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1
Paraskevaides, Andreas. "Social constraints on human agency." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/5655.
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In this thesis, I present a view according to which folk psychology is not only used for predictive and explanatory purposes but also as a normative tool. I take it that this view, which I delineate in chapter 1, can help us account for different aspects of human agency and with solving a variety of puzzles that are associated with developing such an account. My goal is to examine what it means to act as an agent in a human society and the way in which the nature of our agency is also shaped by the normative constraints inherent in the common understanding of agency that we share with other agents. As I intend to demonstrate, we can make significant headway in explaining the nature of our capacity to express ourselves authoritatively in our actions in a self-knowing and self-controlled manner if we place this capacity in the context of our social interactions, which depend on a constant exchange of reasons in support of our actions. My main objective is to develop a promising account of human agency within a folk-psychological setting by mainly focusing on perspectives from the philosophy of action and mind, while still respecting more empirically oriented viewpoints from areas such as cognitive science and neuroscience. Chapter 2 mainly deals with the nature of self-knowledge and with our capacity to express this knowledge in our actions. I argue that our self-knowledge is constituted by the normative judgments we make and that we use these judgments to regulate our behaviour in accordance to our folk-psychological understanding of agency. We are motivated to act as such because of our motive to understand ourselves, which has developed through our training as self-knowing agents in a folk-psychological framework. Chapter 3 explores the idea that we develop a self-concept which enables us to act in a self-regulating manner. I distinguish self-organization from selfregulation and argue that we are self-regulating in our exercises of agency because we have developed a self-concept that we can express in our actions. What makes us distinct from other self-regulating systems, however, is that we can also recognize and respond to the fact that being such systems brings us under certain normative constraints and that we have to interact with others who are similarly constrained. Chapter 4 is mainly concerned with placing empirical evidence which illustrate the limits of our conscious awareness and control in the context of our account of agency as a complex, emergent social phenomenon. Finally, chapter 5 deals with the way in which agentive breakdowns such as self-deceptive inauthenticity fit with this account.
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Dunst, Brian W. "Embodying Social Practice: Dynamically Co-Constituting Social Agency." Scholar Commons, 2013. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/4473.
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Theories of cognition and theories of social practices and institutions have often each separately acknowledged the relevance of the other; but seldom have there been consistent and sustained attempts to synthesize these two areas within one explanatory framework. This is precisely what my dissertation aims to remedy. I propose that certain recent developments and themes in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, when understood in the right way, can explain the emergence and dynamics of social practices and institutions. Likewise, the view I construct explains how social practices and institutions shape the character of cognition of their constituent agents. Moreover, I explain both cognitive and social agency under the single explanatory framework provided by Dynamic Systems Theory.
Drawing upon the phenomenological tradition, "embodied, "extended", "embedded", "enactive", and "ecological" approaches to cognition, as well as the conceptual resources of Dynamic Systems Theory, I construct a theory of agency that sees cognitive and social agents as far-from-equilibrium, open, recursively self-maintenant dynamic systems. Depending on the specifics of concrete circumstances, such systems, which I call "Dynamic Embodied Agents" (or DEAs), may develop and possess emergent capacities for error-detection, flexible learning, normative behavior, representation, self-reflection, various modes of pattern-recognition, a temporal sense of self, and even moral responsibility. Some such systems are also sensitive to perceived social influences (practices and institutions); while reciprocally constituting and causally affecting them.
3
D'Iverno, Mark Paul. "Social agency : a formal computational model." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.300509.
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Saaristo, Antti Jussi. "Social ontology and agency : methodological holism naturalised." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2007. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2561/.
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Contemporary philosophy of the social sciences is dominated by methodological individualism. Intentional agency is assumed to be conceptually and explanatorily prior to social facts and social practices. In particular, it is generally thought that denials of methodological individualism are bound to include ontologically unnatural and, thereby, unacceptable views. This dissertation provides a comprehensive criticism of this orthodoxy. Part I argues that social facts do not have to be understood as aggregates of actions and attitudes of essentially asocial individuals. Rather, the construction of social facts requires that acting as a member of a group rather than as a disparate individual is a fundamental building block of social reality and social facts. This idea is explicated in the anti-individualistic terms of the theory of collective intentionality. Part II tackles the accusation that the theory of collective intentionality is indefensibly anti-naturalistic in the sense that its picture of humans is essentially incompatible with evolutionary biology. This accusation is answered in terms of detailed analyses of evolutionary models of human sociality and empirical studies of the nature of social action. Part II concludes that it is actually the methodologically individualistic picture of social action as strategic individual action that is unacceptable. The theory of collective intentionality is compatible with and supported by scientific naturalism. Part III, then, defends full-blown methodological holism. It is argued that intentional action and agency as we know them actually require that individual agents (qua agents and not qua physical objects) are essentially constituted by social practices. Intentional action must be explained and understood in terms of social practices. However, this view is argued to be perfectly naturalistic both in the sense of not assuming any ontologically suspect entities and in the sense of being supported by the natural sciences. Indeed, it is the individualistic orthodoxy that has to apply unnatural notions.
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Arif, Farrah. "Impact of social agency on child-brand relationships." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610614.
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Quadrelli, Carol A. "Aberrance, agency and social constructions of women offenders." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2003. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/15849/1/Carol_Quadrelli_Thesis.pdf.
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Traditionally offending women are framed through essentialist discourses of pathologisation and the family. Hence, good women are constructed as passive, compliant, vulnerable to victimisation, and nurturers. Offending women are constructed within criminal justice processes as disordered, physiologically and psychologically flawed. Censure or sympathy dispensed to women within the system is contingent on a number of key factors: the type of offence, the category of women involved, and the way in which women interact and negotiate the discourses used to construct their aberrance. The focus of this thesis is offending women and how they are socially constructed through legal and penal discourses within the court and the prison. However this thesis rejects the essentialist framework which positions women as passive recipients of an omnipotent patriarchal criminal justice system and thus having no agency. Nor is this thesis about creating a new entity to encompass all offending women. Instead an anti- essentialist approach is adopted that allows the body, power, and women's agency to be theorised. This approach provides a more complex and detailed account of women's aberrance that acknowledges the diverse range of women, their experiences and negotiations of criminal justice processes. The combination of real women's lived experiences and an alternative theoretical framework provides a very different perspective in which to understand female offending.
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Quadrelli, Carol A. "Aberrance, Agency and Social Constructions of Women Offenders." Queensland University of Technology, 2003. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/15849/.
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Traditionally offending women are framed through essentialist discourses of pathologisation and the family. Hence, good women are constructed as passive, compliant, vulnerable to victimisation, and nurturers. Offending women are constructed within criminal justice processes as disordered, physiologically and psychologically flawed. Censure or sympathy dispensed to women within the system is contingent on a number of key factors: the type of offence, the category of women involved, and the way in which women interact and negotiate the discourses used to construct their aberrance.
The focus of this thesis is offending women and how they are socially constructed through legal and penal discourses within the court and the prison. However this thesis rejects the essentialist framework which positions women as passive recipients of an omnipotent patriarchal criminal justice system and thus having no agency. Nor is this thesis about creating a new entity to encompass all offending women. Instead an anti- essentialist approach is adopted that allows the body, power, and women's agency to be theorised. This approach provides a more complex and detailed account of women's aberrance that acknowledges the diverse range of women, their experiences and negotiations of criminal justice processes. The combination of real women's lived experiences and an alternative theoretical framework provides a very different perspective in which to understand female offending.
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De, Angelis Maria Ivanna. "Human trafficking : women's stories of agency." Thesis, University of Hull, 2012. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:5823.
