This thesis examines the ways in which exile, both actual and metaphorical, informs the work of four path breaking female writers from South Africa and the American South: Carson McCullers, Bessie Head, Zoë Wicomb and Dorothy Allison. In this study, exilic consciousness is closely linked to postcolonial, nomadic feminisms which can best be understood as liminal, as fundamentally ‘out of place’. The border-crossings involved here are not only geographical, they also signify a change in critical consciousness, as the foundational texts of this thesis – Rosi Braidotti’s Nomadic Feminism and Francoise Lionnet and Shu-Mei Shih’s Minor Transnationalism – indicate. By exploring writers who problematise the categories of race, gender, sexuality and class I demonstrate how these writers offer new ways of reading the postcolonial condition as nomadic, and I examine the shared processes that nations and individuals undergo as they experience political and personal liberation struggles. My thesis is divided into four main parts. The opening section offers both an introduction to, and rationale for, the study, providing historical and sociocultural contextualisation linking South Africa and the American South; it goes on to establish my choices of Carson McCullers and Dorothy Allison as the southern US writers in this study and Bessie Head and Zoë Wicomb as the South Africans. In the opening chapter I interrogate self-representation and variations in autobiography by the four writers. Chapter 2 has as its focus body and exilic consciousness in selected work by all four writers. My final chapter examines identity formation as situated subjectivity in the work of Allison and Wicomb who are foregrounded here. I contend that transnationalism need not be seen as inevitably homogenising; rather, I show that minority individuals and groups can establish agency through transversal, lateral networks.

Research suggested that African American women (AAW) leaders are overlooked as candidates for senior level positions in organizations. The problem that prompted this study was the lack of empirical research surrounding the intersectionality of race and gender and how this dual identity informed their leadership development and excluded AAW from the leadership promotion group identified by organizations. The research questions addressed how AAW described their career trajectory, strategies that were used to transform institutional barriers into leadership opportunities, how AAW leaders perceived their dual identity as contributing to their unique organizational experiences, and how AAW leaders perceived their role as mentors. This study was grounded in the critical race theory (CRT) as it pertains to the concept of the intersectionality of race and gender. Semistructured interviews with a purposive sample of 12 participants were used to obtain data along with thematic coding to analyze the data. Key findings included the women expressing both subtle and blatant racial and gender discrimination in the workplace. The participants identified self-advocacy as crucial to their success along with having strong mentors. One of the main conclusions was that the corporate world is a long- standing, white, male network and continues to be an obstacle for women in today's workplace. Recommendations for future research include studying bi-racial women and women who are in lower managerial roles to identify whether they experience similar obstacles as women in senior leadership roles. Social change implications include organizational modifications across multiple industry types that would create more positive perceptions, descriptions, and trust in the leadership abilities of AAW.

No description available.

Decades of data document that permanent placements of children in the welfare system has been a concern in Mississippi. As foster care rates increase, more children are awaiting placement. Researchers have linked child welfare workers' educational background to placement outcomes for foster care children; however, researchers have not addressed the relationship between child welfare workers' educational backgrounds and foster care placement outcomes in Mississippi. This quantitative study examined the educational backgrounds of social work and nonsocial work child welfare caseworkers and other factors such as children's gender and race as predictors in placement outcomes for children in welfare custody. Attachment theory was used to explain parent-child relationships and the importance of permanent, safe, and nurturing homes for children in the child welfare system. Secondary data were used from the 2017 archival records for 176 child welfare caseworkers' caseloads in the Mississippi Department of Child Protective Services (MDCPS). A simple linear and multiple regression analysis was used to examine child welfare caseworkers' educational background and children's gender and race as predictors for the length of stay in placement outcomes. The results revealed that caseworkers' educational backgrounds were not a significant predictor of placement outcomes but gender and race combined were significant in predicting the length of stay in placement outcomes for children in custody. Results from this study could promote positive social change within MDCPS by providing data to inform agency policy and procedures for child welfare practice, which could then result in more timely placements of reunification or adoption for children in the welfare system who are currently spending 36 months or more in traditional foster care.

