Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2008. / "Publication number: AAT 3347262."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2009. / Includes abstract. Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Title from first page of PDF file (viewed March 24, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 310-333). Also issued in print.

Critical urban studies has shifted in recent years toward a focus on inequality and identity-based tension in developing countries. These theories have evolved alongside pressure for inclusive urban governance that recognizes a right to difference for minorities in cities. In the rapidly urbanizing People's Republic of China, these complex issues threaten the inclusiveness of future development. Ürümqi, the capital city of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), has been the site of social unrest between the Han Chinese majority and the Uyghur minority for more than a century. Economic growth and urbanization have resulted in increasing inequality and tensions between Han and Uyghur people that periodically erupt in violence, as did in Ürümqi in July of 2009. These tensions are complicated by the socio-economic marginalization of minorities, and the exclusion of the overall population from urban governance processes. Following the July 2009 riots, the Xinjiang government expressed willingness for more inclusive urban development; however the local government lacks the necessary tools to facilitate participation, and as such resident perceptions go unheard. This study adapts critical urban theory and Chinese political thought for the non-democratic context of Ürümqi, China. The perceptions of local residents are evaluated using a questionnaire and focus groups, through which it is shown that resident perceptions and use of urban space are heavily affected by ethnic identity. This, coupled with the banning of Uyghur cultural practices and exclusion of residents from public affairs, exacerbates urban inequalities and identity-based tension. It is important that critical urban studies take residents' inability to participate in urban governance processes (particularly in non-democratic contexts) into account when studying the link between identity and urban space.

Abstract “At the Intersection of Transgender Attitudes, Identity Politics, and Vote Choice” Amy Howard and Dr. Wesley Wehde, Department of Political Science, International Affairs and Public Administration, College of Arts and Sciences, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN. Political scientists have been increasingly focused on the role of identity politics in determining vote choice, with recent work including the potential penalties faced by gender and sexual minorities. Research indicates that both candidate and voter characteristics play a role in vote choice, with the largest penalties incurred by transgender candidates and small or no penalties assigned by non-religious and politically progressive voters. However, our study improves on extant research by differentiating between male and female transgender candidates; adding a non-binary option for gender identity; including a bisexual option for sexual orientation; and differentiating between moderate and far-left or far-right candidate ideologies within the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively. In line with previous research, we conducted a conjoint experiment to examine the peculiar impact of male/female transgender, non-binary gender identity, and bisexuality on vote choice, even in comparison with straight and gay candidates. Respondents were asked to choose between ten sets of hypothetical candidates for their district House of Representatives, with Republican or right-leaning respondents being shown randomized combinations of candidates who were classified as “moderate” or “far-right,” and Democratic or left-leaning respondents being shown randomized combinations of candidates who were classified as “moderate” or “far-left.” The remaining candidate attributes were also randomized for each respondent, and included age, race, gender, education, religion, ideology, previous experience, and sexual orientation. Upon completion of our data analysis, we expect our results to be consistent with those of the aforementioned research, with gay candidates—particularly black, gay candidates—facing penalties at the ballot box, and transgender candidates facing higher penalties than gay candidates. We will build on these findings by differentiating between genders in “transgender,” and with the addition of the “non-binary,” “bisexual” options, as well as the inclusion of “far-right” and “far-left” political ideologies. This study will contribute to our understanding of how voter and candidate identities affect vote choice, particularly in the case of gender and sexual minority candidates. Such an understanding can be used to develop policies and strategies that will ultimately increase LGBTQ+ representation in government, and improve the safety, welfare and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ Americans.

Growing inequity and political polarization necessitate organized political action capable of challenging large-scale, globalized power. Political projects around the globe, and certainly in America, that aim to shift power relations have become synonymous with projects of building allies. Others—people of color, queers, and women—have long formed political alliances in order to build movements that contest hegemonic power. Others have formed these alliances (with various allies) along the lines of political ideology. Increasingly, with the growing influence of identity politics overshadowing class politics, identity plays a key role in shaping who takes part in political action. The role of an “ally” has also followed this pattern, allowing non-marginalized subjects to claim a “good ally” identity, despite lived experiences that share struggle with Others. However, ally-ship is a project of life-long work that engages various forms of anti-oppression work and is rooted in a process of what Paulo Freire terms “conscientization.” Using Freire’s concepts, principals of “the ethics of care philosophy,” and qualitative interviews, this research examines why allies are important to liberation projects of marginalized groups, specifically queers. The individuals interviewed for the research each have extensive experience educating others in the process of building allyship. The research analyzes their unique approaches along with other programs centered on the process of ally building to highlight the most successful methods. The research explores the differences in ally-ship with and affirmation of Others; complicates the projects of non-oppressive groups versus anti-oppressive groups; and examines the process of ally building. Based on the data and information gathered from qualitative interviews and literature, a framework is created that outlines the processes necessary in allyship building. The findings of the research illustrate the benefits of allies to Others in the fight for equality and demonstrate how an individual can work towards becoming an ally to these groups. In short, this research illustrates Freire's concepts of education for “critical consciousness” as it is applied to allies and the necessary action against oppressive agents.

