Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (B.A.)--Bi-College (Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges) Comparative Literature Program, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

In the early Middle Ages, when settlers began to leave Scandinavia to find new homes for themselves and their families, they began a process that impacted their lives dramatically. Research on modern population movements has demonstrated that migration-induced stresses change the lives of immigrants, and shape how they adapt to their new homes. Migration affects societies and people in a number of ways: it changes family and household organisation; gender relations and roles shift; and general social and cultural structures are altered through the integration of different practices and beliefs. While the identification of the societal changes caused by migration has been the focus of research in a number of fields, it has yet to be directly addressed in archaeology. This thesis seeks to examine the ways in which various social identities were displayed through funerary rituals and the associated material culture in the Norse North Atlantic, and to identify how these changed through the course of migration. The analysis is conducted by comparing burial data collected from two regions of Norway, representing the homeland of the migrants, and Scotland and Iceland, representing two critical destination points. Approximately 500 graves are catalogued and assessed using multivariate statistics. Six case studies, selected from the study areas, are used for comparative purposes. The analysis of the overall data-set and the case study sites indicates that there are key differences between the homeland and the communities of the Viking diaspora. Moreover, the results indicate that the circumstances of migration, such as location, resource availability, and the presence of a local population, results in society changing in different, yet significant, ways: gendered burial practices are altered; new manifestations of traditional rites appear; and migrant identities emerge.

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Gendered violence-based immigration laws and nonprofit organizations helping in their implementation have been considered crucial tools in providing access to citizenship for battered immigrants. Despite the progressive character of such institutions, barriers that filter immigrants as worthy to become legitimate members of the United States or as illegitimate subjects remain in place. I explore this paradox based on an in-depth case study of OLA, a nonprofit organization in Texas that provided legal services free of charge to immigrants who not only had been victims of violence, but also were economically impaired to afford the costs related to the application process. My dissertation shows how systems of class, racial/ethnic and gender inequality are formally reflected in the options available for them through the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA), informally reproduced by immigrants' advocates in their daily work practices, and inadvertently reinforced by immigrant applicants. Immigration laws are a major component of the gates that the state creates to reaffirm its sovereignty since these regulate which individuals are welcomed to form part of its population. Legal nonprofits organizations, such as OLA, function as nongovernmental bureaucracies that mediate between the immigrants in quest of legal status, and the state granting legality. In assisting in the implementation of immigration laws, nonprofits inadvertently contribute to the procreation of the citizenship ideals and disciplines beneath state laws. In such manner, they become brokers of mainstream social norms, and reinforce the selective structure of and gated access to American society. Battered immigrants attempting to pass through the formal and informal gates to legality have to balance their obedient and dissident acts in order to satisfy the expectations of those who may grant them access, that is, both nonprofit staff and immigration officers. The interactions between immigrants, nonprofit workers, and the state reveal the intricate ways in which the stratified and stratifying quality of society is (intentionally and unintentionally) recreated on a daily basis.

Indigenous cultures have long traditions of travel and mobility that empower them to survive, adapt to changing physical and political contexts, and create new futures for themselves. This dissertation, Rootedness and Mobility in International Indigenous Literatures, proposes a critical perspective that recognizes travel and migration neither as elements foreign to Indigenous cultures nor as symptoms of their hybridity or assimilation. Rather, they are central elements of Indigenous tradition, and as such inform contemporary Anglophone Indigenous writing as well as international Indigenous political actions. Understanding the place of travel within Indigenous cultures leads to a deeper understanding of the Indigenous peoples’ rights, which include not only the right to land, but also the right of free movement. Such mobility is not in conflict with but is instead complementary to a powerful sense of place and rootedness. The three chapters examine texts which hinge on cross-cultural contacts among Indigenous groups, and deal with novels by Thomas King, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Witi Ihimaera. Rather than merely seeking the legacies of colonialism in Indigenous texts, this dissertation acknowledges the devastating impact of colonialism on Indigenous peoples but does not give colonialism center stage. Instead, the center belongs to Indigenous traditions and the dialogue that takes place between the stories being written today and the ancient stories and histories that have been passed down through generations. In exploring these novels and the cultural landscapes their authors call home, we see that travel, migrations, and the resulting intercultural contacts are not incidental, but integral to many Indigenous cultures, and contribute to a growing sense of Indigenous internationalism. Mobility and travel are not in conflict with, but instead coexist with a sense of rootedness and place. Thus, as we look at contemporary cross-cultural contacts among Indigenous authors, artists, and activists, it is vital to understand the long Indigenous histories both of rootedness and mobility. / text

