In this sociolinguistic study, qualitative interviews were used in examining discursive identity construction among russlanddeutsche Aussiedler. The interview group was composed of russlanddeutsche university students attending the Universität Mannheim in Germany, differentiating it from much of the previous research. In my analysis, working from a social constructionist perspective, I primarily make use of Positioning Theory and Critical Discourse Analytic techniques to show how the interviewees 1) construct groups; 2) relate to language; and 3) position themselves in relation to existing discourses in contemporary German society, including instances of resistance to those discourses. Ethnically Germans, but living on Russian/Soviet/post-Soviet territory for generations, Aussiedler have special claims to German citizenship and began their return to Germany after suffering mass repression for decades under the Soviet regime. In the aftermath of WWII, their emigration to Germany was initially limited, but reached high levels in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, as travel restrictions were relaxed and the Iron Curtain fell. Expecting to find acceptance as Deutsche unter Deutschen [Germans among Germans], the opposite often occurs: they are frequently categorized as ‘the Russians.’ Indeed, one of the most frequent comments made by members of this group is: In Russland waren wir Deutsche, hier sind wir Russen [In Russia we were Germans, here we are Russians]. In many respects, they have a stigmatized identity in both countries, Russia and Germany, and for this reason represent a particularly interesting group for identity research. Recent publications, most notably Reitemeier (2006a), have made mention of this ‘stigmatized identity’ and also of the fact that many Russlanddeutsche possess hybrid identities. These two concepts, stigma and hybridity, are explored throughout the thesis. The work begins by outlining the migratory, legal, and linguistic history of Russlanddeutsche. This is followed by an explanation of theoretical and methodological approaches which used to study the data, including Positioning Theory, stigma theory, a variant of Conversation Analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis. The bulk of the thesis is then spent on the analysis of the qualitative interview data using those theories and methodologies. I conclude by summarizing my findings and suggesting areas for further research.

In this sociolinguistic study, qualitative interviews were used in examining discursive identity construction among russlanddeutsche Aussiedler. The interview group was composed of russlanddeutsche university students attending the Universität Mannheim in Germany, differentiating it from much of the previous research. In my analysis, working from a social constructionist perspective, I primarily make use of Positioning Theory and Critical Discourse Analytic techniques to show how the interviewees 1) construct groups; 2) relate to language; and 3) position themselves in relation to existing discourses in contemporary German society, including instances of resistance to those discourses. Ethnically Germans, but living on Russian/Soviet/post-Soviet territory for generations, Aussiedler have special claims to German citizenship and began their return to Germany after suffering mass repression for decades under the Soviet regime. In the aftermath of WWII, their emigration to Germany was initially limited, but reached high levels in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, as travel restrictions were relaxed and the Iron Curtain fell. Expecting to find acceptance as Deutsche unter Deutschen [Germans among Germans], the opposite often occurs: they are frequently categorized as ‘the Russians.’ Indeed, one of the most frequent comments made by members of this group is: In Russland waren wir Deutsche, hier sind wir Russen [In Russia we were Germans, here we are Russians]. In many respects, they have a stigmatized identity in both countries, Russia and Germany, and for this reason represent a particularly interesting group for identity research. Recent publications, most notably Reitemeier (2006a), have made mention of this ‘stigmatized identity’ and also of the fact that many Russlanddeutsche possess hybrid identities. These two concepts, stigma and hybridity, are explored throughout the thesis. The work begins by outlining the migratory, legal, and linguistic history of Russlanddeutsche. This is followed by an explanation of theoretical and methodological approaches which used to study the data, including Positioning Theory, stigma theory, a variant of Conversation Analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis. The bulk of the thesis is then spent on the analysis of the qualitative interview data using those theories and methodologies. I conclude by summarizing my findings and suggesting areas for further research.

This study examines how some Indian women in South Africa who became managers negotiated their identities in their early lives and in their adult working lives on their journeys to becoming successful managers. Prior studies on identity work and the experience of intersectionality by ethnic minority women have typically focused on professional identities in isolation, separate from early life influences. The current study uses a life story approach to provide a holistic understanding of the journeys of the first significant cohort of Indian women to ascend to management positions in South Africa. I explored the narratives of 13 Indian women managers in senior and top management positions in corporate South Africa using a grounded theory approach to make visible the identity work they have engaged in throughout their lives so far. The life stories of the participants reveal that throughout their lives they have grappled with negotiating a gender identity shaped by Indian cultural assumptions about the roles of men and women in juxtaposition to or in combination with their personal aspirations for professional success. I used a bird cage metaphor to capture how these multiple factors shaped and constrained their lives and careers. The interplay between their racio-ethnic, gender and professional identities is unpacked, and their strategies for reconciling the tensions among their multiple identities are described. In negotiating their identities, these women have developed a particular type of hybrid identity that allows them to move between the compartments into which their professional identity demands and cultural expectations have been divided. The women’s cultural identities remain pivotal in their lives, and they have strong collectivist identities, as they still live within their communities even after the official end of apartheid. My findings enrich and extend the identity literature relating to ethnic minority women by focusing on identity negotiation over time, rather than only on discrete moments in time. My findings also contribute to identity literature in general, as they illustrate that an individual’s identity is formed not only by personal and social identities, but also by the historical and cultural context beyond the organisation within which the person operates. This context is often not considered in identity research in organisations – most studies relating to identity work focus on the tensions between personal identities and professional identities in the workplace. It also reinforces the idea that identity is never fixed but always in negotiation. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

