Xenofeminism-A Politics for Alienation (XF) is a text written in 2015 by the working group Laboria Cuboniks of which I am a founding member. It develops a feminism that embraces reason, technology and complexity, and claims alienation as a productive force and 'an impetus to generate new worlds'. The manifesto is my point of departure for this PhD research proposal. The project will develop the idea of a Xenotemporality which is implicit in the XF text but needs rigorous elaboration. To do this I will articulate what is meant by alienation in the manifesto and how it can be productive. I will go on to argue why alienation in relation to the question of 'time' can be vital for constructing adequate conceptual tools for thinking about the anthropocene. Xeotemoporality (XT) is based on the idea that the human experience of time has historically guided our conception of it but that this anthropogenic conception of time is too parochial for our current needs. The primacy of human phenomenological experience of time is no longer sufficient for how we organise, inflect and orient the systems we have created because these systems function on scales beyond the experiential capacity of the human. GPS satellites and High Frequency Trading provide two examples. These conditions establish a need for a rethinking of time, demoting our experiential understanding of it and removing ourselves as primary measures of its ontology. XT endorses instead a necessary and productive alienation between our experience and our knowledge that broadens how we think about the very idea of 'the future' and how we might go about constructing it. This is the conceptual work I am proposing with this project. It will be executed through both written dissertation and studio practice. I am proposing practice based PHD research. It will be conducted as an art practice and make clear and distinctive interdisciplinary connections between philosophy, science and design. The outcomes will be two video works and a series of drawings and a written text elaborating the theoretical developments of the research.

Key hypothesis: the development and decline of the RUSI Museum articulates a particular, semi-authorised reading of British imperial history from the late eighteenth century to the empire's dissolution in the 1960s. The RUSI Museum, 1831-1962, is a 'lost' museum with collections that have left their 'ghostly' presence across national and international museums and private collections. It survives as an archival record, or shadow, in the heritage and legacy of RUSI. My key approach, as outlined above, is to interrogate my hypothesis that the development and decline of the RUSI Museum reflects British imperial history from the late eighteenth century to the dissolution of empire as British colonies demanded their independence. This hypothesis has been formed through my curatorial practice at RUSI and my research in the RUSI archives. This began with the presentation of papers on the Institute's history, and its collections, for the Library and Information History Group and the Museum and Galleries History Group conferences of 2018. The interested responses from other participants at these conferences, along with the regular influx of enquiries I receive about objects that were held in the museum, demonstrates an ongoing interest in the history of the 'lost' museum. It has almost mythic status, so that citing it in an object's provenance in a sales catalogue adds significant cultural, if not financial, value.

In my doctoral research, I will investigate the connection between folk dancing and ethnolinguistic identity in diasporic communities, exploring how engaging with the intangible cultural heritage of dance may be found to compensate for the gradual loss of heritage languages as observed in diasporas. My research will focus on the UK's Greek Cypriot community. Though the goal of Greek Cypriot families is for their children to learn Greek as a heritage language, including the Cypriot Greek dialect, in order to enable communication with older members of the families and preserve cultural and ethnic identity, the difficulties younger members of the community face in learning the two varieties drives them to explore and construct their identity through other forms of cultural expression. An example of this is folk dancing, which is taught in several organised groups. I will explore how folk dancing is utilised as a strategy to overcome the difficulty of conquering Greek as the community's heritage language so that participants can negotiate their diasporic belonging and feel that they are members of their 'imagined community'. I will also explore how the traditions related to folk dancing have evolved within the Greek Cypriot diaspora in London, ideologies around and attitudes towards dances, and how they pertain to the identity of the Greek Cypriot community living in London.

