This dissertation investigates the pernicious effects of neoliberalism in postcolonial, ostensibly post-racial Mexico. I analyze and thickly describe the daily negotiations of race in neoliberal Mexico, as they play out between indigenous Totonacs and Mestizos, or dominant, non-indigenous, non-Black identity, in a small town in central Mexico. I focus specifically on the discursive and material life of indigenous “traditions and customs,” or usos y costumbres that reverberate within and around an Indigenous Court in Huehuetla, Puebla. Usos y costumbres is the core concept around which indigenous rights revolve and the legal justification of the indigenous courts. As such it becomes the arena of struggle and a key site to investigate power relations and social transformations. First, I analyze and chart how Mestizo authorities, Indigenous Court officials, and Totonac community members struggle to fix, define, and redefine the meaning of usos y costumbres, and consequently shift local racial sensibilities and perceptions of self and others. Second, I analyze how the success of indigenous mobilizations, crystallized in this case in the courthouse, incites potent decolonial imaginaries, knowledge productions, and practices that in previous moments were likely unimaginable. The central aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the multicultural logics of governance and related languages of rights and cultural difference are lived through, incorporated in, and complexly contested in Huehuetlan social life. I will argue that the formative effects of state-sponsored multiculturalism in Huehuetla repositioned the Totonacs as subjects with power, crystallized in the institutionalization of “cultural knowledge” as jurisprudence in the Indigenous Court, that reverberates in daily confrontations with the legacy of hegemonic Mestizaje. / text

In American medicine, research has consistently shown disparities between the health experiences of non-Hispanic whites and minority groups (Shervington, 2000); but the practice of racial discrimination within the medical profession is less well acknowledged. Unlike other professions, medicine is a person-oriented field, where Indian physicians are susceptible to facing discrimination on a daily basis. My in-depth interviews with 108 Indian physicians show that individual physicians may achieve social mobility and gain economic parity in the United States, but only as exceptions to the rule, as evident by racial discrimination in promotions, referral patterns, and the 'glass ceiling' faced by them 'when it comes to really rising to the top'. Moreover, the social incorporation of Indian physicians is itself tied to paradoxes and discontents, when minority group members are not fully accepted either by the dominant group or by their own ethnic community. It is in this context that I seek to analyze the influence of social interactions at work on the social incorporation of first and second-generation Indian physicians and in determining their workplace experiences and migratory outcomes. Likewise, with the effects of discrimination being greater for men than for women, the existing gender inequalities in American medicine have differential impacts on the workplace experiences of Indian men vis-à-vis women. However, much of the production of gender and racial inequalities in organizations at large (Acker, 2006) and particularly in medicine, have focused on one or another of these categories, seldom attempting to study them as complex, mutually reinforcing or contradicting processes. My dissertation research strives to make this dimension a crucial part of the analysis. This study should contribute to our understanding of the interaction of recent migration of skilled personnel with developing racial/ethnic and gender relations in US workplaces. The healthcare workforce in the developed world has become increasingly dependent on immigrants from the developing world. I see addressing issues of racial and gender bias in American medicine as a priority in the social sciences and a necessity for a holistic healthcare system in the 21st century. My research is an effort in this direction. / text

The history of the public school system in the United States is wrought with examples of marginalized groups and inequities (DuBois, 1989; Woodson, 1933). Public schools throughout the United States are still struggling to equitably meet the needs of all students. Students of color and students from marginalized groups continue to find the public school system difficult to successfully navigate and racially biased educational gaps are still prevalent. These struggles are compounded by the increasing percentages of students of color in our public schools today. Utilizing critical theory as the theoretical underpinning and qualitative interview methodologies, this study examined the perceptions five White principals held on race and racism. These five White school leaders were current elementary or middle school principals from a large racially diverse school district in the southern United States. The critical examination of these White school leader’s perceptions of race and racism yielded six themes: 1.) The White principals utilized deficit thinking. 2.) The White principals employed racial erasure and colorblindness. 3.) The White principals did not recognize Whiteness. 4.) The White principals did not understand systematic and institutional racism. 5.) The White principals were reluctant to address racial issues. 6.) The White principals demonstrated a nascent level of White racial identity. These findings invoked a need to better prepare our White public school leaders for the increasingly diverse student populations they serve. If White school leaders are to effectively address the racially biased outcomes in our public schools today they must develop a greater White racial identity. Formal training and instruction for White school leaders around race and racism is lacking and must be reconsidered and improved. Principal preparation programs in the United States must begin to weave discussions of race and racism into and throughout their programs to better address this profound knowledge gap. In order to effectively address racism and racial equity within our public school system White principals must stand up, recognize, and address race. / text

