Through the example of students at Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, this dissertation ethnographically examines how vocality is racialized as "black" in the United States. For students at Fisk, voice serves as a mechanism of speaking and singing, and mediates ideological, discursive, embodied and affective constructions of blackness. Fisk built its legacy by cultivating and promoting a specific kind of New World blackness through vocal expression, and the indispensability of Fisk's historical legacy shapes how the university continues to promote the self-worth of its students as well as a remembrance of and recommitment to the social justice and citizenship journey of black people through the 21st century. The relationships between expressive culture, the politics of racial inequality, and higher education experiences overdetermine Fisk students' vocality in relation to blackness, in addition to students' agentive choices to express and (re)form black racial identity. This dissertation traces the differences between curricular and non-curricular vocality to foreground the ways that students resist 21st century forms of racial violence and create paths towards the world they desire. The project opens with an analysis of the role of diction in the performance practice of the Fisk Jubilee Singers®. The following chapter compares the repertoire and rehearsal style of the two primary choral ensembles at Fisk. The dissertation then explores how the neo soul genre figures in the Fisk Idol vocal competition. The concluding chapter describes students' different renditions of singing the university's alma mater, "The Gold and the Blue." These analyses of students' embodied, ritualized vocality show how Fisk students' voices performatively (re)construct blackness, gender, class, genre and institutionality.

When in 1928 Alain Locke coined the phrase "social document fiction" to describe W.E.B. DuBois' 1911 novel Quest of the Silver Fleece, he magnified a tenuous interplay between aesthetics, politics, and social science that underpins nineteenth and early twentieth century black intellectual activity. For Locke, social document fiction describes the small body of literature that, although important as "sociological" treatises, had yet to achieve the aesthetic sophistication that writers of the Harlem Renaissance would master. Even in his dismissal, Locke's phrasing suggests that black authors had succeeded in connecting two representational forms that continue to be positioned as polar opposites: those that use objective observation to index social life (surveys, statistics, photographs, and catalogs) and the imaginative realm of fiction. Indeed, in Quest of the Silver Fleece, DuBois combines technical analyses of agriculture, Southern economy, and Post-Reconstruction education with tales of magic cottonseed in order to convey a social world that remained opaque to positivist analysis. Belonging to neither the sphere of slave narratives, domestic family romance, or Realism, social document fiction combines formal innovation with scientific discourse to produce racial knowledge that exceeds the nineteenth century's emergent regimes of truth. This understudied genre of literature invites us to consider a simple but fraught question: what does it mean to think of social document fiction as a tool for the study of black life? This dissertation answers this question by reconstructing African Americans' responses to key moments between 1850 and the late 1920s when visual technology, like the microscope, the photograph, and film, joined with emerging fields of natural history, sociology, and anthropology to render black subjects as intelligible objects of scientific inquiry. Immersed in this "racial data revolution," blacks grappled to identify a strategy for transmitting new "facts of blackness." I consider social document fiction as an important strategy for reassembling racial epistemologies and reorienting the public's racialized gaze. I extend this genre beyond the work of DuBois to consider how literature by Martin Delany, Sutton Griggs, and Zora Neale Hurston each manifest a struggle to articulate a poetics and politics in relationship social science.

The present study examined the psychological effects of racism-related stress on Asian Americans (N=866). The purpose of the current study was to investigate a stress and coping model for Asian Americans by considering culturally based coping options. As such, the study sought to understand collectivistic coping as mediating the relationship between racism-related stress and psychological distress for Asian Americans. The stress and coping model, which was tested through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), hypothesized that higher racism-related stress leads to increased use of collectivistic coping strategies, which then decreases psychological distress (depression, anxiety, hostility and defensive paranoia). It was hypothesized that higher racism-related stress would have a positive effect on more collectivistic coping strategies which would then have a negative effect (decrease) on psychological distress. Racial identity status attitudes were also included separately to understand one's experience with racism related stress to provide more information into the within group variability in racism-related stress reactions that exist among Asian Americans. Results from this study indicated that Asian Americans utilize a culturally based coping style to respond to racism-related stress. However, those coping strategies are significantly related to increased psychological distress, which is contrary to the proposed hypothesis. Although not all the hypotheses were supported, the results of the study showed an overall acceptable model fit. The results therefore provide strong evidence to support that psychological distress is experienced as a result of racism-related stress for Asian Americans, despite the use of collectivistic coping strategies.

