Sociology

Independent music venues are important hubs of social activity and cultural

production around which local punk scenes are both physically and conceptually

organized. Through interactions with participants over extended periods of time, these

spaces become meaningful places that are imbued with the energy, history and memories

of local music scenes. When a venue is shut down, local punk scenes experience a

temporary disruption as participants struggle to begin the process of re-establishing a new

autonomous social space free from outsider interference. Therefore, moving from the

local, to the national, to the international, from the small and personal to the vast and

global, as well as from the physical to the virtual, this dissertation illustrates the actual,

everyday practices of local scenes across Canada, addressing the larger issue of the loss

of alternative music venues occurring on a global scale and the resulting impact on punk

scene participants. Through the use of ethnographic research methods such as participant

observation, photographic documentation, interviews and surveys, this dissertation

engages with contemporary punk scene participants in order to give voice to those often

ignored in grand narratives of punk history. As such, traditional concepts of punk as a

utopic countercultural space are challenged to reveal the complexity and diversity that

exists within contemporary local punk scenes, where participants often experience equal

amounts of cooperation, competition, tension and struggle. By choosing to engage with

contemporary experiences and interpretations of punk culture, this research addresses the

changing landscape of local scenes, as punk participants attempt to carve out spaces of

representation for themselves in an exceedingly mediated world.

Author Keywords: Canada, music venues, punk, scene, social space, subculture

Background: Ontario's Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) claims people with mental illnesses/addictions need improved care/overuse emergency departments. MOHLTC expects Coordinated Care Planning (CCP, teams of mental/physical health professionals, social workers and informal caregivers) to improve care and lower emergency department returns/healthcare costs. CCPs are directed by policies, Smith's "problematics," or Deleuze's "expressions," supposedly reflecting "contents"/"everyday worlds."

Research Question: How do Ontario health/allied professionals come together with a person with mental illness/addictions and informal caregiver(s) to address health needs through a CCP?

Method: 1) Analyzed CCP policies; generated questions about creation/implementation. 2) Interviewed eight professionals about interpreting/enacting policies. 3) Connected interview data to policies.

Findings: Opportunities for fragmentation exist in gaining consent; determining eligibility; persons in care, informal caregivers and professionals' participation; person-centeredness; "shame-free" environments; health literacy; records of medications.

Conclusion: CCP participants need to minimize fragmentations which takes time, space, money; creates contradictions in lowering costs/improving care.

Author Keywords: Addiction, Dual Diagnosis, Health Care Policy, Institutional Ethnography, Integrated Health Care, Mental Illness

Following Baudrillard's conceptual and stylistic shift of the mid-70s, this thesis argues that said shift is accounted for by understanding the ontological quandary Baudrillard found himself in after developing a theoretical agonism impossible to divorce from the practice of writing. By tracing the conceptual metamorphoses of key terms including semiotic ambivalence, symbolic exchange and theoretical writing itself as a total agonistic process, this thesis demonstrates that theory is not reducible to epistemic production but is rather the contentious site of challenge and aesthetic (dis)appearance. Each chapter examines a conceptual tension revealing insoluble, conflicting social forms. These forms reveal the reversibility Baudrillard finds at work in all social phenomena. These culminate in a chapter that tackles Baudrillard's writing itself as a social form that endeavours to embody the agonistic theoretical concept as a process rather than remaining a representation, or commentary on, ambivalent social conflict.

Author Keywords: agonist, ambivalence, Baudrillard, reversibility, style, writing