This master’s thesis will be discussing how nuanced experiences affects the crafting of identity among transnational and/or transracial adult adoptees raised in Sweden from an anthropological perspective.The purpose of this thesis is to show that adoptees craft their identity in numerous and complex ways, one as unique as the other. The nuanced experiences are important to underscore since the adoptee demographic is vast and it consists of multiple individuals with unique lives, and if these distinctiveness are ignored, we run the risk of depicting a flawed picture of the adoptee experience. In an attempt to avoid doing so, this thesis will use an intersection of different theoretical frameworks from previous literatureon adoption and identity, which are belonging, body, and kinning, with additional theoretical concepts on materiality to complement. This paper follows eight adoptees, who share their individual narratives that revolves around the crafting of their Swedish, Adoption, and Ethnic identity. I will bring their experiences to life by putting them in relation to each other to showcase their uniqueness. Keywords: Adoption, Belonging, Body, Kinship.

Much of what we know about workplace inequality, we know from studies on work in industrial and information-based economies. There has been less interrogation into how processes of inequality are formed and sustained in creative work and cultural industries. Given the growing trend away from traditional work rooted in formal organizations and toward cultural industries, how can we understand the relationship between work and inequality in non-standard, creative labour? To answer this question I explore the world of stand-up comedy by drawing on 25 semi-structured interviews with stand-up comedians and over one hundred hours of observational data. My analysis reveals that comedy work is organized around the image of an ‘ideal worker,’ an ideal maintained by intersubjective mechanisms of rule: diversity logics, compulsory networking, and creative license. The existence of the ‘ideal worker’ influences how, when, and under what conditions work happens in stand-up comedy for those who fall outside of that ideal. Specifically, workers’ social locations shape how they self-manage, marginalized workers must self-regulate in relation to the work (like everyone else) and the ‘ideal worker.’ Finally, the analysis reveals that workers in stand-up comedy use various strategies to negotiate consent and resistance in their work arrangements in terms of where and under what circumstances they work. Overall, this research highlights how the micro politics of capital are informed by larger power relations that sustain inequality in cultural work settings. Specifically, this work demonstrates the need to address how ‘ideal workers’ are maintained in cultural work, as well as how social location shapes processes of self-management and strategic engagement within unequal work environments. / Dissertation / Doctor of Social Science

Our research applies an intersectional lens to consider how gender, ethnicity and the minority status of immigrants, shape women migrant entrepreneurs’ motivations, measure of success, and barriers at different stages of the entrepreneurial journey, accounting for the sociocultural context. We applied a qualitative approach constructed around a case study strategy and semi-structured interviews with 6 Latin American migrant women entrepreneurs running a business in Ottawa, Canada.  The results highlighted that there is wide range of motivations for women migrant entrepreneurs to start running a business and they are confronted with different barriers. They may share some similar motivations and barriers, but their socio-cultural context makes each of their situations unique. We came to the same conclusion regarding their definition of entrepreneurial success. This research brings a better understanding of the motivations and barriers faced by an understudied population and it also allowed them to define their own criteria for measuring success. The results are limited to only one study area and one ethnicity. A larger sample size with more cases from multiple study areas could provide further insights.

By conducting both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data from interviews and game content, I examine representations of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary video-game narratives. I use data from interviews to show how they view their representations in this medium and to set categorical criteria for an interpretive content analysis. I analyze a sample of top-selling narrative-driven video games in the United States released from 2016-2019. My content coding incorporates aforementioned interview data as well as theoretical-based and intersectional concepts on video game characters and their narratives. The content analysis includes measures of narrative importance, narrative role, positivity of representation, and demographic categories of characters, though the scale of this study may not allow for a full test of intersectional theory of links between demographics and roles. Interview and content analysis results suggest an overrepresentation of white characters and extreme under-representation of non-white women. / I examine representations of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary video-game narratives. I use data from interviews to show how people view their representations in video games and to set a guide for analyzing the games themselves. I analyze a sample of top-selling narrativedriven video games in the United States released from 2016-2019. My content coding incorporates aforementioned interview data as well as theoretical-based and intersectional concepts on video game characters and their narratives. The content analysis includes measures of narrative importance, narrative role, positivity of representation, and demographic categories of characters, though the scale of this study may not allow for a full test of intersectional theory of links between demographics and roles. Interview and content analysis results suggest an overrepresentation of white characters and extreme under-representation of non-white women.

