WOMEN’S RELATIONSHIPS: FEMALE FRIENDSHIP IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA AND LOVE, MARIAMA BA’S SO LONG A LETTER AND SEFI ATTA’S EVERYTHING GOOD WILL COME by KADIDIA SY Under the Direction of Renée Schatteman, Chris Kocela and Margaret Harper ABSTRACT This study analyzes female friendship in four novels written by black diasporic women and examines the impact of race, class and gender on women’s relationships. The novels emphasize how women face the challenges of patriarchal institutions and other attempts to subjugate then through polygamy, neo-colonialism, constraints of tradition, caste prejudice, political instability and the Biafra war. This dissertation uses characterization and plot analysis to explore the different stories and messages the novels portray. As findings this study foregrounds the healing powers of female bonding, which allows women to overcome prejudice and survive, to enjoy female empowerment, and to extend female friendship into female solidarity that participates in nation building. However, another conclusion focuses on the power of patriarchy which constitutes a threat to female bonding and usually causes women’s estrangement. INDEX WORDS: Women’s relationships, Female friendship, Female bonding, Sisterhood, Female solidarity, Female Empowerment

This thesis will investigate the accounts from Women’s Studies students regarding their experiences academically, emotionally and politically in feminist university classrooms. Through the lens of an anti-racist feminist and intersectional analysis, I seek to demonstrate the way in which Women’s Studies university classroom spaces are neither ‘innocent’ nor are they devoid of racism and/or white supremacy. These maladies are present in the student and teachers who enter the space, voices allowed to speak and knowledge being taught. This research is formed by my personal experience as an undergraduate in a Women and Gender Studies course at a local university. I will use auto-ethnography and interviews as method in and through anti-racist feminist research methodology. By highlighting anti-racism education as a call to action in attending to this disjuncture and also to erode superficial notions of sisterhood, I will demonstrate white feminist supremacy as an implication for the sociology of race.

Women’s Studies students’ accounts of their experiences academically, emotionally and politically in feminist university classrooms will be investigated in this thesis. Central to my work, through an anti-racist feminist and intersectional analysis, is to demonstrate the way in which Women’s Studies university classroom spaces are neither ‘innocent’ nor are they devoid of racism/white supremacy as it is present in the bodies who are allowed to enter the space, voices allowed to speak and knowledge being taught. As this research is informed by a personal experience in an undergraduate Women and Gender Studies course at a local university, I will use both auto-ethnography and interviews as method in and through anti-racist feminist research methodology. Highlighting the importance of anti-racism education as a call to action in attending to this disjuncture and also to erode superficial notions of sisterhood will demonstrate white feminist supremacy as an implication for the sociology of race.

In this study, possibility of establishing feminist solidarity, sustained and based on feminist politics in Turkey is examined. Commonality discourse, the notion of sisterhood and identity politics, creating illusionary homogeneity are criticized of being exclusionary and limiting. Contemporary accounts of feminist solidarity are investigated in order to find a way out for establishing solidarity across difference. However, it is seen that these contemporary approaches are far from designating a driving force to stimulate feminists / activists to come together. It is argued that in order to achieve feminist solidarity respecting differences is a must. It is also argued that solidarity has to become a powerful relation among feminists and to do so internalized inequalities and power holding within activism has to be interrogated. Consciousness raising among activists is offered as a means to overcome challenges to activism and barriers to solidarity. Furthermore it is argued that feminism has to become the motto of activism and feminist politics as the basis for establishing feminist solidarity.

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Women’s Studies students’ accounts of their experiences academically, emotionally and politically in feminist university classrooms will be investigated in this thesis. Central to my work, through an anti-racist feminist and intersectional analysis, is to demonstrate the ways in which Women’s Studies university classroom spaces are neither ‘innocent’ nor are they devoid of racism/white supremacy as it is present in the bodies who are allowed to enter the space, voices allowed to speak and knowledge being taught. As this research is informed by a personal experience in an undergraduate Women and Gender Studies course at a local university, I will use both auto-ethnography and interviews as method in and through anti-racist feminist research methodology. Highlighting the importance of anti-racism education as a call to action in attending to this disjuncture and also to erode superficial notions of sisterhood will demonstrate white feminist supremacy as an implication for the sociology of race.

Women’s Studies students’ accounts of their experiences academically, emotionally and politically in feminist university classrooms will be investigated in this thesis. Central to my work, through an anti-racist feminist and intersectional analysis, is to demonstrate the ways in which Women’s Studies university classroom spaces are neither ‘innocent’ nor are they devoid of racism/white supremacy as it is present in the bodies who are allowed to enter the space, voices allowed to speak and knowledge being taught. As this research is informed by a personal experience in an undergraduate Women and Gender Studies course at a local university, I will use both auto-ethnography and interviews as method in and through anti-racist feminist research methodology. Highlighting the importance of anti-racism education as a call to action in attending to this disjuncture and also to erode superficial notions of sisterhood will demonstrate white feminist supremacy as an implication for the sociology of race.