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This thesis is about women’s stories of agency in a trafficking experience. The idea of agency is a difficult concept to fathom, given the unscrupulous acts and exploitative practices which demarcate and define trafficking. In response to the three Ps of trafficking policy (prevention and protection of victims and the simultaneous prosecution of traffickers) official discourse constructs trafficking agency in singular opposition to trafficking victimhood. The ‘true’ victim of trafficking is reified in attributes of passivity and worthiness, whereas signs of women’s agency are read as consent in their own predicament or as culpability in criminal justice and immigration rule breaking. Moving beyond the official lack or criminal fact of agency, this research adds knowledge on agency constructed with, on, and by women possessing a trafficking experience. This fills an internationally recognised gap in the trafficking discourse. Within the thesis, female agency is explored in feminist terms of women’s immediate well-being agency (their physical safety and economic needs) and their longer term requirements for agency freedom (their capacity to construct choices and the conditions affecting choice). This feminist exploration of the terrain on trafficking found ways in which female agency takes shape in relationship and in degrees to women’s subjective and structural victimisation. Based upon the stories of twenty six women gathered through an in-depth qualitative study, agency is visible in identity, decision making and actions. Women fashioned individual trafficking identities from their subjective engagement with the official trafficking descriptors. Additionally, their identification with ties to home (expressed via family relationships, occupational roles, national dress and ethnic food) helped to sustain their pre-trafficking personas. Women exhibited agency in risk taking and choices (initial, shared, constrained and precarious), which characterised their journeys and explained their grading of trafficking ‘pains’. Significantly, the fieldwork raised women’s engagement with ‘the rules’ and practices of the host society, as a way of realising new social, recreational, educational, employment, sexual and consumer related freedoms. Acknowledging the international and UK serious organised crime frame on trafficking, the fieldwork also included fifteen interviews with anti-trafficking professionals involved in delivering the three Ps of trafficking policy. This complementary standpoint to women’s stories presents ways in which official actors helped and hindered women’s achievement of well-being and agency freedoms. Crucially, in addressing trafficking as an evolving and integral aspect in contemporary global movement - displaying similarity and cross over with migration, smuggling, asylum and refugee accounts - this research unearthed trafficking exploitations and experiences around transnational marriage, which have been traditionally isolated and overlooked by UK trafficking discourse and policy platforms.
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Elder-Vass, David John. "The theory of emergence, social structure and human agency." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.430776.
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Bissell, G. "Time, agency, and social thought in nineteenth century England." Thesis, University of Bradford, 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.373217.
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Polich, Laura Gail. "Social agency and deaf communities : a Nicaraguan case study /." Digital version accessible at:, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Tasselli, Stefano. "Network structure, individual agency and outcomes in organizations." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/283966.
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Parry, Kirstin. "Retaining child protection workers: the effects of agency practices." Thesis, McGill University, 2010. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=86509.
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This study involves a quantitative, descriptive study of the Ontario child welfare organizational practices that most influence retention of its workers. A model was created to display significant factors related to worker retention. The purpose of the research was to compare how independent variables such as worker demographics, client variables, and agency procedures, individually and together with worker job satisfaction impacted worker retention in two Ontario Children's Aid Societies. Measures utilized included the Job Satisfaction Survey (Spector, 1997), a demographic information sheet, and an organizational survey to compare differences in the actual organizational practices and workers' satisfaction levels with those practices of the two agencies. Job satisfaction mean scores were then compared to JSS norms from the human services and nursing professions. Findings indicated that agency procedures combined with worker job satisfaction factors most contributed to retention rather than the worker demographics and client variables and this was consistent with other studies. Therefore, child welfare agencies need to increase their efforts regarding agency policies and practices such as competitive salaries, quantity and quality of supervision, and inclusive fringe benefits in order to retain workers.Ce projet de recherche englobe une étude quantitative et descriptive des pratiques organisationnelles exerçant la plus grande influence sur la rétention des travailleurs voués au bien-être de l'enfance en Ontario. La création d'un modèle a permis de présenter les facteurs significatifs liés à la rétention de ces travailleurs. L'objet de la recherche consistait à comparer la façon dont des variables indépendantes, dont les caractéristiques sociodémographiques des travailleurs, les variables liées à la clientèle, ainsi que les procédures des agences, exerçaient un impact, individuellement et conjointement avec la satisfaction professionnelle, sur la rétention des travailleurs membres de deux sociétés d'aide à l'enfance de l'Ontario. Parmi les instruments de mesure utilisés figuraient une enquête sur la satisfaction professionnelle (Spector, 1997), une fiche d'information démographique et un sondage organisationnel. Ces instruments visaient à comparer les différences caractérisant les pratiques organisationnelles réelles et le niveau de satisfaction des travailleurs avec les pratiques adoptées par les deux agences. Par la suite, les scores moyens de satisfaction des travailleurs ont fait l'objet d'une comparaison avec les normes de l'enquête sur la satisfaction professionnelle, dans les domaines des services à la personne et des professions infirmières. Conclusions indiquent qu'Agence procédures associées au travailleur des facteurs de satisfaction d'emploi plus contribués à la rétention plutôt que la démographie de travailleur et variables client et c'était compatible avec d'autres études. Par conséquent, organismes de protection de l'enfance ont besoin d'accroître leurs efforts concernant les politiques des organismes et des pratiques telles que les salaires compétitifs, la quantité et la qualité de surveillance et d'avantages sociaux inclus afin de conserver des travailleurs.
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Cabayao, Ulysses. "Posthumous Agency on Facebook." Thesis, Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/118431.
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Posthumous Agency on Facebook
Abstract: The concept of agency remains contested in
anthropology. One aspect of the debate spans from those who, on
the one hand, insist that agency is exclusive to living human
beings, with all its accompanying implication, to those who, on
the other, believe that non-living, non-human things also exert
agency. Posthumous agency straddles this debate with its strange
creature: the dead human being. In this thesis, however, I seek
to examine how the dead in the context of Facebook challenge
existing literature on the agency of the dead. While the agency
of the dead has been recently garnering scholarly attention, this
interest has focused largely on the agentive capacity of the
corporeal remains of the person: corpse, ashes, bones. The dead
do not simply remain dead; they remain socially, symbolically,
and mnemonically significant. They further live on through
distributed instances of their personhood, through their material
possessions or through their surviving social relationships. I
apply Alfred Gell’s theory of the art nexus to examine how the
agency of the dead is abducted through their corporeal, material,
and social remains. Building on three thematic treatments of
posthumous agency as heuristic, I analyze the presence of the
dead on Facebook to demonstrate and expound on their posthumous
agency. The findings of this thesis affirm the fuzzy boundaries
of agency that make agency slippery enough to be applied to the
dead, to be distributed across one’s social network, and to be
shared with digital technology.
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Abbott, Owen. "The social self, social relations, and social (moral) practice." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/30117.
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The primary task of this thesis is to explain what the relationship between social practice and the socially emergent self is, and to concurrently explain why this relationship is of significance to an accurate theory of social practice itself. A subsequent aim of this is to explain how the socially emergent self can be used to account for individual engagement in moral practices. Building on George Herbert Mead, it is argued that the social process through which the self emerges moulds the individual’s capacity to engage with social practice. It is argued that combining Mead’s theory of the socially emergent self with relational sociology provides a theoretical framework that can account for how intersubjective and historically situated social practices are taken on by the individual, to the extent that she can engage in such practices both reflectively and pre-reflectively. What is more, this theoretical synthesis is able to account for how social practices are engaged with in an incredibly routine and ‘ordinary’ manner, while also accounting for individual variation in this engagement. This theory is then applied to moral practices. It is contended that individual engagement in moral practice is not altogether different from engagement in social practice generally, and thus the theory offered here also accounts for how individuals are able to engage in moral practice in both a routine and an individualised manner.
