There has been an influx in the number of African people entering North America since the 1960's. Despite the fact that women who emigrate from Africa tend to be more highly educated compared to the rest of Canada's population, they are far more likely to be unemployed and low-income (Statistics Canada, 2007: 7). Economic security is linked to decision-making power in many aspects of a woman’s life, including personal safety and freedom of choice. The original research question investigated in this study was how do female African immigrants in the Region of Waterloo access the services they require to gain economic security? The intent of the study was to explore how the services in the Region of Waterloo are accessed by African immigrants with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. However, during the interview process the information collected extended beyond the initial research question. The analysis of the research answers three important questions. What are the various types of resources that women need to access in order to achieve economic self-sufficiency? How do they find out what these resources are? How can they acquire them? The qualitative research used in-depth interviews that were conducted with fifteen African women living in the Region of Waterloo. The analysis of the thesis emerged from the lived experiences of the participants following a feminist ethnographic approach. Women were given the opportunity to discuss their personal backgrounds and their reasons for leaving their countries of origin from their perspectives. The barriers to economic security after arriving in the region were analyzed with special attention to the unique barriers women face because of care-taking responsibilities. The impact of the loss of social support networks was explained. The use of government support services was discussed, leading into an analysis of the lack of information regarding support services. Participants identified that there is collective action of African immigrant women in non-profit organizations operating to fill the information gap. There are a number of important conclusions that can be drawn from this research. First, the women interviewed argued that they felt that it was the government’s responsibility to provide economic support services to new African immigrant families in order to help them become established. Second, although the government does have a number of programs designed to economically assist immigrants, they are not accessible nor do they reflect the needs of African immigrant women. Third, non-profit women’s organizations in the region are effective in providing information about available resources, and do take the needs of African women into consideration. Fourth, non-profit organizations in the region empower African women locally and help them to integrate into the community. Finally, participants asserted that non-profit organizations should be funded by the government in order to be able to provide sufficient economic support to community members. This research adds to the actions of local non-profit agencies and builds a needed step in bridging that gap between government and non-profit organizations by acknowledging the contribution of non-profit organizations.

This study examines how Asian Americans articulate their marginalization and identity, as well as other issues related to race, through the use of blogs. Specifically, I look at discourse surrounding the Deadly Viper Character Assassins publication controversy on three different blogs. I draw upon critical discourse analysis (CDA) to compile patterns, themes, and anomalies from the online discussions. This paper highlights key findings, given the scarceness of Asian American voices in public culture, that prompt ongoing discussions about identity and the use of blogs as a platform to speak and conceptualize Asian American identity.

There has been an influx in the number of African people entering North America since the 1960's. Despite the fact that women who emigrate from Africa tend to be more highly educated compared to the rest of Canada's population, they are far more likely to be unemployed and low-income (Statistics Canada, 2007: 7). Economic security is linked to decision-making power in many aspects of a woman’s life, including personal safety and freedom of choice. The original research question investigated in this study was how do female African immigrants in the Region of Waterloo access the services they require to gain economic security? The intent of the study was to explore how the services in the Region of Waterloo are accessed by African immigrants with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. However, during the interview process the information collected extended beyond the initial research question. The analysis of the research answers three important questions. What are the various types of resources that women need to access in order to achieve economic self-sufficiency? How do they find out what these resources are? How can they acquire them? The qualitative research used in-depth interviews that were conducted with fifteen African women living in the Region of Waterloo. The analysis of the thesis emerged from the lived experiences of the participants following a feminist ethnographic approach. Women were given the opportunity to discuss their personal backgrounds and their reasons for leaving their countries of origin from their perspectives. The barriers to economic security after arriving in the region were analyzed with special attention to the unique barriers women face because of care-taking responsibilities. The impact of the loss of social support networks was explained. The use of government support services was discussed, leading into an analysis of the lack of information regarding support services. Participants identified that there is collective action of African immigrant women in non-profit organizations operating to fill the information gap. There are a number of important conclusions that can be drawn from this research. First, the women interviewed argued that they felt that it was the government’s responsibility to provide economic support services to new African immigrant families in order to help them become established. Second, although the government does have a number of programs designed to economically assist immigrants, they are not accessible nor do they reflect the needs of African immigrant women. Third, non-profit women’s organizations in the region are effective in providing information about available resources, and do take the needs of African women into consideration. Fourth, non-profit organizations in the region empower African women locally and help them to integrate into the community. Finally, participants asserted that non-profit organizations should be funded by the government in order to be able to provide sufficient economic support to community members. This research adds to the actions of local non-profit agencies and builds a needed step in bridging that gap between government and non-profit organizations by acknowledging the contribution of non-profit organizations.

