Discourses of diaspora and transnationalism have begun to question previous traditional assumptions about the inevitability of ethnic assimilation by drawing attention to various kinds of hybrid identities, but I contend that, in contemporary Canadian literature, we cannot replace an outmoded model of eventual integration with an uncritical vision of ethnic persistence and hybridity. Much thinking about diasporic and ethnic identities suggests that, on the one hand, there are genuine marginalized identities worthy of inquiry and, on the other, there are symbolic ones undeserving of serious study. This dissertation focuses on the supposedly disingenuous or symbolic kinds of ethnic and diasporic identities, providing an analysis of Ukrainian-Canadian ethnic identity retention in a case study of second-, third-, and fourth-generation Canadians of Ukrainian descent who both read and write in English (not Ukrainian). Looking at Ukrainian-Canadian literature from 1954 to 2003, this dissertation argues: (1) ethnic identity affiliation does not necessarily dissipate with time; (2) ethnic identity in a hostland manifests itself as imagined ties to a homeland; and (3) lacking meaningful public and private recognition of ethnic group membership yields anxiety about subjectivity. I first argue that as multicultural policies drew attention to racial marginalization, Ukrainian-Canadian ethnic identity shifted from being an aspect of socio-economic disenfranchisement to becoming a hyphenated identity with links to Ukraine. I then suggest that in order to make that connection to Ukraine viable, writers attempt to locate Ukraine on the Canadian prairie as a substitute home-country. Such attempts give rise to various images Ukrainian-Canadian uneasiness and discomfort, primarily as authors struggle to account for First Nations’ prior presences on the landscape that they want to write as their own. Further, I analyze attempts to locate ethnic authenticity in post-independence Ukraine that also prove unsatisfactory for Ukrainian-Canadian subject formation. The many failed attempts to affix Ukrainian-Canadianness as a meaningful public and private identity give rise to unsettled and ghostly images that signal significant ethnic unease not to be overlooked in analyses of ethnic and diasporic identities. In these ways, this dissertation contributes to ongoing debates and discussions about the place of contemporary literary ethnicity in Canada.

Discourses of diaspora and transnationalism have begun to question previous traditional assumptions about the inevitability of ethnic assimilation by drawing attention to various kinds of hybrid identities, but I contend that, in contemporary Canadian literature, we cannot replace an outmoded model of eventual integration with an uncritical vision of ethnic persistence and hybridity. Much thinking about diasporic and ethnic identities suggests that, on the one hand, there are genuine marginalized identities worthy of inquiry and, on the other, there are symbolic ones undeserving of serious study. This dissertation focuses on the supposedly disingenuous or symbolic kinds of ethnic and diasporic identities, providing an analysis of Ukrainian-Canadian ethnic identity retention in a case study of second-, third-, and fourth-generation Canadians of Ukrainian descent who both read and write in English (not Ukrainian). Looking at Ukrainian-Canadian literature from 1954 to 2003, this dissertation argues: (1) ethnic identity affiliation does not necessarily dissipate with time; (2) ethnic identity in a hostland manifests itself as imagined ties to a homeland; and (3) lacking meaningful public and private recognition of ethnic group membership yields anxiety about subjectivity. I first argue that as multicultural policies drew attention to racial marginalization, Ukrainian-Canadian ethnic identity shifted from being an aspect of socio-economic disenfranchisement to becoming a hyphenated identity with links to Ukraine. I then suggest that in order to make that connection to Ukraine viable, writers attempt to locate Ukraine on the Canadian prairie as a substitute home-country. Such attempts give rise to various images Ukrainian-Canadian uneasiness and discomfort, primarily as authors struggle to account for First Nations’ prior presences on the landscape that they want to write as their own. Further, I analyze attempts to locate ethnic authenticity in post-independence Ukraine that also prove unsatisfactory for Ukrainian-Canadian subject formation. The many failed attempts to affix Ukrainian-Canadianness as a meaningful public and private identity give rise to unsettled and ghostly images that signal significant ethnic unease not to be overlooked in analyses of ethnic and diasporic identities. In these ways, this dissertation contributes to ongoing debates and discussions about the place of contemporary literary ethnicity in Canada.

Even if their presence is only temporary, diasporic individuals are bound to disrupt the existing order of pre-structured communities they enter. Plenty of scholars have written on how identity is constructed; I investigate the power relations that form when components such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, class, and language intersect in diasporic and transnational movements. How does sexuality operate on ethnicity so as to cause an existential crisis? How does religion function both to reinforce and to hide one's ethnic identity? Diasporic subjects participate in the resignification of their identity not only because they encounter (semi)-alien, socio-economic and cultural environments but also because components of their identity mentioned above realign along different trajectories, and this realignment undoubtedly affects the way they interact in the new environment. To explore this territory, I analyze Monique Truong's The Book of Salt, Peter Bacho's Cebu, Linh Dinh's "Prisoner with a Dictionary" and "'!'," and Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land.

