abstract: This dissertation examines how contemporary ideologies of race and “colorblind” discourse are reproduced, deployed, and reimagined in Mexican American literature. It demonstrates that the selected narratives foreground inconsistencies in colorblind ideologies and problematize the instability and perennial reformulation of race definitions in the United States. This study also contributes to the discussion of racial formation in Mexican American literary studies from 1970 to 2010. Chapter One provides the critical and literary context of Mexican American literature from 1970 to 2010. Chapter Two details the process of racial formation in the United States according to Michael Omi and Howard Winant. Simultaneously, this chapter describes the theoretical framework and concepts of experience and epistemic privilege, mestizaje, and intercultural relations as offered respectively by Paula M. L. Moya, Rafael Pérez-Torres, and Marta E. Sánchez. Chapter Three offers an analysis of racial discourse and assimilation via two autobiographical texts: Oscar Acosta’s The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972) and Richard Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982). Chapter Four examines the colorblind racial ideology in two texts by Mexican American women authors: Erlinda Gonzales-Berry’s Paletitas de guayaba (1991) and Mona Ruiz’s Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz (1998). Chapter Five explores the rearticulation of colorblind racial discourse in the “postracial” United States. In this chapter, we examine three works of speculative fiction: The Rag Doll Plagues (1992) by Alejandro Morales, Texas 2077: A Futuristic Novel (1998) by Carlos Miralejos, and Lunar Braceros 2125-2148 (2009) by Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita. By combining theories from Chicana/o Studies, Critical Race and Gender Studies, and Cultural Studies in my textual analysis, my dissertation challenges notions of contemporary colorblind or postracial ideologies that regard present day discussions of race as counterproductive to U.S. race relations. [Text in Spanish] / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation International Letters and Cultures 2017

This thesis aims to allow the meanings engendered by various black hairstyle choices to emerge as discursive texts with which to further explore issues of black identity in post-apartheid South Africa. It seeks to identify what, if any, new discursive spaces and possibilities are operational in the post-apartheid capitalist context, and how identities are moulded by, and in tum, influence these possibilities. Operating within a discourse analytic approach, this research did not intend to establish fixed and generalisable notions of identity, but by unpacking the discursive baggage attached to historically loaded subjectivities it is concerned with reflecting identity as an ongoing and reflexive project. Entailing a diverse selection of texts, the analysis includes self-generated texts (stemming from interviews, a focus group and participant observation), and public domain texts (stemming from online and print media articles). Chapters 5 - 9 constitute the textual analysis. Using a consumer hair care product as a text, chapter 5 serves as an introduction to discourses surrounding black hair as a variously constructed object. This focus is concerned, more specifically, with the construction of black hair as a 'natural' object in chapter 6. Chapter 7 examines black hair gemonies and the " problematic classification and de/classification of class and consumer identities. Discourses pertaining to the construction and positioning of gendered and sexual subjectivities are explored in chapter 8. Finally, chapter 9 is concerned with the operations of discourses as they function to construct essentialised or hybrid conceptions of identity. The implications for black identity construction in post-apartheid South Africa are discussed in chapter 10 alongside a deconstruction of the research method and researcher positioning.

