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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Drug policing in China: drug laws, police culture, and police professionalisation
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-05-17)The Chinese government has made efforts to professionalise the police and make legal reforms concerning the treatment of drug users. However, when legal changes were evaluated by some scholars (Chu, 2015; Yao, 2016), there ... -
Creative digital labour of meme making
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-04-11)Up until recently, internet memes were regarded as anonymous bits of humorous digital culture by scholars and the public alike. Today, it is possible to follow the work of meme makers who create their own cohesive artistic ... -
‘But why did you come back in the first place?’ Return migration to India: narratives of longing and belonging, ‘home’ and identity
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-04-10)Migration flows have not always been unidirectional, yet the phenomenon of return migration has received inadequate attention in sociological literature, and the return migration of the Indian diaspora even less so. This ... -
Sovereign debt and economic policy: a relational sociology of debt in the United Kingdom, 1960s–1980s
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-01-12)This thesis studies how what I call relational fiscal practices shape government elites' (and non-government actors') understandings of economic policy options. It examines how symbolic fiscal practices, classification ... -
Going global: a contrast ethnography of new cosmopolitan elites and their world schools, in Beijing and New York City
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-01-09)World Schools are examples of an emergent category of elite schooling guided by the pursuit of creating global citizens as a key educational aim. They provide a cosmopolitan, globally minded education. This new form of ... -
Governance of primary care quasi-markets: a case study of the Stockholm region in Sweden
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-09-26)BACKGROUND: In the latter part of the 20th century, several European countries introduced quasi-markets in their public healthcare systems. The introduction of quasi-markets is designed to give patients a choice of the ... -
Forest governance, forest dwelling people and construction of environmental subjects: case of REDD+ and Khasis in Meghalaya, India
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-08-31)Drawing on data collected from ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation and semi-structured interviews (from December 2017-January 2019), this thesis explores the complex relationship between: Meghalaya’s recent ... -
Inscribing markets, shaping policy: a sociological investigation into the yield curve
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-06-22)This thesis investigates the central mediating role of a device, the yield curve, in the enactment of sociomaterial agencements in and around the secondary market for sovereign bonds. In part 1, it traces the historical ... -
“You have to do everything in your power so that this does not happen to anyone else”. Contention dynamics against the Mexican war on drugs and crime: a case study of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-06-20)In 2006, then Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared a ‘war’ against criminal organisations that were beginning to control some of the country’s territories. Consequently, the number of murders and disappearances of ... -
Realising catastrophe: the financial ontology of the Anthropocene
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-06-15)This dissertation investigates how the financial risk management practice of catastrophe modelling is redefining the ontology of natural catastrophe. Drawing from and developing the concept of the ‘Anthropocene’, referring ... -
Scarlet letter effect: evidence of a single mother narrative
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-06-14)The thesis examines the stigmatization of American middle-class single mothers. In doing so, the research questions the extent to which being unpartnered as a mother influences stigmatizing experiences. Furthermore, as the ... -
Nation-building and political abandonment: a comparative historical sociology of rightist nationalism in post-war Britain and Germany
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-06-06)Rightist nationalist politics have emerged globally in recent years. This dissertation traces the developing character of rightist nationalism in Britain and Germany since the early 1990s. The primary aim is to better ... -
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 ...
