My auto/ethnographical journey stems from my experience where, as an I-m-migrant, I feel like I live in the hy-phens negotiating between “a here, a there and an elsewhere” (Trinh, 2011), straddling cultures, homelands, I-dentities, and languages. This identity crisis has made me quest/ion how other i-m-migrant women, especially the Indo-Canadian women in Ottawa, navigate their hyphe-nated existence(s) with/in these liminal spaces which are both home and not-home. As both insider and outsider, I engaged in complicated conversations with Indo-Canadian women to hear about their live(d) experiences and to understand the process of my / our be/com/ing’ and be/long/ing in these hybrid spaces. The questions that guided me through this inquiry are: How do Indo-Canadian women re-produce and re-create this notion called home? What are some of influences of (im)migration on this notion of ho[me]? How do they navigate and per/form their hyphenated currere with/in these hybrid liminal spaces which are both home and not-home? What do these performances dis/close about the women’s understanding of their lives in the hyphens? Through a post-colonial, feminist perspective, and drawing from qualitative research methodologies such as “autoethnography” (Ellis, 2003), “bricolage” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008; Kincheloe, 2001), “narrative inquiry” (Clandinin, 2013), and “found poetry” (Butler-Kisber, 2010), I perform a “literary métissage” (Hasebe-Ludt, Chambers & Leggo, 2009) of the live(d) narratives of women who, like me, are members of the Indo-Canadian diaspora. I juxtapose our conversations with artifacts, photographs, recipes, and literary pieces that depict our hyphe-nation(s). From an educational perspective, I hope that my “performance [auto]ethnography” (Alexander, 2000) of ho[me]stories of Indo-Canadian women will become a “living pedagogy” and have “the potential to become trans/formative curriculum inquiry” (Hasebe-Ludt, et al, 2009), which might help to de/construct the stereotypical image of the “universal Indian woman” (Sharma, 2009).

Most contemporary organizations make use of computer-based information systems to support their management activities. There is considerable evidence that many of these systems experience problems during the development phases and a large proportion of these systems may, using specific criteria, be classed as failures. The reported high level of such failure in the development of computer-based information systems is not a new phenomenon for business, having been present almost from the inception of these systems. The frameworks that guide developers through the process can be labelled as information systems development methodologies, or ISDMs.For an educator involved with the teaching of some or all aspects of the development process this perceived high level of failure of systems development and implementation in practice raises some significant concerns. If there is a 'silver bullet' approach that students need to be equipped with to become successful systems developers we need to identify it and ensure that they are proficient with it. If there is no silver bullet we need to acknowledge this in our teaching and equip the students with the critical thinking skills to help them appreciate this in their later practice.This thesis takes as its central theme the view that there is currently no 'silver bullet' and one may never be found to fit all development projects and environments. Under such a constraint our students, as would-be practitioners, need to be helped to approach practice unfettered by a naïve belief that there is a single approach that offers guaranteed success in the development of information systems. Flexible, contingent and possibly creative approaches need to be fostered so that students can both work in the field and can contribute to both the overall understanding of that field and to their own personal development. The thesis considers the role of multiple perspectives, constructivism, language, communication and reflection as vehicles to allow the building and sharing of accessible understanding of information systems development methodologies in a tertiary education setting. The issues are explored through the design and development of a Masters course titled 'Information Systems Development Methodologies' that was designed and implemented at the University of South Australia in the period 1999 to 2008. The course was initially designed within an interpretivist paradigm and rather than following a traditional systems analysis and design path could be viewed more as a liberal arts course. However, as the course moved towards the end of its life it began to take on a more positivistic flavour.The story of the course emerged from a series of action learning cycles and is told from the perspective of the author who was both the researcher and the subject of the research.