This treatise explores the social and political identity of coloured women in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro (NMBM) with the intention of understanding why some stereotypes of coloured women‟s identity have endured since colonialism in South Africa. Topic selection was stimulated by heated public response to a newspaper article (“Jou Ma se Kinders” (Your Mother‟s Children), (Roberts 2011: http://www.lifeissavage.com/) which negatively labeled and pigeon-holed coloured women‟s identity. With the notable exception of the Saartje Baartman story, most text selection in the Literature Review (Chapter 2) was informed by research in the Western Cape because studies have a patriarchal bias and there are scant records of coloured women‟s lives and identity in the East Cape, Port Elizabeth and the NMBM. The study includes select readings of literary theory and South African fiction from which examples were chosen to illustrate the longevity of stereotypes attached to coloured women‟s identity. Commemorative narrative highlights the role coloured women played and continue to play as their alternative histories or counter narratives embed alternative histories in group identity. A comparative historical analysis of racist and gendered policies and practices contextualises the social construction of coloured women‟s identity from the colonial period to the present time and a focus group discussion among ten female evictees from South End and Richmond ] Hill in Port Elizabeth (PE) generated rich details of coloured women‟s lives and experience in Port Elizabeth and the NMBM. Findings are captured in four themes: Living, Loving and Laughing; Religion and Resistance; Hardship and Trauma and Identity and Ambivalence. These themes highlight nostalgia, courage and humour; the special role played by religious affiliation and coloured people‟s successful resistance to the demolition and deconsecration of places of worship in PE together with pride and a sense of achievement which continues to influence coloured women‟s political identity in the NMBM. Police brutality, everyday racism and sexism, the impact of apartheid on matriculants and the influence of petty apartheid on coloured women‟s lives and identity, as well as participants‟ contradictory perceptions of their post-apartheid social and political identity which continue to be defined by a deficit discourse, are discussed and described in Chapter 4. Focus Group findings locate coloured women‟s identity in a milieu of racist and gendered laws, policies and practices. It is suggested that sexualised stereotypes of coloured women‟s commodification and second class status persist regardless of the South African transition to a constitutional democracy. Evidence is presented of coloured women as bounded storytellers who create a counter narrative to apartheid justification of forced removals.It is suggested that the counter narrative is a vehicle for group support, affirmation and the recovery of roots, identity and post apartheid heritage including records and memorabilia displayed in the South End Museum. As the field is under-researched it is recommended that further research should be conducted to include studies of the social and political identity of an expanded sample of coloured women representative of diverse ages and backgrounds in the rural and urban areas of South Africa.

It has become commonplace in academic studies, particularly those with a critical bent, to view nations as being historical constructs, as being without essence, though not without effects of exclusion and inclusion, of the constitution of the „authentic‟ national subject and the „other of the nation.‟ The critical impetus at work here is to show how a nation is constructed in order to bring into view the knowledge and power relations this construction entails, to show whose interests the construction serves, and whose it does not. This study examines the discursive production, the performative enactment and the spatial emplacement of post-apartheid „South Africanness‟ through a case study of Oppikoppi music festival. Oppikoppi is an annual event that emerged in 1994, on the threshold of the „new South Africa.‟ The festival is attended predominantly by young white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and is held on a farm in the northernmost province of Limpopo, South Africa, an area notoriously conservative in its racial politics. Yet, curiously, Oppikoppi has been repeatedly referred to, and refers to itself with an almost obsessive regularity and repetitiveness, as a „truly South African‟ event. Indeed, the festival has been promoted, since 1998, as „The Home of South African Music,‟ and in 2009 the site of the festival was unofficially declared a „national monument.‟ Through the employment of concepts drawn from the writings of French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault – particularly his earlier archaeological works – and from Sigmund Freud – particularly his metapsychological works – this study has posed two broad sets of questions. Firstly, from a Foucauldian perspective, what have been the conditions for the production of „South Africanness‟ at this festival? What have been the requirements, the discursive „rules of the game‟ for whiteness and Afrikanerness to become „South African‟? To what extent does this constitution of the festival as a „South African‟ event preserve older lines of division, difference and oppression? To what extent does this bring about meaningful social change? Secondly, from a psychoanalytic perspective, what are the fantasies constellated in the discourse of the festival as a „South African‟ event? Who, in these fantasies, is constituted as the „other of the post-apartheid nation‟? How has fantasy provided a kind of „hallucinatory gratification,‟ a phantasmatic compensation for, and a means of conserving, the losses of privilege in the new nation? And how has fantasy oriented the festival towards post-apartheid sociality, soliciting identifications with the post-apartheid nation? The overarching argument proposed is that anti-apartheid post-apartheid nation building has cultivated a melancholic loss of apartheid for whites in general and Afrikaners in particular, a loss that cannot be grieved – indeed, a loss that should not be grieved – and, as such, a grief that takes on an unconscious afterlife. Apartheid and the life it enabled – not only racialised privilege, but also a structure of identification and idealisation, of being and having – becomes a loss that is buried in, and by, the injunctions issued to post-apartheid memory and conduct. Without the discursive resources with which to symbolise this loss, disguised repetitions of the past, a neurotic refinding of the lost objects of apartheid, and melancholia are the likely outcomes, each of which engender a set of exclusions and enjoyments that run along old and new lines.