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Sage, Adam J. "Attributing Deflections to Explain Agency." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1259181941.
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Robertson, Christie Social Science & Policy UNSW. "Social capital, women's agency and the VIEW clubs of Australia." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. Social Science and Policy, 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/31919.
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Contemporary debates about collective action in civil society have given prominent place to the connections between voluntary associations and social capital. Social capital research, however, commonly over-emphasises the role of associations in generating societal-level outcomes, to the neglect of the specific contexts in which associations reside and the different opportunities individuals and groups have to access resources for and through collective action. Also largely ignored are considerations of gender. This thesis addresses these issues, presenting evidence from a case study of a large women???s service organisation ??? the VIEW Clubs of Australia ??? to examine how social capital and women???s agency intersect. The thesis adopts a social-structural approach to social capital, highlighting its role as a resource brokered through networks that both enable and constrain action. This approach attends to the inter-relations of particular types of social capital, such as bonding and bridging; specific elements of social capital, such as reciprocity, trust, and shared values, identities and purposes; and addresses the broader socio-historical context in which social capital networks are located. The thesis employs a model of agency that encompasses three core fields of agency ??? individual, social and political. These fields of agency encapsulate the capacity for women to ???act??? and exercise choice and change in their own lives, in the community, and in the polity, and to do this through collective action. The thesis applies these ideas using an embedded case study model combining documentary analysis, participant observation and in-depth interviews. The findings reveal agency and social capital to be in tension. Activities that feed the agential capacity of the organisation and its members are more successfully realised in areas closest to women???s past experiences than in those addressing the public sphere. The research nevertheless shows that a voluntary association such as VIEW can foster women???s agency. Indeed, building women???s capacities in society as a whole may well rely on organisational contexts where women are empowered to self-develop and connect their activities to broader society. This is impacted by the nature, purpose, and social location of the social capital networks of women and others, and has implications for how we understand the ongoing role of voluntary associations in civil society. By revealing how different dimensions of social capital operate and intersect with women???s agency, the thesis shows the dynamic role of voluntary associations in civil society.
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De, Wild Karin. "Internet art and agency : the social lives of online artworks." Thesis, University of Dundee, 2019. https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/a6a64a92-2edc-44a8-b371-de4a61bdc289.
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During the 1990s, artists started to explore the possibilities of the World Wide Web. This thesis investigates online artworks by studying their agency. Why do people interact with them, as if they are alive? How do they mobilise people, or make them share visions and ideas? Based on research in largely untapped archives, it presents an in-depth examination of several case studies, exploring the artwork's ability to have the power to act in a variety of social settings. Through studying the life trajectory of the artwork, it also offers insights in how these dynamic entities undergo changes over time and across cultures. Grounded in theoretical literature on the agency of art, this research offers an innovative way of understanding Internet art and it contributes to wider conversations about the agency of art and artefacts. Case studies include: Mouchette (Martine Neddam), 'Mouchette' (1996-present). Web project (www.mouchette.org). Collection of Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam). Shu Lea Cheang, 'Brandon' (1998-1999). Web project (brandon.guggenheim.org). Collection of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York). Lynn Hershman Leeson, 'Agent Ruby' (1998-2002). Web project (agentruby.sfmoma.org). Collection of SFMOMA (San Francisco).
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Holyoak, Rose Erin. "Young women's gendered subjectivity and agency in social movement activism." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/36127.
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This thesis examines the experiences of young women participating in anarchist and environmental activism within the UK as a means of exploring the relationship between youth, gender, and political participation in a postfeminist, neoliberal context. Recent scholarship has identified young women as the ideal subjects of neoliberalism, where flexibility and reflexivity are prized and rewarded. Young women have been presented with new subject positions and forms of citizenship engagement but these are, for the most part, individualised and depoliticised. Concurrently theorists have warned of an impending crisis of democracy precipitated by youth political disengagement, while governments have condemned ‘incorrect’ or ‘disruptive’ forms of youth civic engagement. This thesis intervenes in these debates by exploring the significance of social movement participation for young women in contributing to their political agency and gendered subjectivity. The research utilised a qualitative feminist methodology, analysing data from 20 semi-structured interviews, three diaries completed by interview participants, and 200 hours of participant observation. The thesis finds little evidence that young activist women are individualised or disengaged. Instead, their participation in collective action and their identification as feminists contribute to my theorisation of them as ‘wilful women’, whose conscious, reflexive political engagement marks them apart from individualised neoliberal subjects. Through a relational, feminist political agency they are able to reframe femininity as active and compassionate rather than passive and compliant, and engage politically on this basis. The study also finds that the non-hierarchical organisational structures of activist organisations effectively contribute to the creation of anti-oppressive pedagogic strategies for confronting inequality within activist cultures. This thesis makes an original contribution by developing a set of theoretical concepts that enable an understanding of the means by which young activist women construct dissident, wilful gendered subjectivities that confront sexism and inequality both within their own activist communities and within society at large.
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Kuoch, Phong. "Laughing for a change : Racism, humour, identity and social agency /." Burnaby, B.C. : Simon Fraser University, 2005. http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/handle/1892/670.
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Thesis (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005.Theses (Faculty of Education) / Simon Fraser University. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.
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Meckelburg, Rebecca. "Subaltern agency and the political economy of rural social change." Thesis, Meckelburg, Rebecca (2019) Subaltern agency and the political economy of rural social change. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2019. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/57177/.
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Twenty years after the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, most political studies of Indonesia’s post-New Order democratic ‘transition’ have left the ideas, forms of organisation, strategies and impacts of lower class struggles largely unexamined. Scholarly works that address the dynamics of social and political change have largely focussed on the mixed outcomes of decentralisation and democratisation of state power for elite actors since Reformasi, providing little or no framework for conceptualising popular political action in the context of this institutional restructuring. Drawing on propositions from Marxist political economy, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and social reproduction theory, this thesis develops analytical approaches for investigating the dynamics of rural subaltern agency in post-New Order Indonesia, focussing on how rural subaltern actors ‘do politics’. The approach applied here extends the analysis of political studies beyond the state, its institutions and hegemonic practices by focussing on the persistent, albeit often fragmented, popular struggles to secure control of resources and shift social relations of power in favour of subaltern and other non-elite classes. It considers the connections between everyday popular encroachments on hegemonic power, social movement struggles and moments of social and political crisis with the potential for transformative social and political change.
Using qualitative data from extensive fieldwork in Central Java, the thesis demonstrates that legacies of subaltern struggles over power and land as a resource are reflected in villagers’ contemporary relations with state institutions and other forms of social organisation. They organise across multiple scales, and employ diverse tactics including shifting alliances with other social actors to further their interests. Their political claims are strongly informed by cultures and ideologies that have their roots in previous periods of collective action, which are reproduced or transformed though their experiences in contemporary social struggles. Finally, the thesis considers how these diverse expressions of subaltern social struggles might contribute to progressive forms of agrarian development and the broadening and deepening of pro-poor democratic struggles in Indonesia.
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Morris, Mark. "Managerial agency : personality, psychopathy, structure and leadership." Thesis, Keele University, 2017. http://eprints.keele.ac.uk/2987/.
