This thesis examines the organizing strategies and successes of Afro-Argentine civil society organizations (CSO) in Buenos Aires. I argue that despite low representation, Afro-Argentines have strategically designed their initiatives in ways that draw on national discourses of identity rights and nationalism; and, as well, have used cultural inclusion to influence state actors, creating agency and increasing visibility. Afro-Argentines are a highly understudied population due to the common belief that they do not exist in Argentina as a group. This thesis not only dispels that myth with a history of the long hidden importance of Afro-Argentines contributions to the formation of the Argentine nation and culture, but also provides a contemporary analysis which shows that they are a vibrant group which faces marginalization and exclusion on a daily basis. The central argument is that civil society is a viable method by which Afro-Argentines can combat institutionalized racism. I show this with an analysis of the various theories on civil society, focusing strongly on Putnam's (1996) argument that strong voluntary organizations are vital to making democracy work. This assessment lends to the argument that civil society places Afro-Argentines in a discursive space in which they can communicate with state actors to make claims for cultural and citizenship rights. This argument is followed with concrete examples which show that the successful organizing of three Afro-Argentine CSOs in Buenos Aires have increased the visibility and agency of the Afro-Argentine community. Overall I provide a contribution to the argument for civil society as a crucial component of functional democracies, contribute to academic discussion of the black diaspora in Latin America, and provide an in depth analysis of a highly understudied demographic.

Ethnic interest organizations have not been considered a salience influence on foreign policy. Traditionally, democratic theory suggests foreign policy should be determined by the will of the general population, rather that the limited and segregated interests of minority groups. Specifically in Canadian foreign policy, ethnic groups have also had limited access to decision-makers because of increased centralization of Canadian foreign policy. In contrast, the literature on Canada-India relations suggests there is an important foreign policy impact by the large, economically progressive Indo-Canadian Diaspora which has actively attempted to improve relations between these states. This dissertation addresses this obvious contrast, showing how the community has overcome the challenges traditionally associated with ethnic groups and foreign policy. Centrally, the research finds that Indo-Canadians have been active and successful foreign policy participants, influencing implementation, perceptions-editing and direct foreign policy between the two countries. This is determined by two characteristics: first, the Harper government’s decision to actively improve economic relations with New Delhi has opened important cess points for the Indo-Canadian community. Give their intimate knowledge of India’s business and economic environment, the Diaspora has been involved in various overseas missions, consultations and networking between the Canadian government and various stakeholders. Second, ethnic group influence is determined by the community’s internal organization, including the composition of their membership, financial resources and political strategies. With these characteristics, the dissertation assesses three interest organizations: the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC), the Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC) and the Canada-India Foundation (CIF). By conducting a within-case analysis, it finds that each organization has a niche role within Canada-India relations – in Diaspora representation (ICCC), business and trade relations (C-IBC) and policy-related advocacy (CIF). Centrally, this dissertation speaks to the evolving relations between the state and society in Canadian foreign policy. It offers a challenge to earlier work in this field, resulting in theoretical, methodological and policy-oriented advancement of a nascent body of literature, suggesting avenues for further investigation.

This dissertation examines current academic approaches to reading South Asian-Canadian literature as a multicultural “other” to Canadian national literature and proposes an alternative reading strategy that allows for these texts to be read within a framework of South Asian diasporic subjectivities situated specifically at the Canadian location. Shifting from the idea that “Canada” names a particular national identity and national literary culture to the idea that “Canada” names a particular geographic terrain at which different cultural, social, and historical vectors intersect and are creolized allows for a more nuanced reading of South Asian-Canadian literature, both in terms of its relationship to the complex history of the South Asian diaspora and in terms of the complex history of South Asian encounters with the Canadian space. Reading prose, poetry, drama, and theatrical institutions as locations where a specifically South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity is reflected, I am able to map a range of individual negotiations among the cultural vector of the “ancestral” past, the cultural vector of the influence of European colonialism, and the cultural vector of this place that demonstrate that the negotiation of South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity and its reflection in literature cannot be understood as producing a homogenous or “authentic” cultural identity. Instead, the literary expression of South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity argues that the outcome of negotiations between cultural vectors that take place in this location are as unique as the individuals who undertake those negotiations. These individual negotiations, I argue, need to be read collectively to trace out a continuum of possible expressions of South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity, a continuum that emphasizes that the processes of negotiation are on-going and flexible. This dissertation challenges the assumption that Canadian literature can be contained within the limits of a Canadian nationalist mythology or ethnography. Instead of the literature of the Canadian “nation” or the Canadian “people,” Canadian literature is best understood as the literature produced in this location by all the “minority” populations, including the dominant “minority.” Reading Canadian literature, then, is reading the differential relationships to history and community that occur in this place and which are inscribed in these collectively Canadian texts.

