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This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. What is Discourse Analysis? is an accessible introduction to an empirical research approach which is widely used in the social sciences and related disciplines. This book explores the idea of how meaning is socially constructed and how 'talk' and text can be interpreted. The challenges of discourse analysis are outlined as well as helpful ways to approach them - from finding the right starting point, processing and interpreting data through to building an argument. Discourse analysts work with language data, including talk, documents and broadcast material. Researchers in different traditions study interactions and social practices, meaning-making and larger meaning systems, and contests and conflicts around collective identities, social norms and subjectification. What is Discourse Analysis? addresses new researchers and other academics interested in language and its associated practices. The book outlines the history of discourse analysis, its key concepts and theorists and its uses and challenges. Discussions of published studies illustrate the use of the approach to investigate a range of research topics, such as gender, health and national identities. The book also addresses the practical aspects of discourse analysis, providing clear guidance on data collection and data processing, including transcription and selection. Covering important topics,What is Discourse Analysis? draws from recent articles to show how discourse analysis works in action. Common questions about discourse analysis are presented in a lively and accessible Q&A format. This book will be an essential resource for all researchers working with discourse analysis.

The meanings of place for identity -- Narrative in a contemporary identity project -- Place, gender and identity -- Places I remember: memory and continuity in a life narrative -- A place for the future? : trouble in identity work -- New identities of place? : opportunity, choice and personalization -- Places of my own : residence and nationality in one woman's identity -- Conclusion

Quotations from biographical talk are widely used in the presentation and writing up of qualitative research. This article discusses the unintended implications that such quotations can carry, partly as a result of the conventions for introducing them and because the basis for their selection is often unclear. These implications are discussed in terms of consistency. An assumption of consistency as an aspect of the talk or the person speaking is problematic because it disregards the situated and variable nature of talk, including talk about memory, and can invoke an over-simple model of the speaker. The article proposes that consistency should not be assumed but become a focus for analysis. An example is presented of an analysis of biographical talk about creative work, following an approach derived from social and discursive psychology. Consistencies in a speaker's repeated accounts of the same job are interpreted in terms of both discursive resources around contemporary creative working, and 'local resources', which are derived from the speaker's 'discursive apprenticeship' with his own family.

Work in the contemporary creative industries has been celebrated for offering freedom and fulfilment. An alternative interpretation is that the creative worker can be party to her own exploitation, tolerating precariousness employment and uncertain rewards for love of the work. This article explores the problems of creative working for women, looking beyond the practical difficulties of reconciling precarity and parenting responsibilities. It investigates gendered conflicts around creative identities and contemporary feminine subjectification through a narrative-discursive analysis of interview material. The article argues that for women creatives the promise of self-actualization through creative work is countered by conflicts arising from an 'other-directedness' that is part of a more conventional feminine identity.

Discursive psychologists (Edley, 2001; Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Wetherell, 1998) have analysed identity work in talk, including the ways in which understandings which prevail in a wider social context are taken up or resisted as speakers position themselves and are positioned by others. In these terms, a narrative is generally understood in two ways. The first is as an established understanding of sequence or consequence, such as a potential life trajectory, which becomes a discursive resource for speakers to draw on (cf. Bruner's 'canonical narratives', 1991). The second is of a narrative as a situated construction, such as the biography produced by a speaker within a particular interaction. In this article, I propose an expanded analytic focus which considers how the versions of a biographical narrative produced in previous tellings become resources for future talk, thus setting constraints on a reflexive speaker's work to construct a coherent identity across separate interactions and contexts (Taylor & Littleton, forthcoming).

The study of medicine in the Roman world is, in many areas, hampered by lack of evidence yet, despite this, valuable research has been done in the areas of urban domestic and army medicine. The aim of this thesis is not to reproduce that research but to examine the material evidence for medicine and medical practice used in it, in particular the instruments and buildings where medicine might have been practiced and, through comparison of the data, to see what similarities and differences there were between medicine in the domestic and army spheres. At the same time this data will be placed in context through an examination of the general levels of health in the ancient world and the status of doctors. In the domestic chapter we shall see that the evidence for the status of doctors is sketchy and confusing while the evidence for the health of people is drawn mainly from the skeletons found at Herculaneum. The examination of the instruments from the Naples museum and the provenance of those to which it could be assigned, will shed light on the types of medicine practiced and where doctors might have seen their patients. Throughout this chapter the argument looks forward to the comparison with army medicine in the following chapter. The evidence for health in the army comes mainly from literary sources and that for the status of doctors comes from inscriptions. It appears that doctors had ranks in the army with equivalent levels of pay as the soldiers. While there are fewer finds of instruments from forts, they raise some interesting points. The debate about valetudinaria is addressed and I argue that, while they existed, there is evidence to suggest that the buildings identified as valetudinaria were not in fact hospitals and that each case must be examined on its own merits. The conclusions are more numerous than might have been expected. There are obvious differences in levels of health between the army and the urban population but there are significant overlaps between doctors in the army and the domestic spheres. The instruments in the two spheres are the same in design with some surprising types turning up. The question of where medicine was practiced remains hazy with the conclusion that in the domestic sphere there is no definite evidence while in the army sphere the buildings identified as valetudinaria may not have been hospitals.

1. Creative aspiration and the betrayal of promise? The experience of new creative workers -- 2. Unexpected enterprises: Remixing creative entrepreneurship -- 3. New entrants' narrations of their aspirations and experiences of media production work -- 4. Creative graduates' pathways in the hybrid cultural economy of contemporary Russia -- 5. Young women's aspirations and transitions into, through and away from contemporary creative work -- 6. Working the field: career pathways amongst artists and writers in Shanghai -- 7. In the orbit of the art biennial: reflecting on the networks of donors, mediators, artists and curators -- 8. 'Meaning and soul': co-working, creative career and independent co-work spaces -- 9. Expat agencies: Expatriation and exploitation in the creative industries in the UK and the Netherlands -- 10. "Diversity" initiatives and addressing inequalities in craft -- 11. Becoming and Being a Creative and Entrepreneurial Mom in Finland -- 12. It started with the arts and now it concerns all sectors: The case of Smart, a cooperative of 'salaried autonomous workers' -- 13. Reputation and Personal Branding in the Platform Economy -- 14. Cities' hope labour in insecure times: On aspiring creative industries, travelling expectations and aesthetic pedagogies -- 15. New pathways into creative work?.

1. Creative aspiration and the betrayal of promise? The experience of new creative workers -- 2. Unexpected enterprises: Remixing creative entrepreneurship -- 3. New entrants' narrations of their aspirations and experiences of media production work -- 4. Creative graduates' pathways in the hybrid cultural economy of contemporary Russia -- 5. Young women's aspirations and transitions into, through and away from contemporary creative work -- 6. Working the field: career pathways amongst artists and writers in Shanghai -- 7. In the orbit of the art biennial: reflecting on the networks of donors, mediators, artists and curators -- 8. 'Meaning and soul': co-working, creative career and independent co-work spaces -- 9. Expat agencies: Expatriation and exploitation in the creative industries in the UK and the Netherlands -- 10. "Diversity" initiatives and addressing inequalities in craft -- 11. Becoming and Being a Creative and Entrepreneurial Mom in Finland -- 12. It started with the arts and now it concerns all sectors: The case of Smart, a cooperative of 'salaried autonomous workers' -- 13. Reputation and Personal Branding in the Platform Economy -- 14. Cities' hope labour in insecure times: On aspiring creative industries, travelling expectations and aesthetic pedagogies -- 15. New pathways into creative work?.