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The attempt to come to terms with the meaning of home, both literally and metaphorically, has become a major concern in literary studies. This dissertation explores the various novelistic representations of home from the point of view of Arab migrant novelists. Home, which contains various references to architectural structures, nations, states, or belonging, can no longer be thought of as a generalized or unified experience. For the migrant writer, the concept of home takes shape as a result of interaction between the past and the present, with memory playing a powerful role. It is created as a result of various forces in tension that include personal and national experiences, the context within which migration from the traditional home place occurred, ideological allegiances and identity politics. I argue through my exploration of a number of novels written by Arab writers who migrated from their home countries that the concept of home can no longer be referred to as a generalized, definite or a fixed notion. Given the different circumstances of the movement from one country to another, even among nationals of the same country, what are the themes that will be stressed in an Arab writer’s imagination and portrayal of home? Will writers stress the exclusions of exile, and define their presence away from the original country clearly as ‘exile’, fixating on painful nostalgia? How does memory influence the perception of home? Will those writers who have lived a long time in a new ‘foreign’ country emphasize the adaptations in the diaspora and the privileges of migration? Will they offer critiques of the national project, making a clear distinction between the personal home and the national project? Will such boundaries be as clearly defined for all the writers? Those questions guide my investigation into the representation of home in the novels of Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi writers living away from their three countries of origin. This investigation takes place within the postcolonial theoretical framework of the implications of the site of migration about the revision of the centrality of the nation as a referent of identity. The analysis uncovers a variety of illustrations in the imagination of home and the portrayal of the national experience in the novels. The analysis also highlights the inextricable link between the personal experience and the political experience, whereby the ideological stance on issues of nation and nationalism cannot be easily isolated in an assessment of the cultural product at the site of migration.

There is a moment in Edward Yang’s acclaimed film Yi Yi (2000) in which a young boy in a conversation with his father observes that he cannot see what his father sees and that his father cannot see what he sees, prompting two questions: “How can I know what you see?” and “Can we only know half of the truth?” Unable to provide adequate answers, his father instead offers his son a camera. Later in the film, the same boy presents his uncle with a picture he took of the back of his head. When asked why, the boy responds by saying, “You cannot see it yourself, so I’m helping you.” These two scenes in Yang’s film illustrate the spirit of the questions that guide the aesthetic approach I have taken in my own documentary project. My thesis is composed of two parts: a video project and a research paper, the former of which is a documentary entitled Yi. Named after its primary subject, the film explores the intersections of transnational migrancy and cultural identity through a series of interviews that are intercut with scenes of everyday life that are shot in an observational style. The research paper that follows will situate the project within a specific historical, conceptual, and aesthetic context, before delineating how the cinematic composition of my documentary engages with this framework.

This study investigates how immigration models of the post Second World War assimilation policy, subsequently replaced by the multiculturalism ideology, have been empirically perceived by Australian immigrants. Questions point to if modern day migrancy and immigration have transformed the ways in which the concepts are currently understood. Of particular interest is: are settlement, citizenship and assimilation an end point, or should migrancy be recast as a fluid phenomenon, privileged by greater freedom of ‘belonging’ afforded by transnationalism? Answers to these questions fill gaps in sociological knowledge. The social research project is anchored in a case study of mainly first but not excluding second and a few third generation Greek and Cypriot Australian immigrant respondents. Data gathering employs qualitative inquiry, applying a Mixed Method approach grounded in the Grounded Theory Method. Fieldwork data are generated by in-depth interviewing of respondents, and interpretation of their statements. Their verbal testimonials are analysed using the conceptually clustered matrix. In this approach text is assembled, sub-clustered, and broken into semiotic segments, permitting the researcher to contrast, compare, analyse, and recognise patterns. The strength of employing the Conceptually Clustered Matrix is that it serves the “conceptual coherence” of the data in this study’s single case inquiry. This study reveals how transnationalism has changed presumptions embedded in the policies of assimilation and multiculturalism. In assimilation, supposition of permanent settlement, and the question of ‘belonging’ has been resolved by the immigrants succeeding in effectively transplanting the former ethnic “I”, into becoming a new Australian “me”. Subsequent multiculturalism provides immigrants options in choosing their self-identity within the society at large and accepting that migrant minorities can subsist in discrete ethnic conglomerates clustered within the compass of wider Australian society. The contribution of this thesis to the body of sociological knowledge is that it investigated presently not or under-investigated scholarship how migrants perceive their diaspora existence, redefined by daily practices among migrants. In a transnational context, the research has focused on exploring post-immigration identity and ‘belonging’. Its findings have identified changing perception of migrancy and immigration, framed in terms of the core research question generated in this thesis, namely “after settlement, then what?

