The chief preoccupation of the dissertation revolves around the European Union's project of calling forth a collective sense of "European identity" amongst people in the Union. It focuses specifically on how the European Union's identity politics plays out once the ethnic minorities with immigrant background now living in the Union are brought into view. The main purpose can be described as twofold; involving, firstly, a mapping and examination of how the EU construes and defines the identity it seeks to mobilize, and, secondly, a thorough discussion of the types of consequences or implications that stem from this endeavour. In demonstrating the strong tendency on part of the EU to articulate a common identity for the Union in ethno-cultural terms — whereby the EU is conceived as primarily a cultural community whose members are said to share the same origin, cultural heritage, religion and history — the study goes to great length in discussing the excluding implications that an ethno-cultural identity politics gives rise to. The dissertation argues that such an ethno-cultural disposition partly must be seen in light of the European Union's gradual adjustment to a largely neoliberal order; an order which has worked restraining on the feasibility of a social and political articulation of identity and citizenship in the Union. An introductory chapter outlines the discourse theoretical approach which guides the analyses in five essays. The essays mainly explore how the European Union's discourse on identity manifests in various policy areas - immigration, citizenship and education - all of which in one way or another address the issues of culture, the multicultural society, ethnic exclusion, racism and the situation for ethnic minorities and migrants. The complex of problems concerning ethnic, cultural and social exclusion in today's European Union thus constitutes a central theme engaged with throughout the dissertation. / digitalisering@umu

Abstract Toni Morrison¡¦s Song of Solomon deals with the African Americans¡¦ history of fighting for self-independence, while exposing their difficulties in forming a viable cultural identity. Focusing on the politics of naming, the motif of flight, and the constitution of African American manhood, Toni Morrison in this novel aims to provide a different reading/writing of African American history whereupon her people can develop an alternative strategy of identification politics. In this thesis, I problematize the notion of democracy¡Vthe ordained rights of human beings to pursuit liberty, happiness and prosperity¡Vby articulating the idea of the American Dream with African Americans¡¦ experiences of self-realization in a so-called democratic society. The purpose is to discuss whether or not African Americans can reverse and utilize their marginalized position as a critical stance for self-articulation to undo the racists¡¦ misnaming on African American people. With a special emphasis on Milkman¡¦s improvisation of the meanings of his family name, Dead, I discuss how the African Americans¡¦ distinctive way of double-talk can facilitate them to negotiate the apparent dualism to inscribe their hybridized identity and how this kind of creativity can help them produce an alternative narrative of their traumatizing as well as truncated history. Also, I intend to analyze both the limitation and liability of conventional psychoanalytic paradigm which is blind to the specificity of African American manhood and the problems peculiar to African American family. Though it is an undeniable historical fact that the African Americans do suffer from the aftermath of plantation slavery, they should be able to empower themselves by re-imagining a collective ancestry as a strategy to formulate an applicable identification politics. While narrating an inspiring genealogy for her people, Toni Morrison wraps up this novel with an open ending. This arrangement suggests to her people that the significations of their cultural identities be opened to further contestation and re-definition.

The idea for this study was evoked from a number of observations that we did in relation to our personal interest for feminism and gender studies. We have noticed tendecies of identity politics in feminist web­based discussion forums, which have led to intermutual conflicts within the feminist movement. Discussions of great importance between the members of these discussion forums, have oftentimes ended up being matters of interpretative prerogative, and to whom it belongs, as well as questions about who holds authority to claim which opinion, and why one holds authority to claim any opinion at all. We read this phenomenon as a matter of power configuration ­ for even within these formed groups of people that are oppressed in the western majority culture, relations including roles with oppressing positions as well as roles with oppressed positions emerge. In this study we have chosen to focus on a certain type of identities that are frequently stressed when conflicts emerge in these web­based forums, namley transgender identities. The purpose of this paper is to bring forward the narratives of people with transgender identities, about their experienced possibilites to word in feminist web­based discussion forums, as well as analyze the discourses of power that figures in these forums. The material for this study was collected through qualitative interviews, which were made with four different respondents. All of which having experience of being transgender and members of different feminist web­based forums. The analysis in turn consists of essential recitals by the respondents, which are resolved from a discourse theoretical perspective. According to discourse theory, power configurations between people are made from a variation of factors that determine the directions of power, and are constantly reformed from one moment to another. From the recitals of our respondents we understand that there are several power discourses prevailing concurrently in the feminist web­based discussion forums, and that there is no binary and consistent divergence between the oppressing position and the oppressed position. A person whose identity validates its power in one discussion, can be totally powerless because of its identity in another.