This study examines the experiences of highly educated South Asian immigrant women working as home-based entrepreneurs within ethnic enclaves in Toronto, Canada. The importance of their work and experiences need to be understood in the context of two processes. On the one hand, there is the neoliberal hegemonic discourse of “enterprising self” that encourages individuals to become “productive”, self-responsible, citizen-subjects, without depending on state help or welfare to succeed in the labour market. On the other hand, there is the racialized and gendered labour market that systematically devalues the previous education and skills of non-white immigrants and pushes them towards jobs that are low-paid, temporary and precarious in nature. In the light of the above situations, I argue that in the process of setting up their home-based businesses, South Asian immigrant women in my study negotiate the barriers they experience in two ways. First, despite being inducted into different (re)training and (re)learning that aim to improve their deficiencies, they continue to believe in their abilities and resourcefulness, thereby challenging the “remedial” processes that try to locate lack in their abilities. Second, by negotiating gender ideologies within their families and drawing on community ties within enclaves they keep at check the individuating and achievement oriented ideology of neoliberalism. They, therefore, demonstrate how the values of an “enterprising self” can be based on collaboration and relationship rather than competition, profit or material success. The concept of “negotiation”, as employed in this thesis, denotes a form of agency different from the commonly perceived notions of agency as formal, large-scale, macro organization or resistance. Rather, the concept is based on how women resort to multiple, various and situational practices of conformity and contestation that often can blend into each other.

This study examines the experiences of highly educated South Asian immigrant women working as home-based entrepreneurs within ethnic enclaves in Toronto, Canada. The importance of their work and experiences need to be understood in the context of two processes. On the one hand, there is the neoliberal hegemonic discourse of “enterprising self” that encourages individuals to become “productive”, self-responsible, citizen-subjects, without depending on state help or welfare to succeed in the labour market. On the other hand, there is the racialized and gendered labour market that systematically devalues the previous education and skills of non-white immigrants and pushes them towards jobs that are low-paid, temporary and precarious in nature. In the light of the above situations, I argue that in the process of setting up their home-based businesses, South Asian immigrant women in my study negotiate the barriers they experience in two ways. First, despite being inducted into different (re)training and (re)learning that aim to improve their deficiencies, they continue to believe in their abilities and resourcefulness, thereby challenging the “remedial” processes that try to locate lack in their abilities. Second, by negotiating gender ideologies within their families and drawing on community ties within enclaves they keep at check the individuating and achievement oriented ideology of neoliberalism. They, therefore, demonstrate how the values of an “enterprising self” can be based on collaboration and relationship rather than competition, profit or material success. The concept of “negotiation”, as employed in this thesis, denotes a form of agency different from the commonly perceived notions of agency as formal, large-scale, macro organization or resistance. Rather, the concept is based on how women resort to multiple, various and situational practices of conformity and contestation that often can blend into each other.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relevance of social class in relation to general support for the Labour Party both within a national and localised context, with a specific focus placed upon the area of North-West Cumbria. This is achieved by following the research hypothesis that states that the party since the emergence of New Labour, is with their classless brand, more effective on a political level than their collectivist Old Labour predecessor. Such analysis, using a mixture of primary and secondary methods, is framed within a three-themed research phenomenon. The phenomenon begins via the first theme ‘Class/Identity’ which defined the extensive atomised shift in perceived class categorisation in contemporary Britain. The analysis of the latter then links to the second theme ‘(Labour) Party’ which evaluates such shifts to that of Labour support, ranging from the historic ‘Old’ and ‘New’ eras to the present ‘Post New’ incarnation. This primarily states how the rise of the New Right inspired New Labour to modernise their core political message to accommodate the new atomised class culture, so as to gain broader levels of support. The research phenomenon concludes with the third theme ‘Geography (North-West Cumbria)’ which explores how such class atomisation affected Labour support on a broad locational basis, particularly within North-West Cumbria. The thesis findings generally concur with the research hypothesis since the New Labour brand was somewhat successful in rural areas which hitherto had been deemed unattainable by Old Labour. Such findings, be it nationally and/or locally, are a symptom of contemporary class times where political allegiance has become less ideologically centred, and more brand-orientated and homogeneous. This thesis structure also makes a contribution to qualitative methods research as it provides a template of how such a research hypothesis and phenomenon can be theoretically and practically integrated.

