16,588 research outputs found

    The development of the Kent coalfield 1896-1946

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    One of the unique features of the Kent Coalfield is that it is entirely concealed by newer rocks. The existence of a coalfield under southern England, being a direct link between those of South Wales, Somerset and Bristol in the west and the Ruhr, Belgium. and northern France in the east, was predicted by the geologist R. A. C. Godwin-Austen as early as 1856. It was, however, only the rapid increase in demand for Britain's coal in the last quarter of the nineteenth century that made it worth considering testing this hypothesis. The first boring was made in the years 1886-90, and although it discovered coal, this did not in itself prove the existence of a viable coalfield. This could be done only by incurring the heavy cost of boring systematically over a wide area. As the financial returns from such an undertaking were uncertain, it was not surprising that in the early years, around the turn of the century, a dominant role was played by speculators, who were able to induce numerous small investors to risk some of their savings in the expectation of high profits. As minerals in Britain were privately owned, the early pioneer companies not only had to meet the cost of the exploratory borines, but also, if they were not to see the benefit of their work accrue to others, lease beforehand the right to mine coal from local landowners in as much of the surrounding area as possible. This policy was pursued most vigorously by Arthur Burr, a Surrey land specula tor, who raised capital by creating the Kent Coal Conoessions Ltd. and then floating a series of companies allied to it. Burr's enterprise would probably have been. successful had it not been for the water problems encountered at depth in -v- the coalfield. As a result, the Concessions group found itself in control of most of the coalfield, but without the necessary capital to sink and adequately equip its 01ffi collieries. By 1910, however, the discovery of iron ore deposits in east Kent, coupled with the fact that Kent coal was excellent for coking purposes, began to attract the large steel firms of Bolckow, Vaughan Ltd. and Dorman, Long & Co. Ltd. in to the area. The First World War intervened, however, to delay their plans, and to provide an extended lease of life to the Concessions group, which, by the summer of 1914, was facing financial collapse. By the time Dorman, Lone & Co, in alliance with Weetman Pearson (Lord Cowdray), had acquired control over the greater part of the coalfield from the Concessions group, not only was the country's coal industry declining, but so was its steel industry, which suffered an even more severe rate of contraction during the inter-war years. As a result, Pearson and Dorman Long Ltd. was forced to concentrate just on coal production, and this in turn was hampered not only by the water problems, but also by labour shortages and the schemes introduced by the government in 1930 to restrict the country's coal output, in an attempt to maintain prices and revenue in the industry. Nevertheless, production did show a substantial increase between 1927 and 1935, after which it declined as miners left the coalfield to return to their former districts, where employment opportunities were improving in the late thirties. Supporting roles were played in the inter-war years by Richard Tilden Smith, a share underwriter turned industrialist with long standing interests in the coalfield, who acquired one of the Concessions group's two collieries, and by the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Co. Ltd., which through subsidiary companies, took over the only colliery to be developed by a pioneer company outside the Concessions group. The impossibility of Kent coal, because of its nature, ever gaining more than token access to the more lucrative household market, and then the failure of the local steel industry to materialise meant that the -vi- companies had to develop alternative outlets for their growing outputs. Although nearness to industrial markets in the south-east of England did confer certain advantages were poor consolation for the hoped for developments of either the early pioneers or the later industrialists. Instead of the expected profits, the companies mostly incurred losses, and only the company acquired by Powell Duffryn ever paid a dividend to its shareholders in the years before nationalisation. From the point of view of the Kent miners, the shortage of labour in the coalfield, particularly in the years 1914-20 and 1927-35, was to an important extent responsible for their being amongst the highest paid in the industry. At the same time the more favourable employment opportunities prevailing in Kent compared with other mining districts enabled the Kent Nine Workers Association to develop into a well organised union, which on the whole was able to look after the interests of its members fairly successfully. Throughout the period 1896 to 1946 the Kent Coalfield existed very much at the margin of the British coal industry. Its failure to develop substantially along the lines envisaged by either the early pioneers or by the later industrialists meant that its importance in national terms always remained small

