This thesis analyzes the unexplored space that Iranian expatriates occupy in Persian Gulf Arab States, specifically Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. It argues that culturally ascribed markers such as ethnicity, language, clothing, gender, religion, historical factors and nationality combine to produce hybrid Gulf Iranian identities among Iranian expatriates. The thesis performs an analysis of Iranian expatriate individuals' situations and conditions in the above societies and assesses the level of cross-interaction between Arabs and Iranians by building upon theories by Martinez, Hegel, Hobsbawm and Said. It concludes that studies of Iranian expatriates may not be performed in terms of Iranian or Gulf Arab identities but as a fluid synthesis of the two with sociopolitical implications for all Persian Gulf States. By understanding the Gulf Iranian expatriate community, or Gulf Iranians, we can move beyond analyses that are limited to national, ethnic and ideological lines to reevaluate Persian Gulf identities entirely.

In Henry James’s novel "The Ambassadors," James uses axiological language in tropes and in substantives, periphrastically replacing proper names. He also includes valuations in miscellaneous data contained in such differences as the one he makes in "The Ambassadors" between "Europe" (place) and "'Europe'" (concept). As well, James puts adjectival assessments of people and situations in the midst of these constructions and in the mouths of his characters, assessments which vary from those which contradict the value systems posited in the novel by various characters, through those which seem quizzical or ambiguous, to those whose meaning seems obvious under the circumstances. The argument of this critical work is that these attempts at naming tie in fundamentally with the ways in which James means for readers to interpret the identities of the characters and the events and are not merely ornamental. Even when James says that a character "didn’t know what to call" someone or something or when "identity" or a verbal equation for identity occurs in an odd context, James answers his own implied rhetorical question; he is not as problematic to read as is sometimes suggested. Our own valuations are encouraged to be close to the experience of Lambert Strether. Leading the reader through the maze of Strether’s experience, James gives many clear signals from the simplest elements of his complicated language even into the fabrication of his complex metaphors that he, though an explorer of the moral universe, is no relativistic iconoclast. In the examination of these issues, a choice has been made to draw eclectically upon various sources and techniques, from traditional "humanistic" modes of interpretation, rhetorical studies, structuralist and deconstructionist remarks, to existentialism, narratology, and identity studies. This choice is the result of an intention to access as many different "voices" as possible, in the attempt to be comprehensive about the voices of James and "The Ambassadors."

In Henry James’s novel "The Ambassadors," James uses axiological language in tropes and in substantives, periphrastically replacing proper names. He also includes valuations in miscellaneous data contained in such differences as the one he makes in "The Ambassadors" between "Europe" (place) and "'Europe'" (concept). As well, James puts adjectival assessments of people and situations in the midst of these constructions and in the mouths of his characters, assessments which vary from those which contradict the value systems posited in the novel by various characters, through those which seem quizzical or ambiguous, to those whose meaning seems obvious under the circumstances. The argument of this critical work is that these attempts at naming tie in fundamentally with the ways in which James means for readers to interpret the identities of the characters and the events and are not merely ornamental. Even when James says that a character "didn’t know what to call" someone or something or when "identity" or a verbal equation for identity occurs in an odd context, James answers his own implied rhetorical question; he is not as problematic to read as is sometimes suggested. Our own valuations are encouraged to be close to the experience of Lambert Strether. Leading the reader through the maze of Strether’s experience, James gives many clear signals from the simplest elements of his complicated language even into the fabrication of his complex metaphors that he, though an explorer of the moral universe, is no relativistic iconoclast. In the examination of these issues, a choice has been made to draw eclectically upon various sources and techniques, from traditional "humanistic" modes of interpretation, rhetorical studies, structuralist and deconstructionist remarks, to existentialism, narratology, and identity studies. This choice is the result of an intention to access as many different "voices" as possible, in the attempt to be comprehensive about the voices of James and "The Ambassadors."