[pt] Este trabalho tem como objetivo central entender o curso da (re)construção das identidades dos sujeitos brancos quando estes se encontram em um processo de (re)conhecimento da sua própria racialidade. O estudo focaliza as relações raciais no Brasil a partir do ano de 2003, com ênfase para as suas configurações políticas frente ao combate ao racismo. O objeto teórico deste estudo é a questão da branquitude brasileira, e suas negociações, frente às novas conjunturas raciais brasileiras. A hipótese que norteia este trabalho é a de que a permanência da ideologia da mestiçagem, enquanto uma estrutura de longa duração (Braudel, 1992), sustenta um discurso de igualdade formal e impede a aquisição de um racial literacy pelos sujeitos brancos em todas as camadas sociais e, em particular, para os indivíduos pertencentes às populações que vivem em espaços de subalternidade social. Desta maneira, assumimos que as representações sociais do branco pobre se assemelham às do negro, dificultando a explicitação da questão racial e suas implicações sociais. A partir de uma metodologia que incorporou o arcabouço teórico do racial literacy como lente de observação, esta pesquisa combinou atividades de observação participante, realizadas durante um semestre letivo em uma classe composta por aproximadamente 30 estudantes da disciplina História e Cultura Afro-brasileira oferecida por uma Instituição de Ensino Superior da Zona Leste da cidade de São Paulo, com entrevistas individuais com 11 destes alunos que se autodefiniam brancos ou pardos. Nossas conclusões apontam para o fato de que embora se possam observar importantes processos de transformação em curso, a partir da implementação da Lei Federal 10.639/2003, permanecem as estruturas pelas quais o mito da democracia racial se reproduz, e se atualiza, impedindo que ocorram processos de racialização das identidades que permitam novas relações de poder entre brancos e negros na sociedade brasileira. / [en] A study that aims to understand the course of identity (re) construction of white individuals who are submitted to a process of (re) cognition of their own racial belonging. Therefore, this work focuses on Brazilian racial relations, from 2003 onwards, with emphasis on the political configurations in the frame of the struggle against racism. The central subject of the work is the Brazilian whiteness, and its related power negotiation, within the present context of the national racial relations. The hypothesis of the study is that the permanence of a melting pot ideology, understood as a long lasting structure (Braudel, 1992), gives support to the idea of a formal equality and impedes the acquisition of racial literacy by the white individuals from all social strata and, particularly, for those who belong to the population living on subaltern social spaces. It is assumed that the social representations of the poor white are similar to that of the black, which makes it difficult to perceive the racial inequities and its social implications. Adopting the racial literacy theoretical framework as a reference, this research combines participating observation and individual interviews. The observation took place within a group composed by near 30 students of the discipline Afro-Brazilian History and Culture in a College located in the East Zone of São Paulo City. The interviews were applied to 11 of those students self defined as white or pardo (mestizo). The conclusions indicate that, although it is possible to observe important transformations taking place as a consequence of the Federal Law No. 10.639/2003 implementation, the hypothesis of this work seems to be confirmed as the structures related to the racial democracy myth are systematically reproduced and actualized, which impedes the racialization of the identities, as a consequence, and a new power negotiation between whites and blacks in Brazilian society.

