Race and racism inform our subjective realities and structure unequal material relations in contemporary society. While researchers have developed substantive theories to explain racism as systemically pervading institutions within society and permeating our consciousness, studies must also examine how people with privilege deny or admit the existence of racism within their institutions in different environments. Studies of how educators understand racism have been emerging; however, there remains a paucity of scholarship addressing this topic in the Canadian Prairies. In this thesis I use discourse analysis to investigate how prairie teachers negotiated the troubling topic of racism in their schools. The data was collected through open-ended surveys and focus-groups exploring teachers understanding of racism and anti-racism within two mid-sized prairie city high schools. First, exploring survey responses, I use text-based discursive analysis techniques to analyze how participants minimize the unsettling presence of racism in the school. In their responses, teachers used techniques of individualization, blaming the victim, displacement, and situating racism as a student problem to avoid implicating themselves or their school within racism. Teachers preserved the colour-blind image of education, maintaining the benevolence of the educational institution and its employees. However, different images of education emerged from focus-group discussions with educators interested in exploring anti-racism in the school. Focus group participants shifted from minimizing racism to problematizing privilege and power within the building. Multicultural, psychological, and institutional approaches to anti-racism emerged, emphasizing the need to engage individuals, cultures, and institutional structures. Exploring how teachers articulated different versions of the school environment, the identities of students, and their own identities within and between these different anti-racist discourses exposed how versions of each approach could be constructed to situate racism as external to education, and how critical conceptualizations of the school opened opportunities for individual, cultural, and institutional change within education. This research develops the understanding of race in the Canadian Prairies, discourse analysis within geography, anti-racist education, the geography of how teachers situate racism, and how teachers construct the relationship between school, teacher identity, and racism.

This research explores the moral experiences of White, anti-racism educators in Saskatchewan. As members of the dominant group, while at the same time being defenders of the rights of minority groups, the unique positioning of these individuals raises intriguing questions of moral experience. Although there is a large body of research regarding issues of racism, there is very little research focusing on the experiences of individuals working in the field of anti-racism; this research seeks to address this gap in the literature. Using a critical interpretive approach (Lock and Scheper-Hughes, 1990) grounded in the assumptions of constructionism, and relying upon Kleinmans (1995; 1999) theory of moral experience, I interviewed 12 self-identified White, anti-racism educators using an open-ended life-history interview followed by a semi-structured interview. The interview questions were inspired by the racism literature reviewed; my own experiences as a White woman negotiating my place in the study of racism; Kleinmans theory of moral experience; and a collection of secondary theories deemed potentially useful to understanding various dimensions of participants experience. Four broad domains of moral experience are identified and explored in this research. First, participants understandings of race, racism, and anti-racism are examined. Veynes (1988) theory regarding the plurality of programs of truths is used to make sense of what might be read as contradictions in participants constructions of these concepts. Second, the experience of actually doing anti-racism education is considered in terms of participants descriptions of their involvements; which they frame alternately as educating Whites, helping the racialized, and changing racist structures. Foucaults (1977, 1978) theory of power and de Certeaus notion of tactics (1984) prove relevant to understanding aspects of participants experiences in this domain. Third, the relationships between Self and various Others (i.e., the White Other, the racialized Other, the anti-racism Other) are explored. Todorovs (1984) typology of the Other is used to make sense of these complex data. Finally, participants descriptions of their experiences of Self (including past, present, and future Selves) are examined. Goffmans (1961) theory of moral career and Turners (1995) theory of liminality are applied to understanding elements of participants varied experiences of Self. In reviewing participants accounts across these broad domains, I argue that their noted success and confidence in navigating a challenging moral landscape might be understood in terms of their skill in moving between dual worlds that operate according to distinct logics of morality. Potential applications for the field of anti-racism are discussed.