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This study begins with the clinical observation that psychopathic patients distort and disrupt the organisation containing and caring for them on one hand, and that organisational leaders manage to galvanise followers into realising his vision on the other; the two seeming to be phenomenologically similar; the former is organisationally effective antisocially, and the latter, pro-socially; one destructive and one creative. The study explores the implications of this observation through the sociological, psychological and leadership literatures, having focussed on the question of how managers are effective within organisations and to what extent is the personality or psychopathy of a manager a critical variable. Examining Hitler as a crucial case study, who as a leader combined effectiveness, charisma and a personality cult with a violent and psychopathic regime, the study uses a hermeneutic phenomenology methodology. Having looked at the case through the triangulated lenses of personality, historical context (structure) and managerial case history (agent), the study concludes that charisma rather than psychopathy may the critical success factor, and it proposes and describes a concept of "managerial agency" as a capability that combines charismatic with transactional and more coercive leadership. It argues that the sociological dualism of structure and agency ontologically are the same, such that social structures are collectively held (structurated) ideas. In an organisational (managerial) context they are divided by a relationship between the owner of the structure and the agent. The managerial agent, charismatically uses inspiration of and care for the individual subordinate, to modify (structurate) their psychology and attitudes, establishing energetic adherence to the manager’s task, which influence can be strengthened with more hierarchical transactional factors.
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Sage, Adam. "Attributing deflections of others to explain agency." [Kent, Ohio] : Kent State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=kent1259181941.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Kent State University, 2009.Title from PDF t.p. (viewed April 14, 2010). Advisor: William Kalkhoff. Keywords: Affect Control Theory; attribution; emotions; agency. Includes bibliographical references (p. 26-28).
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Wilson, Kenneth. "Action, rationality and mediation : a social and environmental philosophy." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.322632.
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Unwin, Peter Frederick. "The role of agency social work in England : a case study." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2013. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/63880/.
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This study explored the views and perceptions about agency social work in England. At its core is the first known case study of adult services social work teams in a rural local authority. The case study took place over the period 2008- 2010 and used qualitative methodology to capture perspectives from agency and employed social workers, agency and employed managers and agency and employed administrative staff. Agency social work was seen to have developed from a background of deteriorating conditions in local government employment and in the absence of effective and flexible workforce planning. Labour process theory provided a meaningful framework to help explore the phenomenon of agency social work within a public sector increasingly dominated by markets and managerialism. A directional tendency towards a degraded workplace was noted despite some perceptions of upskilling in respect of agency social workers. A range of explanations regarding the motivation and the experiences of agency social workers was found that largely supported previous case study findings from urban local authorities. The roles carried out by employed social workers under the care management system were indistinguishable from those of agency social workers, several agency social workers having remained in post for periods of two years or more. No ways of working were identified as being particularly tailored to a rural context. The antipathy toward agency social workers noted in previous case studies was largely absent in the rural case study and agency social workers were not perceived as part of the private sector. Issues regarding the cost-effectiveness of agency social work and its affect on service users and carers were inconclusive. Recommendations for further research were made and agency social work was seen as being likely to remain as a core feature of modernised social work while vacancies remain high and alternative models for contingency workforce planning remain absent.
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Hunter, Jesse. "The virtual stage : play, drama, and agency in communications." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=42057.
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This dissertation responds to a recent zeitgeist and climate of controversy surrounding issues of "virtuality" and "simulation" Such terms are treated as problematic and essentially contested when framed in reference to notions of a fixed observable "reality" rather than considered in terms of socially constructed facts, relationships and identities. The concept of the "virtual stage" advanced in this thesis, refers to the current historical moment in communications technology development as well as to the dramaturgical perspective which informs the theoretical approach and argument.In this dissertation, virtual reality is treated not as a single technology or corpus of machines, but following conventions established in recent telepresence research as an experience which can obtain in varying degrees by means of a host of communications media.
Several complementary approaches are proposed and examined as a provisional framework for the study of emerging contemporary discourses of virtuality. Issues of virtuality are discussed from the perspective of historical cases which invite comparison and suggest a palimpsest of earlier technological modes of communication within contemporary situations. The social construction of technology approach is introduced following recent suggestions for marrying this approach to the Canadian tradition of socio-historical study of communication technology. Finally, play and dramaturgical theory are offered as a model for understanding how community and individual identity are constructed and maintained in some forms of computer mediated communication (video games, MUDs, and IRC) while allowing for potentially plausible notions of human agency.
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McGregor, Daniel. "Theorising engagement and agency : social accounting for unpaid care in Scotland." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 2013. http://oleg.lib.strath.ac.uk:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=20946.
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This research will attempt to theorise engagement from the perspective of advancing and aiding social change. This will include a review of both theoretical and empirical insights within the existing literature, but crucially will also provide a practical example of what we can do to engage more effectively by giving a social account of carers in Scotland.
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Rasoul, Ryan. "Comparison of Forecasting Models Used by The Swedish Social Insurance Agency." Thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för utbildning, kultur och kommunikation, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-49107.
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We will compare two different forecasting models with the forecasting model that was used in March 2014 by The Swedish Social Insurance Agency ("Försäkringskassan" in Swedish or "FK") in this degree project. The models are used for forecasting the number of cases. The two models that will be compared with the model used by FK are the Seasonal Exponential Smoothing model (SES) and Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model. The models will be used to predict case volumes for two types of benefits: General Child Allowance “Barnbidrag” or (BB_ABB), and Pregnancy Benefit “Graviditetspenning” (GP_ANS). The results compare the forecast errors at the short time horizon (22) months and at the long-time horizon (70) months for the different types of models. Forecast error is the difference between the actual and the forecast value of case numbers received every month. The ARIMA model used in this degree project for GP_ANS had forecast errors on short and long horizons that are lower than the forecasting model that was used by FK in March 2014. However, the absolute forecast error is lower in the actual used model than in the ARIMA and SES models for pregnancy benefit cases. The results also show that for BB_ABB the forecast errors were large in all models, but it was the lowest in the actual used model (even the absolute forecast error). This shows that random error due to laws, rules, and community changes is almost impossible to predict. Therefore, it is not feasible to predict the time series with tested models in the long-term. However, that mainly depends on what FK considers as accepted forecast errors and how those forecasts will be used. It is important to mention that the implementation of ARIMA differs across different software. The best model in the used software in this degree project SAS (Statistical Analysis System) is not necessarily the best in other software.
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Cirucci, Angela M. "The Structured Self: Authenticity, Agency, and Anonymity in Social Networking Sites." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2014. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/299430.
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Media & CommunicationPh.D.
The purpose of this dissertation is to explore social networking sites' structural affordances and their implications for identity creation, maintenance, performance, broadcast, and comprehension. Facebook is employed as a case study. By applying affordance theory, I argue that scholars should recognize Facebook as an ethic, or as a mediator, that employs moral choices when filtering input that is then displayed and aggregated through the site. By framing identity as narrative, I show that identities are on-going and are not only created via social expectations, but also work as reflexive tools used to write the self into being. Specifically, due to the large scope of this project, I explore the ways in which the structure and cultivated cultures of the site influence notions of, and expectations for, authenticity, agency, and anonymity. Breaking down Facebook into its constituent parts, I first completed a structural discourse analysis of the Sign Up Page, the About Page, Likes, Friends, Photographs, the Timeline, and Cookies. Next, I conducted focus group and one-on-one interviews with 45 emerging adults to learn how they recognize and work within Facebook's structure. Themes emerged that speak to the "cultures" that Facebook privileges and reifies through their granted affordances: Digitally Structured Culture, Visual Culture, Celebrity Culture, and Socially Divided Culture. I found that users generally adhere to Facebook's problematic conceptions of identification on the site, particularly through the ways in which they describe and perform authenticity, agency, and anonymity. Users have come to view the site as the official social space and thus feel pressured to perform a unitary, "accurate," and superficial self. The inherent trust placed in Facebook has led users to rely on the site's decisions regarding structural affordances and to not question the identity guidelines provided. This dissertation concludes with a call for a more rigorous understanding of social networking affordances and a wide-spread application of methods that recognize social media as non-neutral filters. I argue that the limited choices presented by Facebook compel users to build conceptions of identity that adhere to the cultural expectations privileged by the site. Although it is clear that my methods can be applied more generally to other social media and digital spaces, I also argue that Facebook is unique in that it is a "tentpole" of both interfaces and user content--the site offers a variety of identity performance tools and acts as the main place that users visit to "conduct research" on others.