This multimedia project explores the lives of Chinese and Taiwanese migrants living in South Africa and how language, culture, community and marginalisation have come to shape their identities and to visually represent them in a way that is not prevalent in mainstream media. It uses two visual mediums – photography and video interviews – to understand these migrants’ experiences, how they perceive themselves and how they think society perceives them. Data analysis consisted of a process of coding the video interviews and structural analysis of the visuals. Rising worldwide migration has simultaneously increased the spread of diasporic communities. China’s positionality as an economic powerhouse and the influx of East Asian migrants to South Africa in recent years has shone a light on this minority population group. However, much of what is known about them tends to be through forms of mass media which perpetuates stereotypical representations. This paper draws on various literature including acculturation, diasporic communities, representation, languaging and xenophobia to explore the lives of East Asian migrants living in South Africa and search for more empowered forms of representation.

This dissertation approaches literary animals in Asian diasporic novels through the concept of drawing close. I am interested in how literary animals can communicate an endeavour to draw animals close, and how literary representations of this closeness imagine normative human-animal relationships otherwise. I argue that even the most subtle literary animal can be read as a practice and expression of drawing animals close, and this closeness reveals itself most directly through each chapter in relation to belonging, family, and inheritance. This project centers around the question: what can stories offer animals? I argue that the fields of literary animal studies, postcolonial studies, and Asian diasporic studies need to come together in order to attend not only to the multiple ways that animals inhabit Asian diasporic novels, but also to the particular relationships between postcolonial subjects and animals. I chose novels that navigate relationships to animals often informed by Hindu and Buddhist epistemologies as an intervention in the predominantly Western-focused field of animal studies that has prioritized Western religious traditions, philosophies, and literature. Each chapter of this dissertation examines the diverse ways that authors listen to and represent literary animals, at times acting as a reflection of the desire and efforts to fortify the human-animal boundary, and at other times significantly challenging human exceptionalism by advocating for compassion and interdependence between humans and animals. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This project looks at animals in Asian North American novels. Whether they are symbolic, mythical, historical, or everyday companions, I argue that paying close attention to animals in stories that are otherwise about humans reveals how they shape our ideas about belonging, family, and inheritance. I focus specifically on three novels: Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt, Madeleine Thien’s Dogs at the Perimeter, and Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being. Each novel represents animals in complex ways that are informed by various ways of knowing the world, such as religious (Hindu and Buddhist), scientific, or cultural knowledges. One central question that directs this dissertation is: what can literary animals teach us when we learn to pay attention to them?

O presente trabalho focaliza os processos de formação da identidade, observados em narrativas da escritora sino-americana Maxine Hong Kingston. Documentando as contradições e a fragmentação do sujeito, procura-se iluminar os vários sentidos de subjetividade presentes em uma pessoa de origem chinesa que vive nos Estados Unidos na época da pós-modernidade. O quadro teórico utilizado na análise desses processos é construído a partir da crítica sobre o romance pósmoderno e dos estudos culturais sobre a diáspora. Focaliza-se o livro de memórias da autora, The woman warrior – memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts, publicado pela primeira vez em 1976. Desde meados do século XVIII, um grande número de imigrantes asiáticos deslocou-se para os Estados Unidos, trazendo consigo seus próprios valores materiais e espirituais e seus distintos padrões de comportamento. A formação das gerações que cresceram nessa encruzilhada de culturas só poderia ser difícil e conflituosa. Esta dissertação procura descobrir, por um lado, como se efetivam os processos de identificação dos sino-americanos, visto que estão sujeitos a dois sistemas de valor diferentes e, por outro, como se articulam os diversos elementos culturais, tanto na constituição da identidade das personagens como na construção do romance. As narrativas de Maxine Hong Kingston revelam processos de hibridização, característicos de um autor diaspórico. / This dissertation deals with the processes of identity formation as observed in the works of the Chinese-American writer Maxine Hong Kingston, especially in her book The woman warrior – memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts, first published in 1976. The different meanings of subjectivity that can take shape in an American of Chinese descent, encompassing an individual’s contradictions and fragmentation, are analyzed. The theoretical framework is based on critics of postmodernism and on cultural studies about diasporas. Since the middle of the eighteenth century a great number of Asian immigrants moved to the United States, taking along with them their different values and behavior patterns. A person growing up in the intersection of cultures has to deal with conflicts and paradoxes, resulting in identities that are contradictory and fragmentary. This dissertation seeks to unravel, on one hand, the processes of identity formation among the Chinese-Americans, faced as they are by two distinct value systems. On the other hand, find out how the different cultural elements are articulated both in the identity formation of the characters and in the construction of the novel. The narratives of Maxine Hong Kingston reveal processes of hybridization, which are characteristic of a diasporic author.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T19:30:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ester Fatima Vargem Rodrigues.pdf: 985819 bytes, checksum: a4e1acceae8cefbbbc13379227c9d78b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-07-21 / The present work on African immigration to Brazil in contemporary presents some aspects of my involvement with insertion in this subject, and brings up the question of the various forms and strategies that some African populations are able to cross the Atlantic, reviving diasporas. Was based on analysis of information from newspaper that made references to African immigrants , found in various forms to enter the ships anchored on the African coast, and thus achieve maximize their life chances . It also establishes dialogues with African immigrants who arrived here, in many different ways and times, with varying personal characteristics about their impressions about meanings that traverse the twenty-first century. Concludes with an overview of the political situation in Africa as well as the relationships that Brazil has established with African countries / O presente trabalho sobre a imigração africana no Brasil na contemporaneidade apresenta alguns aspectos da minha inserção no envolvimento com esta temática, e traz à tona a questão das diversas formas e estratégias que algumas populações africanas encontram para conseguir atravessar o Atlântico, revivendo diásporas. Baseou-se em análise de informações de notícias de jornais que fizessem referencias a imigrantes africanos, nas diversas formas encontradas para adentrar os navios ancorados no litoral africano, e desta forma conseguir potencializar suas possibilidades de vida. Também estabelece diálogos com imigrantes africanos que aqui chegaram, das mais diversas formas e épocas, com características pessoais variadas sobre suas impressões a respeito de significações dessa travessia no século XXI. Finaliza com um apanhado da situação política na África, bem como das relações que o Brasil vem estabelecendo com os países africanos