Mixed Race Antecedents: Black Hybridity in Cultural Production, 1960-1989 looks at how cultural producers of African descent in the U.S. from the 1960s through the 1980s conceptualized racial and cultural hybridity. I analyze writers and artists who were grappling with how to think about their multiple heritages while simultaneously considering the political implications of their racial hybridity. Before the Census Movement of the 1990s narrowed the discussion of racial hybridity to boxes on government forms, these playwrights, authors, and visual artists were thinking about hybridity in a different register. They explored connections between personal and political identities, the relationships between experiences and art, and the significance of having multiple racial/ethnic heritages when race in America was still very much operating under the auspices of the one-drop rule. Their creative explorations during this time distinguishes them as mixed race antecedents, those who were looking for the political and aesthetic uses of black hybridity during the Civil Rights Movement, Women’s and Gay Liberation, and their corollary art movements. I draw from critical race theory, performance studies, autobiography studies, and cultural studies to understand the complex relationship artists and writers had to the social movements that defined their historical moment while asserting their own conceptions of how racial hybridity functions for those of African descent in the U.S. In so doing, this project challenges the predominant narrative of critical mixed race studies by arguing that mixed race identity formations were emerging in American culture during and after the civil rights era, not just during the Census Movement. Particularly, I focus on the possibility of racial and cultural hybridity not replacing blackness, like what a post-racial world would ask us to do, but instead, prompting further exploration and expansion of blackness.

I struggle to present work that reflects a psychological expressivity which at the same time conveys intellectual concepts that are of concern to me. It seems that the fluidity of an image can communicate a certain pathos, and correspond to the fluid nature of one’s identity. Drippy paint, distorted bodies, and vertiginous video clips can give an indication about what a body feels like from within. Depictions of these bodily feelings help to communicate ideas about what it means to be alive in general, and a mixed race woman, in particular.

This thesis is an ethnographic examination of the significance of Malayalee ethnicity in Singapore. Ethnic identity is important in the daily lives of Singaporeans, due in part to the government-directed public focus in Singapore on the ideal of multiculturalism through which it is asserted that to be Singaporean, one must be, in the main, Chinese, Malay, or Indian. But other identities, such as Malayalee, a subset of the larger category "Indian", have not decreased in importance. They, in fact, remain important in identifying what kind of Chinese, Malay, or Indian a person is, as Chinese, Malay, or Indian identifies what kind of Singaporean someone is. In the thesis I focus on a core contradiction in Singapore Malayalee culture. In Singapore it is perceived as very important to know one's 'mother tongue' in order to know one's culture and heritage. But Malayalees growing up in Singapore have not had much chance to learn their language, Malayalam, nor have they had much practical use for it outside of the home. Therefore, many Singapore Malayalees feel a sense of alienation from Malayalee culture. Many feel they know little about their own culture because they do not speak their own language. With the emphasis on multiculturalism the sense of a distinctive Malayalee culture will remain in Singapore, as will the sense of alienation from it felt by many Malayalees. In the analysis practice theory and the concept of habitus are used to identify how people's actions have been affected by particular historical circumstances, and how their actions have, in turn, structured the form of Malayalee ethnicity in Singapore today. It is asserted that practice theory gives a much better explanation of Singapore Malayalee ethnicity than primordialist or instrumentalist theories. There have been only five previous studies of Singapore Malayalees, all Bachelor's Honors theses at the National University of Singapore. This study contributes, therefore, to a sparse literature.

Pakeha identity has long been problematic, caught in a straddling stance between European co-ordinates of origin, and life in Aotearoa. This has been particularly evident over the last three decades: with the rise of tino rangatiratanga, Pakeha identity has undergone something of a crisis. Group identity, especially in such periods of crisis, requires �narratives� that re-imagine being and belonging. Poetry by Pakeha both displays the problem with identity at the cross cultural threshold between Maori and Pakeha, asking � what happens when Pakeha engage cross-culturally with te ao Maori, appropriating te reo Maori and drawing on Maoritanga, to re-vision and reconfigure identity? And how does such an approach shape the imagining of Pakeha identity?� I study, in parallel, the cross-cultural poetry of James K. Baxter and Glen Colquhoun in relation to these questions. Borrowing a conceptual metaphor from Colin McCahon, I examine these cross-cultural poems in detail as �load-bearing structures�. I pay particular attention to the way in which, in purpose, design and materials, they function to re-imagine Pakeha identity in reciprocal relationship with te ao Maori. Aware of the problems of culture-crossing, at the outset I establish a historical and interpretive framework for the poetry. Furthermore, I discuss the question of appropriation, arguing for an ethical distinction between appropriation and misappropriation based on a cross-cultural relationship of faithful and reciprocal engagement. I conclude that Baxter and Colquhoun are singular and radical in their reconfiguration of Pakeha identity. Baxter embraces te ao Maori in a direct challenge to Pakeha nationalism, prescribing the necessary corrective of the tuakana-teina dynamic to Pakeha identity and its relationship with te ao Maori. Writing after the Maori renaissance, Glenn Colquhoun irreverently opens up a further reconfiguration of cross-cultural relationship, pushing both Maori and Pakeha beyond a cultural dichotomy towards a mutually defining complementarity. Both place themselves on the cultural threshold of language, embracing the tensions of the cross-cultural scenario. The result is cross-cultural poetry, load-bearing structures that manifest the tension and ambivalence of the settler culture�s straddling identity, enacting what it is to be Pakeha.

