This dissertation demonstrates that a group of western women connected to May Maxwell through ties of faith and friendship exemplified a distinct form of early twentieth-century feminism in their adoption and promotion of the transplanted Bahá’í Faith. In actualizing their doctrinal principles, they worked to inaugurate a millennial new World Order predicated on the spiritual and social equality of women. This group championed a unique organizational structure and transnational perspective that propelled them to female leadership, both as inspirational models and agents of practical change. By examining how Bahá’í doctrines shaped the beliefs, mythologies, relationships and reform goals of women, this dissertation broadens understandings of the ways in which religion can act as a vehicle for female empowerment and transformative identity. Together, western early Bahá’í women built individual and collective capacity, challenging gender prescriptions and social norms. Their millennial worldview advocated a key role for women in shaping nascent Bahá’í culture, and initiating personal, institutional, and societal change. Their inclusive collaborative organizational style, non-western origins and leadership, diverse membership, and global locus of activity, made them one of the first groups to establish and sustain a transnational feminist reform network. Although in some respects this group resembled other religious, feminist, and reform-oriented women, identifiably “Bahá’í” features of their ideology, methodologies, and reform activities made them distinctive. This research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the role of women in the creation of modern religious and social mythologies and paradigms. A study of Bahá’í millennial religious feminism also expands current conceptions of the boundaries, diversities, and intersections of early twentieth-century western millennial, feminist, religious, and transnational reform movements.

The city of Toronto is one of most racially diverse places in the world, with almost half of its population identifying as being a “visible minority” (Statistics Canada, 2010). As a result, the field of education faces the question of how to meet the needs of their transforming student demographics. Numerous researchers and institutional policies have responded to these changes by endorsing the hiring of a teaching staff that is reflective of the racially diversifying student population (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2009; Ryan, Pollock, & Antonelli, 2009; Solomon, & Levine-Rasky, 2003). The assumption, however, that racialized educators will automatically be effective teachers or role models for racialized students homogenizes their social differences and reduces the multiplicity of their identities to the colour of their skin (Martino, & Rezai-Rashti, 2012). What is urgently lacking from these dominant discourses are the voices of racialized individuals, whose inside perspectives and lived experiences can provide valuable insights about the roles of equity and race in education. Using an anti-racist theoretical framework to guide my research methodology, this study examines how racialized teachers understand their classroom practices, school relationships, and institutional policies with respect to race, equity, and the expectations that are cast to them as “visible minority” educators. A document analysis of educational statements that discuss race, equity, and anti-racism reveals that while policy has progressed, the presentation of these issues remains largely superficial and does not provide enough information or transparency to adequately communicate their importance. Nevertheless, the power of these dominant discourses has been vastly significant in shaping the lived experiences and feelings of racialized teachers, 21 of whom were individually interviewed using a qualitative, semi-structured method. The inside perspectives of these teachers demonstrate the complexity of race and its inadvertent impact on their roles as educators; their feelings and reactions illustrate the ongoing gap between policy and practice, the ignorance that is embedded in notions of racial matching between teachers-students, and the persevering call for a professional community where individual differences are viewed as opportunities to learn rather than obstacles that need to be overcome.

The city of Toronto is one of most racially diverse places in the world, with almost half of its population identifying as being a “visible minority” (Statistics Canada, 2010). As a result, the field of education faces the question of how to meet the needs of their transforming student demographics. Numerous researchers and institutional policies have responded to these changes by endorsing the hiring of a teaching staff that is reflective of the racially diversifying student population (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2009; Ryan, Pollock, & Antonelli, 2009; Solomon, & Levine-Rasky, 2003). The assumption, however, that racialized educators will automatically be effective teachers or role models for racialized students homogenizes their social differences and reduces the multiplicity of their identities to the colour of their skin (Martino, & Rezai-Rashti, 2012). What is urgently lacking from these dominant discourses are the voices of racialized individuals, whose inside perspectives and lived experiences can provide valuable insights about the roles of equity and race in education. Using an anti-racist theoretical framework to guide my research methodology, this study examines how racialized teachers understand their classroom practices, school relationships, and institutional policies with respect to race, equity, and the expectations that are cast to them as “visible minority” educators. A document analysis of educational statements that discuss race, equity, and anti-racism reveals that while policy has progressed, the presentation of these issues remains largely superficial and does not provide enough information or transparency to adequately communicate their importance. Nevertheless, the power of these dominant discourses has been vastly significant in shaping the lived experiences and feelings of racialized teachers, 21 of whom were individually interviewed using a qualitative, semi-structured method. The inside perspectives of these teachers demonstrate the complexity of race and its inadvertent impact on their roles as educators; their feelings and reactions illustrate the ongoing gap between policy and practice, the ignorance that is embedded in notions of racial matching between teachers-students, and the persevering call for a professional community where individual differences are viewed as opportunities to learn rather than obstacles that need to be overcome.