This study investigated the body image constructions of Afro-Latinx Caribbean women who identify as Domincan, Puetro-Rican, and/or Cuban. Fifteen women participated in the research study aiming to investigate how race, gender, culture and the intersection of the three influences the conceptualization of body image for this specific population of women. A mixed methodology approach was implemented. The primary research method was analysis of qualitative data via CQR. Interviews were accompanied by four quantitative measures in order to further inform the qualitative data. The measures specifically investigated cultural values (Marianismo Belief Scale), racial identity (Multidimensional Model of Black Identity), acculturation (Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale), and body image satisfaction (Stunkard Figure Rating Scale). The scales informed the data by providing information about the participant’s adherence to traditional cultural values and its intersection with gender (marianismo), the salience of their racial identity, the degree to acculturation, and ideal body image. Four domains emerged from the data, which shed light on the conceptualization and experience of body image for this group of women. The results have implications for the multicultural awareness for counselors working with Afro-Latinx Caribbean women, in addition to the psychological awareness of this group within the psychological body image research, and the many gaps which continue to need exploration.

No description available.

This study investigated the influence of Tyler Perry‟s House of Payne and Meet the Browns on black viewers‟ racial identity, based on a survey of 145 members of four predominantly African American churches in the Central Florida area. Mirroring Allen, Dawson, and Brown‟s (1989) model of an African American racial belief system, this study proposed that both shows would positively influence three dimensions of the black identity including closeness to blacks, black separatism, and the belief in positive stereotypes about blacks, while negatively influencing the dimension that emphasizes negative stereotypes about blacks. Socioeconomic status and religiosity were also hypothesized to predict exposure to both shows. The results show that while House of Payne positively influenced two dimensions of the black identity including closeness to blacks and the belief in positive stereotypes about blacks, Meet the Browns did not have a statistically significant relationship with any of the dimensions of the black identity. Additionally, results showed mixed support for the relationship between socioeconomic status, religiosity, and show exposure. While education had a negative relationship with exposure to both House of Payne and Meet the Browns, the income variable revealed no significant results with either show. Lastly, religiosity was shown to be a significant predictor of exposure to House of Payne, but not Meet the Browns. The findings suggest that Perry‟s shows may be considered by viewers as more beneficial than harmful to viewers to their racial identity and experience, which contradicts the critiques of his images as reverberating with negative stereotypical images of the past. Findings also suggest the importance of education and religion to black socialization patterns.

In my dissertation, I explore the ways in which racial identity is made complex through various onlookers' misrecognition of race. This issue is particularly important considering the current state of race relations in the United States, as my project offers a literary perspective and account of the way black authors have discussed racial identity formation from the turn of the century through the start of the twenty-first century. I highlight many variations of misrecognition and racial performance as a response to America's obsession with race.

Ego identity formation in African American college students was examined within the frameworks of Erikson’s psychosocial theory and Hill’s paradigm of Black family strengths. Ego identity was measured by the Revised Version of the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status, an instrument based on the theoretical constructs of Erikson. Family strengths were measured by the Family Environment Scale and the personality variables self-esteem and ethnic identity were measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure, respectively. It was hypothesized that statistically significant relationships would be found between ego identity and the family environmental and personality variables. One hundred sixty-nine African American college students attending a predominantly White university participated in the study. The results supported a relationship between ego identity and family environmental and personality variables. The study further revealed that personality variables contribute more significantly than family environmental variables to identity achievement. Self-esteem was found to be a Significant predictor of ego identity and differentiated among the four ego identity statuses, Ethnic identity also proved to contribute significantly to the ego formation of African Americans. Of the family variables, religious-orientation, cohesion and organization were found to be significant predictors for some but not all of the ego statuses. Both father’s education and family income were Significant predictors of ego identity status, but age and sex were found to be nonsignificant in predicting ego identity. / Ph. D.