I develop a feminist critique of three features in contemporary views of race: the meaning of race is essentially biological; each of us has exactly one kind of racial identity; and our racial identities are permanent. Having revealed each of these features to be confusions about the language of racial identification, I contend that our racial concepts currently permit a wider range of racial identifications than we currently acknowledge. Finally, I critically evaluate the political and ethical ramifications of treating race as a unified, permanent identity. Resistance to systems of racial and gendered oppression should challenge our identities as unified and permanent. / text

To state that the 1994 Rwandan genocide was one of the most horrific catastrophes that occurred in the 20th century is to restate the obvious. This thesis is an analytical exploration of the root causes of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It explains how Tutsi became non-indigenous Hamities and how Hutu became native indigenous, leaving the two populations to be identified along racial and ethnic lines. In 1933, the Belgians introduced identity cards which specified one‟s ethnic affiliation, giving birth to political identities as Hutu and Tutsi ceased to become cultural identities and became political identities. The identities of Hutu and Tutsi were not only legally enforced, but they also became linked to the governance of the state. Tutsi was now associated with state power and domination, while Hutu was linked with suppression and discrimination. Independent Rwanda, the Hutu took over power and continued to subscribe to some of the colonial racists ideologies and maintained Tutsi and Hutu as political identities. The once oppressed Hutu became the oppressor, whilst the once dominate Tutsi became the oppressed. The victim group construction theories were used in this study to examine the ills of race-branding in independent Rwanda. The Hutu regimes of the First Republic (1962-1973) and the Second Republic (1973-1994), failed to go beyond the colonist‟s strategy of divide and rule and instead continued to apply this racist ideology to bring justice to the Hutu, which turned into revenge for the Tutsi. Hence, this study analysis and evaluates how the citizenship and political identity crisis led to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

This thesis is an attempt to document and explain the manifest changes that have been taking place in Welsh identity since 1979, and the political consequences thereof. It is presupposed that before any autonomist outbursts and other, related political changes take place in a sub-national region such as Wales, some sort of identive change has to occur. This 'identive change' is posited to take place in two stages - identity transformation followed by identity mobilisation. Central chapters deal with this process in two, non-exclusive, dimensions - institutions and individual agents. Alongside institution-building, certain policy areas are deemed to be of crucial importance in relation to the maintenance and dissemination of Welsh identity, namely education and broadcasting. In addition, the relationship between endogenous and exogenous forces affecting Welsh identity is considered in the context of civil society, political praxis, the economy and the European Union. These events are charted and analysed by means of primarily qualitative techniques which emphasise the importance of the positional and strategic confluence of individual 'gatekeepers', who are able to influence policy and, perhaps more importantly, affect the perception and reception of new ideologies and institutional exigencies.

Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 245-251). / Electronic reproduction. / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / [3], ix, 251 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2008. / "Publication number: AAT 3347262."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2009. / Includes abstract. Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Title from first page of PDF file (viewed March 24, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 310-333). Also issued in print.

Critical urban studies has shifted in recent years toward a focus on inequality and identity-based tension in developing countries. These theories have evolved alongside pressure for inclusive urban governance that recognizes a right to difference for minorities in cities. In the rapidly urbanizing People's Republic of China, these complex issues threaten the inclusiveness of future development. Ürümqi, the capital city of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), has been the site of social unrest between the Han Chinese majority and the Uyghur minority for more than a century. Economic growth and urbanization have resulted in increasing inequality and tensions between Han and Uyghur people that periodically erupt in violence, as did in Ürümqi in July of 2009. These tensions are complicated by the socio-economic marginalization of minorities, and the exclusion of the overall population from urban governance processes. Following the July 2009 riots, the Xinjiang government expressed willingness for more inclusive urban development; however the local government lacks the necessary tools to facilitate participation, and as such resident perceptions go unheard. This study adapts critical urban theory and Chinese political thought for the non-democratic context of Ürümqi, China. The perceptions of local residents are evaluated using a questionnaire and focus groups, through which it is shown that resident perceptions and use of urban space are heavily affected by ethnic identity. This, coupled with the banning of Uyghur cultural practices and exclusion of residents from public affairs, exacerbates urban inequalities and identity-based tension. It is important that critical urban studies take residents' inability to participate in urban governance processes (particularly in non-democratic contexts) into account when studying the link between identity and urban space.

