This thesis purports to explore and describe the types of information that would be obtainable to the anthropological researcher if he used the minimally structured small group (MDMS-SG) technique with members of a selected ethnic group. The approach was tried on Japanese Portland State University students and also on Saudi Arab Portland State University students for six sessions each. They were told that a graduate anthropology student wanted to get to know them and learn what they thought she should know about their countries. The sessions were taped and notes written after each session. This corpus of material was analyzed using the closed corpus technique which necessitates use of the entire corpus and only the corpus. Post-categorization was used, it being especially appropriate in pilot studies and/or in original exploratory research where the emphasis is on induction rather than deduction. The verbal and other behavioral phenomena exhibited by the two “cultural” groups were compared and an attempt made to isolate that which was distinctively Arab or Japanese. Presence-absence counts and the relative frequency with which behavioral items were exhibited determined whether or not an item was differentiating. Those differences occurred in six major areas which included responses to the constants of the total situation, patterns of organization, paralinguistic phenomena exhibited, interaction patterns displayed, emotions expressed and finally the subject matter discussed. These then are areas for or aspects about which the anthropological investigator can expect to obtain data if he uses the MDMS-SG with “cultural” groups. These differences were then compared with information gathered about Arab and Japanese cultures from other sources. The working hypothesis that the Arab group would spontaneously exhibit significant behavioral differences from the Japanese group under MDMS-SG conditions and that these differences would be related to the ethnic background of that larger population of which they are a part was utilized. The two groups were substantially different and these differences were in the direction of the differences between the two ethnic groups from which they come. Therefore the assumption, while not proved, was substantially strengthened. In the Arab and Japanese groups, it was found that the group reactions to the total situation—the physical surroundings, the investigator, the fact of meeting at all, etc.- -almost all coincided with the written literature. It would seem therefore that the MDMS-SG could be used prior to field work with an unstudied group. Organizational patterns are ideally and easily studied through the use of the MDMS-SG. It could be a part of every ethnology besides having practical significance (i.e. in facilitating international communication) but is only rarely studied now.

The main purpose of this study is to discuss Yvonne Vera‟s representation of various aspects of women‟s identity in a patriarchal and colonial context as they manifest themselves through the women‟s relationships. I explore ways in which the question of self for some of Vera‟s women seems characterised by marginalisation across racial, cultural, ethnic and generational divides. The short stories and novel studied seem to emphasise that for women, under patriarchy and colonialism in Zimbabwe, seeking an independent and fulfilling identity seems to be interpreted as defying society‟s expectations and dictates. However, even as Vera tells of the various women‟s failure to make breakthroughs, she points at a less gender- inflexible future where both men and women will be valued for their true worth, and not their mere biology, through foregrounding the women‟s stories as they challenge and subvert their societies‟ received norms, traditions and values. / English / M.A. (English)

published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis examines the image archive of photographs of the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands of Japan within the framework of historically informed visual anthropology. It is argued that investigating the photography of Ogasawara, which has an ethnically diverse population of descendants of the pre-Japanese, nineteenth-century settlement, exposes the processes that have configured modern 'Japaneseness'. Towards this end, the major areas explored are early Japanese photographic practice, visual aspects of Japanese colonialism, Japanese domestic tourism and the use of photography in the creation and maintenance of ideas about Japanese culture. Extremely rare imperial, government and commercial images, including albumen prints, cartes de visite and postcards, from museums, archives and private collections are examined in this study. The trajectories of these images through the 'visual economy' are traced as they are produced, circulated and gather meanings in a variety of contexts, from early colonial encounters to contemporary tourist engagements. These processes are exposed through an investigation of early Japanese photographic practice, colonial expeditions to Ogasawara, the shifting location of Islanders as 'slippery' internal others within configurations of Japaneseness, Japanese domestic tourism and the tourist discourse in contemporary Ogasawara. This has enabled the development of an alternative history of early Japanese photographic practice and a new understanding of Japanese domestic tourism. These new ways of conceptualising photography and tourism in Japan, together with insights gained from ethnographic investigations of the Ogasawaran image archive, demonstrate that photography played a major role in the construction of modern Japaneseness, rather than merely being a by-product of modernisation. Through an examination of images from the archive of photographs of the Ogasawara Islands, one gains an understanding of modern Japan as a society more diverse than the mostly homogeneous nation it is generally represented as, and more fluid in its definitions of Japaneseness than previously thought.

