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Taking traditional communities as exemplifiers of 'tradition-in-action', this thesis is based on semi-structured interviews and observations with Amish communities in the United States and a Jewish community in the United Kingdom. This research challenges antithetical notions of inert tradition versus a fluid, dynamic modernity within sociological literature, which has a tendency to posit tradition as temporally and spatially outside of modernity. Drawing on literatures that intersect sociological disciplines, particularly community studies, religion, diasporas, tradition and theories of contemporary (late/liquid) modernity (Giddens, 1991; Bauman, 2000), it explores ways in which these Amish and Jewish communities - described here as religion-oriented diasporic communities - negotiate the fluid conditions of contemporary modernity. It asks questions about what these negotiations reveal about the nature of contemporary modernity and how shedding new light on community boundaries, belonging and practices helps us to rethink and challenge prevailing meanings of community under contemporary conditions. Through the findings, the research asserts that rather than being fixed, these communities exhibit varied communal boundaries, from non-negotiable to fluid, as well as fluctuating and contingent levels of belonging and socially situated practices and narratives that adaptively reproduce community to enable communal thriving. In so doing, it explores themes such as boundary-keeping processes, the appeal of embedding and the social/kinship networks that comprise community and form a basis for 'doing' community together. This research project makes methodological contributions, reflecting on the 'insider/outsider' researcher positionality, as well as cultural and logistical considerations with harder-to-access communities. Though these case studies are not intended to provide direct or simple 'like for like' comparison, themes emerging from both case studies highlight the multi-layered nature of belonging to communities conceptualised as traditional in a fluid, ever-changing modernity, effectively siting such communities and modernity as inseparable and co-constitutive.

Within the past forty years, the field of cultural sociology has been marked by a theoretical clash between modern and postmodern views on how oppositionality and resistance can take shape inside non-normative youth groups called subcultures. In line with the wider goal of enriching subcultural theory through overcoming this conflict, this thesis consists of an in-depth examination of the way in which young members of the contemporary punk and electronic music communities of Bucharest articulate and express subcultural resistance through their music-centred narratives and practices. Using extracts from 27 qualitative, semi-structured interviews and field notes from 22 participant observation sessions collected in situ between March and October of 2018, the study will argue that these young people construct complex, multi-dimensional, and multi-faceted systems of resistance which encompass two distinct, interdependent levels - discursive and practical. In this context, it will also be argued that the coexistence and complementarity of a set of diverse and conscious articulations of disaffection support the case for the subversive potential of music and music-mediated social interaction. The contributions of this thesis to the sociology of youth culture are both empirical and theoretical. From an empirical point of view, it offers insights into a previously unexplored socio-geographical and cultural space whose unique evolution calls for more nuanced and context-sensitive analyses of how resistance is reified and what its functions are. On a theoretical level, the study introduces a new model of resistance based on the specificity of the targets being resisted by subcultural participants. The model proposes a novel framework for studying resistance - one that integrates the innovations of both the modern and postmodern schools of thought, is grounded in a distinctively Foucauldian, post-revisionist interpretation of resistant rhetoric and behaviours as ways of contesting and negotiating various incarnations of power, and points to the possibility of formulating a more unified and comprehensive type of subcultural theory.

This study adopted a qualitative approach, comprising in-depth interviews and observations at four courts, to examine the perceived legitimacy of the court process among members of the public who come into direct contact with the criminal courts. Examining the extent to which members of the public, or 'lay participants', engaged with the court process provided a valuable means of assessing the degree to which the courts are perceived to occupy legitimate authority among those that they serve. In this thesis, engagement is characterised in one of five ways, 'active alignment', 'passive alignment', 'dull compulsion', 'resistance' and 'withdrawal', based upon the extent to which an individual is aligned with, and participates in, the court process. The findings point to evidence of weak levels of engagement, particularly among court users, such as complainants, defendants and prosecution witnesses, who have the least power but most at stake in the process. This is indicative of legitimacy deficits which, if unaddressed, limit the degree to which the courts can continue to claim to be valid holders of power. The findings suggest that perceptions of legitimacy can be cultivated in two ways. This is firstly through the use of lay adjudicators, namely juries and lay magistrates, who - despite challenges arising from the visibility of the perceived benefits of lay decision-making in practice - were found to confer legitimacy on the criminal courts. Secondly, engagement could be cultivated through the presence of 'procedurally just' interactions between court users and those who occupy positions of power within the courts. However, the strength of the latter claims, this thesis concludes, should not be overstated because in order to fully enhance perceptions of legitimacy there is a need to look beyond the confines of the courtroom and towards issues in wider society that shape the experiences of court users.