Research suggests that disaffiliation from a religious organization brings a myriad of positive and negative consequences to those who choose to disaffiliate. This is the first study to examine the specific impact of disaffiliation on how women who have disaffiliated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints conceptualize womanhood. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 women who voluntarily chose to disaffiliate from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Data were analyzed using interpretive phenomenology, informed by hybrid identity theory. Findings suggest that women who disaffiliate from the church undergo an intense and painful identity reconstruction where they create a hybrid identity that includes their Mormon identity and other identities they have chosen to embody. Findings outline the limitations participants felt as women in the church, the pain and mourning experienced throughout the disaffiliation process, and the empowerment and expansion of their self-concept of womanhood felt post-disaffiliation. Limitations of this study, future research, and clinical implications are discussed. / Master of Science / People are choosing to disaffiliate from religious organizations in highly increasing numbers. Individual experiences of disaffiliation vary and often bring a combination of both positive and negative consequences. This study examines the experiences of women who were raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how their choice to step away from the church impacted their self-concept of womanhood. The results of this study confirm that the disaffiliation process prompts an intense and painful identity crisis in which participants had to reconstruct how they viewed all parts of their identities. Findings outline how women felt limited by church teachings, the intense pain and mourning they experienced as they left the church, and how their ideas of womanhood expanded and felt more empowered post-disaffiliation. It is important for therapists to create space in-session for women, at any point in the disaffiliation process, to process feelings of grief and resentment, explore their identities, and reclaim themselves in an empowering and strengths-based environment.

The life history research reported here, explores Becoming, Othering, and Mothering experiences of Korean immigrant women with White dominant culture English speaking Canadian-born spouses, and is guided by the research questions: (1) How do the Korean immigrant women who have White dominant culture English speaking Canadian-born spouses describe their linguistic and cultural integration into their intercultural families and Canadian society? (2) How do they negotiate and reconstruct their identities? (3) How do they describe their strengths and challenges as foreign wives and immigrant mothers in intercultural families and as immigrants in Canadian society? and (4) How do they deal with their children’s dual languages, cultures and identities? Multiple life history interviews were conducted with seven participants; additionally, the researcher’s autoethnography was included. The data were examined through reflexive analysis—within-case analysis, and across-case analysis—and interpreted through an interpretivist perspective (Crotty, 1998; Mack, 2010). Emergent themes in three main categories include—becoming, othering and mothering—each of which is discussed in terms of language socialization, linguistic and cultural power relations, and the impact of linguistic and cultural integration and power relations on participants’ identities. This research brings to attention the circumstances of linguistically, culturally, and racially marginalized minority people in Canada. When the intercultural family is viewed as a microcosm of Canada’s multicultural society, this research provides to both dominant-culture Canadians and minority group people, awareness of how linguistic, cultural, and racial hegemony marginalizes minority people in Canada. / May 2016

Working toward a personal definition of womanhood while progressing with my research in feminist discourse, I frame biographical events alongside the intricate use of language surrounding feminist theory. Experimenting with material specificities that speak to my personal narratives and cultural significance, my work seeks to address the interlacing operations of subjectivity expanding on the intersection of class, gender and race.

Like most ethnic and multicultural narratives, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club revolves around the development of an identity in which immigrant experience and all the questions of ethno- cultural identity that attend to it play central roles. The aim of this essay is to investigate the process of identity formation of the second-generation Chinese immigrant daughters who encounter Chinese culture at home while having the immediate experience of living in America, with a focus on the cultural, language and generational gaps that exist between the Chinese mothers and their American- born daughters. This study is guided by a theoretical framework that combines postcolonial theory and a number of established theories of identity construction including the concept of hybrid identity in order to analyze and explore the American-born daughters’ identity creation. Based on this analysis, this paper presents evidence that an identity formation process that involves cultural hybridization has occurred and the outcome of this identity formation is that of a hybrid identity.