This thesis begins by examining the factors that have resulted in the dependent nature of Canada's political and economic structure, and proceeds to examine how this has contributed to the cultural amorphousness of English Canadian identity. The hegemonic authority of American and trans-national interests, established and maintained in the cultural sphere through the extensive monopoly of the distribution of cultural and media products, perpetuates the amorphousness of English Canadian culture through the appropriation of Canadian space by the international image industry. Such categorization of Canadian space reflects and perpetuates the imaginary representation of Canada within the dominant ideology as an indistinct and amorphous entity, and comes to usurp the materiality that constructs the lived identities of English Canadians.

The purpose of this thesis is to study and analyse the Gorky Museum in Moscow, a house museum dedicated to the writer Maxim Gorky. The work explores the socio-political and cultural background for the museum, as well as what is conveyed there today, and how the museum approaches problems that house museums generally struggle with. The empirical part of the study is based on the fieldwork that the author conducted at the Gorky Museum during one month in the autumn of 2016, during which open and participant observation of the daily work at the museum was carried out. Attentive observations and systematic notes from guided tours constitute the basis for the description of the material and immaterial features of the museum. For the chapter on the historical and cultural context concerning the Gorky Museum, literary sources were used. The results of the study imply that there existed an authorised heritage discourse (AHD) in the Soviet Union that was directly governed by the authorities, that museums in the Soviet Union were politicised in a much more open manner than in the West, and that the young Soviet state needed to form a national identity for which Maxim Gorky and his literature came in handy. Further, they show that what is conveyed at the museum is something more than just Gorky himself, and that the complex relationship between Gorky and the house changes the impression that the visitors to the museum experience. Lastly, they demonstrate that the Gorky Museum is not exempt from dealing with questions regarding authenticity, representativeness, stereotypization and ”genius loci”, i. e. a sense of the lingering presence of the person commemorated. The conclusions to be drawn from this are that the complexity of the Gorky Museum lie in the fact that a collision between different values can be discerned at the museum, that a disharmony between Gorky and the house itself can be perceived, and that there exists more than one ”genius loci” at the Gorky House. This is a two-year master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies.

In this thesis I utilize a feminist case study method to explore gender, race, authenticity, and nationalism in the context of globalization. Each year, Guatemala conducts two ethno-racially distinct pageants – one indigenous, the other ladina. The indigenous pageant prides itself on the authentic display of indigenous culture and physiognomies. On the contrary, during the westernized ladina pageant, contestants strive to adhere to western beauty ideals beauty and cultural norms engendered by discourses of whiteness. However, when the winner advances to the Miss World Pageant, they misappropriate elements of Mayan culture to express an authentic national identity in a way that is digestible to an international audience. In the study that follows, I examine the ways in which national and international pageants are reflective of their respective levels of social and political conflict and how they serve as mechanisms of manipulation by the elite at the national and global levels. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The push of the past half century to redefine the American canon through the incorporation of writers representative of America's heterogeneousness has given voice to a range of marginalized writers. This movement, predicated on the belief that American society was never as unified as its early leaders would have us believe, has overstated what it sought to challenge : the unitedness of early Americans. Casting the leaders of the Early Republic as in complete accord, such critical readings negate the significant differences that existed and the pains necessary to present something akin to national unity and identity. It is my aim to show that this unity came about through a constructed rhetoric meant to unify the citizens in colonial America and the Early Republic. In this thesis, I will examine three modes of this rhetoric : American Exceptionalism, the American Enlightenment, and the movements supporting a mono-dialectal view of American English. / by Joel Wilson. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

by Greenslade, Leith Maree. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-76). / Questionnaire also in Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.v / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.vi / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.5 / Culture and Business Ethics --- p.5 / Chinese Culture and Business Ethics --- p.7 / Chapter III. --- METHODOLOGY --- p.13 / Research Design --- p.13 / Sampling --- p.15 / Data Collection --- p.16 / Chapter IV. --- ANALYSIS --- p.17 / Scenario 1: Bribery --- p.20 / Scenario 2: Competition --- p.24 / Scenario 3: Product Liability --- p.28 / Scenario 4: Environment --- p.31 / Scenario 5: Whistle Blowing --- p.34 / Scenario 6: Financial Transparency --- p.37 / Scenario 7: Intellectual Property --- p.41 / Scenario 8: Gender --- p.44 / Scenario 9: Ethical Reasoning Ranking --- p.48 / Chapter V. --- FINDINGS --- p.54 / Chapter VI. --- LIMITATIONS --- p.60 / Chapter VII. --- CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS --- p.61 / APPENDICES --- p.70 / Chapter I. --- Hofstede China Analysis --- p.70 / Chapter II. --- English Survey --- p.71 / Chapter III. --- Chinese (Putonghua) Survey --- p.72 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.73

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