In 2004, Métis Nation offices began to register and issue identification cards to Métis citizens who met certain criteria. While many Métis people did register, and are registering, there are many who have not, and will not. As a result, some question the validity of the registry because it is unclear how it can reflect an accurate picture of the culture when not all Métis are represented. Through in-depth, unstructured interviews, my reflexive ethnography traces the accounts of six Métis citizens in southern Saskatchewan. I explore their stories about their Métis-ness, and their experiences with the registry. I also explore my own experiences with the registry and my journey to un/discover my own Métis-ness. The findings are presented in a creative non-fiction essay. The conclusions suggest that identification cards cannot grant someone admission to a culture; rather, cultural identity requires time, effort, intent, active participation, and meaningful connection with others.

No description available.

In 1991 the Indian government officially sanctioned the country’s definitive entry into the global market and into a new era. This study focuses on the generation that epitomizes this new era and is based on fieldwork among young English-speaking, educated, Delhi-based men involved in occupations such as tourism, Internet, multinationals, journalism and sports. These young men construct their role in society by promoting themselves as brokers in the ongoing exchanges between India and the outer world. Together they constitute a heterogeneous whole with different class-, caste- and regional background. Yet, they can all be seen as members of the ‘middle class’ occupying a relatively privileged position in society. They consider the opening of India to the global market as the key-event that has made it possible for them to live an “interesting life” and to avoid becoming “boring people”. This exploration into the life-world of these young men addresses in particular how they construct their identities facing the messages and images that they are exposed to through work- and leisure-networks. They understand themselves and what surrounds them by invoking terms such as ‘India’ and ‘West’, ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, mirroring the debates on change that have gone on in India since colonization. Yet, they imaginatively re-work the content of these discourses and give the quoted terms new meanings. In their usage ‘being Indian’ is turned into a ‘global’, ‘modern’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ stance while ‘being Westernized’ becomes a marker of ‘backwardness’ and lack of sophistication. Their experiences mark out the popularity of notions of ‘Indianness’ in contemporary metropolitan India. The study focuses on how social actors themselves experience their self-identity and how these experiences are influenced by the actors’ involvement with international flows of images and conceptualizations. It will primarily approach cultural identities through labels of belonging to abstract categories with shifting reference (referred to them as ‘phantasms’) such as ‘India’, ‘West’, etc. The study suggests that the ‘import’ of trans-national imagination into everyday life gives birth to sub-cultural formations, new ‘communities of imagination’. Their members share a similar imagination of themselves, of Delhi, their country and the world.

How do we understand ourselves? How do we relate with others? How do we build communities? These are some questions David Velleman’s theory of mutual interpretability appears to answer. In Foundations For Moral Relativism, Velleman argues that self-understanding is interlinked with one’s ability to understand others; in other words, with one’s ability to be mutually interpretable. However, being mutually interpretable requires that a person share some set of beliefs or a perceptional framework with another person that would allow the two to interact successfully with one another. Thus, communities are simply a collection of individuals whose shared beliefs enable them to more or less understand one another and engage in successful interaction Although Velleman goes on to use this theory to argue for the existence of Moral relativism, I analyze how this theory affects a bi-cultural or multi-cultural person’s self-understanding and personal identity. In other words, I explore how a multi-cultural person that learns to be mutually interpretable in more than one place forms self-identity and learns to understand him or herself.

No description available.

Global diasporas caused by wars carry many streams of people - in the 1970s one of these streams contained orphans from Vietnam delivered to white parents in the West. On arrival, the social expectation was that these children would blend seamlessly into the culture of their adoptive parents. Now some adoptees, as adults, reflect on their lives as 'Asian' or racially 'Other' children in white societies, charting the critical points in their maturation. This thesis interrogates their life histories to explore the role of birth-culture in the self-definition of people removed from that culture at birth or in childhood. Thirteen adult adopted Vietnamese participants were interviewed. These interviews provided qualitative data on issues of racial and cultural identity. These data were developed and analysed, using a framework drawn from symbolic interactionism and cultural studies, in order to reveal the interpersonal dynamics in which people were involved, and the broader cultural relations that sustained them. The findings reveal that in early childhood the adopted Vietnamese identity process was shaped by a series of identifications with, and affirmations of, sharing their adoptive parents racial and cultural identity. Such identifications were then challenged once the adoptees entered society and were seen by others as different. The participants' attempts to locate a secure sense of self and identity within the world they are placed in are disturbed by numerous uncertainties surrounding racial and cultural difference. One of the most crucial uncertainties is the adopted Vietnamese knowledge about their cultural background. While most felt they lacked positive knowledge about Vietnam and racial diversity, their sense of identity was unsettled by experiences with racism and negative cultural stereotypes throughout their late childhood to adolescence. As their recognition and acceptance of their difference develops in adulthood, they experience a degree of empowerment due to their being able to access more knowledge about their cultural background and a greater appreciation of racial diversity. Many participants have formed closer ties with other people born in Vietnam, most notably other adoptees; most returned to visit Vietnam. The thesis concludes that those adoptees who were able to develop an understanding of the Vietnamese and other backgrounds to their complex identities, tended to be more integrated as adults than those who either rejected or were unable to come to terms with their Vietnamese ancestry.

