<p>This dissertation examines the conjuncture of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and migrant social life in the urban space of Beijing as a problematic of what Foucault called biopower, where distinct logics of market and state power deploy techniques of civil society and culture in the form of public-private partnerships. The unique effect of this conjuncture is an expanding logic of power that obfuscates lines of antagonism between capital and labor, requiring new theoretical and methodological insight into how power, resistance, and antagonism might be conceived in the biopolitical era. </p><p>Drawing on recent work on biopower and new theories of antagonism and subjectivity, I argue (following Badiou's work) that both power and resistance must be articulated in their divided tendencies, which allows us to work through how certain tendencies may be contradictory and complementary, and to redraw the lines of antagonism at the level of subjectivity in terms of these divided tendencies. These lines of antagonism don't fall between public/private, market/state, or civil society/state, but along a process by which subjectivities are produced and sustained at a "distance" from the logic of their placement in society, or integrated into power by various strategies of civil society and culture. The practices and theoretical productions of one migrant cultural organization in Beijing, whose project centers on the production of new migrant subjectivity and culture in the transformation of self and society, provides insight into how we might conceive of politics as new forms of "distance" from the logic of biopower.</p><p>Through over twelve months of intensive fieldwork from 2010-2011 and follow up trips the following year on the intersection between Corporate Social Responsibility and migrant social life in Beijing, I trace the techniques by which antagonistic subjectivity is intervened upon. First, I examine the surrounding discourses, logics, and conditions of knowledge production on culture that inform the projects of migrant subjectivity from a historical perspective, and reveal a theoretical impasse in the displacement and disavowal of revolutionary culture to grapple with how to re-think antagonistic contradictions in the pervading market logic of difference. The continuation of this impasse into the biopolitical era is brought into focus through the state and market turn to "culture industries" that include, mirror, and delimit migrant social life in Beijing. Problematizing the rise of self-articulated migrant subjectivity and migrant culture amidst these public-private projects, I then turn to the practices of one migrant organization whose project draws upon a legacy of struggle for self-organized and self-run migrant collective practices to successfully confront and block a situation of forced demolition and displacement. Analyzing how elements from state, market, and "civil society" interacted through public-private partnerships in the situation of daily migrant struggles, I identify the importance of the rise of Corporate Social Responsibility in the urban space of Beijing and the growth of biopolitical practices of intervention upon the migrant issue. I argue that the effect of the diffusion of Corporate Social Responsibility as a social practice is to enroll migrants as active participants in a social life that makes their subjectivities and productive activities visible to the public sphere. Lines of antagonism can thus be drawn by taking up distinctions between subjectivities oriented toward "the public," "self-governance," and the CSR "community," versus collective self-organizing. I conclude by arguing that if biopower seeks to mirror practices of resistance and power by drawing upon the self-activities of cooperative subjects, then thinking about the self-organized and self-run migrant organization as a new form of "distance" may shed light on how antagonism and political struggle might be redefined today.</p> / Dissertation

New Zealand is a country populated by migrants and the Asian population is the largest fastest growing cohort and are predicted to outnumber Māori (i.e. the indigenous people of New Zealand) by 2050. Due to the requirements of immigration to New Zealand the Asian community tends to be highly educated, with Asian ethnicities being more likely to have a university bachelors or post-graduate degree. Asian people are distributed more towards lower household income categories than Europeans, but the proportion of Asian people living in the lowest New Zealand deprivation quintile areas has declined in recent years. Migrants applying for residency are required to have, and thus can be expected to arrive in the country, with good health. The research on health care utilisation in geography has suffered by its tendency to neglect migration and culture as an influencing factor. In New Zealand this neglect is compounded by the near absence of a research focus on Asians and where they do appear it is in collated national surveys that have tended to group all sub-Asian ethnicities as one. This study explored the utilisation of health care from two directions. First, the response and perceptions of health care use from the view of the health services and, second, the perceptions of health care provision from the view of Asian migrants. For these reasons qualitative methods were utilised as they allow a focus on the everyday life situations of subjects.They provide opportunity to expand and flow with the research process. In New Zealand, health services are available that specifically target Asian patients, but they are not uniformly available across New Zealand. This study identifies features of mainstream general practice services, as well as factors that migrants bring with them that act as barriers for Asian people accessing health services, including affordability, language and negative experiences that influence trust of the New Zealand health care system. In many cases affordability was linked to a perceived lack of value for money, where no treatment or tangible outcome was received through a visit to the doctor. Language was indicated to be the most pressing barrier to accessing health care and participants’ home country health experiences continued to influence perceptions and use of health care in New Zealand. The study also highlights some strategies that can be implemented into various stages of the Asian patient’s introduction into and then through the health system and health care to improve the availability and acceptability of these services.

This thesis examines whether the introduction of citizenship education in New Zealand would increase the levels of active citizenship of young migrant New Zealanders, using voter turnout as a measure. This research draws attention to an overlooked part of New Zealand political science research by studying young migrant New Zealanders. The theories and topics covered in this research include the notion of citizenship, education, political participation, social capital and multiculturalism. Both surveys and interviews are used to gauge young New Zealanders’ political attitudes and opinions, and their levels of political knowledge, interest, sophistication and socialisation are examined. The findings of this research suggest that citizenship education would not only be beneficial to young migrant New Zealanders but that citizenship education would benefit all young New Zealanders. It is argued that an increase in all young New Zealanders’ levels of political knowledge and interest are likely to have a positive effect on voter turnout levels. It is also argued that the current education curriculum does not explicitly encourage such learning. Using these findings in conjunction with theory, it is recommended that citizenship education is implemented into the New Zealand secondary school curriculum to ensure that New Zealand’s democracy is in good health for the current and future generations.

