First person plural in letters to the editor in two post-colonial contexts In writing letters to the editor, speech community members position themselves in a way that simultaneously helps construct both the public discourse on certain issues and the writer’s identity. An important tool in such identity construction in various contexts has been shown to be the first-person plural pronoun. The purpose of this study is to explain writers’ uses of first-person plural pronouns to construct identity in letters to the editor in the 21st-century post-colonial context in a Kenyan and a Sri Lankan newspaper. Assuming a variational pragmatics perspective, we analyze the pronouns to determine the intended reference and the relation to structural features of the letter and assigned responsibility for situational problems and solutions. The results indicate that despite marked variation between the Kenyan and Sri Lankan letters in how explicitly solutions are called for and responsible actors are named, first-person plural pronoun usage exhibits strong similarity. In both datasets, slightly over half the pronouns reference a national identity, which accords with the most prominent topic area by far being government form, policy, and services and the behavior of politicians and government officials. Among the other half, ambiguous reference is the most prominent category. Ambiguous and shifting use can mitigate directness in assigning blame and expectation, thus avoiding the construction of an identity judged unacceptable confrontational by local norms. Moreover, since interpretation of ambiguous language requires more participation from the reader, the assignment of responsibility becomes a more collaborative activity, reinforcing the community membership of the writer.

Individual factors may impact the retention rate of Puerto Rican women in treatment for mental health and substance abuse-related issues. The purpose of this research was to examine the demographic factors that may contribute to the low retention rate of Puerto Rican women in treatment for mental health and substance abuse. The theory of reasoned action was implicit in the intervention. Data were collected from 120 Puerto Rican women enrolled in an addiction center. The following demographic factors were chosen from prior treatment records: age at first chemical abuse, whether the participant was a child of an alcoholic, level of education, and the first language of the participant. The data were analyzed using logistic regression equations. The results of the analysis did not show a significant relationship between the demographic factors and retention rate. However, the current literature regarding the effective use of these services is still limited with this population. This current study can lead to positive social change by helping to promote awareness of how cultural factors can impact substance abuse treatment for minority women. Therefore, one recommendation for a future study would be to use a research design that would allow for more exploration of relevant cultural factors. Significant results from a future study could result in better services, which could lead to positive social change by helping to reduce recidivism and lower substance abuse in this vulnerable population.

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In this dissertation, I develop a postcolonial theoretical approach to localized Muslim feminism(s) in Aceh, Indonesia, based on interviews with women in Aceh in 2009 and 2010. One of the central aims of this study is to challenge the dominant exclusivist discourse of "Islamic" feminism by providing a viable alternative for "Muslim" feminism(s), derived from collaborative, indigenous, and post-secular politics. I address the need for a religious feminist model of subjectivity that incorporates both the political and ethical dimensions of agency in potentially non-patriarchal and non-state-centric formations. I suggest a communal understanding of religious law as an alternative to conceptualizing religious law (syariah) in terms of a personal ethical code or a system of laws emanating from a state. I propose an alternative discourse of feminist agency and religious identity, one that reaches beyond a secular-liberal epistemology and challenges the hegemonic discourse of state-centrism within a privatized religious identity. / Ph. D.

Theatre is a location of cultures, the reflection of our daily lives, the present moment we are living. This thesis focuses on studying performances of the Hakka Contemporary Theatre created by female directors (Hakka and Non-Hakka) in Taiwan to observe how they combine western modern theatre forms with Hakka traditional and cultural elements and further transformed the specifics of Hakka culture on stage and represented various images of Hakka women. Through applying theories in relation to diaspora discourse, the hybridity of post-colonialism and postcolonial feminism and theatre study as the foundation of academic research, I attempted to critically examine the hybrid forms and development of the Hakka Contemporary Theatre to explore in depth the meaning of Hakka culture represented in theatre. In this thesis, I firstly offer performance analysis and draw on hybridity discourse and feminism in relation to post-colonial study to discuss three elements: the interaction and negotiated relationship between Hakka women (including female directors and the Hakka actresses), Hakka culture, and modern theatre forms. Furthermore, as part of my research, I critically reflect upon a practical performance project I have undertaken to illustrate how Hakka culture could be presented as subject and be constructed as the subjectivity of the Hakka ethnic group in post-colonial Taiwan. I hope that this thesis may encourage more Taiwanese to appreciate the value of Hakka culture and offer Taiwanese theatrical practitioners a practice of critical hybridity in associating ethnic and cultural issues of Taiwan in the future.

