Anchored in analysis of in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 23 Black women in Britain, this research explores how media and online content-sharing is implicated in the development of Black women’s diasporic identities. Such matters are unpacked via an interpretive analytic lens, with Black feminist and social constructionist underpinnings. Shaped by critical studies of marketing, media, race, and gender, this research addresses issues concerning identity, ideology and inclusion, amidst media and digital culture. This thesis analyses media-based coping mechanisms concerning experiences of marginalisation and searches for a sense of belonging, related to intersecting issues of race, ethnicity and gender. There is analysis of how content generated by Black online users is entangled in processes of cultural transmission, counter-cultural resistance, and the construction of a digitally-mediated collective Black consciousness. As such, there is discussion of the notion of Black digital diaspora, in relation to analysis of the online media experiences of Black women in Britain. As part of this thesis, the concept of Black British diasporic literacy is also outlined, to further understand the particularities of Black identity development in Britain and how it is influenced by media content. Whilst the narratives of interview participants are emphasised in this thesis, it expands upon research that embraces a self-reflexive quality, by including reflections on the author’s own experiences as a Black and mixed-race woman.

The myth and image of Southern Appalachia spun by local color writers of the early nineteenth century and, later, by local elites in privileged positions of power have long cast the historiography of the region in tones of Caucasian lineage and remediation. The production of culture, contribution to community, and service to church and, family long considered to be the domain of women has predominantly been viewed from the privilege of a white perspective. Prescriptive definitions of a monochromatic culture in the Uplands of Southern Appalachia has written out the cultural contribution of diverse ethnicities who continue to call the region home. The purpose of this study is to illuminate the ways in which women of color and diversity contribute to the production of culture through service to their communities, volunteer outreach, and service in the church and, as models of core Appalachian values for their families.

Contemporary African American fiction repeatedly explores intimacy. These explorations have been most sustained in black women’s writing. Although female authors share an interest in romantic interactions, their portrayals reveal wide-ranging attitudes about this theme. Some accounts depict intimacy as a barrier to female advancement. In other texts, feminine success hinges on maintaining a committed relationship. These distinct outlooks not only reflect competing gender discourses within late 20th, early 21st century America but also significant developments in black women’s literature. In this dissertation, I analyze how fictional depictions of heterosexual intimacy reveal crucial facts about black women’s writing. I argue that various subgenres captured under the heading, popular black women’s literature, include narratives about male-female relationships that complicate the efforts celebrated as the black women’s literary renaissance of the 1970s. By focusing on the span from 1965-2000, I suggest that at the same moment when Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Gloria Naylor were expressing post-civil rights era black femininity in fictions filled with deteriorating heterosexual intimacy, other black women writers were using popular fiction to expose different possibilities for male-female interconnection. These authors exist in the same socio-cultural milieu as their high modernist peers; however, their writings reflect different reactions to decisions about where intimacy fits in the construction of black identity. My dissertation contains four chapters, and each chapter engages roughly a decade and considers different dimensions of black female popular literature. Looking at the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s roots of this genre’s interest in intimacy, chapter one establishes Toni Cade Bambara as a founding figure. Chapter two studies the black romance novel from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s concentrating on pioneers, Rosalind Welles and Sandra Kitt. Dealing with Terry McMillan’s rise to fame between the late 1980s and the mid-1990s, chapter three examines chick lit, the site where capitalist feminism and black relationship concerns converge. The final chapter uses Terri Woods’ work to interpret ghetto fiction of the late-1990s. Popular black women’s literature notes the dynamic nature of black cultural identity and responds to that dynamism with portraits of intimacy that register shifting intra-racial realities within the broader context of evolutions in inter-racial democracy. By identifying intimacy as a telling theme in post-civil rights era experience, my research points out the variegated textures of black civic exertion in both literary and political terms.

This study examines the youtube series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and how it challenges representations of Black women in media, television and film. I argue that the director of the series, Issa Rae challenges predominant images of Black womanhood through her character "J". Through a historical framework I examine the mammie, jezebel, sapphire and the tragic mulatta as predominant images of Black women. I argue that these images function within oppressive institutions to maintain a social heirarchy in which Black women are inferior. Moreover, my content analysis examines how the character "J" negates these predominant images of Black womanhood through her use of rap as a coping mechanism, sexual agency and the ability to negotiate racism in the workplace

This dissertation begins with the finding that in the United States Black women are four times as likely to die due to pregnancy related complications than their white counterparts as well as the finding that Black children are 2 to 2.5 times as likely to die before their first birthday. Given this, the project examines the intersections between Black women’s reproductive experiences and the condition of reproductive health and access in the state of Texas. In order to accomplish this, the research situates the grassroots organizing work of a collective of mothers of color alongside national and state level legislation and data about maternal and infant health disparities. The work not only situates ethnographic experiences within the larger repertoire of quantitative health literature on disparities but it also historicizes the work alongside Black Feminist theories of the body, history, and Black women’s reproduction. Drawing from extended participant observations, interviews, focus groups, policy research, statistics, and archival work, this project unpacks the large disparity that exists in maternal and infant health outcomes for African-American women and the ways in which policy, community organizing, and other geo-political factors contribute to, mediate, or remedy this phenomenon. Given the data presented, this projects suggests that (re)creating supportive communities and support networks may be an effective way of mediating stress caused by long-term exposures to racism and ultimately healing the negative maternal health outcomes for black women. / text