This study investigates how immigration models of the post Second World War assimilation policy, subsequently replaced by the multiculturalism ideology, have been empirically perceived by Australian immigrants. Questions point to if modern day migrancy and immigration have transformed the ways in which the concepts are currently understood. Of particular interest is: are settlement, citizenship and assimilation an end point, or should migrancy be recast as a fluid phenomenon, privileged by greater freedom of ‘belonging’ afforded by transnationalism? Answers to these questions fill gaps in sociological knowledge. The social research project is anchored in a case study of mainly first but not excluding second and a few third generation Greek and Cypriot Australian immigrant respondents. Data gathering employs qualitative inquiry, applying a Mixed Method approach grounded in the Grounded Theory Method. Fieldwork data are generated by in-depth interviewing of respondents, and interpretation of their statements. Their verbal testimonials are analysed using the conceptually clustered matrix. In this approach text is assembled, sub-clustered, and broken into semiotic segments, permitting the researcher to contrast, compare, analyse, and recognise patterns. The strength of employing the Conceptually Clustered Matrix is that it serves the “conceptual coherence” of the data in this study’s single case inquiry. This study reveals how transnationalism has changed presumptions embedded in the policies of assimilation and multiculturalism. In assimilation, supposition of permanent settlement, and the question of ‘belonging’ has been resolved by the immigrants succeeding in effectively transplanting the former ethnic “I”, into becoming a new Australian “me”. Subsequent multiculturalism provides immigrants options in choosing their self-identity within the society at large and accepting that migrant minorities can subsist in discrete ethnic conglomerates clustered within the compass of wider Australian society. The contribution of this thesis to the body of sociological knowledge is that it investigated presently not or under-investigated scholarship how migrants perceive their diaspora existence, redefined by daily practices among migrants. In a transnational context, the research has focused on exploring post-immigration identity and ‘belonging’. Its findings have identified changing perception of migrancy and immigration, framed in terms of the core research question generated in this thesis, namely “after settlement, then what?

Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Versesis one of the most controversial postcolonial novels, which among a plethora of themes seems to mainly focus on the notion of hegemonic power. The Satanic Verses can partly be read as a denunciation of the British hegemony in which social injustice, racial discrimination and violence, in its different forms, exerted upon marginalized and stigmatized people (such as non-European expatriates) are legitimized by the dominant group and understood as something conventional and normal by the subjugated people. Moreover, this novel encourages the readers to criticize religion as a political tool with the help of which the dominant group can make groups of people subservient to authority. This part of my essay is related to the criticism of hegemony as such. Employing Gramsci’s analysis of hegemony, this paper begins with an investigation of the relationship between the figure of a migrant, violence and cultural hegemony inRushdie’s Britain. In the second part, the link between dream scenes and the ways through which they contribute to the overall argument about hegemony is studied. Finally, the last part of this essay revolves around religious hegemony. Hence, what links all these three sections together is the concept of hegemony and the ways through which hegemonic power is achieved and implemented in this novel.

The main question posed in this study is: How do black mineworkers in the goldmining industry conceptualise and experience fatherhood in present-day South Africa? The following four subsidiary research questions were formulated to address this: * How do the respondents characterise fatherhood? * What are the respondents' own recollections of being fathered? * How do migrant and resident respondents' experiences of fatherhood differ? * What influence do biological mothers or female partners have on father-child relationships as described by the respondents? The scripting perspective chosen underscores this study because it is a multilevel approach that takes the fathers' social milieu into account without ignoring their agency. This perspective focuses on three levels - cultural scenarios, interpersonal and intrapsychic scripting. During 2002 a qualitative study was undertaken by way of in-depth interviews conducted with 30 respondents, with ten being re-interviewed in 2003. These interviews were augmented with general observations and fact-finding interviews conducted with key informants. In terms of the first research question regarding the way in which the respondents characterise fatherhood, it was found that the breadwinner role is salient. However, traces of patriarchy and the so-called "new fatherhood" are often intertwined with the economic aspect of fatherhood. The respondents' own recollections of being fathered were found to include a stern disciplinarian pattern ("father is like a lion"), a "bad fatherhood" pattern and a "good fatherhood" pattern. Resident respondents related more involvement with their children compared with migrant respondents, although varying degrees of distant and involved fatherhood could be detected amongst the migrant respondents. Resident respondents conveyed active involvement in father-child activities such as giving guidance to children and playing with them. Some respondents have little contact with those children they fathered with a woman other than their current partner. Female partners tend to hinder any type of relationship with children born as a result of adulterous relationships but children born from previous relationships may be taken care of. However, respondents who openly stated double standards regarding sexual practices for men and women tend to take care of all their biological children and show little concern for their wives' views. / Sociology / D. Litt et Phil (Sociology)

