This dissertation project examines the role of identity, the politics of identity contestation and domestic political structures as part of the mechanisms and processes that may be involved in the decisions that states make regarding disengagement from their colonial and territorial possessions. Specifically, it focuses on the following questions: Why do intransigent states back down on previously entrenched territorial policies? And why, even when states decide to disengage from their territories, are some of these processes peaceful while others are scenes of prolonged, bloody and violent struggles? Focusing on Britain and its reaction to Indian calls for independence from 1929-1935, and Indonesia's withdrawal from East Timor in 1999, this project argues that the processes and mechanisms involved in identity construction, maintenance and change can play an important role in how states approach the issue of territorial disengagement. At the same time, it also argues that the structure of a state's domestic political system may also affect the way in which disengagement takes places. Based on its empirical findings, this dissertation also argues that identities are constructed at both the domestic as well as the international levels, and against an Other, and through narratives. Further, identities do not acquire 'substance' once they have been constructed. Rather they are continually constituted by processes, relations and practices as identities are defined, recognized and validated in an actor's interaction with and in relationship to others. Finally, identity does not only influence human actions through enabling or constraining actions but also through the need to perform who we are or who we say we want to be.

In this dissertation, I try to understand processes of dispossession and exclusion within a class-focused Marxian framework grounded in the epistemological position of overdetermination. The Marxian concept of primitive accumulation has become increasingly prominent in contemporary discussions on these issues. The dominant reading of “primitive accumulation” in the Marxian tradition is historicist, and consequently the notion itself remains outside the field of Marxian political economy. The contemporary literature has de-historicized the concept, but at the same time missed Marx’s unique class-perspective. Based on a non-historicist reading of Marx, I argue that primitive accumulation—i.e. separation of direct producers from means of production in non-capitalist class processes—is constitutive of capitalism and not a historical process confined to the period of transition from pre-capitalism to capitalism. I understand primitive accumulation as one aspect of a more complex (contradictory) relation between capitalist and non-capitalist class structure which is subject to uneven development and which admit no teleological universalization of any one class structure. Thus, this dissertation claims to present a notion of primitive accumulation theoretically grounded in the Marxian political economy. In particular, the dissertation problematizes the dominance of capital over a heterogeneous social formation and understands primitive accumulation as a process which simultaneously supports and undermines such dominance. At a more concrete level, I apply this new understanding of primitive accumulation to a social formation—consisting of “ancient” and capitalist enterprises—and consider a particular conjuncture where capitalist accumulation is accompanied by emergence and even expansion of a “surplus population” primarily located in the “ancient” economy. Using these theoretical arguments, I offer an account of postcolonial capitalism in India, distinguishing between two different regimes—(1) the dirigiste planning regime and (2) the laissez-faire regime. I argue that both regimes had to grapple with the problem of surplus population, as the capitalist expansion under both regimes involved primitive accumulation. I show how small peasant agriculture, traditional non-capitalist industry and informal “ancient” enterprises (both rural and urban) have acted as “sinks” for surplus population throughout the period of postcolonial capitalist development in India. Keywords: primitive accumulation, surplus population, postcolonial capitalism

In this dissertation, an ethnography of transnational commercial surrogacy in India, I argue that existing Eurocentric and ethics-oriented frames for studying surrogacy make invisible the labor and resistances of women within this process. By framing commercial surrogacy as ‘labor’ instead, I ask: How do commercial surrogate mothers in India, as participants in a new kind of labor, challenge and/or re-affirm ideologies, discourses and practices surrounding not just surrogacy, but women’s role as producers and reproducers? Through participant observation and open ended interviews, I reveal the “labor” of women that often remains invisible and underpaid: whether in the form of “dirty” labor, “embodied labor” (labor that requires intensive use of their physical selves) or “kinship labor” (the labor of forming and maintaining kinship ties). Instead of romanticizing the everyday resistances of the surrogates, I highlight the inherent paradox of their resistances to domination by the family, the community, the clinic and the state. The multiple sites of domination imply that resistance to one set of forces often involves reification of other forms of domination. At one level, the significance of my research is that it is the only existing work on this stunning example of international division of (reproductive) labor where poor women of the global south have babies for richer women, often from the global north. This study aims to move beyond the Euro-American setting and get a broader view of the cultural response to new reproductive technologies. By calling for the recognition of commercial surrogacy as “labor”, I challenge the gendered dichotomies of natural and biology versus social and labor. Simultaneously, I deconstruct the image of the “victim” inevitably evoked whenever bodies of “Third World” women are in focus. It’s likely that the everyday resistances by the surrogates in India pose very little threat to the fundamentally exploitative structure of transnational surrogacy. What they do represent, however, is a constant process of negotiation and strategizing at the local level. They provoke a reappraisal of existing assumptions surrounding not just surrogacy but our understanding of new forms of women’s labor and local resistances, new bases for forming kinship ties and novel responses to new reproductive technologies and biomedicalization.

