The Republic of Ghana is the legacy of the colonial amalgam of multiple, and previously distinct, ethnic homelands. The Trans-Volta Togoland became the Volta Region of Ghana following a Plebiscite in 1956. The dominant ethnic group in this region; the Ewe, has long maintained a claim of neglect of the Volta Region and the marginalization of its people in this postcolonial state. Protests in the street and at media houses ensued against the State. This qualitative case study explores the undercurrents of this conflict in the context of the Ewe group’s identity and their experiences of neglect and marginalization in the postcolonial state. The main objective of the study was to understand why the Ewe group has not revolted despite the perceptions of deprivation. This study focused on the Ewe group in the Volta Region of Ghana a as sub-colonial construct that has managed its perceptions of deprivation without revolting against the host State.

ŠPIRKOVÁ, Veronika: "Homeless shelter" [Diploma Thesis]. Charles University in Prague. Faculty of Philosophy; Department of Ethnology. Thesis supervisor: Doc. PhDr. Marek Jakoubek, Ph.D., Degree of Qualification: Master. Prague: FFUK, 2017. ?? p. The diploma thesis deals with the socio-spatial aspects of the social service of the day center and the dormitory designed for people without a roof. It presents its current state of affairs with regard to the clientele, the function of the shelter, the principles of affiliation in it, but also the reflection of the homeless people and the employees on the necessity of change. The aim of the thesis is to visualize the living space, opinions and values of the clients of the shelter and their relation to the place, mediated by their statements and everyday practices. The thesis is divided into eight chapters. Thematically they describe previous investigation of issue, theoretical basis, methodics of research, goals, etics and auto- ethnographic experience. They describes also clients of the shelter, its purpose and values, rules, habits that are in the shelter, and last but not least its possible reconceptualization. The conclusion of the thesis summarizes the findings of research and their possible usage in future research. Diploma thesis is elaborated on...

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By “taking a knee” during the performance of the U.S. national anthem, National Football League (NFL) players have been protesting “the oppression of people of colour and ongoing issues with police brutality” in America (Colin Kaepernick, the movement’s founder, quoted in Coombs et. al., 2017). Despite this clarity of intention, the meaning of these protests (whether they are necessary and patriotic or counterproductive and ‘un-American’, for example) has been hotly contested in the public sphere, indicating the presence of a deeply seated counter-hegemonic struggle that is both expressed and contributed to by the anthem protest discourse. This project explores this struggle through the lens of narrative assembly, or the individual and intertextual construction of meaning through the selection and arrangement of narrative objects. Special attention is paid to the treatment of social, symbolic, and normative boundaries by storytellers responding to the anthem protest and by the anthem protesters themselves, especially those related to political expression in professional sports, American national and racial identity, and racial exclusion and marginalization. The project utilizes a structural approach to narrative analysis called the Qualitative Narrative Policy Framework (QNPF) supplemented by insights from Arthur Frank’s (2010) method of Dialogical Narrative Analysis (DNA). These methods are applied in a sociological study of a segment of the NFL anthem protest discourse published in newspaper articles during the first 16 months following the start of the controversy. This sample captures narrative responses to three significant moments—Kaepernick’s initiation of the protest, U.S. president Donald Trump’s verbal attack on protesting players in speeches and over social media (which also resulted in mass-displays of unified resistance from NFL players), and Kaepernick’s failure to obtain an NFL contract the year following his protest. Findings indicate that by transgressing several normative boundaries related to work, sports, protest, and signalling patriotism, NFL anthem protest subverts a hegemonic tale of national unity and exposes the systemic discrimination and symbolic/social exclusion that continue to produce experiences of oppression for people of colour and others in the United States. By attending to their assembly of settings, characters, plotlines, memories, solutions, and moral lessons, authors that support the protests are shown forming an intertextual or collective narrative around a central demand for justice that challenges the American status quo and projects a preferred future of enhanced racial equality yet to be achieved by the nation. Alternately, authors who oppose the protests are observed assembling a collective narrative around a demand for respect that defends boundaries essential to the maintenance of the status quo and expresses a desire to return to a past America of uninterrupted white dominance. In addition to providing a detailed case study that focuses on processes of narrative assembly in relation to counter-hegemony and social, symbolic, and normative boundaries, the project serves as an example of how the emergent methodology of the QNPF can be applied to the study of dynamic instances of everyday cultural-political struggle that may fall outside the sphere of policy research in which it has typically been employed. / Graduate / 2021-01-06

Segregation is an acknowledged issue in Sweden. The aim of this study was to examine the trust towards the social services among adolescents living in segregated areas in Gävle. Previous research shows the importance of trust to achieve a good work alliance and a good outcome. Four focus group discussions including 19 adolescents were held with representation from three segregated areas in Gävle. The empirical material has been analyzed on the bases of social constructivism and epistemic trust. The results show a lack of trust towards the social services and instead the adolescents put their trust in rumors, friends and family. The results also show a desire from the adolescents of more open relationships with the social workers as well as a wish for a trust creating work and spreading of information from the social services. The study thereby shows a flaw and a development area for the social services. / Segregation är ett uppmärksammat problem i Sverige. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur tilliten till socialtjänsten upplevs bland ungdomar i segregerade bostadsområden i Gävle kommun. Forskning visar på vikten av tillit för att uppnå en god arbetsallians och ett gott resultat. Fyra fokusgruppsdiskussioner med sammanlagt 19 ungdomar har genomförts med representanter från tre av Gävles segregerade områden. Det empiriska materialet har analyserats utifrån socialkonstruktivistisk teori samt epistemisk tillit. Resultaten visar en bristande tillit till socialtjänsten och att ungdomar istället litar på rykten, vänner och familj. Resultaten visar även en önskan från ungdomarnas sida om öppnare relationer med fältarbetare och socialsekreterare samt en önskan om ett tillitsskapande arbete och informationsspridning från socialtjänstens sida. Studien lyfter därmed fram en brist och ett utvecklingsområde för socialtjänsten.

