http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/159 2013-05-26T00:44:17Z 2013-05-26T00:44:17Z Winkler Reid, Sarah http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/7393 2013-05-21T13:05:19Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Valuing the informal realm: Peer relations and the negotiation of difference in a North London comprehensive school Authors: Winkler Reid, Sarah Abstract: This thesis is an ethnographic study of the informal realm in a North London comprehensive school. Although situated within, and formed by, an institutional context, this network of peer relations is largely unmanaged by adults. Pupils are in charge. They exert influence, manifest social definitions, create their own hierarchies and negotiate their differences. My focus of study is a cohort of 15 to 16 year-olds in Year 11. They come from a diversity of backgrounds, in terms of religion, parental occupation, academic attainments and ethnicity. Through close attention to the pupils’ words and actions in the day-to-day workings of the informal realm in this school, I explore the constitution and consequences of this impressive phenomenon. Anthropological studies of the informal realm are few and far between, and ones in British schools even rarer. Yet, the informal realm offers valuable contributions to three areas in anthropology: the emerging anthropology of youth; the little-studied everyday realities of Western personhood; and an application of Munn’s theory of value production (1986). Munn’s model has not yet been applied to the informal realm. However I argue her theory of value production serves to illuminate the entire realm. It is intrinsically relational and involves subjective transformation. Centrally, action is the primary unit of analysis, as it is for my analysis. There are no structures or formal roles in the informal realm, so pupils must continuously maintain their arena with a constant flow of transactions. I argue that in the process of creating and maintaining this realm, pupils come to value themselves as particular kinds of people (Evans 2006). Different groups engage in different modes of value production. Through these actions, their subsequent evaluations, and the daily debate over what constitutes positive and negative value, pupils collaboratively establish a constellation of differences. They organise their world, enabling them to share the same social space yet define themselves as very different kinds of people. In this constellation of differences, ethnicity, gender and sexuality are particularly salient categories of distinction, subject to pupils’ collaboratively set conventions. In order to ‘fit in’ pupils have to conform to these conventions. Thus this ethnography delineates what is involved in becoming an appropriately ethnic, sexual and gendered person in school. The application of an intrinsically relational model of subjective formation challenging Western ideals of the autonomous individual. These processes of differentiation occur at the same time as processes of unification. Throughout their time as a community, Year 11 pupils are producing communal value through which they can define themselves worthwhile as a group. They end their time of compulsory schooling with a celebration of this communal value. Description: This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Parker, M Allen, T http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/7058 2012-12-17T10:51:56Z 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Will mass drug administration eliminate lymphatic filariasis? Evidence from northern coastal Tanzania Authors: Parker, M; Allen, T Abstract: This article documents understandings and responses to mass drug administration (MDA) for the treatment and prevention of lymphatic filariasis among adults and children in northern coastal Tanzania from 2004 to 2011. Assessment of village-level distribution registers, combined with self-reported drug uptake surveys of adults, participant observation and interviews, revealed that at study sites in Pangani and Muheza districts the uptake of drugs was persistently low. The majority of people living at these highly endemic locations either did not receive or actively rejected free treatment. A combination of social, economic and political reasons explain the low uptake of drugs. These include a fear of treatment (attributable, in part, to a lack of trust in international aid and a questioning of the motives behind the distribution); divergence between biomedical and local understandings of lymphatic filariasis; and limited and ineffective communication about the rationale for mass treatment. Other contributory factors are the reliance upon volunteers for distribution within villages and, in some locations, strained relationships between different groups of people within villages as well as between local leaders and government officials. The article also highlights a disjuncture between self-reported uptake of drugs by adults at a village level and the higher uptake of drugs recorded in official reports. The latter informs claims that elimination will be a possibility by 2020. This gives voice to a broader problem: there is considerable pressure for those implementing MDA to report positive results. The very real challenges of making MDA work are pushed to one side - adding to a rhetoric of success at the expense of engaging with local realities. It is vital to address the kind of issues raised in this article if current attempts to eliminate lymphatic filariasis in mainland coastal Tanzania are to achieve their goal. Description: Copyright @ 2012 The Authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and 85 reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The article was made available through the Brunel University Open Access Publishing Fund.