This is a narrative study in which five entrepreneurs in the experience-based tourist industry have told their life-stories in connection with their establishing and running their own enterprises.   Over the last decades the number of adventure-based companies has markedly increased in tourist industry, but the knowledge gained through the research on the persons who establish these companies is scant.  Through focusing on the constructions of  identity of the entrepreneurs, this study gives nuanced pictures of the chain of events that had lead an individual to establish one`s own company.  In addition, these pictures offer deeper understanding of how these individuals perceive themselves as the founder and manager of an experience-based company. Over the last decades research in entrepreneurship has criticized the imbalanced focus on the entrepreneurs' personal characteristics and it's use as an explanation of their entrepreneurial activities. In the same critical vein I question whether motivational studies are able to explain why certain individuals choose to establish their own business. Indeed, these five stories show that an entrepreneur is not something one is but something one becomes. Although the concept of an experiential economy appeared at the end of the 1990s, the production of experiences has a long tradition in the tourist industry. Norwegian tourism has faced an uphill struggle for several decades, which worries both the authorities and the industry itself.  In recent decades the focus has been directed more and more on the dimension of experience. One hopes that the creation of new and attractive adventures will help to reverse the negative trend in the industry.  Effecting this reversal places a heavy responsibility on the entrepreneurs since they are to be the driving force in this process. Tourist adventures have been one of several core themes within the field of research in tourism for decades, but this focus has mainly been on the perspective of the consumer. In contrast, this study concentrates on the producers, a group about whom we know much less. The five entrepreneurs who tell their story in this study give detailed descriptions of their life until the establishment of their businesses, and we see that each of them describes a number of causal chains that are interwoven and together create a meaningful picture of their choice. Through focusing on their reflexive identity-constructions and viewing these in light of the concrete situations they were in, before they established their enterprises, we gain a deeper understanding of this choice. Through the process of categorizing these reflexive identity-constructions, three  distinct ontological positions emerge, that is, different ways in understanding reality. The study shows that there is a connection between these ontological positions and the ways that the entrepreneurs run their businesses, as well as their understanding of how they create and produce adventures for their guests.

In South Africa there has been a growing recognition of community craft projects in previously marginalised communities. They are acknowledged for their artistic merit, and for the fact that they serve as a means of economic empowerment for especially black South African women. This study goes beyond this and identifies the embroidered story cloth projects as serving as potential archives for the communities in which they are situated. The embroidered story cloths produced by the Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation (MCADF) are considered as a relevant practical example of the counter-archival discourse in the archival process. This Foundation is situated in a remote area of the Limpopo Province, South Africa, close to the Botswana border. Founded in 1994 in an effort to alleviate poverty and unemployment in this community, this project has grown into a unique archive, which documents various aspects of the women’s everyday life. This project encompasses a number of aspects highlighted by the counter-archival discourse. The embroidered story cloths constitute archival sources that previously would not have been considered part of the conventional nineteenth and twentieth century archive as they involve oral tradition and material craft art practices. Furthermore, the choice of subjects documented by the participants of the MCADF project, which include everyday life situations, as well as rituals and rites of passage, moves the focus of history away from the dated “grand narratives of progress” of the Western world to include the voices from outside the political realm. This aligns with elements of the community archive which have an important role to play in terms of democratising the archival record, decentralising the archives as public institution as well as giving previously or currently marginalised people a voice. In this case it is women who, due to their gender, their inability to express themselves in written form and the previous discriminatory political dispensation in South Africa (apartheid), would not have been included in traditional archives. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / tm2015 / Historical and Heritage Studies / DPhil / Unrestricted

Historically, attending college and pursuing a graduate degree has been associated with greater economic opportunity. However, research reveals that the relationship between higher education and social mobility has shifted over time. The current context of rising student loan debt, the higher cost of education, more tenuous job markets, and stagnating wages diminishes the association between higher education and economic advancement, particularly for students who come from a working-class background. The cost to attend state universities has risen over 200% since the 1980s (Collinge), while graduate assistant salaries and the federal minimum wage remain comparatively unchanged. Additionally, many with a graduate degree are increasingly left to piece together a living wage through multiple adjunct instructor positions or employment in the service industry. While attending graduate school can be seen as a transitional—and sometimes ambiguous—space between student and professor, if PhDs are not able to secure full-time, steady employment post-graduation, then their ambiguous existence becomes prolonged, creating both a financial crisis and crisis of identity. In the context of the shift in the relationship between social mobility and higher education, my research addresses class as an identity while also accounting for the complicated understandings of that identity during this historical shift. Thus, the dissertation responds to the following research questions: (1) How has the relationship between social mobility and higher education shifted over time? (2) How does this change in relationship systemically and philosophically impact those who earn graduate degrees? and (3) How can academics adapt our pedagogical practices and institutional policies to address this historical shift and its impact on graduates? Accounting for socioeconomic class more thoroughly and in a contemporary context, this research develops a theory of class identity that builds toward social justice praxis at the intersection of socioeconomic class and education, contributing both to the field of communication studies and to broader academic and social spheres. I develop and use collaborative autoethnographic interviewing (CAEI) as a dialogic method by which to gather the stories of working-class academics who have not achieved social mobility through attending graduate school. By seeking participants and gathering stories of graduate degree-holders who have experienced the shift in relationship between higher education and social mobility first-hand, this research provides a better understanding of coalitional opportunities that can be forged between upper, middle, and lower-classes; the educated and uneducated; and those invested in social justice who have not yet had the opportunity to expand their work to include economic equity.

