This research is about the Social Networks and Social Capital of British-Bangladeshi Young Women in relation to their identity, cultural context and social aspects. It is a qualitative study based on the lives of a small sample of Bangladeshi young women, who are second or third generation British-born Bangladeshis between the ages of 16 and 29, living in London. They are British citizens and were born or grew up in Britain. The main area that the research takes place in is the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Methods encompass in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. This research investigation has found that the social networks and social capital of Bangladeshi young women were impacted by their identity, ethnicity, social and cultural contexts, such as religious and gender identity, patriarchal practice within households and racism. Accordingly, for many women the construction of social networks was enabling; but for others, there were constraints in relation to their identity. On the other hand, the social networks through various places, especially places of study and work, significantly enabled the women to acquire their identity with regard to their social position, which has been helpful for agency and negotiation power. Consequently, their social networks were shaped based on their subjective experience, cultural expectations and social aspects. However, the women were active in order to create and maintain their social life, as well as to negotiate and develop their own ‘strategies to manage’ techniques to cope with the constraints. In this study, my main argument aims to emphasise how social networks are formed and maintained by the Bangladeshi young women in relation to their identity, cultural context and social aspects. I contend that these women actively negotiate a multitude of personal, familial and structural concerns in developing their social networks. I also argue that agency and negotiation power positively contribute to mitigate cultural constraints and inequalities with regard to the social networks of these young women; however social structures and inequalities create significant boundary conditions for these women to acquire negotiation power.

In nineteenth-century Cuba, patriarchy operated at all levels of society. Cuban elites prescribed the place of slaves and that of women. The idealized familial ordering, or the notion that elites benevolently governed society as a father did his family, provided a ready model for the maintenance of order. The male, father-figure occupied the highest position in the societal hierarchy, the female, mother-figure served as his "helpmate," and the children obeyed. Elites' children included their actual children as well as lower orders of Cuban whites, and blacks, both enslaved and free, child and adult. This work examines how patriarchy functioned outside the confines of the family unit by scrutinizing the theoretical foundation on which nineteenth-century Cuban patriarchy rested, and investigating how patriarchy functioned as a method of social control for elite and non-elite women, as well as the enslaved women of Cuba. Through an examination of family, marriage, divorce, public charity, and education, this study provides insight into the Caribbean's longest lasting slave society. Over the last twenty years, scholars have increasingly recognized the important role of gender in the study of slavery in the Americas. However, gendered analysis of nineteenth-century Cuban slave society has yet to attract the same level of scholarly inquiry as have other Latin American nations. Based on a variety of archival and printed primary sources, my study illuminates how gender provides an important lens of analysis for nineteenth-century Cuban society. My project uses gender to examine nineteenth-century Cuban history in order to explore how patriarchy functioned in the lives of both white women and women of color. Moreover, it analyzes the social constructions of gender within the context of race and class. The study of gender implies a relational concept. Gender’s social construction, for both men and women, means it cannot be studied in a female vacuum. The work focuses on women, although in order to understand them better I also examine the place of men. Notions of discourse and power provide insight into the social constructions of gender and further the analysis of women who have long been held at society’s margins. / PhD

The main aim in this study is to understand how gendered subjectivities are constructed in political thought in early republican Turkey. In this respect, problematizations on gender, the main themes utilized in these problematizations and the operation of patriarchy in these intellectual activities are analyzed in the study. In doing so, the texts published in eight journals between 1929-1946 are examined employing a post-structuralist feminist theoretical framework, to which clarifications are proposed drawing on the works of Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt to make it befit the particular aims of the study. It is argued in the study that the political discourses prevalent in early republican era utilized gender in producing utility and docility from individuals and in advancing the population quantitatively and qualitatively. At the heart of the problematizations and discourses on gender differences was the aim of structuring the public and private lives of the individual men and women in such a way that they become politically, socially, economically, culturally and, most importantly, biologically productive. This led to a transformation in the models governing theforms of patriarchal production of and control on gendered individuals and patriarchal power relations began to be modeled after disciplinary power, instead of sovereign power, that is (re)public(an) patriarchy began to become the dominant form, instead of private patriarchy. As a result, new forms of social control and new frameworks for organizing the roles of individual women and men in public, social and private realms emerged.