2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Mahon-Daly, Patricia Mary http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/7028 2012-12-17T10:45:43Z 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Blood, society and the gift: An ethnography of change in the gift relationship Authors: Mahon-Daly, Patricia Mary Abstract: Commentary about solid or whole body part transplantation, transfusion and donation is well documented and has added to discourse about who gives and receives and how. Commentary about another body part – blood – is, it is argued here, less well developed (Sanner, 2001; Lock, 2004; Scheper-Hughes and Wacquant, 2006; Shaw, 2009). Blood and its modern-day sociology and anthropology is understood and limited by its links with both Titmuss’ altruism and gift exchange theories. This thesis, using a qualitative ethnographic approach, re-examines and introduces new discourse about blood, challenging the orthodoxy of altruism and seeking new understanding and justification for blood donation. It uses testimony from 80 blood donors to elicit real-time ideas about blood as a source of risk rather than a gift from strangers. It also argues that donors “give to get back” their donations rather than give as a form of altruistic behaviour, thus introducing the concept that blood donating is a form of covenant between society and the individual or a form of deposit. Issues of trust are examined via the lens of deferment as increasingly it is not good enough to just donate blood without stringent societal, as well as techno-medical, surveillance. Donating blood is shown to be a form of active citizenship, and to be deferred from doing so has a direct impact on individuals’ freedom to donate and thus community membership. The emotional labour of giving is revealed by the testimonies of “able” donors, which evidence that not only do donors perceive their blood to be special, but also the act of giving is a labour carried out by the few who can do it for the majority, in contrast to those donors who regard giving blood to be a mundane, functional practice. Lastly, an emerging hierarchy of self in relation to the body is uncovered here revealing hints at its’ inalienable status. The thesis charts the journey of blood from being a mystical part of the body, linked to goodness, to blood being the new “master tool” of modern society, imbued with risk and therefore entrusted to society via scrutinising blood management systems. The methodological framework is centred on an interpretative approach, using data gathered from interviews and questionnaires from active blood donors in sessions at the National Blood Service (NHSBT) as well as testimony gathered from individual one-to-one interviews. It refers to theories by Foucault, Mauss and Douglas to interpret the qualitative data revealing blood as a target of bio-power, risk management and social exchange and a shifting dislocated new body part, and it sets out to challenge the orthodoxy of altruism as the rationale and justification for blood donation in modern Britain. Description: This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.

2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Parker, M Allen, T Pearson, G Peach, N Flynn, R Rees, N http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/6921 2012-10-23T10:20:56Z 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Border parasites: schistosomiasis control among Uganda's fisherfolk Authors: Parker, M; Allen, T; Pearson, G; Peach, N; Flynn, R; Rees, N Abstract: It is recognized that the control of schistosomisais in Uganda requires a focus on fisherfolk. Large numbers suffer from this water-borne parasitic disease; notably along the shores of lakes Albert and Victoria and along the River Nile. Since 2004, a policy has been adopted of providing drugs, free of charge, to all those at risk. The strategy has been reported to be successful, but closer investigation reveals serious problems. This paper draws upon long-term research undertaken at three locations in northwestern and southeastern Uganda. It highlights consequences of not engaging with the day to day realities of fisherfolk livelihoods; attributable, in part, to the fact that so many fisherfolk live and work in places located at the country’s international borders, and to a related tendency to treat them as "feckless" and "ungovernable". Endeavours to roll out treatment end up being haphazard, erratic and location-specific. In some places, concerted efforts have been made to treat fisherfolk; but there is no effective monitoring, and it is difficult to gauge what proportion have actually swallowed the tablets. In other places, fisherfolk are, in practice, largely ignored, or are actively harassed in ways that make treatment almost impossible. At all sites, the current reliance upon resident "community" drug distributors or staff based at static clinics and schools was found to be flawed. Description: Copyright @ 2012 Taylor & Francis. This article has been made publically available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.

2012-01-01T00:00:00Z