The objective of this study was to determine whether programs in DeKalb County, Georgia, provided services that were relevant for successful resettlement of refugee women. Moreover, the principal goal of this study was to learn about the views of the women as to the barriers they faced and what factors were helping them achieve self-sufficiency. A comparative analysis was conducted on three of the largest refugee ethnic groups in DeKalb County: Vietnamese, Somalis and Bosnians. Using the theory of adaptation, the researcher investigated resettlement agencies and their role in assisting the refugee women in resettlement. The study examined the relationship among the services provided, the nutritional health status of refugee women served and the ability of the women to become functionally self-sufficient. The conclusion drawn from the data collected consisting of structured questionnaires suggested that there was a need for more services especially designed for refugee women.

Magister Artium - MA / In a developing country like South Africa plagued by historical racial scars, attitudes pertaining to race, ethnicity and language, can be described as considerably problematic. Images used for advertising (ads) and the media form part of the foundation through which audience’s structure ideas about the normality and fluidity of race and ethnicity. Physical appearance is especially important in the media and influences the minds of many young people, especially young women and contributes to the way they feel about themselves. This magnitude of influence reinforces the importance of analyzing these images and assessing the implications it has on the South African society. Through a systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA), this thesis explores the way in which earlier (2004) and more recent ads (2015) by Brutal Fruit have characterized and (re)characterised the ‘ideal’ South African woman. Particular attention is placed on the concept of racialized bodies- skin colour, hair, clothing and body types of the models employed during both periods when the ads were published. The language(s) used in the ads are analysed which creates a platform for engaging in issues related to transformation and inclusivity in society, as it is performed in the ads. The literature focuses on the revolution of South African society, group representation, race and the female body. The findings suggest that alcohol adverts largely use semiotics that reinforce antifeminist rhetoric. However, in more recent ads there is an attempt to compensate for the roles that have become available to women in the public sphere. Women are shown to have more agency in that they are depicted in leading roles and the narratives created about them relate that they are now in charge of their own sexuality. The positive depiction of alcohol especially in relation to masculinity affects the number of people who consume it. Alcohol consumption is linked to masculinity and power, however, in society women are still expected to remain feminine. This is especially relevant for women who aim to challenge dominant stereotypes about their position in society- and the use of alcohol is an avenue that is used to achieve this. However, women consume ‘pink drinks’ and not beer because ciders are still considered to be feminine by society, which is why many men refuse to consume it. Finally, a true representation of real women in society needs to become more popular in the media and a fresh approach to advertising alcohol especially to women needs to be re-evaluated because these ads could be positive for women instead of reiterating the usual derogatory stereotypes that society holds about women who do not conform to dominant patriarchal conventions.

ABSTRACT In South Africa there appears to be no published work on language policy in immigrant African families. This thesis, therefore, aims to understand the language policies and language practices of four immigrant families from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) living in South Africa (SA). These four families are presented as case studies and were chosen on the basis of their different ‘family language policies’: English-only, French-only, French-Tshiluba, Multilanguage. The study explores the underlying reasons for the choice of language/s in each family. The main research question is: What are the current language policies and practices of selected DRC immigrant families, and their implications for children’s schooling, for relations within the family and the DRC immigrant community, and for relations outside of these? This research is based on observations and recorded semi-structured interviews with the immigrant parents and children, principals, teachers, and the peers of two children from each family. A theoretical framework based on the work of Bernard Spolsky (2004) is used to understand and analyse the data in relation to: external forces such as power relations within and outside the family, the choice of language for the family, its regulation, and its identity effects. The analysis of data indicated four main findings. First, in all the research families, gender and patriarchy, together with ethnicity and external forces, play a crucial role in the choice of languages for a family’s chosen language policy. Second, the family language policy (FLP) emerges mainly as a consequence of anxiety regarding the marginalisation of immigrant families in their struggle to fit into the host society and to acquire material resources. Third, in three families whose policies restrict which languages may be used, other languages are spoken or heard in addition to the language(s) stated in the policy; only the Multilanguage family has a policy which allows members of the family to communicate in any language within the household. Fourth, this research confirms earlier research (Peirce 1995; Krashen 1982) on the importance of affective factors such as motivation, investment, self-confidence, and optimism, on the one hand, and fear or anxiety on the other, on learning the host society’s languages. In South Africa, ethnic enclosure and xenophobia prevent most immigrant family members (especially the mothers) from learning local African languages and English. Their exclusion (also self-imposed), together with unequal relations of power in South Africa, plays a crucial role in their interactions, thus limiting opportunities for learning local African languages. However, schooling enables immigrant children to integrate into the South African society. Regardless of the FLP, the immigrant children in the research families speak more English than the DRC languages which are showing signs of disappearing in their language repertoires. Based on these findings, my research contributes to a deeper understanding of the experience of immigration and sheds light on foreigner identities. As well, the present study is significant in that it contributes to the emerging scholarship on language policy in immigrant African families, given the dearth of information on language choice and use among immigrants in South Africa. This research also adds to the burgeoning literature on the relationship between language and ethnicity in the diaspora.

