https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/117063 2026-05-03T11:08:51Z 2026-05-03T11:08:51Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/117840 2024-01-29T09:28:06Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: On the latch : dynamics of segregation in a gated community in Bangalore, India Abstract: This thesis examines the issue of segregation between middle-class residents of a gated community in Bangalore, India and the rest of the city. It looks at the ways in which residents relate to each other as a community, their service providers and the rest of the city. The objective of this thesis is to explore some of the ways in which the gated community is both continuous and discontinuous with the urban social and physical fabric of the city and neighbourhood within which it is located. This glimpse of gated community life in Bangalore aims to show how, and the extent to which, the residents foster values and actions that encourage the notion of exclusivity and inclusivity. Research for this study was conducted through participant observation over the span of a year (2019-2020) living in the gated community, as well as semi-structured interviews amongst fourteen of the community residents. The analysis reveals that the issue of segregation between the community and the rest of the city was dynamic. It shows that though several residents highlighted differences between themselves and others often by drawing up class differences, many of the residents expressed the fact that they valued notions of inclusivity and encouraged each other to do so. This was particularly the case when observing their relationship amongst themselves as residents, their relationships to their service providers as well as their relationship to their city. The conclusion suggests that gated communities can be seen as both a way in which people can partially shut themselves off from the rest of society, but, at the same time, they can be a place wherein residents are encouraged to be mindful of their impact on the rest of the city and to engage with it in a responsible way. Description: M.A.(Melit.)

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/117837 2024-01-29T09:07:09Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Stream of miracles : a Christian Pakistani community in Malta Abstract: This dissertation focuses on The Church of Sacred Anointing (TCSA), an ethnic church founded a decade ago to serve the community of Pakistani nurses who had just arrived on the island to work in state hospitals. Since then, the religious community has grown exponentially, from only five members to over 170. This rapid growth was possible because the founder of the church positioned TCSA as non-denominational, enabling people from different Christian backgrounds to become members. I examine the role of the ethnic church in the lives of its congregation. In comparison with global Evangelicalism, there are interesting differences of practice, rhetoric and emphasis, which I seek to explain. What emerges is that while the initial motivation to join the church is often linked to a cultural strategy of adaptation and a quest to reconstruct their identity as migrants in a new country, over time the congregants re-engage with their faith and are drawn into the spiritual experience and communal ethos of TCSA. At this point any sense of utilitarian pragmatism is dispelled, as the congregants experience a shift in their moral universe, and they start to experience the stream of miracles bestowed upon them by God. Within TCSA, a miracle effects a life-transforming change in the quality of life and status of the grateful recipients. I argue that it is not experienced, nor should it be analytically understood, as simply a quasi-magical transformation of the ‘external world’. Miracles are experienced as an act of transformative communication of moral experience. They transform both the world and the congregation, which participates in their occurrence and reproduction. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.)

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/117836 2024-01-29T09:06:04Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Malta's alternative music scene : a scene revolving around music and what else? Abstract: I start the paper with a brief description of these so-called alternative people, i.e. the people who do not conform to dominant societal trends such as popular music. Like a piece of jigsaw falling into place I contextualise through ethnographic research how dominant power structures are challenged within the alternative music scene. This being said, I observe whether with challenging one power structure it results in conforming to another dominant power structure. Moreover, I look into the argument that Attali (1985) proposes in which music has become a commodity and a tool of economic exploitation. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.)

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/117834 2024-01-29T09:03:17Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Making a movement : an exploration of how ‘Moviment Graffitti’ members create community through activism Abstract: The aim of this dissertation was to investigate the motivations for and experience of activism in a radical leftist NGO – this was achieved through the use of participant observation and semi-structured interviews with members of ‘Moviment Graffitti’ throughout the latter half of 2022 and January-February of 2023. Out of my research, three themes which capture the reasons for engaging in activism in Malta emerged: specific notions of activism, experiences of disenfranchisement, and the building and maintaining of community. I argue that the political context which ‘Graffitti’ inhabits shapes the members, and that its influence is reflected in their views and experiences. I then argue that the sense of disenfranchisement which Malta’s political context brings about is battled by members of ‘Graffitti’ with activism and the building of community through activism. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.)

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z