Since there are few studies which address the relationships between racial/ethnic identity and acculturation in the African-American community, the purpose of this study was threefold: 1) explore the relationship between racial identity and African-American acculturation; 2) examine racial and ethnic identity associations; and 3) observe the connections between these cultural constructs and psychological well-being. One hundred ninety-four African-American undergraduates from a predominantly White institution and two historically Black colleges completed measures of these constructs, self-esteem, and depression. The findings indicate a relationship between racial identity and acculturation for three of the four Cross (1971) stages (encounter, immersion-emersion, and internalization). Relinquishing the White frame of reference and achieving inner security with their Blackness coincides with immersion in the eight facets comprising African-American culture. Individuals who do not identify with their race (pre-encounter) less often affiliated with their ethnic group. Conversely, achieving racial identity (internalization) was associated with ethnic identity attachment. Finally, the study's findings suggest that identity development may affect how individuals perceive themselves and feel emotionally, which may depend on identity achievement. Pre-encounter stage scores were associated with reports of higher depression and lower self-esteem; whereas, higher internalization individuals reported higher self-esteem. As for ethnic identity, those who have explored options and made commitments to their ethnic group reported fewer symptoms of depression and higher self-esteem. The converse was also true. Community acceptance was predicted to mediate the relationship between acculturation and psychological well-being. Although this was unfounded, the data indicate that traditional individuals living in predominantly White neighborhoods reported more depressive symptoms than did dominant society acculturated individuals living there. Interesting demographic findings and future research directions are provided.

Thesis (M.A. (Drama))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, Wits School of Arts, 2016 / This report is the final piece of a performance as research project exploring what it means to be white and English-speaking at the southern tip of Africa. The report is coupled with an autobiographical one man play about myself. The play explores, through a series of monologues, what it means for me to be a white South African. It moves from the specifics of my life to more general assumptions about whiteness and back again. This report runs parallel to the play almost as an extension of it working in dialogue to explore complicity and identity. As an extension of the creative project I have chosen to negate traditional chapters and style for more poetic language intertwined with analytical thinking, which links into the style of the play. The idea behind this is that every world, be it, performance onstage or analytical report writing is merely a part of the continuum called life and by blurring the lines between these it is easier to fuse the learning and the living into a cohesive whole. The creative research shows how the rehearsal and performance process of theatre-making helps to strip away the deceptions that people tell themselves making them complicit in the injustice of post-apartheid white privilege but in doing this it also creates a space where people can feel safe to dialogue about this complicity. / GR2017

Although current employment statistics paint a promising picture for women in general, they fail to address both the multitude of challenges women face in their attempt to secure leadership positions or in their ability to gain and maintain support from their female colleagues. Black women, in particular, tend to be torn between their fabled image to others in the organization and their official duties and responsibilities at work. This paper discusses definitions and conceptual uses of horizontal and vertical violence by Black female educational leaders ; problematizes the phenomenon as outlined by Freire (1970) at the theoretical level ; outlines the proposed qualitative methods, which will be used to investigate the phenomenon further ; and taking Paulo Freire's lead, explores the implications of sabotage or violence coming from members of the same minority group. In this specific case, Black female educational leaders will serve as the primary participants of the study. Once the data is collected and analyzed, the paper will include an analysis of the data and a discussion of the findings followed by recommendations based on the findings of the study. / by Dildra Martin-Ogburn. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Racial identifications are continually influenced by and constructed through one’s environment. Building on Jean Baudrillard’s “The Precession of Simulacra” and Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, this thesis argues that houses and clothing are the material objects that allow characters Birdie Lee from Danzy Senna’s Caucasia and Helga Crane from Nella Larsen’s Quicksand to construct their mixed race identities. Birdie Lee’s childhood home is the place where she develops a mixed race identity. When she leaves that home, she is forced to take on simulacra in order to pass for white. Without a stable childhood or adult home, Helga Crane’s wardrobe becomes the space where she unconsciously develops a mixed race identity. Her clothing choices allow her to simulate an entirely black identity that masks her mixed race heritage. Ultimately, the fates of Birdie and Helga are determined by whether or not they can occupy a space that is accepting of their mixed race identities. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (M. A. (English Studies)) --University of Limpopo, 2018 / This study seeks to examine the concept of identity in the post-colonial South Africa. Like any other African state, South Africa was governed by a colonial strategy called apartheid which meted out harsh conditions on black people. However, the indomitable system of apartheid was subdued by the leadership of the people, which is democracy in 1994. Notwithstanding the dispensation of democracy, colonial legacies such as inequality, racial discrimination and poverty are still yet to be addressed. As mirrored in Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift (2008) and Mother to Mother (1998) and Kopano Matlwa’s Coconut (2008) and Spilt Milk (2010), the colonial past perhaps paved a way for social issues to warm their way into the democratic South Africa. This study will use the aforementioned novels penned in the post-colonial period to present an evocation of identity-crisis in South Africa. It will then employ these methodological approaches; Afrocentricity, Feminism, Historical-biographical and Post-Colonial Theory to assert and re-assert the identity that South Africans have acquired subsequent to the political transition from apartheid to democracy. KEY WORDS: Apartheid, Colonialism, Democracy, Identity, Post-Colonialism