<p>Although transformation processes are making progress in addressing racial inequality in post-apartheid South Africa, white South Africans are, in many repects, still privileged, economically, in terms of access to services, land, education and particularly in the case of English-speaking whites, language. This study is an exploration of everyday situations of inequality as they have been experienced from a position of advantage. As a qualitative, phenomenological study, the aim was to derive the psychological essence of the experience of being privileged as white English-speaking young adult within the context of post-apartheid South African everyday life.</p>

Black women in the United States belong to several demographic groups that are marginalized and devalued by society (Fleming, 1983; Helms, 1979; Hargrove, 1999). Membership in marginalized groups (i.e., race, gender, or class) and feelings about belonging to such groups may have a significant impact on the identity development of Black women and their body image satisfaction (Turner, 1982; Helms & Richardson, 1997). For groups experiencing multiple sources of oppression, multiple factors should be examined while exploring body image satisfaction (Thomas, Witherspoon, & Speight, 2004). This study examines body image and racial body attitudes of Black women through the constructs of racial identity, feminist attitudes, and socio-economic status (SES). Using several sampling methods, the researcher recruited 164 participants from the student population at the University of Texas at Austin and from predominately-Black local churches. Four hierarchical regression procedures assessed the impact of the predictor variables (racial identity, feminist attitudes, and SES) on the outcome variables (body image and racial body image) as they were added to the equation. Results indicated that racial identity was not predicative of body image attitudes; however, racial identity was predictive of racial body image attitudes. Feminist attitudes did not predict body image, but did predict racial body image. SES was divided into two variables--income, and racial diversity composition of high schools attended by participants. Income levels were predictive of neither body image nor racial body image among this sample of Black women. However, the racial diversity composition of high schools attended by these participants did significantly affect racial body image. Additionally, racial diversity of high schools significantly moderated the relationship between racial identity and racial body image. This study suggests that racial identity and racial diversity of environment is predictive of racial body image. Furthermore, racial features are more salient to Black women and may not be captured on the frequently used body image attitudes measures. / text

This dissertation uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the linked Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement transcript study to explore how self-identifying as Hispanic/Latino in school but not at home in adolescence is related to academic achievement at the end of high school and educational attainment by young adulthood. It also explores how the relationship between inconsistent Hispanic/Latino self-identification and academic performance varies by Latino family origin and what factors act to mediate this relationship. Finally, it investigates how using school versus home reports of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity in adolescence impacts the measurement of Latino educational progress. This research draws on education literature exploring racial and ethnic differences in academic performance to suggest how and why an inconsistent Hispanic/Latino self-identification might be related to academic performance. This literature is categorized into two broad lines of research, structural and socio-cultural, and suggests two competing understandings of the relationship between inconsistent Hispanic/Latino self-identification and academic performance as well as the factors that may mediate this relationship. This research finds a strong and negative relationship between Hispanic/Latino self-identification in school but not at home and academic performance and that this relationship varies by Latino family origin. It is only among adolescents who do not report Latino family origins that an inconsistent Hispanic/Latino self-identification is negatively associated with academic performance. This research also finds that factors related to socio-cultural explanations of school performance as well as prior academic experiences help to mediate the negative relationship between inconsistent Hispanic/Latino self-identification and academic performance among adolescents who do not report Latino family origins. Additional findings suggest that using home versus school reports of ethnicity may impact estimates of Latino/non-Latino white differences in educational outcomes and Latino generational decline. Results suggest that within schools, a Hispanic/Latino identity, one separated from Hispanic family and community ties, is associated with poor academic performance and resistance to schooling. In addition, this research confirms the fluid and complex nature of racial and ethnic self-identification and suggests using caution when relying on self-reports of race and ethnicity in quantitative data analysis. / text