From 2001–2007, students from India have consistently comprised the largest ethnic group of international students on college campuses across the United States (Open Doors: Report on International Educational Exchange, 2007). Despite a number of studies that have researched the mental health of international students in the U.S., none have done so primarily with Indian graduate students. Theoretical and empirical literature regarding the psychological changes and acculturation patterns that international students undergo after their transition do not explore the possibility of multiple pathways of change. The current study identified four separate mental health trajectories for Indian international graduate students during their first year in the U.S. It also found three distinct patterns of acculturation for the Indian culture and four acculturation trajectories for the European American culture. The size of one’s adjustment, feelings about transition, gender role attitudes, and availability of out-group support were all significant contributors to the variability among empirically derived mental health trajectories.

This dissertation looks into different aspects of women's lives in the aftermath of Nepal's ten-year long (1996–2006) Maoist insurgency. It consists of four essays, each focusing on the experience of Nepali women in a particular aspect of post-conflict development and reconstruction activity. The first essay undertakes an examination of the survival and coping strategies of widow-headed households (WHHs) in Nepal in the aftermath of the Maoist conflict. Using qualitative data from in-depth interviews, the chapter analyzes the material consequences of the conflict on such households, the strategies such households have adopted in the aftermath to cope with economic uncertainty and insecurity of livelihoods, and the role of social and cultural processes in determining these strategies. Social and cultural norms pertaining to widowhood emerge as salient determinants of the level of kin and non-kin support widow heads of household can muster, of their workday structure, of their choice of employment and of their children's welfare. Contradictory outcomes prevail in determining WHHs' actual outcomes, which are also dependent upon class, caste, location and ethnic background. The second essay is a case study of peacebuilding and reconstruction activities undertaken by women's savings and credit cooperatives in Nepal in the post-conflict period. Using secondary data from a peacebuilding project called the Developing Democracy in Nepal (DDN) carried out by the Canadian Cooperatives Association (CCA) and the Center for Microfinance (CMF) in Nepal in the cease-fire period (in 2009), the chapter examines "bottom-up" peacebuilding and the role of women's cooperatives in reducing violence, promoting reconciliation and building peace in their local communities. The case of the DDN becomes a starting point to scrutinize the nature of peacebuilding and reconstruction—including its gendered elements—undertaken by cooperatives, and the dilemmas and challenges that appear herein. Lessons from the Nepal case are distilled for future development and peacebuilding practice. The third essay draws examples from qualitative (interview) data on Nepal's Maoist conflict to illustrate the ways in which attention to women's lived experiences of violent conflict can be used to inform policies and programs of post-conflict reconstruction and development in war-torn societies. Using women's narratives from in-depth interviews, it is argued that such a feminist perspective complicates conventional understandings of the processes and effects of violent conflict and encourages a closer look at the definitions, concepts and assumptions employed in exercises of post-conflict reconstruction or peacebuilding. The crucial insights gained from women survivors' narratives suggest a reflexive approach to policy-making and program design in war-torn contexts. The final essay is a quantitative exploration of the hypothesis that the incidence of female headship increases after periods of violent conflict. Using district level data from the Nepal Livings Standards Surveys and conflict intensity data from a human rights organization in Nepal, the chapter uses regression analysis to trace the relationship between conflict intensity and female headship. While the hypothesis is not borne out in the case of Nepal, the role of migration and geographical terrain emerges as relevant for female headship in the case of Nepal. The findings of the dissertation support its initial premise that it is essential to view material life and economic phenomena through a gendered lens in order to uncover the social, cultural and institutional constraints that are in operation for particular groups, especially women. In looking at how these constraints are exacerbated, or may provide opportunities for agency and action, important insights can be afforded into social processes and development outcomes.

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This research is a descriptive bibliometric study of the literature of the field of Korean studies. Its goal is to quantitatively describe the literature and serve as a model for such research in other area studies fields. This study analyzed 193 source articles and 7,166 citations in the articles in four representative Korean and Asian studies journals published in North America from 1977 to 1996. The journals included in this study were Korean Studies (KS), the Journal of Korean Studies (JKS), the Journal of Asian Studies (JAS), and the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (HJAS). Subject matters and author characteristics of the source articles were examined, along with various characteristics such as the form, date, language, country of origin, subject, key authors, and key titles of the literature cited in the source articles. Research in Korean studies falls within fourteen broad disciplines, but concentrated in a few disciplines. Americans have been the most active authors in Korean studies, followed closely by authors of Korean ethnicity. Monographic literature was used most. The mean age of publications cited was 20.87 and the median age of publications cited was 12. The Price Index of Korean studies as a whole is 21.9 percent. Sources written in English were most cited (47.1%) and references to Korean language sources amounted to only 34.9% of all sources. In general, authors preferred sources published in their own countries. Sources on history were cited most by other disciplines. No significant core authors were identified. No significant core literature were identified either. This study indicates that Korean studies is still evolving. Some ways of promoting research in less studied disciplines and of facilitating formal communication between Korean scholars in Korea and Koreanists in North America need to be sought in order to promote well-balanced development in the field. This study suggests that as many and as great a variety of titles in all formats as possible need to be collected to support research in Korean studies.

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