Through the life story narratives of Ethiopian women activists, this research explores the journey of Ethiopian women activists during three political and historical periods (1955–1974; 1974–1991; 1991–2015). Thus, the study proposes a new perspective on the forms of Ethiopian women’s activism and subsequently the different types of feminism emerging from their narratives. Through examination of how the activists reflect on, reconstruct and give meaning to their life stories, this research unravels that their activism is informed by feminist principles. It also exposes that it is shaped by a long history of resistance to patriarchy, which enabled women in traditional Ethiopia to negotiate a certain level of “autonomy and liberty”. Contrary to the general expectation, the research demonstrates that the process of modernization (read: westernization) came with its own structure based on western patriarchy, and reinforced local patriarchy. In this new, formalized patriarchy, the rights that women had negotiated through their resistance in earlier times were diminished. This study on women activists, categorized for the purpose of this research as pioneers, revolutionaries and negotiators, suggests that Ethiopian women activists have since adopted different forms of engagement that tend to improve the social, cultural, economic and political conditions of Ethiopian women. Consequently, I argue that, while Ethiopian women’s activism and feminism is firmly embedded in the history of resistance of previous generations of Ethiopian women, the form of activism varies according to the political and historical context in which the activists negotiate and adapt the way they act.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:16:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Inez Barboza Marques.pdf: 8251625 bytes, checksum: b4660a8920e08666a3ebd08405dae96e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-06-22 / As part of sex social relations, sexual division of labor is intrinsic to social division of labor in the capitalist system context which exploits men and women workforce and imprints a perverse exploitation/domination logic, affecting male and female workers in different socio-occupational spaces, including the Social Work profession and the work of teachers in this area. In addition, sexual division of labor must be seen through its space and time dynamics, including other reality components such as social, political, economic and cultural. From a capitalist production restructuring context and the Brazilian State Reform, education, universities and the work of teachers adopted the mercantile logic imposed by the capital movement at the global level. In this context, universities fall into a crisis and the precariousness of the teachers work is confirmed. Taking these dimensions consideration, the general objective of this research is to analyze the sexual division of labor and its expressions on the work of Social Work teachers, having as starting point the flexible accumulation of the 70 s and its impact on the Social Work Courses from Paraná State University (UNESPAR), at the Apucarana and Paranavaí campuses. The research is characterized as qualitative, using interviews together with reflective action which made the participation of the subjects (male and female) more dynamic. At the end of the process, it was possible to verify that, besides the sexual division of labor, the work of teachers is permeated by a knowledge and power division, present, inclusively, in the construction of Science, particularly at UNESPAR and in the Social Work courses at Paranavaí and Apucarana, in the State of Paraná / Como parte das relações sociais de sexo, a divisão sexual do trabalho é intrínseca à divisão social do trabalho no contexto do sistema capitalista que explora a força de trabalho de homens e mulheres e imprime uma lógica perversa de exploração/dominação, atingindo trabalhadores e trabalhadoras em diferentes espaços sócio-ocupacionais, incluindo a profissão do Serviço Social e o trabalho docente nesta área. Além disso, a divisão sexual do trabalho deve ser vislumbrada em sua dinâmica no espaço e no tempo, atingindo outros componentes da realidade, sejam eles sociais, políticos, econômicos ou culturais. A partir do contexto da reestruturação produtiva do capitalismo e da contrarreforma do Estado no Brasil, a educação, as universidades e o trabalho docente entram na lógica da mercantilização imposta pelo movimento do capital em nível mundial. Nesse âmbito, aprofunda-se a crise nas universidades e é concretizada a precarização do trabalho docente. Tendo como norte essas dimensões, a pesquisa teve como objetivo geral analisar a divisão sexual do trabalho e suas expressões no trabalho docente em Serviço Social, tomando como ponto de partida a acumulação flexível da década de 1970 e suas repercussões nos Cursos de Serviço Social na Universidade Estadual do Paraná (UNESPAR), nos campi de Apucarana e Paranavaí. A pesquisa caracterizou-se como qualitativa, através da realização de entrevistas aliadas à ação reflexiva, que dinamizou a participação dos sujeitos e sujeitas. Ao final do processo, foi possível constatar que, para além da divisão sexual do trabalho, o trabalho docente é permeado pela divisão do saber e do poder, presentes, inclusive, na construção da ciência, particularmente na UNESPAR e nos cursos de Serviço Social em Paranavaí e Apucarana, no Estado do Paraná