International student mobility had undergone considerable growth over the last thirty years (OECD, 2015). Students who travel to different countries to study can be seen as an important group of people who develop the internationalisation of higher education. One type of student mobility, credit mobility, has come to assume greater importance recently. The number of credit mobile students, that is students who undertake a period studying or working abroad during their degree, has increased (European Commission, 2016). However, whilst credit mobile students form only a small minority of the student population, there has been a lack of research with young people who choose to participate in these programmes. This PhD research is a qualitative project that explores the motivations, experiences and aspirations of UK students who have spent either a semester or year abroad. Firstly, this study explores the backgrounds and biographies of these students who choose to travel abroad for higher education. Secondly, the study analyses the experiences of these students during their stay overseas. And thirdly, careful attention is paid to the aspirations of these students after they have returned from their period abroad. In this research, I demonstrate how young people attach significant value to student mobility by discussing it as an acceptable form of ‘authentic’ travel. Discourses around acceptable forms of travel, I show, stem from the habitus (Bourdieu 1986) of these young people. Secondly, I provide the first in-depth analysis of the key experiences of these students whilst abroad. Drawing on John Urry’s (2002) concept of the tourist gaze, I outline how new experiences away from home create a sense of adventure and novelty. Lastly, this research makes an original contribution to knowledge by developing our understanding of the aspirations of students who have completed a period abroad. Using Bauman’s (1996, 1998) theory of ‘tourism’, I demonstrate how young people who have studied and/or worked abroad become seduced by imagined mobile futures. I show how, for these students, their experiences create desires to continue living mobile lifestyles.

Changes in the Saudi family structure are having profound effects on the current cohort of older Saudi women. This is reflected in living arrangements whereby family patterns have been transformed from extended to nuclear ones. Previous social research has not examined the current situation of older Saudi women, with little known about their Quality of Life (QoL). This study explores the QoL of older unmarried Saudi women by analysing their family relationships, social lives and daily activities. It examines how family relationships, social integration, health and financial aspects are influenced by social policies and gender-related issues. The study is based on in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of 50 widowed, divorced and never-married women aged 60-75 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from a range of socio-economic classes; 25 lived alone and 25 lived in inter-generational households. Gender segregation was a decisive factor that adversely affected the QoL of interviewees. They were dependent on their family or maids socially, instrumentally, and some financially on the ‘Goodwill’ of their children or relatives. Older divorced women were particularly likely to experience financial and social problems. Lower class and many middle class older women who lived alone were dissatisfied and suffered from depression, isolation and loneliness, whereas higher class women living alone demonstrated greater autonomy, independence and life satisfaction. Most interviewees had poor health and multiple chronic diseases, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, which are linked to their socially and geographically restricted lives. Also, urbanization and associated cultural changes have adversely affected their QoL. Gender segregation driven by ultra-conservative patriarchy has resulted in the economic and social dependency and restricted lives of older unmarried Saudi women. State intervention is needed to improve the general situation of older women, such as establishing care homes, increasing social insurance income and providing medical insurance.

As they are employed in local government-owned, managed and funded institutions, local authority museum professionals experience their working lives within an organisational framework that is based on high levels of politics and administration (Lawley, 2003). Inherent to this governance model are pressures, constraints and structuring forces that affect the agency and practices of local authority museum professionals, and the makeup of their institutions. However, the literature does not sufficiently attend to the experiences of local authority museum professionals, in terms of their working lives and the distinctive environmental conditions that they operate within. This is especially the case in the contemporary context. Of the museum types, local authority museums have been the hardest hit by austerity (Museums Association, 2015a, 2017a; Tuck et al., 2015), and my research finds out about the experiences of their professionals based on the findings generated from the data of 30 semi-structured qualitative interviews. My research comprehends the interplays between structure and agency, following a trajectory from the micro to the macro, through the perceptions of the participants. It consists of the following investigative format. The first focus was on finding out about the cultures of the participants to learn about their backgrounds, which was achieved by using Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of cultural capital. Learning about their cultures helps to identify whether there was a lack of ethnic and cultural diversity in the profession, and assists in understanding more about the characteristics that underpinned and shaped the practices of the participants. Then, using DiMaggio and Powell’s (1991) concept of isomorphism, the second focus was on finding out about the structuring forces that homogenised the practices of the participants and their museums, albeit in different areas and to different degrees. Deviating away from structuration, the third focus was on the agency of the participants and their manipulation of pressures and constraints in diverse ways, which were potential areas of innovation. Moreover, the experiences of the participants are at the heart of the findings and discussions that are presented throughout my thesis. My research evidences that pressures, constraints and structuring forces, in the form of isomorphic processes (normative, mimetic and coercive), homogeneously affected the practices of the participants and their museums. These processes were caused by other professionals, institutions and organisations, along with policies and communities. On evaluation of the findings, it is concluded that isomorphism was a presence among the museums, and more broadly, local authority museums in the sector, although the findings show that homogenisation had its advantages and disadvantages, which centred on legitimacy and efficiency. Furthermore, the findings show that while the participants were highly restricted in exercising their agency, there were small signs of its presence in their construction of displays and building of community and councillor support. As they would be enduring austerity for the foreseeable future, the participants perceived that building support would help to foster the resilience and sustainability of their museums. On reflection of the findings and discussions that are presented in my thesis, suggestions about where future research and policy need to be directed are made.

