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This thesis investigates the meaning of English language hegemony as I, the researcher, have experienced it. Using an autoethnographic method, I recount stories of multilingual language learning that uncover the themes of hegemony (Gramsci, 1992), unilateral power (Loomer, 1976) and privilege as they relate to the English language in the world today. These stories are drawn from a lifetime of language learning in different multilingual envi-ronments: from experiences of informal language learning in the home, formal education in different languages throughout childhood and adolescence, and finally adult experiences of language learning as an English language teacher and member of a bilingual household. With the narrative material as a basis, I highlight the interrelated concepts of he-gemony, unilateral power and privilege in these experiences of language learning. I take a critical stance in my investigation and analysis of the hegemony, unilateral power and privi-lege that the English language enjoys at the expense of other languages. I examine the meaning of these concepts and how they have affected my understanding of language as a native English speaker, language learner and English language teacher, in Canada and abroad. As an alternative to the hegemony of English, I propose a counter-hegemonic ap-proach: learning about language and culture in relationship with others in communities where linguistic diversity and multilingualism are genuinely accepted, and not merely per-ceived, as valuable. I suggest that multilingualism and language learning are vital for native English speakers to understand alternative perspectives of our world, and in order for them to experience a transformation in their grasp of linguistic and cultural diversity.

Can we be accountable to privilege? Can we find a space for coherent anti-racist secular Ashkenazi Jewish identity in North America, where Jews have been deeply implicated in structural violence? Can we be agents of both complicity and change? This auto-ethnography describes a haunting; focusing on the ghostly presences of my deceased uncle Larry Treiman and Bruno Bettelheim, child psychologist and director of the residential treatment facility where Larry was institutionalized as a child, it creates a deeply personal explanation for how the whitening of Ashkenazi North American Jewish identity, the shifts in discourses of madness and major sociological and economic change in Chicago and New York over the second half of the 20th century constituted my subjectivity and my privilege. This text proposes accountability through genealogy, teasing out the possibility for ethical thought and action through cultivating a deeply personal relationship to the ghosts that make us.

This thesis investigates the meaning of English language hegemony as I, the researcher, have experienced it. Using an autoethnographic method, I recount stories of multilingual language learning that uncover the themes of hegemony (Gramsci, 1992), unilateral power (Loomer, 1976) and privilege as they relate to the English language in the world today. These stories are drawn from a lifetime of language learning in different multilingual envi-ronments: from experiences of informal language learning in the home, formal education in different languages throughout childhood and adolescence, and finally adult experiences of language learning as an English language teacher and member of a bilingual household. With the narrative material as a basis, I highlight the interrelated concepts of he-gemony, unilateral power and privilege in these experiences of language learning. I take a critical stance in my investigation and analysis of the hegemony, unilateral power and privi-lege that the English language enjoys at the expense of other languages. I examine the meaning of these concepts and how they have affected my understanding of language as a native English speaker, language learner and English language teacher, in Canada and abroad. As an alternative to the hegemony of English, I propose a counter-hegemonic ap-proach: learning about language and culture in relationship with others in communities where linguistic diversity and multilingualism are genuinely accepted, and not merely per-ceived, as valuable. I suggest that multilingualism and language learning are vital for native English speakers to understand alternative perspectives of our world, and in order for them to experience a transformation in their grasp of linguistic and cultural diversity.

Can we be accountable to privilege? Can we find a space for coherent anti-racist secular Ashkenazi Jewish identity in North America, where Jews have been deeply implicated in structural violence? Can we be agents of both complicity and change? This auto-ethnography describes a haunting; focusing on the ghostly presences of my deceased uncle Larry Treiman and Bruno Bettelheim, child psychologist and director of the residential treatment facility where Larry was institutionalized as a child, it creates a deeply personal explanation for how the whitening of Ashkenazi North American Jewish identity, the shifts in discourses of madness and major sociological and economic change in Chicago and New York over the second half of the 20th century constituted my subjectivity and my privilege. This text proposes accountability through genealogy, teasing out the possibility for ethical thought and action through cultivating a deeply personal relationship to the ghosts that make us.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Transphobia research has focused on predictors and correlations of prejudice toward transgender people. Consistently, male participants have higher transphobic attitudes compared to female participants in various studies. Further, males are overrepresented in crimes against transgender people. However, these studies were correlational and causation cannot be determined. Masculinity researchers outside of psychology have discussed maintenance of masculine privilege as a motivator for oppressive beliefs and actions. Thus, the goal of this study was to provide an experimental study of causes for increased transphobic attitudes in men, based on sociological and gender studies’ research on hegemonic masculinity. To test this, participants were given false feedback that masculinity score was either “feminine” (the experimental group) or “similar to their age group” (the control group). Results of the present study indicated participants in the experimental group reported nearly statistically significantly greater transphobia than those in the control group, p = .047. Although the findings were not significant, further research is needed to validate these findings. The study provides implications for future research on causes of transphobic attitudes and behaviors through sociological frameworks of power and privilege in the context of gender.