The main objective of this research is to develop an empirical understanding of the discursive practices of a social movement in social networks and to analyse how this was used in the 2018 elections. This project seeks to describe and analyse the communicative practices of the Free Brazil Movement (MBL) and the consequent appropriation of these practices by candidates elected in the last Brazilian presidential election. Several groups involved in the national political debate and in social movements have appeared in Brazil since the June 2013 Days (JJ13), one of which is the MBL, "a non-profit organization aiming to mobilize citizens for a freer, fair and prosperous society and stand for Democracy, Republic, Freedom of Expression and the Press, Free Market, the Reduction of State and Bureaucracy." Many of the most voted politicians in the 2018 elections gained notoriety due to their intensive use of social networks and their involvement in these mobilizations. An illustration of this is the expressive number of votes received by Kim Kataguiri, one of the MBL coordinators, who won the position of Congressman. The concept of a social movement, before the beginning of the twentieth century, was only considered as the action of workers in unions. Academics from different areas point to a re-orientation of the collective action, the different types of which are classified by theoretical categories into which contemporary social actors no longer fit (Touraine, 2003). The feminist movement, for example, sparked a review of gender hierarchy and politicized the domestic space (Hall, 2003). It should also be noted that the importance of understanding these movements in their processes of formation, dynamics, values and perspectives of social transformation, highlighting the role of communication in the process of sharing the meaning and exchange of information (Castells, 2013). Such researchers as Maria da Glória Gohn (2013) study the collective practices and actions of social movements delimiting the basic characteristics of the context of the time (sociopolitical, economic and cultural characteristics of the historical time under analysis). Cyberspace gains importance as a field of political dispute with the consequent popularization of the internet and social networks. The contemporary society experiences a cycle of social and political transformations, enabling the advent of new dynamics in interpersonal and individual/political institution relationships. In this scenario, the civil society develops an increasingly significant role within political and social processes (Avritzer, 2016; Castells, 2008 and 2013; Gohn, 2004; Lavalle et al., 2007). This research project seeks to bring significant academic and social contributions. Firstly, the study aims to understand MBL as a contemporary social movement, its communicative practices and the use of social networks to disseminate its discourse. Secondly, the project seeks to identify the appropriation of this discourse by one of its coordinators, Kim Kataguiri, who started from a "non-partisan" movement but ended up being elected Congressman with an expressive number of votes. From this scenario, this research examines and seeks to answer the appropriations of these discourses through the following questions, focusing on the communicational practices of a social movement and the consequent appropriation of these discourses by members who led themselves into the political field.: How do these discourses circulate in society? How do members of these movements capitalize on this speech for their own benefit? The academic literature underlying this project seeks to delimit the scope of this research. Firstly, we try to analyse the historical evolution of the concept of a "Social Movement" and its contemporary definition in order to characterize MBL as a Social Movement and identify its mobilization objectives and purposes. This theoretical fr

The conflict of Northern Ireland, which engulfed the region for some 30 years from 1968 to 1998, was a period of political contention and sectarian violence which led to the death of more than 3,500 people. Throughout the 20th Century, the constitutional status of Northern Ireland remained a heavily contested issue by the supporters of nationalism and those of unionism - the prior predominantly Catholic and the latter Protestant. Often residing as neighbours, these two communities frequently clashed, and due to the province's unionist majority, Catholics experienced severe institutional discrimination and underrepresentation. Throughout the late 1960s, a civil rights movement emerged addressing these issues. Peaceful marches were held but they soon developed into riots as they were met by Protestant counter-demonstrators and police barricades. The Battle of the Bogside is often seen as the epitome of these riots, with the Catholic Bogside residents on one side and the loyalist-controlled police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) on the other. Violence commenced on the 12th August 1969 and continued for three days. In reaction, conflict between Catholics and Protestants transpired across Derry and Belfast, leading to arson attacks, gun battles and forced evacuations from homes. By the 15th August, the situation had become so dire that the British Army were deployed to restore peace in the province, but unbeknown to the local residents, security forces and Government, Northern Ireland would not know peace for another three decades. The significance of mass media in informing the public and shaping opinions can undoubtedly be noted in the context of Northern Ireland. British coverage of the Troubles, across primarily press and television, transpired into a 'propaganda war' within itself. Owing to the recognised significance of television images, major confrontation occurred between the Government and broadcast organisations in Britain. The BBC was especially significant, and its programming more scrutinised due to 'its unique local and national role,' as well as the understanding that it was independent from Government interest. Throughout the conflict, the BBC was repeatedly criticised by all sides as it strove to report accurately and fairly. Most significantly, the corporation struggled with pressure from the British Government, as attempts were made to threaten and intimidate the broadcasting body into supporting the official perspective. In 1976 during what became termed the 'Second Battle of Culloden,' BBC executives came under attack from numerous critics over the corporation's coverage of Northern Ireland. This included the Lord Chief Justice who contended that "the BBC would have given Satan and Jesus Christ equal time." The BBC certainly experienced the most severe clashes with the Government in regard to the conflict, but the corporations' journalists and senior representatives were determined to resist the attempts of control. BBC executives such as Curran and Francis often came to the defence of programmes which they argued, offered a better insight into the conflict, maintaining that 'reporting the enemy does not mean supporting the enemy.' In 1979, a Tonight programme was aired featuring an interview with an INLA spokesman. The BBC Board subsequently faced a major attack from the Thatcher administration who were outraged at the decision to broadcast it. However, an editorial in the Guardian defended the programme writing that anyone who had seen it was "better informed about the nature of the Irish problem than he was before." There was intense Government fury over sympathetic coverage of Republicans, and in 1985 Prime Minister Thatcher condemned the media for offering the movement the 'oxygen of publicity.' Panorama Editor Roger Bolton contended however, that after a decade of violence, it was necessary for the British public to understand the situation, and 'that would mean talking to