This study sought to find out the root causes of the marginalization of the physically disabled children in Machakos district of Kenya. It aimed at coming up with proposals for integrating physically disabled children into regular schools and to enhance their welfare. Through an analysis of the practice by the Small homes programme and the government s segregated special education provision, lessons for effective integration of the physically disabled children were learnt.The goal of this study was achieved by carrying out a research in Machakos district of Kenya. Data were collected by carrying out face-to-face interviews and one Focus group Discussion among a sample size of 170. The data were analysed using content analysis.The study findings show that although education is considered a basic right and need, its access and provision to the physically disabled children has experienced problems that impede its implementation. These include: - lack of clarity of the policy of integration, negative traditional beliefs towards disabilities, the approach of implementing integrated education, low parental participation, lengthy assessment procedures of disabilities, lack of adequate specialist teachers, limited data on disabilities and limited access to education caused by high fees levies, lack of suitable transport services and access to mobility aids and suitable physical environment and amenities.Further study findings show that Inclusive Education can work and that reservations to Inclusive Education can be overcome. The findings showed that the Small homes need to make their school environments least restrictive for the physically disabled children and to adapt an inclusive culture. Opposition to Special schools was based on the negative effects to the children including segregation, disruption to family life, low social and academic grounding.

The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to describe the teachers' perceptions of pedagogy and examine their cross-cultural strategies regarding culturally responsive teaching of K-12 students. Indigenous students of the Northwest Territories (NWT) face academic challenges in a Eurocentric educational system. Tribal critical race theory and Eurocentric diffusionism provided the conceptual framework in this study. Six participants were interviewed and their narratives were triangulated by a 5-member focus group. The research questions focused on the teachers' strategies for building bridges between the Eurocentric and Native ways. Participants were interviewed and their responses created individual stories, which added to the meaning making. Fifteen themes were identified using open and axial coding. The findings showed a teacher proclivity for pedagogy infused with Indigenous thought, and an understanding that residential schooling was intrusive to Indigenous life. Participants presented an anti-Eurocentric diffusionist stance, advocating for schooling that matches Indigenous life and is devoted to a dynamic home-school culture directed at closing the achievement gap with the rest of Canada. This study contributes to social change by providing supporting evidence for the need to involve Indigenous students in the development of their education.

Pre-modern conceptualization of shifting borderlands and territories rather than fixed boundaries often allowed for the dynamic flow of peoples between polities. Until the late 1800s and the colonization of Burma in 1886 by the British Empire, this permeability of the borders of its territory was how Siam (currently Thailand) viewed its geo-political sphere (Thomson 1995:272). Britain extended the boundaries of its empire beyond India to guarantee the economic interests of the British Empire. With this push eastward, Siam abutted a polity that rejected the idea of shifting borderlands. The British ascribed to the modern concept of non-permeability of borders. This concept brought with it a rigidity of perception that extended beyond geographical frameworks to also psychologically limit the interpersonal connections of Siam's multi-ethnic minority populations and the Tai ethnic majority (Keyes 1979:54, Marlowe 1979:203, Thomson 1995:281). Ancient residents of what was once the borderland area, the Karen, lost their status as a valuable part of a symbiotic relationship with the dominant Thai polity and were placed within a discourse of opposing binary factions. The Karen, once respected as stewards of the remote forestlands, became part of a larger group of peoples all of which have been labeled as the "hill tribes" (Trakarnsuphakorn 1997:218). This paper addresses how globalization and these social and political changes have resulted in marginalizing a group of diverse peoples who are now viewed as a threat to the security of the nation-states in which they reside. The discussion continues with a look at how the narrative about the Karen has changed and introduces a proposal for constructing a new empowering for the Karen.

The following essay applies an intersectional lens to the character analysis of Jade, the main character in Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart Is a Chainsaw (2021), as it aims to introduce EFL students to the principles of the intersectional theory framework. As Jade, as a way of dealing with her reality as an abused and marginalized young part-Native American adolescent, obsessively frames her real-life experiences in a slasher movie context, the novel explores the themes of identity, marginalization, empowerment through the way Jade sees herself in relation to the Final Girl: the archetypal female protagonist featured in slasher movies. By analyzing the contrasting relationship between Jade and the concept of the Final Girl, students engage with the intersectional premise that it is the complex and dynamic interplay between Jade’s gender, race, class, and circumstances that dictates Jade’s subjectivity and inability to identify with the agentic and empowered Final Girl. As Jade ultimately transforms into her own version of a Final Girl, the essay argues that her transformation represents how a marginalized character claims her identity and becomes the protagonist of her own narrative.

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