    Strategies for Early Learners

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    Welcome to learning about how to effectively plan curriculum for young children. This textbook will address: • Developing curriculum through the planning cycle • Theories that inform what we know about how children learn and the best ways for teachers to support learning • The three components of developmentally appropriate practice • Importance and value of play and intentional teaching • Different models of curriculum • Process of lesson planning (documenting planned experiences for children) • Physical, temporal, and social environments that set the stage for children’s learning • Appropriate guidance techniques to support children’s behaviors as the self-regulation abilities mature. • Planning for preschool-aged children in specific domains including o Physical development o Language and literacy o Math o Science o Creative (the visual and performing arts) o Diversity (social science and history) o Health and safety • Making children’s learning visible through documentation and assessmenthttps://scholar.utc.edu/open-textbooks/1001/thumbnail.jp

    The capacity of Scotland’s community right to buy legislation to contribute to ecological sustainability

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    The principal aim of this thesis is to contribute to sustainability debates. Specifically, this thesis aims to assess the capacity of the statutory community rights to buy – part of Scotland’s wider land reform framework – to contribute to ecological sustainability. ‘Ecological sustainability’, in context of this thesis, is the ultimate goal of humanity successfully living within the ecological limits of the Earth. This thesis outlines that these community rights to buy are defined and affected by both sustainable development and property law. Therefore, it seeks to interrogate the extent to which both of these aspects are influenced by anthropocentrism, rather than ecocentrism, and the impact this has on the capacity of the community rights to buy to contribute to the achievement of ecological sustainability. Three central arguments are important in this regard: the spectrum between anthropocentric and ecocentric understandings of sustainable development; how imbuing responsibilities in ownership can help to bridge the gap between these two understandings; and how the structuring effect of property law resists placing responsibilities on ownership, thus impeding the ability to find a more appropriate point between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. The cumulative effect of these themes on the capacity of the community rights to buy in Scotland to contribute to ecological sustainability will be the focus of the conclusion of this thesis. Chapter 1 introduces and explores these three central themes. It will be argued that global interpretations of sustainable development have tended to adopt an anthropocentric approach within the spectrum of anthropocentrism/ecocentrism, and that this is mirrored in Scotland’s approach to sustainable development. The nature and culture dualism will then be explored as a potential explanation for the anthropocentric focus of both sustainable development and property law. This chapter will conclude that, whilst responsibilities can bridge the gap between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, the structural effect of Western property law norms resists this, which is problematic for ecological sustainability. Against this background, Chapter 2 is concerned with situating Scotland within these debates. It will assess the concentrated ownership patterns seen today, arguing that an emphasis on individual ownership rights has facilitated this; an example of property law’s structural effects eschewing responsibilities in ownership. These factors have anthropocentric outcomes. This chapter will argue that an increasing focus on responsibilities within land policy in Scotland shows an implicit recognition of the need to move beyond the existing rights paradigm. However, this is stymied by property law’s structural emphasis on rights. Against this background, the chapter will conclude with a brief outline of what the community rights to buy are, their significance, and their adoption of sustainable development, before engaging in a deeper evaluative exercise in Chapter 3. Chapter 3 will assess what kind of sustainable development is being envisaged in the community right to buy legislation, and whether this is suitable for the achievement of ecological sustainability. It will be argued that, whilst showing signs of ecocentrism, given the structural effects of property law in Scotland and the concomitant focus on individual rights the community rights to buy find themselves at the anthropocentric end of the sustainable development spectrum identified in Chapter 1. However, the backdrop of Scottish land policy signifies a will to incorporate responsibilities, as well as rights, into ownership. In this regard, it is argued that the community rights to buy, in their incorporation of sustainable development, signify a form of incremental change when viewed in tandem with other policy in Scotland, which can better integrate ecocentric approaches and which could incite progress towards ecological sustainability

    Towards a sociology of conspiracy theories: An investigation into conspiratorial thinking on DĂśnmes

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    This thesis investigates the social and political significance of conspiracy theories, which has been an academically neglected topic despite its historical relevance. The academic literature focuses on the methodology, social significance and political impacts of these theories in a secluded manner and lacks empirical analyses. In response, this research provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for conspiracy theories by considering their methodology, political impacts and social significance in the light of empirical data. Theoretically, the thesis uses Adorno's semi-erudition theory along with Girardian approach. It proposes that conspiracy theories are methodologically semi-erudite narratives, i.e. they are biased in favour of a belief and use reason only to prove it. It suggests that conspiracy theories appear in times of power vacuum and provide semi-erudite cognitive maps that relieve alienation and ontological insecurities of people and groups. In so doing, they enforce social control over their audience due to their essentialist, closed-to-interpretation narratives. In order to verify the theory, the study analyses empirically the social and political significance of conspiracy theories about the DĂśnme community in Turkey. The analysis comprises interviews with conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory readers and political parties, alongside a frame analysis of the popular conspiracy theory books on DĂśnmes. These confirm the theoretical framework by showing that the conspiracy theories are fed by the ontological insecurities of Turkish society. Hence, conspiracy theorists, most readers and some political parties respond to their own ontological insecurities and political frustrations through scapegoating DĂśnmes. Consequently, this work shows that conspiracy theories are important symptoms of society, which, while relieving ontological insecurities, do not provide politically prolific narratives