Successful forest management requires an understanding of the habitat requirements of individual species at multiple spatial scales. The cerulean warbler (Dendroica cerulea) is a neotropical migratory songbird that has recently gained widespread attention as a species of conservation and management concern. It breeds in mature, deciduous forests of eastern North America and has experienced precipitous range-wide declines over the last 40 years. Although Kentucky likely supports one of the largest breeding populations of the species, no information exists on cerulean warbler habitat selection within the state. The overall purpose of this study was to identify important habitat features associated with cerulean warbler distribution on breeding grounds in eastern Kentucky. In 2004 and 2005, I examined cerulean warbler distribution and associated vegetative characteristics within a hierarchical framework at the stand, territory, and nest-site levels. I used the Information-Theoretic approach to develop 2 sets of a priori models. The first set of models attempted to explain cerulean warbler site occupancy through presence and absence data obtained from point counts. The second set of models attempted to explain differences between preferred song perches and available habitat. Due to small sample size, nest-site information was not used in modeling efforts. Results from presence and absence modeling were inconclusive as no habitat-related differences were identified between occupied and unoccupied locations within the study area. However, territory modeling revealed three potentially important predictors of cerulean warbler habitat: large diameter trees, east-facing aspect, and increased shrub cover. This study reinforces general patterns observed throughout the cerulean warblers breeding range. Although the mechanisms causing cerulean warbler declines are still poorly understood, conservation and management efforts directed toward protecting and establishing large tracts of mature forest with large trees on mesic, sheltered sites should be a reasonable approach to managing cerulean warbler populations on the breeding grounds.

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the life of female migrants in Cape Town. The thesis is based on material gathered through informal conversations, semi-structured interviews and participant observation conducted among female migrants in Cape Town. South Africa is today the strongest economy in the Southern African region which attracts people from other poorer African countries. They migrate to South Africa for a chance to a better life or an opportunity to support themselves and their families. However, South Africa´s restrictive immigration policies make it difficult for many migrants to obtain the right documents and be able to ‘legally’ cross the South African border. Even if migrants get an asylum-seekers permit they are not allowed to legally work in the country. They are included and excluded at the same time. The constant ‘criminalization’ of migrants´ acts makes it hard for migrants to access any human rights and protection in general, which makes them more vulnerable to exploitation. More and more women are crossing the borders to South Africa to get work and physical security as a part of the global ‘feminization’ of migration. Women´s movement therefore questions the picture of the man as the sole breadwinner. Even though this is the reality women are excluded from the discourse about migration and existing immigration policies in South Africa. Female migrants are not acknowledged as important actors and are even more vulnerable in the forced and marginalized position of ‘illegality’, then male migrants. This study explores the female migrants´ own experiences of struggles like getting documented, work, secure housing and being exposed to xenophobia. The women have also developed different strategies to handle these difficulties. This thesis criticizes the ‘victimization’ of female migrants, which ascribes them with powerlessness and being without agency, and shows that they are active in seeking solutions and creating strategies to increase their scope of action.

Migration is an established phenomenon in today’s world. However, there has been only a relatively small amount of research on Iranian migrants in Australia, and in particular female Iranian migrants. By studying 15 first-generation Iranian Muslim women migrants’ perceptions of their immigration to Australia and their difficulties in adjusting to the new culture, this study addresses four objectives: first, the extent of modification in religious identity; second, attitudes towards cultural maintenance; third, attitudes towards language maintenance; and fourth, attitudes towards gender role maintenance. The present study contributes to these underdeveloped areas of study on Iranian migrant women in Australia. This research involves a questionnaire and extensive interviews with the subjects. On the basis of a quantitative analysis of the questionnaire data, and a qualitative content analysis of the interviews, the study investigates the effects of immigration and a change of sociocultural context on the attitudes of the participants towards maintaining or modifying different aspects of their identity, namely the religious, cultural, linguistic and gender aspects. In doing so, we examine, in particular, the influence of the participants’ levels of English language proficiency on their attitudes towards change in these four aspects of their identity. Berry’s Acculturation Model (1997) and its extended version, as proposed by Navasa and her colleagues (2005), are the theoretical frameworks adopted in this research. The present study tests the participants’ responses against Berry’s model. The two issues explored in this work are: a) identifying the phase in Berry’s Acculturation Model in which the participants are located, with respect to the above-mentioned aspects of their identity; and b) examining the effect of English language proficiency, which emerges as a major factor, on the acculturation process of the participants. The findings show that there is a need to review the existing acculturation models, since Berry’s original model, and its enhancement by Navasa et al., are unable to explain and/or predict the acculturation situation of the migrant women in this study. A new model is therefore proposed – the Sociolinguistically Enhanced Acculturation Model (SLEAM), based on Berry’s original model, in which the impact and significance of the role of host language proficiency as the most important factor in the acculturation of migrants is integrated into the structure of the model. The current study is broadly located at the intersection of Sociolinguistics, in so far as sociocultural issues involving language and the use of language are concerned, and Migrant Studies, since the informants are migrant women. More narrowly, the study fits within the boundaries of Sociolinguistics of Identity. By this, we mean the study of identity in a sociocultural context, primarily through the instrumentality of language. The study further relies on the literature from the two fields of Acculturation and Gender Studies. The findings of this work are relevant to the fields of Sociolinguistics, Intercultural Communication, Migrant Studies, and Gender Studies. The results of this research are designed to increase our understanding of the acculturation processes involved in the relocation and settlement of immigrants, specifically from more traditional cultures, into relatively more Western-oriented cultures.

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?

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