Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DXN075761.

My senior art project is an exploration of contemporary representations of women of Asian descent in the United States, specifically looking at issues of body image, sexuality, and exotification. I will examine the lack of representation of Asian women in America in media and art, specifically painting and mixed media. Ultimately, I will elucidate on why I chose this topic and used certain techniques and materials to explore the contemporary features and symbolic representations of Asian women in America.

The AIMS of this study are to: (1) To explore how South Asian women (those who have ethnic origins in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh) make sense of the beta-thalassaemia trait in the context of their everyday experiences and, in turn, how these experiences impact their identities. (2) To ascertain the extent of the assimilation and management of genetic information by women of South Asian origin. (3) To contribute towards the debate on the provision of culturally sensitive screening policies and the dissemination of genetic information and to analyse ways in which such policies can be improved. STUDY DESIGN: A qualitative modified grounded theory study comprising of semi-structured interviews conducted in English, Urdu, Punjabi, Sylheti and Hindi. Five geographical sites were selected for the study: three in London, one in the West Midlands and a further site in Northern England based on their high density of South Asian populations as indicated by the 1991 UK Census data. Purposive sampling ensured diversity in participant backgrounds (e.g. socio-economic, religion, marital, child’s health and age). Interviews were translated and transcribed by the researcher and the computer software NVivo was used to analyse the data. SAMPLE: Forty-one South Asian women who had been diagnosed with the beta-thalassaemia trait and two haemoglobinopathy nurse specialists who undertook the role of counselling. FINDINGS: The empirical findings revealed the importance of identity, faith, culture and diversity in how women managed the knowledge of the beta thalassaemia trait. Common perceptions held by health service staff of South Asian women being homogenous in attitudes to prenatal diagnosis and termination; as subjugated to their husbands in decision-making; and as fatalistic because of their religious convictions were shown by this study to be misconceived. South Asian women actively managed their trait within the context of their everyday socio-cultural and religious experiences. For example, liberal notions of ‘informed choice’ were found not to take account of the institutional importance of motherhood for South Asian women living in the UK. Their experience of beta-thalassaemia trait was also mediated through relations of power, both within kinship networks and between family and health professionals. In making sense of the genetic identities accorded to them by health professionals, they also re-interpreted, negotiated and contested the ethos of the screening and prenatal testing processes. The participants used power and positionality to relocate their sense of genetic responsibility away from the self onto others, employing geographical and cultural explanations to justify their apparent inaction in the face of biomedical expectations and assumptions. CONCLUSION: Women acted according to their perceptions of how others would perceive them if their trait were to be disclosed and as a result they presented and constructed the trait in order to preserve the ‘self’ within the context of their everyday life experiences which has implications for the delivery of appropriately targeted screening and health services.

This body of research investigates how visual artists express ideas or meanings about Otherness and issues of belonging in their art. The focus of this study is on women artists with an (East) Asian diasporic background; however, the context of the inquiry includes other American and European artists of various cultural backgrounds. A further aim is to explore the artistic strategies and the historical circumstances of the works as well as to understand the theoretical correlations. The author of this study is a visual artist who has been exploring similar issues in her own artistic practice. In order to examine various themes of Otherness, selected pairs of artists – where at least one is a woman artist of (East) Asian diasporic background – are compared and analysed using the following four categories: literary devices (such as irony, parody, connotation or juxtaposition), reappropriation (cultural references which are reclaimed and transformed), anamorphic situations (distortion of conventional ways of viewing in order to become aware of other bodily senses and experiences), and theoretical correlations (connections between artistic practice and relevant theoretical concepts). The specific artists and artworks chosen are: Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1965) with Patty Chang’s Melons (at a Loss) (1998), Lorna Simpson’s work in the 1980s and 1990s with Nikki S. Lee’s Projects (1997-2001), Guillermo Gómez-Peña with Fiona Tan, and Yong Soon Min with Mona Hatoum. In addition, the author presents critical social and cultural developments that influenced these works such as the historical background of representations of Asian women in America, the rise of the Asian American movement, and the shift in contemporary art discourse from concerns of ‘identity politics’ to a ‘post-identity’ framework. Finally, correlations are made between the artistic strategies and relevant theoretical discussions about representations of race and gender, the role of power, knowledge, and truth in ethnographic practices of identification and categorization, and the function of place and ‘cultural identity’ in relation to concepts of origin and belonging. The results of this research confirm the significance of cultural, historical, and geographic experiences on both the conception and reception of visual art and indicate that various artistic strategies have the potential to expose and undermine culturally constructed meanings of difference. Despite the abundance of research conducted in this area, the scope and framework of this particular study are original not only because it is written from the perspective of a practicing artist, but also because the focus on artistic practices from women artists with (East) Asian diasporic backgrounds is located within a more wide-ranging investigation of artistic approaches that articulate and interrogate themes of Otherness.

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2010. / Title from screen (viewed on February 26, 2010). Department of Sociology, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Lynn Blinn-Pike, Carrie E. Foote, Betsy Fife. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-105).

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Western Australia, 2005.

Yes

Objectification and sexual aggression are common themes in pornography. However, there are only a handful of quantitative studies that examine the role of race in pornography that included Asian women, a population that has been fetishized extensively and historically portrayed as hypersexual in mainstream media. There were also no studies on the self-reported attitudes of viewers around this topic. 96 male university students took a survey measuring the frequency and perception of their pornography use, their acceptance of sexual aggression myths, their objectification of Asian women, and their propensity to agree with microaggressions about Asian women. Results indicated that while problematic pornography use had a moderate positive association with the objectification of Asian women and acceptance of microaggressions against Asian women, there was only a slight positive association between problematic pornography use and acceptance of sexual aggression myths. Results also indicated that the strength of one's acceptance of racial microaggressions against Asian women and their level of problematic pornography use positively predicted the likelihood of one's acceptance of sexual aggression myths.

The children born into the Canadian-Chinese community following the repeal of the Canadian Chinese Immigration Act (1923) were the first Chinese-Canadians to be born with full citizenship rights. After decades of isolation and segregation, the 1946 Canadian Citizenship Act transformed the limited citizenship of Chinese immigrants to full citizenship. Whether the parents of these children were Canadian or had just arrived, they could offer their children little guidance as Canadian citizens. The participants in the study are Canadian-born women, descendants from the four counties of Sun Wui, Hoi Ping, Toi San, and Yin Ping of the Pearl Delta District of Guangdong, China. Their region, dialect, class, gender, age, and ethnicity unite them. There were few Canadian-born Chinese from the time of the repeal until 1967 when Canada changed its immigration policy to a more equitable point system not based on race. This is an interdisciplinary study incorporating an anthropological interviewing methodology, an examination of Chinese-Canadian history and of Asian women in Hollywood films, and how these portrayals have impacted the contemporary societal perceptions of Chinese women. I have discussed Asian psychology, feminist, cultural, and film studies and how they relate to identity development. I examined the markers used by the participants to fashion their identity, looking at the themes of beauty, behaviour, language, culture, values, and expectations. I used oral history and narrative methodology through in-depth interviews to examine how the historical, economic, political, and socio-cultural contexts have influenced this generation of Canadian-born women of Chinese descent as they developed their identity in Canada. / Graduate / 0377 / 0326 / 0334 / gwongsne@uvic.ca