This dissertation explores the role played by Kurdish theatre in the Kurdish national struggle in Iraq especially between 1975 and 1991. First, it traces the development of Kurdish theatre, within the socio-political context in Iraqi Kurdistan, from its emergence in the 1920s to the defeat of the Kurdish nationalist movement and the fall of the Kurdistan region under the direct Baath rule in 1975. It will then explore the Kurdish resistance theatre during the Baath rule and will analyse the representation of Kurdish nationalist identity in four dramas produced during the Baath rule between 1975 and 1991. By analysing the nationalist themes in the works of Ehmed Salar and Telet Saman, two prominent playwrights and directors of the late 1970s and the duration of the 1980s, I will argue that despite strict censorship during most of this period, theatre played a critical role in the Kurdish national struggle by staging Kurdish history, mythology, folklore, and re-enacting oppressed histories. Along with the thematic analysis of representative dramatic texts from the period and interviews with Kurdish theatre artists, this research draws on Kurdish theatre histories, historical documents, and journalistic accounts, to reveal how theatre participated in the Kurdish national struggle and how it responded to political changes in different historical periods.

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The study seeks to delineate the African socio-political environment through an analytical contextualisation of repetitive authoritative systems, which perpetuate exclusion and the formation of politicised identity. Through a process of historical evaluation of African politics since the majority of states became independent, the study attempts to test a constructed triangular supposition that explains why identity disputation persists at almost every level of African governance. Bearing in mind the almost natural progression of African politics towards identity contestation, the second overriding objective seeks to evaluate the secession of South Sudan as a possible preventative model for identity politicised conflict. In this fashion, the study delves into the politics of a previously unified Sudan; and the events that led South Sudan to eventually seek secession. The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the assumption that territorial secession in Africa is able to quell identity contestation and promote an opportunity for equitable democratic governance. To meet the above objectives, a comprehensive outlay of African socio-politics and governance will be utilised to frame the analysis. Firstly, the study seeks to elaborate on the historiography of African colonial legacy as providing the foundations of identity exclusive politics on the continent. In this way, considerable investigative reverence must be given to the respective policies of colonial administration, namely indirect rule and direct rule. The effects of either of these policies contend a type of socio-political conditioning of African elites and civil society that still persists at time of writing. The concentration of this endeavour will be focused towards indirect colonial policy most famously implemented by British colonialism. The effects of the British policy of ethnic and ethno-religious categorisation is vitally important to a greater understanding of the majority of examples studied in the literature, including the formation of identity contestation in the case of the Sudan. Secondly, to further understand the complex dynamism of African politics which lead to identity based disputation, the study will turn to an analysis of the rhetoric of African independent governance and ideology. The primary objective here will be to detail how differing enactments of African ideology, including the advent of Pan-Arabism to the case of Sudan, ultimately continued the tradition of exclusive citizenship and dominance of some groups over others on the continent. This leads the study to uncover the deeper reasons for why socio-political exclusion continues to the present day. The final dimension of the triangular process suggests that exclusion has been maintained in Africa to prevent access of subverted groups to governance structures and more importantly to the limited resources of African states. Finally, the case of the secession of South Sudan is interpreted through the analytical lens of politicised identity that forms in the face of inadequate state structures to provide legitimate democratic access to the state. The third facet of the proposed theoretical triangle suggests that conflict and contestation is a product of grievances expressed from political exclusion. In this way, it is pivotal to the study to assess whether secession, as in the case of South Sudan, provides a valid alternative platform for suppressing identity contestation and promoting effective democratic consolidation. By all accounts, there is overwhelming evidence already to suggest that secession may be a successful way to repress identity politicisation. However, there remain substantial hurdles for many African states, including a now autonomous South Sudan, in order to finally dissolve the enduring problems of socio-political exclusion. Propositions and possible solutions will be posited for these states as an ad hoc objective.

Nationalism among subject peoples in territories which are or have been at one time colonized by Europeans has generally been associated with political activity and the formation of parties. Slotkin, however has advanced a theory in 1956 which postulates nativistic movements as being the media of nationalism among non-literate peoples, consequently a form of nationalism may be present among a people who possess no formal political power over their affairs. Further, in the light of Slotkin's theory, the absence of formal political activity among subject peoples does not presuppose the absence of nationalism. Slotkin’s theory postulates the existence of a dominance-subordination relation between Europeans and Natives in colonial and other contexts of acculturation where two ethnic groups live in face-to-face contact with each other and where one of these groups is the dominant groupe. The dominance-subordination relation is believed to generate nationalism in the subordinate group, which exercising no effective political power over its affairs, expresses its feelings through nativistic movements which heretofore had been considered as purely "religious'* phenomena. The data required to test the theory are drawn from the three culture areas of Africa, North America and Oceania in each of which nativistic movements have occurred. The findings from the three areas are incorporated into a general theory of movement-based nationalism. The limits of Slotkin’s theory are established within the general theory above. Subject to qualifications concerning scale, Slotkin’s theory was found to be valid as regards the North American culture area and inadequate to cope with the data when extended further. This is due to the fact that the nationalism of North American Indians was based solely on nativistic movements and that of Africans and Oceanians had other bases besides nativism. Steps towards a modification of Slotkin’s theory, as well as the problems attendant to the formulation of an adequate theory of nationalism, are pointed out. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

