This dissertation examines the military occupation of the Afro-Indigenous Moskitia region of Central America in the context of the “War on Drugs.” Despite the ideological differences professed by the regimes that have clung to power in Nicaragua and Honduras from the late 2000s to 2020, both governments have channeled “anti-narcotics” military assistance from the United States to install Army and Navy outposts in practically every Caribbean Afro-Indigenous coastal village during the last decade. For the first time in history, Miskitu male soldiers have been systematically recruited and deployed to these new posts. While the War on Drugs is often theorized as a “thanatopolitical” intervention enforced by disembedded, sovereign state forces, this dissertation focuses instead on the everyday life of petty sovereignty: soldiers working in contexts where state and market infrastructure is rudimentary, and where they typically turn to local villagers for labor, supplies, and logistical support. Violating military rules, Nicaraguan and Honduran soldiers habitually find sexual and romantic companionship in Miskitu villages. Ricocheting between the vantage point of soldiers, their lovers and former lovers, occasional and dedicated drug merchants, and other residents of Miskitu villages across the Nicaragua-Honduras border, the dissertation interrogates Central American security regimes not only in relation to the history of war and extractivism in Afro-Indigenous regions, but also vis-à-vis Afro-Indigenous kinship and gender norms, property forms and economic practices, and overlapping jurisdictions of regional governance. Based on 27 months of participant-observation research in occupied Miskitu villages between 2014 and 2018, the dissertation compares the operations of the national armed forces of Nicaragua and Honduras to those of the United States’ Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In 2012, the DEA launched a 90-day, drug-interdiction “pilot program” code-named Operation Anvil in Miskitu land under Honduran jurisdiction. The operation manifested differentiated practices of articulation and disarticulation across various spatial scales: a peculiar form of articulation to the Honduran central government –which DEA saw as a corrupt but corrigible ally in the fight against drug trafficking— and a radical form of disarticulation vis-à-vis Miskitu regional authorities—who were perceived, alternatingly and contradictorily, as 1) inexistent, 2) irrelevant, 3) nomadic, 4) foreign to the region, or 5) hopelessly corrupt. This imaginary gave shape to a governmental intervention that relegated indigenous criminalization to a discourse of last resort, but that upheld nation-state sovereignty over the Moskitia and elided all the questions of indigenous economic and political autonomy which have been central to the Moskitia’s regional politics since the 1980s. DEA agents disavowed relationships with regional authorities and residents on an a priori basis. In combination with the privileged forms of legal immunity protecting US law enforcement and military officials, such disavowal carried homicidal consequences. The Nicaraguan and Honduran militaries, on the other hand, interact closely with local residents, Afro-Indigenous authorities, and drug merchants. These relationships represent both resources and risks for Nicaragua and Honduras as geopolitically subordinate states. The risks largely derive from the contradictory demands of superordinate geopolitical entities that Nicaragua and Honduras “respect indigenous human rights” and simultaneously participate in the hemispheric “war on drugs.” Nicaragua and Honduras have addressed this contradiction by organizing multiculturalism and militarization on the basis of indirect rule. Indirect rule involves the limited incorporation of indigenous forms of socioeconomic and political organization into state governance, as well as the appointment of regional intermediaries such as Miskitu soldiers. These intermediaries act as lightning rods onto whom state institutions might displace responsibility. More than a “hearts and minds” strategy of counterinsurgency, military indirect rule fosters displacement and sublimation: displacement of risk towards the lower, racialized levels of governance; sublimation of refusal of the occupation towards questions of sex, love, and parental abandonment.