    Queer spies in British Cold War culture: literature, film, theatre and television

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    This PhD thesis investigates how male homosexuality has been represented in British spy fiction from the 1950s to the 2010s in multiple media: literature, film, television and theatre. Due mainly to the betrayal of the Cambridge Spy ring around the middle of the century, British culture has associated spies with homosexuality, while the wider Anglophone world was in the grip of a homophobic atmosphere created by McCarthy's Red Scare. My thesis explores how this history is reflected in the spy genre from the Cold War to the present, in which male homosexuality and secret agency intersect as “queer”, in so far as they were both considered to be discreet and criminal, existing outside of the heteronormative order. By following multiple texts across media and time, I discuss how some writers, television and film directors and actors update queer identity in spy fiction, creating a shifting image of queer spies through decades. I refer to the findings of adaptation studies and queer studies, along with numerous studies on spy fiction. I conclude that the interrelation of different media has contributed to the re-drawing of queer identity in spy fiction. These developments have enabled the spies' queer identity to transcend its pejorative history in British culture, towards its more flexible and pliant sense which is designated by the term's modern usage. I also discuss that spies’ homosexuality has been represented as a fleeting ghost in most of the texts examined, hovering on the margins of pages and screen. Although homosexuality is not “the love that dare not speak its name” anymore, clandestine queer spies have been preserved as spectral others in the genre for many years. Spy fiction is a cultural repository retaining the memory of violence inflicted against those who have been called “queer” in twentieth century Britain, and the spectral nature of queer spies narrates this history reaching back to the Oscar Wilde trial in 1895, from which point British queer identity as we know now developed. This thesis benefits the study of spy fiction by filling a gap in the investigation of homosexual representation. It also contributes to the field of gender studies of literature, film, television, and theatre by illustrating queer history in a genre which has not received a great deal of focus on its representation of homosexuality. Spy fiction occupies a central position in British popular culture, and by exploring this genre in terms of homosexuality, this research will identify the role which same-sex desire has historically played in the British cultural imagination

    ‘Mental fight’ and ‘seeing & writing’ in Virginia Woolf and William Blake

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    This thesis is the first full-length study to assess the writer and publisher Virginia Woolf’s (1882-1941) responses to the radical Romantic poet-painter, and engraver, William Blake (1757-1827). I trace Woolf’s public and private, overt and subtle references to Blake in fiction, essays, notebooks, diaries, letters and drawings. I have examined volumes in Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s library that are pertinent, directly and indirectly, to Woolf’s understanding of Blake. I focus on Woolf’s key phrases about Blake: ‘Mental fight’, and ‘seeing & writing.’ I consider the other phrases Woolf uses to think about Blake in the context of these two categories. Woolf and Blake are both interested in combining visual and verbal aesthetics (‘seeing & writing’). They are both critical of their respective cultures (‘Mental fight’). Woolf mentions ‘seeing & writing’ in connection to Blake in a 1940 notebook. She engages with Blake’s ‘Mental fight’ in ‘Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid’ (1940). I map late nineteenth and early twentieth-century opinion on Blake and explore Woolf’s engagement with Blake in these wider contexts. I make use of the circumstantial detail of Woolf’s friendship with the great Blake collector and scholar, Geoffrey Keynes (1887-1982), brother of Bloomsbury economist John Maynard Keynes. Woolf was party to the Blake centenary celebrations courtesy of Geoffrey Keynes’s organisation of the centenary exhibition in London in 1927. Chapter One introduces Woolf’s explicit references to Blake and examines the record of Woolf scholarship that unites Woolf and Blake. To see how her predecessors had responded, Chapter Two examines the nineteenth-century interest in Blake and Woolf’s engagement with key nineteenth-century Blakeans. Chapter Three looks at the modernist, early twentieth-century engagement with Blake, to contextualise Woolf’s position on Blake. Chapter Four assesses how Woolf and Blake use ‘Mental fight’ to oppose warmongering and fascist politics. Chapter Five is about what Woolf and Blake write and think about the country and the city. Chapter Six discusses Woolf’s reading of John Milton (1608-1674) in relation to her interest in Blake, drawing on the evidence of Blake’s intense reading of Milton. Chapter Seven examines further miscellaneous continuities between Woolf and Blake. Chapter Eight proposes, in conclusion, that we can only form an impression of Woolf’s Blake. The thesis also has three appendices. First, a chronology of key publications which chart Blake’s reputation as well as Woolf’s allusions to Blake. Second a list all of Blake’s poetry represented in Woolf’s library including contents page. The third lists all the other volumes in Woolf’s library that proved relevant. Although Woolf’s writing is the subject of this thesis, my project necessitates an attempt to recover how Blake was understood and misunderstood by numerous writers in the early twentieth century. The thesis argues Blake is a model radical Romantic who combines the visual and the verbal and that Woolf sees him as a kindred artist

