (EOC) and decide when to raise the threat level of system. The HSAS facilitates the sensitivity of protection of various regional emergency agencies, as well as strengthens resource reallocation and deployment efficiency so as to improve the response agency’s capability against terrorist attacks. Because IDS and HSAS need to deploy a large scale of response nodes at overall region, these systems cannot fulfill the requirement of resources allocation while all targeted nodes are attacked by outside attackers, especially when the available resources are constrained. Thus, the concept of multi-agent system (MAS) is applied to construct these systems. These MASs are designed to deploy multiple response agents when face outside threat. The related works encounter scalability problem that MASs handle growing amounts of agent work in a graceful manner or a large number of agents. Therefore, an integrated model of noncooperative game and cooperative game is proposed to improve this problem and prioritize to allocate the resources of MAS so as to implement overall system security.
This dissertation proposes a two-stage model to connect the noncooperative game model with cooperative game model. In the first stage, the interactive behaviors between the outside attacker and the district response agent are modeled and analyzed as a noncooperative game, after which the outside threat value is derived from the Nash equilibrium. In the second stage, the interactive behaviors among agents are modeled as a cooperative game, and the threat value is utilized to compute the Shapley value of all response agents for several different threat levels. Then an acceptable resources allocation of response agents based on the expected marginal contribution creates a minimum set of resource deployment costs. The two-stage model is applied to three MAS cases, and the experimental results discussed. Two implications are suggested. First, based on the interactions between agent and attacker, the proposed model provides administrator decision-making that can predict which agent is more vulnerable to attack, and which agent is more robust against outside attacks. Second, the overall security situation of protective region is divided into a number of alert levels. The experimental results show that at a low level, the MAS advises emergency managers to redistribute the response resources to many agents in order to "nip attacks in the bud". When the alert level is raised to its highest level, emergency managers redistribute all resources to a small number of critical agents in order to "achieve the goal of resisting serious attacks and discarding less effective agent". Thus, the two-stage model enables to allocate resources efficiently in the overall system given resource constraints. In addition, this framework can be used to increase the emergency manager’s ability to immediately respond to outside multiple attacks.
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Li, Hung-Ling, and 黎紅玲. "An Emipirical Study on Outside Monitoring, Agency Problem and Credit Risk Models." Thesis, 2012. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/67320399444202389536.
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碩士<br>清雲科技大學<br>國際企業管理研究所<br>100<br>A primary objective of this research is to use statistical methods to construct a logistic credit risk model on non-group companies through discussions of agency problem that is associated with issues surrounding the separation of management and ownership. The credit risk model would make it possible to predict in advance the probability of a financial risk attacking non-group companies. To construct such a credit risk model,this study employs statistical procedures such as K-S test,M-U test and logistic regression model.Empirical findings are: in the case where ownership is combined with management, no agency problems were present, and the degree of predictive accuracy was increased.However, non-group companies with combined ownership and management should reduce the cash floe per share,heed auditing advices accounting opinions from a CPA,refrain from replacing CPAs,and institute an outsider monitoring and corporate governance mechanism. In short,non-groups companies that value corporate governance would reduce credit risk.
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Lin, Mei-Chuan, and 林美娟. "An Empirical Study of Outside Monitoring,Agency Problem and Corporate Value in Family Firms." Thesis, 2012. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/24251456838838279103.
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碩士<br>清雲科技大學<br>國際企業管理研究所<br>100<br>The objective of this study is to construct a credit risk model, using statistical methods, for investors, financial institutions and other stakeholders for the purpose of evaluating financial risks of a business concern so as to minimize potential financial risk losses. In this study, K-S test, M-U test, and logistic credit risk models were performed to determine whether the rise of agency problem might be associated with the separation of ownership and management, or otherwise; and to test socio-economic variables that could conceivably affect corporate performance and corporate valuation. The empirical results suggest that the separation of ownership and management could adversely affect corporate performance. Fist, reduce the debt-to-equity ratio as soon as possible to reduce the probability of having a financial crisis while enhancing corporate valuation. Second, reduce the cash flow ratio and the retention ratio to establish a safety margin to cushion asset realization losses. Third, the CEO should heed the auditing advices from an accountant. At the same time, outsider monitoring and corporate governance mechanism should be instituted and fortified. For companies with combined management and ownership, it is necessary to increase the cash flow per share and the cash flow ratio to minimize the probability of a financial crisis. Moreover, such companies should reduce the cash flow reinvestment ratio, increase the non-operating income and expense ratio, and diversify the business scope in order to reduce operation risks. Lastly, a combined management and ownership arrangement would can reduce agency problems and increase the forecasting capacity.