No description available.

The thesis represents an attempt, within the broad field of religion and literature and of identity studies, to read the early unpublished fiction of Alan Paton, dating from approximately 1922 (the end of his student days) to 1935 (when he became Principal of Diepkloof Reformatory). It is pointed out that research into the interrelationship of literature and religion, while well-established in a number of countries, is lagging in South Africa, and it is believed that the present thesis is the first full-length work of its kind, at least as far as South African literature in English is concerned. The writer advances reasons for his explicitly religious and hermeneutic approach to questions of human identity, as found in Paton especially, and focuses these on two particular areas: narrative identity, as propounded in the later work of Paul Ricoeur, and relational identity (to the other human being and to the Other, God), as theorised by Emmanuel Levinas in his later writing. In order to contextualise the study in Africa and in South Africa, brief attention is accorded to writers such as Soyinka, Mbiti and Mbembe and to current debates regarding white identity in South Africa. To lend a sense of historical context, Paton's work is viewed against the backdrop of identity in colonial Natal. The overall approach adopted may be described as broadly, but critically, postmodernist. Paton's earliest, fragmentary novel, 'Ship of Truth' (1922-1923) is read in some detail; his second, and only complete early novel, 'Brother Death' (1930), is commented on in as much detail as its frequently rambling nature warrants. A chapter on shorter fiction discusses his short story 'Little Barbee' (1928?), his short story 'Calvin Doone' (1930), his third novel, 'John Henry Dane' (1934), and a novel or novella, 'Secret for Seven' (1934). From all these readings it emerges that the Paton of his early fiction is markedly different from the Paton generally known: his concepts of human identity, of God and of religion, though earnest, are unformed and frequently ambivalent; his characterisation often stereotyped and wooden; his political views usually prejudiced and his stylistic and other techniques, though adequate in a young writer, highly repetitive. Various suggestions are made for future research: into South African literature from a religious perspective, into other aspects of Paton's works, and so forth. / Thesis (Ph.D. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Thesis (Ph.D. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

The thesis represents an attempt, within the broad field of religion and literature and of identity studies, to read the early unpublished fiction of Alan Paton, dating from approximately 1922 (the end of his student days) to 1935 (when he became Principal of Diepkloof Reformatory). It is pointed out that research into the interrelationship of literature and religion, while well-established in a number of countries, is lagging in South Africa, and it is believed that the present thesis is the first full-length work of its kind, at least as far as South African literature in English is concerned. The writer advances reasons for his explicitly religious and hermeneutic approach to questions of human identity, as found in Paton especially, and focuses these on two particular areas: narrative identity, as propounded in the later work of Paul Ricoeur, and relational identity (to the other human being and to the Other, God), as theorised by Emmanuel Levinas in his later writing. In order to contextualise the study in Africa and in South Africa, brief attention is accorded to writers such as Soyinka, Mbiti and Mbembe and to current debates regarding white identity in South Africa. To lend a sense of historical context, Paton's work is viewed against the backdrop of identity in colonial Natal. The overall approach adopted may be described as broadly, but critically, postmodernist. Paton's earliest, fragmentary novel, 'Ship of Truth' (1922-1923) is read in some detail; his second, and only complete early novel, 'Brother Death' (1930), is commented on in as much detail as its frequently rambling nature warrants. A chapter on shorter fiction discusses his short story 'Little Barbee' (1928?), his short story 'Calvin Doone' (1930), his third novel, 'John Henry Dane' (1934), and a novel or novella, 'Secret for Seven' (1934). From all these readings it emerges that the Paton of his early fiction is markedly different from the Paton generally known: his concepts of human identity, of God and of religion, though earnest, are unformed and frequently ambivalent; his characterisation often stereotyped and wooden; his political views usually prejudiced and his stylistic and other techniques, though adequate in a young writer, highly repetitive. Various suggestions are made for future research: into South African literature from a religious perspective, into other aspects of Paton's works, and so forth. / Thesis (Ph.D. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.