In 1991, a diplomatic controversy arose between Greece and the newly independent Republic of Macedonia, regarding naming, minority rights and the use of historical symbols. The claims of the new state to the name Macedonia and the historical heritage associated with it were perceived as a threat against Greek national identity and history itself. Within months, the so-called Macedonian question came to dominate the Greek domestic and foreign policy agenda. In Greek public debate, the conflict blended with concerns about the nation’s past, present and future, which played into the challenges brought about by the end of the Cold War. The Macedonian conflict can thus be understood as symptomatic of a crisis in Greek historical culture, as well as a catalyst for broader concerns about the role of history in contemporary society. This study explores the contexts in which the conflict evolved and how history was perceived, narrated and used by institutions, communities and individuals who sought to influence public opinion and policy-makers. The theoretical point of departure is the concept of historical culture, defined as the totality of discourses through which a society makes sense of itself, the present and the future through the interpretation of the past. In the study of historical culture, the notions of narratives and uses of history have been employed, with the notion of boundary-work as a supplementing analytical tool. The material of the study is primarily drawn from mainstream press, but also includes historiography. The study shows how the Macedonian controversy was intertwined with the identity- and memory-political demands of substate actors. Particular attention is paid to the emergence of a narrative on genocide among Greeks of Pontian origins. This happened in an age when traditional notions of national pride were being challenged by transnational history-cultural concerns about human rights and the notion of national guilt. The study also sheds light on how academic historians dealt with issues brought about by demands for politically committed scholarship, objectivity, legitimacy and the need to adjust in a transnational setting. / Denna studie har sin utgångspunkt i de utmaningar som det grekiska samhället och nationalstaten stod inför vid kalla krigets slut. I fokus står den diplomatiska konflikten mellan Grekland och republiken Makedonien, gällande den senare partens namn och bruk av historiskt laddade symboler samt minoritetsrättigheter. Denna makedonska konflikt som seglade upp i samband med Jugoslaviens sammanbrott kom att dominera den in- och utrikespolitiska dagordningen i Grekland under det tidiga 1990-talet, och förde tidvis in landet på kollisionskurs med dess västeuropeiska och amerikanska partners. Avhandlingens syfte har bestått i att spåra de sammanhang som denna konflikt växte fram i. Jag hävdar att den makedonska konflikten inte endast skall förstås som en kris i grekisk inrikespolitik, eller i landets relationer med omvärlden, utan fastmer som en kris i den grekiska historiekulturen. I det offentliga samtalet i Grekland smälte konflikten samman med en oro gällande nationens förflutna, nutid och framtid. Den diplomatiska fejden med den nya grannstaten i norr uppmärksammades av en bred allmänhet och åtföljdes av en diskurs som utmålade den egna nationens historia och arv som hotade. Studiet av denna diskurs, eller rättare sagt diskurser, om historia är ett viktigt mål i denna avhandling, eftersom det belyser uppfattningar om det förflutna jämte farhågor rörande nuet och nationens framtid, uppfattningar och farhågor som ytterst präglade den politiska krisen. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien återfinns i begreppet historiekultur. Med detta avses de samtliga diskurser genom vilka ett samhälle begripliggör sig självt, nuet och framtiden genom att tolka det förflutna. Sålunda definierad skall historiekultur förstås som både struktur och process. Det innebär att historiekulturen är både ramverket av kunskap, attityder och värderingar som ger den enskilde mening och sammanhang, och samhällen deras sammanhållning, och själva handlingen genom vilka ovansagda skapas och förmedlas. Som redskap för att studera historiekultur har begreppen berättelser och historiebruk använts. Eftersom studien särskilt uppmärksammar fackhistorikers roll i konflikten – viktiga i egenskap av aktörer som skapar och sprider den kunskap och de värderingar som utgör historiekultur – har även ett vetenskapssociologiskt perspektiv infogats. Offentliga kontroverser rörande det förflutna inbegriper kamp om trovärdigheten i vissa tolkningar liksom hos dem som framför dem. Som kompletterande analysredskap brukas begreppet gränsdragning (boundary-work), utifrån uppfattningen att vetenskapen bör studeras i det sociala sammanhang i vilket den bibringas mening och auktoritet. Historiekultur studeras genom dess lämningar. I föreliggande avhandling utgörs källmaterialet främst av artiklar i grekisk dagspress, men även historieskrivning (akademisk såväl som icke-akademisk) i bokform, vetenskapliga tidskrifter och andra relevanta trycksaker där historia debatteras, berättas, sätts in i sammanhang och brukas, har studerats. Materialet täcker ingalunda grekisk historiekultur i hela dess vidd men utgör likväl ett representativt urval av de arenor där såväl allmänhet som specialister mötte diskurser och debatter om det förflutna. 324 Studien har kartlagt de sätt på vilka historia brukades med särskilt avseende på de intressen som kan skönjas däri. Själva upplevelsen av kris tog sig uttryck i ett existentiellt historiebruk, kopplats till ett sökande efter rötter och kontinuitet som närdes av fruktan för krig, rotlöshet och kulturell minnesförlust. Det upplevda yttre hotet mot Grekland beskrevs ofta i termer av en hotande utmaning gentemot den nationella identiteten och nationens överlevnad, men också som en möjlighet att återupprätta en samlande nationell berättelse. Samtidigt brukades historia med både kommersiella och politiska mål i sikte, eftersom det nationella förflutna sågs som en moralisk, politisk och ekonomisk tillgång. Ett framträdande drag i debatten var ett politiskt historiebruk som syftade till att utmana en upplevd vänsterhegemoni som utmålades som ett hinder för nationell enighet och främjandet av Greklands utrikespolitiska målsättningar i utlandet. Men historia kunde även brukas politiskt för att visa på nationalismens avarter. Särskild uppmärksamhet har ägnats åt det moraliska historiebruket. Detta är ett bruk som utmanar vad som utpekas som förhärskande föreställningar och därför är ett medel för historiekulturens förändring. Historieproducenter längs med den politiska skalan tenderade att utforma sina berättelser i kritisk och moralistisk anda, även om syftet ofta var att bevara en traditionell förståelse av nationell historia och identitet. Emellertid är det berättelser som utmanar den nationella tolkningsramen som undersökts särskilt noggrant. Det moraliska historiebruket hänger samman med hur den makedonska frågan nyttjades till att främja minnespolitiska krav. I detta sammanhang har särskild uppmärksamhet riktats mot den slaviskmakedonska minoritetsaktivismen som prisade etnisk särart och anklagade den grekiska staten för diskriminering. Dess historiebruk underblåste föreställningar om ett överhängande hot mot den grekiska nationalstaten och tilltalade som sådant också grupperingar inom den grekiska vänstern, som i den slaviskmakedonska kritiska berättelsen såg ett medel till förändring av rådande samhällsordning och den nationella historiekulturen, genom att blottlägga statens ”ideologiska historiebruk”. En grupp som brukade historien moraliskt och som i viss utsträckning även länkade sin minnespolitiska dagordning till den makedonska frågan återfanns bland de pontiska grekerna. Studien har belyst hur en pontisk identitet knuten till en berättelse om folkmord i Turkiet och en historia av diskriminering i Grekland växte fram i senare delen av 1980-talet och erkändes av staten 1994. Medan kapitel 3 utforskar det lokala historiekulturella landskapet i det grekiska Makedonien, belyser kapitel 4 även de förbindelser som pontiska aktivister sökte upprätta med historiska berättelser utanför den nationella historiens ramverk, huvudsakligen det armeniska folkmordet och förintelsen. Förhållandet mellan politik och historia, mellan kritiska berättelser som utmanade förhärskande uppfattningar i nationella frågor och dem som försvarade den förda politikens legitimitet och den officiella historieskrivningen, står i