Several researchers have called for further research devoted to exploring positive psychology constructs among African Americans. In the present study, I addressed the aforementioned calls for African American positive psychology and existentialism research by utilizing the autoethnographic approach to explore the processes and resources that four African Americans accessed to critically think about and make sense of their lived experiences. Given the current sociopolitical climate, I wanted to intentionally use my academic and class privilege to amplify the voices and strivings of four African Americans for survival and meaning in life. I utilized the autoethnographic approach to share my personal narrative of developing critical consciousness to explain the contextual factors influencing my worldview. For this dissertation study, I also conducted in-depth interviews with three other African Americans over a series of interview sessions to explore what made their lives meaningful. A thematic analysis of the participant data was conducted to analyze and identify emergent themes. The thematic analysis produced six emergent themes and 18 subthemes to contextual powerful influences shaping their perceptions of meaning in life, existence and critical consciousness development. I am hopeful that readers will gain four different perspectives on how, as African Americans, the participants define and understand their existence, facets of life that make their lives meaningful, and how they have come to make sense of their worlds.

Stand-up comedy represents a particularly potent form of rhetorical and performative criticism because of its potential duality. On the surface, a comedy set can look breezy and entertaining while containing a sharper, more critical message underneath. Like a fluffy, besprinkled cupcake hiding a potent antibiotic, stand-up comedy offers potentially healing insight under the cover of whimsy. Comedians have always utilized their performances to skewer those in power, but an increasing number have taken to the stage recently to address a particularly insidious social and cultural malady. The stigma associated with mental illness continues to limit the opportunities of those living with mental disorders, meaning comedians utilizing their performances to push back against this stigma represent a significant form of anti-mental-illness-stigma advocacy. In this dissertation, I argue that stand-up comedy is a uniquely subversive and resistant communicative act that enables performers to combat the stigma associated with mental illness. Grounding my discussion in literature about mental illness and two of the most common disorders, anxiety and depression, I construct an original performance criticism evaluative framework derived from three anti-stigma-advocacy techniques: protest, educate, and contact. While these techniques offer guidance for any kind of anti-stigma advocacy, I draw them into the realm of anti-mental-illness-stigma advocacy by utilizing my framework in a performance criticism of stand-up performances by Aparna Nancherla, Maria Bamford, Bo Burnham, and Chris Gethard—four comics known for discussing their mental health onstage. Moreover, I weave autoethnographic responses to each performance throughout my analysis to showcase the power of these cases of comedic anti-mental-illness-stigma advocacy to alter my perspective on my own anxiety.Ultimately, this dissertation demonstrates the potential of stand-up comedy as anti-mental-illness-stigma advocacy by chronicling my own growth in response to the work of these comedians. It also identifies aspects of stand-up that may be potentially useful to other kinds of anti-stigma advocacy. Additionally, the framework created and used in this dissertation provides both a rubric for future anti-stigma performance criticism and a blueprint for creating anti-stigma performance. Stand-up comedy is a significant performance genre and stand-up comedians can launch biting critiques that cultivate greater cultural citizenship for the marginalized and disenfranchised. A significant number of people will undoubtedly continue to spot the silly facade of stand-up comedy and look past the deeper insight, even though it can educate an audience, protest misinformation, and provide opportunities for contact between otherwise unfamiliar demographics. My effort here is to value stand-up comedy as a powerful communicative act because it has changed my life and will continue to incite change for many others. And that’s no joke.

The objective of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of the rehearsal plan in the preparation of Brazilian art songs. This disquisition proposes a rehearsal plan model based on the concept of the class plan used in the field of education. The rehearsal plans were applied in a series of rehearsals with two singers at North Dakota State University in which we worked on four art songs composed by the Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone (1897-1986). This qualitative study adopted the autoethnography as research method. In this autoethnographic research I worked both as researcher and as pianist in the rehearsals. This disquisition relied upon two axes of theoretical framework, one musical and one educational: the musical axis was formed of studies regarding performance and preparation of art songs as developed by Katz (2009), Kimball (2006), Stein and Spillman (1996), Moore (1984), Bernac (1978), and Adler (1971). The educational axis was based on the studies of Libâneo (2006) and Coll, Pozo, Sarabia, and Valls (1998) and provided the concept, philosophical basis, structure, and applicability of the class plan. This educational axis also included studies supporting the effectiveness of the rehearsal plan in various musical contexts, such as Gorelick (2001), Brunner (1996), and Figueiredo (1990). The research data revealed that the rehearsal plan was an effective pedagogical tool in the preparation of Brazilian art songs. The rehearsal plans provided outlines of clear objectives and focused rehearsal strategies and facilitated the development and application of specific rehearsal strategies for art song performance preparation. The plans also promoted connectivity between rehearsals and a sense of accomplishment for the pianist and singers. In addition, the rehearsal plans detailed the preparation of Brazilian art songs with respect to three distinct dimensions of knowledge: conceptual, practical, and attitudinal.