Temple University--Theses
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Egan, Diana Ray, and Meri Lynn Vandom. "Kin caregivers' perceptions of social worker and agency services and support." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2005. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2783.
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Investigates kin caregiver's perceptions about social workers and child welfare agencies they worked with in caring for court dependent relative children who are/were placed in their care. A stratified random sample from 150 interviews of kin caregivers with dependent relative children maintained by San Bernardino and Riverside County Child Protective Services allowed for qualitative analysis of interview responses that related kin caregiver's perceptions of social workers and social service agencies. Results indicate that some relative caregivers were satisfied with the support they received from social workers/agency staff, while others did not feel supported at all.
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Roberts, Colette M. "Another disaster foretold? : the case of the Child Support Agency." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1998. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12783/.
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The Child Support Agency became operational in April 1993. The government hoped to introduce a system which would be clear and consistent and would deliver realistic amounts of child maintenance from more absent parents than under the old court and Department of Social Security systems. In so doing, the new system would reduce animosity between parents by removing child maintenance from any other divorce or separation negotiations and applying a fixed formula. However, it quickly became obvious that the new system for the assessment, collection and enforcement of maintenance for children was failing. This study adds to the debate about why the system failed by looking at what influenced government policy, both in the setting up of the Agency and in the changes introduced between April 1993 and April 1996. The study draws on evidence from politicians and political parties, the civil service, the voluntary sector and protest groups set up specifically to oppose the Agency. By outlining the attempts made by these various groups to influence the government and by closely examining the detail of the legislation and the formula used by the Agency, the study shows where the government responded positively to lobbying and whose influence was effectively ignored. The study also shows how the government managed to retain its commitment to reducing public expenditure and promoting "family values" as the basis of child support policy, but in practice failed to deliver on the main aims of the policy. Having analysed the failings of the system, the study concludes with some positive suggestions for improvement.
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Knapp, Daniel. "The social construction of computational surveillance : reclaiming agency in a computed world." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2016. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3436/.
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Over the last decades, surveillance has transformed into a pervasive phenomenon woven into the fabric of socio-economic life. In this process, surveillance has itself undergone a structural transformation as its principal agents such as prison guards and CCTV operators have been replaced by algorithms and data-driven technologies. Contemporary surveillance then is embedded in, and expression of, a fundamental remaking of the world, where human decision-making is increasingly supplanted by computational mechanisms, and lived experience is mediated, and even constituted, by computation. This thesis is a sociological work with an emphasis on the role of communication at the intersection of computation and surveillance (‘computational surveillance’). Current debates have predominantly focussed on the systems and mechanisms of computational surveillance. Less emphasis has been placed on the lived experience of inhabiting a computed world, and specifically how people can query and act towards computational surveillance. This thesis makes both a theoretical and empirical contribution to this question. Through a framework rooted in the sociology of knowledge, the thesis develops a theory of agency towards computational surveillance. It outlines the changing conditions under which knowledge of social reality is constructed in a computational world and theorises modes of reclaiming these conditions for human agents. This theory informed, and its further development emerged out of the findings from a qualitative study of 40 young people in Germany and the UK about their everyday encounters with computational surveillance, which was conducted as part of the thesis. It highlights how participants obtain knowledge about invisible computational mechanisms through their everyday activities and documents practices through which they collaboratively frame computers as interlocutors that they act towards. Lastly, this thesis documents the tactics and strategies employed by participants to hide from, or manipulate computational surveillance, and how they adopt a logic akin to computers in this process.
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Sadian, Samuel. "Consumer agency and social change: Experiences from post-World War South Africa." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/463070.
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This study proposes a novel approach to understanding the contribution that consumer action makes to social change, both at the level of conceptual generalisation and when applied to institutionalised practices in particular historical settings. Conceptually, I develop an anthropologically generalisable account of consumption, drawing especially on Marshall Sahlins’ pioneering Culture and practical reason (1976). Against economistic understandings of consumer agency, we do better to defend a more culturally self-aware and ethically articulate mode of explanation. From this perspective, I argue, it is the expressive potential of consumer practices that most fundamentally sets them apart from productive practices. In making this argument I nonetheless avoid the excessive culturalism that arises when ignoring both the effect of economic variables on consumer agency and the manner in which consumption is tied up with relationships of power.
When analysing the institutional dimension of consumption, most existing literature approaches it as a form of action limited to the market, while taking the market to be synonymous with the economic domain as such. This way of approaching the subject draws attention to significant forms of consumption but obfuscates the historically specific and contingent complexity of human livelihoods even in societies in which market exchange and capitalist forms of market-oriented production are firmly established. In particular, such approaches tell us very little about how those poor in financial resources consume, both within societies characterised by comparatively high average income and beyond.
Consumption is better approached as a form of action exercised within all three institutional spheres of the “human economy” discussed in Karl Polanyi’s later work: not only the market, but also redistribution and reciprocity. Prima facie significant fields of consumption can then be analysed in terms of their ability to create, alter or destroy widespread forms of social integration and political mobilisation, but such analysis must proceed in a manner that is fully alive to the peculiarities of given social formations. Drawing on both political-economic and ethnographic literature, I illustrate this approach by examining three fields of consumption in South Africa from 1948 to the present: clothing, housing and faith healing. These consumer practices have been dynamically bound up with both class and racial power dynamics, while leading to the formation of novel forms of solidarity of the sort commonly discussed in terms of sub-cultures, new social movements and sects or kinship groups.
In light of these case studies, it is necessary to challenge three misleading but pervasive claims about consumption that continue to inform contemporary critical social theory. Firstly, the economistic dogma that the market form of integration, and market-oriented production in particular, has the capacity to systematically structure consumer practices offers little purchase on how people really behave when consuming. Secondly, conceptualising consumption as a form of reproduction of an entire social order is a functionalist canard that critical social theory still needs to disown. We encounter this tenet even in the sophisticated work of Pierre Bourdieu, which remains enormously influential throughout the contemporary social sciences and which is invoked in all major studies of consumption. A third problem, also perpetuated by Bourdieu’s thinking on the subject, is the critical tendency to reduce all consumer agency to a form of instrumental domination. This can only be sustained as a valid generalisation by offering a flattened account of consumer
motivation that ultimately negates agency and that collapses qualitatively distinct ethical modes of evaluation and action into one another. While such an approach is of some limited use for unmasking the domination that reciprocity can entrench, the price one pays for generalising such claims is, ultimately, an inability to recognise the gift when one sees it.
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Richardson, Ingrid, University of Western Sydney, and of Arts Education and Social Sciences College. "Telebodies and televisions : corporeality and agency in technoculture." THESIS_CAESS_XXX_Richardson_I.xml, 2003. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/651.
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In this work, the author aims to trace some of the transformative effects of televisual technologies in contemporary post-industrial culture, and to critically assess their impact on the way knowledge is produced, and experience a sense of embodiment and social agency. The relation between humans and tools is questioned, and the hybridity of words such as technoculture and biotechnology is investigated, arguing that the separation of human and technology,and body and tool, at the level of both existence and knowledge is a synthetic distinction. Specifically, the author concentrates on some of the medium specific effects of postclassical visualising technologies, from high-end ensembles such as virtual reality and medical imaging apparatuses, to the mundane apparatus of television and the remote control device. Such ways of seeing, it is argued, collaborate in producing an emergent tele-body, or a telesomatic mode of perception and knowing which exceeds standard epistemologies of vision in both science and the everyday. This work thus aims to develop a theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the variable effects of postclassical technovision and televisuality upon our modes of embodiment.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
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Herissone-Kelly, Peter N. "Situations, incentives and reasons : Kant on rational agency and moral motivation." Thesis, University of Central Lancashire, 2008. http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/20647/.