The black-white suicide paradox explored in the current study explores black women's notions of suicide. In its most basic form, a fundamental question of this project is why have black women's suicide rates remained consistently low? This project seeks to explore specific internal and external adaptations that black women have come to rely on for long term survival. A great deal of attention will be given to black women's perspectives of suicide inside and outside of the black community. This qualitative study by way of narratives provides insight into the entities that black women perceive to contribute to their virtually non-existent suicide rates. This approach is particularly appropriate for this study because black women's accounts on suicide will provide rich detailed data typically unseen in current suicide literature. In my work, I assume that black women's multifaceted oppressive conditions have compelled them to use subtle forms of resistance, i.e. coping mechanisms that act as protective barriers against suicide. This study also re-examines notions of social integration and religious beliefs in lessening chances of suicide among black women. Research findings were presented by way of four themes that emerged from the dominant narratives of twenty-two in-depth interviews. Respondents perceived family and communal obligations, faith based beliefs, a sense of long suffering, and declaration of strength to be the primary grounds for black women's low rates of suicide. Recurring themes were consistent despite the women's income or education levels. The study concludes that black women employ and perceive these strategies to be significant in coping or resisting trivial and significant stressors of life. Additionally, black women's perception of suicide as a weakness played a significant role in the way they defined themselves as well as the act. For literature on suicide, I engaged the works of Durkheim, Prudomme, Hendin, and Lester among others as a theoretical framework for this study.

This narrative inquiry explores how Black tradeswomen negotiate the intersections of race and gender in their long-term careers in the U.S. building trades. Much of the literature on women and minority groups in the trades has focused on the success, or lack of success, of these groups in apprenticeship programs. To my knowledge, none has collected rich data focused on the long-term retention of Black women in the trades, nor has any discussed the personal, interpersonal, and institutional strategies this non-traditional group uses to continue working in the construction industry. This study draws on theory and empirical studies from the fields of Peace and Conflict Studies, Black Studies, Gender Studies, Labor Studies, and Psychology to provide a nuanced analysis of the systemic nature of Black tradeswomen’s struggles for gender and racial equity within the workforce, and elucidates the personal, interpersonal, and institutional strategies these women have developed to continue in this field. In-depth interviews conducted with fifteen tradeswomen revealed how they described and made sense of (1) their experiences of entering the trades and how their experiences in the trades changed over time; (2) barriers to their continued success as tradespeople; and (3) the skills and knowledge they developed to sustain themselves professionally. Findings include recommendations for interventions at the levels of pre-apprenticeships, apprenticeships, foremen, and higher to support the retention and promotion of Black tradeswomen in the industry. Tradeswomen highlight the necessity of combining anti-racist and anti-sexist struggles to promote greater inclusion of non-traditional workers. Black tradeswomen illuminate the importance of the cultivation of self-esteem and personal networks on and off the job as mitigating factors in a microaggressive work environment.

This narrative inquiry explores how Black tradeswomen negotiate the intersections of race and gender in their long-term careers in the U.S. building trades. Much of the literature on women and minority groups in the trades has focused on the success, or lack of success, of these groups in apprenticeship programs. To my knowledge, none has collected rich data focused on the long-term retention of Black women in the trades, nor has any discussed the personal, interpersonal, and institutional strategies this non-traditional group uses to continue working in the construction industry. This study draws on theory and empirical studies from the fields of Peace and Conflict Studies, Black Studies, Gender Studies, Labor Studies, and Psychology to provide a nuanced analysis of the systemic nature of Black tradeswomen’s struggles for gender and racial equity within the workforce, and elucidates the personal, interpersonal, and institutional strategies these women have developed to continue in this field. In-depth interviews conducted with fifteen tradeswomen revealed how they described and made sense of (1) their experiences of entering the trades and how their experiences in the trades changed over time; (2) barriers to their continued success as tradespeople; and (3) the skills and knowledge they developed to sustain themselves professionally. Findings include recommendations for interventions at the levels of pre-apprenticeships, apprenticeships, foremen, and higher to support the retention and promotion of Black tradeswomen in the industry. Tradeswomen highlight the necessity of combining anti-racist and anti-sexist struggles to promote greater inclusion of non-traditional workers. Black tradeswomen illuminate the importance of the cultivation of self-esteem and personal networks on and off the job as mitigating factors in a microaggressive work environment.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-02, page: 0711. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-122).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Elizabeth Higginbotham, Sociology. Includes bibliographical references.