No description available.

This research project asks; what is the potential for garments to express an Indian/European cultural hybridisation? The research explores the development of an alternative aesthetic by hybridising the ethos of traditional Indian garments and the aesthetics of 'Western' garments. The garments have been designed and constructed after key design features were indentified, and the new garments reflect hybridisation. The aspect of hybridisation was further enhanced with the use of digitally-printed fabric imagery which features a mythologised and idealised European/Indian history. The research seeks to discover if such a joining-together could develop an aesthetic sensibility, informed by both a ‘Western’ enculturation and a traditional Indian heritage. The new garments will speak to the viewer about what it is to experience being situated within two cultures simultaneously.

This research project asks; what is the potential for garments to express an Indian/European cultural hybridisation? The research explores the development of an alternative aesthetic by hybridising the ethos of traditional Indian garments and the aesthetics of 'Western' garments. The garments have been designed and constructed after key design features were indentified, and the new garments reflect hybridisation. The aspect of hybridisation was further enhanced with the use of digitally-printed fabric imagery which features a mythologised and idealised European/Indian history. The research seeks to discover if such a joining-together could develop an aesthetic sensibility, informed by both a ‘Western’ enculturation and a traditional Indian heritage. The new garments will speak to the viewer about what it is to experience being situated within two cultures simultaneously.

Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-05-08T17:45:51Z No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao Claudia Vasconcelos.pdf: 2629675 bytes, checksum: 3cd6df5a3eb44b0da39b9632c408036a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Alda Lima da Silva(sivalda@ufba.br) on 2013-05-08T18:06:33Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao Claudia Vasconcelos.pdf: 2629675 bytes, checksum: 3cd6df5a3eb44b0da39b9632c408036a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-08T18:06:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao Claudia Vasconcelos.pdf: 2629675 bytes, checksum: 3cd6df5a3eb44b0da39b9632c408036a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / A pesquisa tratou de investigar como e em que sentido o discurso hegemônico da baianidade, centrado na cidade de Salvador e seu Recôncavo, se afirmou como única referência identitária para os baianos e não-baianos. Problematiza a visão totalizante dessa “cultura baiana”, atualizada e divulgada pelas agências da política cultural do estado, bem como, verifica os motivos da negação da presença de uma tradição rural/sertaneja na Bahia. Visando a compreender a construção da idéia de Sertão e no sentido de analisar tais questões, a pesquisa parte de um estudo do contexto nacional, no processo de construção do texto identitário da brasilidade, perpassando pela formulação da nordestinidade, para, finalmente, refletir sobre a baianidade e a sua relação com a sertanidade. Desta forma, o trabalho considera o corpus correspondente à obra de Jorge Amado como referência principal do texto convencionalmente conhecido como baianidade. Por sua vez, os autores do Movimento Regionalista do Nordeste, sobretudo Gilberto Freyre, são tomados como referência do texto da nordestinidade. Por fim, toma o trabalho de Eurico Alves como principal discurso de afirmação da sertanidade como possibilidade de inserção nas referências da Bahia. Para compreender como os discursos identitários são organizados no campo social, a presente investigação teve como principal fundamentação os conceitos de estereótipo de Homi Bhabha e de poder simbólico e região de Pierre Bourdieu. Conclui-se pela impossibilidade de inserção das referências correspondentes à sertanidade no quadro correspondente à baianidade, o que, em contrapartida, aponta a insuficiência do texto da baianidade no sentido de abranger e representar todo o estado da Bahia. / Salvador