Representations of black female sporting bodies, when taken as what Susan Bordo (1997) refers to as “texts of culture,” operate as sites for an interrogation of the production and maintenance of ideologies of race, gender, sexuality and deviance in the context of Western society. The purpose of this thesis was to interrogate these ideologies within the context of sport by focusing specifically on media representations of three black track and field athletes—Florence Griffith Joyner, Marion Jones, and Caster Semenya. Using an ethnographic approach to content analysis this thesis shows the ways in which the bodies of black female athletes function as commodities, as well as they ways in which they become representations of deviance in sport. / text

This report examines Hip Hop performance in Africa –with a focus on Nigeria- and analyzes how questions of race, racial identity, class and nationality feature in the works of African artists. The Nigerian/African artists themselves label their works “African Hip Hop” and they employ the aesthetics of the US and those of their local communities in their performances. Lately however, a couple of Nigerian artists –D’Banj and P Square- troubled the “African” in “African Hip Hop” by performing with popular African American Hip Hop artists, Snoop Dogg and Akon. It was a transnationalistic move that among other issues reflects the fluidity of identity. The performances in the videos of “Mr Endowed Remix” and “Chop My Money” also reflect identity (re)negotiation in postcolonial performances like Hip Hop. African Hip Hop, already, borrows the spectacles of US Hip Hop to express itself to African audiences. However, its collaboration with the US brings it in contact with various sociological issues -such as the conflation of race, class, gender and social mobility- that surround US Hip Hop. This report attempts a close reading of the meeting of “African Hip Hop” and “US Hip Hop” to understand how race, identity, and agency are negotiated in “African Hip Hop” / text

This report explores Club Cubano Inter-Americano’s history in order to show how it helped situate Cuban immigrants within the Anglo and Latino communities in New York City in the early 20th century, and it examines the ways in which immigrants balanced their island heritage with community building in the United States. The different parts of the report focus on the organization’s foundation, leadership, activities, events, and treatment of race. A historiography of similar social groups provides a necessary background of the overall structure and goals of Cuban mutual-aid societies. Although the question of race was never officially present in Club-related rhetoric, a number of similarities link its makeup and functions to an existing tradition of Afro-Cuban mutual-aid societies on the island and abroad. The analysis of the New York Club Cubano Inter-Americano provides a glimpse into a part of the Cuban migration in the United States that simply does not fit with the rest. / text

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

This study qualitatively examines the synergetic relationship between marketing communication, identity formation, and consumer behavior within the context of black and white males of the Millennial Generation. The sample consisted of 20 males between the ages of 18-29; ten self-identified as black and 10 self-identified as white. This project expands the knowledge base of consumption/identity research by incorporating intersectionality into the present body of consumer behavior work. A consumer’s identity project is far more complex than what is represented by current consumer behavior scholarship. Consumers must navigate multiple sites of identification that constantly shift in importance and involvement. To more closely reflect consumers in the flesh, this study incorporated multiple sites of identity projects into the analysis. By taking a more “true-to-life” approach to consumption/identity research, this project unearths new knowledge that is proximate to the lived experience of consumers. Consumer culture theory (CCT), a division of consumer research that moves the discussion of consumption behavior deep into the realm of cultural impact was used as the conceptual focus of this project. Autodriving was utilized to collect data. This form of photo elicitation involves the use of informants taking photos of a particular phenomenon and then “driving” the interview by discussing the photos they have taken. In the context of this study, informants were furnished a disposal camera and asked to photographically document representations of the following: achievement & success, morality, humanitarianism, nationalism, and freedom. Informants were strongly encouraged to also visually document anything that did not fit into the abovementioned categories but represented something they found particularly interesting or offensive. To examine the impact of marketing communication on the informants’ identity projects, print advertisements featuring different configurations of masculinity and manhood were explored. Three key themes emerged from the data. All informants used the marketplace to express values. The concept of identity elasticity was developed to explain the significant difference in identity potentiality between white and black informants. Many white and black informants shared the perception that they live in a post-racial society. However, the experience of a post-racial society was highly divergent based on racial formation. / text

