In this thesis I explore the archaeology of Southern New England by examining two places on the Native American landscape. I argue that archaeology should focus on studying entire landscapes to understand the total range of human effects present. The ethnohistoric record provides illuminating details to our understanding of the Native American landscape. The method I employ in this dissertation to exemplify how best to study the archaeology of the past Native landscape is soil micromorphology. This method, by providing a detailed view of soil microstructure, enables archaeologists to recognize very discrete alterations to the landscape otherwise undetectable. My analyses suggest that the landscape is not easily divisible into cultural and non-cultural, site and non-site or feature and non-feature areas. Rather, the entire landscape is more appropriately viewed as a continuum of areas with low to high evidence of cultural disturbance.

The cultural difference between the philosophies of West and East has been assumed for so long that it has attained the status of a fact. Recent developments in social and political theory have undermined this facticity by pointing toward the processes which produce such "facts," convincingly arguing that there are vested social and political interests which lie behind the designation of cultural "others." The presumption of the fact of cultural difference is thus hardly innocent observation. The critique of Orientalism, as instigated by Edward Said, is usfuell but limited in this regard, and this dissertation is an attempt to further the critiques of Orientalism by investigating the central, but previously unexamined, concept of culture which underpins such critiques. This dissertation specifically examines the presumed split between Western and Chinese philosophy by carefully tracing part of the history of how Chinese philosophy comes to be understood as Chinese. For this purpose, it analyzes the work of a sampling of prominent and divergent "Western" thinkers on the "problem" of China, demonstrating that what lies behind the history of the Western/Chinese "difference" is a process of Western self-identification concomitant with a certain cultural desire. The assertion of a difference in philosophies ultimately speaks more about Western cultural desires than about the "nature" of Chinese culture and thought. The results of this line of thought are then applied to the concepts of democracy and gender, played out against the tableau of the presumed "cultural difference" between the West and China. This dissertation can thus be seen as arguing against the notions of culture and cultural difference as they appear in their current manifestations in liberal multiculturalism. Although seemingly opposed, the insights of Foucauldian theories of discourse and Lacanian analyses of subjective desire are utilized for this analysis. The conclusion, an argument for an understanding of culture and cultural difference which adequately captures the deep interfusion of human populations and its agonistic quality, is an attempt to escape some of the deadlocks faced by contemporary multiculturalism and to point to the directions which the ongoing diminishment of global distance compels our self-understanding as "cultured" subjects.

Prejudice and discrimination are facts of life for members of stigmatized groups. This dissertation examines how members of stigmatized groups respond to prejudice and discrimination, depending on their group identification--that is, the emotional and personal value derived from their group membership. Because of the cognitive and motivational properties associated with group identification, people who identify very strongly with their stigmatized group differ from people who identify less strongly in their reactions to prejudice. Four studies examine how ethnic minorities and women perceive and respond to prejudice as a function of their group identification. Findings from all four studies indicate that people who identify strongly with their stigmatized group are likely to (a) perceive themselves as potential targets of discrimination, and (b) express suspicion during intergroup relations; people who identify less strongly with their group perceive less personal discrimination and express less suspicion during intergroup relations. These studies also reveal the negative emotional consequences of being a target of discrimination. Differences between studies illuminate the complexity of confronting prejudice, and in particular indicate how the phenomenology of racism differs markedly from the phenomenology of sexism.

The recent surge in academic theorizing of the nation and nationalism has made it difficult to isolate the actual phenomena from their constructions as objects of theory. This is all the more difficult because most contemporary theories are grounded in unacknowledged political agendas that to a significant extent generate the theories independently of the phenomena. Chapter 1 focuses on “antinational-ist” theories of the nation—theories that deny the reality of nations or fundamentally delegitimate them as retrogressive or inherently oppressive political forms. Such a theory rejects the nation primarily because it is inconsistent with the theorist's uncritically assumed political ideology. In Chapter 2, I examine theories that do not reject the nation, but rather control its form—again in line with a particular political agenda or ideology. Such a theory allows the reality and/or legitimacy of nations, but only (1) after theoretically misconstruing them as consistent with (and possibly servants of) the theorist's specific ideology or (2) by limiting approval to only those nations that are in line with this ideology. I stress the important practical consequences of this: when backed by powerful institutions and forces, such a theory of the nation supports the coerced transformation of minor or post-colonial nations to fit it. These critiques expose the complexities of nations and nationalisms that most theories fail to register, due to their limiting assumptions. In Chapter 3, I develop an account of the nation sufficiently comprehensive to capture this complexity. Perhaps most importantly, my account does not reduce the nation to just one type of social force, political relation, identity characteristic, narrative structure, or “false consciousness”—which virtually all other theories do. All “unity” associated with the nation is partial: any presumed universal unity is always cut by gaps or discontinuities. A nation exists where the discontinuities are bridged by some alternate connector, by another type of relation. I then consider the relationship of nation to race, gender, and sexuality, as well as to state and ethnicity. Finally, I develop a novel concept of national “self-determination” as conceptual self- definition, not territorial control.

