published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

<p> Transgender women have the highest HIV prevalence rates of all gender and sexual minorities, yet are less likely to enter and be retained in HIV care. As a result, they are at high risk for HIV-related morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to describe the illness career of transgender women living with HIV and to describe how interactions with health care providers and important others influenced their illness trajectory. The findings are a theoretical model that includes four stages: <i>Having the world come crashing down, shutting out the world, living in a dark world, and reconstructing the world. </i> Relationships within the social network (family, friends, and romantic partners) and the network of health care providers provided the context of the women&rsquo;s illness careers. Pivotal moments marked movement from one phase to the next. <i>Having the World Crashing Down</i> was the first stage that occurred when the participants were diagnosed with HIV. They felt that their lives as they knew them had been destroyed. They indicated that the &ldquo;whole world just shattered&rdquo; the moment they found out they had HIV. <i>Shutting Out the World</i> occurred next. During this stage, many participants experienced withdrawal, denial, social isolation and loneliness. As they struggled with their diagnosis, they often avoided HIV care and avoided contact with important others. During the third stage, <i> Living in a Dark World,</i> participants descended into a dark phase of self-destructive life and health-threatening behaviors following their diagnosis. During the fourth stage, <i>Reconstructing the World,</i> participants began to reestablish themselves in the world and found new ways to reengage with important others and resume meaningful life activities. Findings confirm that the illness careers of HIV-positive transgender women are influenced by the social context of the health care setting and interactions with health care providers and important others.</p>

<p> Gender-linked language penalizes women by both systematically devaluing women&rsquo;s speech and limiting its form and content. In 1975, Robin Lakoff claimed that gender-linked language was a key diagnostic for gender equality within society. Forty years later, this interdisciplinary analysis brings together feminist, legal justice, sociological, and linguistic perspectives to examine the courtroom testimony of female domestic violence victims for compliance with gender-linked language norms and subsequent success in obtaining protective orders. Testimony was evaluated for compliance with Mulac&rsquo;s Gender-Linked Language Effect (GLLE) as well as additional variables uncovered through research and experience. Results showed that all petitioners used female-linked variables at a consistent rate but that those who used more male-linked variables received fewer protective orders. The results of this analysis will serve to inform judges and legal professionals in their evaluation of women&rsquo;s narratives without bias, fill a gap in research on the effects gender-linked language in courtroom testimony, and uncover the presence of the GLLE in everyday life. Most importantly, this analysis provides a rationale for eliminating gender-linked language as an extralegal barrier to protection helping to ensure that all citizens receive equal protection from the Court regardless of gender.</p>

No description available.

This dissertation examines some of the ongoing debates about American citizenship in the context of new school development in the small, desert town of Tucson, Arizona, between 1870 and the late 1920s. Arizona officials were actively in pursuit of statehood during most of this period; bringing citizenship to the forefront of public discussion. New schools were one vital resource in the efforts to "civilize" Arizona to meet national expectations for statehood. It was in the fundraising and organizing of these new schools that Arizonans often voiced their expectations about who could and should be a fully active American citizen. Beginning with the development of the first school, in the 1870s, Tucson private and public schools became spaces for educators, state officials, missionaries, and parents to assert their interpretation of the good American citizen. The term cultural citizenship is used to describe the process of social debate and enactment of various interpretations of American citizenship. Tucson's first school, a Catholic girl's academy, at first united the town and territorial boosters who saw the school as an orderly influence on the roughness of the desert settlement. The later creation of local public or common schools led to polarization between Catholics and Protestants as they debated the connections between citizenship and religion. A series of public and private schools opened to segregate Native American, African American, and Mexican American children from the general school population. Each of these schools promoted an agenda about preparing a population of students for American citizenship--often envisioned as necessitating a complete adoption of Anglo-American behaviors and standards--as well as continued segregation. Students in these schools, however, pushed with their words and actions for a wider vision of a more multicultural American citizenship. Rather than adopting Anglo-American mission teachings in their entirety, Native-American and Mexican-American mission school students mixed and adapted traditional culture, mission teachings, and popular culture in ways that had particular meaning in their own lives. Students who attended Tucson schools recognized the benefits of educational opportunities, but almost always adapted that education to meet the needs of their more expansive visions of American citizenship.

