This thesis traces the forms and contexts of hunger strikes as they are represented in contemporary postcolonial fiction. I look specifically at three postcolonial novels: Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (2006), J.M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K (1983), and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988). The final work examined in this piece is a selection of prison writings by Bobby Sands, a non-fictional figure who underwent a hunger strike in 1981 in Long Kesh (otherwise known as the Maze Prison) in Northern Ireland.The historical and regional scope of this investigation is broad. The works presented are framed by very different socio-cultural backgrounds. The common thread that runs throughout the pieces is an engagement with the themes, motifs, and concerns of postcoloniality. The hunger strike is figured as a response to the pressures associated with the fractured form of postcolonial identity. This identity is informed by contemporary and historical engagements with colonial ideology. I utilise historical and sociological material in order to outline and trace an inherited legacy of this colonial ideology – specifically through a frame of hunger and deprivation as associated with imperial domination.The four chapters of this thesis examine one hunger-strike scenario apiece. In each instance, the bodily protest performed takes on a common form. The logic of the hunger strike relies on a division between mind and body. Using the four individuals analysed in this thesis I examine how the form of the hunger strike seeks to separate the realm of representation, which is associated with the mind, from the realm of the material, which is related to the body. The failure of each hunger strike is reflected in the indivisible relationship between representation and the material contexts they construct.Using this basic dichotomy, I consider how each text comments on, reacts to, and contains the categories of representation and the material. Through the lens of this oppositional binary I examine the relationship between historical colonial narratives and the texts and subjects that they produce, and are in turn produced by.

In this work I illustrate the ways in which power structures function in operationalizing geographies of resistance in two particular carceral spaces. Specifically I examine the social organization and internal power relations present within hunger striking prison populations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California. I show that the Guantanamo hunger strikes are minimally organized with non-binding power structures, while the Pelican Bay hunger strikes have had greater levels of commitment, and have been more sophisticated in organization. I consider the relationships that exist between power, identity and violence within these hunger strike resistance movements. I contextualize these phenomena within a biopolitical framework that transgresses more traditional definitions of biopolitics; as opposed to conceptualizing biopolitics as a technology of power manifested by the state, I argue that oppressed populations, such as prisoners, construct their own power by regulating their own ‘vital biological processes’.

Drawing from oral histories which I gathered while living in Bolivia, this thesis tracks the start, growth, and development of the political movement led by women from the Bolivian mines from 1961 to 1987. This movement helped create a new political culture that recognized the importance of women’s participation in politics and human rights. Today, this culture lives on. Bolivia has not experienced a coup since 1980, and the nation’s human rights record has improved dramatically since the 1980s as well. Prior to the mid-1980s, Bolivia was often under the control of oppressive military regimes that resorted to many different types of coercion in attempts to silence resistance in the mining centers, the national government’s main source of conflict. This uneven power struggle between working class activists and the national government motivated many women to challenge gender roles and involve themselves in politics. After establishing their political organization called the Housewives’ Committee, women activists organized and acted collectively to challenge political oppression and mitigate the effects of extreme poverty. They frequently employed compelling tactics, most commonly hunger strikes, to win attention for their issues. They also involved themselves in many other diverse projects and demonstrations depending on their communities’ need. Women’s political development resulted in a number of personal transformations among those who participated: it awakened a political consciousness and also enabled women to recognize the importance of their paid and unpaid work in the mining economy. These changes eventually altered women’s understanding of how women’s oppression fit into the broader struggle of working class activism by convincing them of the deep connection between women’s liberation and the liberation of their community. These transformations led to the acceptance of women as political activists and leaders, which continues in the present. This work also tracks the United States’ impact on the relationship between the mining centers and the state. This analysis serves to remind us that as United States citizens we must be very critical of our nation’s impact; because of our ability to enormously affect small land-locked countries like Bolivia, we must also hold ourselves accountable to understanding our historical impact so that we can make informed decisions in the present.