Ce mémoire explore les différents témoignages que nous ont laissés les soldats et officiers polonais ayant combattu du côté de la France durant l’existence du Duché de Varsovie, entre 1807 et 1815. L’objectif premier de l’analyse est de déterminer quelles étaient les représentations qu’ont faites les Polonais de la France et des Français et quelles attitudes ils ont adoptées envers leurs alliés. La première partie du mémoire fait un survol des sources en présentant plus en détail les auteurs étudiés ainsi que les différentes formations militaires dont ils ont fait partie. La section suivante porte quant à elle sur les représentations de la France et des Français dans les écrits polonais en mettant en perspective de nombreux extraits issus des mémoires et de la correspondance des officiers. En dernier lieu, le mémoire explore les représentations que se sont faites les auteurs de leur propre nation, les attitudes qu’ils ont adoptées envers leurs alliés français au courant des guerres napoléoniennes ainsi que l’influence du parcours suivi par les auteurs suite à la chute de l’Empire en 1815. En empruntant des concepts d’analyse aux post-colonial studies ainsi qu’à plusieurs ouvrages récents portant sur la psychologie des combattants, le mémoire en vient à illustrer l’existence, chez les militaires polonais, d’un double discours mêlant admiration et désir de résistance face à l’influence française en Pologne. Ceci contredit l’idée reçue que les militaires polonais sont entièrement dévoués à la cause de la France et de Napoléon et appui l’idée d’une interaction mutuelle plus complexe qui entraîne l’écriture d’une histoire où les Polonais ne sont pas que des témoins passifs des guerres d’Empire.

This project explores visually experimental poetry as a particular trend in Caribbean poetry since the 1970's. Although visual experimentation in Caribbean poetry is immediately recognizable ??? for example, its play with font styles and sizes, its jagged margins, its division of the page into multiple discourse spaces, its use of images ??? little critical attention has been paid to the visual qualities of Caribbean poetry. Instead, definitions of Caribbean poetry have remained focussed upon oral/aural aesthetics, excluding its use of and contribution to late 20th century experimental poetic practice. By focussing on the poetry of Shake Keane, Claire Harris, Marlene Nourbese Philip, Kamau Brathwaite, and LeRoy Clarke, I bring post-colonial literary criticism into discussion with contemporary debates regarding visual poetic practice in North America. In so doing, this project values Caribbean visual poetry both for its expression of Caribbean cultural experience and for its contributions to broader experimental poetry movements. I argue that visual experimentation functions to disrupt traditional linear reading processes, which thereby allows poets to perform the flux of time and space in post-colonial contexts. Furthermore, such disruption of linear reading practices, often manifested by the positioning of multiple discourses on one page, serves to create a polyvocal discourse that resists patriarchal and colonialist power structures. Valuing the visual qualities of Caribbean poetry as signifying elements, this dissertation explores the aesthetic and social implications of inscription and visual design in Caribbean poetry.