I consider how the nature and meaning of space shape middle-class women's topophobia in the new town of Secunda (with a particular focus on symbolic violence). In Lefebvre's 'terrorist societies' fear becomes latent as citizens seek to maintain status quos which maintain systems of privilege. I demonstrate that one such system is white privilege. Secunda assists in maintaining these systems as its design draws heavily on Eurocentric values and new town 'best practices'. As a company town developed in reaction to international sanctions during apartheid, its design also resulted in the preservation of certain privileged groups. I argue that white privilege is a white problem and thus base my study on the (white) middle-class as a dominant group. I show that the identities of women (although traditionally viewed as passive and fearful) are diverse, falling both victim to and inflicting symbolic violence and topophobia. I focus on topophobia, or spatial fear, as fear affects us all and influences our shaping of urban space. The mutually reinforcing nature (abstract representations of the ideologies of planners) and meaning (infused through emotions, identities and power relations) of space are explored. I dispute the bias against emotion-based research that exists within planning, arguing that this has debilitating consequences for transformation. I suggest the use of intersecting emotion-spectra rather than the dichotomous approach conventionally taken by emotion research. A feminist ethnography is used with an iterative inductive research process engaging a variety of techniques, including digital/social media. My own multiple insider identities (of middle-class, white, English-Afrikaans woman, and planner) are used to critique systems of dominance. Findings highlight various forms of symbolic violence (in addition to white privilege) including codes of 'respectability' and 'purity', consumerism, fat talk, and persistent gender roles. Further, possible influences of dominant systems on space (particularly in reinforcing persistent social segregation in Secunda) are demonstrated. Symbolic violence can be used to deflect accountability, but this research shows that topophobia is a planning problem, worthy of consideration.

At the heart of this dissertation project is my interest in the internal conflict that emerges in the mundane navigation and maintenance of relational and contextual penalty and privilege. That is to say, I am interested in how individuals maneuver their/our concurrent identity/ies as oppressor and oppressed. I argue that this simultaneous identity is a holistic embodiment that demands complex maneuvering and that requires our vigilant attention. In addition, I am interested in the critical potential of such maneuvering for activism. In this vein, I introduce my intent to queer the limits of identity research in critical intercultural communication research while contributing to, and drawing on, what others have referred to as queer intersectionality (Bilge, 2012; Rosenblum, 1994). I envision queer intersectionality as an ontological modality that yields heuristic potentiality that can aid critical intercultural communication researchers explore the ways in which we embody a simultaneous oppressor-oppressed identity. In order to understand queer intersectionality as an ontological modality, I offer embodied contexts that give rise to oppression and power in given and fleeting moments. Halualani and Nakayama (2010) remind us that “critical work recognizes that there is no theory in advance and no social process of culture without some theoretical sense-making; it travels through a trajectory of theory from and towards context” (p. 9). Centralizing the directed attention upon the significance of context, I intend queer intersectionality to be an embodied modality that critical intercultural communication researchers can use to explore and theorize simultaneous oppressor-oppressed identity performances and critically envision the co-constitutive relationship between privilege and disadvantage.

This research examines Senate Bill 744 (S.744) from the 113th Congress of the United States, and its findings will be used as a model to reveal problems in similar legislation. Senate Bill 744 was proposed by the 113th Congress in an attempt to accomplish bi-partisan immigration reform. The bill was viewed (and still is) as a comprehensive compromise, in that neither Democrats nor Republicans were completely satisfied with its result. The outcome was that the legislators who were involved in S.744*s creation were satisfied that something on the topic of immigration reform had been accomplished (the bill passed the Senate, but never came up for a vote in the House), even if it was not what they, nor their constituents really wanted. S.744 addressed, what the researcher perceives, as the key Democratic and Republican issues concerning immigration reform in the United States, which were status for undocumented immigrants on the left, and increased border security on the right. However, the researcher also notes that neither of these issues were handled well in the bill because of their exclusionary nature, and that is what led her to this research. This study is important because it will highlight legislative failures and look at how representatives can be held more accountable for their use of disingenuous language. This research looks at aspects of identity and privilege as they relate to exclusions from the dominant culture, and consequently the legislative process. The researcher would like to disclose that as an immigrant herself she has first-hand experience of the system*s failures, and is approaching this project with personal invested interested in the success of future legislation.