This dissertation is a comparative study of ways in which women writers from Latina, Middle-Eastern and Native American backgrounds narrate their identities as a function of the different locations they inhabit, and the manner in which these places inform their subject positions and their everyday lives. Some of the key questions explored concern how these writers deploy spatial stories as a tactic to construct textual spaces within which their identities may be expressed, especially since they are often faced, as immigrants or members of diasporic or ethnic populations, with negotiating the contradictory expectations of multiple locations and cultures; it asks what is at stake in constructing particular narrative spaces of identity within categories such as immigrant, exile, migrant, or hyphenated American. The dissertation argues that because people revise their stories throughout their lives, narration can be considered a spatial tactic as well. The act of telling and retelling creates a place within which the narrator constructs an identity; therefore, the narration itself becomes a metaphorical, mobile meta-place that allows people to construct and reconstruct multiple selves subject to constant flux. These narrative meta-places can serve as framing devices for the different selves people are creating at any given time.Each chapter analyzes specific terms and their various related discourses in conjunction with concrete and metaphorical places and spaces used in representing identity in particular ways. Chapter One considers spaces of expression, in which an individual's use of more than one kind of language or discourse confers upon her the ability to narrate her subjectivity and claim her right to self-representation instead of accepting subject positions historically created by others. Chapter Two examines gendered spaces such as the harem, a construction both real and imaginary; it extends the harem as a trope that helps us understand gendered spaces as a vehicle through which women can exercise agency and articulate their multiple subjectivities. Chapter Three focuses on the deployment of labels such as immigrant, exile, or diasporic to construct a specific identity and examines recursive patterns of movement that seem an important process in articulating fluid identities across borders.

This thesis examines linguistic similarities and differences between the Russian and Ukrainian languages regarding the word formation of adjectives referring to place names (toponyms). Using contrastive analysis for analyzing the database composed of approximately 1500 shared toponyms, information is presented revealing the use of appropriate derivational paradigms. Tables are provided illustrating important characteristics of toponym stem-endings and the acquisition of their corresponding suffixes. This information culminates in a better understanding of the proper use within each language for the 25 Russian and 18 Ukrainian suffixes used in the derivational models, and its application within language. Analyzing derivational paradigms of these two investigated languages, I found 15 similar and 7 different models resulting from the word formation process. This information brings a clearer picture for both languages on how derivational paradigms are used in the proper formation of adjectives.

Weathering introduces a language of durability and change throughout time. Architecture and its materials are constituents of place, as is the way they weather and age. The intent of this research is to analyze regional weathering characteristics specific to the American Southwest as a reflection of a sense of belonging that evolves over time.

This dissertation explores the relationahip of personal narrative and the formation of place-identity in northern New Mexico Hispanic villages. In particular it identifies linguistic and discursive strategies that are emphasized within naturallly occurring and institutional speech-events in the villages, households and schools. These linguistic strategies contribute to a larger trajectory of language socialization that is somewhat particular to the region. some of these linguistic strategies include the use of regional Spanish lexicon and syntax as well as linguistic competence in certain areas of cultural content.

Rising commercial rents in downtown Halifax combined with a freeze on federal arts funding are forcing artists to leave the city in search of affordable and accessible workspace. Essential to the cultural and economic growth of the city, artists desperately need space where they can continue to develop their work and grow their professional practice. The Halifax waterfront, which remains largely vacant since major industries shifted away from the area, provides an opportunity to create a new and unique cultural space in the heart of the city. This thesis examines the design of a cultural infrastructure on the Halifax waterfront to support the local creative community and to further enable connection, production and networking among creators and the public. By examining the transformation of the waterfront from its founding to its current condition, a strategy of uncovering the inherent qualities of place to inform new development is explored. / An architectural thesis focused on developing a cultural infrastructure on the Halifax waterfront to support the local creative community and to further enable connection among creators and the public.

By the early 1980s the Department of Fine Arts and Aesthetics at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda stood as the key institution for contemporary art in India. Its reputation had been carefully cultivated over the last fifteen years by both K. G. Subramanyan and Geeta Kapur. Under their careful artistic and theoretical tutelage, the Facuhy of Fine Arts turned to narrative-figuration as a self-proclaimed polemical stance against the materialist/determinist thrust of history. The narrative turn moved beyond the regional locality of Baroda in 1981 with the exhibition Place for People. Held in the cosmopolitan art centres of Delhi and Bombay the show included the work of six artists variously affiliated with the school in Baroda: Bhupen Khakhar, Vivan Sundaram, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Nalini Malani, Jogen Chowdhury, and Sudhir Patwardhan. The arrival of Place for People in the 1980s must be situated within the larger frames of contemporary art in the post-colonial moment. In attending to the variegated terrain spanning both theory and practice, my project has as its underlying concern the interface between discursive formations, institutional structures, and sites of artistic intervention. More specifically, I am interested the representational strategies that emerged in the period between 1960 and 1990. In looking to the gaps in the discourse, alongside the points of conflict or conciliation, I raise larger questions about the politics of representation, and the productive or prohibitive possibilities of artistic intervention. At the core of my argument is the rise of painterly narrative-figuration exemplified by Place for People and the challenge leveled against it by the Indian Radical Painters and Sculptors Association. Both laid claim to radicalism as a polemical gesture; however, the battle was waged across the historically contingent fields of artistic subjectivity, regional difference and the capacity of art to function as an agent of social change. Pivotal to my study is how certain approaches to both the theory and practice of contemporary art in India have emerged as paradigmatic while others have gathered the dust of disregard.

