College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences - Doctoral Theses
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Item Arabic-learning among the Minangkabau: attitudes, motivations, and collective religious memory(University College Cork, 2024) Naska, Isral; De Sondy, Amanullah; Butler, Jenny; Kementrian Agama Republik IndonesiaThis study investigates the role of Minangkabau cultural identity in shaping learners’ motivation to learn Arabic and their attitude toward the language. Minangkabau is a matrilineal society whose homeland is the West Sumatra province of Indonesia. Islam connects the Minangkabau people and Arabic. While the language functions as the sacred language of Islam, the Minangkabau people make Islam one of the most fundamental aspects of their cultural identity. This intersection brings out a particular social dynamic that plays a role in Arabic learning motivation and attitudes toward the language among Minangkabau learners of Arabic. Concerning the historical dynamics between Islam and Minangkabau, collective religious memory, which Maurice Halbwachs and Danièle Hervieu-Léger suggested, functions as the theoretical foundation of this thesis’ data analysis. Ethnography serves as the approach to collecting and analyzing the data. Thirty-six participants who have the Minangkabau cultural background from 4 cities of West Sumatra (Padang, Padang Panjang, Bukittinggi, and Payakumbuh) participated in the study. The study concludes that Arabic holds a distinctive significance among the Minangkabau because of four key aspects: religious rituals, religious authority, Qur’anic language, and identity or “Minangkabauness.” These aspects contribute to shaping participants’ motivation to learn Arabic.Item The gatekeeper: a biography of Liam Tobin(University College Cork, 2024) Rooney, Catherine Deirdre; Doherty, Gabriel; Borgonovo, John; Universities IrelandMajor General Liam Tobin was a central figure in the Irish Revolution, yet he has not received sufficient attention for the contributions that he made to the fight for independence from Britain. Operating as Deputy Director of Intelligence during the War of Independence, he ran the intelligence office located at 3 Crow Street mere yards from Dublin Castle, and worked directly under Michael Collins. Upon entering the National Forces in 1922 he was given the rank of Major General, and participated in the re-capturing of Cork City from anti-Treaty forces during the Civil War. After the death of Collins, he and fellow pre-Truce officers became disillusioned with the Free State government’s attitude towards the Anglo-Irish Treaty. They feared that it would become a permanent fixture, rather than a stepping stone to complete independence as Collins had promised. As a result, in March 1924 Tobin and his comrades organised the Army Mutiny, which saw officers refuse their demobilisation orders and remove arms from various barracks across the country. While the mutiny was short-lived and was never viewed as a significant military threat to the government, the crisis lasted three weeks and it is considered to be the last act of the Civil War. He would later become a supporter of Fianna Fáil in 1926, an interesting move considering he had previously taken the pro-Treaty side in the Civil War. Tobin is one of many figures from the Irish Revolution that has not received adequate attention in the historiography for the contributions that he made, nor is he exceptional with regards to his feelings of disillusionment after the Civil War. However, this thesis aims to highlight the key roles that he played throughout the Revolution, from intelligence officer, Major General, mutineer, comrade, enemy and executioner. Divided into five sections, the structure presents a chronological examination of his life from the Easter Rising to his eventual death in 1963, with particular focus on his intelligence activities and his role in the mutiny. He is considered controversial to some historians, and many aspects of his activities remain shrouded in mystery, from allegations that he destroyed government files, to claims that he was working as an intelligence officer for Fianna Fáil. Part of the reason that he has never been examined in detail before is because he refused to speak about his activities during this period. However, a study of Liam Tobin is necessary to fully understand how the intelligence department functioned during the War of Independence, and his motivations behind the mutiny require further investigation. Therefore, this thesis aims to examine why Tobin was such an important figure in the Revolution, and explain why he was considered to be one of Collins’ deadliest lieutenants.Item An exploration of foster carers' identity in the caregiving role: an interpretative phenomenological analysis(University College Cork, 2023) Daniels, Maria; McCaughren, Simone; Bantry White, EleanorThe purpose of this research was to explore the life experiences that influenced foster carers to take on the role of fostering. The aim was to develop a more in-depth understanding of how their experiences shaped their identity in the caregiving role and their developing relationships with the children in their care. A qualitative approach was adopted guided by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Seven foster families were recruited and data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and analysed using IPA. Four superordinate themes emerged from the interpretative analysis. The first theme Complex Family Dynamics identified foster carers’ reasons for taking on the role of fostering were deeply personal and related to their own subjective experiences. The second theme Conflicting Identities captured their feelings around the assessment process. The third theme Developing Identities related to their emerging identities as foster carers and developing relationships with the children in their care. The fourth theme Enactment of the Role outlined their approach to the task of fostering and relationships with professionals. Narrative identity was the lens used to analyse the new findings related to the interchange between what foster carers bring to the role and the requirements of the system. Their experiences in the role emerged as contextual and deeply personal. Their identity as foster carers was shaped by their subjective experiences and this identity was different to the one imposed on them as ‘ordinary’ families who enter a system and are simultaneously required to adhere to statutory requirements and professionals