This study cross-sectionally investigated the relationship between ego identity formation and racial identity development in college students self-identified as White or People of Color. Two-hundred and ten participants (113 White, 97 People of Color) completed standardized measures of ego identity formation (EOMEIS—Bennion & Adams, 1986), racial identity development (WRIAS & POC-RIAS—Helms, 1990) and self esteem (RSE—Rosenberg, 1965). Regression analyses investigated whether a person's level of racial identity, (most mature, least mature, and exploratory vs committed) predicted her level of ego identity (most mature, least mature and exploratory vs committed). Overall, results supported this relationship, although racial identity statuses seemed more relevant to ego identity for People of Color than for Whites. For Whites, more mature racial identity indirectly predicted mature ego identity, while exploratory racial identity positively predicted committed ego identity. Finally, the least mature racial identity predicted a number of different ego identity statuses for Whites. However, psychometric analysis of the WRIAS indicated that the instrument more accurately reflected a two factor model than the five factor status model originally examined. Post-hoc analyses with a two factor model of racial comfort and discomfort significantly predicted some aspects of ego identity in Whites. For People of Color, mature racial identity directly predicted mature ego identity, less mature racial identity predicted committed ego identity and racial confusion and exploration predicted ego identity exploration.

Front-line social service providers in Montreal, Quebec act as cultural mediaries facilitating immigrant and refugee integration into the host society. Cultural mediation requires practitioners to field many demanding, contradictory and overdetermined representations of person, place and culture. In this dissertation I argue that mediaries are uniquely positioned to construct temporal and dynamic borderzones where hypostatizations and their interstices generate conflicted cultural meanings. Far from postmodern celebrations of nomadic creativity, borderzones are agonistic, ephemeral spaces of powerful overdeterminations all about position and context. A working matrix of four variable sets is chosen as ethnographic data: (1) a set of theories; (2) narratives and histories about the city of Montreal, nationalism and belonging in Quebec, integration theory and policy, social work, and cultural mediation pedagogy; (3) narratives about belonging and cultural mediation from my interlocutors; and (4) my historical and positional contexts as an expatriate anglophone Québécoise researcher undertaking this project. Chapters explore how these variables overdetermine constructions of cultural mediation and this ethnography. I contend that cultural mediaries may be viewed as ethnographers' applied analogues given how they create, translate and negotiate dialectic/dialogic contrasts of cultural differences implicated in these variables. Three axes of philosophical thought are integrated and thereby modified when field data are socially positioned within analytic, dialectic conflicts: rational positivism (as positional binary logics and hegemonies), postmodernity (as relativism exemplified by hybridity and heteroglossia) and marxian overdetermination (as contextual variables defining Subjects as field effects). This ethnography establishes that conflicts sustain contrasts which form social field effects of human subjectivity as mobile, positional identifications and their communications. Logical binaries are shown to be constructed via individuals' signifying practices which generate interstitial borderzones for identity and culture which are necessarily dynamic, conflicted and ambiguous. Far from fixed binaries of positivist or structuralist logic which lead to reductionistic and totalizing theories, cultural mediaries utilize binaries in dialectic, overdetermined tensions as momentary, shifting sets. Acknowledging contradiction as intrinsic to constructions of meaning renders authoritative language and action necessarily ambivalent. From this emerges a complex political activism where subversion turns discursive conditions of dominance into difficult, creative uncertainties of cultural adaptation, invention and mutation.

In the wake of predicted increases in “non-traditional” entrants into the US workforce, US organizations have widely adopted the conviction that “managing diversity” is a “business imperative.” Employees and their managers should be trained to value cultural, gender and other differences in order to improve teamwork and creativity. Further, “managing diversity” should equip the organization to better serve its customers, creating a global competitive advantage. This dissertation steps back from this account to critically examine the discourse and practices of “diversity management.” Departing from the “standard” ontology, epistemology and instrumentalism of managerial discourse, it views “diversity management” as an ongoing process and product of cultural formation . Adopting a transdisciplinary, eclectic approach, analysis focuses on processes of social construction and normalization , and the role of discourse in the constitution of subjectivity. The dissertation defamiliarizes diversity by bringing to the fore concerns that are not typically addressed in the management discourse: Why has “diversity management” acquired such wide acceptance in Corporate America? How are “diversity” and “diversity management” defined? What alternative definitions are available? What are the implications of these definitions and the practices based upon them for the constitution of subjectivity? The dissertation draws upon archival research, personal interviews and participant observation to create a “joint text” of diversity management. “Readings” of that “text,” developed through a critical, cultural studies, poststructuralist lens, focus upon the relations among language, subjectivity, social organization and power. Ultimately, the dissertation demonstrates why “diversity management,” as currently conceptualized and implemented by many US corporations, is unlikely to fulfill its promises. The dissertation contributes to the field of organization studies and to organizational practitioners by destabilizing the “naturalized” discourse and practices of “diversity management.” It “bends the bars” created by their taken-for-granted “knowledge” about “diversity,” making space for reconsideration and reconceptualization. The dissertation also contributes to an old, yet fresh, discussion of several questions basic to the study of organization: What is an organization ? How does organizational change happen? How can individuals cooperate with one another, and what might provide sufficient motivation for them to go to the effort to do so?

