My dissertation project maps three characters, Lucy, Evie, and the Fur Queen in three contemporary Canadian novels Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984), Salt Fish Girl (2002), and Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998), respectively, whose embodiments and genders do not conform to norms and who are also the only characters able to imagine a different kind of world. These novels, which I read as magical realist dystopias each maps out a process by which normatively gendered characters can begin to imagine a different social order than the one they have inherited. What is significant about these novels, though, is that this imagining would not be possible without the work of the gender non-conforming characters. My dissertation argues that when a major identity category, like gender, is unsettled, possibilities arise for other major social structures, such as the nation, to be questioned. These novels, each arising out of different racialized and cultural backgrounds, all settle on gender and embodied non-normativity as a site of possibility for imagining a different kind of world. Using education and collaboration, these characters are revolutionary figures who, instead of tearing down dominant geo-political structures in ways that risk replicating dominant geo-political structures or reforming existing ones, argue for a slow revolution in which spaces are built without reference to dominant structures. These spaces are decentralized insofar as the novels suggest that they will need to leave room for revision and change, rather than advocating for a static idea of what utopia is, and they will be built collaboratively, so that there is no one authority. These novels do not suggest that building a different world will be easy, but they show that fast solutions will not work and instead map out the difficult process of learning that is necessary in order for it to happen. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / My dissertation project maps three characters, Lucy, Evie, and the Fur Queen in three contemporary Canadian novels Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984), Salt Fish Girl (2002), and Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998), respectively, whose embodiments and genders do not conform to norms and who are also the only characters able to imagine a different kind of world. These novels, which I read as magical realist dystopias each maps out a process by which normatively gendered characters can begin to imagine a different social order than the one they have inherited. What is significant about these novels, though, is that this imagining would not be possible without the work of the gender non-conforming characters. My dissertation argues that when a major identity category, like gender, is unsettled, possibilities arise for other major social structures, such as the nation, to be questioned. These novels, each arising out of different racialized and cultural backgrounds, all settle on gender and embodied non-normativity as a site of possibility for imagining a different kind of world. Using education and collaboration, these characters are revolutionary figures who, instead of tearing down dominant geo-political structures in ways that risk replicating dominant geo-political structures or reforming existing ones, argue for a slow revolution in which spaces are built without reference to dominant structures. These spaces are decentralized insofar as the novels suggest that they will need to leave room for revision and change, rather than advocating for a static idea of what utopia is, and they will be built collaboratively, so that there is no one authority. These novels do not suggest that building a different world will be easy, but they show that fast solutions will not work and instead map out the difficult process of learning that is necessary in order for it to happen.

In the communities of the Cape Flats, it is expected that all women will bear children and become mothers. Motherhood serves as a social and cultural indicator of femininity and enables women to access social and economic networks that knit them into community. The social and cultural valorization of motherhood in these communities has informed the powerful stigmatization of infertility ( or the involuntary nonconformance to motherhood). The stigma associated with infertility affects women in particular, because the inability to bear children is commonly perceived to be a woman's problem. This study explores the cultural constructions of infertility. It examines in particular, the diverse cultural meanings and the stigma associated with infertility. The examination of these cultural meanings challenges the notion that infertility should only be examined in the biomedical realm. My research was conducted over a seven month period with six infertile women and with women who have borne children from different areas on the Cape Flats. The infertile women were the primary informants. Other informants included the mothers with whom the focus group was conducted and specialist informants who were healthcare professionals. The participants were recruited through the primary health care clinic in Manenberg, the network of community newspapers, The Daily Voice and through my own social network. Qualitative research methods were used. The study also used participatory research methods involved because the participants played an active role in the construction of the research process and interview schedules. The primary information used was obtained from in-depth interviews and journals kept by the infertile women. For comparative purposes, a focus group was conducted with a group of mothers. The study illustrates that on the Cape Flats, infertility is constructed as a major cultural and social problem for women. The stigma attached to infertility draws its power from the social and cultural meanings associated with inability of infertile women to live up to the expectation that every adult woman will become a mother. The effects of the social stigma of infertility are especially profound. As I show, bio-medicine does offer some solution, but only to the few who can afford it.