This research examines representations of wilderness, Canadian nationalism and the production of responsible and respectable subjects in commonplace outdoor recreation texts from Mountain Equipment Co-op, the Bruce Trail Conservancy and the Bruce Peninsula National Park. Drawing theoretical insights from Foucault’s genealogy and technologies of the self, post-structural feminism and anti-racist scholarship on whiteness, I pose three broad questions: How is nature understood? How is Canada imagined? How are certain subjects produced through outdoor recreation? In this research, I outline five ways in which wilderness is represented. First, I consider how wilderness is produced as a place that is above all else empty (of human inhabitants and human presence). I then examine four ways in which the empty wilderness is represented: first, as dangerous and inhospitable, second, as threatened, third, as sublime and fourth, as the Canadian nation. I link the meanings invested into wilderness with a set of practices or desired forms of conduct in order to articulate how a specific subject is produced. These subjects draw on the meanings attributed to wilderness. The dangerous wilderness can only be navigated by a Calculating Adventurer. The threatened wilderness desperately needs the assistance of the Conscientious Consumer. The sublime wilderness provides respite for the Transformed Traveler. The Canadian or national wilderness is best suited to and belongs to the Wilderness Citizen. The four subjects I examine in this thesis each draw from particular wilderness representations and specific practices in order to be produced as desirable in the context of outdoor recreation. By examining the relationship between wilderness discourse, subjects and practices in everyday texts, I illustrate how masculine and white respectability operate in outdoor recreation. Pointing to subtle shifts in the meanings and values attributed to masculinity, Canadianness and whiteness, I articulate how outdoor recreation texts produce subject positions which are richly embedded in race and gender privilege and assertions about national belonging. In addition to examining whiteness, nationalism and masculinity, this research examines how individualized practices, such as consumer activism, become understood as the conduct of responsible neoliberal citizens concerned with national and environmental interests.

This research examines representations of wilderness, Canadian nationalism and the production of responsible and respectable subjects in commonplace outdoor recreation texts from Mountain Equipment Co-op, the Bruce Trail Conservancy and the Bruce Peninsula National Park. Drawing theoretical insights from Foucault’s genealogy and technologies of the self, post-structural feminism and anti-racist scholarship on whiteness, I pose three broad questions: How is nature understood? How is Canada imagined? How are certain subjects produced through outdoor recreation? In this research, I outline five ways in which wilderness is represented. First, I consider how wilderness is produced as a place that is above all else empty (of human inhabitants and human presence). I then examine four ways in which the empty wilderness is represented: first, as dangerous and inhospitable, second, as threatened, third, as sublime and fourth, as the Canadian nation. I link the meanings invested into wilderness with a set of practices or desired forms of conduct in order to articulate how a specific subject is produced. These subjects draw on the meanings attributed to wilderness. The dangerous wilderness can only be navigated by a Calculating Adventurer. The threatened wilderness desperately needs the assistance of the Conscientious Consumer. The sublime wilderness provides respite for the Transformed Traveler. The Canadian or national wilderness is best suited to and belongs to the Wilderness Citizen. The four subjects I examine in this thesis each draw from particular wilderness representations and specific practices in order to be produced as desirable in the context of outdoor recreation. By examining the relationship between wilderness discourse, subjects and practices in everyday texts, I illustrate how masculine and white respectability operate in outdoor recreation. Pointing to subtle shifts in the meanings and values attributed to masculinity, Canadianness and whiteness, I articulate how outdoor recreation texts produce subject positions which are richly embedded in race and gender privilege and assertions about national belonging. In addition to examining whiteness, nationalism and masculinity, this research examines how individualized practices, such as consumer activism, become understood as the conduct of responsible neoliberal citizens concerned with national and environmental interests.

In the United States, a growing disparity exists between the racial composition of teachers and the students they teach. In 2006, 43.1% of K–12 public school students were reported as non-White—in 1990, 32.4% (U.S. Department of Education, 2008). Teachers, however, are predominantly White, 83.3% (U.S. Department of Education, 2007a). Exacerbating this disparity, it has been noted that fewer African Americans are choosing education as a profession (see, e.g., Irvine, 1989; Ladson-Billings, 1994). This growing disparity motivates a crucial question: Can White teachers be successful with “other people’s children” (Delpit, 1995)? This study explores this question by examining the life histories of four White mathematics teachers who have experienced success with other people’s children, specifically, with African American children. The purpose of the study was to better understand what led each of the participants to teach African American children, and what factors may have led to her or his success as a White teacher of African American students. A qualitative, collective case study methodology (Stake, 1995) was employed. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using an eclectic theoretical framework (Stinson, 2009) which included critical theory, critical race theory, and Whiteness studies. Analysis of the data revealed the participants incorporated into their own teaching many of the same characteristics of culturally relevant pedagogy identified by Ladson-Billings (1994). Nevertheless, three strategies were identified as being essential to the teachers’ success with African American students: (a) forming meaningful relationships with students, (b) engaging students in racial conversations, and (c) reflecting both individually and with colleagues. The findings suggest a need for “spaces” in which pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and teacher educators can discuss and openly debate issues of race, and challenge racial hierarchies found in schools and society at large. The findings also suggest developing a sharp focus on multicultural anti-racist education in teacher preparation programs as well as incorporating it into professional development plans for in-service teachers. Moreover, the findings highlight a need for school districts to provide teachers with professional development in three “How to” areas: (a) build teacher–student relationships, (b) connect to the local community, and (c) develop as reflective practitioners.