The persistence literature demonstrates that African American and Latino/a students are less likely to graduate from predominantly white institutions than Asian and white students. Academic preparation is an important factor in explaining this phenomenon. However, the ALANA (African, Latino/a, Asian and Native American) persistence literature suggests that racial/ethnic dynamics in college also influence persistence. Both studies in this literature and Tinto's model of institutional departure indicate that student interactions in college play an important role in persistence. This study examined the influence of racial/ethnic dynamics on the process of social and academic integration. Students of diverse racial/ethnic and academic backgrounds were interviewed three times during their first-year and at the beginning of their sophomore year about their pre-college and in-college experiences. Results yielded a qualitative description of the process of integration and indicated that peer culture and institutional environment have a strong impact on how students become integrated into campus life. Differences in the process of integration by race/ethnicity revealed that society's racial/ethnic hierarchy was reinforced through racial/ethnic accountability, the pervasiveness of white culture, and the pursuit of a color-blind society. These dynamics in addition to differences in learning opportunities that affected academic preparation functioned to challenge the integration of ALANA students, particularly African American and Latino/a students, into campus life.

In Theorizing Asian America Lingyan Yang articulates the urgently needed theory, politics, methods, and ethics of Asian American Feminist Cultural Criticism and Literature in the global and diasporic context, turning every theoretical aporia into political possibilities and every political impossibility into theoretical contestations. Yang compares and connects the texts and thoughts of the Asian American and the Asian diasporic postcolonial women intellectuals, which have inaugurated, defined, shaped and re-directed the intellectual history of Asian America, the inter-disciplinary history of Asian American Studies, and the feminist history of theorizing Asian American women and Asian American women theorizing. She defines Asian American and Asian diasporic women's cultural criticism and literature in English as that which is authored by North American women intellectuals and writers of Asian origin, specifically East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian American and Asian diasporic, who were born in or have immigrated to, migrated to, or resided in North America, whose works have been published by, consumed by and circulating in the First World. On the disputed nationality of Asian American Studies, Yang questions Asian American cultural nationalism's problematic binary between the domestic Asian America and the global and diasporic postcoloniality. She re-conceptualizes the limits and boundaries of the idealism of Asian American communities by exposing the complicity between the logos of the community and the logos of the racialist, gendered and classed capitalist nation through reading Kogawa's Obasan and Ghosh's The Shadow Lines. Drawing from Foucault, Gramsci, Spivak and Said, she is the first to articulate a worldly Asian American feminist intellectual ethics. Writing about a wide range of critical possibilities and contradictions, Yang raises the important questions on interdisciplinarity, institutionalization, community, and representation, taking neither theory nor politics lightly. She insists on the inclusive, engaged, progressive, decolonized and feminist humanism in theorizing the unsettling relationships between theory and politics, theory and practice, theory and minor/other discourses. Theorizing Asian America will be a unique contribution to contemporary critical cultural theories in general, and Asian American cultural criticism, postcoloniality, feminist theories, diaspora and ethnic studies in particular.

Throughout American history, people have come to the United States to escape intolerable conditions elsewhere and to seek a better life. After the collapse of the South Vietnamese government, hundreds of thousands of persons fled to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Eventually, by the late 1980's and early 1990's most of them made their way to the United States (U.S. Department of State). There were three waves of Vietnamese immigration. The third wave, coming after 1982, was the most complicated as it included different types of refugees. A significant number of studies focus on the challenges of Vietnamese refugees in adapting to a new society. However, research on Vietnamese women is still very limited. The purpose of this study was to explore the educational experiences and life stories of sixteen Vietnamese young women who came to Welltown, Massachusetts during the third wave of immigration, and who were successful in pursuing higher education. The study looked for factors that influenced their academic achievements and the construction of their self-identities. The methodology used to collect the data was in-depth interviewing. The first interview concentrated on the participants' life experiences in Viet Nam until the day they came to the United States, and the challenges they faced to achieve academically. The second interview provided details and stories of their current living experiences. The last interview focused on the meaning of their experiences as Vietnamese female refugees in American society. Informal conversations with parents and teachers, a survey on parents' attitude on second language learning, and classroom observations were included as a means of triangulation to confirm and expand my interpretations based on the interviews' data. There were three main conclusions of this study: (1) according to their own accounts, all women saw education and the learning of English as important to their success. They also saw family playing an important role in their lives, (2) as a group, they made diverse career choices based on language proficiency in English not on their ability, and (3) each group faced particular challenges and based on their refugee experiences, other issues that affected their identity construction were discrimination inside Vietnamese community and at the workplace in the dominant culture, inappropriate curriculum and assessment in their schooling, and lack of career orientation. Implications of the findings of this study provide researchers and educators possible direction for supporting environment for female Vietnamese refugees in a multicultural society.