Drawing upon Critical Race and racialization theories, this dissertation aims at providing a different approach to “The New Puerto Rican Bomba Movement”. Bomba is a musical genre of African roots developed in Puerto Rico upon the arrival of African populations during the slave trade in the sixteenth century. In the last two decades, a proliferation of Bomba groups and schools performing and teaching this peculiar rhythm has taken place. Through the study of Bomba, I seek to contribute to the understanding of racial dynamics in Puerto Rico, and their intersectionalities with class, gender, and national discourses. Through extended participant observation of Bomba performances, unstructured and structured interviews with Bomba musicians, teachers, and scholars and archival research, my purpose is to question and explore constructions of race in Puerto Rican music, and show how processes of racialization operate both socially and politically in the island. In this sense, Bomba will allow me to analyze how Puerto Rican national identity has been constructed in recent years, which elements have been adopted as a national heritage and which have been forgotten or rejected. At the same time, it will shed light on how national discourse aligns or deviates from current social conditions and racial relationships. Through the case study of “The New Puerto Rican Bomba Movement”, I attempt to unravel two interrelated paradoxes: (1) despite hegemonic discourses on Puerto Rican nationalism, which portray the Puerto Rican subject as mixed race, most Puerto Ricans self-identify racially as white or Black. (2) Based on the assumption of a racially mixed national subject, Puerto Rico reaffirms itself as a racial democracy, “The great Puerto Rican family”. This discourse contrasts with daily speeches and practices that emphasize racial exclusions and inequalities. Paradoxically, despite the fact that Puerto Ricans are considered a racially mixed nation, in the 2000 Census, 80.5 % self identified as white, whereas 8 % chose to identify as Black. A decade later, the results of the 2010 Census showed that 12.4 % of the population identified as Black and 75.8 % as white. / text

Race does matter but to what extent? It depends on the vested interests of the governing body. In Brazil, a theory of racial democracy was advanced to accommodate competing interests. In the United States, a theory of racial equality as a supplement to the "self-made man" concept was incorporated to address opposing concerns. This thesis examines the racial formation in Brazil and the United States and how the respective criminal justice systems were formed and are impacted by racial considerations. After a discussion of racial formation in both countries, its relevancy to existing criminal justice institutions is offered. It is submitted that generally, race formation led to criminology that had a reliance on anthropology in Brazil, while it was founded on a sociological perspective in the United States. The Brazilian perspective presupposes a continuum of racial designations contributing to democratic governance which values "whitening" as a unifying factor while the United States perspective presupposes all races are equal within democratic governance which values individual achievement as the unifying factor. These presuppositions have emerged as national myths under the nomenclature of Racial Democracy and Racial Equality or the "self-made man". These myths have also been exposed by social scientists from both an anthropological and sociological perspective. Far from being realized, the pursuit of these myths, or desired cultural norms of "whitening" and individual achievement, continue to influence race relations in both countries. Nevertheless, the implementation of affirmative action policies has emerged to address the shortcomings in each theory. Ironically, what started as two diametrically opposing views of racial designation has integrated somewhat under the significant influence associated with cultural globalization, transparency, democratization and advanced social science methodology.

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Too often the acknowledgment that race is a social construction ignores exactly how this construction occurs. By illuminating the way in which the category of blackness and black individuals are made, we can better see how race matters in America. Antidiscrimination policy, social science research, and the state's support of its citizens can all be improved by an accurate and concrete definition of blackness. Making Blackness, Making Policy argues that blackness and black people are literally made rather than discovered. The social construction of blackness involves the naming of individuals as black, and the subsequent interaction between this naming and racial projects. The process of naming involves an intersubjective dialogue in which racial self-identification and ascription by others lead to a consensus on an individual's race. These third parties include an individual's community, the media, and, crucially, the state. Following Ian Hacking, this process is most properly termed the dynamic nominalism of blackness. My dissertation uses analytic philosophy, qualitative and quantitative research, and historical analysis to defend this conception. The dynamic nominalist process is illustrated through the media's contribution to the making of Barack Obama's blackness, and the state's creation and maintenance of racial categories through law, policy, and enumeration. I then argue that the state's dominant role in creating blackness, and the vital role that a black identity plays in millions' sense of self, requires the United States Government to support a politics of recognition. The state's antidiscrimination efforts would also improve through the adoption of a dynamic nominalism of blackness. Replacing the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission's inconsistent and contradictory definitions of race with the dynamic nominalism of blackness would clarify when and how racial discrimination occurs. / African and African American Studies