<p>Same, Same, but Different</p><p>-a Minor Field Study of the Future Red Cross Women’s Project,</p><p>Malindi Branch, Kenya.</p><p>In May 2005, we received a scholarship from the Swedish International Development Agency, SIDA, to conduct a Minor Field Study about the future women’s project at the Malindi Red Cross branch, Kenya. The branch has since May 2002 been involved in a Twinning cooperation with the Swedish Red Cross Southeast Region.</p><p>The aim of this thesis is by using the Logical Framework Approach and the Intersectional perspective, to examine the situation for women in Malindi and the work of the Red Cross branch, in order to propose guidelines for the future Red Cross women’s project. The questions asked were: How can the guidelines for the women’s project be formulated in order for the vision of the Red Cross to be reached? What changes within the individual, societal and political sphere have to be accomplished in order to meet the needs and interests of different women in Malindi?</p><p>The work of the Red Cross is in a political science perspective interesting as it through its role of a humanitarian organisation and NGO, plays an important role in the Kenyan civil society, performing activities and providing services that originally should be supplied by the government.</p><p>We have found that it is not possible to talk about the woman in Malindi, due to the fact that women’s backgrounds, problems, needs and interests are different. Therefore it is of great importance that the Red Cross in order to accomplish its vision, i.e. to reach the most vulnerable, includes a gender and an intersectional approach into its activities and outreaches. There is a desire in Kenya to politicize the gender issue, however the future will show the will to actually implement these laws and reforms needed for the empowerment of the women. Moreover, different gender structures can only be achieved through the questioning of the traditional gender roles from both men and women and in this process we have recognised the Red Cross as an important moulder of public opinion. Finally we also want to suggest an inclusion of the gender- and the intersectional perspective into the method of LFA, since the traditional model is not sufficient in considering the different needs of different people.</p>

This study explores the hegemonic articulation of ‘feminist politics’ by the Swedish political party Feminist Initiative (Feministiskt initiativ) during 2014 national parliamentary election campaign. The analysis is carried out on two levels: the construction of the hegemonic project of feminist politics and the construction of an antagonist.      Deploying the discourse-theoretical approach by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as well as the theories of radical democracy and intersectionality, it is shown how a new, broad collective feminist identity is produced by deconstructing womanhood as an identifiable and unproblematic category as well as expanding the signifying chain of feminism by including new social struggles into it. As a result, the feminist subject is conceptualized in radical-democratic terms as a citizen with equal rights, rather than an essentialized female subject. Two nodal points that fix the meaning of the hegemonic project of feminist politics are identified: one is human rights, which enables the expansion of the chain of equivalence, and the other is experience of oppression, which acknowledges differences existing within the movement and prevents it from muting marginalized voices. Discrimination, being the constitutive outside, both threatens and produces the subject: on the one hand, it violates human rights that underlie feminist politics; on the other hand, it produces the experience of oppression that gives a unique feminist perspective to each member of the collective identity. The hegemonic project thus emerges as dependent on the oppressive power of discrimination. The study suggests a critical discussion on how the constitutive outside – discrimination – empties the concept of feminism by a radical expansion of its meaning.    The research furthermore explores the construction of the antagonist of the hegemonic project. Utilizing analytical concepts from the writings of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek, it is demonstrated how social structures and norms acquire agency and become the significant Other for the feminist identity. The thesis is concluded by a critical discussion on the fundamental impossibility of identification based on opposing oneself to something that can only be expressed with a signifier that ultimately lacks any signified.

