關於<<保佑我, 烏荻瑪>>這本書, 我主要想討論兩個重點. 首先, 是書中主角安東尼之奧德賽式之心路歷程, 第二則是要討論安東尼之人格發展在其特殊之奇哥拿(Chicano)文化背景下所受到之影響與其因應之道. 基本上, 我對此小說之討論著重在其文化背景之論述上, 故關於安東尼之人格發展之討論上, 我著眼其族群意識上之發展, 從小說中找出他如何去認同其奇哥拿族群. 而關於奇哥拿之特殊生活背景, 我將會引用奇哥拿族群中發展出來之觀念—“族群混和(mestizaje).” 由於這種不尋常的生活條件, 造就了奇哥拿族群生存之曖昧和矛盾性, 但他們也因此因應出其對策, 也就是墨藉女批評家安則杜雅(Gloria Anzaldua)提出之邊域意識理論 (borderland consciousness), 強調其政治地位上之流動性與多變性. 另一方面, <<保佑我, 烏荻瑪>>此書中採用了很多奇哥拿文化中深具本土印第安色彩之民俗神話. 就安東尼之族群意識發展來看, 這些神話具有極大之重要性, 但另一方面, 這部份之描寫也常常使此小說被評為流於懷舊式之民俗地方志. 我也將探討種族歷史與時代性之間之關係. 在此書中, 我們可看到此二者並非是以絕對之衝突關係, 而是一具銜結性/因果性之存在. 此外, 書中穿插了安東尼之富戲劇性之夢境, 我也將討論這些夢對整體結構與安東尼人格發展之間的關係. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv Chinese Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vi English Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii Introduction History of Struggles: The Chicanos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Chapter One Myth as the Cultural Root: Ethnic Consolidation . . . . . . . . 29 Chapter Two The Process to Individuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Chapter Three Man of Synthesis: The New World Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Conclusion The Hard-won Survival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120 Works Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129 / From Bless Me, Ultima, I would like to present two major themes. First of all, it is the spiritual odyssey of the protagonist, Antonio. Second, my contention will move to Antonio’s psychological development, which is much under his Chicano cultural influences, and further on to his responding strategies. Basically, my emphasis will be laid on his gradual realization of his ethnic identity, regarding to the development of his personality. From the text, my task is to trace Antonio’s process of identification with his Chicano peers. I would apply to my discussion of the Chicano cultural background the idea of “mestizaje,” which is unique and evolved by Chicanos themselves. Such an unusual living condition creates a great degree of ambiguity and dilemma, but otherwise, Chicanos in response come out with their own strategy, which is called by Gloria Anzaldua “the borderland consciousness.” This notion largely draws from the dynamics and fluidity of their political status. On the other hand, Bless Me, Ultima is inserted greatly with indigenous Chicano/Indian folklore and legends. As far as Antonio’s ethnic consciousness is concerned, these myths contain a great importance. Whereas, this mythic aspect also tends to draw for the text negative criticism and hence the story is degraded as mere ethnography. From this discrepancy, I would lead my discussion of the novel further to the relation between ethnic history and contemporarity. In the text, these two units exist in a supplementary form, instead of being conflicting. In addition, the text is also inserted with a long sequence of dramatic dreams. I would like to discuss how these dreams affect the overall structure of the book and their relation to Antonio’s personality development.

Colonias are low-income settlements on the US-Mexico border characterized by poor infrastructure, minimum services, and an active housing construction with a high self-help and self-management component. Housing in colonias is very diverse showing house forms that include temporary and permanent structures, campers, trailers or manufactured houses and conventional homes. Most of this housing does not meet construction standards and codes and is considered substandard. Colonias households are also of diverse nature and composition including single households, nuclear and extended families, as well as multiple households sharing lots. This wide variety of house forms and households in colonias fits poorly within the nuclear household, single family detached housing idealized by conventional low-income housing projects, programs and policies. As a result, colonias marginally benefit from the resources available to them and continue to depend mostly on the individual efforts of their inhabitants. This research identifies the housing diversity and the process of housing consolidation in colonias of the US-Mexico border by looking at the patterns of house form and household arrangements in colonias of South Texas. Ten colonias located to the east of the city of Laredo along Highway 359 in Webb County, Texas were selected based on their characteristics, data availability and accessibility. Data collected included periodic aerial images of the colonias spanning a period of 28 years, household information from the 2000 census disaggregated at the block level for these colonias, and information from a field survey and a semi structured interview made to a random sample of 123 households between February and June 2007. The survey collected information about house form and household characteristics. The survey also incorporated descriptive accounts on how households completed their house from the initial structure built or set on the lot until the current house form. Data was compiled and analyzed using simple statistical methods looking for identifiable patterns on house form and household characteristics and changes over time. Findings showed that housing in colonias is built and consolidated following identifiable patterns of successive changes to the house form. Findings also showed that households in colonias share characteristics that change over time in similar ways. These results suggest similarities of colonias with extra-legal settlements in other developing areas. Based on these findings, the study reflects on possible considerations that could improve the impact of projects, programs and policies directed to support colonias and improve colonias housing.

