http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/266 2026-04-17T06:10:55Z 2026-04-17T06:10:55Z Burroughs, Janine Renee http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/32020 2025-12-16T09:07:46Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: An exploration of shifting constructions of human trafficking: A study of newspaper discourses between 2000 and 2020 Authors: Burroughs, Janine Renee Abstract: Newspaper focus on forced migration has increased over the last two decades, highlighting the significance of human trafficking for policymakers. Prior research on American newspapers and human trafficking concluded data collection in 2006, overlooking power dynamics and promoting a liberal democratic view, obscuring the understanding of how dominant discourses are shaped by power within socioeconomic and presidential agendas. This study expands previous research by examining how five major U.S. newspapers discursively constructed human trafficking across four presidential administrations from 2000 to 2020, exploring the power dynamics behind discourses used in the meaning-making process. Using a political economy approach and a Foucauldian understanding of power, the study bridges the fields of criminology and media theory. The findings are contextualised within a historical discursive archive, tracing the emergence of trafficking discourse from the early 1900s and its resurgence through the 2000 Palermo Protocol. The study begins with a thematic content analysis that maps newspaper engagement patterns and key themes, followed by three chapters of critical discourse analysis that explore the meaning-making surrounding human trafficking. The content analysis revealed that human trafficking remains a relevant topic for newspapers despite fluctuations. Outlets varied in approach but presented consistent views. The thematic analysis noted shifts in presidential agendas shaped by socio-political imperatives, which met with varying support depending on the newspaper's ideologies, suggesting a liberal democratic theory. This thesis argues that this view is reductionist due to minimal divergences from the dominant discourses identified in the CDA chapters, which identified ongoing discourses around the criminalisation of human trafficking, victimhood, and national security, with few counter-discourses on decriminalisation. The study identified an archive of trafficking discourse dating back to the early twentieth century. These discourses gained legitimacy through legal codification and presidential agendas. The thesis examines how the discourses employed in the human trafficking debate evolved to justify geopolitical and socioeconomic agendas. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London

2025-01-01T00:00:00Z Butler, Tom http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/31376 2025-06-03T11:25:30Z 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: An emergent sense of place: Examining the socio-cultural impact and experiential change of the new London museum in Smithfield Authors: Butler, Tom Abstract: In 2026 the London Museum opens in former market buildings in Smithfield, a historic working district on the edge of the City of London. The Museum’s £437m relocation is a major component of a culture-led development scheme, one that is radically transforming the local area. This interdisciplinary research interrogates what constitutes the identity and social experience of an area undergoing accelerated change, a ‘sense of place’ that I conceptualise as simultaneously socio-cultural, political, embodied, and imagined. This frames an analysis of how a museum that is both an instrument and agent of change can establish an equitable relationship with its new locality. Undertaken between 2020-2024 as a Collaborative Doctoral Award with the London Museum, this study follows a grounded theory approach, engaging with the diverse experiences of Smithfield’s social actors as well as the strategies of municipal and institutional agents. I apply a mixed methodology incorporating document analysis, ethnographic observation, walking interviews, and participatory workshops. This thesis argues that local identity and experience is relationally mediated by shared material, sensory, and imagined cues, produced through the rhythmic expression of power over time, and given meaning through real-and-imagined encounters. My research reveals the tangible and intangible effects of culture-led development processes, and their multiple aesthetic and experiential strategies of commodification and control. Ultimately, I argue for the reconceptualisation of a ‘sense of place’ into a dynamic concept that accounts for the inter-dependence of place and processes of urban change, the multiplicity of experience, and the uneven and negotiated effects of globalised capitalism. Drawing together literature from sociology, urban studies, and museum studies, I make key methodological, theoretical, and practical contributions to researching cultureled development. Respectively, these comprise the adaptation of Lefebvre’s (2004) rhythmanalytical method through Massey’s (1991) notion of place as process, a theory of accommodation within senses of place, and the development of a strategic blueprint for equitable museum approaches to new local contexts. The latter is disseminated as a research output through an online resource for museum professionals. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London

2024-01-01T00:00:00Z Billington, Matthew Paul http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/29904 2024-10-10T10:30:38Z 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: ‘Midfield masterminds’ and ‘running freight trains’: A comparative analysis of racial discourses in Premier League and Euro 2020 commentary Authors: Billington, Matthew Paul Abstract: This study explores racialised commentator discourses from concurrent Premier League and Euro 2020 competitions. The study comprises of a mixed method quantitative and qualitative analysis of covert racially biased language and football mediation mechanisms to address two research questions: 1) What are the similarities and differences between domestic and international commentary? 2) What effect, if any, does overt anti-racist commentary on the Taking of the Knee have on the covert biased discourses seen in wider commentary? Building on existing work, comparison of two concurrent competitions aims to identify the similarities and differences that emerge from each. The study utilises a sample of 60 hours of BBC and ITV Euro 2020 and Sky Sports and BT Sports 2021/22 Premier League coverage. The results indicate significant differences in the positive skew of physical description based on the race of the player being described in Premier League commentary, with an even greater positive skew being apparent in Euro 2020 discourses. Comparison of the commentator discourses delivered on the act of taking the Knee saw instances of overt racism take precedent over instances of covert racial bias in the discourses of commentators during both competitions. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London

2024-01-01T00:00:00Z Obijuru, Clementina Chibuzo http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/27014 2023-08-22T14:46:35Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The politics of cultural tourism in Nigeria: People, culture and power in the Calabar Festival Authors: Obijuru, Clementina Chibuzo Abstract: Cultural tourism has been the subject of numerous academic and policy engagements in the Global North for its broad social, economic, and political functions in cities (Richards, 2018; Du Cross & McKercher, 2020). In the Global South, similar trends are emerging with dynamic patterns of exchange and transformations, yet they have captured much less academic attention so far. This thesis attempts to address the gap by analysing a particular case study in Nigeria, the Calabar Festival. Specifically, the research aims to unravel the dynamic interactions between the state, tourists and local communities as they interact and challenge each other in producing and consuming the festival. Drawing on ethnographic and policy research of the Calabar Festival, I seek to create an enhanced understanding of how cultural tourism can be a force reshaping situated power dynamics by setting the contexts for new relational frameworks that influence the cultural processes of places. The research findings unravel a complex interplay of power relations among the various stakeholders across geographic spaces. The Calabar Festival is a highly politicised event that connects broader local and transnational social and economic development practices and cultural negotiations through tourism. This study offers two original contributions. First, taking Du Gay et al.’s (1997) circuit of culture as a theoretical starting point to understand cultural tourism processes, this thesis develops the neo-circuit of cultural tourism framework and thereby demonstrates how the state, tourists and locals mutually construct destinations’ cultural offerings. Through interaction with each other and the event, these stakeholders are equipped with different power forms, to influence and contest cultural meanings on social and individual levels. Second, by advancing the notion of tourists as ‘modern cultural curators,’ this study highlights the spectrum of curation outside the traditionally restricted system of learnt practices, extending to one formed around more open and reciprocal exchanges. This thesis concludes that the interaction of stakeholders in the tourism circuit and their co-creation of cultural meanings appear to blur the boundaries of established forms of cultural agency, particularly as tourists are currently seen to perform as modern cultural curators. In doing so, the neo-circuit of cultural tourism framework provides a robust framework to understand current cultural conditions better. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z