In this thesis I investigate intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in heterosexual relationships by analysing the accounts of women and men in the Anglophone Caribbean country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Since IPV occurs in the context of a range of abusive practices (Dobash and Dobash 2004) participants' talk on the use and experiences of violent acts, violent threats, as well as other controlling and coercive tactics are examined as part of this study. Analytically, I focus on the points at which discourses of gender converge with narratives of violence. In other words, the current work examines the ways in which participants construct, (re)produce, disturb and/or negotiate gender in their accounts of IPV, and the kinds of power dynamics that are implicated in these verbal performances. I apply a feminist poststructuralist framework to the study of IPV against women. Synthesising feminist theories of gender and power, and poststructuralist insights on language, subjectivity, social processes and institutions, feminist poststructuralism holds that hegemonic discourses of gender are used to subjugate women (Weedon 1997; Gavey 1990). The points at which individuals complicate dominant discursive practices will also be assessed as part of this approach. In-depth interviews conducted with 34 participants - 19 women and 15 men - between 2007 and 2008 are analysed by using a version of discourse analysis (DA) compatible with the feminist poststructuralist framework outlined in the thesis. My analysis begins by highlighting the ways in which narratives of gender inscribe asymmetrical relations of power. The focus then shifts to a comparison of women's and men's accounts on a range of abusive acts. Traditional scripts on gender are often used to police the boundaries of femininities and masculinities, tying these to female and male bodies respectively. This is the context in which control, coercion, violence and violent threats are discussed in these accounts. Understandings of manhood and womanhood also emerge in the analysis of the strategies used to explain violence. I conclude with a summary and discussion of the analysis, and I suggest possible areas for further research on IPV in the Anglophone Caribbean.

This study examines the representations of identities of the Hungarian Self and the Chinese Other in the Hungarian official foreign policy discourses surrounding the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This research paper uses Lene Hansen’s poststructuralist discourse analysis to examine how Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán represents Hungary’s identity in relation to the Chinese one since 2013 when the agreement on the BRI was signed. The study’s analysis reveals that the Hungarian Self and the Chinese Other have shared more similarities than differences since 2013. Historically, the Chinese Other has been considered radically different and threatening communist Other in relation to the democratic Hungarian Self. However, the representations of identities took a pivotal turn in the early 2010s when Hungary started to glorify China rather than despite it. Ever since then, the Chinese Other has been constituted as an equal in relation to the Hungarian Self and the differences between them have therefore not been radical. The analysis disclosed that the Other was most often described in regional terms, i.e. as the ‘’East’’ and as something that the Hungarian Self wanted to be a part of. Historically, Hungary and China have been constituted as temporally inferior in relation to the West, however, the analysis showed that the East has caught up with the West and that it is the East that will be leading in the future. Finally, by elevating the issue to a moral basis, Hungary presents itself as an ethically driven actor who has two main responsibilities; a responsibility to include the Chinese Other in European businesses and projects as well as an explicit international responsibility to defend traditional values and differences that exist between nations.