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Power is a relational dynamic which produces a disparity of effects that cannot be reduced to an exclusive morality, good or bad, or a particular consciousness. It is not something that works according to a single causality, positive or negative. This is not generally acknowledged. Rather in both academic and popular discourse power is primarily thought to be an exclusive possession of a particular subject or social agent with a specific intent. In these discourses, power is dominated by a metaphoric sense of property--something which belongs to the state, government, capital, or technology. Power is thus conceptualised in terms of a possession/dispossession opposition. Discourse about power is preoccupied with identifying its locus and with indicating a particular type of relation which is repressive. This obscures the fact that power is in fact a feature or ontological property of all people in relation to one another, and is active within all interaction and discourse. This thesis refines and develops Foucault's more neglected insights into the peculiar ontology of power, emphasising the central point that power is not the referent for a single relation but is a dynamic active within all relations, both social, interpersonal and even intrapersonal. It can be repressive, enabling, and considered differentially to be negative and/or positive at the same time. One cannot control its effects as it can be inadvertent or unconscious, self-defeating, self-producing, perverse and/or ambiguous. It is therefore composed of an indeterminate efficacy, rather than an intentional will or direction. The common attempt to disassociate oneself from power, to identify it as the property of another, and as producing a single effect of good or evil, I argue, is in itself one of the empirical facts of power at work relationally. The case studies examined in this thesis illustrate the fact that power is the moving substrate of all interests: that of "the revolutionary", "the theorist", "the apathetic" and also "the model citizen". Therefore because all discourses of power produce multiple and indeterminate effects, and because this fact is not recognised, their ontology demands further attention.

This chapter discusses the history of bicycle art, examining how artists from the early twentieth century onwards have used the bicycle as a device for exploring issues of identity, injustice and inequality. The discussion considers work by a number of artists from around the world, but the principal case studies are contemporary artists Ai Weiwei and Rainer Ganahl. This chapter examines the way these artists have used the bicycle as the symbolic device through which to explore questions of contemporary capitalism and technology, political repression and freedom of movement, economic inequality and nationhood, as well as masculinity, sexuality and individual identity. Both artists have also used the bicycle as a tool with which to make art in a variety of media, and this chapter argues that their work invites us to reflect upon cycling cultures and the bicycle's transformative political potential as a device that enables us to see and experience the world differently.

Cover -- Half Title -- Dedication -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction and Basic Concepts -- What is sociology? -- Why a sociology of pilots? -- Research method -- Mass-Observation - the definitive ethnography -- The researcher -- Structure of the book -- Methodological weaknesses and omissions: mea culpa -- How to read this book quickly -- 2 Pilots' History -- A panoptic -- Women's experience -- Media constructions -- Summary -- 3 Pilots' Socio-economic Origins and Motivations -- Summary

Over the last two decades concern has increased in many countries over health and safety in the workplace. Research into these issues has attracted little attention from the medical profession, unions, government or industry. Sociologists have only recently begun to study the relationship between work and health, but the results so far raise important questions. This special issue reflects the diversity of perspectives and the potential contribution that sociology can make.

The Social Impact of the Arts offers an intellectual history of claims made over time for the value, function and impact of the arts in Western societies. With chapters on corruption, catharsis, education and 'art for art's sake', as well as number of other key themes, the book examines the many different ways in which writers have attempted to articulate the social impact of the arts. It also relates contemporary policy debates to a history of ideas, making a timely contribution to public debate about the value of the arts in modern societies.