This thesis explores the history of the New Age movement through a political analysis of influential New Age books. By drawing upon cultural, religious and American studies, and concepts from literary criticism and political science, a new understanding of the movement becomes possible. This thesis analyses the ideological representations and rhetorical strategies employed in both New Age literature and American presidential discourse. It is argued that their shared imagery and discursive features indicate that New Age writings derive their ideological underpinnings and textual devices from dominant beliefs of American nationalism. This historical examination begins with the Cold War in the late 1940s and ends with the 1990s. Each chapter traces parallels between a particular presidential discourse and New Age texts published in the same decade commencing with Dwight D. Eisenhower and The Doors of Perception and finishing with William J. Clinton and The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure. It argues that the appropriation of particular spiritualities in New Age texts is closely related to contemporary American geo-political interests and understandings. Major New Age spiritual trends are derived from regions, most often in the third world, which are considered to be under threat from forces such as Communism. New Age writings construct an imaginary possession of these worlds, reconfiguring these sites into frontiers of American influence. In particular, this study examines the influence of the jeremiads and the ensuing Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny ideologies upon post-war national beliefs and the extent to which these understandings of nationalism inform New Age discourse. Representations of time and space, destiny and landscape, and self and other in these literary and political contexts are analysed. From this perspective, the eclecticism that marks the New Age can be historically understood as a shifting cultural expression of Cold War and post-Cold War political responses. Consequently, New Age literature is one of the means by which dominant American identity is reproduced and disseminated in what seems to be an alternative spiritual context.

The purpose of this research project was to analyze the dialectic of co-optation/domestication and resistance as manifested in the experience of racialized Canadian trade unionists. The seven research participants are racialized rank-and-file members, elected or appointed leaders, retired trade unionists, as well as staff of trade unions and other labour organizations. In spite of the struggle of racialized peoples for racial justice or firm anti-racism policies and programmes in their labour unions, there is a dearth of research on the racialized trade union members against racism, the actual condition under which they struggle, the particular ways that union institutional structures domesticate these struggles, and/or the countervailing actions by racialized members to realize anti-racist organizational goals. While the overt and vulgar forms of racism is no longer the dominant mode of expression in today’s labour movement, its systemic and institutional presence is just as debilitating for racial trade union members. This research has uncovered the manner in which the electoral process and machinery, elected and appointed political positions, staff jobs and formal constituency groups, and affirmative action or equity representational structures in labour unions and other labour organizations are used as sites of domestication or co-optation of some racialized trade unionists by the White-led labour bureaucratic structures and the forces in defense of whiteness. However, racialized trade union members also participate in struggles to resist racist domination. Among some of tools used to advance anti-racism are the creation of support networks, transgressive challenges to the entrenched leadership through elections, formation of constituency advocacy outside of the structure of the union and discrete forms of resistance. The participants in the research shared their stories of the way that race and gender condition the experiences of racialized women in the labour movement. The racialized interviewees were critical of the inadequacy of labour education programmes in dealing effectively with racism and offer solutions to make them relevant to the racial justice agenda. This study of race, resistance and co-optation in the labour movement has made contributions to the fields of critical race theory, labour and critical race feminism and labour studies.

The purpose of this research project was to analyze the dialectic of co-optation/domestication and resistance as manifested in the experience of racialized Canadian trade unionists. The seven research participants are racialized rank-and-file members, elected or appointed leaders, retired trade unionists, as well as staff of trade unions and other labour organizations. In spite of the struggle of racialized peoples for racial justice or firm anti-racism policies and programmes in their labour unions, there is a dearth of research on the racialized trade union members against racism, the actual condition under which they struggle, the particular ways that union institutional structures domesticate these struggles, and/or the countervailing actions by racialized members to realize anti-racist organizational goals. While the overt and vulgar forms of racism is no longer the dominant mode of expression in today’s labour movement, its systemic and institutional presence is just as debilitating for racial trade union members. This research has uncovered the manner in which the electoral process and machinery, elected and appointed political positions, staff jobs and formal constituency groups, and affirmative action or equity representational structures in labour unions and other labour organizations are used as sites of domestication or co-optation of some racialized trade unionists by the White-led labour bureaucratic structures and the forces in defense of whiteness. However, racialized trade union members also participate in struggles to resist racist domination. Among some of tools used to advance anti-racism are the creation of support networks, transgressive challenges to the entrenched leadership through elections, formation of constituency advocacy outside of the structure of the union and discrete forms of resistance. The participants in the research shared their stories of the way that race and gender condition the experiences of racialized women in the labour movement. The racialized interviewees were critical of the inadequacy of labour education programmes in dealing effectively with racism and offer solutions to make them relevant to the racial justice agenda. This study of race, resistance and co-optation in the labour movement has made contributions to the fields of critical race theory, labour and critical race feminism and labour studies.