This dissertation focuses on the narrative representation of moments of blasphemy in the writings of Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Sara Suleri, Carolyn Steedman, and Mukul Kesavan by focusing on the issue of 'what narrative energies motivate the production of blasphemy' and 'from where does the decision to blaspheme come'. By reading these representations of blasphemy in the context of 'blasphemy' as it was invoked in the "Rushdie affair" and the reactionary nationalist work it performed, I challenge the tendency to locate blasphemy in an act, intention, program, or a proper name. By drawing on the Foucauldian sense of transgression as that which is determined by, rather than an overcoming of the limits of law, I argue that the texts of Rushdie and Kureishi offer too narrow a view of blasphemy. This is because blasphemy here is tied to an exuberant iconoclasm that is assumed to generate a radical social agency. In contrast, the texts of Sara Suleri, Steedman, and Kesavan show up the problems involved in naming an act as transgressive. The texts of Suleri and Steedman show us the labor, body, and cost of transgression that is suppressed in Rushdie's texts by giving us a history of agency that does not cross over into visibility. A feminist and materialist analysis of the scene of blasphemy's production can produce new and productive ways of thinking about blasphemy. Such a reading tells us that blasphemy in Rushdie's texts emerges out of a male sexual anxiety about authorship and authority. Such a reading also shows how Kureishi's anxiety about imagination in the "post-Rushdie affair" predicament has forced him to transfix London as the natural site of modernity, secularism, and imagination. This becomes clear when we read this novel against his "pre-Rushdie affair" text, "Sammy and Rosie get Laid" where he lays bare the binding of London and Pakistan. If blasphemy in Steedman's Landscape for a Good Woman and Suleri's Meatless Days takes the form of an exposure of nationalism's power to conscript woman's body as a cultural signifier for nation-making, in Kesavan's historical novel Looking Through Glass blasphemy is a metaphor for the failed activism of the ordinary people of Indian nationalist history.

The thesis is the exploration of the urban vernacular and the "tactical" practices that redefine and reappropriate the "strategic", "proper", or institutional. The concern of the thesis lies in the "fringe", or "marginalized" areas of the city---the residual spaces that rely on "tactics" to attain a temporal, improvisational, and ephemeral quality. Hip hop culture, consisting of rap, break dancing and graffiti, is utilized as an illustration of the "tactics" that subvert the strategic. The emphasis of the project is to reappropriate and redefine the theatre as a community center that is made up of cultural and entrepreneurial programmatic elements. The design sets forth a set of architectural "tactics" that regard architecture as a "prop" for the "performances" that establish spatial form and relationships. A series of "tactics" that aim to create and redefine zones within an existing shell to denote and activate the "new" and old programmatic elements.

<p> The Occupy Movement arose out of an atmosphere of dissatisfaction with the political and economic structure of the country. The objective of my research was to look at individuals in the Denver Occupy Movement in order to understand what their personal goals for the movement were, as well as what tactics they were willing to partake-in as a way to change society's dominant power structures. A key characteristic in Occupy is how diverse it is in terms of the political will and the express direction its members wish it to go in. My anthropological work is applicable to Occupies across the country as well as other similar socio-political movements since it sheds light on how the individual within the movement expresses his/hers agency not only in shaping acts of resistance but the structure of the movement itself. The theoretical framework of my thesis is based upon three foundational frameworks: Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and various social capitals, Giddens's theory on how agency and structure interact to result in structural change, and concepts in cognitive anthropology. Through these frameworks I show how an individual's background shapes their actions of resistance and mediates how they negotiate the structure and culture of Occupy itself.</p>

<p> This dissertation defines cruise ship tourism in the context of a local community. The theoretical manifestations and development of cruise ship tourism are presented and analyzed. This research traces the development of the U.S.-based cruise ship industry (i.e. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Carnival Corporation &amp; PLC) and its subsequent effects in one port-of-call community, the island of Cozumel, Mexico. Cruise ship tourism in Cozumel is compounded in San Miguel, the island's only urban center, at the three cruise ship piers and associated shopping centers. Defining U.S.-based cruise ship tourism in the context of Cozumel is significant as it is the most important cruise ship port-of-call in Mexico, the Caribbean, and the world (APIQROO 2013; CLIA 2013; FCCA 2013). The focus of this investigation examines the ways the development and corporate practices of the U.S.-based cruise ship industry formulate a climate of competition between local and internationally owned and operated businesses in cruise ship port-of-call communities. The U.S.-based cruise ship industry establishes contracts with businesses for a fee and advertise such businesses on a map for cruise ship tourists. These corporate strategies promulgate inequality between local employee, multinational business, and U.S.-based cruise ship industry as well as local and tourists. Cruise ship tourists in Cozumel affirm these "guaranteed and approved" businesses are safer, more easily accessible, and more frequented than locally-owned and operated options. </p>

