Luso-London: Identity, Citizenship, and Belonging in ‘Post-National’ Europe

This paper explores relations between Portuguese-speakers living in London. It takes the experience of Lusophones as a case study in illuminating how intragroup diversity is negotiated and transnational, multi-ethnic identities constructed and performed in everyday life. Through critical ethnography and interviewing, I provide an account of the varied experience of ‘belonging’ in Europe, for citizens and migrants who connect through similar language and cultural affinities and a shared, albeit contentious, history. By exploring daily rituals in workplaces, bars, cafes, and shops owned, operated, and patronized by Lusophones, I unpack postcolonial reconfigurations of citizens and migrants in their everyday experience of ‘open’ Europe and provide insight into the discursive processes of emergent and complex diasporic identities. The study found that while Portuguese and Brazilian individuals connect in daily ritual, often to consume similar goods and/or work together in similar roles, language ideology plays a central role in mediating interaction and relations remain superficial and often contentious. For Portuguese, narratives of their own ‘rightness’ – when it comes to stories of migration, doing business, and conducting everyday life – along with the privilege of European citizenship, are tropes employed to distinguish themselves from other Lusophones, especially Brazilians, with whom they are often compared to by other groups. Luso Africans share less connection in every day life with both Portuguese and Brazilians despite living in close proximity, and express more affinity with migrants from other African points of origin than fellow Lusophones. The study suggests that for Portuguese and Brazilians especially, language, identity politics and the citizen-migrant distinction play a central role in mitigating meaningful interaction around shared concern and social issues impacting both groups as ‘non-native’ to the UK. Furthermore, important questions of race – which since colonial times have been at the very core of determining social privilege - are sidestepped by the drawing of moral boundaries of ‘right versus wrong’ and the ‘European vs. non-European’

Exploring Anaerobic Bacteria for Industrial Biotechnology - Diversity Studies, Screening and Biorefinery Applications

Depletion of easily accessible fossil energy resources, threat of climate change and political priority to achieve energy self-sufficiency and sustainable solutions prioritize a conscious and smart use of renewable resources to generate a bio-based economy. Bio-based compounds can replace chemicals and fuels that are now mainly produced from crude oil. Efficient processes for the conversion of plant biomass into compounds of interest to the biorefinery industry occur naturally in anaerobic environments such as in the forestomach of herbivores. Exploration of anaerobic microorganisms for industrial biotechnological applications creates the possibility to convey efficient and flexible processes, with lower implementation and running costs, making it also applicable to developing and emerging economies. Despite the growing interest in anaerobic microorganisms for applications in industrial biotechnology, there is less information available concerning their diversity and function compared to what is known for their aerobic counterparts. To counter this, microbial diversity studies on an unexplored environment for microbial applications, was investigated by molecular and traditional cultivation techniques. The bacterial diversity of the forestomach of the llama, showed differences in the prokaryotes populations according to the complexity of the material type digested. Bacterial isolates were selected by their ability to produce compounds such as organic acids and alcohols and hydrolytic enzymes. Also, a new strategy for cultivation of anaerobic microorganisms with the potential for an improved isolation rate and screening has been developed in this thesis work. The technique is based on single cell entrapment in alginate microbeads. A method was optimized for simple preparation under anaerobic conditions and successful cultivation of single cells was observed. Further applications of anaerobic bacteria towards the biorefinery were also studied. The production of 1,3-propanediol, a compound used as building block for polymer materials, was investigated from selected llama isolates. The use of wheat straw as co-substrate and/or support material improved the concentration of 1,3-propanediol by 29% for C. butyricum BSL59 and 65% for C. butyricum BSL61 in comparison to using sole glycerol in the medium. The use of wheat straw was also superior in comparison to addition of pure sugars. Moreover, the solid residue from sequence batch fermentation using wheat straw as co-substrate showed to have high methane potential yield. Demonstrating that agriculture residue can be used in an integrated process for the production of valuable chemical compounds and energy carriers. Finally, a new method for cell immobilization forming a macroporous material was evaluated for butanol production which reaches high yields and allows repeated use of the cell-based material

RIGHTS, RECOGNITION, AND CHANGING BORDERS: LATIN AMERICAN ACTIVISM IN POST-BREXIT BRITAIN

This dissertation explores the advocacy work and political activism of Latin American social movement organizations based in the United Kingdom. I examine how activists working in Britain as it prepares to exit the European Union, make sense of their collective agendas, strategize to achieve their goals, and evaluate the outcomes of their advocacy efforts. In doing so, this project provides insights into the ways that identity movements are negotiated and performed during periods of increased political and public hostility toward their constituents and agendas. I illuminate the relationship between identity movements, immigration discourses, politics, and policy implementation and explore how major threats to activist groups and the communities they support influences collective action around rights and recognition. By analyzing public communication such as social media activity, advocacy campaigns, and public protests, along with in-depth interviews with activists at every level of multiple organizations working with members of the Latin American community in London, I describe how organizations were formed and are structured and discuss how activists construct, enact, and evaluate their agendas. I demonstrate how Britain’s planned exit from the European Union, concurrent with the broader trend towards Nationalism in much of Europe, has had particular effects on the advocacy work and activism of Latin Americans in the United Kingdom. I argue that in the context of a profound national policy shift a stratification of collective identity politics has occurred which produces distinct positionalities in relation to ethnocultural identity and activists’ engagements with issues of race, legal status, and belonging. These distinctions represent and important division of labor within and across organizations that play out in moments of both contention and cooperation and have implications for the future of Latin American social activism in the U.K

Produção de fibra de cultivares de coqueiro.

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Produção de fibra de cultivares de coqueiro.

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Produção de polpa dos frutos de cultivares de coqueiro em função da idade de colheita.

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