Abstract “At the Intersection of Transgender Attitudes, Identity Politics, and Vote Choice” Amy Howard and Dr. Wesley Wehde, Department of Political Science, International Affairs and Public Administration, College of Arts and Sciences, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN. Political scientists have been increasingly focused on the role of identity politics in determining vote choice, with recent work including the potential penalties faced by gender and sexual minorities. Research indicates that both candidate and voter characteristics play a role in vote choice, with the largest penalties incurred by transgender candidates and small or no penalties assigned by non-religious and politically progressive voters. However, our study improves on extant research by differentiating between male and female transgender candidates; adding a non-binary option for gender identity; including a bisexual option for sexual orientation; and differentiating between moderate and far-left or far-right candidate ideologies within the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively. In line with previous research, we conducted a conjoint experiment to examine the peculiar impact of male/female transgender, non-binary gender identity, and bisexuality on vote choice, even in comparison with straight and gay candidates. Respondents were asked to choose between ten sets of hypothetical candidates for their district House of Representatives, with Republican or right-leaning respondents being shown randomized combinations of candidates who were classified as “moderate” or “far-right,” and Democratic or left-leaning respondents being shown randomized combinations of candidates who were classified as “moderate” or “far-left.” The remaining candidate attributes were also randomized for each respondent, and included age, race, gender, education, religion, ideology, previous experience, and sexual orientation. Upon completion of our data analysis, we expect our results to be consistent with those of the aforementioned research, with gay candidates—particularly black, gay candidates—facing penalties at the ballot box, and transgender candidates facing higher penalties than gay candidates. We will build on these findings by differentiating between genders in “transgender,” and with the addition of the “non-binary,” “bisexual” options, as well as the inclusion of “far-right” and “far-left” political ideologies. This study will contribute to our understanding of how voter and candidate identities affect vote choice, particularly in the case of gender and sexual minority candidates. Such an understanding can be used to develop policies and strategies that will ultimately increase LGBTQ+ representation in government, and improve the safety, welfare and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ Americans.

