Literature on identities in marriage has suggested that there is a tension between the interpretation of marriage as a unity between two partners, and the importance of each partner within the marriage maintaining his/her individuality. By drawing on data from seven semistructured qualitative interviews with married couples or couples involved in marriage-like relationships I examine some ways in which these boundaries between individual and collective identities and associated epistemic rights are drawn or become treated as blurred. Specifically, I use a conversation analytic approach to examine two sets of practices that reveal how this tension is made observable and is negotiated: 1) the use of personal and collective pronouns and 2) shifts in gaze direction. In contrast to previous research on this topic, I focus on the exploration of these phenomena in their moment-by-moment construction in talk-in-interaction. Based on my findings, I conclude that these practices serve to demonstrate the oriented-to ways in which marriage involves compromising one’s own individual identity or epistemic rights while becoming a part of a unit and show how and where this is done in interaction.

As the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) deepens its economic and political integration, the development of the CARICOM identity is seen as both a natural outgrowth, and as paramount to its success. This is because a regional identity can promote social cohesion and shape political objects, including social policies. Regional identities are also shaped by politics, social relations and personal attributes. Using data from a cross-national survey and semi-structured interviews, this thesis examines the nuances of identity formation in CARICOM. It specifically asks three questions: a) how do intra-regional CARICOM migrants negotiate their identities and self-identify? b) How do intra-regional CARICOM migrants construct their lived-experiences in other CARICOM countries? And c) how do intra-regional migrants rationalize the impact of CARICOM regionalism on their identities? These data are analyzed statistically, and through the interpretations of migrants’ discourses and experiences. The study identifies six factors that determine attachments to CARICOM: education level, citizenship region, the meaningfulness of CARICOM, benefits of CARICOM, belonging in member countries, and the nature of migratory experiences. All these variables moderately impact attachment to CARICOM except perceived benefits, which is strongly associated with identification with CARICOM. Perceptions of benefits also impact how migrants rationalized regionalism and their experiences. Overall, support for regional integration and a regional identity are strong, but the CARICOM identity is weak and non-salient primarily because expectations of benefits do not match lived realities. The deepening of the CARICOM identity are therefore contingent on: people experiencing CARICOM’s expected benefits; the development of policies that address perceived failures; CARICOM rebranding itself and being more engaged with its constituents; and on collaborative actions being taken to embed the regional identity into national ones.

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The purpose of this study was to understand how traditional-aged undergraduate students describe their experiences with social media. Another focus was to gain students’ perspectives to contribute to the growing body of research that currently exists. Constructivist grounded theory methodology was used. Each of the 17 students who participated in this study self-identified as a traditional-age undergraduate student who were social media users. The sample was comprised of participants ranging from the ages of 18 to 24 years of age. No other factors were considered for eligibility criteria. Themes and nested subthemes were developed, and the analysis of data ultimately led to the development of the Theory of Social Media Literacy and Identity Influence. This study is relevant to both student affairs professionals and faculty members because social media brings with it developmental factors impacting students that are not present in the current literature as it pertains to undergraduate students. / Department of Educational Studies

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This thesis addresses general questions about the relationship between the making of gender, the politics of national and ethnic identities, local - global articulations and the process of cultural transformation amongst Muslim Tausug and Sama communities in Sulu, the Southern Philippines. Specifically, I am concerned with the meaning, and experience, of the bantut, transvestite / transgender, homosexual men in Sulu. There is a long tradition of transvestism and transgendering in island Southeast Asia, where transvestites were considered to be sacred personages, ritual healers and/or, as in Sulu, accomplished singers and dancers who performed at various celebrations and rites of passage: embodiments of, and mediatory figures for, ancestral unity and potency. More recently, however, transvestites have emerged as the creative producers of an image of beauty defined in terms of an imagined global American otherness. This thesis is an attempt to understand and explain this phenomenon. In particular, I explore the relation between the collective endowment of the bantut as the purveyors of beauty, and their symbolic valorisation as impotent men and unreproductive/defiling women: those who are seen to have been overexposed to and transformed by a potent otherness. What is ultimately at stake, I argue, (and what is being asserted through the symbolic circumscription of the bantut) is local persons' autonomy over the process and consequences of cultural and political transformation in the face of the exclusionary violence of state enforced assimilation. However, the thesis is also concerned with the expressed transgenderal projects of the bantut themselves, a project which is variously about status and gender transformation, the elation and pleasure they experience in the production and performance of beauty, and the attempt to overcome the prejudice of the local populace, whilst establishing relationships that are based on mutuality and shared respect. What this thesis demonstrates is that there is nothing ambiguous about ambiguity, sexual or otherwise. Rather, it is the specific product or effect of different historical relations of power and resistance through which various cultural subjects are created and re-create themselves.