L’émergence de nouvelles dramaturgies africaines francophones depuis les années 1990 annonce un bouleversement dans le paysage littéraire africain. Cette génération d’écrivains contemporains de la diaspora africaine convoquent les notions de fragmentation, déplacement et instabilité qui suggèrent une reconfiguration du chaos dans la production littéraire africaine francophone depuis les indépendances. L’histoire des littératures africaines depuis l’indépendance en 1960 d’une majorité de pays africains colonisés, est marquée par le thème du chaos avec cependant des différences notables. En effet, entre les années 1960 et 1970, les écrivains du « désenchantement » dénoncent le chaos politique et social de l’Afrique à la suite des nouveaux gouvernements autoritaires de la post-indépendance. Les esthétiques théâtrales négro-africaines de la fin des années 1970 et 1980, élaborent en revanche une sortie du chaos africain à partir d’une revalorisation et contextualisation moderne des traditions et mythes africains. Les années 1990 marquent une rupture puisque les nouvelles écritures théâtrales africaines mettent en forme l’espace performatif d’un « chaos-monde » qui témoigne des réalités hybrides de la diaspora africaine à l’échelle locale et globale. Une lecture croisée des oeuvres théâtrales de cette génération dont font partie Caya Makhélé (Congo), Koffi Kwahulé(Côte d’Ivoire), Marcel Zang (Cameroun), José Pliya (Bénin), Kossi Efoui (Togo), et Dieudonné Niangouna (Congo) permet de mettre en lumière les nouvelles approches techniques et esthétiques d’un chaos énergétique. L’étude détaillée de ces nouvelles mises en forme du chaos engage la compréhension de l’enjeu diasporique et la perspective transnationale dans les dramaturgies contemporaines africaines. / A new type of African Francophone theater has emerged since the 1990s, which announced a breaking point within the African literary landscape. This generation of contemporary writers from the African diaspora engages with notions of fragmentation, displacement, and instability that suggest a reconfiguration of chaos in Francophone African literary productionsince the Independences. The history of African literatures since 1960, when a large majorityof former African colonies became independent, is marked by the theme of chaos with significant differences. Indeed, between 1960 and 1970, writers of the « disenchantment »denounce social and political chaos in Africa following the emergence of new dictatorships inthe post-independence period, African theatrical aesthetics by the end of the 1970s andthrough the 1980s, on the contrary, work on an exit out of the African chaos from the perspective of revalorization, providing modern contextualizations for African myths andtraditions. Since the early 1990s a rupture is established within new African theater that creates a performative space of « chaos-monde », which manifests the hybrid reality of the African diaspora at local and global levels. By reading accross theatrical works by this generation that include Caya Makélé (Congo), Koffi Kwahulé (Ivory Coast), Marcel Zang(Cameroon), José Pliya (Benin), Kossi Efoui (Togo), and Dieudonné Niangouna (Congo), Ished light on the new techniques and aesthetics of an energetic chaos. A close examination ofthese new settings of chaos allows for a better understanding of the diasporic nature and transnational perspective from contemporary African theater.

The city of Ottawa, Ontario is neither an independent municipality nor solely Canada’s national capital. Ottawa instead sustains a hybrid state of being where the characteristics and cultural assets specific to the city’s two roles intertwine to generate its unique identity as a “national and local,” or “hybrid,” artistic showcase. As the identity of a place evolves from the practices and individual identities of all those involved with the environment, Ottawa’s self-stated “hybrid showcase” identity can be investigated through a study of the professional English-language theatre organizations operating within city limits. Ergo, this thesis introduces a methodology for conducting data-driven assessments of theatre organizations’ local, national, or hybrid artistic showcase identities, known as the Local-National Hybrid Showcase (LNHS) Scorecard. Using fifteen indicators, the LNHS Scorecard assesses the 2018 artistic programming and programming-adjacent operations of seven Ottawa-based theatre organizations. The results of said assessments illustrate the qualitative value of each organization’s showcase hybridity and identify any perceived preferences towards local or national stakeholders therein. Findings generated by applying the LNHS Scorecard methodology to the selected case studies suggest that as of December 31st, 2018, seven of Ottawa’s professional English-language theatre organizations embraced hybrid (local and national) showcase identities. Moreover, the final scores indicate that six of the seven organizations exhibit a weak to moderate preference for activities impacting Ottawa-based stakeholders. Defining Ottawa’s artistic showcase identity according to the combined practices and resulting showcase identities of the individual Ottawa-based theatre organizations upon which the greater artistic showcase depends, the LNHS Scorecard encourages new conversations about the cultural identity of Canada’s capital.

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