This dissertation, "From Reflection to Reflexivity: Challenging Students' Conceptions of Writing, Self, and Society in the Community Writing Classroom," examines the disconnect that characterizes much of the discussion of reflective writing in community writing studies and argues for the potential of reflexivity as a concept to further develop the kinds of reflective writing assigned in community writing classrooms. Many practitioners and scholars view reflective writing as a potentially powerful tool that may help students learn challenging or abstract theories and practices from their own community writing experiences. With such potential, it can be disappointing when student reflective writing does not achieve teacher expectations of critical thinking and analysis, stopping before critical engagement and understanding is achieved. Instead, it often centers on students' personal feelings and motivations that shape or arise from their community experiences. This dissertation argues that one reason for such a disconnect between teacher expectations and actual student writing, comes from the word "reflection" itself. While a traditional understanding of reflective writing asks students to look back on their experiences, observations, feelings, and opinions, community writing teachers use the term "reflection" with qualifiers like "critical," "sustained," or "intellectually rich." In qualifying their expectations for reflective writing, teachers are in fact asking for something very different from reflection, namely, reflexivity. When reflexive thinking is presented to students as "qualified reflection" it loses the considerable theoretical grounding that makes it a particularly unique way of using experiences as the foundation for inquiry. Building on theories of epistemological reflexivity for researchers in the social sciences, this dissertation highlights the methodological reflexivity theorized and practiced by feminist researchers. Feminist reflexivity specifically affords researchers more nuanced ways of looking at issues of positionality, social transformation, and agency. Such strategies have the potential for moving student reflections from private writings toward writings that impact students' understandings of the rhetorical and theoretical issues that community writing hopes to illustrate. This combination of feminist reflexivity and community writing reflections can provide community writing theorists and practitioners with alternative ways to solve reflective writing's challenges. / Ph. D.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-21T18:13:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo Rossi.pdf: 7529260 bytes, checksum: f39a1c86276f1cc44555936432d7d5c2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-12-04 / Esta dissertação apresenta elementos para compreender a existência espacial cotidiana dos adolescentes do sexo masculino em conflito com a lei em Ponta Grossa – PR. Classificados socialmente em condição de desajuste constitucional em relação ao sistema judicial, o grupo focal, não contempla o que é preconizado como imaginário vinculado ao ideal de ser homem. As experiências do grupo podem ser interpretadas a partir de masculinidades periféricas. A elaboração de estratégias transgressoras ligadas ao consumo de drogas, furtos, roubos e disputas agressivas e violentas entre gangues, legitima o discurso hegemônico que considera estes adolescentes malvados e foras da lei, o que fortalece o significado de marginalização. Inicialmente, foram coletados dados dos processos da Delegacia do Adolescente e Anti-Tóxico da Polícia Civil de Ponta Grossa-PR do período de 2005 à 2007. A partir da coleta de dados foram tipificados os atos infracionais e o perfil dos adolescentes que os cometeram. Num segundo momento, através da realização de entrevistas em profundidade com adolescentes identificados com grupos de infratores, foi possível conhecer seu universo cultural e suas relações com o espaço urbano transformadas em territórios . A vida diária dos adolescentes estudados está conectada a múltiplas espacialidades, os deslocamentos diários e as tensões provocadas, instituem um reposicionamento constante em diferentes configurações de relações de poder. O processo de pesquisa buscou realizar uma reflexão sobre a posicionalidade do pesquisador em relação ao grupo estudado e o jogo tenso entre o centro e margem das relações de poder em seus territórios urbanos. Estes territórios foram interpretados a partir dos contextos que caracterizam os agentes, práticas e as relações sociais mediadas pelo espaço. Os principais modos de apropriação espacial identificados por esta investigação envolvem o uso compartilhado de drogas, as estratégias de controle relacionadas ao seu deslocamento e a dependência de crack, bem como o conflito entre grupos rivais.