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This thesis aims to address two problems that appear to attach to the model of rational agency that underlies Kant's moral philosophy. These I call the problem of experiential incongruence and the problem of misdirected moral attention. The former problem arises because the central elements of Kant's theory of action (the possession of and action upon maxims; the subjection of maxims to moral assessment through the Categorical Imperative's universalisability test; our supposedly perennial consciousness of the moral law; and so on) seem not to square at all with our lived experience of agency. The latter problem, on the other hand, is a result of Kant's apparently claiming that when an agent 11s from duty, her reason for 4Ling is just that the maxim of tILing can simultaneously be acted upon and willed to be a universal law, while its contrary maxim cannot. This picture seems, as Philip Stratton-Lake notes, to place the good-willed agent's attention in the wrong place, namely, on the nature of her own policies of action, rather than on the external world of "concrete considerations". In order to show that Kant's practical philosophy is able to sidestep both problems, I first develop and argue for a particular account of what I call "the traditional model," or that picture of rational agency that can be gleaned from Kant's writings, expressed in the terms that Kant himself uses. I then go on to offer a novel interpretation of that model, according to which (1) all the central concepts of Kant's theory of rational agency are shown to be entirely compatible with our experience as agents, and (2) the Kantian good-willed agent is shown to be centrally concerned with, and motivated by, concrete considerations.
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Kidd, Alicia Sheridan. "The dynamics of contemporary slavery and conflict : agency, asylum and accountability." Thesis, University of Hull, 2018. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:17243.
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This thesis offers a new approach to understanding contemporary slavery by focusing on the root causes rather than on the end result of the enslavement. Adopting this approach allows for a move away from the current tendency of homogenising victims of contemporary slavery as having been 'vulnerable in some way' prior to their exploitation and identifies precisely what those vulnerabilities are and from where they derive. The first-hand accounts of victims of contemporary slavery used in this research highlight the failings of current understandings of the 'ideal victim' which generate ideas of weak and passive individuals who find themselves caught in this crime. The notion of the 'ideal victim' does not reflect the experiences of a 'real victim', and this research explores how a person's agency interacts with overarching structures to lead them towards their exploitation. The research compares the stories gathered via in-depth interviews with individuals who have experienced conflict to those of individuals who have experienced both conflict and contemporary slavery. By giving voice to those whose stories are rarely heard, this thesis identifies the point at which those who flee conflict become vulnerable to contemporary slavery. It finds that it is rare that victims of contemporary slavery experience a complete removal of agency in the lead up to their exploitation. Instead, they experience a limiting of their agency as a result of the impact of large scale structures, such as conflict. It is this restriction of agency in the face of inherently risky options that puts them at risk of contemporary slavery. These findings have policy implications in requiring action to identify and tackle the issues most likely to limit a person's agency and lead them into making active, but not entirely autonomous, choices.
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Beaudoin, Cathy A. Agoglia Chris Tsakumis George T. "Earnings management : the role of the agency problem and corporate social responsibility /." Philadelphia, Pa. : Drexel University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1860/2805.
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Fournier, Marc Alan. "Agency and communion as fundamental dimensions of social adaptation and emotional adjustment." Thesis, McGill University, 2002. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=38485.
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It has been argued that agency and communion define the fundamental dimensions of human existence. Agency represents strivings for expansion and elevation that surface as efforts to pursue social dominance. Communion represents strivings for contact and congregation that surface as efforts to preserve social bonds. From an evolutionary perspective, agency and communion define the problems of group living to which our ancestors were historically required to adapt. From a dyadic-interactional perspective, agency and communion organize the domain of behavior that individuals in contemporary societies are presently able to demonstrate. The purpose of this research was to explore the agentic and communal dimensions underlying social adaptation and emotional adjustment; this objective was pursued through the use of event-contingent recording procedures that require respondents to report upon their behavior in significant social interactions over extended time intervals. I first propose that emotional adjustment is optimized through mitigation processes that balance the expression of agency and communion in everyday behavior. Findings indicated that a balance within agency and within communion---achieved through moderate levels of agentic and communal expression---predicted optimal emotional adjustment. I then propose that the dark aspects of agency and communion---the human propensities to quarrel and submit---are equally relevant to social adaptation. In this regard, I argue that these propensities represent social rank strategies through which individuals grapple with and defend themselves against feelings of threat and inferiority. Consistent with an evolutionary perspective upon social competition, individuals tended to quarrel when threatened by subordinates and to submit when threatened by superiors. Consistent with an evolutionary perspective upon defeat and depression, individuals who typically felt more inferior tended to quarrel more frequently with subordina
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Allen, Cassandra Marie. "Engendering Agency: Literacies, Social Action, and Wangari Maathai s Green Belt Movement." Master's thesis, University of Central Florida, 2007. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/2984.
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This thesis analyzes the life and work of Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai, one of the foremost African woman rhetors of our time. Wangari Maathai--founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement (GBM), Member of Parliament, and activist for democracy, sustainable development, and human rights--has cultivated a multidimensional literacy that has allowed her to truly understand and address the problems that post-colonial Kenyans face. Her strong solution-oriented approach has allowed her to develop and refine operation of the GBM, which began simply planting trees, to produce a worldwide organization that works for sustainable development, human rights, and environmental conservation/restoration (among many others) by attacking the roots of disempowerment and challenging participants to become the primary agents of change. Through the overlapping lenses of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Jacqueline Jones Royster's Traces of a Stream, and Filomina Chioma Steady's Women and Collective Action in Africa, I trace Maathai's emergence as a literate women in late 20th century Kenya who is able to effect meaningful social change. This examination of her life and work uncovers the convergence of literacies (academic, critical, civic, and cultural) that have created her unique worldview. Furthermore, it also examines her rhetorical construction of self through an analysis of her context, her ethos construction, and her mandates for action. At the heart of the study is an exploration of the GBM as an outlet of civic and environmental education. This discussion explores Maathai's approach to civic education as well as the potential pedagogical implications of that approach in the composition classroom of the Western university.M.A.
Department of English
Arts and Humanities
English MA
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Keegan, Brendan James. "Social media marketing evaluation decision making processes and the agency-client relationship." Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2018. http://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/621831/.
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Evaluation of social media marketing is central to its success. This thesis seeks to contribute to our understanding of social media marketing evaluation processes and outcomes, together with an exploration of the dynamics of agency-client relationships. It contributes to knowledge across three major themes: strategy development, evaluation, and agency-client relationships and is one of the first studies to consider the role of the agency-client relationship in social media marketing. In particular, the study addresses a gap in current knowledge by revealing the significant influence of agency-client relationships on the processes and outcomes of social media marketing strategy development and evaluation. Adopting the ontological and epistemological position that reality is socially constructed, a qualitative study of twenty social media marketers provided a specialist digital agency perspective of social media campaigns. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with key practitioners, supported by a cognitive-mapping elicitation technique. The findings generate knowledge of the first two major themes: strategy and evaluation through the development of two process models: the 'Cycle of Social Media Marketing' for strategy, and the 'Cycle of Social Media Marketing Evaluation' for evaluation. Findings for the second theme reject the traditional view of agency-client relationships, and instead offers a fresh perspective on these relationships in social media marketing, identifying three sub-themes: context, conflict and co-creation. The findings reveal key techniques for enhancing client relationships, including client account management strategies; the impact of conflict on trust between both parties; the crucial role of mutual participation in strategy development of strategy and evaluation; and the importance of co-creation, largely facilitated through collaborative learning workshops. This study has implications for scholars as it contributes to our understanding of evaluation in relation to strategy development in a rapidly developing area of modern marketing practice, affirming the importance of social media data analysis to decision-making. This study has implications for practice as it extends knowledge through conceptualisations of processes and offering insights into the influence and dynamics of agency-client interactions in social media marketing. Finally, a key contribution to knowledge is the development of two conceptual frameworks: The Contextualised Conceptual Framework of Social Media Marketing Evaluation in Strategy Development, and The Conceptual Framework of Agency-Client Dynamics in Social Media Marketing which encapsulate the multi-layered nature of this study and the vital importance of evaluation in social media marketing.
