Sociology thesis and dissertation collection
Welcome to Sociology, part of the School of Social and Political Studies at the University of Edinburgh. The Department began in 1964 and remains one of the most eminent in the UK for research, undergraduate teaching and postgraduate research.
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Recent Submissions
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Changing stinking thinking: a comparative case study of the enactment, embodiment, and emplacement of social citizenship in the Pacific Northwest
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-05-19)Throughout history the agency of social citizenship has resulted in actions that both include and exclude certain individuals and groups through political, economic, and civic interaction. This creates abject spaces of ... -
Inscriptions and erasures, grief, hope and rights: a struggle for truth and justice for disappearances in postwar Sri Lanka
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-03-09)Since the end of the Sri Lanka’s civil war between the state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, hundreds of Tamil women whose family members (were) disappeared during the war have been waging a struggle ... -
(Digitally entangled) touristic placemaking: locative media, algorithmic navigation & affective orderings
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-03-01)In this thesis, I explore the ways in which the locative platform, TripAdvisor mediates touristic placemaking through a case study which centres on Edinburgh’s Harry Potter tourism scene. This case study is based on ... -
Interaction ritual chains at the Fringe
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-12-06)‘Measuring’ or ‘capturing’ cultural value is a key endeavour for those who seek to justify the provision of public investment in arts and cultural activities. This approach is commonly manifested in the literature ... -
Rise of Hong Kong nationalism on the edge of empires
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-12-06)This study aims to understand the discursive constitution of Hong Kong nationalism. Despite China’s efforts to instil Chinese nationalism among Hong Kong people, recent years witnessed an escalating conflict between Hong ... -
Has something got to give? Tensions and opportunities in achieving both a UK social science doctorate and ESRC-specified research and skills training
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)Social sciences research students in the UK have experienced major contextual changes to their doctoral studies over recent decades. Compared to minimal and piecemeal training received by doctoral students in the 1970s, ... -
Još Hrvatska ni propala: [Still Croatia has not fallen]: examining the public face of memory in Croatia
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis examines the “public face of memory,” the visual elements of cultural memory going beyond the simple structure of a statue or a plaque to tell a story about the politics of remembrance. The structure of ... -
Crop with no futures: explaining the absence of derivatives trading in the Rice Market
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis seeks to explain the near absence of derivative contracts in the rice market, in the light of these instruments’ prominence in other agricultural commodity markets. To do so, I compare rice with three of these ... -
Doing drugs policy: narratives of participation in the development of a critical drug theory
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)Introduction It is a well-documented and a historical fact that human beings have ingested certain substances in order to change their perceptions of reality for centuries, if not millennia (RSA, 2007; Nutt, 2015; Bancroft, ... -
Changing party system in Mexico (1970-1988)
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This research analyses how profound economic and social transformations enable political change. It argues that those transformations lead to the renegotiation of the relationship between the state and civil society. Also, ... -
One with others: care, stigma and the creative everyday of urban social space in Soacha, Colombia
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis examines ways in which residents of one informal neighbourhood in Soacha, Colombia, are engaged in everyday struggles to navigate inequality, marginalisation and displacement. Similar to other informal ... -
Local governance of energy initiatives: struggles in assembling value
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)Local Authorities are increasingly expected to meet UK 2050 net zero climate goals. However, they struggle to assemble investment for local energy and carbon saving projects. In this thesis I examine how valuation ... -
Relocating Malays: housing biographies, the State and multiracial nation-building in Singapore
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)Singapore prides itself in being a model and world-class multiracial nation in which over 80% of its residents live in good public housing. Through a very particular system of ‘ownership,’ 90% of public housing residents ... -
Using intimacy as a lens on the work and migration experiences of ethnic performers in Southwest China
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-06)This research explores how the lens of intimacy can be used to understand migration and inequalities and demonstrates the value of such a theoretical lens. It does so by focusing on the experience of a group of rural to ... -
Populist communication and strategic behaviour on Twitter
(The University of Edinburgh, 2018-11-27)Background While earlier studies on the German right-wing populist party AfD on Twitter have noted a very high frequency of the party’s hashtag use, there is a lack of understanding if this expresses support or opposition ... -
Women and religious racisms in Inverclyde: feminised intra-Christian sectarianism and gendered Islamophobia
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)This thesis re-problematises the issue of intra-Christian sectarianism from the standpoints of women from different denominational backgrounds, social classes and age groups. It foregrounds alternative gendered knowledge, ... -
Limits of liberal plurality: from political identity to strong recognition
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)Through the analysis of liberal theories of plurality and diversity –multiculturalism, interculturalism, nationalisms, cosmopolitanism, communitarianism-, I make a series of arguments regarding the positive recognition ... -
Imagined futures of same-sex couples
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)This research explores how older same-sex couples in Scotland imagine their future. While there is a growing number of sociological studies looking at lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) ageing, ... -
Only true philosophers? Charismatic performances of unofficial philosophy in socialist Czechoslovakia
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)In this thesis, I explore the phenomenon of unofficial philosophy seminars in socialist Czechoslovakia, focusing on the period from 1968 to 1989. After the democratizing movement known as the Prague Spring was terminated ... -
Parental socio-economic background and children’s school-level GCSE attainment
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-01-22)The principal aim of this thesis is to better understand the contemporary relationship between parental socio-economic background and children’s General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) attainment. Previous ...