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A critical re-examination of the liberal peace is conducted to explore the ways in which certain ideas around peace have come to dominate and to be regarded as “common sense”. The foundation of my critique comes in the personalisation of peacebuilding through the stories of people who are the intended beneficiaries of its actions. This thesis seeks to open up and challenge the current measures of success and the location of power by introducing voices and experiences of Mende people located in the Southern and Eastern provinces of Sierra Leone. I have attempted to open up a reflexive space where simple questions can be re-examined and the location of recovery can be seen as a space influenced, shaped and performed in the context of diverse influences. I draw on my personal experience living in Bo, Sierra Leone for two months in 2014 and local level actors' subjective reflections on individual and communal notions of recovery, post-conflict. My findings are reflected in “building blocks” that uncover a partial story of personal perspectives on recovery. The story suggests a de-centred and complex “local” within the existing context and realigns the understanding of subject and agency within peacebuilding. This collection of experiences, stories and encounters reshapes the notion of peace as an everyday activity with the aim of improving well-being on a personal level. It is also a part of the peacebuilding process that exists outside of the traditional organisational lens. My main contribution has been in allowing alternative space(s) of peacebuilding and peace-shaping to have a platform that is not restricted by the confined epistemic “expert” community toward an understanding of “progress” as an experiential and subjective process of recovery. This approach sought to challenge the current site of legitimacy, power and knowledge, and in order to achieve this aim I drew on a new methodological toolkit and the absorption of key concepts from other disciplines such as managerialism and the sociological concept of the “stranger”. My research offers an opportunity to observe and utilise information sourced from the creativity and spontaneity of the everyday lived experiences of Sierra Leoneans and ordinary phenomena connected with this.

Popular culture scholar Henry Jenkins chronicles the intellectual and emotional labor of being an “aca/fan” – or an academic, trained in media criticism, who also operates as a media consumer. This panel explores aca/fan identity through Joss Whedon’s media narratives, such as The Avengers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cabin In the Woods, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and Fire

Les identités et les connaissances qui traversent les relations entre les individus soulèvent les mêmes enjeux d’appréhension, de normalisation et de reproduction des comportements et des discours qui font le monde social. Elles répondent toutefois à des logiques différentes : les identités appuient les différences qui naissent de perceptions subjectives et de confrontations d’intérêts, alors que les connaissances sont portées par des idéaux d’universalité et strictement tenues par les réalités objectives. À partir d’une revue de la littérature et faisant état de la question, ce mémoire s’intéresse à la perméabilité croissante qui s’établit entre identités et savoirs par le recours à un positionnement essentialisé, que nous qualifions de « positionnalité ». Notamment, nous interrogeons ses formes idéologiques contemporaines afin de comprendre quelles sont les origines de ces positionnements identitaires essentialisés et leurs conséquences pour l’élaboration et la médiation du savoir. Nous établissons que la positionnalité est le fruit d’un abord constructiviste des régimes de vérité et de pouvoir, et qu’elle s’appuie sur des lectures partisanes des héritages de la théorie critique. Nous mettons aussi en exergue l’environnement politique façonné par « l’ère post-vérité », caractérisé par une dépréciation de la valeur des faits et la contestation des autorités épistémiques traditionnelles. Enfin, nous avançons que le développement de la positionnalité, précipité par l’ère post-vérité, entretient une dynamique néolibérale d’appropriation ou de privatisation des savoirs pris en tant que biens communs. Les thèmes abordés dans ce mémoire nous conduisent à penser que l’essentialisation des positionnements identitaires a dépassé le cadre strictement épistémologique, et sert désormais une accumulation et une appropriation exclusive des moyens de la connaissance. / Identities and knowledge permeate relationships between individuals, raising the same issues of comprehension, normalization and reproduction of behaviors and discourse that constitute the social world. However, they follow different logics: identities reproduce the differences that arise from subjective perceptions and confrontations of interests, while knowledge rests on ideals of universality and of objective reality. Through an extensive review of the literature, this thesis examines the growing permeability between identities and knowledge that has arisen from a recent, essentialized form of positioning we call "positionality". In particular, we question this contemporary ideological form in order to understand the origins of such essentialized identity positions as well as their consequences for both the development and mediation of knowledge. We establish that positionality relies on a constructivist approach to truth and power regimes as well as on partisan readings of critical theory’s legacies. We also highlight the political environment of the “post-truth era,” characterized by a devaluation of facts and the challenging of traditional epistemic authorities. Finally, we argue that the development of positionality, hastened by the post-truth era, reinforces neoliberal appropriation, or privatization, of knowledge heretofore understood as a public good. The topics addressed in this thesis lead us to think that the essentialization of identity positioning has moved from a strictly epistemological question to one concerning the accumulation and exclusive ownership of the means of knowledge production.