fokus för kapitel 5. Den makedonska konflikten medförde kolliderande anspråk på expertis inom vetenskapssamhället – mellan ämnesdiscipliner och enskilda forskare – såväl som mellan fackmän och lekmän, vilket tog sig uttryck i retoriska 325 uteslutningsmekanismer. För somliga bar den allmänna betoningen av nationell historia ett löfte med sig om finansiering och förstärkt prestige åt dem som hade denna inriktning. Andra uppfattade den makedonska krisen och historieskrivning med nationella och politiska förtecken som ett direkt hot mot den fria forskningen och Greklands överlevnad som ett demokratiskt samhälle. Den akademiska autonomin som föreföll hotad skyddades genom att insistera på en skiljelinje mellan historia som vetenskap respektive som ”ideologiskt bruk” för politiska ändamål. Detta försök att återupprätta konsensus inom vetenskapssamhället genom att vädja till professionens etiska principer blev också en utväg för historiker som med tiden sökte distansera sig från en förd politik som uppfattades som skamfilad och nationalistisk. Analysen har visat på de sammanhang i vilka den makedonska krisen växte fram och hur farhågorna för och bruket av historia kan förstås. Den första av dessa kontexter är den inrikespolitiska, närmare bestämt det grekiska samhällets demokratisering efter 1974. I det nya pluralistiska klimatet införlivades delar av den tidigare förföljda vänsterns kritiska berättelse om det nära förflutna i statens historieskrivning. Övergången från ett auktoritärt samhälle och historiekultur till en ökad öppenhet banade även väg för missnöjda gruppers identitetspolitik (slaviska makedoner, pontiska och andra anatoliska greker), grupper vars historiebruk naggade de gamla nationella och ideologiska stora berättelserna i kanten. Vid tiden för kalla krigets slut 1989 hade en allmänt spridd besvikelse gentemot de politiska ideologierna, i synnerhet socialismen, medfört en motreaktion till förmån för en mer traditionell nationalism. Det andra betydelsefulla sammanhanget återfinns i den europeiska integrationen som följde på Greklands EG-inträde 1981. Denna medförde inte endast hopp om ekonomisk vinning utan även behovet att bearbeta förlusten av nationellt självbestämmande och traditionella former av självförståelse. Grekland stod inför uppgiften att finna sin plats i det nya Europa, samtidigt som landet måste hantera den nya verklighet som 1990-talets krig på Balkan medförde. Särskilt historiker betonade att denna process gjorde det nödvändigt att europeisera nationens värderingar och uppfattningar kring historia, en uppgift som försvårades av Greklands hållning i den makedonska frågan och det sätt på vilket man slog vakt om ”historiska rättigheter”. Även aktivister som, huvudsakligen i den grekiska diasporan, var sysselsatta med att marknadsföra denna fråga pekade på behovet av att modernisera aspekter av den nationella historiekulturen i en tid av europeiskt enande och konvergerande historieutbildningar. Det som ovan beskrivits har ett nära samband med det tredje stora sammanhanget, som även det är av transnationell art. Den nationella historiekulturen är inte avskild från omvärlden; föreställningar om det förflutna rör sig över nationella gränser. På global nivå sammanföll den makedonska konflikten med de s.k. history wars, historiekrig som rasade vid samma tid runtom i världen. Dessa återspeglar i sin tur urholkandet av de stora nationella och ideologiska berättelserna i västerländska samhällen, de identitets- och minnespolitiska kraven hos under- och ickestatliga aktörer, de mänskliga rättigheternas paradigm och 326 beklagandets politik (the politics of regret), som anammar nationell skuld som ny princip för politisk legitimitet. Trenden inom transnationell historiekultur mot en mer universell moral, symboliserad av den ”amerikaniserade” (och ”europeiserade”) förintelsens moral innebar en ytterligare utmaning mot de nationella historiekulturerna. Den pontiska folkmordsberättelsen (och dess nationaliserade förlängning) analyseras som svarande till kravet på en ”amerikanisering” av grekisk historiekultur. I detta sammanhang lyfts den grekiska diasporans roll fram, inte endast som instrumentell i utformningen av Greklands utrikespolitiska dagordning, men även i egenskap av förmedlare av historiekulturella