Given the increasing evidence of the benefits of father involvement, this study examined the process of fathering and the contributions to supporting father involvement and father identity. Emerging research in fathering suggests a complex set of contextual factors as influences on father identity and behavior. Social location, identities, and life events provide an opportunity to study variation and change in fathering. Guided by an integrated framework of symbolic interactionism and intersectionality theories, this study examined fathers' needs and desires in parenting programs. To address these needs in the literature, grounded theory methods were employed to analyze data from semi-structured interviews of 50 fathers of infants residing in the Appalachian region of Virginia. Results revealed a process model of fathering consisting of interactions within and between themes of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional and sociocultural domains. The factors of these three domains relate to father identity, meaning making in fatherhood, and enactment of fathering. Within a model of vulnerabilities and resiliencies, two typologies of fathers emerged: the thriving father and the evolving father. Implications for family strengthening programs and future research are explored. / Ph. D. / Father involvement and father identity are areas of interest in family development due to the evidence of increasing benefits of father involvement. This study examined the process of fathering and the contributions to supporting father involvement and father identity. This study examined fathering within the fathers’ social contexts, identities, and life events. Through interviews with fathers of infants living in rural Appalachia Virginia, this study examined variation and change in fathering. Additionally, this study examined fathers’ needs and desires in parenting programs. Qualitative grounded theory methods were employed to analyze data from semi-structured interviews of 50 fathers of infants residing in the Appalachian region of Virginia. Results revealed a process model of fathering that emphasizes interactions within and between themes of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional and sociocultural domains. The factors of these three domains relate to father identity, meaning making in fatherhood, and fathering behaviors. Utilizing a model that addresses vulnerabilities and resiliencies, two typologies of fathers emerged: the thriving father and the evolving father. Implications for family strengthening programs and future research are explored.

African American Literature in the 20th century engaged many social and racial issues that mainstream white America marginalized during the pre-civil rights era through the use of rhetoric, setting, plot, narrative, and characterization. The use of passing fostered an outlet for many light-skinned men and women for inclusion. This trope also allowed for a closer investigation of the racial division in the United States during the 20th century. These issues included questions of the color line, or more specifically, how light-skinned men and women passed as white to obtain elevated economic and social status. Secondary issues in these earlier passing novels included gender and sexuality, raising questions as to whether these too existed as fixed identities in society. As such, the phenomenon of passing illustrates not just issues associated with the color line, but also social, economic, and gender structure within society. Human beings exist in a matrix, and as such, passing is not plausible if viewed solely as a process occurring within only one of these social constructs, but, rather, insists upon a viewpoint of an intersectional construct of social fluidity itself. This paper will re-theorize passing from a description solely concerning racial movements into a theory that explores passing as an intersectional understanding of gender, sexuality, race, and class. This paper will focus on contemporary cultural products (e.g., novels) of passing that challenge the traditional notion of passing and focus on an intersectional linkage between race, gender, sexuality, and class. / Ph. D. / The concept of passing (the notion of appearing as something, or someone, you are not) has been explored thoroughly in novels, memoirs, biographies, and films. Passing novels tend to look closely at the effects of passing on the passer and the motivation for passing. The motivation for passing differs but does include a desire to cross the color line. However, here, the traditional concept of passing was expanded and an intersectional passing model was constructed, which closely analyzed the stages a person must overcome in order to successfully pass. This model was then applied to a selection of six literary texts. These texts were divided into three separate chapters: gender, sexuality and class. The intersectional passing model illuminated several elements of the passing experience; however, certain stages did present unforeseen issues in the model. These stages were most applicable in Western constructions of gender, sexuality, and class. The stages of the model were intended to give a practical guide to mapping the experience of passing, not only in literary texts, but also for those who are interested in the concept of passing. The intersectional passing model can likewise be used as a teaching tool to illustrate the hurdles one must overcome to pass.

Yes / Violence against women in politics is on the rise, threatening political achievements with respect to equality. Little research, however, has been conducted on the experiences of women from minority communities. This article, therefore, takes an intersectional approach to explore how gender, religion, and other categories of difference intersect when it comes to Muslim women’s experiences in the UK. Based on a longitudinal case study of Bradford West during the 2015, 2017, and 2019 general elections that combines participant observations, qualitative interviews, and a Twitter analysis, we argue that, in addition to the violence often experienced by women, Muslim women are also confronted with Islamophobic bias and abuse, as well as intersectional intimidation and harassment from within the Muslim community in their constituencies. Our case study approach, however, also reveals the existence of appreciation and support for Muslim women in politics that needs to be nurtured to counter abuse.