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Yu, Yun-Lin, and 游昀玲. "The Impacts of Corporate Performance and Agency Problem on Announcement Effect of Outside Directors & Auditors." Thesis, 2004. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/57696586610785122432.
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碩士<br>朝陽科技大學<br>財務金融系碩士班<br>92<br>Corporate governance is becoming a central issue in Taiwan, and companies hope to enhance their corporate value and stockholder’s wealth through a sounder governance mechanism.
We examine the announcement effect of outside directors and /or auditors on stockholder’s wealth. In addition, we explore the impacts of corporate performance and agency problem on announcement effect. The samples of our study contain 58 events during the period 1999/1/1-2003/6/30. The empirical results can be summarized as follows:
1.Companies experience a significantly positive abnormalreturn while the recruiting of outside directors and/or auditors is announced.
2.Firms with poorer prior performance, higher free cash flow or information asymmetry would be associated with better announcement effect。
3.Firms with a duality of CEO and board chair or a weaker board structure before the announcement would have a higher abnormal return.
4.Companies have higher returns when they have poorer prior performance accompanied with severer agency problem.
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Alagaratnam, Stephen T. "The impact of outside directors and the board on the financial performance of large federally-chartered savings and loans banks in the United States of America." 2002. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ82766.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2002. Graduate Programme in Administrative Studies.<br>Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-193). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ82766.
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Singh, Cheryl. "The relationship between critical mass of outside Black directors on JSE-listed boards and financial performance : A study of boards in mining and financial services sectors." Diss., 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/40762.
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Numerous studies have examined the relationship between a critical mass of women on corporate boards and firm performance. Despite convincing arguments that racially diverse board members contribute positively to the board's management oversight and strategy formulation responsibilities, literature examining race in the boardroom has been very scant and racial minority directors remain persistently under- represented on corporate boards.
The purpose of this study was to examine whether a critical mass of 30% Black directors on boards and audit committees of public companies performed better than companies with less than 30% Black directors. The study was conducted using the mining and financial services companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Quantitative research methodology was utilized to test the financial ratios of ROA, ROE, Tobin's Q, Share Price, P: E Ratio and Dividend Payout with companies that had a minimum of 30% Black directors compared to companies with less than 30% Black directors.
The study revealed that there was no relationship between either a critical mass of Black directors on boards and financial performance or between a critical mass of Black directors on audit committees and financial performance.<br>Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013.<br>ccgibs2014<br>Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)<br>MBA<br>Unrestricted
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Arnold, Jobb. "Inside and Outside Peace and Prosperity: Post-Conflict Cultural Spaces in Rwanda and Northern Ireland." Thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1974/12223.
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In post-conflict settings real and imagined boundaries do a great deal to determine who is inside and who is outside of state-based narratives of peace and prosperity. Based on case studies in Rwanda and Northern Ireland, I provide an analysis of the post-conflict periods and the impact of neoliberal-styled governance on the dynamics of power. I argue that as power shifted, ‘peace’ also entailed a general social pacification, and prosperity equated to greater private profit. However, top-down social engineering has not contained the entire field of social struggle. I examine micro-level interventions taking place on the margins of mainstream discourse that trouble the moralizing state-narratives that seek to legitimate structural violence. Such spaces facilitate alternative values and practices that contribute to sustained social and cultural resilience, as well as forms of resistance.
Post-conflict Rwanda and Northern Ireland have been impacted by both coercive and consensual forms of social engineering. In Rwanda, state-based framework laws and forceful regimes of local implementation rely on stark contingencies of reward and punishment to shape and control behaviour in the public sphere. In Northern Ireland, the power-sharing structure of the Belfast Agreement has reinforced ethnic politics, while depoliticizing and instrumentalizing civil society in support of its neoliberal policies.
I present ethnographic research and interviews conducted with community organizations in Northern Ireland (Ikon) and Rwanda (Student Association of Genocide Survivors - AERG) that demonstrates how alternative discourses and practices are emerging in the cracks of these top-down systems. I explore Ikon’s use of creative performances and radical theology to create socially resonant cultural spaces that function as temporary autonomous zones. These TAZs unsettle aspects of individual identity while intentionally seeking to destabilize mainstream power dynamics. Unlike Ikon, AERG faces greater public scrutiny and higher political stakes. They demonstrate an adherence to the dominant social script in the public sphere, while exhibiting micro- level agency through trauma healing, and material support in private day-to-day practices. AERG’s performance in the public sphere creates temporary spaces of encounter that exceed the boundaries of official discourse, making their alternative presence felt while remaining illegible to the dominant surveillance frameworks.<br>Thesis (Ph.D, Cultural Studies) -- Queen's University, 2014-06-02 11:02:09.033