This study analyzed trends in access and success of students admitted through the Top 10% admissions policy. The study employs a comparative analysis between public universities from the Borderland region and the two top-tier public universities in Texas. This Texas admissions policy provides students in the top 10% of their graduating high school class admission to any state 4-year public university. Therefore, this policy implies that being a top 10% student equates to being college ready for any public university in Texas, regardless of selectivity or top tier status. Research on the Texas Top 10% policy has focused on its success in improving diversity and student performance at the two top-tier public universities in Texas, The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. However, enrollment disparity continues at these elite institutions between Whites, Latina/os and Blacks. Additionally, the Texas Borderland region is an intersection of large Latina/o demographics; distance from top-tier institutions; and great disparities in economic development, health, and education. Combining the aforementioned conditions, we know little about the access and success of Borderland top 10% students, particularly in comparing the two public top tier universities in Texas to the alternative choice of their local Borderland university. This study used mixed methods to compare the trends in access and success of Borderland students admitted under the Top 10% admissions policy at Borderland universities and at top-tier public universities, and additionally controlled for student characteristics in explaining student persistence and graduation. The quantitative analysis used student-level descriptive and inferential statistics with data facilitated by Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The qualitative section of this dissertation used focus-group interviews with 36 students at 5 Borderland universities and 1 top-tier university to explain their success. This study applies Bourdieu's theoretical framework of social and cultural capitals and habitus to interpret the findings. Results indicated student differentiation between institutions in access, success, and explanations. Ethnicity, gender, family income, and college generation status influence differences in enrollment between institutions, in which all together influenced differences in graduation and persistence. On the other hand, the interviews revealed that personal effort and institutional resources also explained differences in student success. This study provides implications for further research and policy considerations. / text

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The southern Mozambique/ South Africa borderland is a landscape epitomised by fluctuation, contradiction and constant transformation. It is a world betwixt-and-between Mozambique and South Africa. The international border, imposed on the landscape more than a century ago, gives life to a new world that stretches across and away from it. The inhabitants of this transitional zone constantly shape and reshape their own identities vis-à-vis people on the opposite and same side of the border. This border, which was delineated in 1875, was to separate the influence spheres of Portugal and Britain in south-east Africa. On the ground it divided the once strong and unified Mabudu-Tembe (Tembe-Thonga) chiefdom. At first the border was only a line on a map. With time, however, it became infused with social and cultural meaning as the dividing line between two new worlds. This was exacerbated by Portuguese and British colonial administration on opposite sides of the border, Apartheid in South Africa and socialist modernisation and war and displacement in Mozambique. All these events and factors created cultural fragmentation and disunion between the northern and southern sides of the borderland. By the end of the Mozambican War in 1992 the northern side of the borderland was populated by displaced refugees, demobilised soldiers and bandits, as well as returnees from neighbouring countries. Many of these people did not have any ancestral ties to the land nor kinship ties to its earlier inhabitants. Whereas a common Thonga identity had previously united people on both sides of the border, South African policies of Apartheid increasingly promoted the Zulu language and culture on the southern side of the border. The end of warfare in Mozambique and of Apartheid in South Africa facilitated contact across the border. Social contact between the inhabitants of the borderland is furthermore fostered by various economic opportunities offered by the border, such as cross-border trade and smuggling. The increase in social and economic contact has in turn dissolved differences between the inhabitants of the borderland and promoted homogeneity and unity across the political divide. Fragmentation and homogeneity characterises daily life in the borderland. Inhabitants of the frontier-zone play these forces off against each other, now emphasising the differences across the border, later emphasising the similarities. The borderland is a world of multiple identities, where ethnicity, citizenship and identity, already fluid and contextual concepts in their own rights, become even more so as people constantly define and redefine themselves in this transitional environment. / Thesis (DPhil (Anthropology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Anthropology and Archaeology / unrestricted