Drawing from oral histories which I gathered while living in Bolivia, this thesis tracks the start, growth, and development of the political movement led by women from the Bolivian mines from 1961 to 1987. This movement helped create a new political culture that recognized the importance of women’s participation in politics and human rights. Today, this culture lives on. Bolivia has not experienced a coup since 1980, and the nation’s human rights record has improved dramatically since the 1980s as well. Prior to the mid-1980s, Bolivia was often under the control of oppressive military regimes that resorted to many different types of coercion in attempts to silence resistance in the mining centers, the national government’s main source of conflict. This uneven power struggle between working class activists and the national government motivated many women to challenge gender roles and involve themselves in politics. After establishing their political organization called the Housewives’ Committee, women activists organized and acted collectively to challenge political oppression and mitigate the effects of extreme poverty. They frequently employed compelling tactics, most commonly hunger strikes, to win attention for their issues. They also involved themselves in many other diverse projects and demonstrations depending on their communities’ need. Women’s political development resulted in a number of personal transformations among those who participated: it awakened a political consciousness and also enabled women to recognize the importance of their paid and unpaid work in the mining economy. These changes eventually altered women’s understanding of how women’s oppression fit into the broader struggle of working class activism by convincing them of the deep connection between women’s liberation and the liberation of their community. These transformations led to the acceptance of women as political activists and leaders, which continues in the present. This work also tracks the United States’ impact on the relationship between the mining centers and the state. This analysis serves to remind us that as United States citizens we must be very critical of our nation’s impact; because of our ability to enormously affect small land-locked countries like Bolivia, we must also hold ourselves accountable to understanding our historical impact so that we can make informed decisions in the present.

abstract: Drawing from Foucault's notion of heterotopias, my dissertation identifies and examines three distinct but related events that resignified (re-imagined) Chile during 2010, the year of its Bicentenary, namely: the Rescue of the 33 Miners trapped in the San José mine, the Chilean Military Parade performed in celebration of Chilean Independence, and the Mapuche Hunger Strike of 32 indigenous people accused of terrorism by the Chilean State. My central hypothesis states that these three events constitute heterotopias with strong performative components that, by enacting a utopian and a dystopian nation, denounce the flaws of Chilean society. I understand heterotopias as those recursive systems that invert, perfect or contest the society they mirror. In other words: heterotopias are discursive constructions and material manifestations of social relations that dispute, support, or distort cultural assumptions, structures, and practices currently operating in the representational spaces of a given society. In addition to following the six heterotopological principles formulated by Foucault, these case studies have performance as the central constituent that defines their specificity and brings the heterotopias into existence. Due to the performative nature of these heterotopias, I have come to call them performance heterotopias, that is, sets of behaviors that enact utopias in the historical world, the place in which we live, the site in which "the erosion of our lives, our time and our history occurs," as Foucault puts it. Here, performance would act as the interface, the point of interaction, and suture between the conceived, the perceived and the representational spaces each heterotopia articulates. Thus, a performance heterotopia would be a particular type of heterotopia which is enacted through performance. A relevant aspect that emerged from my research is that heterotopic places not only mirror, contest, and compensate their own host society, but also refer to, and intersect with other contemporaneous heterotopias enacted in that society. In my conclusion I suggest that such interactions also happen between heterotopias that emerge in different countries and cultures. If so, the mapping of utopias enacted in the macro socio geographies of Latin American countries could offer new perspectives to understand the sociopolitical processes that are underway in the region. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Theatre 2011

Aim of this paper is to explain used forced feeding of hunger strikers at the U.S. Prison at Guantanamo, when this technique is prohibited in international law. I used the sociology of Michel Foucault, who devoted himself to the topic of imprisonment. His work is often used in the interpretation of what is happening at Guantanamo. With the help of these interpretations were generated two hypotheses. I tested compiled hypotheses in study of literature including news articles, research papers, reports of human rights organizations, legislation, interviews with former camp detainees or camp staff etc. We conclude that the prisoners at Guantanamo are not fed to be kept alive, but rather to be punished for a hunger strike protest. The conclusions highlight a new form of relationship between state and its citizens, which calls for more comprehensive analysis of current form of government, which we are not able to cover in this work.

Hunger strikes are used as a method of protest to call attention to grievances or political positions and galvanize support for a cause. Historical examples from pre-Christian Europe through Guantanamo Bay have demonstrated various motives, interventions, and outcomes to this unique form of protest. Starvation causes life-threatening damage to the body, and to intervene on an unwilling subject involves invasive medical procedures. As scholars have debated how to approach this medical-ethical dilemma, a tug-of-war exists between autonomy, beneficence, and social justice with regard to the rights of prisoners of war (POWs) and detainees. International documents, legislation, and case law demonstrate vast support for and place precedence on the prisoners right to make their own autonomous, informed medical decisions, and many in the international community lean towards abstaining from intervention on hunger strikes on the basis of patient autonomy. However, there are notable arguments both for and against force-feeding that have been well documented. Despite the vast international dialogue, there is a key component that seems to have been forgotten—the environment within which the prisoner or detainee resides is immersed with coercive and manipulative activity and interrogation on a regular basis. This environment may impede the ability for the POW or detainee to make an autonomous decision and then leads to the refusal of life-saving, medical intervention on the basis of a decision that is markedly coerced or manipulated. It is therefore noted that a different lens must be used to analyze hunger strike situations for this specific population. / Urban Bioethics

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-191).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisors: Mia Carter and Lisa Moore. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.