Identifying subordinate groups in the archaeological record in colonial situations has gained currency as historical archaeologists have sought to describe and investigate how the perspectives of and roles played by the colonized and the colonizers contribute to processes of culture change in colonial society. Neither the culture of the colonizing group nor the culture(s) of the peoples colonized can really be characterized as a single unit, because a culture represents the reflexive interaction of different groups within the culture. Archaeological interpretation at colonial sites should recognize and incorporate the perspectives of these groups. The model developed in this dissertation uses a processual-plus perspective (Hegmon 2003) to ask questions about gender in a systematic fashion. The author constructs a model for the identification of women at historical sites using ethnographic information and colonial documents and paintings. Archaeological collections from the pueblo of Tubac and Presidio Santa Cruz de Terrenate are then used to evaluate the model. The archaeological site of Presidio Santa Cruz de Terrenate (AZ EE:4:11[ASM]) on the Río San Pedro represents a Spanish military installation on the eastern border of the Spanish Pimería Alta. Little documentation has been found that describes the residents or society at the presidio. Charles Di Peso excavated at the site in the 1950s (Di Peso 1953), and a crew from the University of Arizona conducted a surface survey and collection of artifacts in 1993. The colonial pueblo of Tubac was established in 1752 under the protection of Presidio San Ignacio de Tubac. The author had access to Spanish colonial documents that described the society at Tubac. The South Barrio of Tubac (AZ DD:8:33[ASM]) is a site that represents a much disturbed area of colonial-period structures. It was surveyed and excavated by a graduate student at the University of Arizona. Because of problems in the contextual information from both sites and the poor condition of the artifacts, the information proved to be inadequate for evaluating the model. At sites with better contexts and excavation strategies, this model should allow investigation of the material correlates of female activities.

En analys av den svenska medicinska diskursen om barn med atypiska kön, med särskild fokus på diskursens begripliggörande av kroppar som inte passar in i en heterosexuell matris

This study have two purposes, one is to examine the ideological consistency between Sida’s gender policy and the gender policy of an implemented project, and the other purpose consists of an attempt to identify a relation between the implementation of Sida’s/LAMP’s policies and actual changes on gender equality in the partnering country. Three research questions were formulated around the topics of women’s situation in Tanzania; the ideological origin of Sida’s gender policy and the reflection of these in the LAMP policy; and the consequences of an implementation in terms of equality between men and women in Babati District, Tanzania. The analysis is carried out with the help of different theoretical perspectives on women and gender in development, perspectives that have been selected on the basis that they have been influential and dominating in the contemporary planning and policy making of development agencies. The method used was a functional idea analysis and a field study where semi-structured interviews were conducted. The conclusion regarding the ideological consistency is that a comparison between the policies of Sida and LAMP shows patterns of great ideological resemblance, and that both have a somewhat stronger connection to the GAD approach. The conclusion regarding actual changes on gender equality reveals that an integration of gender aspects into the LAMP programme has had several consequences for women. The programme has helped to reduce women’s work load, increased their chances of income, and promoted women’s participation in decision-making on different levels. These are all aspects that may challenge the traditional order of women’s relationship to men and the subordination of women.

Vi har i vår studie analyserat sju personliga intervjuer med kvinnor anställda på företaget Eventia. Syftet med studien har varit att vi i intervjupersonernas narrativa berättelser sökt efter betydelser och därigenom önskat synliggöra om det finns en bristande överrensstämmelse mellan organisationen Eventias avsikt och strävan efter att vara jämställd, och dess tillämpning i praktiken. Vår teoretiska utgångspunkt är feministisk och vi utgår ifrån Joan W. Scotts förståelse av genus. Vi har som teoretisk metod i huvudsak använt oss av de fyra teman som Anna Wahl, Charlotte Holgersson, Pia Höök och Sophie Linghag formulerat i sin forskning: Struktur, Ledarskap, Symbolism och Förändring. Syftet har ringats in med våra frågeställningar: Hur kan könsstrukturen beskrivas på Eventia, och hur kommer diskriminering till uttryck? Hur överensstämmer föreställningar om kön med den sociala praktiken på Eventia? Vilka jämställhetsmetoder kan identifieras och hur relaterar dessa till jämställdhetsdiskurser?Till sist förde vi också ett resonemang om vilka följder och effekter som ovanstående bidrar till. Våra slutsatser är: Vi tycker oss kunna påvisa att det råder en diskrepans mellan Eventias strävan att vara jämställd och dess tillämpning i praktiken. Vi kunde också skönja diskriminerande strukturer av både direkt och indirekt slag. Vi menar också att föreställningar om kön på olika sätt får betydelse i praktiken, bl.a. i samband med egenskaper som en bra chef antas ha, och där dessa är könsmärkta utifrån en manlig norm. Men även att de som intervjupersonerna kopplar ihop med kvinnliga egenskaper, inte värdesätts utan tvärt om ses som hindrande för löne- och utvecklingsmöjligheter. Vad beträffar den diskursiva jämställdheten så menar vi att företagets strävan ligger i linje med den av samhället föreskrivna, men att det råder en diskrepans mellan ideologi och praktik.