Unter Diversity (dt.: Vielfalt) wird die Heterogenität und Diversifizierung sozialer Lebenslagen und sozialer Zugehörigkeiten verstanden, die in Folge von unter anderem Migrationsbewegungen, veränderten Geschlechterbeziehungen und der Pluralisierung von Familienformen in westlichen Gesellschaften zunehmen bzw. stärker thematisiert werden als zuvor. Dabei ist eine Lesart vorherrschend, die Diversity als gesellschaftliche und besonders als ökonomische Ressource, als Potenzial, betrachtet.

Gender Mainstreaming ist eine gleichstellungspolitische Strategie, die daraufhin ausgerichtet ist, sämtliche Entscheidungen in einer Organisation kritisch auf ihre Auswirkungen auf die von geschlechterbezogenen Ungleichheiten unterschiedlich geprägte Lebensrealität von Frauen und Männern zu überprüfen und diesbezüglich bestehende Differenzen abzubauen. Kritik wird u. a. aufgrund der voraussetzungsreichen Umsetzung und der Gefahr, stereotype Geschlechterbilder zu verfestigen, geübt.

<p>This work looks at the intersections of nature, race, and spirituality in Black communities primarily situated in the United States from the early 20th century to the present day. These communties stories are interpreted through the Black women that lived in them, and their stories denote that Black folks' relationship with and amongst nature could not be had without spiritual praxes in their day-to-day lives. </p>

In many South African communities, socially constructed masculinity norms that promote unequal gender relations and high risk sexual behaviour are key contributing factors to HIV transmission. Following a qualitative approach, using in-depth interviews, this study engaged graduates of the Tavern Intervention Programme (TIP) in Gauteng to explore and describe their perceptions of traditional and modern masculinities, as well as their experience of the TIP. The findings indicated that, while there are differences between traditional and modern men, several masculinity practices, such as unequal gender relations, inconsistent use of condoms, infrequent accessing of HIV testing opportunities and entitlement to multiple partners endure as potential barriers to HIV prevention. Additionally, peer groups reinforce and reward HIV risk behaviour among modern men. Participants did, however, report changes in perceptions and behaviour regarding gender relations and HIV prevention as a result of their participation in the TIP. This study concluded that the role the TIP played in providing these men with an environment where alternative masculinity behaviour could be explored and supported was of particular value in terms of changes in their perceptions of masculinities, gender relations and HIV prevention. / Sociology / M. A. (Social Behaviour Studies in HIV/AIDS)

The study sought to uncover the constitution of migrant women's agency as they rebuild their lives in Australia, and to explore how contact with any publicly funded services might influence the capacity to be self determining subjects. The thesis used a framework of lifeworld theories (Bourdieu, Schutz, Giddens), materialist, trans-national feminist and post colonial writings, and a methodological approach based on critical hermeneutics (Ricoeur), feminist standpoint and decolonising theories. Thirty in depth interviews were carried out with 6 women migrating from each of 5 regions: Vietnam, Lebanon, the Horn of Africa, the former Soviet Union and the Philippines. Australian based immigration literature constituted the third corner of triangulation. The interviews were carried out through an exploration of themes format, eliciting data about the different ontological and epistemological assumptions of the cultures of origin. The findings revealed not only the women's remarkable tenacity and resilience as creative agents, but also the indispensability of Australia's publicly funded infrastructure or welfare state. The women were mostly privileged in terms of class, education and affirming relationships with males. Nevertheless, their self determination depended on contact with universal public policies, programs and with local community services. The welfare state seems to be modernity's means for re-establishing human connectedness that is the crux of the human condition. Connecting with fellow Australians in friendships and neighbourliness was also important in resettlement. Conclusions include a policy discussion in agreement with Australian and international scholars proposing that there is no alternative but for governments to invest in a welfare state for the civil societies and knowledge based economies of the 21st Century.

This thesis examined husband immobility and the international migration of married women from Zimbabwe. Data was collected from husbands and wives in married couple households where the wife had migrated alone. Face-to-face semi structured interviews were conducted with migrant women’s husbands in Zimbabwe while migrant women were interviewed in countries of destination telephonically. Empirical results showed that migrant women and their husbands were middle aged. Preferred countries of destination were in the region and the United Kingdom. Having a wife’s own social contacts in the preferred destination encouraged migration by reducing financial and emotional costs. Husbands' immobility facilitated wifely migration. Many wives exercised agency in migration decision making with more wives than husbands having initiated the discussion on migration. There were also cases of joint and wife sole decision making. With a few exceptions decision making was consensual. The women migrated as a survival strategy. In several households remittances were the primary source of income. Husbands were the main recipients of remittances. Some wives gave instructions on how the remittances should be used. Overall, remittances were used for paying fees, buying assets and for household upkeep. Some of the women had not visited their families since their migration. The physical separation of spouses had caused emotional distress in some marital relationships. The majority of respondents cited loss of consortium as a major problem. / Sociology / D. Phil.