From West Street to Dr Pixley kaSeme Street:1 How contemporary racialised subjectivities are (re)p roduced in the city of Durban This thesis is part of the larger mission to understand and challenge the ongoing reproduction of race. The focus of this particular project is on how race is perpetuated through the continuing construction of our racialised subjectivities in/through place. This idea is broadly epitomised by the idea that „who we are is where we are? (Dixon and Durrheim, 2000) and the recognition that this process is highly racialised. This emphasis locates this project squarely within the social psychology of race, place and identity. To collect data that could facilitate access to racialised place-identity constructions I used a mobile methodology wherein black and white city government officials (who had grown up in Durban) took me on a walking and/or driving tour of the city of Durban talking with me about the racial transformation of this city from our childhood (in apartheid times) to the present (post-apartheid) city. These conversations were digitally recorded and transcribed for analysis. I also recorded various activities that took place during the tour and made extensive pre-tour and post-tour notes. All of this material was utilised analytically. Initially I analysed the discursive practices which we (the participants) engaged in as we constructed the racialised city historically and contemporaneously and reflected on the attendant subjectivities of blackness and whiteness invoked by this particular place-identity talk. When it became apparent that there was more to the production of race on the tours than that which was produced by our implaced talk my analysis progressed to an examination of other practices which produced race on the tours, namely, our material/embodied interactive practices. Through paying close analytic attention to our interaction on the tours it became evident that key practices which produced race on the tours – the spatial, discursive and embodied practices – were inextricably connected to each other in a „trialectical? (tri-constitutional) relationship. I argue that we need to analyse this trialectical relationship further because of the ways in which it facilitates the creation of racial sticking points which obfuscate racial transformation in South Africa. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

On August 15, 1992, William Dove, an elderly retiree, left his cottage at the Round Lake resort in southeast Saskatchewan to assist three individuals fix flat tires on their truck. Dove never returned home. The following morning, his burning vehicle was discovered in a field near the city of Regina, Saskatchewan while his badly beaten body was found in a separate area on the east side of the city. Three individuals were charged with his murder; David Myles Acoose, Hubert Cory Acoose and a young offender. Dove was a white senior citizen from Whitewood, Saskatchewan: his assailants were Natives from the Sakimay First Nation, just west of Round Lake. In the aftermath of Dove’s death and the trial, which ultimately found all three guilty of manslaughter, the public attempted to make sense of a crime that appeared senseless. In my research, I reject the idea that the crime was committed out of a lack of judgement and a deficit of morality alone, but I argue instead that it has to be understood within the context of colonialism. In contextualizing this violent encounter, a layered understanding of the murder surfaces and it becomes clear how colonial history within the region played a significant role in the enactment of violence. The findings of this research are based upon a discursive examination of actual court transcripts, postcolonial critical theory, and historical examination.

No description available.

On August 15, 1992, William Dove, an elderly retiree, left his cottage at the Round Lake resort in southeast Saskatchewan to assist three individuals fix flat tires on their truck. Dove never returned home. The following morning, his burning vehicle was discovered in a field near the city of Regina, Saskatchewan while his badly beaten body was found in a separate area on the east side of the city. Three individuals were charged with his murder; David Myles Acoose, Hubert Cory Acoose and a young offender. Dove was a white senior citizen from Whitewood, Saskatchewan: his assailants were Natives from the Sakimay First Nation, just west of Round Lake. In the aftermath of Dove’s death and the trial, which ultimately found all three guilty of manslaughter, the public attempted to make sense of a crime that appeared senseless. In my research, I reject the idea that the crime was committed out of a lack of judgement and a deficit of morality alone, but I argue instead that it has to be understood within the context of colonialism. In contextualizing this violent encounter, a layered understanding of the murder surfaces and it becomes clear how colonial history within the region played a significant role in the enactment of violence. The findings of this research are based upon a discursive examination of actual court transcripts, postcolonial critical theory, and historical examination.

The aim of this thesis is to study the social construction of `identities' and 'inter- group' experiences from the perspective of a group of second generation Bangladeshis adults from London and Sheffield. The thesis is divided into two sections. The first section summarises and critiques various models of the psychological subject, which have been influential in approaches to the understanding of `ethnic' and `cross-cultural psychology' and the psychology of `inter-group relations. Part 1 of the thesis is also concerned with methodological issues which arise when studying phenomena such as `identity' and `racism', particularly issues which consider how best to theorise subjectivity whilst still wanting to acknowledge political concerns. A new approach to studying such phenomena is developed, based on the `discursive' approaches advanced by authors such as Wetherell and Potter (1992) and Burman and Parker (1993). Part 2 of the thesis consists of three analyses which look at the social construction of identities and inter-group experiences of a group of second generation Bangladeshi adults. Chapter 5 focuses on how identities are constructed as, for example "successful" or "powerful". Chapter 6 is concerned with broad discourses which are used to construct racism and ways to deal with it. Finally, chapter 7 focuses on the intersections of `race' and gender in the construction of identities by a group of second generation Bangladeshi women. The analyses demonstrate the rhetorical nature of such constructions in everyday talk, and also the ideological consequences of certain discourses which are (re)produced. It also shows how social psychology in Britain has often perpetuated and legitimated such discourses. The thesis concludes with a summary and discussion of the findings of each study. It also draws attention to some wider tensions and debates which have arisen from carrying out this research.

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