angelägenheter och behovet av anpassning till transnationell omgivning. Konsekvenser av denna ”amerikaniserade” folkmordsberättelse diskuteras. Ett fjärde sammanhang, med en både nationell och transnationell dimension, är det akademiska, inom vilket forskare debatter och formar historiens representation. Identitetspolitikens ankomst och den makedonska konflikten stod även i samband med den objektivistiska historieskrivningens legitimitetskris och den postmoderna utmaningen. Urholkningen av staters bärande historieberättelse och tolkningsföreträde motsvarades i viss utsträckning av ett undergrävt förtroende för den traditionella historieskrivningens trovärdighet och auktoritet. Denna urholkning kunde tolkas som ett hot mot själva historievetenskapen och professionen. Ett annat sätt att bemöta detta hot var att betrakta såväl det som den makedonska krisen som en uppfordran till perspektivskifte inom forskning och historieskrivning. Samspelet mellan politik och historia, mellan förståelsen av svunna realiteter, nutida bekymmer och förväntningar inför framtiden formade sålunda den politiska krisen och banade väg för den grekiska historiekulturens förändring.

Jerusalem is the declared capital of Israel, fundamental to Jewish tradition, and a contested city, part of the Israel–Palestine conflict. Departing from an analysis of mainly interviews and policy documents, this study aims to analyze the interplay between the Israeli identity politics of Jerusalem and city planning. The role of the city is related to discursive struggles between traditional, new, and post-Zionism. One conclusion is that the Israeli claim to the city is firmly anchored in a master commemorative narrative stating that Jerusalem is the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel. A second conclusion is that there is a constant interplay between Israeli identity politics, city policy, and planning practice, through specific strategies of territoriality. The goals of the strategies are to create a political, historical and religious, ethnic, economic, and exclusive capital. Planning policies are mainly focused on uniting the city through housing projects in East Jerusalem, rehabilitating historic heritage, ancestry, and landscapes, city center renewal, demographic balance, and economic growth, mainly through tourism and industrial development. An analysis of coping strategies shows that Jerusalem planners relate to identity politics by adopting a self-image of being professional, and by blaming the planning system for opening up to ideational impact. Depending on the issue, a planner adopts a reactive role as a bureaucrat or an expert, or an active role, such mobilizer or an advocate. One conclusion drawn from the “Safdie Plan” process is that traditional Zionism and the dominant collective planning doctrine are being challenged. An alliance of environmental movements, politicians from left and right, and citizens, mobilized a campaign against the plan that was intended to develop the western outskirts of Jerusalem. The rejection of the plan challenged the established political leadership, it opened up for an expansion to the east, and strengthened Green Zionism, but the result is also a challenge to the housing needs of Jerusalem. / Författaren tillhör även "Forskarskolan Urbana och Regionala Studier – Städer och regioner i förändring"

This thesis seeks to trace the process of Germany&rsquo / becoming a multicultural society through the politico-historical analysis of the matter of immigration to Germany. The working assumption while projecting this study is as follows / there is a close relation between the policies and implementations of Germany in practice and becoming a multicultural society during the process in question. Germany became a multinational society with its composition of different ethnic, religious and cultural groups / but it is clearly seen that Germany is not moving toward becoming a multicultural society, at least in the near future, considering its policies and implementations in practice. At the same time, considering the main arguments and effects of these new immigration and citizenship laws concerning immigrants will provide an essential ground for recognizing whether Germany is a multicultural society or not.

