When discussing Asian Indian population in the U.S. their economic success and scholastic achievement dominates the discourse. Despite their perceived economic and scholastic success and their status as a “model minority”, Asian Indians experience discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization from mainstream American society. These experiences of discrimination and perceived discrimination are causing second generation Asian Indians to give up on total assimilation and re-ethnicize. They are using different pathways of re-ethnicization to re-claim and to create an ethnic identity. This thesis provides evidence, through secondary sources, that Asian Indians in the U.S. do experience discrimination or perceived discrimination, and it is historic, cultural, and systemic. This thesis also uses secondary sources to explain several pathways of re-ethnicization utilized by second generation Asian Indians who have given up on complete assimilation. The process of re-ethnicization provides second generation Asian Indians agency, positionality, and placement in American society. Asian Indians through re-ethnicization occupy and embrace the margins that separate mainstream American society and the Asian Indians community in the U.S. It allows them to act as “go –betweens”.

Since 1975, over 1.3 million Southeast Asian refugees have resettled in the United States from the Southeast Asian nations of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 2014). Many Southeast Asian refugees fled their home countries after the Vietnam War to avoid political persecution. As a result of forced migration, Southeast Asian refugees experience high levels of psychological distress attributed to premigration trauma and postmigration. Stressors may include adjusting to a new culture, finding housing, establishing employment, financial hardship, learning a new language and the feeling of identity loss of their homeland. In considering these stressors, this study sought to understand how a lack of access to affordable healthy food may be impacting Southeast Asian refugees’ social, mental, and physical health. Using basic qualitative research, nine structured participant interviews were conducted. Findings suggest one way to alleviate some stress for refugees was to increase access to culturally congruent food. Additionally, increasing economic opportunities and transportation services were identified as critical to improving access to healthy food options. The theoretical framework that guided this study was resilience theory. This framework brought to light the hardship and stress experienced by refugees. I then used it to outline ways that community gardens may build individual resilience to overcome personal hardships through social support structures. The findings highlight the importance of resettling refugees in communities close to families to build individual resilience and the need for refugee resettlement practitioners to continue to offer resettlement support beyond initial arrival to the United States and until economic self-sufficiency is achieved. Additionally, four central themes emerged from individual stories of each participant’s perceptions of how food access impacts their social, mental, and physical health. The four themes were: (1) postmigration traumas create hardships among Hmong refugees, (2) poverty and physical and mental health disabilities impact food access, (3) food cultivation is deeply rooted in the Hmong culture, and (4) gardens build social communities and give hope. The study also uncovered two unexpected findings. The first was the strong cultural belief in natural healing using herbal medicine known as “tshuaj ntsuab Hmoob” or Hmong green medicine, and, secondly, the prevalent cultivation of Hmong herbal medicine plants in the gardens. For practitioners developing housing for resettled refugees, creating green space for refugees to cultivate their traditional green medicine is vital to Hmong refugees’ identity and culture. One way to provide such access would be to incorporate green space into resettlement housing arrangements so refugees may cultivate fruits and vegetables native to their home countries. Creating green spaces for refugees may help to preserve their rich culture and empower refugee communities to practice their cultural beliefs and traditions. Lastly, I conclude the study with a proposal for development of a nonprofit community garden called Garden of Hope. My vision for the Garden of Hope is to address findings of this study through program services, which may increase access to culturally congruent food and promote individual resilience through entrepreneurship. The goal is to teach refugees how to grow and market their organic fruits and vegetables to local restaurants and or sell them at local community farmers markets. Addressing postmigration stressors for Southeast Asian refugees through the Garden of Hope may improve individual economic mobility and uplift improvised communities through entrepreneurship.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(人間・環境学) / 甲第18359号 / 人博第672号 / 新制||人||162(附属図書館) / 25||人博||672(吉田南総合図書館) / 31217 / 京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科相関環境学専攻 / (主査)教授 市岡 孝朗, 教授 加藤 眞, 教授 松井 正文 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Human and Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DGAM