In writing this thesis, I plotted where the streams of whiteness theory, life-writing theory and practice, and Daphne Marlatts novel <i>Ana Historic</i> converge. In the introduction, I outline the development of my own subjectivity, focusing on my identification with multiple ethnic communities, and on my racial and working class identity. My second chapter surveys current whiteness theories, accepting some and rejecting others, and drawing significantly upon theory that is accessible and personal, a decision that undoubtedly resulted because of my working class practicality. In this chapter, I conclude that whiteness and white solipsism (theoretically comparable to Simone de Beauvoirs challenge that masculinity as the neutral and positive gender renders femininity and other gendered constructions negative), actually envelope multiple identities, but argue that the way in which whiteness is experienced by those on its margins is often monolithic. In the third chapter, I investigate Marlatts biography and her life writing theory, arguing that her experience as a once immigrant foregrounds many issues relevant to the Canadian white identity, and that because her theory is so conscious of how identity is constructed, relying on fact and fiction, <i>Ana Historic</i> provides a portrait of white Canadian identity and the context in which that identity has been constructed. In Chapters 4 and 5, I apply the theories of life writing and whiteness to the characters of Ana, Ina, and Annie, challenging that their identities as colonizer, emigrant, and immigrant, respectively, illustrate the evolution resulting in the current white Canadian identity. Further, because Marlatt chooses these characters who occupy different positions in history, she shows her reader that contemporary Canadian white identity has grown out of colonial times, creating a continuum. The history out of which each of these women emerges is never contained because aspects of their identity carry forward into subsequent generations.

Race and racism inform our subjective realities and structure unequal material relations in contemporary society. While researchers have developed substantive theories to explain racism as systemically pervading institutions within society and permeating our consciousness, studies must also examine how people with privilege deny or admit the existence of racism within their institutions in different environments. Studies of how educators understand racism have been emerging; however, there remains a paucity of scholarship addressing this topic in the Canadian Prairies. In this thesis I use discourse analysis to investigate how prairie teachers negotiated the troubling topic of racism in their schools. The data was collected through open-ended surveys and focus-groups exploring teachers understanding of racism and anti-racism within two mid-sized prairie city high schools. First, exploring survey responses, I use text-based discursive analysis techniques to analyze how participants minimize the unsettling presence of racism in the school. In their responses, teachers used techniques of individualization, blaming the victim, displacement, and situating racism as a student problem to avoid implicating themselves or their school within racism. Teachers preserved the colour-blind image of education, maintaining the benevolence of the educational institution and its employees. However, different images of education emerged from focus-group discussions with educators interested in exploring anti-racism in the school. Focus group participants shifted from minimizing racism to problematizing privilege and power within the building. Multicultural, psychological, and institutional approaches to anti-racism emerged, emphasizing the need to engage individuals, cultures, and institutional structures. Exploring how teachers articulated different versions of the school environment, the identities of students, and their own identities within and between these different anti-racist discourses exposed how versions of each approach could be constructed to situate racism as external to education, and how critical conceptualizations of the school opened opportunities for individual, cultural, and institutional change within education. This research develops the understanding of race in the Canadian Prairies, discourse analysis within geography, anti-racist education, the geography of how teachers situate racism, and how teachers construct the relationship between school, teacher identity, and racism.