This thesis examines how current demographics and evolving family dynamics act as a catalyst for the evolution of a building in response to how the elderly can successfully age in place. Through the design of a residential building in an inner city neighborhood of Calgary, Alberta, this thesis explores the potential for architecture to accommodate diverse families (such as singles, couples, single parent families, and the elderly) in one development, maintaining existing relationships, promoting social cohesiveness, and providing an informal network of support for the elderly. The project investigates how architecture might facilitate the integration of the elderly through ?exible relationships of building programme and unit variation.

Much of the literature on ethical consumption focuses on the potential of individual actions, such as buying fair trade products, to produce large-scale change. This thesis instead examines collective actions by exploring the discourses and interactions of alternative food movements in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Drawing on interviews with members of these networks, it argues that ethical consumption initiatives encourage the circulation of particular social and ethical values through the community. Community identity and place are made and marketed through networks of value that foster responsibility in and for the food system. Collective identity alters daily routines of consumption in order to channel benefits back into the local economy. A sense of place that includes responsibility for the food system sometimes leads to collective political action, but it also creates tension among and between different organizations and individuals who make claims to “the local” as a moral, social and geographical space.

This anthropological, ethnographic study investigates the mobility patterns of Maritimers within Canada, with a focus on political economy. Specifically, I have analyzed the links between mobility, livelihood and identity within Miramichi, New Brunswick, as indicative of broader mobility patterns. This analysis is based on ethnographic data gathered over the course of two sessions of fieldwork in Miramichi itself, phone interviews with people who had moved away from the area, and extensive research of the historical regional political economy. I argue the historical and global context of the political economy and predominance of natural resource-based industries in the area are intricately related to mobility decisions. These contexts have also influenced understandings as to what work is available in the area and what is considered to be “good” work. Local understandings of livelihood are intricately linked to mobility decisions, which take many different and complex forms. I formulate a typology of the various mobility patterns which emerged from the data collected. Out-migration takes place largely for two reasons: for education and for work. Commuter migrants leave the community for work purposes, at varying distances, but maintain their household or home in Miramichi. In-migration takes place with the two main categories: retirees, many of whom lived in Miramichi during their youth and have “come back”; and educated people in-migrating for employment. This work also contributes to the greater understanding of the potential role communal ties, attachment to place and sentiments contribute to mobility decision-making. My analysis of social sentiments surrounding mobility in relation to notions of community, drawing on the concept of structures of feeling, lead to the formulation of the concept of nostalgic resilience. The nostalgic remembrances of the community past can lead to collective ideas that it was resilient and thus would persist, and even thrive, in the future. In arguing the Miramichi area has ongoing patterns and understandings of mobility, though, I am careful to note that there are negative lived realities in connection with these patterns. Nor are the nostalgic notions of community resilience without negative aspects.

Through the use of autoethnography (Bochner & Ellis, 2000) and ethnodramatic performance (Saladana, 2003) this thesis presents an articulation of how the practice of meditation and silence influences identity and communication. Through self-reflection, interviews and conscious performance, I hope to contribute to literature describing health geographies and wellness communication. The data for this paper was collected during ethnographic fieldwork conducted at Bodhi Zendo, a Zen Meditation Centre located in the hills of Kodaiknal, in the province of Tamil Nadu on the southeastern coast of India. During a four-week period between December 1st 2012 and January 2nd 2013, I participated as a practitioner and researcher where I conducted interviews with other retreat participants, documented my own experiences, and recorded my own and other participants' reflections through photography, video, and self-reflective field notes. During my time at the Zen Centre I meditated for ten hours daily and I completed both a silent mini-sesshin and a silent sesshin . This paper includes thoughts and experiences prior to the fieldwork in India as well as thoughts and reflections experienced during the five months upon returning home to Canada. The pupose of this paper is to demonstrate the experience of self through a meditative lens and describe the liminal and transformative states between silence and sound.