Yes / Gender archaeology has made significant strides toward deconstructing the hegemony of binary categorizations. Challenging dichotomies such as man/woman, sex/gender, and biology/culture, approaches informed by poststructuralist, feminist, and queer theories have moved beyond essentialist and universalist identity constructs to more nuanced configurations. Despite the theoretical emphasis on context, multiplicity, and fluidity, binary starting points continue to streamline the spectrum of variability that is recognized, often reproducing normative assumptions in the evidence. The contributors to this special issue confront how sex, gender, and sexuality categories condition analytical visibility, aiming to develop approaches that respond to the complexity of theory in archaeological practice. The papers push the ontological and epistemological boundaries of bodies, personhood, and archaeological possibility, challenging a priori assumptions that contain how sex, gender, and sexuality categories are constituted and related to each other. Foregrounding intersectional approaches that engage with ambiguity, variability, and difference, this special issue seeks to “de-contain” categories, assumptions, and practices from “binding” our analytical gaze toward only certain kinds of persons and knowledges, in interpretations of the past and practices in the present.

This Bachelor thesis is an interpretive study, where the material has mainly been gathered through ethnographic methods, with thematically opened interviews and observations providing the primary data. A field study was conducted in Bolivia during the months of November and December of 2009; in La Paz in the Western highlands, including some interviews in the fast growing suburb El Alto, as well as in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in the Eastern lowlands. Bolivia is one of the poorest and most unequal countries in Latin America and the world, and the purpose of the study is to re-contextualise and re-interpret how inequality is created and maintained in the Bolivian society by doing a case study on gender inequality. In addition, an intersectional analysis is used that takes into account the diversity of the Bolivian society in terms of ethnicity and class. The study aims at exploring the mechanisms that create and maintain inequality in a Bolivian context as well as looking at the prospects for potential change in the unequal relations between groups of people within the new context of indigenous president Evo Morales and a new inclusive constitution. Using an abductive method, the empirical material has been re-interpreted with the help of American sociologist Charles Tilly’s framework of durable inequality. He identifies two mechanisms that create inequality, exploitation and opportunity hoarding, and two mechanisms that reinforce inequality; emulation and adaptation. Together with the concept of intersectionality, recognising women’s different experiences depending on, for instance, ethnic background or social class, these two frameworks are framing the study. Jointly they generate a new analytical tool that can deepen the understanding inequality mechanisms: the Intersecting Inequality Framework. The content of the interviews when analysed show that inequalities in Bolivia have long historical roots, and that the processes of exploitation, opportunity hoarding, emulation and adaptation that Tilly describes all take place in creating and maintaining an unequal position for Bolivian women. The Intersecting Inequality Framework reveals that the inequality mechanisms in the three dimensions of gender, ethnicity and class sometimes work autonomously and other times intersectionally. Changing durable inequality is a slow process; nevertheless there are signs of changed relations between categorical bounded groups in the Bolivian society. Although, in the context of Morales the main political focus at the time lays not on attaining gender equality, but rather to continue the empowerment of the indigenous populations.

This report is the outcome of a case study conducted in Kathmandu, Nepal in April 2016. The purpose of the study is to investigate in the consequences of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, from the perspective of women within socioeconomically vulnerable groups. The caste system is still practiced nearly all over Nepal and women are still facing multiple forms of discrimination. A woman belonging to the Dalits, which is the group considered to be at the bottom of the hierarchy and below the castes, have no right to control land, housing or money and are exposed to violence and forced sexual labour. The aim of the study is to shed light over how already existing discrimination leads to further examples of discrimination in the aftermath of a natural disaster and the “class-consciousness” of natural disasters. People within a society are living under different conditions and these conditions lead to different consequences when facing a natural disaster. The components of these conditions are often intertwined with each other and should therefore not be examined separately, which is why an intersectional perspective is used for this study. Furthermore, standpoint theory is used as well, to look at these issues from the viewpoint of the marginalized people of the society. Interviews were made with 6 different respondents, who are working for NGOs in and outside of Kathmandu and who through their work are coming on contact with the issues mentioned. My findings show several examples of post-earthquake consequences for women which can be linked to the strong patriarchy, the use of caste system and mistreatment from the government.