This research explores the moral experiences of White, anti-racism educators in Saskatchewan. As members of the dominant group, while at the same time being defenders of the rights of minority groups, the unique positioning of these individuals raises intriguing questions of moral experience. Although there is a large body of research regarding issues of racism, there is very little research focusing on the experiences of individuals working in the field of anti-racism; this research seeks to address this gap in the literature. Using a critical interpretive approach (Lock and Scheper-Hughes, 1990) grounded in the assumptions of constructionism, and relying upon Kleinmans (1995; 1999) theory of moral experience, I interviewed 12 self-identified White, anti-racism educators using an open-ended life-history interview followed by a semi-structured interview. The interview questions were inspired by the racism literature reviewed; my own experiences as a White woman negotiating my place in the study of racism; Kleinmans theory of moral experience; and a collection of secondary theories deemed potentially useful to understanding various dimensions of participants experience. Four broad domains of moral experience are identified and explored in this research. First, participants understandings of race, racism, and anti-racism are examined. Veynes (1988) theory regarding the plurality of programs of truths is used to make sense of what might be read as contradictions in participants constructions of these concepts. Second, the experience of actually doing anti-racism education is considered in terms of participants descriptions of their involvements; which they frame alternately as educating Whites, helping the racialized, and changing racist structures. Foucaults (1977, 1978) theory of power and de Certeaus notion of tactics (1984) prove relevant to understanding aspects of participants experiences in this domain. Third, the relationships between Self and various Others (i.e., the White Other, the racialized Other, the anti-racism Other) are explored. Todorovs (1984) typology of the Other is used to make sense of these complex data. Finally, participants descriptions of their experiences of Self (including past, present, and future Selves) are examined. Goffmans (1961) theory of moral career and Turners (1995) theory of liminality are applied to understanding elements of participants varied experiences of Self. In reviewing participants accounts across these broad domains, I argue that their noted success and confidence in navigating a challenging moral landscape might be understood in terms of their skill in moving between dual worlds that operate according to distinct logics of morality. Potential applications for the field of anti-racism are discussed.

I det nutida västerländska samhället är frågor kring etnicitet, identitet och vithet ständigt aktuella. Politiska framgångar i många europeiska länder för högerextrema partier lyfter återigen fram frågor kring etnisk tillhörighet och vad detta faktiskt innebär och får för konsekvenser i samhället. Denna undersökning syftar till att undersöka hur fyra unga kvinnor med sitt eget eller sina föräldrars ursprung i ett annat land upplever processer av identitetsskapande utifrån föreställningar om etnicitet och vithet. Genom intervjuer med dessa kvinnor analyseras om de upplevt etnicitet som viktigt i identifikationsprocessen, hur de upplevt utanförskap och hur de ser på framtiden i ljuset av denna politiska utveckling. Slutsatsen av denna undersökning är i korthet att etnicitet inte alltid varit viktigt för dem, men att det gjorts viktigt av samhället när de blev äldre. Vidare är att det inte handlar om etnicitet utan om avvikande kroppar och att framtiden handlar mycket om tankar kring ett ”hemland” som andra ser som deras men som de själva inte ser som sitt eget. / In contemporary western society questions about ethnicity, identity and whiteness are constantly present. In many European countries political success for nationalist right wing parties once again reveal questions about ethnic belonging, what this actually means and what consequences it has for society. The purpose of this essay is to study how four young women, who trace their own or their parents origin in another country, experiences processes of identification regarding preconceptions about ethnicity and whiteness. Through interviews with these women the questions if they have experienced ethnicity as being important in there identification process, how they have experienced feelings of being denied full access to the Swedish society and how they view their future in light of this political development, are analysed. The conclusion of this study is in essence that ethnicity was not always important for them, but society made it important when they became older. Further more, that it is not a question about ethnicity instead it is about deviating bodies and that their thoughts about the future evolve around a ”homeland” which others see as theirs but they themselves do not.

Using a close textual and contextual analysis, I trace themes of gender and race in the Matrix trilogy, arguing for the presence of a parallel, embedded filmic narrative, one that neatly aligns with African-American critical traditions affirming subjugated ideologies, knowledges, communities and forms. Decoding the films through the lenses of race, womanist, film studies and cultural studies theories, I explore this signified, covert storyline through phenotypes, casting choices, plot twists, and extra filmic events. In this dissertation project, I argue that their preponderance, consistency, and coherence are evidence of deliberate commentary. I further claim that that the trilogy can be reasonably understood as a historically motivated critique of Whiteness and White supremacy, offering references to American slavery and ideologies, as well as to cross-racial ideological domination and collective, coalitional and revolutionary change. Since long standing racial and gender understandings (along with their attendant domination and oppression) persist, examining popular films with transformed constructions is useful in supporting frameworks for conceptual change.