Coalitions in Northern Ireland have been organizing across the ethno-nationalist divide for decades. Yet, while empirical research has addressed challenges of, and potential for, organizing across ethnonationalism, the ways in which coalition members attend to their complex subjectivites have been overlooked. Using a critical, constructivist approach to qualitative research, this study of Alliance for Choice Belfast sheds light upon the impacts of attending to / overlooking difference and power dynamics. Data was collected through field research, semi-structured interviews and document analysis, and analysed through the lens of radical coalition building, along with theories that address the complexity of identities. The findings suggest that members of the coalition have created a depoliticized coalitional space in order to avoid conflict and unite around their campaign goal. This has had implications in terms of homogenizing womens experiences, overlooking elements of class privilege, and falling back into traditional practices of avoidance around controversial issues. / Theoretical, Cultural and International Studies in Education

Esse trabalho discute a performance ritual e musical durante a Festa da Boa Morte e Glória realizada anualmente na segunda quinzena de agosto na cidade de Cachoeira, Recôncavo da Bahia. Elaborada através de elementos simbólicos, culturais, religiosos e de resistência política e social, a Festa da Boa Morte compreende performances musicais dentro de uma complexa performance ritual que é ao mesmo tempo coletiva e absolutamente restritiva. A Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte é um coletivo de mulheres idosas, todas religiosas enquanto praticantes do candomblé e do catolicismo popular. Como grupo a Irmandade é considerada elite na luta e resistência do negro contra o sofrimento e a escravidão no Brasil. As irmãs foram e são mulheres diferenciadas em vários sentidos: aos olhos da sociedade colonial eram chamadas de negras do partido alto; miticamente transgressoras da ordem masculina são consideradas iamis e organizadas em sacerdócio religioso unindo diferentes nações são donas do axé ou eleyes. As irmãs antigas compraram as alforrias de outros sacerdotes e sacerdotisas africanos, se comprometeram em garantir funerais dignos a si mesmas e aos seus, e mantém uma festa associada aos seus antepassados femininos (eguns) e aos seus orixás durante rituais católicos públicos e do candomblé (secretos). Segundo as irmãs, elas cumprem uma promessa feita pelas mais antigas: se todos os escravos fossem libertos elas cultuariam Maria na vida e na morte. Personagens narrando e encenando repetidamente performances, as irmãs desenvolvem seqüências rituais e musicais que vão da anunciação da morte ao velório de Nossa Senhora no primeiro dia da Festa. No segundo dia é realizado o enterro, e, no terceiro, demonstram sua crença na vida após a morte através da glorificação e assunção de Maria aos céus. Esses são os três principais momentos do ritual público, aos quais se seguem outros três dias de samba de roda que se fundem aos rituais secretos, já em desenvolvimento antes da Festa. O encerramento é marcado pela entrega de um presente às águas, para os orixás femininos Nanã, Iemanjá e Oxum. / This work discusses the musical and ritual performance during the Sisterhood of Good Death Celebration, which occurs in the second half of August in the city of Cachoeira, Recôncavo Area of Bahia. Involving symbolic, cultural, religious, social and political elements, the Sisterhood of Good Death Celebration engages musical performances inside a complex ritual performance that is at the same time collective and absolutely restrictive. The Sisterhood of Good Death is a collective of elderly women, all of them religious while devoted to candomblé and popular Catholicism. As a group, the Sisterhood is considered the elite in the stuggle of black people against oppression and slavery in Brazil. The Sisters were and still are distinguished women in many different ways: during the colonial period, they were called black women from the partido alto; mythically transgressing the dominant masculinity, they are considered iamis and organized in a religious ministry that congregates different candomblé nations. They are also the ones who possess the axé (eleyes). In the past, the sisters bought the manumission of other priests and priestesses, and commited to guaranteeing dignified funerals to themselves and to their people. The Celebration is associated with their female antecessors (eguns) and to their orixás during public catholic rituals and secret candomblé ceremonies. According to the sisters, they are living up to a promise made by their antecessors: If all the slaves were freed, they would all worship Mary in life and in death. Characters narrating and staging repeated performances, the sisters develop ritual and musical sequences which go from the annunciation of the death of the Virgin Mary to her vigil on the first day; on the second she is buried and on the third the Sisters demonstrate their belief in life after death through the glorification and elevation of Mary. These are the three most important moments of the public ritual, followed by three days of samba de roda . The samba takes place parallel to the development of the secret rituals started before the Celebration. On the last day of feast, the sisters deliver a gift to the waters, destinated to the female orixás Nanã, Iemanjá and Oxum.

abstract: “Her Brown Body Is Glory: A Legacy of Healing Forged Through Sisterhood and Dance” fondly captures the process of creating the evening length dance project, Her Brown Body Is Glory (HBBIG). This document addresses many themes, such as liminality, rites of passage, trauma in the African American community (like the effects of Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary’s “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS) theory), and provides a perspective of healing rooted in dance, rituals, and community. This research focuses on dance being the source of intervention to create sisterhood among African American women of many shades. Throughout the creation of this dance project, the choreographer and dancers collaboratively generated experiences to cultivate a space of trust, vulnerability, sisterhood, and growth. The use of written, verbal, and movement reflection supported this creative process as the main source of ritual to check in with self, building community amongst the dancers, and generating choreography. The insertion of these sisterhood rituals into the production became the necessary element of witness for the audience to experience an authentic and moving performance of Her Brown Body Is Glory. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Dance 2020