This thesis aims at analysing comparatively the literary production of three African female authors - the Cape Verdean Dina Salústio (1941), the Mozambican Paulina Chiziane (1955) and the Angolan Rosária da Silva (1959) - so as to observe the authors' cultural construction of their complex postcolonial nations from a female-focalized point of view and their representation of the women of these nations interacting with the transcultural contexts of each analysed country. Their works demonstrate the importance of thinking nationalism and national identity through gender, simultaneously highlighting the potential of situated gender analysis for the understanding and contestation of the power networks that consolidate the supremacy of hegemonic discourses. Hence, the main argument that this thesis develops in three distinct chapters (each one devoted to the literary production of each author) and in the light of a particular theoretical framework is that the building of the post-independence nations under analysis is structured through gender differentiation. The point of departure for this project is the work developed by specific postcolonial theorists who analyse and deconstruct hegemonic discourses of identity. Hence, Benedict Anderson's understanding of the nation as an 'imagined political community' (1991) is explored and widened by Homi Bhabha's theorization of the dynamics of national discourse (1990), whose instability comes from the friction between its pedagogical and performative dimensions. This emphasis on empowering marginality takes us to Edward Said's reflections on exile (2001). For Said, the condition of exile represents an irrecoverable displacement of the human being as regards her/his own homeland, a state which she/he will permanently try to revoke. Andrea O'Reilly Herrera (2001) uses the term insílio to emphasise the psychological and emotional dimensions of this state, which precedes the actual physical exile. Reflections on the active involvement of the displaced in the renegotiation of the nation are also at the core of Mary Louise Pratt's theorization of contact zones, autoethnography and transculturation (1991). The emphasis on the disruptive potential of autoethnography is recaptured in Graham Huggan's study of the Post-Colonial Exotic (2001), focusing specifically on the potential of what he called 'celebratory autoethnography'. Nonetheless, considering that these approaches are largely gender blind, the study questions their premises further by incorporating postcolonial feminist theories and feminist theories from sociology. Anne McClintock (1995) and Nira Yuval-Davis's (1997) important proposal of the analysis of nationalism through the lens of a theory of gender power gave access to multiple experiences of the nation. Amina Mama's (2001) proposal of the analysis of individual and national identity through gender with a view to understanding and dismantling the power structures in operation adds to these strong theorizations. Considering that the three examined countries had one-party socialist regimes immediately after independence, Catherine Scott's study on gender and development theories (1995) facilitates a situated analysis of gender as well. Through this outlook, the study assesses the feasibility and limitation of the application of such theories to the gender-related issues in the specific context of postcolonial lusophone Africa. Furthermore, it explores the possible existence of common 'lusophone postcolonial' spaces that link these women's experiences of Portuguese colonialism and the socialist experiment. Women who Give Birth to New Worlds: Three Feminine Perspectives on Lusophone Postcolonial Africa, submitted by Maria Tavares to the University of Manchester for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2010.

Det politiska klimatet i Europa har de senaste åren blivit allt mer konservativt och det går idag att läsa hur den liberala demokratin på sina håll utmanas av icke-liberala samt konservativa ideologier. Nationalism är ett fenomen med förankring till historiska processer vilka bygger på komplexa uppfattningar om folket, nationen och tillhörigheten. I makt eller politiskt sammanhang används nationalismen av majoriteten för legitimering av politisk nationell ordning. Media är underordnad politisk, ekonomisk och juridisk reglering och har en betydande roll i samhället. Media kan både bidra till mediekonsumenternas verklighetsuppfattning, men kan även fungera som ”gatekeepers” för vilken information som väljs ut. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur svensk dags- och kvällspress presenterar och konstruerar uppfattningar och attityder om nationalism i Sverige. Den valda metoden är kritisk diskursanalys med Norman Faircloughs tredimensionella modell, i kombination med det socialkonstruktionisitiska perspektivet samt centrala teoretiska begrepp. De framträdande diskurserna är, svenska värderingar, nationalism som hot mot liberal demokrati samt förskjutningsdiskursen. De framträdande uppfattningarna om nationalism, som utläsas i analysens olika dimensioner, är; att nationalism är förknippat med särskiljande av personer beroende på trostillhörighet och etnicitet, att nationalism är icke-liberal, att nationalism inte är förenlig med svenska värderingar, att nationalism är fientlig samt att nationalism förespråkar en homogen samhällsstruktur. De attityder om nationalism som framkommit är genomgående negativa och nedvärderande gentemot nationalism, avståndstagande samt att nationalism tillskrivs med negativa egenskaper.

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and key words This thesis examines the origins and development of two national movements: zionism and palestinian nationalism. The thesis aims at answering these questions: Has there existed any parallels of origins and development of these movements? What has been the major incentive for the formation of the new national identities? What function has had the religion in the persisting israeli-palestinian conflict? For the purpose of answearing these questions this thesis follows the historical development in interwar Palestine and the causes of increase of zionistic movement in the afterwar period. The thesis also focuses on the development and character of israeli policies and formation of palestinian identity within the years 1948-1967. Key words: Palestine, Israel, zionism, nationalism, identity, conflict