Within the framework of the research focused on the polarization of space, or peripheral areas of Czechia respectively, approaches of cultural geography have been applied to a significant extent recently. As far as the issue of such areas development is concerned, the importance of the so- called "soft" socio-cultural development factors (including social and human capital) has been accentuated. The way-out is the belief that with the limited development potential of the peripheral (and rural) areas, activity and activism of local communities (quality of social and human capital) as the important internal (endogenous) development factor become more important. Despite the number of attempts, which have been made, we are not able to find exhaustive answers to questions relating to the actual importance of social and human capital (and different forms thereof) in the (socio-economic) development of these areas or the mutual relation (conditionality) thereof. For this reason, problems can be seen both in the area of theory and methodology (conceptualization) and, in particular, in insufficient verification of such theoretical concepts by means of empirical research, be specific in particular at the micro-regional up to local level. The dissertation therefore focuses on identification and explanation of...

Collective memory has recently become one of the most explored topics in the social sciences and has led to the emergence of a separate and independent subdiscipline called memory studies. The thesis investigates the awakening of collective memory in two borderlands of Central Europe: the former Sudetes region in the Czech Republic and the southern part of former East Prussia in Poland. The thesis provides an overview of the current theories about collective memory with a focus on the interactional and visual character of the studied phenomenon. In line with this, the thesis presents, discusses, and elaborates on research conducted in the two borderlands in 2016 and 2017. The aim of the research was to study the role and form of collective memory (shared remembrance) in ethnic, cultural, and historical borderlands. The contributions of the thesis are both methodological and theoretical. Firstly, the discussed research revealed that between particularly family-based communicative memory and official, institution-generated cultural memory, there is ritualised communicative memory, maintained through interactions among members of the borderland community (community of memory). Secondly, the thesis contributes to various studies within the interactionist paradigm and proves the usability of Goffman's...

This Master's diploma thesis elaborates on the history of Odry region, particularly the period after World War II, when it underwent a significant transformation. The goal od the thesis is to do a thorough micro-historical research of the postwar history of the region with respect to the transformation of the formerly German areas into the reclaimed lands of the Czech nation. It is divided into several chapters. In the first chapter I evaluate the source base to the topic; I investigate various literature related to the transfer of the Germans and the frontier settlement (its regional provenance being taken into account), archival sources and narratives - memories of displaced Germans from the presently analyzed region and several examples of the recorded oral-history interviews. In other six chapters I elucidate the situation of the Odry region in particular periods: in 1938, during World War II, and in the era of the liberation, followed by the transfer of the German population and the process of a new habitation. The last chapter then discusses the postwar Odry region as a home both lost and obtained. The paper provides insight into the postwar transformation of the Odry region in the period after the World War II perusing primarily the memories of those who were directly involved. Key words the...

The thesis examines the impact of euroregion Silva Nortica on cross-border cooperation and regional identity. Silva Nortica as the newest Czech euroregion is located in Czech-Austrian borderland. The situation in the euroregion is analyzed through quantitative and qualitative research to offer a complex view on the issue. In context of institutional framework conditions the questionnaire survey together with guided interviews with representatives of the euroregion was analyzed. The thesis also offers possible ways of future development of the euroregion. The results show a good potential among locals to build a cross-border community. However, on the institutional level there are many problematic factors as constrains in future development of cross-border cooperation in Czech-Austrian borderland. Key words: Euroregion Silva Nortica, Czech-Austrian borderland, cross-border cooperation, regional identity, cross-border community, multi-level governance

The goal of this MA thesis lies in mapping the history of the city Cheb after the second world war with the help of narratives and press of those times. Focus is on years 1945-1950 but the thesis also contains information about the city's history until 1945. Another aspect of this thesis is the variety of newspaper specific for this region and the way it changes through the years after war. The most important themes of this thesis include evicion of Germans, changing relationships whith the USA and the Soviet Union, ascent of kommunism and reastructuraion of Cheb - all of these in connection with the city itself and the memories of narrators. These themes are submited within the stories of individual narrators and spulemented by citations from newspaper.