Rural and remote areas of Australia remain the last bastion of health disadvantage in a developed nation with an enviable health score-card. During the last ten years, rural and remote health has emerged as a significant issue in the media and the political arena. This thesis examines print media, policy documents and interviews from selected informants to ascertain how they represent medical practitioners and health services in rural and remote areas of Australia, why they do so, and the consequences of such positions. In many of these representations, rural and remote medical practitioners are aligned with national and cultural mythologies, while health services are characterised as dysfunctional and at crisis point. Ostensibly, the representations and identity formulations are aimed at redressing the health inequities in remote rural and Australia. They define and elaborate debates and contestations about needs and claims and how they should be addressed; a process that is crucial in the development of professional identity and power (Fraser; 1989). The research involves an analysis and critical reading of the entwined discourses of culture, power, and the politics of need. Following Wodak and others (1999), these dynamics are explored by examining documents that are part of the discursive constitution of the field. In particular, the research examines how prevailing cultural concepts are used to configure the Australian rural and remote medical practitioner in ways that reflect and advance socio-cultural hegemony. The conceptual tools used to explore these dynamics are drawn from critical and post-structural theory, and draw upon the work of Nancy Fraser (1989; 1997) and Ruth Wodak (1999). Both theorists developed approaches that enable investigation into the effects of language use in order to understand how the cultural framing of particular work can influence power relations in a professional field. The research follows a cultural studies approach, focussing on texts as objects of research and acknowledging the importance of discourse in the development of cultural meaning (Nightingale, 1993). The methodological approach employs Critical Discourse Analysis, specifically the Discourse Historical Method (Wodak, 1999). It is used to explore the linguistic hallmarks of social and cultural processes and structures, and to identify the ways in which political control and dominance are advanced through language-based strategies. An analytical tool developed by Ruth Wodak, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl and Karin Leibhart (1999) was adapted and used to identify nationalistic identity formulations and related linguistic manoeuvres in the texts. The dissertation argues that the textual linguistic manoeuvres and identity formulations produce and privilege a particular identity for rural and remote medical practitioners, and that cultural myth is used to popularise, shore up and advance the goals of rural doctors during a period of crisis and change. Important in this process is the differentiation of rural and remote medicine from other disciplines in order to define and advance its political needs and claims (Fraser, 1989). This activity has unexpected legacies for the rural and remote health sector. In developing a strong identity for rural doctors, discursive rules have been established by the discipline regarding roles, personal and professional characteristics, and practice style; rules which hold confounding factors for the sustainability of remote and rural medical practice and health care generally. These factors include: the professional fragmentation of the discipline of primary medical care into general practice and rural medicine; and identity formulations that do not accommodate an ageing workforce characterised by cultural diversity, decreasing engagement in full time work, and a higher proportion of women participants. Both of these factors have repercussions for the recruitment and retention of rural and remote health professionals and the maintenance of a sustainable health workforce. The dissertation argues that the formulated identities of rural and remote medical practitioners in the texts maintain and reproduce relationships of cultural, political and social power. They have also influenced the ways in which rural and remote health services have been developed and funded. They selectively represent and value particular roles and approaches to health care. In doing so, they misrepresent the breadth and complexities of rural and remote health issues, and reinforce a reputational economy built on differential professional and cultural respect, and political and economic advantage. This disadvantages the community, professions and interest groups of lower value and esteem, and other groups whose voices are often not heard. Thus, regardless of their altruistic motivations, the politics of identity and differentiation employed in the formulated identities in the texts are based on an approach that undermines the redistributive goals of justice and equity (Fraser 1997), and works primarily to develop and advantage the discipline of rural medicine.