    The crisis of cultural authority in museums : contesting human remains in the collections of Britain

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    Museums in Britain have displayed and researched human remains since the eighteenth century. However, in the last two decades human remains in collections have become subject to claims and controversies. Firstly, human remains associated with acquisition during the colonial period have become increasingly difficult to retain and have been transfered to culturally affiliated overseas indigenous groups. Secondly, a group of British Pagans have formed to make claims on ancient human remains in collections. Thirdly, human remains that are not requested by any community group, and of all ages, have become the focus of concerns expressed about their treatment by members of the profession. A discourse arguing for 'respect' has emerged, which argues that all human remains should be treated with new care. The claims made on human remains have been vigourously but differentially contested by members of the sector, who consider the human remains to be unique research objects. This thesis charts the influences at play on the contestation over human remains and examines its construction. The academic literature tends to understand changes to museums as a result of external factors. This thesis argues that this problem is influenced by a crisis of legitimacy and establishes that there are strong internal influences. Through a weak social constructionist approach I demonstrate that the issue has been promoted by influential members of the sector as part of a broader attempt to distance themselves from their foundational role, as a consequence of a crisis of cultural authority stimulated by external and internal factors. The symbolic character of human remains in locating this problem is informed by the unique properties of dead bodies and is influenced by the significance of the body as a scientific object; its association with identity work and as a site of political struggle, in the high modem period

    The interpretation of Islam and nationalism by the elite through the English language media in Pakistan.

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    The media is constructed and interpreted through what people 'know'. That knowledge is, forthe most part, created through day to day experiences. In Pakistan, Islam and nationalism aretwo components of this social knowledge which are intrinsically tied to the experiences of thePakistani people. Censorship and selection are means through which this knowledge isarticulated and interpreted.General conceptions of partially shared large scale bodies of knowledge and ideas reinforce,and are reinforced by, general medium of mass communication: the print and electronic media.Focusing on the govermnent, media institutions and Pakistani elites, I describe and analyse thedifferent, sometimes conflicting, interpretations of Islam and Pakistani nationalism manifest inand through media productions presented in Pakistan.The media means many things, not least of which is power. It is the media as a source ofpower that is so frequently controlled, directed and manipulated. The terminology may beslightly different according to the context within which one is talking - propaganda, selection,etc. - but ultimately it comes down to the same thing - censorship. Each of the three groups:government, media institutions and Pakistani elites - have the power to interpret and censormedia content and consideration must be taken of each of the other power holders consequentlyrestricting the power of each group in relation to the other two. The processes of thismanipulation and their consequences form the major themes of this thesis