This thesis explores the networks, life courses and outlooks of Polish post-accession migrants in London. Aside from investigating both social and economic integration approaches, the thesis also examines migrants’ settlement strategies, highlighting their fluid and shifting character. The first two empirical chapters analyse respectively the economic and social aspects of Polish newcomers’ migration trajectories in London. They not only demonstrate what the key motivations for migration are (i.e. predominantly the financial pull-factor), but also depict migrants’ attempts to seek what they regard as a normal socio-emotional quality of life throughout their trajectories in London. This discussion also connects to notions of home and belonging as well as migrants’ views of where they would eventually intend to settle down, which the last two empirical chapters aim to illustrate. This research has been situated within the literature of post-war migration movements that explore the concepts of migrant community, ethnic diversity, cultural identity, hybridity, global economic mobility and finally transnationalism. The experiences of Polish post-accession migrants to Britain connect to many of these themes, particularly in relation to the ways migrants negotiate their economic aspirations, socio-cultural identity and belonging. The research itself consists of qualitative interviews with fifty-two Polish post-accession migrants to London and participant observations in a variety of social and community gatherings. This thesis contributes to the existing study on global economic mobility, transnational networks and liquid identity through exploring factors that affect migrants’ adaptation strategies into the socio-economic structures of the receiving society. Furthermore, my research advances the study of post-accession mobility involving Central and Eastern European migrants. While investigating the trajectories of Polish migrants living in London, I scrutinise the dynamic character of their migration motivations, occupational advancement as well as a powerful role of their networks (both local and transnational) on the evolvement of their identity and their changing plans for the future. The empirical findings of the study emphasize that the character of Polish post-accession mobility within the enlarged European Union goes far beyond a simple definition of economic migration. The complexity of socio-economic factors lying behind migrants’ narratives in Britain underlines the many challenges that they confront when competing for better work opportunities or attempting to establish their new social networks. Along with negotiating their status of foreign workers with a non-British socio-cultural background, Polish migrants develop their settlement strategies which are, to a degree, liquid and subject to their changing life priorities.

Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP) is a new model of socio-economic production in which groups of individuals cooperate with each other without a traditional hierarchical organisation to produce common and public goods, such as Wikipedia or GNU/Linux. There is a need to understand how these communities govern and organise themselves as they grow in size and complexity. Following an ethnographic approach, this thesis explores the emergence of and changes in the organisational structures and processes of Drupal: a large and global CBBP community which, over the past fifteen years, has coordinated the work of hundreds of thousands of participants to develop a technology which currently powers more than 2% of websites worldwide. Firstly, this thesis questions and studies the notion of contribution in CBPP communities, arguing that contribution should be understood as a set of meanings which are under constant negotiation between the participants according to their own internal logics of value. Following a constructivist approach, it shows the relevance played by less visible contribution activities such as the organisation of events. Secondly, this thesis explores the emergence and inner workings of the socio-technical systems which surround contributions related to the development of projects and the organisation of events. Two intertwined organisational dynamics were identified: formalisation in the organisational processes and decentralisation in decision-making. Finally, this thesis brings together the empirical data from this exploration of socio-technical systems with previous literature on self-organisation and organisation studies, to offer an account of how the organisational changes resulted in the emergence of a polycentric model of governance, in which different forms of organisation varying in their degree of organicity co-exist and influence each other.

The current research takes a sociological approach to the study of journalism to explore the complex emotional work carried out by journalists as they report. Previous research has demonstrated various aspects of the distinct culture of journalism, including the embedded maintenance of certain ideals, such as objectivity and emotional detachment. However, detailed examination of the professional ideals of the journalists themselves reveals an area wrought with complexities and contradictions, where what is expected of journalists in their job role may be challenged by the actual emotional experiences they endure. The present research explores these complexities in order to understand how journalists might manage their emotions and how this management relates to the wider professional and organisational expectations placed upon them. To do this, it centres on journalists that reported during genocide because of the extremely emotive nature of this event. The present research therefore takes a qualitative, case study approach employing two case studies of genocide (Rwanda and Srebrenica) as a lens through which to understand the emotionality associated with reporting. Specifically, it combines interviews with journalists that reported during either genocide alongside a discourse analysis of UK news reporting of these events. Findings reveal the vital part that emotional labour played for journalists in managing their emotions both during and after their reporting. These journalists performed emotional labour in distinct, multi-faceted, and sometimes contradictory ways. In seeking to make greater sense of this emotional work, the current research elaborates a typology of the different kinds of emotional labour performed by journalists. By examining how journalists experienced the act of reporting amidst genocide specifically, it is possible to see how these complexities are amplified in extreme situations. However, this template also allows the potential for future research on the emotional experiences of journalists that may also report in other situations.