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Vittorini, Lucia Polly. "Agency in social interaction and its relations with attachment security in toddlers." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.619584.
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Isaac, Rochell J. "AFRICAN HUMANISM: A PRAGMATIC PRESCRIPTION FOR FOSTERING SOCIAL JUSTICE AND POLITICAL AGENCY." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2012. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/186541.
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African American StudiesPh.D.
This study explores an African conception of Humanism as distinct from the European model and challenges the notion that Humanism is an entirely European construct. I argue that the ideological core of Humanism originated in ancient Kemet, the basis of which frames the African worldview. Furthermore, the theoretical framework provided by the African Humanistic paradigm serves as a model for structuring inter and intra group relations, for tackling notions of difference and issues of fundamentalism, for addressing socio-economic political concerns, and finally, to shift the currents of political rhetoric from one of jouissance to a more progressive and pragmatic stance.
Temple University--Theses
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Miller, Michael R. "FARM WOODLOTS IN THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE: HUMAN AGENCY IN A STRUCTURED LANDSCAPE." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2005. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1113832077.
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Scharr, Salote Christine Laumanukilupe. "Agency, Aspirations and Decision-Making of Marginalised Young People in Social Enterprises." Thesis, Griffith University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/365556.
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This thesis examines the contribution that changes in young people’s agency, aspirations and decision-making during participation in social enterprises make in improving engagement and outcomes in employment, education and training. The focus is contextualised within the growing number of young people who are marginalised by not engaging in employment, education and training in Australia and the majority of countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2012). Consequences of young people’s marginalisation are experienced at the personal, community and Government levels and include long-term marginalisation and heavy social and financial costs. The focus of this study is social enterprises that operate as intermediate labour market interventions with a social purpose. These enterprises address the vocational and non-vocational barriers of marginalised groups in an effort to assist them to obtain employment, education and training outcomes. While the literature on social enterprises is increasing, a gap persists regarding the possible changes in cognitive-motivational variables such as agency, aspirations and decision-making processes and their roles in promoting positive outcomes. In particular, the lack of research and theorisation addressing the predictive potential of change in such cognitive-motivational variables as young people participate in social enterprises has restricted evidence-based service delivery to capitalise on any such relation.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Education and Professional Studies
Arts, Education and Law
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Acuña, Olivares Ana María. "“Narrativas en torno a la Intervención Social desplegada por ONG`s de Desarrollo colaboradoras del Estado: un proceso dialógico para la construcción de conocimiento situado desde sujetos vinculados a la Intervención Social Estatalizada”." Tesis, Universidad de Chile, 2015. http://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/142349.
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Magíster en Psicología, mención Psicología ComunitariaLa comprensión de las prácticas de Intervención Social desplegadas actualmente por Organizaciones No Gubernamentales de Desarrollo [ONGD´s] emergidas en dictadura y que hoy se posicionan como colaboradoras del Estado ha estado marcada por una retórica del quiebre y ruptura respecto al quehacer crítico que les dio origen y sentido. Se totaliza así la comprensión de su quehacer actual y se invisibilizan otras comprensiones acerca de las nociones y prácticas de intervención que se ponen en juego en dichos espacios. Desde un posicionamiento crítico hacia los discursos totalizantes, la presente investigación tuvo por objeto construir una narrativa comprensiva en torno a la Intervención Social desplegada por estos organismos, desde la experiencia y mirada situada de 4 sujetos que participan cercanamente al fenómeno en estudio. Utilizando la metodología de Producciones Narrativas se logró difractar el conocimiento en torno al fenómeno, articulando una mirada comprensiva y situada desde la vivencia de los sujetos participantes que complejiza la mirada hacia de intervención social desplegada por ONGD vinculadas al Estado, en tanto da cuenta de tensiones, acciones críticas, resistencias y agenciamientos impulsados por procesos identitarios e históricos construidos por estos organismos en un espacio transaccional de poder. Understanding the Social Intervention practices currently displayed by NGOs emerged in dictatorship which nowadays are positioned as a partner of the state that has been marked by a break-up and rupture rhetoric about critical task that gave them origin and meaning. Thus the total understanding of the current task and other invisible understandings about the notions and practices of intervention that are at stake in those spaces. From a critical point of view, towards the totalizing discourses, this research aimed to build a comprehensive narrative about the Social Intervention displayed by these organisms, from the experience and view of 4 subjects closely involved with the phenomenon under this research. Using the Narrative Productions methodology diffract knowledge about the phenomenon, articulating a comprehensive view which is situated from the experience of participating subjects that complicates the social intervention view deployed by NGO linked to the State. while we realize tensions, critical actions, resistances promote by identity and historical processes built by these organisms in a transactional space power
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Parker, Lucy Charlene. "Examination of the Relationship between Classism and Career Agency." Thesis, Northern Illinois University, 2019. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10976608.
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Classism is a recently studied, but historically existent form of oppression. Classism may involve students feeling that they cannot pursue a degree or career due to discrimination related to their social class status. This study explored the relationship between classism, gender, age, race, socioeconomic status, and career agency through survey design research. Career agency is the primary dependent variable in this study. Career agency includes career choice, career forethought, and career related actions related. Psychometrically established instruments including The Experiences With Perceived Classism Scale–Short Form and The Career Futures Inventory–Revised were used to assess classism and career agency. Using this design, data were collected from undergraduate university students of various genders, races, socioeconomic statuses, ages, career anticipations, and potential experiences of classism at a large Midwestern university in the United States. Student data were collected to explore any potential associations between any self-report of perceived classism and students’ reported career agency. Student responses were then analyzed through correlations, an independent samples t-test, and a multiple linear regression analysis.
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Seruwagi, Gloria K. "Examining the agency and construction of 'Orphans and Vulnerable Children' in rural Uganda." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2012. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/17506/.
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The increasing number of “orphans and vulnerable children” (‘OVC’) in sub-Saharan Africa has been the subject of much inquiry and intervention in research, policy and practice. Two major concerns have been highlighted: i) traditional mechanisms for their care and support are overstretched and ii) ‘OVC’ have poor socioeconomic outcomes. Dominant discourses emphasise adults’ central role in ‘OVC’ wellbeing while ‘OVC’ are cast as helpless, passive victims and not active social agents who demonstrate resilience and ingenuity in dealing with difficult circumstances. Focussing on Sheema district in rural Uganda, this study sought to give voice to ‘OVC’ and use their lived experiences to develop a robust framework of care and support. ‘OVC’ were engaged as producers of knowledge and agents of change using innovative child-centred approaches to explore representations of their care and support through verbal and visual representation of their lived realities. This methodology enabled the development of narratives and critical dialogue about social issues with grassroots social activism. For example participatory methods such as draw-and-write, community mapping and daily-routine-diagrams located the conceptual tools and analytic skills in the hands of ‘OVC’. This study found that the majority of existing ‘OVC’ representations are adult constructs not necessarily subscribed to by ‘OVC’ themselves. Acknowledging their difficult circumstances, most ‘OVC’ have devised solutions to their challenges and are optimistic despite being constrained by structural and cultural barriers. Traditional care mechanisms have evolved and require strengthening, particularly at community level. The lens through which most interventions have been commissioned, implemented and evaluated is paternalistic and does not acknowledge ‘OVC’ competencies. ‘OVC’ voices and lived experiences should inform interventions; also they should be constructed in a more balanced light – showing their challenges while acknowledging their agency in dealing with these challenges. This study proposes a more nuanced label for ‘OVC’ and also develops a robust theoretical framework for their care and support.