    GENDERED EMBODIMENT, STABILITY AND CHANGE: WOMEN’S WEIGHTLIFTING AS A TOOL FOR RECOVERY FROM EATING DISORDERS

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    This thesis explores the everyday embodied experiences of women who use amateur weightlifting as a vehicle for recovery from eating disorders. Within online spaces and on social media, women frequently share their experiences of using weightlifting to overcome issues relating to disordered eating, body image, and mental health. In particular, women with a history of eating disorders credit weightlifting to be integral to their recovery journey. However, there is a dearth of research on women’s experiences with exercise during eating disorder recovery and no research that identifies weightlifting as beneficial to this process. To the contrary, discursive links are drawn between the practices of self-surveillance exercised by both eating disorder sufferers and weightlifters alike. In this regard, engagement with weightlifting during eating disorder recovery may signal the transferal of pathology from one set of behaviours to another. That is, from disordered eating to rigid and self-regulatory exercise routines. This thesis examines how women subjectively navigate and make sense of this pathologisation. The data for this research comes from longitudinal semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation with 19 women, living in the United Kingdom, who engaged in weightlifting during their eating disorder recovery. In addition, to build up a holistic picture and to explore how this phenomenon also ‘takes place’ online, I conducted a netnography of the overlapping subcultures of female weightlifting and eating disorder recovery on Instagram. Women’s standpoint theory and interpretative phenomenological analysis are combined to form the underpinning theoretical and analytical tools used to engage with these three rich data sets. Moreover, throughout I draw on an eclectic range of disciplinary perspectives, in order to bring together multiple fields of research and develop novel theoretical frameworks. In the findings, I argue that women’s experiences using weightlifting as a tool for recovery from eating disorders manifests in an embodied sense of multiplicity. In this sense, understandings of the body that are often viewed as ontologically distinct (muscularity/thinness/fatness) hang-together at once in the lived experience of a single individual. I argue that women, particularly those who have previously struggled with an eating disorder, are too readily positioned as vulnerable to media and representation. To theoretically combat these ideas regarding women’s assumed passivity, I develop the concept of ‘digital pruning’ to account for women’s agency in relation to new media. I contend that weightlifting offers women in recovery from eating disorders a new framework for approaching eating and exercise. Specifically, weightlifting’s norms and values legitimate occupying a larger body, which gives women in recovery permission to eat and gain-weight in a way that is both culturally sanctioned and health-promoting. Finally, I explore identity transformation as a specific tenet of recovery from eating disorders. I argue that, on social media, recovery identities are characterised by personal empowerment, resilience, and independence. While offline, quieter and less culturally glorified aspects of recovery (such as relationships of care) are central to women’s accounts of developing a new sense of self as they transition away from an eating disorder identity. In summary, this thesis is an examination of the ways in which women strategically navigate pathology in relation to their bodies, social media, food/exercise practices, and identity. I argue that women develop a set of ‘DIY’ recovery practices that allow them to consciously channel and draw on their negative experiences with eating disorders, to develop new ways of living that serve their overall wellbeing. Weightlifting is integral to this process, as it provides women transitioning out of this difficult phase in their lives with new ways of relating to their bodies and of being in the world. I situate this phenomenon within a neoliberal socio-political climate in which individuals are required to take personal responsibility for their mental health and wellbeing, despite living within conditions which are not conducive to recovery

    Management controls, government regulations, customer involvement: Evidence from a Chinese family-owned business

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    This research reports on a case study of a family-owned elevator manufacturing company in China, where management control was sandwiched between the state policies and global customer production requirements. By analysing the role of government and customer, this thesis aimed to illustrate how management control operated in a family-owned business and to see how and why they do management control differently. In particular, it focused on how international production standards and existing Chinese industry policies translated into a set of the management control practices through a local network within the family-owned business I studied. Based on an ethnographic approach to research, I spent six months in the field, conducted over 30 interviews, several conservations, and reviewed relevant internal documents to understand how management control (MC) techniques with humans cooperated in the company. I also understood how two layers of pressure have shaped company behaviour, and how a company located in a developing country is connecting with global network. I also found there is considerable tension among key actors and investigated how the company responded and managed it. Drawing on Actor Network Theory (ANT), I analysed the interviews from key actors, examined the role of government regulations and customer requirements to see how management control being managed under two layers of pressure, i.e., the government regulations (e.g., labour, tax, environment control) and customer requirement (e.g., quality and production control). Management controls were an obligatory passage point (OPP), and transformation of those elements of Western production requirements and government requirements arrived at the Chinese local factory and influenced management control and budgeting. The findings suggest that management control systems are not only a set of technical procedures, but it is also about managing tensions. This understanding shows a linear perspective on MC practices rather than a social perspective. However, when we use ANT as a theoretical perspective, we see those actors who, being obliged and sandwiched, and controlled by external forces for them to follow. Consequently, human actors must work in an unavoidable OPP. This is the tension they face which constructed mundane practices of MC. Hence, MCs are managing such tensions. This study contributes to management control research by analysing management controls in terms of OPP, extends our understanding by illustrating the role of the government and customers, and our understanding of family-owned business from a management controls perspective in a developing country
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