At the dawn of a new presidential election, we are reminded that what separates the United States from the rest of the world are the immigrants who came here in the pursuit of the American Dream. These immigrants do not just come to the United States as workers, but also as consumers and entrepreneurs who contribute to the American economy, and use the profits created by their successful entrepreneurship(s) in a way that they become catalysts of change. None of the studies have managed to track the qualities and perceptions of these entrepreneurial immigrants turned philanthropists since the 1940’s. By focusing on their life experiences using an instrumental case study approach, we start to form the profile of the modern day immigrant entrepreneur and philanthropist by analyzing them through five lenses: immigration, adult education, entrepreneurship, leadership, and philanthropy. Using these five lenses, we can better understand the optative aspects of entrepreneurial immigrantship as a part of social impact on Florida’s Gold Coast. Their core family values of tithing and lending a helping hand to those in need transfer into social activism in terms of donations of wealth and donations of time. Although they do not consider themselves leaders in the communities they live and work in, the research findings are quite the opposite. They are socially involved through memberships and leadership positions on local, national, and international non- profit boards, they spearhead major fundraising events and initiatives, and they establish private or corporate foundations and even support candidates seeking political office, whether here or abroad. In essence, they became philanthropists and community activists, who by virtue of immigrating and opening their businesses here add value to Florida’s Gold Coast. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Double exposure has often been used as a metaphor for the condition of emigration: of being between two places simultaneously, of layering the memory of one place onto another. To extend the metaphor of double exposure, this study turns to the medium of photography itself to explore how it functions within Russian émigré narratives of the self. I examine how Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Brodsky, Gary Shteyngart, and the visual artist Ilya Kabakov use photographs in their autobiographical works—from literary memoirs to art installations—as a device for representing the divided self in emigration. “Double exposure” works as a flexible concept in this dissertation: as a metaphor for exilic double consciousness; for the autobiographical tension between multiple selves; and as a model for the composite structure of these texts that join together word and image. Bringing together photography and autobiography in this study, I explore how the “objective” medium of photography offers these authors a version of the self as visual object to be used creatively within their own self-representations. Self-representation, after all, involves the transformation of one’s own subjectivity into an object of investigation. And the objectivity of the photograph cannot be divorced from the subjective experience of looking at and interpreting the sense data that the image supplies. The photograph’s uneasy relationship between objectivity and subjectivity makes it a rich source for autobiographical practices of self-creation and self-investigation. The photographs and their textual mediation work as visual metonyms that stand in for the larger project of self-representation; they picture the act of picturing the self. This dissertation charts the critical ambivalence to family photographs in these works, how they stage a back-and-forth between an affective or nostalgic attitude to images and a sharp awareness of the limits or dangers of such an attitude. The subjects of this dissertation reveal a divided attitude to the visual medium, both attracted and repelled by the promise of photographs. The divided attitude to photographs in these works, I argue, stems in part from a crisis in vision. From the semiotic appraisal of photographs to the disciplinary and propagandistic abuses of photography, to see the photograph as an uncomplicated restoration of the past is no longer possible by the second half of the twentieth century (if, indeed, it ever was). And yet, it is the very losses of the twentieth century that make urgent the need to collect and preserve the fragments that remain. These authors exhibit an ambivalence about how photographs preserve the past and what kind of information they provide us with, about how these images represent the self (and the family), and finally about how this form of representation compares with the written word. Each of my four chapters examines a different modality of this ambivalent approach to photographs as they intersect with narrating the self: Nabokov’s agonistic contest between photography and his visual memory; Brodsky’s resignation to the modern photographic condition that ruptures the continuity of memory and experience; Shteyngart’s divided reading of the self from a hyphenated Russian-American perspective; and Kabakov’s ironically sincere recuperation of an affective response after postmodernism. Considering photos as both indexical documents that provide evidence but also as indeterminate images that demand interpretation, I read the photographs as an integral component of self-construction in these works, rather than as transparent illustrations of the self. These photographs offer a productive site for representing the divided self in emigration, the experience of trauma, and the convergence of personal and social history.