A Tese constitui uma reflexão sobre emergentes comportamentos coletivos e individuais associados às TICs – Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação - e que a partir de abordagem de pesquisa baseada na Perspectiva Eco-Sistêmica (construtivista, interacionista, sociocultural, afetiva e transcendente), procura reproduzir um caminho de referencias e reflexões teóricas e pessoais, individuais e coletivas. Pode-se considerar como ponto de partida desta Tese, a visualização de comportamentos individuais e coletivos relacionados às TICs associados a uma crescente necessidade de expressão e compartilhamento. Embora a Tese não esteja limitada ao aspecto musical, a reflexão que resultou neste trabalho, teve como principio a observação de uma intensa e crescente atividade musical, que não se limitavam apenas a trocas e escuta de arquivos, mas também a comportamentos protagonistas, criativos, não hierárquicos, relacionados à intervenção sobre os arquivos, composições coletivas, manipulação de códigos abertos e comunidades open code, e que são investigados pela linha de pesquisa em Música Ubíqua, que constitui uma das referências da Tese.Todos esses comportamentos, de forma geral, associados aos jovens, mas cada vez mais generalizados na sociedade e ampliados a todas as áreas. Comportamentos tribais segundo Maffesoli, ligados a uma visão cíclica que manifesta a necessidade humana de expressão de seus anseios, que são caracterizados por um estar junto, um presenteísmo, e um reenraizamento como necessidades profundas humanas, em resposta a uma sociedade estagnada pela racionalidade excessiva. Comportamentos que frisam, segundo Heidegger, o aspecto relacional do ser-aí como essencialmente ser-com-o-outro, e do jogo como parte da existência e dessa relação. Jogo, que por sua vez, se associa diretamente às nossas formas de relação com às TICs. Comportamentos emergentes que, para Johnson, estão ligados a padrões observáveis em diversos sistemas na natureza e na sociedade. Todos esses aspectos são relacionados à visão complexa de Morin sobre homo, em todas suas faces de manifestação no mundo: sapiens,faber,demens, ludens,mythologicus, que por sua vez impregnam nossas próprias relações com o mundo que construímos, e com a tecnologia que retroage sobre o mundo e sobre nós. Comportamentos que trazem potencialmente consigo um profundo questionamento do que somos, de nossos determinismos e possibilidades, de nossas constituições física, cerebral, mental, espiritual. De nossos limites e possibilidades. De nossos avanços e recuos. Trazem a possibilidade de reflexão sobre a ciência, e as tecnociências, que produzimos e que nos produz. Todas relações que refletem na forma como vemos, refletimos e fazemos educação em todos os níveis. A ideia das Diásporas mentais e das Mentes diaspóricas, procura sintetizar este movimento complexo, que nos potencializa a possibilidade de ser ao mesmo tempo, em vários espaços, tempos, que nos desimpede de limitações físicas, locais, sociais, que reafirma nossa identidade complexa, física e não-física, cerebral e mental, espiritual, contraditória e consensual, coletiva e individual. / The thesis is a reflection on emerging collective behavior and individual associated with ICT - Information and Communication Technologies -, and that from a research approach based on the Eco-Systemic Perspective (constructivist, interactionist, socio-cultural, emotional and transcendent), seeks to reproduce a path of references and theoretical personal, individual and collective reflections. The visualization of individual and collective behaviors related to ICTs associated with a growing need for expression and sharing may be considered as the starting point of this thesis. Although the thesis is not limited to the musical aspect, the reflection that resulted from this work had as a principal an intense and growing musical activity observation , which was not limited to file listening and exchanges, but also to the observation of protagonist, creative, not hierarchical behavior , related to the intervention on archives, collective composition, manipulation of open codes and open code communities, which are investigated by the line of research on Ubiquitous Music, which is one of the Thesis´ references. All these behaviors are generally associated with youth, but also are increasingly widespread in society and extended to all areas. Tribal behaviors according to Maffesoli, linked to a cyclical view that expresses the human need for their desires´ expression, which are characterized by a being together, a presenteeism, and a rerooting as a deep human need, in response to a stagnant society by an excessive rationality. Behaviors that, according to Heidegger, emphasize the relational aspect of being-there as essentially as being-with-the-other, and the game as part of the existence and this relationship. A game, which in his turn is directly associated to our way of relating to ICTs. Emergent behaviors that for Johnson are linked to the observable patterns in many systems in nature and in society. All these aspects are related to the complex view of Morin on homo in all its facets of manifestation in the world: sapiens, faber, demens, ludens, mythologicus, which in turn permeate our own relationship with the world we have built, and with the technology that retroacts on the world and on us. Behaviors that potentially bring with them a deep questioning of what we are, our possibilities and determinism, of our physical, brain, mental and spiritual constitution, of our limits and possibilities, our advances and retreats. Behaviors that bring the possibility of reflection on science, and technosciences, that we produce and that produce us, all relationships that reflect the way we see, reflect and make education at all levels. The idea of Mental Diasporas and Diasporic Minds, seeks to synthesize this complex movement, which enhances the possibility of us being at the same time in different spaces and times, which disengages us from physical, local and social limitations, which reaffirms our complex physical and non-physical, mental and cerebral, spiritual, contradictory and consensual, collective and individual identity.