Why, in the aftermath of 9/11, did a segment of U.S. security experts, political elite, media and other institutions classify not just al-Qaeda but the entire religion of Islam as a security threat, thereby countering the prevailing professional consensus and White House policy that maintained a distinction between terrorism and Islam? Why did this oppositional threat narrative on Islam expand and even degenerate into warning about the “Islamization” of America by its tiny population of Muslim-Americans—a perceived threat sufficiently convincing that legislators in two dozen states introduced bills to prevent the spread of Islamic law, or sharia, and a Republican Presidential front-runner exclaimed, “I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it”? This dissertation takes these puzzles as its object of inquiry. Using a framework that conceptualizes discourses and their agents as fundamentally political, this study deepens the literature’s characterizations of this discourse as “Islamophobia,” the “new Orientalism,” the “new McCarthyism,” and so on by examining how it functioned politically as a form of cultural politics, and how such political factors played a role in its expansion in the decade after 9/11. The approach is syncretic, blending Foucauldian genealogy with its emphasis on power, a more interpretive Bourdieuan relational sociology, and synthetic social movement theory. First, it examines the discourse at its macro-level, in the historical and structural factors that formed its conditions of emergence; specifically: 1) the culturally-resident political framing structure that rendered this discourse meaningful and credible; 2) the politically-relevant social-structural resources that rendered it influential; and 3) the more historically contingent or eventful political openings or opportunity “structure” that otherwise enabled, supported, or incentivized it. Then, it examines this threat discourse at its micro-level, biographically profiling three of its more influential polemicists, analyzing their strategies of cultural politics. The study concludes that this threat discourse functioned as a distinctive strategy by the more entrepreneurial segments of the U.S. conservative movement, who—in the emotion-laden wake of 9/11—seized Islam as another opportune site to advance their ongoing project of cultural politics. / Ph. D.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English at the University of Zululand, 2017 / Athol Fugard and Maishe Maponya both used the postdramatic theatre, which was largely anti-elitist, anti-text, experimental and collaborative, at certain point in their literary careers. They rebelled against established conventions, and, in their own ways, produced a type of theatre that suited their context and literary and ideological leanings. The rebellion and transformation of the theatre was not peculiar to them, but was a universal phenomenon at the time this thesis examines. As such, it manifested in works of artists who appropriated the new dramatic techniques to represent their different contexts and emerging socio-political trends. The thesis examines the collaborative process of Fugard, Kani, and Ntshona in view of the critical debates about identity, politics, role play, and Fugard’s claim to primary authorship of Sizwe Bansi is Dead and The Island. Collaboration is not a fixed term or practice. It depends largely on the play, play-making situation, and intention. It also changes even with the same artists involved in the collaboration. The devising process that led to The Coat, for example, differed from that of Sizwe Bansi is Dead and The Island. Even the collaborative process of Sizwe Bansi is Dead and The Island differs despite that the plays were produced around the same time. Fugard’s collaboration with the Circle Players (late 1950s) also differs from his collaboration with the Serpent Players (1960s) and that with Kani and Ntshona (early 1970s). Collaboration meant different things at different times for Fugard. He seems to have ridden on the coattails of black actors, although he successfully toured the plays around the world. Maponya’s idea of collaboration differs from that of Fugard. Although Maponya did not officially collaborate with actors, he used them as conduits into their lived experiences (The Hungry Earth) and professions (Umongikazi). This play-making technique is in many ways collaborative and similar to Fugard’s collaborative pattern during his work with the Circle Players in the production of No-Good Friday and Nongogo. Maponya lifts up the black artist but suffers the consequences. Fugard and Maponya used the actors in different capacities and utilised fairly similar, but different, collaborative techniques. They both utilised experimental, improvisational, and workshop-based methods differently, and at different times. The white South African playwright Fugard prepared the ground for radical experimentation with form and content in South Africa. Fugard enjoys a place of honour in the South African (and more generally African) canon. His reputation as a great writer, creative collaborator and director, and as a person who was able to create a unique theatre that blended African and Western forms of performance, has been acknowledged globally. His work with black actors, notably John Kani and Winston Ntshona, enabled this feat. He adopted a multidimensional approach to art, retained his literary leaning and identity, collaborated, and assisted in training and directing of black actors, and so contributed in his own equally potent way to the struggle against apartheid through the theatre. He promoted a belief in “the personal is political” through plays to be examined herein. The Coat (1966), Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972) and The Island (1973) are selected because they are Fugard’s most political plays and because they were devised in collaboration with actors. The Hungry Earth (1979), Gangsters (1984) and Jika (1986) also pass the litmus test because they are Maponya’s most radical indictment of the apartheid regime and because they were also devised through experiments with actors who provided material and acting. In contrast to most writing on Fugard and Maponya, which are anchored to either a literary interpretation of the plays or performance discourse, this study offers a literary and performative analysis of the selected plays, demonstrating that this must be done together. This thesis also offers a comparative analysis of the selected plays. Maponya is a black artist and bitter playwright of the Struggle. His works are multifaceted, open to differing interpretations and are fairly universal and timeless because of their concern with general themes such as capitalism, subversion and containment; so also for their relation with more universal works, and their demonstration that the local and immediate experiences can have global legs. His concern with Black Consciousness and resistance however confined his status to a black ideologue. Maponya’s dramas nonetheless resist the accustomed standard of categorisation as plays by a black South African dramatist. The sharp cataloguing between white and black and major and minor playwright begins to fall apart when comparing Fugard and Maponya in terms of theatre practice and experiences. The reception of Maponya’s plays – both at home and abroad – reveals that he was an equally theatrically-aware and successful artist of the struggle, although he cannot be evenly matched with Fugard in terms of literary craft and outreach. This reductionism has also affected Fugard, who many regard as a liberal white writer. His colour was a handicap and a saving grace since it allowed him to work with black actors despite the laws banning interracial relations. The discourse of commitment in the plays to be examined – as well as in the dramatists’ practice of theatre – is centred on the relation between intention, context and text. The study examines the artists’ contribution(s) to the struggle; and how effective that contribution is, considering the complicated context and events they wrote about. To my knowledge, no other work, specifically, examines these two quite different playwrights, particularly in the context of their writing methods, their political reception in South Africa and abroad, and their ideas about play-making. New Historicism is chosen for the analysis of the selected plays because they are produced in history and for the theory’s concern with historical situation; because it is more of a practice than a set of doctrines or theory (Greenblatt 1990); and because it is concerned with intention and choice of genre (Bressler 2000). The theory, or rather practice, is also chosen because it promotes the study of both major and minor authors, thereby blurring the distinction between them (Gallagher and Greenblatt 2000); and because it accords more place for collaborative works (Greenblatt 1989) – which is one of the main concerns of this study.