This thesis constitutes an attempt to conceptualise the partition and independence of India and Pakistan in terms of rupture and novelty. The event or transition, which formally occurred in August 1947, is analysed as a rare moment of openness and undecidability. It is argued that a study of the so-called transfer of power—and of the inclusion of the notions of 'Partition‘ and 'Independence‘ as key elements of Indian and Pakistani nation building—ought to contain a recognition of the active labour by the political elites to overwrite the abyssal and ambiguous character of becoming independent and postcolonial. A second argument is that this overwriting was, necessarily, partial, i.e. it left certain groups and subject positions to populate the margins and the in-betweens of citizenship and national identity. The principal implication of the thesis‘ pro-posed theorising is that we need to adopt a new approach to the study of the partition of British India and the ensuing nation and state building; an approach that is sensitive to the constitutive contingency, and the forceful closure of it, which was contained in the moment of transition. In doing the above, the thesis critically engages with literature on the various and multi-layered levels of violence that were inscribed into the politics of belonging. Special attention is, in some parts, devoted to the Indian case. Partly in order to contest some of the sedimented assumptions regarding how to conceive the events in the late 1940s and the early 1950s; partly as a consequence of the primary material that underpins much of the reasoning. In order to demonstrate the above-mentioned uncertainty—both regarding the future trajectory of statehood and what independence actually signified—that the political elites, but also other sections of the two societies, was confronted with, the thesis is to a significant degree the product of archival research carried out at the National Archives of India and at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. It, in addition, draws on a close reading of the Constituent Assembly debates in both India and Pakistan.

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No description available.

Female migration in South Africa has been on the increase over the years. This thesis attempts to look at the demographic and socio-economic factors that drive this increase using data from the Africa Centre Demographic Information System (ACDIS) during the period 2001 and 2008. Using data that provides for timing of events such as migration and births, the study analyses the time it took females to migrate. Migration was defined as having out-migrated the Demographic Surveillance Area (DSA) and never coming back. Migration levels were found to be high with 28 per cent of the females between 15-49 years of age out-migrating from the DSA. Models were created to explore the demographic and socio-economic factors controlling for other known determinant of migration. In the logistic regression, odds ratios showed that parity and childbearing status were important predicators of female migration. Females with four children were less likely to out-migrate the DSA (a 61 per cent less chance of migrating compared to females without children). Furthermore, pregnant females were not likely to migrate (a 45 per cent less chance of migrating compared to females who are not pregnant or breastfeeding). In a survival analysis, determinants of timing of migration showed that females with high parities had a higher survivorships to out-migration, compared to females who were pregnant. Hazard ratios also showed that females with four children are not likely to migrate compared to females with four children (a 7 per cent less hazard of migrating compared to females with no children). Age, marital status and educational attainment were also found to be predictors of female migration. Older females were less likely to migrate compared to younger females (females in the 44-49 age group had a 70 per cent less hazard of migrating compared to females in the 15-19 age group). Currently married and cohabiting females had a 29 per cent less hazard of migrating compared to never married females. Females with high educational attainment were more likely to migrate compared to females without education (an 18 per cent higher hazard of migrating compared to females without education). The timing of migration showed that pregnant females migrate after five years into the start of their pregnancy (date of conception). In conclusion, females with many children and females who are pregnant or breastfeeding are not likely to migrate. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.