The thesis examines the response of The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to the urbanisation of displacement, focusing on the period 1994 to 2009. It utilises a framework based on international organisations theory, arguing that, contrary to traditional approaches to the study of international organisations, change in policy and practice resulted primarily from pressures within UNHCR. The thesis utilises state-influence and principal-agent theories to understand why UNHCR responded in the ways it did, and explain how change was achieved. It draws on constructivist insight, and the role of leaders, research and evaluation units, and epistemic communities, using the concept of the 'three UNs' as a means of framing the different actors and pressures for change shaping UNHCR's work. The thesis is based on extensive primary documents produced primarily by UNHCR, as well as original interviews, providing new empirical data to further understanding of policymaking within UNHCR, and addressing an empirical gap on the existing literature on urban refugees. By mapping this data to the framework of 'pressure from within', 'pressure from above', and 'pressure from below', the thesis demonstrates the various actors involved in shaping change in policy and practice. It challenges attempts to characterise the 'three UNs' as separate categories, demonstrating their fluidity and frequent overlaps. The empirical analysis contributes to international organisations theory by demonstrating the important role of internal actors in eliciting change in policy and practice, identifying areas of international organisation theory in need of refinement and further exploration. Consideration is given to how positivist and post-positivist understandings can work together, and ways internal actors can shape the direction of their organisations, particularly leaders and research and evaluation units.

During the First World War people from the five continents resided in France and Flanders, mostly in service of of the French and British armies. Besides European settlers, it concerned hundreds of thousands of indigenous inhabitants from many colonies. The two largest subaltern groups who served on the Western Front in British service - each in itself accounting for some 140,000 men - were Asian: from the Indian subcontinent and from China. In my book I investigate not only their motives to join up and the nature of their war service on the Western Front, but above all how these subaltern groups experienced a modern war in Europe and what impact this residence in a Europe-in-war had on their subsequent lives and on the society to which they returned. A central position in my judgment of their war experiences is their meeting with the European 'other', the local populations who hosted these uninvited guests. I investigate how the European population underwent the confrontation with their non-European guests, but especially which impression the Europeans, their society and their culture made upon the Asian rank and file. In- and outside the Army Indians and Chinese were confronted with different degrees of xenophobia, racism and discrimination, while at the same time friendly engagements with Europeans also occurred. All this lead to a strengthened self- and (proto)national consciousness that manifested itself in initiatives in different domains of human activity: politics, culture, education, ... Through the comparative perspective, differences as well as similarities between both Asian groups on the Western Front become clear, and parallels can be drawn in their evolution towards a stronger (self)consciousness and an increasing identification with the (proto)nation through their war experiences in Europe. In this respect, so I argue, the war experiences of Indians and Chinese on the Western front contributed to the increasingly anti-imperialist feelings and attitudes in both countries.

by Yau-ling Chung. / Bibliography: leaves 136-140 / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1982

This thesis examines exile in contemporary autobiographical narratives written in French by women from across the Francophone world. The analysis focuses on work by Nina Bouraoui (Algeria), Gisele Pineau (Guadeloupe), Veronique Tadjo (Cote d'Ivoire), and Kim Lefevre (Vietnam), and investigates how the French colonial project has shaped female articulations of mobility and identity in the present. This comparative, cross-cultural, and cross-generational study engages with postcolonial theory, gender theory, and autobiographical theory in order to create a new framework with which to interpret women's experiences and expressions of displacement across the Francosphere. The thesis posits that existing models of exile do not fully explain the complex situations of the four authors, who do not have a well-defined 'home' and 'host' country. Although marginalised by their gender, they are economically privileged and have chosen to live a rootless existence, which nonetheless renders them alienated and 'out of place'. The thesis thus argues that women's narratives of exile challenge and complicate existing paradigms of exile which have a male, patriarchal focus. By turning our attention to these women and their specific postcolonial gendered narratives, a more nuanced understanding of exile emerges: exile is experienced as a sexual, gendered, racial, and/or linguistic otherness.