Through the simple action of covering one’s head with the wrong type of apparel, at the wrong time, and in the wrong spaces, Black and racialized youth exist in a hostile environment where their identities are reconstructed and relabeled according to dominant economic-political needs. This study interrogates and ruptures dominant notions of how space, identity and power are constructed, confronted, engaged, negotiated and resisted by Black and racialized youth in greater Toronto Area (GTA) schools. In an atmosphere of zero-tolerance toward policing youth violence, the anti-gang focus of the Safe Schools headwear policies institutionalize a ‘colour-coded’ link between crime, violence and race. Through ethnographic narrative inquiry this study critically interrogates the multiplicity of ways how the collision between zero-tolerance approaches toward regulating school violence and the policing of specific types of headwear and bodies results in differential outcomes and impacts on Black students and other racialized groups.

Through the simple action of covering one’s head with the wrong type of apparel, at the wrong time, and in the wrong spaces, Black and racialized youth exist in a hostile environment where their identities are reconstructed and relabeled according to dominant economic-political needs. This study interrogates and ruptures dominant notions of how space, identity and power are constructed, confronted, engaged, negotiated and resisted by Black and racialized youth in greater Toronto Area (GTA) schools. In an atmosphere of zero-tolerance toward policing youth violence, the anti-gang focus of the Safe Schools headwear policies institutionalize a ‘colour-coded’ link between crime, violence and race. Through ethnographic narrative inquiry this study critically interrogates the multiplicity of ways how the collision between zero-tolerance approaches toward regulating school violence and the policing of specific types of headwear and bodies results in differential outcomes and impacts on Black students and other racialized groups.

Since summer 2016 France has experienced several episodes of “moral panic” about a three-pieces swimsuit worn by Muslim women, the “burkini”, whether on the occasion of attempts to ban it from beaches, or on the opposite to allow it in the swimming pools. These Islamophobic expressions are part of a French history of shaping the figure of “Muslim women”, controlling their bodies through their clothing, from “veil” to “burkini”, and silencing them. The present qualitative case study is grounded on the critical discourse analysis of external communication (website and social media) of 2 organizations that give voice to people identifying as both women and Muslims, adopting an intersectional approach. I was interested in the expression of their lived experiences on behalf of the group of “Muslim women”. I tried to answer the following research question: how these organizations that address intersectionality resist both the racial assignment of Muslim women, and the dominant discourse on the “burkini”? The analysis allowed me to explore two contributions of these organizations: the way in which they express resistance to the “white gaze”, which assigns them racially and gender-wise, and the way in which they express an alternative truth to this assignment, revealing who they are independently of this “white gaze”.

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This project provides a coalitional reading of Chinese Canadian literature, film, and history based on an allegorical framework of Asian-Indigenous relationalities. It tracks how Chinese labour stories set during the period of Chinese exclusion can not only leverage national belonging for Chinese settlers but also be reread for a different sense of belonging that remains attentive to other exclusions made natural by settler colonial discourses and institutional structures, that is, the disavowal of Indigenous presence and claims to sovereignty and autochthony. It contributes to important discussions about the experiences of racism and oppression that typically privilege the relations and tensions of diasporic and Indigenous communities but hardly with each other. What is more, this study aligns with a recent surge of interest in investigating Asian-Indigenous relations in Asian Canadian, Asian American, and Asian diaspora studies. The political investments driving this project show a deep commitment to anti-racist and decolonial advocacy. By examining how Chinese cultural workers in Canada have tried to do justice to the Head Tax generation’s experiences of racial exclusion and intersectional oppressions in fiction, non-fiction, graphic non-fiction, and documentaries, it asks whether there are ways to ethically assert an excluded and marginalized Chinese presence in the context of the settler colonial state. By doing justice to the exclusion of Chinese settlers in the national imaginary, do Chinese cultural workers as a result perform an injustice to the originary presence of Indigenous peoples? This thesis re-examines the anti-racist imperative that frames Chinese labour stories set during the period of Chinese exclusion in Canada: by exploring whether social justice projects by racially marginalized communities can simultaneously re-assert an excluded racialized presence and honour their treaty rights and responsibilities, it works to apprehend the colonial positionality of the Chinese diaspora within the Canadian settler state. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This project examines representations of Chinese labour and Asian-Indigenous relations in Chinese Canadian literature and film. By focusing on how Chinese Canadian writers and artists honour and remember the nation-building contributions and sacrifices of Chinese labourers in stories set in Canada during the period of anti-Chinese legislation policies such as the Chinese Head Tax and the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act, this thesis provides a critical look at the values and ideologies that these narratives may draw upon. It asks whether it is possible for writers and artists to commemorate Chinese labour stories without also extending the colonization of Indigenous peoples, forgetting the history of Asian-Indigenous relationships, or promoting work ethic values that may hinder community building with Indigenous peoples and respecting Indigenous ways of living and working off the land. This study explores questions of history, memory, national belonging, social justice, decolonization, and relationship building.

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