expectations. The analysis of this research focused on foster carers’ interpretation of their role and the implications for them, the children in their care and the system that recruits and supports them. The main conclusions are presented and lead to a number of recommendations for social work practice, support and training for foster carers, policy implications and future research. Underpinning these recommendations is an emphasis on the importance of considering foster carers’ experiences through their lenses. The findings suggest further exploration of how foster carers are assessed in Ireland is needed to create a more authentic space for reflection for both foster carers and social workers. An examination of what foster carers bring to the role from their unique perspectives would also give them a sense of self in the care they provide and build a foundation for future learning.Item Mapping the production of knowledge of cyberterrorism and hacktivism research using an integrated bibliometric and content analysis framework(University College Cork, 2024) Hosford, Kevin; Windle, James; Lynch, OrlaThe proliferation of Internet Communication Technologies (ICT) has prompted scholarly interest in role of ICT in facilitating cybercrime, particularly in the domains of cyberterrorism and hacktivism. Exploration of cyberterrorism and hacktivism has faced challenges stemming from the absence of dedicated platforms, such as academic journals and conferences impeding a consistent research output and hindering collaborative research. In contrast to more established domains like terrorism studies and organised crime studies, the research on cyberterrorism and hacktivism is still in its initial stages within the academic discourse. This doctoral thesis seeks to map the conceptual understandings and production of knowledge surrounding cyberterrorism and hacktivism research throughout a twenty-year period (2000-2020). Employing a modified version of Creswell and Clark's ‘Triangulation Design: Data Transformation Model,’ the research employs bibliometric analysis for a knowledge mapping of the academic domain. Additionally, a quantitative content analysis of definitions pertaining to cyberterrorism and hacktivism sheds light on key issues within the scientific domain. The investigation reveals a dominance of male, single-author publications, primarily originating from the global north, suggesting a potential lack of collaborative trans-national research amongst a backdrop of an array of multi-disciplined parties. The absence of consistent high-impact journal contributions, lack of knowledge cohesion, coupled with an over-reliance towards secondary sources, further hinders the rich and dynamic collection of researchers from achieving a cohesive academic discourse leading to the issue of knowledge fragmentation within academia fields. The analysis of definitions exposes cyberterrorism as predominantly hypothesised, emphasising unspecified actors and potential harms, diverging from conventional notions of terrorism as a spectacle. In contrast, hacktivism is characterised by more group-oriented definitions, rooted in specific events, their injustices, and associated hacktivist campaigns. Recognizing the distinct ideological motivations behind both cyberterrorism and hacktivism, this thesis concludes by proposing an ontological framework in effort to decentralise the dependency towards specific research definitions. This framework aims to facilitate the collection and dissemination of event details related to these phenomena, fostering more extensive and collaborative research efforts in this evolving field.Item Whitman, Ginsberg, and the Long Line(University College Cork, 2023) Sabbadin, Elisa; Jenkins, Lee; Allen, Graham; Irish Research CouncilThis thesis explores Walt Whitman’s long lines, Allen Ginsberg’s long lines, and the line of the long line in American poetry. As a frame of reference for the long line, the thesis discusses open form. Whitman and Ginsberg did more than herald the first and the second free verse revolutions: they initiated and promulgated the tradition of open form – organicism, in Whitman’s early term. Their long lines were a conscious stylistic choice, shaped so as to encode domains which extended beyond form: politics, society, and, above all, spirituality. Or was it perhaps the other way around: that in exploding the constraints of poetic content, these poets accordingly shaped the long line? This thesis explores the long line in various senses: in its implications, origins, and, crucially, in the exchanges which occur, in Whitman’s and Ginsberg’s poetry, between form, content, and meaning. The long line emerges as a form in which surface boasts meaning, and through which the meaning which moulded it may be glimpsed; as a place of playfulness and contradiction, at least in the hands of Whitman and Ginsberg, perhaps the two most playful and contradictory American poets; and as a phenomenon both carefully crafted and, simultaneously, wild at heart. Just as Whitman’s and Ginsberg’s personas and personalities were larger than life, the long line is larger than the page: it is a line that hungers, eats, digests, expels, unravels, fertilises, orgasms, dissolves, evades, and merges. As the democratic Romantic and the democratic Beat were ‘everyone’s poets,’ the long line is also appropriately an ‘everything line’: it adds, includes, transforms, eludes, overcomes boundaries, embodies organicity, and multiplies its layers. However, this thesis shows that, in spite of its break with conventional form and its ostensible formlessness, Whitman’s and Ginsberg’s long line is solidly built – take Ginsberg’s description of Howl as “really built like a brick shithouse” (Morgan 133). Far from being a formless representation of formless concepts, the long line is an informed formal choice. The long line is a largely unnoticed form, and one which has received scant scholarly attention. This thesis elevates the long line as the premise of an underground American poetics which employs it as a socially and spiritually charged medium, and complements the formal tradition of the long line with attention to an alternative critical tradition which, in particular in Ginsberg’s case, accompanies its emergence and development. Whereas close reading has been traditionally associated with apolitical ways of reading, and extra-literary contexts have been effaced by formalist traditions, this thesis explores how form informs, shapes, and embodies content, showing that poetic form is inherently political.