xi, 195 p. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: KNIGHT B105.T73 B37 2007 / This dissertation seeks to recover a notion of agency for those who are caught in the interstices of transnational relationships, which are generally determined by practices of globalization. I examine notions of travel and home as corollary concepts that have been used metaphorically to describe the nature of the multicultural subject. Travel and home both highlight the sense of displacement caused by global capitalist markets as well as the capacity to remake and envision a new community. In this light, travel and home are understood as interpretive processes that guide social transformation in an increasingly multicultural world. I first consider philosophical conceptions of the cosmopolitan self proposed by theorists who work on travel and diaspora. I then use this critical examination as a springboard for thinking about transnational identities, emphasizing themes of home and community as fundamental components for developing a conception of a multicultural self These themes also set the stage for a further consideration of multicultural selves in the context of feminist care ethics and a metaphysics of belonging. In a discussion of feminist care ethics, I examine care by highlighting the transnational relationships that connect one's concrete caring practice to a global context. In order to articulate a metaphysics of belonging. I turn to the work of Josiah Royce and his notion of the "betweenness" relation as it emerges in his theories of provincialism, loyalty and community. This relation becomes the framework for a new understanding of multicultural selves in a transnational context. In extending this analysis to the political context. I consider how a "betweenness" framework emerges through corollary processes of "world-traveling" conceived by María Lugones and "home-making" as theorized by Yen Li Espiritu in establishing transnational feminist communities. I end this dissertation by pointing out new directions in conceiving how a transnational framework might address the political challenges posed by indigenous claims to sovereignty against Asian American practices of settlement. Ultimately, I intend to show how a transnational framework can be a fruitful resource in conceptualizing the multicultural self who can respond to colonialism and oppression in an increasingly globalized world. / Adviser: Scott Pratt

Includes bibliographical references / Interest in this topic was awakened by the rapid growth of Relay For Life in South Africa and its striking ability to bond people during mass cancer gatherings. Questions were raised about the generation of collective identities during these assemblies, the nature of the activated identities, and how these relate to the broader debates about cancer and identity. This inquiry investigates the unexplored intersection of cancer and identity in the context of a burgeoning solidarity movement that has found a strong following countrywide. A contemporary hermeneutic perspective allowed a dual focus on the micro-sociological dimensions and the structural elements that converge to generate collective identities at assemblies. A theoretical scheme was synthesized out of the work of theorists who deal with collective identity, spaces set aside for people in crisis, social interaction during focused gatherings and illness narratives. A non-comparative case study was used to investigate the phenomenon at 20 cancer assemblies. Short-term ethnography, focus group interviews, photographs and YouTube videos provided the data that was analysed using the hermeneutic circle of interpretation. The findings showed that personal illness identities and situation-specific role identities interact with a potent cocktail of elements - ephemeral space, a shared focus on cancer, collective action, illusion and emotions - to activate three symbolic identities: a dominant collective identity that relies on heroic warrior mythology, a secondary collective identity that draws upon a transformation ideal, and a hidden identity which has its roots in the notion of being wounded. It is argued that assemblies rely on a dominant collective identity which is symbolic in nature and imposed on participants by the cancer movement. Participants are portrayed as positive, hopeful heroic warriors tasked with vanquishing cancer. Although ubiquitous at cancer assemblies, the dominant collective identity is nevertheless sufficiently fluid to allow a measure of hybridization, inversion and contestation. This inquiry gives credence to other work on cancer and identity which recognizes that the dominant identity provides benefits not offered by a victim representation. It also expresses reservations about the wisdom of expecting affected people to maintain a brave exterior in the face of an illness that causes emotional disequilibrium.

Prior research has linked discrimination based on specific attributions (e.g. race/ethnicity) to anxiety symptoms. Researchers also have stated the importance of characteristics (e.g., visibility) of stigmatized identities for the experience of those identities. The present study expands prior research by examining relations among perceived discrimination as well as characteristics of identities/stigmas (saliency, secrecy, visibility, cognitive time) – regardless of attribution or specific identity – and anxiety symptoms. This study explores these relations among a sample of students attending a Southeastern university (N=659) and who completed an online survey about identity (including stigmatizing identities). Mean age for participants was 20.8, with the majority being White (89.1%) and female (69.3%). Items pertaining to saliency, visibility, and secrecy of identity were assessed using individual items rated on a 6-point Likert scale (1=Not Very; 6=Very). An item pertaining to how often the individual thought about the particular identity in everyday life (cognitive time) was rated on a 4-point Likert scale (1=Strongly Disagree; 4=Strongly Agree). Everyday Discrimination (Williams, 1995) occurrences were rated on a 6-point Likert scale (1=Almost Everyday; 6=Never). Finally, anxiety symptoms (Derogatis, 1986) were measured on a 5-point Likert scale (0=Not at all; 4=Extremely). Reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s index of internal consistency; anxiety (α=.90) and discrimination (α =.92). Bivariate correlations were conducted on main study variables. Results showed discrimination was positively correlated with anxiety symptoms (r=.29, p=.01). Identity characteristics of saliency (r=.088, p=.05), secrecy (r=.189, p=.01), and cognitive time (r=.119, p=.01) were significantly and positively correlated with anxiety. In addition, and consistently, trying to keep the identity a secret was linked with more symptoms of anxiety and perceived discrimination. Thus, specific attribution aside, discrimination is linked with anxiety, and the more one tries to hide stigma the more anxious and the more discrimination one perceives. Future research should test the temporal nature of these relations.

This study examines how identity processes affect role exit. I test a model of role exit that situates the identity processes of cognitive processes (reflected appraisals and social comparisons), rewards and costs related to the role, commitment to the role, and identity centrality as mediating factors between role-set and social characteristic background factors, and role exit. Using a sample of 940 current and former soccer referees in Virginia and the District of Columbia, the results show that several role-set background factors and social characteristics affect role exit. However, identity processes explain some of the effect that the background factors have on role exit. The results have implications for identity theory and role exit theory and for helping referee organizations understand why referees quit. / Ph. D.