A narrative inheritance is comprised of the stories told by family members that are received by a younger generation and used to help construct identity. According to the communication theory of identity, identity is formed through communication. Additionally, the storied resource perspective looks at narratives as a major method of creating and maintaining identity. This study looks at the kinds of narrative inheritance concerning race that people in multiracial families receive and possible ways it affects racial identity formation. Findings from 12 semi-structured interviews indicate that narratives of racism, cultural pride, and hardship are prevalent in multiracial families. Additionally, findings show that varying family structures may affect the transference of racial narratives between generations, which can in turn affect how multiracial children choose to identify themselves racially.

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This thesis. entitled 'ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY AND ETHNICITY POLITICALLY MOBILISED: SYMBOLS OF MOBILISATION IN INKATHA'. presents two major contributions. The first is a discussion of ethnicity that not only draws the distinction between the phenomenon in its mobilised political form. on the one hand. and on the other ethnicity as social identity presenting life stories through which individuals live part of their social existences. but also follows through the theoretical and policy implications. The implications of this distinction suggest ways in which the issue of -ethnicity can be approached within attempts to avoid the conflictual dimension. The second is a study of the manner in which political mobilisation of Zulu ethnicity has occurred. especially during the 19708 and 1980s. through the Inkatha movement. The case study effectively illustrates the manner in which politicised ethnicity functions. in defining a rigid interpretation that allows little flux and movement within. and from and into the ethnic camp. The author integrates the theoretical discussion of the issue of ethnicity and ethnic social identities with comparative and empilrical material drawn nationally and internationally as well as from the extensive cue study of the mobilisation practices of the Inkatha movement and its leadership. In the theoretical approach the complex nature of all identities. and of ethnicity specifically, is stressed, arguing for the multiple experiences of what is presented as homogeneous within ethnic mobilisation. Ethnic identities are gendered, and subject to the effects of class, age, and 'race' distinctions. Ethnicity is, furthermore, much more flexible than would appear to be the case from such mobilisation. It is in this flexibility that an approach to resolving 'ethnic conflict' lies. Within ethnic mobilisation the stress in the interpellations addressed at ethnic subjects is on rigidity, lnflexibility, and single and centralised interpretations. These elements are illustrated through the case study of Inkatha operating from within the previous KwaZulu bantustan. Themes and approaches within the discourse of mobilisation employed to mobilise a regional population into Inkatha are examined. and set against the background and effects of social, political and economic factors. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.

This study aims to understand emerging black identities in contemporary South Africa. The focus is on the impact the radical transformation of the political and social system in South Africa is having on black identity. This study emphasises two key ideas: possibilities for the construction of black identity and the significance of apartheid on black identity, and how these two factors have impacted on the construction of black identity. A reflection on the work of Biko (1978) is used as the key theoretical framework for this study to understand the construction of black identity in the process of encounter with whiteness and encounter with racism. In this thesis, black people‟s autobiographies have been studied as a site where shared images of the past are actively produced and circulated: a site where a collective engagement with the past is both reflected and constructed. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

The white male artist whose self-interrogation attaches to his whiteness, difference and former centrality, inevitably exposes himself to the critical scrutiny of current discourse on race and whiteness studies. In this dissertation I examine the concept and emergence of whiteness as a dominant construct in select socio-historical contexts, more particularly in the colonial sphere. While colonial whiteness has often failed to acknowledge or foreground the faceted nature of its composition, this became particularly marked in a South African context with polarisation in the political, cultural and linguistic spheres. However in encounters with the colonised, unifying pretensions of whiteness prevailed, reinforcing difference along racial lines. I examine the work of white South African male artist Brett Murray, in which the interrogation of whiteness and associated marginalization and invisibility is again foregrounded, but predominantly in a postcolonial context. As Murray cautiously navigates his satirical gaze at the culturally and conceptually flawed hybridity of South African (male) whiteness, he inadvertently exposes a nostalgic gaze at erstwhile racial centrality. I further consider whether as a postcolonial other Murray has in fact been able to transcend racially based self-interrogation by addressing more polemic issues associated with power, corruption and inhumanity that transcend race. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.