<p> This study responds to the call in the ecological literature (Berry 1988, 1999; Macy &amp; Brown, 1998; Spretnak, 2011) for cognitive, spiritual, and relational shifts in humanity's perception and experience of the natural world. It examines the lived experience of a diverse group of Western adults who were initiated into an eco-spiritual Andean indigenous tradition centered upon reciprocity. Andean reciprocity, or <i>ayni </i>, involves maintaining a relationship of mutual exchange with the natural world and implies a paradigm shift, from the dominant Western paradigm to one that views the Earth as animate and able to reciprocate. In this study, reciprocity is explored as a potential means for Westerners to facilitate living in harmony with the natural world. </p><p> This basic qualitative analysis used semi-structured interviews with 8 U.S. residents who were initiated into an eco-spiritual Andean indigenous tradition and report that they actively maintain reciprocity with the natural world three or more years after their initiation. Interviews solicited stories from participants and, in the process, honored the oral culture of the Q'ero, into which the coresearchers were initiated. Data analysis was an inductive process that extracted salient themes from all stories to construct a process of sacred reciprocity for Westerners. </p><p> This study can inform Westerners who are interested in deepening relationship and learning practical ways of being in harmony with the natural world. It can also inform anyone interested in developing skillful means to utilize ancestral teachings in a contemporary context. For Westerners and industrialized societies, these practices and tools could help facilitate ecological citizenry and cultural transformation.</p>

<p>To many people, music is just a hobby, something they listen to on the drive to work or background noise throughout their day. Maybe they will go to an occasional concert or buy a record here or there, or more likely download one off iTunes. To some though, it can mean so much more. To some people, music can be the whole basis of their social lives. Here I will show how the music scene in DeKalb, Illinois has created strong bonds, enough to be termed a community. Helped through punk ethics and a DIY (do-it yourself) mindset, the DeKalb punk scene has brought together musicians, poets, artists, fans, and others involved through zines and record labels into one community. Through the words of those directly involved in the scene, I show how they view DeKalb&rsquo;s punk scene as a community. The scene has become a welcoming space, where everyone&rsquo;s projects are supported, leading to a variety of experimentation. One of the interesting elements of DeKalb&rsquo;s scene in relation to other punk scenes is the older age of the participants. Traditionally seen as music for teenagers, as DeKalb is a college town the main participants are in their 20s, though older members are not rare; indeed, some are even in their 40s with families and kids. An important part of creating this scene is DIY philosophy, and I examine the role that has in creating a community. Additionally, spaces for music are equally important, as I illustrate how these spaces are essential in the music scene. Finally, as DeKalb is college town with a rotating population, I investigate what the future holds for everyone involved and the town&rsquo;s punk scene. </p>

<p> Based on 13 months of ethnographic research, this dissertation documents how the people of Tautu, Vanuatu incorporate the global flows of biomedicine and Christianity into their local knowledge structures and social practices and the resulting integration of biomedical, Christian, and traditional medical ideologies and practices. This integration is articulated in Tautuans&rsquo; theories of illness causation and categories of care; knowledge practice; diagnosis and treatment processes; definitions of health and illness; and healing narratives. At the center of this creative, integrative process are traditional social relations based on kinship and exchange and the related principles of pragmatism, &ldquo;dividuality,&rdquo; and reciprocity. However, Christianity&mdash;specifically &ldquo;gift&rdquo; narratives in which Tautuans explain that their healing knowledge and powers come from God&mdash;is the main discursive frame through which Tautuans create a middle ground between &ldquo;traditional&rdquo; and &ldquo;modern/Western.&rdquo; </p><p> These gift narratives serve multiple purposes. First, they allow patients and practitioners to organize their past experiences and to make sense of suffering. Second, in these &ldquo;gift&rdquo; narratives Tautuans authorize certain aspects of traditional medicine by reconstructing them as Christian knowledge. Third, through these narratives Tautuans are carving out a space where biomedical, traditional, Christian forms of healing are complimentary practices, as the idea that all types of medicine are &ldquo;gifts from God&rdquo; causes the categories of biomedical, traditional, and Christian to fall away and to be subsumed by the larger heading of &ldquo;spiritual healing.&rdquo; Fourth, these gift narratives are also religious narratives about salvation intended to convert people not only to kastom medicine but also to the Christian faith. Finally, these narratives are an attempt to appropriate and indigenize biomedical ideologies and forms of knowledge production and to gain international recognition of the efficacy of traditional medicinal plants; these narratives, then, illustrate Tautuans&rsquo; desires to globalize their local practices and to engage with the modern world on their own terms.</p>