<p>Identity tensions in religious organizations has become a popular research area in organizational communication within recent decades. This study endeavors to investigate lesbian identity tension within the evangelical, college-based organization Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) with the guiding research question: How do lesbian former members of Cru and former Cru staff discursively navigate identity tensions regarding homosexuality within the organization? Through surveys of six lesbian former members of Cru and eight former Cru staff, this essay demonstrates a nuanced perspective of identity tension between homosexuality and Christianity in the United States and highlights common themes from all participants: anxiety, frustration, fear, shame, and regret. Utilizing structuration theory and feminism as overarching theoretical frameworks to shape the discussion on sexuality, race, identity, and concertive control, the unique narratives of the participants’ surveys and interviews provide new insights on the struggles of LGBTQ individuals within the de facto anti-gay organization, Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru). Interspersed throughout the work are autoethnographic vignettes from the author that serve as complementary narratives to demonstrate emotion as epistemology. This study provides a brand-new application of popular organizational communication theories to an underrepresented population (lesbians) in an understudied organization (Cru) to contribute to the ongoing research on identity tension in religious organizations.</p>

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abstract: This dissertation develops a heuristic—one I call the iterative narrative reflection framework—for rhetorically engaged, data-driven teacherly theory building using Kenneth Burke’s frames of acceptance and rejection. Teacher-scholars regularly develop curricula and lesson plans informed by theory and prior experience, but the daily practice of teaching and learning with students rarely plays out as expected. In many cases, institutional constraints and the unpredictable lives of students interact with teachers’ plans in surprising and sometimes confounding ways. Teachers typically make sense of such challenges by constructing post-hoc narratives about what happened and why, attributing motives and agencies to other participants in ways that suggest how to respond, move forward, and get back on track. Whether such narratives are part of a deliberate practice of reflection or an informal and largely unnoticed mental process, they are rarely thought of as constructed accounts and therefore as rhetorical acts that can be subjected to serious review, criticism, and revision. Yet these stories are shaped by familiar genre conventions that influence interpretations of events and motives in ways that may or may not serve well as teachers consider how best to respond to unfolding events. Using the iterative narrative reflection framework to guide my analysis of my own teacherly narratives through multiple layers of reflection and criticism, I demonstrate across the dissertation’s three cases how such deliberate, methodical analysis can reveal tacit assumptions and additional interpretive possibilities. Ultimately, such a process of iterative reflection enables the teacher-scholar to choose from among a wider range of available means of persuasion and pedagogical possibilities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The aim of my research is twofold: to analyze the discourses of affective trauma, injustice and identity in the personal language narratives of the Academic Literacy (AL) students enrolled in University of the Western Cape’s (UWC) Bachelor of Education Degree. The other major objective is to examine these discourses through an autoethnographic and egalitarian lens by drawing from the students’ real-life worlds via their respective narratives, classroom observations, interviews and survey. Through the analyses of their stories and the other data instruments, my study examines in particular the relationship between what is expected of them academically and the life-worlds that preceded their entry to the university.

<p>  </p> <p>The following thesis is an autoethnographic study that looks at narratives about communicative events and the social context that impacted the formation of identity, the deconstruction of identity and the reconstruction and integration of multiple identities housed in one body. The focus of the autoethnography is the lived experience of a mixed ethno-racial woman of Mexican heritage and Caucasian identity and how communicative events of validation and invalidation impacted the perceived identity of the individual. The conclusions drawn from the analysis stands as such. First, current theories and methods used to explore identity have limitations and the language and labels we use are inadequate. Second, while external factors including a person’s in-groups and out-groups as well as the social context impact ones perceived identity, through integration of one’s multiplicity of identity, we choose how much we allow it to impact our chosen identity.</p>