This thesis examines the context and practices of emotion management for National workers in International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) through a study of national workers recruited into disaster intervention in India. The research draws on postcolonial theory and problematizes current work exploring the implications of race and intersectionality within emotion management. The data collection strategy involved a narrative-based semi-structured interview process with a view to surfacing social and discursive constructions. The interpretation comprised of three levels of reading that included explication, explanation and exploration based reading using postcolonial and poststructural-feminist theories. Results highlight the dominance of neoliberal practices in INGOs and explain how these practices foreground various colonial continuities in the ways in which INGOs respond to disasters. Neoliberal practices inform and impact on the emotion management of National workers as they create a masculine and instrumental emotion regime where emotions and compassion are seen as dispensable. The colonial continuities on which neoliberalism draws, have an impact on the relationships between National and Expatriate workers. These relationships become ‘emotional encounters’ based on asymmetries that disadvantage the former. This understanding paves the way for proposing changes in contemporary disaster management practices. In this context the emotion management of National workers is a complex performance. These complex performances are linked to the postcolonial concepts of mimicry, sly-civility and hybridity and to the operation of power through desires and subjectivity. Through this context based interpretation, emotion management and theorising can be extended in useful ways. In particular, I go beyond the normative nature of much current theorising. In doing so I am able to consider emotion management as an ‘embodied emotional performance’ that places additional stress on stigmatised identities. This formulation helps break down the binaries that inform our current conceptualisation of emotion management such as emotion work and emotional labour; surface and deep acting; real and fake emotions; felt and expressed emotions. It also blurs the distinction between emotional labour and aesthetic labour. Further, it helps identify different forms of resistance to neoliberal dictates about the role of emotions in organizations. This allows for the recognition that embodied emotional performances enable conformity as well as creative resistance against emotion norms in organizations.

The major concern of this study is to examine the current process of national development in the two African states of Mozambique and Guinea Bissau. Recognizing the fact that the problem of development is the foremost challenge to all contemporary African nations, the pursuit of an alternative approach to the process of development by the two countries, is certainly a break-away from the change in continuity of the colonial capitalist mode of production, characteristic of Africa today. Contrary to the general practice in Africa which limits the concept of development to economics, and the enrichment of the petty bourgeoisie, the process of national development in Mozambique and Guinea Bissau has rightfully been conceptualized in terms of its economic, social, political, and ideological complexities, while the uplift of the masses occupies the center of the economic activity. The study critically examined the economic dimensions of the development process in both Mozambique and Guinea Bissau. The specific concern centered on industrialization and economic integration, the design and character of agriculture, the mechanisms of distribution of national wealth, the alternative measures of unemployment control, and the strategy followed in an attempt to eliminate post-colonial linkages. Viewing the role of politics in the overall process of development as an essential one, especially with regard to structural transformation and mobilization, the study examined the political dimensions of development in these countries. The focus was placed on the role of the party, structural transformation and mass participation, the distribution of power and national integration, political consciousness and rural politicization, in addition to their various implications on the development process. The study shows that the political elements have rendered the process of development, creative and complementary, cohesive, as well as dynamic. With regard to the social dimensions of development, the study examined the particularity of education, the unique innovations in health care and housing, and the progress made so far in the attainment of self-reliance. Faced with the task of assessing the efficacity of this approach to national development, the study without pretending to provide the cure for all development problems in Africa, concluded by uncovering the commendable merits and uniqueness of the approach, but also cautions against blind copying, while at the same time it encourages others to take a critical look at this experience in an attempt to assess the extent to which it can apply to their concrete conditions.

Thesis advisor: Zine Magubane / Using content analysis of the three largest United States Newsweeklies this thesis explores representations of young women's sexuality during the early 2000's. While popular culture during this period is focused on "Girls Gone Wild" causing widespread feminist concern over the "third wave's" definition of a feminist sexuality, no young women with sexual agency are presented in the magazines. Instead the women presented, who are overwhelmingly white, are either too pure to posses any information regarding sexual activities, engaged in sexual activities that they are coerced or forced into, or are celibate. The combination of these discourses expose a narrative of female empowerment through chastity that mirrors the Victorian-era ideals of white womanhood. Using post-colonial theory the thesis argues that this representation, combined with the erasure of all other alternatives is indicative of a identity crisis within the collective United Sates conscious. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.