Academic literature has examined how the transformation of a nation’s state power can give rise to shifts in national identity, and how such shifting identity can be represented in the form of the nation’s changing urban landscape. This thesis investigates that topic in the case of Taiwan, a de facto independent country with almost one hundred years’ experience of ‘colonial’ and then ‘settler’ rule. Both colonial rule and settler rule constitute an outside regime. However, the settler rulers in Taiwan regarded the settled land as their homeland. To secure their supremacy, the settler rulers had to strongly control the political, cultural, and economic interests of the ‘native’ population. Democratisation can be a key factor undermining settler rule. Such a political transition can enable the home population to reclaim state power, symbolising that the nation has entered the post-settler era. This thesis explores how the transition from Japanese colonial rule to Chinese settler rule and then to democratisation gave rise to changes in Taiwanese national identity, and to its reflection in the urban landscape of the capital city, Taipei. The thesis reveals the irony of a transition in which the collapse of settler rule has been unable to drive significant further change in the city’s urban landscape. In other words, the urban landscape of post-settler Taipei City is ‘stuck in transition’. The condition reflects the ambivalence in Taiwanese national identity caused by the unforgettable, yet not really glorious memory of settler rule.

Drawing on empirical data, this thesis investigates the interplay of cultural differences in the ways Persians practice, negotiate, and sustain their partnering relationships across cultural differences; reasons for and implications of failure; and the extents to which Persian intercultural partnering practices could be understood in relation to wider social processes. I grounded this analysis on the Pre-Partnering, Prevailing-Partnering, and Post-Partnering Practices, and argue that Persians in intercultural partnering relationships ‘do partnering’ in relation to Internal, External and Intergenerational social positionings. I suggest that participants’ in-between cultural identities help them to sustain their partnering relationships, with negotiations centring on the interplay of five cultural sources: gender, religiosity, relationality, life course, and language. Failure in partnering relationships are usually attributed to shifting positions on the continuum of cultural identities, due to participants seeking their best ‘me’, which is social, and is defined through personal relationships with wider social connections. Partnering practices in the particular context of this study may not align with the claims of detraditionalization theory. I argue that religion should be considered independent from other forms of traditions to understand the wider social processes relevant to construction of contemporary family lives.

Migration to high income countries (such as the UK) has been found to be associated with declining health. The overall aim of the thesis was to advance our knowledge and understanding about migration, health beliefs and behaviours of Ghanaian migrants living in the UK. The thesis employed two approaches: a systematic review and qualitative methodology utilising interviews with a total of 62 participants. The systematic review explored associations between acculturation and body weight in migrants, examining the role of health behaviours. The two qualitative studies, which yielded two datasets, focused on the experiences of Ghanaian migrants living in the UK and also included Indian migrants and White British and Ghanaian home populations as comparative samples. Findings from the systematic review suggested that migrants may be prone to developing obesity, however factors such as socioeconomic status influences this risk. The review also showed that behaviours and beliefs relating to health may be influenced by culture. From the qualitative studies there were three themes that cut across the findings of this thesis: (i) migrant’s knowledge of their environment and how it affects healthy behaviours, (ii) the lay meaning of health, which is embedded in the migrant’s culture and (iii) social/cultural influences on engagement with healthy behaviours. This thesis provides a starting point in understanding the lay meaning of health that can affect the engagement of healthy behaviours. Different cultures have exhibited different health belief systems and knowledge of these differences is important in the design of effective interventions that will be acceptable to patients of different cultural backgrounds.

Considerable historical attention has been paid to the end of Empire in Britain’s East African colonies and the consequences of this for postcolonial states. The forced migration of minority South Asian populations from the new nation-states of East Africa has received considerably less attention. South Asians remain at the margins of African and British national histories, constructed variously as either fringe opponents of anti-colonial nationalist movements or marginalised minorities. Yet re-assessing the history of these ‘refugee’ communities has the potential to enhance scholarly understanding of both colonial and postcolonial power relations and migrant-refugee identity formulation and re-formulation. Moreover, studies of migrant communities in Britain have tended to treat South Asians as a homogenous group, paying relatively little attention to the specific identity trajectories of those who were expelled from the new nation-states of East Africa. In contrast, this research takes as its starting point the transnational experiences of East African Asians as multiple migrants, exploring the reformulation of political and cultural identities during the course of their expulsion, migration and resettlement in and between postcolonial states.