This dissertation examines streaming media both as a technological innovation and cultural practice that co-configures audience and industry. Strategies and tactics provide a theoretical framework for understanding streaming media. Streaming is theorized as a tactic; wherein audiences momentarily buck against the strategic logic of media conglomerates and copyright regimes. However, streaming, concomitantly, is an audience tactic and a strategic logic of an emergent streaming industry. This results in the blurring between first and third party and sanctioned and unsanctioned streaming. In this dissertation, I parse out what are the nascent streaming logics within this burgeoning industry and how they constitutively shape and re-shape audiences and traditional broadcasting logics. Five typologies of streaming serve as conceptual tools for deepening our understanding of streaming media and technology. The first is streaming as a recent technological advancement, divided into software and hardware categories. The second conceptual framework is a typology of streaming that divides streaming into first and third party sanctioned and unsanctioned streaming. The third is streaming as an emergent industry. The fourth is streaming as a discourse, and the final typology divides streaming based on geography as transnational streaming, national streaming, and diasporic streaming. All of these classifications lay the groundwork for the further conceptualization of this important and emergent socio-technical practice.

The role of local Chinese media has become more important as the size of the Chinese community in New Zealand has increased rapidly in recent years. The function of local Chinese media could be like a bridge connecting the Chinese community and the mainstream society. This was an exploratory study which examined the current situation of local Chinese media to determine such issues as to whether they are the main source of information for the Chinese community, what if any difficulties they are facing and how they may develop in the future. A general research was conducted for the local Chinese media in Auckland, which covers brief introductions for some local Chinese newspapers, radio, websites, and the sole Chinese television company-World TV. Meanwhile, the researcher collected 102 questionnaires and conducted 10 in-depth interviews from the local Chinese residents and the staff working in local Chinese media companies. The findings of research suggest that most local Chinese residents utilize Chinese language media as a tool to collect daily information either from local society or their original countries. The local Chinese media not only provides information for the local community, but also has social value as a means for self-representation of the Chinese community in New Zealand and better adaptation to the mainstream society. On the other hand, the funding shortage as well as the tough competition became the obstacles for the future development for the local Chinese media. The results of this research may point to what the government’s role should be.