Around 1900, Vienna became the city with the greatest number of Czech-language speakers. Members of the Czech minority founded important community institutions and engaged in a wide range of cultural activities - music among them. The most important markers characterizing the contemporary Czech minority in Vienna are (1) several variously motivated and differently politically determined waves of voluntary, but also involuntary, migration, (2) presence of descendants of those Czechs who stayed on the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, and (3) coexistence of several generations and groups of people with different political orientation and attitudes towards integration into Austrian society. At present, the Czech Viennese minority is a heterogeneous community with different "culture cohorts". Using fieldwork, thus the participant observation of musical events together with the semi- structured interviews and combining the theoretical perspectives of ethnomusicology and diaspora studies, this dissertation deals with the three interrelated questions: How do the musical creativity and participation at musical events reflect the heterogeneity of the contemporary Czech Viennese minority? How does the migrant situation determine the creativity, respectively the participation at musical events? And how...

Around 1900, Vienna became the city with the greatest number of Czech-language speakers. Members of the Czech minority founded important community institutions and engaged in a wide range of cultural activities - music among them. The most important markers characterizing the contemporary Czech minority in Vienna are (1) several variously motivated and differently politically determined waves of voluntary, but also involuntary, migration, (2) presence of descendants of those Czechs who stayed on the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, and (3) coexistence of several generations and groups of people with different political orientation and attitudes towards integration into Austrian society. At present, the Czech Viennese minority is a heterogeneous community with different "culture cohorts". Using fieldwork, thus the participant observation of musical events together with the semi- structured interviews and combining the theoretical perspectives of ethnomusicology and diaspora studies, this dissertation deals with the three interrelated questions: How do the musical creativity and participation at musical events reflect the heterogeneity of the contemporary Czech Viennese minority? How does the migrant situation determine the creativity, respectively the participation at musical events? And how...

In an attempt to close the gaps between diaspora and regional studies an Afro-Asian comparative perspective on African and Indian identity will be explored in the countries of Guyana and South Africa. The overlying aim of the ethnographic research will be to see whether blackness can be used as a unifier to those belonging to enslaved and indentured diasporas. Comparisons will be made between the two race models of the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean worlds. A substantial portion will be set aside for a critique of the concept of Coolitude including commentary on V.S. Naipaul. Further, mixing, creolization, spirituality and the cultural politics of Black Consciousness, multiculturalism, and dreadlocks will be exemplified as AfroAsian encounters.

In an attempt to close the gaps between diaspora and regional studies an Afro-Asian comparative perspective on African and Indian identity will be explored in the countries of Guyana and South Africa. The overlying aim of the ethnographic research will be to see whether blackness can be used as a unifier to those belonging to enslaved and indentured diasporas. Comparisons will be made between the two race models of the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean worlds. A substantial portion will be set aside for a critique of the concept of Coolitude including commentary on V.S. Naipaul. Further, mixing, creolization, spirituality and the cultural politics of Black Consciousness, multiculturalism, and dreadlocks will be exemplified as AfroAsian encounters.

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This thesis emerged from my emotional, tactile, and intellectual access to the actress, Yamaguchi Yoshiko (a.k.a. Ri Kōran or Li Xianglan), who embodied the cultural hybridity of Manchuria and represented a ‘modern girl’ on screen. I analyze four wartime melodrama-adventure films, in which she co-starred with Japanese actors: Song of the White Orchid (Byakuran no uta, 1939), China Nights (Shina no Yoru, 1940), Vow in the Desert (Nessa no chikai, 1940), and Suzhou Nights (Soshū no yoru, 1941). The formation of domesticity played an integral part in the making of modern nation-states. Intertexualizing with the discursive formation of the ie (house/family) between the mid 19th and mid 20th centuries, I first demonstrate that Japanese film subjects are made to embody the imagined Imperial nation through gendered performances in Song of the White Orchid. The interior and exterior are constructed to mirror the notion of imperial nation and the Asian ‘other’. Next, I extend the analytical framework to the three films, China Nights, Vow in the Desert, and Suzhou Nights, which employ films’ specific locations for different operations of gendered and ethnicized positioning. I also pay attention to some of the climaxes, which unconventionally present psychological dramas outdoors and action scenes indoors. Especially, my interest in this part of analysis is in interrelating metaphors of bodily boundary and national border. As delineating the signification of body and nation, I situate the relay of the gaze in the simultaneous blurring of bodily boundary and national communities that coincides with melodramatic highlights located outdoors. In order to shape a Japanese imperial subject, the films symbolically negotiate with three levels of power dynamics: the establishment of a national identity, the mimicry of the West, and the significance of China in Japanese imperial modernity. The delineation of cinematic space and subject positioning in Ri Kōran’s films reveals that Chinese, Japanese and the West are constituted as shifting positions that respectively represent past/obstructions, present/a mobile agency, and future/the envisioned goal. Ri Kōran attracts spectators’ gaze and mediates multiple locations to identify with, while Japanese male protagonists embody the gaze by making his corporeality absent.