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Victor, Elizabeth Kaye. "Structure and Agency: An Analysis of the Impact of Structure on Group Agents." Scholar Commons, 2012. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/4246.
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Different kinds of collectives help to coordinate between individuals and social groups to solve distribution problems, supply goods and services, and enable individuals to live fulfilling lives. Collectives, as part of the process of socialization, contribute to the normalization of behaviors, and consequently, structure our ability to be self-reflective autonomous agents. Contemporary philosophy of action models characterize collective action as the product of individuals who have the proper motivations to perform cooperative activities (bottom-up); or they begin with the social-level phenomena and explain this in terms of individual actions and the mental states that motivate them (top-down). One general goal of this project is to show how and why both of these approaches through focusing solely on the individuals involved fail to capture and account for important types of group actions: those of economic group agents.
Group agents, one kind of organized collective, are unique in that they have the potential to develop group-level decision-making processes that result in the capacity of the group to engage in practical reasoning. Because of this capacity, group agents can be stable and respond to reason--capacities we would not expect from other kinds of collectives. Inasmuch as we value the possibility of influencing the reflexive dynamics that perpetuate social institutions, understanding the range of organization structures and their agential capacities will open up the possibility of altering the course of those dynamics toward more just systems of organization. Understanding what kinds of group agents currently operate within the systems of organizations that make up social institutions is the first step in determining how to move toward developing group agents that are also moral agents. By analyzing how different systems of constraint--inside and outside the firm--inform one another to influence the possibility of design and the group's possibilities for action, I use Christian List and Philip Pettit's account of group agency as a springboard to develop a more adequate account of how structure influences and constrains the possibilities of economic group agents in non-idealized circumstances (i.e. this world, with our history).
My chapters include 1) a taxonomy of organization structures and an analysis of how a narrow conception of organization structure in jurisprudence can lead to systems of constraint that limit the rights and freedoms of individuals even as it seeks to extend them, 2) an evaluation of the popular accounts of collective action (cf. Raimo Tuomela, 1997; Michael Bratman, 1993, 1997, 2009; and Christian List and Philip Pettit, 2011) that could be made to accommodate the actions of certain kinds of economic associations, 3) an exploration of the standards of evaluation that influence these powerful group agents, and how these standards limit the economic group agent's capacity to engage in moral reasoning, and 4) an analysis of the group agent's reasoning capacity and the internal mode of interaction between group agent and group members that perpetuate group agency.
I argue that we can understand group agents that have the capacity to be moral agents as the products of a particular kind of decision-making process within an organization's structure. The decision-making process, together with the organization structure and group member support, produces and sustains judgments and actions at the level of the group that cannot be reduced to the beliefs and actions of particular members. In this way, the group displays a systematic unity of actions based on its own judgments. That is, the group exhibits agency. Moral group agents exhibit more than practical reasoning; they also demonstrate the capacity for critical reflection upon the ends they pursue. Member buy-in promotes a tight connection between group members and their role in bringing about and sustaining group agency, and is the foundation of the group agent. Without a holistic organization structure, a member's personal identities could undermine group aims, thereby undermining group agency. Group moral agency, I argue, begins with promoting an organizational way of life conducive to collective flourishing and respect for members.
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Zverev, Igor. "Tuberculosis in the Qu’Appelle Agency: 1885-1926." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/36970.
Full textAbstract:
Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that causes significant morbidity and mortality. Despite the fact that the total burden of TB has decreased dramatically, the distribution of that burden across the Canadian population has not changed. A century ago, the Indigenous population of Canada had a significantly higher TB mortality than the non-Indigenous population. This gap still exists today. TB is a disease of poverty, and understanding the role of the social determinants of health (SDH) may provide insights into the causes of persistence of TB in the Indigenous population.
Research questions: This thesis tackles three questions: 1) Can a TB outbreak that took place over a century ago be reconstructed? 2) What can we learn about the relationship between the disease, the population it afflicted, and the environment in which the outbreak took place? 3) How can reconstruction of a TB outbreak be used to evaluate policy interventions?
Area studied: Analyses were limited to the Qu’Appelle Agency, located in Southeastern Saskatchewan.
Methodology: An agent-based model of socioeconomic environment of the Qu’Appelle Agency was developed to study the relationship between TB and SDH. Data on TB mortality, demographics, agricultural production, material circumstances, and economic factors of production were used to study the relationship between TB and SDH at the aggregate level.
Results: 1) Extensive aggregate data analyses were carried out and an agent-based model of TB transmission and of the socioeconomic environment of the Qu’Appelle Agency was developed. 2) Results of these analyses identify a number of important parameters responsible for the high TB mortality in the Agency. These parameters include biological factors, housing, social characteristics, agricultural output, and policies of the Department of Indian Affairs.
Conclusions: This research demonstrates that reconstruction of an outbreak of an infectious disease that took place over a century ago is a complex undertaking that hinges on availability of data and significant expertise in a variety of fields, such as health sciences, economics, mathematics, and modelling approaches. The further one goes into the past, the more one is forced to rely on assumptions, which make the reconstructed web of relationships between agent, host, and environment that caused the outbreak less certain. Despite the inherent uncertainty, the process of outbreak reconstruction provides a deep and multi-faceted understanding of the interactions among the agent, the host, and the environment. The resulting model is a useful way of studying policy interventions that could be applied in other contexts as well – to other infectious diseases or TB outbreaks on other reserves.
Keywords: [population health, epidemiology, tuberculosis, Indigenous peoples, agent-based modelling, social determinants of health]
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Lestar, Tamas. "Spiritual agency and sustainability transitions exploring food practices in three Hare Krishna eco-communities." Thesis, University of Essex, 2018. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/22014/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores connections between spirituality, diet and system-wide Sustainability Transitions. The pivotal role of food in greenhouse gas emissions is widely acknowledged across disciplines, yet it is under-researched by Sustainability Transitions scholars. Likewise, while sustainable diets comprising of less meat are often associated with spiritual and ethical beliefs, the transitional agency of worldviews has not been conceptualised in the Sustainability Transitions literature. To address this gap, eco-spiritual practices are investigated to understand how vegetarianism is maintained in spiritual communities. Enabling and disabling factors are analysed for potentials of diffusion into broader levels of society. I present findings of qualitative research and fieldwork, which included participant observation and in-depth interviewing in Hare Krishna communities in Europe. Three eco-farms were selected to represent different features of spirituality and ecological commitment. Data collection and analysis were guided by Social Practice Theory which enables close-up scrutinising of eco-spiritual practices. Findings reveal a firm durability of food practices, which contributes to the longevity of Hare Krishna eco-farms. Motivated by their distinct worldview, believers advocate simplification over technological improvements to serve ecological sustainability. Extensive outreach via eco-tourism and food sharing programmes demonstrate a working alternative to development and lifestyles supported by an economics based on unlimited growth. While these attract visitors in high numbers, adherence to religious culture in the form of dress, gender roles and language use may slow the diffusion process into wider society. Lock-in mechanisms in the outside world also work against the up-scaling of less-meat dietary practices, making the work of vegetarian advocacy less effective. By exploring and analysing Krishna practices, this thesis makes two key contributions. First: the conception of agency for change in Sustainability Transitions frameworks is extended by the inclusion of spirituality, worldviews, and their corresponding lifestyle practices. Second: Hare Krishna communities are shown to illustrate a ‘new economics’ which posits demand-side simplifications as a precondition for systemic change.