This thesis examined husband immobility and the international migration of married women from Zimbabwe. Data was collected from husbands and wives in married couple households where the wife had migrated alone. Face-to-face semi structured interviews were conducted with migrant women’s husbands in Zimbabwe while migrant women were interviewed in countries of destination telephonically. Empirical results showed that migrant women and their husbands were middle aged. Preferred countries of destination were in the region and the United Kingdom. Having a wife’s own social contacts in the preferred destination encouraged migration by reducing financial and emotional costs. Husbands' immobility facilitated wifely migration. Many wives exercised agency in migration decision making with more wives than husbands having initiated the discussion on migration. There were also cases of joint and wife sole decision making. With a few exceptions decision making was consensual. The women migrated as a survival strategy. In several households remittances were the primary source of income. Husbands were the main recipients of remittances. Some wives gave instructions on how the remittances should be used. Overall, remittances were used for paying fees, buying assets and for household upkeep. Some of the women had not visited their families since their migration. The physical separation of spouses had caused emotional distress in some marital relationships. The majority of respondents cited loss of consortium as a major problem. / Sociology / D. Phil.

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation is a Black feminist qualitative inquiry of the interconnections between Black women, literary activity, community, activism, and restoration and healing. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Black Women’s Literary Renaissance and the Black feminist movement converged to create one of the richest periods in Black women’s history. Black women came together in community, through the text, and through various literary spaces–often despite or even because of their differences–to build an archive that articulates a multivocal Black women’s standpoint which many believed to be monotonously singular. During this period, for example, Black women writer-activists wrote more novels, plays, and poetry in these two decades than in any period prior while also establishing new literary traditions. These traditions included the recovery of previously published yet out of print Black women writers, the development of the Black Women Anthology era, the creation of Black women writer-activist collectives, the founding of bookstores, as well as the development of Black Women’s Studies and Black feminist literary criticism in the academy. In the dissertation, these traditions are intrinsically tied to the articulation and definition of the theoretical concept of literary kinship. Conceptually, relationally, and materially literary kinship is the connection generated by the intergenerational literary activity between Black women and girls. In the dissertation, I use literary activity in slightly different ways including to denote community-engaged oral practices, publication, relationships defined around literary sites, and the practice of reading. Literary kinship provides access to community based on and derived from a connection to the literary that is often marked by intergenerational activity. I argue that Black women writer-activists during the period of the BWLR articulate and define literary kinship as a practice of communal restoration and healing for individuals and the collective.</p><p dir="ltr">Literary kinship is explored in four interrelated, yet distinct ways in the dissertation. In chapter two, literary kinship is located in and operationalized through Black women’s literary kinship “networks” founded during the Black Women’s Literary Renaissance. In chapter three, the focus is on the Black Women’s Anthology era that begins in 1970 and becomes a pipeline for the development of the interdisciplinary field of Black Women’s Studies in the 1980s. The fourth and fifth chapters shift the impact of the Black Women’s Literary Renaissance to the 21st century and examines how literary kinship is rearticulated or re-visioned a generation later. The fourth chapter, in this vein, uses autoethnography and literary analysis to illuminate the interconnections between Black girlhood, geography, and my concept of literary kinship. The chapter explores my experience of literary kinship at the kitchen table, in public libraries, and in secondary and higher education as transformative opportunities that fostered my love for reading, engaging in literary community, and developing reading as a restorative and healing practice. In the final chapter, the rapid reemergence of Black women booksellers and their bookstores in the last five years (2018-2023) become integral to a contemporary rearticulation of literary kinship.</p><p dir="ltr">The Black Women’s Literary Renaissance is a significant period of literary output by Black women writer-activists that has had intergenerational impact in the lives of Black women. During the Renaissance, Black women writer-activists were catalysts for critical and necessary literary interventions, strategies, and methods that supported their sociopolitical activism, the development of a rich Black feminist and literary archive, and that manifested community functional practices of restoration and healing. Black women’s articulation, definition, and utilization of literary kinship in the 20th and 21st centuries has supported their literary labors as activists, as intellectuals, and as community members, and is therefore a practice of community restoration and healing.</p>