Civic and political engagement is woven into the fabric of higher education and many higher education institutions have intentionally incorporated this in their mission statements. Civic engagement often refers to passive activities like community service, partnership, and reciprocity with others in society while political engagement refers to activities that influences inherent interaction with the government, most common is voting (Verba et al., 1995). Verba and Nie’s (1972) defined political engagement using four elements: voting, campaign activities like membership or working for political organizations or donating, contacting public officials, and engagement in local communities that tackles local issues. The problem is that no model or robust framework exists that explains the student experiences of civic and political engagement in higher education. Furthermore, there is an absence of greater empirical studies on civic and political engagement regarding ethnic/racial students like Southeast Asian Americans (SEAA).There is little known about the pathways of civic and political engagement among Asian American college students. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) trace their roots from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Despite attempts on the heterogenization of Asian Americans’ civic and political engagement trends in research, there is still limited understanding on civic and political behaviors and attitudes based on ethnicity. Southeast Asian Americans often experience challenges that remain invisible in higher education. A phenomenological approach is utilized to analyze the interviews of seven Southeast Asian American college students. Five themes emerged from the data collected: Civic engagement as more accessible, political engagement driven by key issues, intersectionality of Generation Z and political engagement, limited college influence, and ethnic identity as motivation for engagement. Overall, participants viewed civic activities as more accessible than political engagement. There was a lack of comprehensive knowledge to what political engagement entailed other than voting. The participants were driven by specific issues to political engagement. These activities other than voting used channels like Instagram to engage. They perceived institutional messaging or outreach regarding engagement as absent. The participants had a positive experience in student organizations they were a part of, and these networks increased their civic and political awareness. The study was guided by the Asian Critical Race Theory. The tenets of Asian Critical Race Theory were particularly present when discussing their experiences and motivations for engagement. Issues related to Asian hate crimes that led participants to speak out, attend rallies, promotion of Asian related stories via Instagram, voting out political leaders that they perceived propagated anti-immigrant and Asian discrimination were motivations for participation. These were reminiscent of Asian Critical Race Theory. Through disaggregation of data, the implication of this study hoped to refocus the attention of higher education on Southeast Asian Americans and address their unique needs to promote civic development among students. The implications from the findings included increase opportunity for higher education to refine definitions of engagement, removing barriers to college access for Asian Americans and Southeast Asian Americans, advancing the AAPI agenda in institutions and colleges, and connecting college students to Asian American leaders. / Policy, Organizational and Leadership Studies

This exploratory study identifies the importance of Instagram to market universities in Southeast Asia and the strategies to make interesting content to reach more Southeast Asian students. According to the statistics in 2020 by Statista, Southeast Asia is ranked second in the world’s most active social media users, and Instagram is now quickly catching up with the giant platform Facebook and becoming the rising star. In the study, the main Instagram account of KTH Royal Institute of Technology @kthuniversity was analysed. Three main points were the center of attention: the visual power of the posts, the engaging captions, and the best timing to post. The study’s methods are focus group discussion with current KTH students from Southeast Asia and an online survey distributed to Southeast Asian students in general. The results, first, indicate that Instagram influences the choice-making of Southeast Asian students’ study destinations. Second, based on the first finding, several strategies to make interesting content to catch their interest are proposed. Southeast Asian students are more interested in photo-based posts with shorter captions and emojis. Photos showing university buildings, Stockholm/Sweden, and students’ life are more attractive. Regarding the timing, the study shows that the students do not have any specific days or time to check their Instagram, but universities should stick to the previous study mentioning that the best posting time is during breakfast and lunch. / Denna undersökande studie identifierar Instagrams betydelse för universitet i Sydostasien och strategier för att skapa intressant innehåll för att nå fler sydostasiatiska studenter. Enligt statistik för år 2020 av Statista rankas Sydostasien som nummer två bland världens mest aktiva användare av sociala medier, och Instagram kommer nu snabbt ifatt den gigantiska plattformen Facebook och är nu den stigande stjärnan. I studien analyserades det huvudsakliga Instagram-kontot för KTH Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, @kthuniversity. Tre huvudpunkter stod i fokus: inläggens visuella kraft, de engagerande bildtexterna och den bästa tiden att publicera. Studiens metoder är fokusgruppsdiskussion med nuvarande KTH- studenter från Sydostasien och en onlineenkät som distribueras till Sydostasiatiska studenter i allmänhet. Resultaten indikerar först att Instagram påverkar valet för studenter i Sydostasien. Vidare, baserat på den första upptäckten, föreslås flera strategier för att göra intressant innehåll för att fånga deras intresse. Sydostasiatiska studenter är mer intresserade av fotobaserade inlägg med kortare bildtexter och emojis. Bilder som visar universitetsbyggnader, Stockholm / Sverige och studenternas liv är mer attraktiva. När det gäller tidpunkten visar studien att studenterna inte har några specifika dagar eller tid för att kontrollera sin Instagram, men universitet bör hålla sig till den tidigare studien vilket nämner att den bästa publiceringstiden är under frukost och lunch.