This research project examines sectarianism and sectarian violence in Pakistan between 1996-2005. It represents a departure from the security-focused research on sectarianism and provides contemporary analysis of sectarian violence by contextualising it. This thesis distinguishes sectarianism as an analytical concept from sectarianism as a phenomenon in Pakistan. The existing literature on sectarianism and sectarianism in the Pakistani context is critically examined, and this research is located within that body of knowledge. In this thesis, sectarian violence is understood as being conducted to reproduce and reinforce exclusivist sectarian discourse. This premise is analysed through the framework of identity formation and identity politics, and spatial understandings of identities. The study examines the locations of sectarian violence in Pakistan, and analyses the spaces where sectarian identity discourse is enforced and maintained through violence. Consequently, the concept of sacred space and sacred time are analysed as locations of sectarian violence. The contestations of public space by competing identity discourses, and the spatial manifestations of those competing identities are analysed. This dissertation also attempts to draw out whether sectarian violence is only located within and through the organised sectarian groups, or whether the sectarian violence indicates wider fault lines in the Pakistani society.

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No / This paper examines the current circumstances of minority ethnic media production. It particularly addresses the tensions that may exist for minority ethnic media workers between their commitment to a professional identity and status, and their negotiation of their own ethnic identity. Through employing a specific model of communities of practice this paper provides an analytic frame which illuminates some of the challenges which may be particularly present in the institutional dynamics and identity politics operating within minority ethnic media enterprises. In noting the synergy between the minority ethnic media activities and the media systems of the dominant ethnic communities this paper argues for a recognition of the role of minority ethnic media in shaping a vigorous public sphere, and advocates a more extensive commitment of research resources to the analysis of their role in the multi-ethnic nation-state and transnationally.

Why, in the aftermath of 9/11, did a segment of U.S. security experts, political elite, media and other institutions classify not just al-Qaeda but the entire religion of Islam as a security threat, thereby countering the prevailing professional consensus and White House policy that maintained a distinction between terrorism and Islam? Why did this oppositional threat narrative on Islam expand and even degenerate into warning about the “Islamization” of America by its tiny population of Muslim-Americans—a perceived threat sufficiently convincing that legislators in two dozen states introduced bills to prevent the spread of Islamic law, or sharia, and a Republican Presidential front-runner exclaimed, “I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it”? This dissertation takes these puzzles as its object of inquiry. Using a framework that conceptualizes discourses and their agents as fundamentally political, this study deepens the literature’s characterizations of this discourse as “Islamophobia,” the “new Orientalism,” the “new McCarthyism,” and so on by examining how it functioned politically as a form of cultural politics, and how such political factors played a role in its expansion in the decade after 9/11. The approach is syncretic, blending Foucauldian genealogy with its emphasis on power, a more interpretive Bourdieuan relational sociology, and synthetic social movement theory. First, it examines the discourse at its macro-level, in the historical and structural factors that formed its conditions of emergence; specifically: 1) the culturally-resident political framing structure that rendered this discourse meaningful and credible; 2) the politically-relevant social-structural resources that rendered it influential; and 3) the more historically contingent or eventful political openings or opportunity “structure” that otherwise enabled, supported, or incentivized it. Then, it examines this threat discourse at its micro-level, biographically profiling three of its more influential polemicists, analyzing their strategies of cultural politics. The study concludes that this threat discourse functioned as a distinctive strategy by the more entrepreneurial segments of the U.S. conservative movement, who—in the emotion-laden wake of 9/11—seized Islam as another opportune site to advance their ongoing project of cultural politics. / Ph. D.