This master’s thesis investigates poetic text writing through a teaching project conducted on a secondary school class in Sweden. Inspired by ekphrastic poetry, the teaching project consisted of poetry and literature reading. The students visited a sculpture related to the literature, upon which they wrote poetic texts about the sculpture. The main purpose of the study is to describe how teaching in the Swedish subject can make use of Swedish language teaching by developing students’ poetic texts that touches on topics such as living conditions and identity. Drawing from thematic narrative analysis, most notably Bamberg’s positioning model, the analysis investigates the narratives constructed in the students’ poetic texts as well as identity aspects negotiated through the narratives. The students’ identities were further discovered through participant observation and semi-structured interviews to deepen the understanding of the meeting between art, identity and learning.The general perception drawn from the interviewees’ answers is that the Swedish subject rarely includes knowledge of nor writing of poetic texts. However, the study emphasises that poetry could have an integral part of the education in the Swedish subject in secondary education.The results show that the students’ poetic texts tend to relate to the sculpture and the physical environment, as well as the social context of the environment. Furthermore, the identities of the students were shown to have a high relevance in the writing process. The teaching project was based on principles of culturally sustaining pedagogy and aimed at contributing to the sociocultural support of the school. As the students’ language and cultural backgrounds proved to be significant in the writing process, it became evident that multilingualism was a natural part of the student’s everyday school life.

This master thesis is an ethnological study focusing members of a young, urban Jewishdiaspora in Sweden. The study's aim is to problematize and describe the relation between theJewish minority that is regarded as religious, and the secular normative majority societyregarded as non-religious. The study explores questions regarding social positioning,belonging and memory and how Jewish traditions are practiced in contemporary Sweden. Themethodological approaches are interviews and participation observations with a specific focuson food; its symbolic value and how food can materialize identities and communicatememories. The empirical data comprises 24 interviews in total, of which 11 interviews havebeen chosen and thus constitute the material on which the study's analysis is made upon. Theanalysis is mainly based upon the theoretical perspective of phenomenology focusinganalytical concepts as materiality, positionality, (conditional) belonging, minority/majorityand diasporic processes. By being regarded as "well integrated" and at the same time beingdesignated as one of Sweden's national minorities, the Jewish group is given contradictorypositionalities, which is examined in this study. The study also shows that memory and aconnection to the past (both personal and general Jewish history) are of great importance tothese informants when expressing their identities, and that this connection often materializesthrough food. By highlighting the informants' experiences of keeping kosher, it becamevisible that Jewish way of life challenges the normative (imagined) secularity in Sweden.

This thesis explores the role and positionality of three Black public intellectuals in post-94 South Africa, namely, Simphiwe Dana, Ntsiki Mazwai and Sisonke Msimang. For the purpose of this study, I analysed the twitter postings shared by these intellectuals on various social matters that concern the condition of the Black in post-94 South Africa. Using Fanon’s Native Intellectual Consciousness as a lens, the study seeks to capture and evaluate an emergent form of ‘cyber’ activism in the country. The main argument of this thesis is that, the concept and function of intellectualism must undergo a complete overhaul, beginning with the accommodation of more voices, particularly those of oppressed Black women. For this reason, the study is based on three Black women and seeks to dismantle the colonial lens through which Black women are studied This study not only historicises Black women as producers, users and custodians of knowledge but it also situates their lived experiences as relevant ‘knowledges’ albeit ignored in discourse. Moreover, the study is not only a form of epistemic protest against epistemic racism, but it is also a form of Black positioning in communication studies. I therefore posit that, Black Twitter is the communicative plane on which blackness performs and articulates itself, for itself. For this purpose, I conceptualise Black Solidarity within Communication studies; a field that often pretends to be only marginally affected by issues of race. This study contributes to Communication Studies, a new, raw and altruistic way of studying blackness by allowing it to think, and speak through its pain as opposed to the usual pathologising white gaze. Using the decolonial concept of a traditional Imbadu as the methodological aspect in conducting this study, I observe that even in the face of debilitating colonial hangover, blackness persists through those intellectuals whose intergenerational trauma forces them to think and speak from Blackness. The chosen intellectuals who are feminists by choice, think and speak from Blackness albeit being silenced by oppression. As such, the study itself is a pedagogical contradiction to the orthodox axiology of a detached scholar and hence written in the autobiographical form. / Communication Science / D. Phil. (Communication)