This dissertation proposes a framework for analyzing musical interculturality—the processes through which musicians weave together multiple musical and cultural identities through performance—in twenty-first-century music. By attending to the specific sociopolitical contexts of the intercultural environment in which each performer takes part, I challenge multiculturalist assumptions of cultural purity, homogeneity, and authenticity that often undergird music theoretical analyses of non-Western music. My analysis of interculturality centers on musicians whose work risks being excluded from nation-state-based conceptions of cultural authenticity that have dominated music theoretical work on non-Western music. Through three case studies of active Japanese musicians, I explore how a collaborative project between shamisen player Honjoh Hidejirō (本條秀慈郎) and composer Fujikura Dai (藤倉大), performances by shō player Miyata Mayumi (宮田まゆみ), and the music of mixed-race Japanese American singer-songwriter Mitski present heterogeneous possibilities of national and cultural identity. Through close readings of musical recordings, videos, and scores, as well as through interviews and archival work, I demonstrate how cultural and musical identities are constructed through the particular historical and sociopolitical contexts within which performers operate. Focusing on how Honjoh, Miyata, and Mitski complicate and challenge strict dichotomies between Japanese and non-Japanese cultural, national, and musical affiliations, I pay close attention to how intercultural meanings are constructed through their performances, dialogues, and collaborations. In each case study, I argue that an analysis of interculturality necessitates a flexible, interdisciplinary, and transnational methodology that is tailored to the precise historical and sociopolitical circumstances in which the music is being created, performed, and interpreted. By understanding characterizations of Japanese, Western, and Japanese American as contingent categorizations that do not exist a priori but materialize through musical performance, I draw attention to the distinctive ways in which Honjoh, Miyata, and Mitski engage in intercultural music-making. This dissertation challenges essentialist narratives that continue to assume a rigid and homogeneous view of Japanese culture while fetishizing traditional music as a singular marker of authenticity. Given that oppositional binaries between the West/non-West and cultural insider/outsider continue to shape the interpretation of music by non-white non-Euroamerican musicians, I argue that it is crucial for music analysis to confront and complicate—rather than uncritically affirm—these narratives. First, I problematize monolithic and essentialist conceptions of Japanese music. Through analyses of performers who deviate from these narratives, I disconnect expressions of musical identity from ethno-nationalist assumptions and situate ethnicity as one of many factors that shape cultural identity. Second, I interrogate the underlying epistemological frameworks that produce reductive misrepresentations of Japanese music. This dissertation disrupts the underlying Eurocentric epistemological framework that essentializes—and therefore exerts control over—non-Western cultures. I therefore conceive of interculturality not only as an issue of representation, but also as a strategy for challenging the imposed authority of Western systems of knowledge. Third, by analyzing the agency of performers in negotiating and contesting dominant narratives of Japanese ethnic, cultural, and musical identity, I approach interculturality as an embodied and lived phenomenon rather than as only an intellectual analytical endeavor.

Multicultural counselling and psychotherapy theory and research that focuses on ethnicity and race in cross-cultural counselling have pointed to concerns of oppression within counselling processes; however, an open exploration of oppression that may occur in session is not readily available from the perspective of clients. As such, this thesis research explores the lived experiences of oppression for ethnoracial minority clients who have engaged in counselling with white counsellors, with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of oppression and power in counselling, and possible resulting harm. This research is positioned within feminist and multicultural lenses, influencing the interviews themselves and the interpretations of participant experiences of oppression in counselling. Philosophical hermeneutics was used as the methodology to inform data collection and analysis. Five participants were interviewed using a semi-structured protocol to explore their counselling experiences for the following domains of interest: oppression, power, and harm. Through the analysis process, four major themes emerged for oppression (i.e., Whiteness of Therapy, Therapist Cultural Positioning in Sessions, Microinvalidations by Therapist, Disconnection Between Therapist and Client), four for power (i.e., Relational Power Differences in Therapy, Power Over by Therapist, Client Disempowerment, Client Empowerment Through Resistance), and three for harm (i.e., Hindered Counselling Process, Impeded Psychological Wellbeing, Generalized Negative Beliefs). Implications are discussed with the hope of informing multicultural research and training to improve competencies of professionals working within cross-cultural contexts.

Although there is an increase in publications on the topic of cultural responsiveness in school psychology, the research literature does not interrogate the discourse around cultural responsiveness and the modes of practices it enables. Using a preexisting dataset featuring interviews with 15 school psychologists, I analyzed the discursive formations characterizing the talk about cultural responsiveness. Data analysis using the critical discursive psychology framework illuminated the presence of cognitivism in participant talk. Critical discourse analysis drawing on Foucauldian theory of power effects revealed the ways in which cognitivism both enabled and constrained the discursive production of ‘culture’ and ‘cultural responsiveness’. Culture became a primarily cognitive concept (beliefs, values, and tendencies of various groups), and cultural responsiveness came to be a rational non-discriminatory form of decision making process oriented toward individualistic and micro-level forms of practices that had institutional sanction. Implications and recommendations for further research are discussed.

Mass migration in the past five decades fills classrooms with a mix of cultures, values and national identities. Swedish teachers find themselves working in multicultural classrooms. The aim of this study is to identify the challenges teachers face and propose solutions. This study uses the qualitative research methods of grounded theory and participatory action research. This exploratory research uncovered the theory that political factors, support, self-image and multicultural competence impacted the teachers’ central task of raising Swedish citizens. Additionally, teachers reveal their tactics and proposed solutions to manage the challenges in multicultural classrooms. Teachers call for policy changes, including smaller class sizes and providing multicultural competency skills for teachers.

The Swedish people’s attitude towards multiculturalism is generally positive and has been so for a long period of time. In recent years attitudes have become increasingly polarized between those who are positive and negative. The multicultural project is subject to an increasingly sharp criticism. The purpose of this study is to investigate attitudes and life practices within a specific group, a group which some consider to be an elite of knowledge in this context, university lecturers. The study examines whether the attitudes and life practices are in agreement or whether there is a discrepancy between the two. The theoretical outset for the study has been Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social space, habitus, capital forms and social positions. The result shows that all informants have a positive attitude towards multiculturalism. At the same time, their life practice is strongly characterized by a culturally homogeneous way of life and the encounter with other cultures in the Swedish context is very marginal, which is generally also forwarded to their children. In other words, there is a distinct discrepancy between attitude and life practice. Thus, there is a risk that the position of agents with a different cultural heritage, on the basis of lack of symbolic capital, will be entrenched far down in the social space.