This thesis concentrates on literature during India's battle for independence from the British Empire. These publications look at the outcomes of Europe's intent to colonize and its impact on the marginalized, colonial subjects down to the personal level. Delving into the tragic reality of colonialism and investigating its impact as portrayed in the novels selected, this thesis argues that the selected texts operate as resistance literature subverting the colonial discourse in retrieving South Asian culture and history. This project explores specific forms of resistance within the tropes of memory, history, and gender to pose a larger question of decolonial futures in the postcolonial aftermath. The explorations of Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi, Rabindranath Tagore's The Home and the World, and R.K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma all represent multiple ways of studying the independence movement in their resistance frame. Analyzing these works through a postcolonial perspective unveils underrepresented voices and the intricacies of the Independence landscape. Ahmed Ali incorporates nostalgia as an argument for abolition and articulates Muslim identity in India's rapidly transforming environment. Tagore writes from his real experiences, recounting the confusion and disarray that plagued the Independence movement as disputes erupted on how to fight for India's sovereignty. R.K. Narayan embraces the ‘Quit India' protest and Gandhi's pacifist ideals while worrying about the future after the Mahatma's death. These writers decolonize readers' minds, and campaign for India's independence against the Empire Such literature gives the colonized a voice as they actively resist the British colonization in every aspect of existence.

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<p>This thesis examines the performance of non-impaired Tamil-English speaking bilinguals on the Tamil-English version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test (BAT) (Paradis and Libben, 1987). The test was administered to 25 participants, 15 women and 10 men. The results show that, on average, participants achieved an overall score of 97%. However, participants did not do well on two subtests on the English version, specifically sections on derivational morphology and morphological opposites. Also, a more detailed analysis indicates that years of education significantly correlates with performance, even though it is claimed that years of education should not affect performance on this test. This study makes suggestions for how to improve the Tamil-English version, in view of the findings from this study, and provides a cautionary note on the role played by years of education in test performance. If the latter factor is not taken into account, the test could possibly lead to an inaccurate assessment of a patient’s language abilities, and could potentially result in misdiagnosis. In an effort to increase the test’s validity and reliability, this study recommends a series of modifications to the Tamil-English version of the BAT, based both on participants’ comments and on statistical analyses.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

The development of music therapy is uneven across five of 11 southeast Asian (SEA) countries where there are professional organizations or university training programs. There is little research about music therapists’ music and culture responsive (MCR) clinical practices in SEA. MCR is the awareness of culture and ability to musically engage with others as cultural beings. The aim of this study was therefore to better understand how SEA music therapists’ cultural understanding informs their professional perspectives and clinical approaches. Seven themes emerged, namely Respectful acceptance, Adaptation and Asian contextualization, Shared commonalities in diversity, Ways of being, Music in the culture of health, Music therapy within the culture of Science, and (Lack of) Awareness. The Delphi (electronic) technique was used to gain the consensus of experts as to current rankings and future projections about the relevance of cultural music therapy understanding. The top ranked MCR topics and skillsets which were relevant for a music therapy curriculum for the 21st century southeast Asian student included Supportive resources and related skills (33%), Population specific knowledge (22%) and Clinical Music Skills, MT approaches (11%), Professional issues (11%), and Repertoire (11%). This information serves as a baseline snapshot of the music therapy profession in SEA and may be potentially useful in planning professional music therapy education, training, and supervision. More importantly, it sets the context for dialogue about cultural music therapy practices in SEA and highlights the need to amplify the collective southeast Asian voice globally. / Music Therapy

Being sanctioned by the United States and its allies, Myanmar has long been isolated from the international community and become deeply dependent on China over the past twenty years. Until recently, the country embarked on political and economic reforms and expressed its desire to engage with other countries. The United States positively responded to the opening gesture, consequently the rapprochement between the two countries was commenced. As the competition for influence between China and the U.S. in Southeast Asia has long been existed, the shift in Myanmar’s foreign policy might represent the new challenge in this tug-of-war. This research aims to investigate the continuity or rupture in Myanmar’s foreign policy trend and to re-assess the influence of China and the United States presented in Myanmar. The collected data is analysed qualitatively. The result of the study shows that despite the re-engagement in Myanmar-U.S. relations, Myanmar-China relations remain cordial and the status of China-U.S. influence in Southeast Asia is not challenged.