This study took place in the city of Rasht, which is the capital of Gilan Province, situated in North-Western Iran. The aim has been to investigate how a group of young Rashti women constitute their identities through their talk-in-interaction, and how they relate to the concept of Rashti, be it the dialect, people living in a geographical area, or a notion of collective characteristics. The participants constitute their identities by using different social categories to position and categorise themselves and contrast themselves with others. In positioning and categorising they use various discursive means, such as code-switching, active voicing, and extreme-case formulations. Moreover, the social categories also overlap and work together when the participants negotiate and re-negotiate their identities, making an intersectional approach highly relevant. The methods used in this study are of a qualitative nature and belong in the third wave of sociolinguistics (Eckert 2012). The analysed data consists primarily of staged conversations, whereas participant observation, field notes, and natural conversations have been used to help the researcher in understanding the field. The study adopts an emic or participants’ perspective through the use of membership categorisation analysis and conversation analysis, but also within a theoretical intersectionality framework. In many of the conversations, the culture of Rasht and Gilan is a re-emerging theme, and it is contrasted with that of the rest of the country. Gender norms and gender roles are very central to the study, as these young women describe themselves as much freer and less controlled than women in other parts of the country. Gender is made relevant when the participants discuss how the local traditions surpass both national (religious) laws and social codes in other places. The Rashti and Gilaki language varieties also play a role in the constructing of the Rashti identity of the participants. There is, however, a discrepancy between the participants’ values vis-à-vis Rashti and Gilaki as a dialect or a language, and how they value being a Rashti as well as the Rashti and Gilaki culture. In the majority of conversations the participants express a highly positive opinion regarding their Rashti identity, while at the same time the Rashti and Gilaki language varieties are mostly valued in very negative ways.

Objectives: Inclusion of sociopolitical context in therapeutic interventions is under-researched, largely limited to practitioners’ addressing diversity issues in therapy. Relevant studies have shown both trainees and qualified practitioners experience anxiety and discomfort associated with uncertainties about effectively incorporating diversity and sociopolitical context. Although various models exist to aid systematic case conceptualisation incorporating sociopolitical factors, these are not widely used. The majority of relevant literature continues to concentrate on idiosyncratic conceptual models specific to theoretical approaches. This study aimed to discover how qualified practitioners currently conceptualise and incorporate diversity and sociopolitical factors into practice. Design: Given the lack of research available to inform the area, a grounded theory study was conducted as an exploratory exercise. The qualitative approach was adopted to investigate practitioners’ subjective experiences of their current practice. Constructivist assumptions underpinned the approach to the data, leading to use of Charmaz’s (2006) version of the grounded theory approach. Method: Theoretical sampling was used to recruit the 13 participants. Two focus groups and 8 individual interviews were conducted. Analysis: Two models emerged, representing the processes practitioners engaged in to “find a comfortable fit”, and the range of contexts within which the processes took place. Personal and professional dissonance emerged as a central feature of practitioner development. Discussion: The study highlighted the contribution of dissonance and the situated nature of the practitioner as major contributors affecting how sociopolitical issues are conceptualised and addressed in therapy. Further research is needed to clarify how these factors may most usefully contribute to best practice. However, multiple ecological contexts cited as levels of influence add a degree of complexity that will require operationalizing by those wishing to investigate this area in the future.