This research report engages with the concern that African learners attending English medium, multiracial schools are losing their proficiency in African languages. In so doing, the report explores the language practices of four multilingual Grade 9 learners at a desegregated private high school in Gauteng. In a school environment that does not overtly support the use of African languages, I explore the extent to which multilingual learners use African languages in the school context, to position themselves and others, as an identity building resource, and the extent to which the use of African languages is implicated in their identities. I also explore the possible influence of the learners’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds on their language practices, and related to this, the expression of their identities. I look at how their language practices help them shift identities with space and purpose, and the contradictions therein. The study draws on poststructuralist theories of language and identity (Weedon, 1997; Zegeye, 2001), in considering how language constitutes identity (Pennycook, 2004) and self and other ‘positioning’ (Davies and Harre`, 1990) It also draws on Bourdieu’s (1991) theorizing of language and power and language as a form of cultural capital. I draw on two traditions in qualitative research: case study and ethnography. In my analysis of the data, I argue that both African languages and English are important in learners’ identities. I indicate that through their language practices, the learners continue to position themselves in multiple and contradictory identities that continue to shift with context. I also argue that the learners’ proficiency in English has not led to them losing proficiency in their home languages, which are retained and used as a primary marker of ethnic identities and for ideas of ethnic purity. This purity is in turn not constructed in a staidly ‘traditional’ manner, but negotiated through joking and verbal competition. Notions of ethnic purity are also often discursively constructed through the use of English, illustrating the contradictory nature of identities. I also point out that some learners protected apartheid constructed ethnic compartmentalization by setting boundaries of belonging. I point to language being a site of struggle for power and contestation in an effort by the learners to resist linguistic assimilation.

No description available.

Thesis advisor: David Karp / This thesis focuses on the lived experiences of adolescent Puerto Rican American girls who were born and raised in the United States. In the midst of the social problems and the attention given to these problems, the resilient nature of these young women is often overlooked. The sample consist of 18 young ladies between the ages of 11-15 (M = 12.2 yrs). The data for this research project were collected through two main methods – the Bicultural Involvement Questionnaire (BIQ) and semi-structured interviews. First I utilize social identity theory and the concept of social stigma to detail certain social problems and explain their reactions towards them. I then describe the coping strategies used by these young ladies to survive the social inequality they face on a daily basis. I have used the existing research on the colonialism of Puerto Rico, race/ethnicity, and cultural gender expectations as the foundation for my exploration on the effects of the interconnectedness of all three social processes on the lives of these young girls, and to gain a better understanding on the coping strategies these young women use to deal with these social problems. Although these girls express many ways of dealing with difficult situations, I write on four of the main strategies they utilize. The four coping strategies include: making use of their social capital, distinguishing themselves from others, promoting and preserving cultural pride, and understanding the differences in various social contexts. What has remained virtually unwritten, until now, are the ways young puertorriqueñas have learned to cope with the problems of an oppressive history, race/ethnicity, and gender expectations. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

The British population is made up of three main ethnic groups: Caucasian, Afro- Caribbean and South Asian. The history of Britain is littered with a series of invasion and colonisation events, potentially resulting in a variety of different genetic influences shaping the native population. More recent immigration trends have lead to over 11 million people within the UK describing themselves as belonging to an ethnic minority. The aim of this research is therefore to characterise these three population groups for a series of genetic markers, in the process gaining an insight into the genetics and origins of the individuals within these groups and ultimately developing a robust population-of-origin classification system for a DNA sample of unknown origin. To this end, three distinct areas of the genome were investigated. This comprised the development of a suite of PCR multiplex reactions to analyse 11 Y chromosome short tandem repeat (STR) markers, sequencing of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, and analysis of a number of autosomal Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) known to show population specific allele distributions. The results from these studies led to the development of simple (Y chromosome and mitochondria) or complex (SNPs) classification systems enabling unknown DNA samples to be categorised into one of these 3 ethnic groups with a high degree of certainty: the YSTR population-of-origin classification algorithm had a success rate of 80%, the mitochondrial version a 90% success rate while correct prediction was achieved over 94% of the time with the autosomal SNPs.

Magister Artium - MA / My research considers the vessels of select women ceramists in and from rural KwaZulu-Natal and reflects on the changing contexts in which their work is utilized, consumed and displayed. The emphasis of my research is on the significance of ceramics in cultural practices and how this has changed or been maintained due to altered social and political circumstances and the changing dynamics of research. Additionally, when ceramic vessels are purchased by tourists, collectors and patrons they are subjected to a range of dialogues between maker and buyer. Finally, vessels may be selected to be displayed in exhibitions or held in collections of museums and galleries; once again, then they will be spoken about and they will speak to us on different terms. Each one of these movements in the life of a pot is reflected in the artist’s consideration of form, pattern, balance, shape, colour and symmetry of the vessels. Similarly, each one of these steps in the process engages with a different type of audience in a dynamic and significant way. I investigate how the authors of these vessels become involved in and negotiate a dialogue between themselves, their work and an exterior context that always projects its own voice about the artists and their work.