The Inuit people in Greenland are internationally recognized as indigenous. They, therefore, have been granted protective measures, such as self-government rights in 2009. However, some scholars have started to question whether protective measures are still a necessity because of their increased autonomy rights. To contest this questioning, this paper examines the contemporary political discourse in Greenland regarding the Inuit people’s emphasis on their cultural heritage, ongoing identity issues, and aspirations of independence, in the light of Will Kymlicka’s liberal theory of multiculturalism. The paper concludes that the Inuit people in Greenland, to a large extent, apply to Kymlicka’s theory regarding his criteria of national minorities and the importance of belonging to a societal culture. However, the study also finds that his theory is limited in protecting potential sub-cultures and lacks nuances about secessionist thoughts among indigenous groups. The results underline the importance of continuingly protect indigenous peoples in Greenland and suggests considering additional measures to other minorities on the island.

Sounds that Fall Through the Cracks, and Other Silences and Acts of Love tells the story of a dozen cosmopolitan socially aware singer-songwriters, poets and musicians of different racial, ethnic and national backgrounds who developed their political consciousness by thinking within/through the colonial problematic of Québec or Puerto Rico in the 1960s and 1970s. Five interrelated claims give coherence to this work: a) grasping the decolonial import of socially aware repertoires needs to attend to the meeting point among sound, music, lyrical content, and the interlocutor’s perspective on the musical object; b) understanding the historical contexts which shaped each interlocutor’s life is necessary to fully comprehend her political-aesthetic choices; c) when incorporating the interlocutor’s way of imagining the past one must pay attention to the ways in which that past has been historicized d) reflecting on how the other is inscribed in sound and word needs to account for how that other envisions herself and; e) these critical assessments must be developed “theorizing with your interlocutor” in a relentless back and forth informed by love and friendship that takes seriously the critical import of the interlocutor and considers his needs and desires. Combined, these claims are conducive to a critical analysis that is historically rigorous, ethical and fair to the interlocutor and the other to the extent that the unavoidable limitations of the researcher allows for. By departing from spaces where the eye meets the ear, logos and phono entwine, the historical context shapes the musical object and vice versa, fieldwork and life are fused, and the interlocutor is treated not only as a producer of culture but as a thinker in her own right, I problematize four major categories: Puerto Rican nueva canción (PRNC), chanson québécoise (CQ), the related anticolonial narratives that frame these musics, and the category “the decolonial.” Regarding the latter, I pay careful attention to the relationship between bodies of knowledge around the colonial, such as postcolonial, Latin American decolonial, settler colonial and anticolonial studies. Edouard Glissant has argued that “generalization” is one of the manifestations of a “totalitarian root” because “from the world it chooses one side of the reports, one set of ideas, which it sets apart from others and tries to impose by exporting as a model” (2010 [1990]: 20). Inspired in part by the Martiniquais philosopher and poet, my overall argument is that decolonizing knowledge must involve a collective praxis of “theorizing with your interlocutor” that in addition to assessing how colonial logics are reproduced and proposing ways to contest them, must challenge the “totalitarian” and individualist “root” of academic discourse. In order to develop this collective praxis, I walk hand in hand with my interlocutors/friends Américo Boschetti, Frank Ferrer, Bernardo Palombo, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, Hilcia Montañez, Oscar Pardo, Sandra María Esteves, Suni Paz, Sylvain Leroux, Marie-Claire Séguin, Rouè Doudou Boicel, Lise Vachon and Georges Rodriguez, and other decolonial and anticolonial thinkers.

Diploma thesis focuses on integration policies in the Netherlands and Canada since 1970' s till nowadays. Both countries are well known for implementing multiculturalism. Canada has become the only country that through Multiculturalism Act claimed official support for multiculturalism policy and is still doing so even recently when this model is being refused by most of the other countries. Such a situation developed in the Netherlands which became an example of a failure of multiculturalism. However multiculturalism was of a different kind in each of those countries and so was the final form of integration policies. The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyse similarities and differences in both integration policies and to find relevant factors that impacted their failure in the Netherlands and their success in Canada. Diploma thesis describes the basic milestones in the development of integration policies and changes in the respective time period. It also points out the main differences in the concept of multiculturalism in the Netherlands and Canada and tries to explain it on the historical, state building, national identity and multiculture background.

Diploma thesis is focused on multiculturalism in Netherlands and was inspired by political discussion on cohabitation of minorities and mayor societies in Europe. The issue of assimilation contra diversity acceptation is not anyhow new, but inflection of multiculturalism at European level during the last couple of years re-opened the issue of application the multicultural theory in social affairs. The following text is summarizing new trends in multicultural theory and those are confronted with situation in Netherlands since 2005 based on four selected indicators. The study shows that there were no significant deviations from multicultural trend in Dutch society.