The main question posed in this study is: How do black mineworkers in the goldmining industry conceptualise and experience fatherhood in present-day South Africa? The following four subsidiary research questions were formulated to address this: * How do the respondents characterise fatherhood? * What are the respondents' own recollections of being fathered? * How do migrant and resident respondents' experiences of fatherhood differ? * What influence do biological mothers or female partners have on father-child relationships as described by the respondents? The scripting perspective chosen underscores this study because it is a multilevel approach that takes the fathers' social milieu into account without ignoring their agency. This perspective focuses on three levels - cultural scenarios, interpersonal and intrapsychic scripting. During 2002 a qualitative study was undertaken by way of in-depth interviews conducted with 30 respondents, with ten being re-interviewed in 2003. These interviews were augmented with general observations and fact-finding interviews conducted with key informants. In terms of the first research question regarding the way in which the respondents characterise fatherhood, it was found that the breadwinner role is salient. However, traces of patriarchy and the so-called "new fatherhood" are often intertwined with the economic aspect of fatherhood. The respondents' own recollections of being fathered were found to include a stern disciplinarian pattern ("father is like a lion"), a "bad fatherhood" pattern and a "good fatherhood" pattern. Resident respondents related more involvement with their children compared with migrant respondents, although varying degrees of distant and involved fatherhood could be detected amongst the migrant respondents. Resident respondents conveyed active involvement in father-child activities such as giving guidance to children and playing with them. Some respondents have little contact with those children they fathered with a woman other than their current partner. Female partners tend to hinder any type of relationship with children born as a result of adulterous relationships but children born from previous relationships may be taken care of. However, respondents who openly stated double standards regarding sexual practices for men and women tend to take care of all their biological children and show little concern for their wives' views. / Sociology / D. Litt et Phil (Sociology)

ldentity research in relation to ethnicity and migration has tended to focus an younger people whilst identity research in relation to ageing and old(er) age has not focused an migrants. This inadvertent mutual neglect has led to a lack of identity research that examines the identity categories of old(er) age and migrancy together, a lacuna that this dissertation aims to redress. This dissertation departs from a social constructionist understanding of identity as situationally accomplished in the interplay between how one defines oneself (internally) and how others define one (externally). The questions raised by this perspective and addressed in this dissertation are: When (in what situations) and in relation to whom do old(er) age and migrancy (respectively) seem to become meaningful for identification? How do the identity categories of old(er) age and migrancy seem to be negotiated? The empirical material consists of in-depth interviews with 24 older migrants (13 men, 11 women) aged between 55 and 79 who have been living in Sweden for 18 to 61 years. Interviewees come from 12 different countries that vary in perceived cultural distance from Sweden. The findings suggest that identifications with old(er) age and migrancy seem to be dynamic and flexible rather than necessarily permanently meaningful, thus gaining meaning in specific situations and in relation to particular Others. External definitions furthermore do not always seem to match with internal ones. Regardless of how old(er) age and migrancy are constructed, they seem to be negotiable. This dissertation thus contributes to identity research by studying old(er) age and migrancy together and furthermore sheds light onto how the social constructionist lens allows us to see variability where stability otherwise would be presumed. / ldentitetsforskning rörande etnicitet och migration har huvudsakligen fokuserat på yngre medan identitetsforskning kring äldre och åldrande inte har fokuserat på utrikesfödda. Som en konsekvens därav har identitetsforskningen inte studerat hög(re) ålder och invandrarskap tillsammans, en lucka som denna avhandling avser att fylla. Avhandlingen utgår ifrån en socialkonstruktionistisk förståelse av identitet som situationsbunden och formad genom samspelet mellan hur man definierar sig själv (internt) och hur andra definierar en (externt). Frågorna som väcks genom detta perspektiv och som avhandlingen fokuserar på är: När (i vilka situationer) och i förhållande till vem verkar hög(re) ålder respektive invandrarskap bli betydelsefulla för identifikationer? Hur verkar identitetskategorierna hög(re) ålder och invandrarskap förhandlas? Det empiriska materialet består av djupintervjuer med 24 utrikesfödda äldre (13 män, 11 kvinnor) i åldrarna mellan 55 och 79 som har bott i Sverige mellan 18 och 61 år. lntervjupersonerna kommer från 12 olika länder med olika upplevt kulturellt avstånd från Sverige. Resultaten tyder på att identifikationer med hög(re) ålder och invandrarskap är dynamiska och flexibla snarare än nödvändigtvis permanent meningsfulla, och får därmed betydelse i vissa situationer och i förhållande till särskilda andra. Externa definitioner verkar inte alltid stämma överens med interna definitioner. Oavsett hur hög(re) ålder och invandrarskap är konstruerade så framstår de som förhandlingsbara. Avhandlingen bidrar därmed till identitetsforskningen genom att studera hög(re) ålder och invandrarskap tillsammans och belyser dessutom hur det socialkonstruktionistiska perspektivet tillåter oss att se variation och föränderlighet där stabilitet annars förutsätts.