<p> Educational reform movements are constantly in the process of trying to improve a fractured educational system. Many scholars contend there is a discrepancy between educational outcomes for White students and students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Some educators in working class communities of color have begun to infuse elements of students' social and cultural backgrounds, including popular culture, to create instructional methods that can better engage and pique student interest. Hip-hop Pedagogy is one of the methods, rooted in popular culture, which is being used in classroom settings to increase students' awareness about the societal constructs and issues in their communities that may affect them. Student access to Hip-hop based instructional methods, however, have been limited and virtually absent from elementary education settings. However the consumption of Hip-hop culture persists in urban communities worldwide. This qualitative study implemented a Hip-hop emergent-based curriculum in an elementary school setting, closely documenting the perceptions and responses to the curriculum by four young males students of color. The study consisted of five consecutive classroom sessions, in which the curriculum and dialogue focused on different expressions of Hip-hop culture. Student viewpoints were logged daily in focus groups and the data that emerged from the sessions and focus groups informed the emergent curriculum. Graffiti became the Hip-hop element of focus chosen for deeper exploration by the participants in this study. The study revealed a number of findings that point to the potential value of an emergent Hip-hop curriculum with elementary male students of color. </p>

This thesis constitutes a site for New Zealand-born Samoans to explore issues of ethnic identity. The emphasis is on the process of the Samoanising of christianity, and hegemonic identity discourses of not only the dominant society but of island-born Samoans and elders, and how this contributes to New Zealand-born Samoan self perceptions. A socio-historical overview provides an understanding of the process in which New Zealand born Samoans have been positioned. The stories and narratives of a group of New Zealandborn Samoans concerning their life experiences provide valuable insights into their 'identity journeys'--the construction of ethnic identity through experimenting with subject positions over time, as a result of challenges to their percieved self-identities. For some, this journey ends with a secured identity--a self-satisfying ethnic identity as a New Zealand-born Samoan--others remain in a perpetual state of conscious or subconscious identity confusion. More specifically the thesis seeks to provide an understanding and an interpretation of the way fa'aSamoa, church, and life in New Zealand impacts on life choices and on the construction of the self, and secured identities. The identity journey is analysed as a ritual and a series of rites of passage in order to expose the structure of identity confusion, and to examine the dichotomy of chaos and conflict within an apparently ordered society, experienced by New Zealand-born Samoans during their identity journeys.The thesis is therefore underpinned by Samoan conceptual frameworks involved in this identity journey, and aims to consciousness-raise and emancipate by exposing, understanding and reclaiming the links between fa'aSamoa, church, and a New Zealand born Samoan identity.The thesis represents an 'ie toga, because like a fine mat being woven, the strands of Samoan history, fa'aSamoa and Samoan contemporary lifeways, and their interaction with 'others' interconnect to inform Samoan identity. It is thus presented with respect, gratitude, deference, recognition and obligation, a tangible symbol of an alliance and an exchange with all Samoans and others. As the wellspring of my Samoan identity, in its creativity in design and fineness of weave, I hope that this 'ie toga will be received as a source of identity, history and wealth.

This thesis constitutes a site for New Zealand-born Samoans to explore issues of ethnic identity. The emphasis is on the process of the Samoanising of christianity, and hegemonic identity discourses of not only the dominant society but of island-born Samoans and elders, and how this contributes to New Zealand-born Samoan self perceptions. A socio-historical overview provides an understanding of the process in which New Zealand born Samoans have been positioned. The stories and narratives of a group of New Zealandborn Samoans concerning their life experiences provide valuable insights into their 'identity journeys'--the construction of ethnic identity through experimenting with subject positions over time, as a result of challenges to their percieved self-identities. For some, this journey ends with a secured identity--a self-satisfying ethnic identity as a New Zealand-born Samoan--others remain in a perpetual state of conscious or subconscious identity confusion. More specifically the thesis seeks to provide an understanding and an interpretation of the way fa'aSamoa, church, and life in New Zealand impacts on life choices and on the construction of the self, and secured identities. The identity journey is analysed as a ritual and a series of rites of passage in order to expose the structure of identity confusion, and to examine the dichotomy of chaos and conflict within an apparently ordered society, experienced by New Zealand-born Samoans during their identity journeys.The thesis is therefore underpinned by Samoan conceptual frameworks involved in this identity journey, and aims to consciousness-raise and emancipate by exposing, understanding and reclaiming the links between fa'aSamoa, church, and a New Zealand born Samoan identity.The thesis represents an 'ie toga, because like a fine mat being woven, the strands of Samoan history, fa'aSamoa and Samoan contemporary lifeways, and their interaction with 'others' interconnect to inform Samoan identity. It is thus presented with respect, gratitude, deference, recognition and obligation, a tangible symbol of an alliance and an exchange with all Samoans and others. As the wellspring of my Samoan identity, in its creativity in design and fineness of weave, I hope that this 'ie toga will be received as a source of identity, history and wealth.