ABSTRACT The thesis investigates how transnational familial ties and socio-cultural dynamics shape migrants‘ remitting behavior and inform their relationships. It shows that most research on remittances fails to capture the personal and social significance remittances have for migrants, embedded not only in their transnational social relations, but also in cultural contexts. Drawing on empirical qualitative and quantitative research amongst Congolese migrants in Johannesburg, the study argues that migrants remit mainly in a bid to escape social death by fostering familial belonging and sustaining social status. It shows that socio-cultural influences and internalized social stereotypes about the economic effects of emigration shape migrants‘ awareness of the role expectations their communities of origin hold in relation to them. This internalization of role expectations subjects migrants to such a social pressure that they often feel a compelling need to be perceived as financially ―successful‖ as well as ―valid‖ and ―good‖ family members – not only in their communities of origin but also among other migrants. In this context, remittances become a fundamental measure and criterion that shapes migrants‘ sense of belonging and social and familial inclusion or exclusion. For individual migrants, remittances play an essential instrumental role portraying positive images for themselves and, at the same time, are seen as a means to avoid social stigmatization and exclusion.

This dissertation establishes a transatlantic connection between Brazil, the United States and the Caribbean through the discussion of two contemporary literary movements: Sarau da Cooperifa, in São Paulo, and Nuyorican poetry, from the Puerto Rican poets living in New York City. Although these places share significant differences in terms of colonial and postcolonial history, they share similar experiences in terms of race and class representations. From similar oppressive realities, I argue that they also build similar strategies of resistance and urban discourse. By carrying a secondary citizenship status, Nuyorican poets and poets from the Brazilian periphery find in creative writing ways to reinvent themselves as subjects of their own history, a story written and reinvented in the streets, in the street corners, in barber shops, in the back yard, in bars and pubs. They take the street as epistemological locus in order to expand the concept of political intervention, be it while celebrating life or ritualizing death. In this sense, the street is the site for unrestricted access to poetry, and poetry is the element that fits these subjects in the history of the city. The work of Sergio Vaz, Ferrez, Allan da Rosa, Elizandra Souza, Willie Perdomo, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Miguel Algarín, Miguel Piñero and Sandra Maria Esteves is read through the lenses of African Diaspora theories and its relation to literary criticism, anthropology, history, discourse analysis, Black feminist theory and Latino studies. I share Edouard Glissant’s understanding that the Africans, who were forced to come to the Americas and the Caribbean upon slavery, did not bring only their body. They also brought with their body a worldview, a way of dealing with adversity, an epistemological understanding that has allowed them to outlive the physical death by overcoming the imputation of social death. Thus, this dissertation argues that cultural production is a political production, and that it has been used by racialized and impoverished minority individuals and groups across the globe as strategic tool in the struggle against oppression. / text

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El presente trabajo de investigación ensaya una exploración sobre las dificultades que enfrentan los programas de reinserción social del “Centro Juvenil de Diagnóstico y Rehabilitación Santa Margarita”. Este centro procura la rehabilitación de las adolescentes infractoras para que logren la reinserción a la sociedad. Este trabajo formula un plan de investigación y un balance bibliográfico de la producción reciente sobre la reinserción social lograda por centros juveniles en América Latina. / This research project examines the social obstacles that the Santa Margarita juvenile reintegration center faces to accomplish its main goals. This Center aims the female juvenile return to the community and homes. This work proposes a detailed research upon this social problem by focusing on a case-study. In addition, this research project reviews the most recent socio-legal literature on the juvenile reintegration in Latin America. / Trabajo de investigación

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This thesis examines and discusses how creolisation theory has influenced the material culture of enslaved people from former Danish West Indies plantations. The essay contends that creolisation is the theory required to advance slavery studies because it demonstrates how enslaved people created their own identity, belonging, and kept African cultures and customs alive despite being socially dead. This was accomplished through an examination of the amount of material discovered at archaeological investigations on former Danish plantations within slave contexts. Through the presentation and analysis of "Afro-Cruzan" ceramics, beads, shells, and pipe fragments, the thesis discusses and argues how the abundance of various objects from enslaved communities is evidence of long-term preservation of cultures, cultural identity, and expression. Furthermore, the usefulness of creolisation theory is emphasised because it is argued to have been developed with a post-processual perspective, avoiding the normative theorisation that has based slavery studies on a perspective in which the enslaved were only marginalised. Finally, the discussion emphasises the importance of remaining critical of how theories and theoretical frameworks have been applied in archaeological studies on slavery, as well as the need to broaden perspectives and include other Scandinavian countries, such as Sweden. / Den här uppsatsen analyserar och diskuterar hur materiell kultur från förslavade människor från plantage tidigare tillhörande danska Västindien är bevis för kreolisering. Uppsatsen argumenterar för hur kreolisering är den teori som krävs för att fortskrida inom studier gällande slaveri då det belyser hur förslavade individer lyckades skapade en egen identitet, samhörighet samt bibehöll sina kulturer och seder levande trots att de ansågs vara socialt döda. Detta görs genom att analysera kvantiteten av påträffat material under arkeologiska undersökningar inom slavkontexter på före detta plantage på de danska kolonierna. Uppsatsen presenterar och analyserar material i form av så kallat ”Afro-Cruzan” keramik, pärlor, snäckskal och pipfragment som används för att diskutera och argumentera för hur den höga kvantiteten av diverse föremål från slavsamhällen är bevis på ett långsiktigt bevarande av kulturer och kulturella identitet och uttryck samt de förslavades bibehållna agens. Vidare belyses även hur kreoliseringsteorin är mer applicerbar med hänsyn till att teorin tycks att ha skapats ur ett post-processuellt perspektiv då det undviker den normativa mentaliteten och teoretisering att slaveristudier grundas i ett perspektiv där de förslavade var endast varor inom ett socio-ekonomiskt samhälle.Diskussionen leder slutligen till hur det är väsentligt att bibehålla ett kritiskt öga om hur teorier och teoretiska ramverk har använts inom arkeologiska studier om slaveri samt hur det är nödvändigt att vidga perspektiven och inkludera andra skandinaviska länder, så som Sverige.

Security and race have historically been entangled in the politics of nation-building, whereby national security discourses have constructed the ‘public’ whom it should protect as ‘white’ while demonizing persons of colour as a threat to that public. In the current war against terrorism, these racialized discourses, underwritten by a colonial logic, have materialized through the symbolic and literal displacement of Muslim persons. Under this imperative of national security, both existing and novel legislations have either been suspended, contorted, or implemented to be used against Muslims, or anyone who visibly appears Muslim. Security certificates are one of such judicial tools. This thesis seeks to explore the experiences of securitization, analyzing how this legislation strips the subjects of the security certificate program of their legal rights and social connectedness. To explore this, I interviewed three of the five men from the ‘Secret Trial Five’ cases and some of their family members. I investigate how securitization manifests in the lives of those who have been securitized, exploring the practices that are used to maintain and reinforce the othering and the displacement of Muslim populations.

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