This dissertation concerns the socio-cultural politics expressed in the performances of Matthew Barney, Steven Cohen, Marina Abramovic, and the ‘Pop’ artist Madonna. The contention is that these artists mirror and dramatize marginalization and seem to reflect a desire to resolve conflicts experienced between social and psychological identities in contemporary society. The premise of this study is that these performers engage in a ‘dialogue’ with viewers as a form of self-preservation and self-healing. The Performance artists’ measure of socio-cultural tensions suggests the merging of mass media entertainment, theatrical devices and other cultural practices such as fetishism and rituals involving altered states of consciousness, props and allusions to shamanism. An ancient modality of healing, such as shamanism, when appropriated by artists, seems to reflect an urgent phenomenological need of the individual within Western society for overcoming feelings of powerlessness as a type of therapeutic practice. The Performance artists’ Othering is acted out as a survival mechanism addressing and questioning the ‘degradation’ imposed on marginalized individuals who challenge the traditional notion of authentic identity and the ‘classic’ body. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

Esta etnografia foi realizada junto ao Grupo Tradicional Kamba Cuá da comunidade afroparaguaia Kamba Kuá da cidade de Fernando de la Mora, região metropolitana de Assunção, Paraguai. A pesquisa possui como intuito entender como os afroparaguaios estão instrumentalizando seu patrimônio sonoro-performático para, sob o signo da etnicidade “afro”, moverem-se e conquistarem posições de poder reivindicatório em um campo político-identitário - o qual é uma múltipla e complexa teia de articulações entre atores locais, regionais, nacionais e transnacionais ou globais. O eixo teórico que guiou as reflexões está em sintonia com a antropologia musical, que entende as atividades músico-corporais, não somente como produtos artísticos, mas também como parte da construção do mundo social e conceitual. A hipótese que avanço é a de que esse grupo de artes performáticas músico-corporais, pioneiro neste processo político-identitário de luta pela manutenção da agrupação comunitária e do território de referência através do uso de suas práticas culturais e de sua etnicidade, colaborou para manter certa coesão interna. Através da objetificação, a coesão interna foi obtida pelo grupo operando como mecanismo de “manutenção”, “resgate” e “inovação” de suas culturas, ou servindo como elo para criação de uma rede política afroparaguaia. Também, pode-se percebê-los como instrumento mercantil e político para tornar as reivindicações afroparaguaias visíveis nacionalmente através de suas performances públicas. / This ethnography was conducted within the Kamba Kuá people and their artistic performance ensemble, an Afro-Paraguayan community located in the city of Fernando de la Mora, metropolitan area of Asuncion, Paraguay. The research aimed to understand how the Afro-Paraguayans are equipping their sound-performing heritage under the sign of “African” ethnicity to bargain power positions in a political identity field composed by a multiple and complex web of local/translocal connections. The theoretical frame is inspired by an anthropology of music which understands musical performances, not only as artistic products but also as part of the construction of social and conceptual world. My hypothesis is that the Kamba Kuá people use their artistic practices and their artistic group to maintain some internal cohesion within their ancestral territory. Through objectification of their performative culture, the Kamba Kuá artistic groups operates as a mechanism for “maintenance”, “rescue” and “innovation” of afro cultural practices, as well as a link to create a political network within the Afro-Paraguayan movement.

La communauté Lesbienne, Gay, Bisexuelle et Transsexuelle (LGBT) a su devenir incontournable aux États-Unis en très peu de temps. Sur la scène politique, de nombreuses victoires ont transformé la perception des minorités sexuelles qui sont de plus en plus acceptées, ont obtenu le mariage et font partie de la société américaine. Nous nous interrogeons sur les raisons qui ont permis cette évolution si rapide. Nous considérons que c'est le système économique capitaliste qui a favorisé ces changements. La création d'un marché spécifique puis son ouverture au marché mainstream ont transformé le regard porté sur une communauté autrefois ostracisée ou invisible. Nous observons dans ce travail de recherche les bénéfices et les inconvénients d'un activisme par la consommation et les réactions des différents mouvements LGBT et queer qui ont vu le jour au XXe siècle / The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community has rapidely become part of american Society. It has won many battles-among them the right to get married-which have changed the way sexual minorities are now seen. Gay culture is everywhere in magazines, in Hollywood, on TV, and we can wonder what were the reasons for such an evolution. We consider that the way the community has understood capitalism enabled those changes. From the creation of a market and its recognition by the mainstream, LGBT people are now consumer activists. We analyse in this PhD dissertation the benefits and setbacks of that activism with regards to the different waves of LGBTQ movements in the twentieh century