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Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur skönhetsideal, kroppsligheter och makt porträtteras i dokumentärserien Dokument inifrån: Priset vi betalar. En multimodal kritisk diskursanalys samt ett ramverk sammansatt av teoretiska förklaringar av makt, disciplinering, diskurs, performativitet, skönhetsideal och blickar har använts i syfte att studera hur dokumentärens språkliga och visuella element formar porträtteringen av skönhetsideal, kroppsligheter och makt. En av målsättningarna med metoden MCDA är att finna dolda budskap i text och bild för att vidare finna underliggande maktstrukturer. Inledande i analysen har även en tematisk analys använts som metod för avgränsning till specifika teman. De teman som valts ut fångar det viktiga med datan i förhållande till forskningsfrågan, samt identifierar mönster inom den givna datan.  Som analysen föreslår porträtteras de medverkande influencernas relation till sina kroppar som problematisk, deras kroppar är ständigt utsatta för disciplinering i form av förändring med hjälp av skönhetsingrepp- och operationer. Denna disciplinering är en effekt av en internalisering av ett socialt konstruerat skönhetsideal, en utomstående blick samt falska konstruktioner av verkligheten på sociala medier. Dokumentärserien porträtterar influencers som makthavare, men en motdiskurs kan utläsas då det även framgår att följarna styr och legitimerar deras karriär.

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Även då Sverige kan ses som liberalt i konstrast till andra länder i världen vad gäller sexualundervisning i skolan, så menar RFSU att den fortfarande är bristfällig, i synnerhet vad det gäller frågan om pornografi då RFSU menar att det är samtal som behövs inte vuxna som ålägges sin tolkningsram om ungas sexliv och porrvanor utan ett samtal med unga. Sexualundervisningen i Sverige är i dagsläget upp till de enskilda rektorerna och lärarna, det blir därmed väldigt individuellt vad för undervisning eleverna får beroende på vilken skola och vilket klassrum de hamnar i. Den nuvarande läroplanen för sexualundervisningen har även ett kritiskt förhållningssätt till pornografi. Det odemokratiska i att undervisningen blir individuell beroende på vilket klassrum och skola man är på samt det porrkritiska förhållningssättet är anledningarna till att RFSU behöver vara ute i skolorna. Detta kan ses som en effekt av en ytterst tudelad debatt. Debatten kring just pornografi är oftast tudelad. Antingen är man för eller emot. Jag vill försöka få fram en nyansering av denna polarisering hos Roks, Sveriges Kvinnoorganisationer å ena sidan samt RFSU å den andra sidan, för att kunna tillhandhålla nyanserade riktlinjer gällande dagens sexualundervisning om hur man hanterar det omtalande och laddade ämnet pornografi. Med en nyanserad bild av pornografi där pedagogerna har ett tydligt material så skulle (precis som deras mål är) inte RFSU eller andra externa aktörer behövas i skolorna då pedagogerna lär ut en nyanserad sexualundervisning som tar åtanke åt båda sidorna. Denna studie kom fram till att två diskurser produceras: pornografi-som-orsak (Sveriges Kvinnoorganisationer och Roks), där pornografin ses som direkt orsak för mäns våld mot kvinnorsom grundar sig i heteronormativitet. Den andra diskursen pornografi-som-syndabock (RFSU), hävdar att pornografi blir syndabocken för mäns våld mot kvinnor där man bortförklarar och lägger ansvaret för mäns våldsamma handlingar på pornografin, inte på männen själva. Jag presenterar avslutningsvis förslag för hur vi kan gå vidare efter denna analys. / <p>2023-06-11</p>