School is a place for identity formation. When gender and religion are studied pupils tend to perceive religion, especially non-Christian religions, as traditional and patriarchal. Female oppression in religion is also used as a way of “othering”. Religious education is rarely presenting the women’s perspective. The purpose of this study is to analyze and compare the construction of Hindu women in Swedish and Indian school textbooks. The study was conducted through discourse analysis, using Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’ “toolbox” for identifying group identity. As a theoretical framework postcolonial theory and postcolonial feminism were used. A total of eight textbooks were examined. The results showed that the discourse of Hindu women in Swedish textbooks was not hegemonic, instead, it consisted of four different discourse. Some of them were colonial in character. Only one textbook showed Hindu women as religious agents. Women in Indian textbooks were constructed in a different way, often described as agents, working for change in a traditional society. By studying how group identity and agency are constructed in textbooks religious education can become better equipped to enable gender and religious identities in a multicultural society. Hence this thesis claims that the research between gender, religious education and multiculturalism need further inquiry.

This thesis aims to expand our understanding of the relationship between gender, sport and development. Specifically, it asks 1) how a sport, gender and development program is conceptualized and deployed by members of a young Somali-Canadian women’s group in Toronto, Canada and 2) if female participation in sport is thought to contribute to new gender norms, roles and relationships within such a diaspora community. Working within a postcolonial/transnational feminist framework, the thesis utilizes focus group interviews and engages with issues of power, representation and knowledge production. The findings shed light on the influences that have both informed and constrained this particular community initiative, as well as the possibilities and limitations of using sport to negotiate new gender norms, roles and relationships within the Somali diaspora. In conclusion, several recommendations are made to researchers and practitioners invested in the burgeoning field of international sport for development.

This thesis aims to expand our understanding of the relationship between gender, sport and development. Specifically, it asks 1) how a sport, gender and development program is conceptualized and deployed by members of a young Somali-Canadian women’s group in Toronto, Canada and 2) if female participation in sport is thought to contribute to new gender norms, roles and relationships within such a diaspora community. Working within a postcolonial/transnational feminist framework, the thesis utilizes focus group interviews and engages with issues of power, representation and knowledge production. The findings shed light on the influences that have both informed and constrained this particular community initiative, as well as the possibilities and limitations of using sport to negotiate new gender norms, roles and relationships within the Somali diaspora. In conclusion, several recommendations are made to researchers and practitioners invested in the burgeoning field of international sport for development.

Child marriage, usually regarded as an issue pertaining to the non-‘developed’ parts of the world, can still be found in the United States (US), though efforts to combat it shape foreign policy goals. Is child marriage represented as a ‘problem’ in the same way internally as externally, and how do human rights play a role? Using Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” approach, the problem representations emerge, showing that child marriage functions as a ‘solution’ to welfare ‘problems’ in national policy, as an obstacle to economic prosperity in foreign policy; and as a ‘foreign’ culture ‘problem’ in immigration policy. Postcolonial feminist theory’s “Third World Girl” allows for a deeper understanding of some of the subjectivities these representations entail, and the biopolitical nature of the assumptions which underlie these problem representations are explored through Foucault’s theoretical work on sexuality and production.

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In processes of economic integration, neoliberal discourse and corresponding notions of development comprise some of the most readily available imaginaries of political and social interaction and change. However, these processes are always also locally produced and negotiated. Engaging with discourse theory, Marxism and postcolonial feminist theory, this dissertation brings together “macro” and “micro” aspects of globalization. The aim is to interrogate discursive reinforcements of and challenges to global orders of production and divisions of labor. With a focus on representations of Free Trade Zones (FTZs), which are tax-exempted enclaves for export production, the study explores competing meanings attributed to the operation of transnational capital in Nicaragua. Based on policy documents, political speeches, promotional videotapes and interviews, the political rhetoric of two governments with competing agendas is analyzed: the neoliberal/conservative government of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (2002–2007), which framed the FTZs in terms of national progress, and the leftist government of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (2007– ), which attempts to reconnect to the country’s revolutionary past. In this way efforts to formulate legitimate political agendas in the context of shifting relations between states and markets are detailed, together with constructions of citizens and workers along differentiations of class and gender. Relying on interviews with FTZ workers, the study examines ways to interpret, inhabit or resist imperative subject positions at the intersections of contending projects of nation-building and transnational orders of production, in conjunction with a discussion of the uneasy distinction between representation and appropriation that troubles transnational feminist research projects.

This study examines what experiences female, Muslim pupils have of wearing veil in the Swedish school and their thoughts about the veil and feminism. The method used is a qualitative semi structured interview study based on six pupils at an upper secondary school in south Sweden. The theoretical framework in the essay is based on multicultural education and postcolonial feminism. The results of this study reveal that the respondents have both positive and negative experiences of wearing the veil in school. On the one hand we find that none of the respondents share any story of being seriously discriminated or offended on the grounds of wearing a veil. On the other hand, are the pupils, either in specific situations or in general, feeling alienated through subtle gestures, looks and whispers in school. Regarding the respondent’s thoughts about feminism, the study concludes that all the respondents accept the fundamental values of feminism, that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men. Simultaneously they feel skeptical about the term ‘feminist’ and that feminism entails a certain way of life where the veil doesn’t belong. One important remark on the outcome of the study is that it would be desirable to incorporate discussions about other cultural phenomena in education, as the veil for example, which would not only make the education more pertinent to more pupils but also educate the pupils in intercultural sensibility. Secondly, a more nuanced education about the diversity within feminism could have the potential of including pupils who, for different reasons, are feeling a resistance against feminism.

The aim of this essay is to critically consider Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things from a postcolonial feminist perspective, with a special focus on how she models different representations of women, taking as a background the discussions within postcolonial feminism about subalternity and the representations of women from the so-called Third World in theory and literature, as well as the concept of agency from Cultural Studies. This purpose is reached by studying and comparing three main female characters in the novel: Mammachi, Baby Kochamma and Ammu, centering on their different ways of relating to the male hero of the novel, Velutha, an Untouchable in the lingering caste system of India. The essay argues that Roy has contributed with diverse representations of subaltern women in the ‘Third World’ who—despite their oppressed and marginalized status—display agency and are portrayed as responsible for their own actions.

The starting point of this study is the common assumption that the Italian society is based on a patriarchal ideological system in which racism is often normalized. The binary distinction between women and men in Italian society has evolved into discussions and awareness raising on genderbased violence or violence against women. As intersectionality has become a central point in Italian contemporary feminism, this study uses the analysis of topics related to the historical creation of the idea of Italian-ness, migration and the influence of right-wing politics in current gender related issues as the basis of a feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. With this in mind, using intersectional theory, postcolonial feminism, and studies of whiteness, the study aims at exploring as to which extent the discourses of three white Italian women, who identify as feminist activists, influence the presence of racialized Italian women in their work. This study should create academic data and contribute to a research that is extremely limited on these topics.

No description available.