Deaf-Latina/Latino Critical (Deaf-LatCrit) Theory in Education is a new theoretical proposition for this qualitative study. Deaf-LatCrit recognizes and validates Deaf-Lat epistemology and challenges the topic of racism and linguicism in educational research. This study explores the multiple identities and experiences of five Deaf-Latina/o (Deaf-Lat) high school students. Deaf-Lat students reside at a residential school for the Deaf, "Rainy State School for the Deaf" (RSSD), during the week and go home for the weekend, traversing from the margin to the center of educational scholarship and discourses. The intention of this research is to explore the singular Deaf identity discourse and its inter-group diversity in the field of Deaf Studies, particularly in education. This study examines the main question: What are the intersectional identities and experiences of high school Deaf-Lat students enrolled in a residential school for the Deaf? The methods include demographic questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and cultural documents/artifacts. Using Deaf-LatCrit ethnographic techniques, the researcher worked with Deaf-Lat students and their families for over one year at each Deaf-Lat student's home and RSSD. This study emerges with two themes: cultural-emotional ties and microaggressions. First, it discusses how Deaf-Lat students' cultural-emotional ties in certain spaces make reference to their multiple intersecting identities. The second theme discusses how Deaf-Lat students experience multiple microaggressions and how their agentic behaviors help them cope. The findings suggest the need to look beyond Deaf identity by embracing the multiple intersectional race, class, gender and sexual orientation identities of Deaf-Lat students, particularly in schools. Understanding the experiences and overlapping identities of Deaf-Lat students can promote that residential school administrators and classroom teachers explore into their privilege(s) and learn about the history of institutional and individual racism and linguicism. These findings can push for the creation of safe spaces for Deaf-Lat students in the field of education and other multiple disciplines. / text

Over the past two decades researchers have analyzed motivating factors and institutional barriers that influenced a professor's initial decision to utilize a service-learning pedagogy. The majority of this research has been quantitative in nature, surveying faculty members' initial attitudes around service-learning. However, the extant literature fails to qualitatively examine the experiences of faculty members who successfully integrate service-learning, especially at a public research institution with civic-engaged mission. Because a public institution relies upon a critical mass of faculty members to support its civic engagement mission, this study focused on explaining the lived experience of exemplar professors in service-learning to understanding their motivations, barriers, and experiences. Faculty members are important to study because service-learning is a form of community engagement that cannot happen without sustainable efforts from professors. Moreover, students and communities cannot derive the benefits of service-learning, nor can civically minded institutions achieve their goal, if faculty members do not incorporate service-learning into their classrooms. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to understand the experiences of service-learning faculty members at a four-year public research institution where community engagement is a stated priority. Utilizing a recently developed faculty engagement model (Demb & Wade, 2012) as the guiding theoretical framework, this research study seeks to understand the lived experience of faculty members at The University of Texas at Austin by inquiring 1) how faculty members implement meaningful community engagement through their service-learning classes, 2) how service-learning may shape a faculty members' professional and personal identity at a research institution, and 3) how service-learning fits into faculty members' larger scholarship agenda. / text

Purpose : The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence demographic factors have on the way lesbians and gay men manage their sexual orientation at work. Design/methodology/approach : Based on data taken from a cross-sectional survey of 1308 gay and lesbian employees working in Germany, four regression models are proposed. The means of managing one's homosexuality at work was measured by the 31 items containing WSIMM from Anderson et al. (2001). Findings : Results indicate that being in a relationship is related to increased openness about one's homosexuality at work. Furthermore, it appears that the older and the more religious lesbian and gay employees are, the more open (and therefore less hidden) about their sexuality they are. Having a migratory background is related to being more guarded about one's sexual orientation, whereas personal mobility within the country is not related to the way one manages one's sexual orientation at work. Lesbians tend to be a little more open and less guarded about their homosexuality compared to gay men. Research limitations/implications : The focus of this research (and the related limitations) offers several starting and connecting points for more intersectional research on workforce diversity and diversity management. Practical implications : The study's findings indicate the need for an intersectional approach to organizational diversity management strategies. Exemplified by the dimension "sexual orientation" it can be shown that the impact each dimension has for an employee's everyday workplace experiences and behavior in terms of a certain manifestation of one dimension of diversity, can only be understood in terms of its interplay with other dimensions of diversity. Theoretical implications : The intersectional perspective on employees' stigma-related minority stress allows a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the experiences of individuals in workplace settings. This theoretical framework proposed in this article can therefore be a connecting point for theoretically framing future studies on workforce diversity and diversity management. Originality/value : It is shown that manifestations of demographic factors that tend to broaden the individual's coping resources for stigma-relevant stressors, lead to more openness about one's homosexuality in the workplace. (author's abstract)