Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Australia, 2007.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 267-293). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.M.) Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Frank Gunderson, Florida State University, College of Music. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed 5-14-2007). Document formatted into pages; contains 195 pages. Includes biographical sketch. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 394-413).

This dissertation examines queer cultural identity formations in the context of globalization and postcoloniality by focusing on experiences and interactions in cyberspace. Broadly, the goal of this project is to examine how queer diasporic individuals (re)create cultural identity through lived and mediated realities, and how they use queer oriented social network sites for this purpose. In this dissertation, I also theorize the roles of globalization, postcolonial migration, and visual and cyber culture in the creation of hybrid cultural identities. The Internet and other computer- mediated communication (CMC) forms and technologies have provided a vast amount of possibilities for diasporic individuals to express and represent themselves, to connect to their home-nations and the citizens of these home nation-states, and create virtual communities among various diasporas for economic and emotional support. This study used cyber ethnography as a method to examine the presence of queer diasporic bodies on social network sites (Gay.com, Gaydar, and CamFrog) and their usage of cyber technologies. Cyber ethnography is concerned with communication in cyberspace and on the Internet. By using semi-structured interviews, webblog analysis, web page analysis, chat room analysis, Instant Message analysis, and webcam and audio webcam-based chat room analysis, I interacted with diasporic queer bodies in cyberspace-based communities and online environments between May and July 2009. Through this cyber fieldwork, I was able to gain extensive insights into their cultural identity formation processes and the reasons for their usage of cyberspace and new media technologies. This data gleaned from this study suggests that diasporic queer bodies often use social network sites and computer technologies to connect with others, to meet new people, and also to carve out a space to express aspects of their in-between fluid identities. They also use these sites to establish connections with other gay men in their diasporic communities. In addition, the findings suggest that diasporic queer bodies often use cyberspace and computer technologies to create homes-away-from-home and to communicate with gay men in their home countries. Based on these findings, I further theorize and extended the traditional meaning of home, the notion of desire, self presentation, and beauty and body image in the online-offline lives on diasporic queer bodies in the context of globalization. In this dissertation, I tried to capture the cultural, technological, and societal forces that influence identity formations of diasporic bodies. While I discuss these forces, I also attempted to illustrate dialectical tensions that shape the cultural identity formation process. Even though I celebrate the fluidity of cultural identity, in this document, I also recognize that segments of our identities are socially constructed and thus `fixed' in this sense. I also attempted to the illustrate the tension between the shapeshifting nature of diasporic queer identities and the diasporic queer experiences that are dictated and shaped by the rigid identity categories that are set and exercised by western societies, such as ethnicity, race, gender, and nationality. Clearly, these societal constructs often structures the diasporic experiences, even though diasporic queer bodies often challenge the power of these constructs.

Voluntary and forced migrations over the past century have given rise to the number of displaced peoples and nations who consider themselves diasporas. The resiliency of these extra-territorial nations after displacement is something of a paradox in nationalism studies. For diaspora, the nation is simultaneously local and transnational, divided and caged by the confines of state borders, often intermixed with other ethnic groups, nations, and cultures, and yet, undeniably, a singular community. Through a comparative examination of the Assyrian and Chaldean diaspora in the United States, this dissertation uses boundary theory to explore the role of diasporic elites in making and sustaining a diasporic nation, and the events, identities, and ideologies that shape diasporic action. It draws from twenty-nine interviews held with Assyrian and Chaldean leaders in Michigan, Illinois, and California, and with policy-makers, as well as research into congressional documents, policy papers, and press reports. The multi-ethnic fabric of American society is formative to boundary-creation, and yet challenges its retention, providing an open society for ethnic expression and civic and political engagement, whilst at the same time facilitating assimilation and loss of diasporic culture and identity. Diasporic elites pursue institutional completeness to sustain diasporic presence in local societies, and cultivate national ideologies that in turn engender activism on behalf of the greater diasporic nation. The Iraq War served as a catalyst to nation-building, providing the first political opening in decades for diasporic actors to mobilize on behalf of Assyrians and Chaldeans in the homeland, seeking constitutional recognition as equal members of the Iraq state. However, the impermeable, exclusionary Iraqi national boundary wrought in conflict instead posed an existential crisis, forcing Assyrians and Chaldeans from Iraq and forcing diasporic leaders to confront questions of what will become of their nation if the homeland is lost. Revealed in the resulting political demands are two distinct strains of nationalism: that for resettlement into diaspora and continued integration into Iraq; and that for territorial autonomy within Iraq’s Nineveh Plain. This dissertation argues diaspora is a continuous, evolving product of boundary-making, often the result of diasporic elite mobilization. Diaspora is a nation not simply born of displacement, but formed through social boundaries encountered and made upon resettlement outside the homeland. Nationalism is a significant component of diasporic nation-building, offering insight into political goals, ideologies, and the dedication of diasporic elites to sustaining an Assyrian and Chaldean homeland, an atra, in diaspora.

This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

Magister Artium - MA

Dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by research in Political Science Graduate School for Humanities and Social Sciences University of the Witwatersrand March 2019 / Somalia has been described as a “state without a state” or a “nation in search of state” since the end of colonial rule and the subsequent total collapse of the postcolonial state in 1991 (Samatar and Laitin, 1989, Newman, 2009, Menkhaus, 2003). Scholars have been attempting to locate the source of the conflict and ways of reconstructing the Somali state, describing the Horn of Africa nation not only as an archetype of a failed state, but also a threat to regional and global security. Since the arrival of European invaders, Somalia’s inhabitants have routinely been referred to as the most “difficult race to pacify” (Beech, 1996:5). The repetition of these colonial tropes which are consistently reported in the contemporary literature on Somalia is not surprising because of two consistent elements in the Somali conflict which ought to be probably understood. First, the population’s strong attachment to Islam has resulted in the country’s historical transformation into indigenous political Islam, a phenomenon that is “downplayed and understudied,” in the historiographic accounts of Somalia (Abdullahi, 2011:16). In this vein, I argue that the forced secularisation of Somalia, from the colonial era to the current attempts to create a secular state, has been at loggerheads with popular indigenous Islam in this Horn of Africa nation. This popular Islam attracts the presence of a global force that has been attempting to steer Somalia away from its indigenous identity to a more secular notion of the state. Arising from these hypotheses, the dissertation aims to establish the continuities between Somalia’s current political instability, its past and political loyalty, by exploring Islam as both an ethnicised identity and defence mechanism. While investigating the role of Islam in shaping the social and political Somali identity, I historicise Ahmad Gurey’s war with Abyssinia and the Portuguese empire in 1500s, and Sayid Maxamad’s confrontations with colonial powers: Britain, France, Italy and Abyssinia in 1900. Finally, I explore the tension between the formation of the secular postcolonial state and indigenous Islam. The research attempts to trace the present turmoil and investigate the role of popular Islam in “inviting” foreign powers to the Somali peninsula, thus arresting the process of domestic state reconstruction / M T 2019

Resumé The thesis is concerned with the phenomenon of (ethnonational) diasporas in international affairs. It presents case studies on the Armenian diaspora in France, in the US and the effects of the diaspora on Armenia. The case studies are used instrumentally to verify the theory of transnationalism.