This thesis explores why ethnicity was introduced as the basis for the reconstitution of the Ethiopian state in 1991, examining the politicisation of ethnic identity before and after the federation of the country’s ‘nations, nationalities and peoples’ was instituted. The establishment of the modern Ethiopian empire state in the nineteenth century, and the processes of centralisation and bureaucratisation which consolidated it in the mid twentieth, provide a backdrop to an emerging concern with ‘regionalism’ amongst political circles in the 1960s and 1970s. Ethnicity operated as both resource and product of the mobilisation by which the major movements of armed opposition to the military regime of the 1970s and 1980s, later the architects of ethnic federalism, sought control of the state. Under federalism through the 1990s, political representation and territorial administration were reorganised in terms of ethnicity. A stratum of the local elite of each ethnic group was encouraged to form an ethnic organisation as a platform for executive office. Meanwhile ethnic groups and their elites responded to these new circumstances in unanticipated but calculative ways, often radically reviewing and reconstructing not only their sense of collective interest, but also the very ethnic collectives that would best serve those newlyperceived interests. The architects of ethnic federalism are influenced by a Marxist formulation of the ‘National Question’ which incorporates contradictory elements inherent in the notion of ‘granting self-determination’: the conviction that self-selected communities respond better to mobilisation ‘from within’, in their own language, by their own people; and the notion that ethnic groups are susceptible to identification, definition, and prescription ‘from above’, by a vanguard party applying a checklist of externally verifiable criteria. These two sets of assumptions correlate with tenets of instrumentalism and primordialism respectively, which are, as they stand, equally irreconcilable. An investigation of theoretical approaches to ethnicity and collective action suggests that many conflate the ‘real world’ and ‘socially constructed’ referents of the ethnic profile of an individual (the constituents of the individual state of being an ethnic x), with the fully constructed collective accomplishment which creates members of an ethnic group (conferring the social status of being an ethnic x, of which those referents are markers). Differentiating the two, and exploring the recursive relationship between them, by means of a consideration of calculative action within the framework of actors’ categories (emerging from emic knowledge systems) and shared social institutions (premised, whether their referents are ‘natural’ ‘social’ or ‘artificial’, on collective processes of ‘knowledge construction’), may improve analysis of the causes and operation of collective action associated with ethnicity and ethno-nationalism. Ethnic federalism in Ethiopia offered the prospect of a shift away from the ‘high modernism’ of that state’s past projects to ‘develop’ its people, apparently in favour of the collective perspectives of groups of its citizens. The coercive and developmental imperatives of the state that guided its implementation, however, have militated against the substantive incorporation of locally determined social institutions and knowledge.

Faculty of Humanities School of Social Sciences 9812254a Yoon@tiscali.co.za / The focus of this PhD thesis is the shifting identities of the approximately 12,000-strong community of South African-born Chinese South Africans during the apartheid and post-apartheid periods. This thesis begins with the assumption that social identities are constructed. It also assumes that identities are contested amongst the various social actors; that identities shift over time and across individual life spans; and that individuals have multiple, often overlapping identities. The three strands of identity that form the core of this thesis are racial, ethnic, and national identities; at any given time, due to specific historic circumstances, one or another of these identities has been more or less salient. This thesis used a combination of methodologies the address the key research questions. The primary research method was qualitative. In-depth interviews were supplemented by a survey, archival research, and participant observation. The principal social actors dominating the construction of Chinese South African identities were the Chinese South Africans, themselves, and the South African and Chinese states. Chinese history, myths about China, and Chinese culture were the primary building materials used in the construction of Chinese South African identities; however, these ‘materials’ could only be utilised within the constraints established by the apartheid system. From the 1960s, Chinese South Africans were singled from amongst the ‘non-whites’ to receive concessions and privileges; over time they came to occupy the nebulous, interstitial spaces of apartheid as unofficial ‘honorary whites’. South African state attempts to legally redefine the Chinese as ‘white’ failed because the Chinese South Africans were unwilling to give up their unique ethnic identity. Concessions and greater interaction with white South Africans had led many Chinese to conclude that their Chineseness had been ‘diminished’ and ‘lost’. What we witnessed, rather, was the selective incorporation of chosen aspects of Chinese culture and values into new Chinese South African identities. Because of the diminishing impact of apartheid legislation on Chinese South Africans, we were able to identify three distinct identity cohorts during the apartheid era: the shopkeepers, the fence-sitters, and the bananas. In the post-apartheid era, affirmative action policies, new immigration from China and Taiwan, and globalisation have influenced more recent constructions of Chinese South African identities. Keywords: Chinese, Chineseness, South African, apartheid, post-apartheid, identity, construction, ethnicity, ‘honorary white’, race.