This dissertation investigates the notion of bourgeoisification, the bourgeois, and the bourgeoisie in African Francophone literature of the colonial and post-colonial periods. The origins of the African bourgeoisie can be traced to the Western colonialist project. Three institutions have been especially implicated in its creation: the Western colonial educational system, commercial activities, and the modern town and the trend toward urbanization. These three came together to engender new forms of human relationships in Africa. Such relationships destabilized and tended to displace, the traditional family and communal structures, as well as the caste system. In this new society which would be marked by extreme alienation, new human types were born: the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' The 'haves,' who constitute the center bolt of the present study, we can characterize as the African bourgeoisie My project is not intended as a critique of the bourgeoisie and its discursive practices. Rather, it is a critical analysis of the representation of the bourgeois(ie). Therefore, any less-than-positive picture of the class and/or its members that may seem to emanate from my analysis should be understood as a reflexion of a generally negative pattern of representation in the texts under consideration. My real goal is to examine the strategies used by certain novelists and playwrights in their efforts to paint a portrayal of the class and its members. Furthermore, my analysis of such strategies will help to reveal each writer's attitudes toward the class, for it is my view that representation of any universe of discourse is never an entirely innocent activity. My study will also provide a historiographical perspective not only on the origin and development of the bourgeoisie in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa, but also on the evolution of its figurations in literary texts My dissertation is divided into four chapters. In Chapter I, I examine the issue of the literary invention of the African bourgeoisie and its relationship to the reality that it draws upon as well as points to. I focus mainly on the use by African writers of such devices as metaphor as a privileged instrument of representation. Chapter II considers another side of invention, that is historical invention. It focuses on the French colonial school as the birthplace of what later came to be known as the Sub-Saharan bourgeoisie. Chapter IV studies the elaboration in certain novels of what I call an African discourse of transgression. It puts into deeper perspective the bourgeoisification of lower castes in the colonial school and the impact this has on contemporary African political reality. Chapter III presents a case study of a specific bourgeois type: the arriviste. This is the type most encountered in African anti-bourgeois literature, and widely considered to be a negative presence on the African sociopolitical and economic scene. An important aspect of this chapter is the making of the bourgeois arriviste in Africa / acase@tulane.edu

The present study examined which factors affect the national crime trends in postwar Japan from an integrated theoretical perspective, including a critical economic theory and theories of deterrence and social control. The primary focus of analysis was on structural variables involving socio-economic conditions, certainty of punishment, social bonding, and age structure. Dependent variables of interest were the rate of each type of the following five major Penal Code offenses: larceny, bodily injury, rape, robbery, and homicide. A time-series regression analysis was performed on the basis of the aggregate official data over a 35 year time period from 1954 to 1988. The major findings are that economic affluence combined with economic equality and high efficiency of police and court activities appear to be important determinants of crime trends in postwar Japan; age structure and social bonding variables appeared the least likely to be significant. Despite certain data and methodological limitations, this study suggests the postwar Japanese crime patterns can be explained by critical economic theory and deterrence theory better than social control theory and the age structure perspective. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0953. / Major Professor: Gordon P. Waldo. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

In recent decades, national governments and international authorities have increasingly emphasized the role of legal institutions in restoring order after political violence. This study explores how, following the 1994 genocide, the Rwandan government created new decentralized grassroots legal forums that aimed to produce community out of a divided population. The legal institutions were designed to enable Rwandans to resolve disputes with the help of locally-elected mediators, based on principles that prioritized collective cohesion over individual rights, combined with state-backed punishment. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic research in Rwanda between 2004 and 2008 with genocide courts (inkiko gacaca), mediation committees (comite y'abunzi) and a legal aid clinic, this study shows how the discourse of mediation in courts derived from national and transnational processes, and how it shaped people's experiences across a wide range of disputes. People used the courts' flexible proceedings both to rebuild inclusive relationships, and to contest belonging and reinforce divisions. The study suggests that state-backed legal forums embedded in daily life can facilitate social rebuilding in the aftermath of violence, while it examines what differences are created as "community" is brought into being through politicized processes, and shows how customary law as a tool of state development can both empower and curtail rights.

This dissertation examines the impacts of religious movements through a multi-layered study of the Buddhist renaissance that emerged in Taiwan in the 1980s. By examining this historically important development, I clarify the process by which movements transform social structures and the constraints that the movements encounter. This dissertation includes a recent history of rapid political liberalization and economic growth, the legalization of abortion and the expansion of women's rights, campaigns against human trafficking and prostitution, and the formation of the first lesbian group in Taiwan. I use two major research strategies: (1) a historical analysis of data and (2) a Hakka case study. Data have been collected from archives, interviews, newspapers, and published reports. This dissertation challenges the argument that movements are inconsequential, and that the courts, economic elites, or political parties are the main propelling agents causing institutional change. In general, these groups respond to the demands of movements, particularly the leverage brought to bear by feminist and religious movements. The Buddhist renaissance movement in Taiwan attempted to reestablish the broken lineages of nuns to confront challenges of inequality and injustice. By pressing for changes in traditions, the Buddhist movement has improved the Taiwanese legal culture and system, as well as the status of women in Taiwan.

This dissertation contends that religion played a critical role in explaining why and how white South Carolinians decided to resist changes in the racial caste system of their society during the middle decades of the last century. As early as 1950 with the first stirrings of desegregation occurring in their state, white evangelicals in the Palmetto State began making appeals to both the Bible and the natural world to derive a theology that emphasized the divine mandate for racial segregation. In touting this "segregationist folk theology," religious white southerners proved willing and able participants in the political massive resistance movement that attempted to thwart racial reforms initiated by civil rights demonstrations, court rulings, and federal legislation in the South from the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s. Just as political massive resistance moved from explicitly racist language to coded appeals to racial prejudice in the period after 1965, however, so too was transformed resistance that drew upon religious sources for its inspiration. During the period from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s white evangelicals largely abandoned the biblical proof-texts that ostensibly revealed divine favor for racial segregation and turned instead to a rhetoric of individualism and colorblindness to fight against attempts to desegregate southern churches and schools. Tracking how white evangelicals' biblical defense of segregation changed over time to a rhetoric of colorblind individualism and examining the particular ways this transition affected southern religion and society by the mid 1970s is this dissertation's central focus.

The dissertation is based on over one-and-a-half years of ethnographic field research conducted in Athens, Greece, among various diverse populations practicing unconventional modes of citizenship, that is, citizenship imagined and practiced in contradiction to traditional, prescribed, or sanctioned civil identities. I focus specifically on newcomer undocumented migrant populations from Africa, the broadly segregated and disenfranchised Roma (Gypsy) community, and the rapidly growing antiestablishment youth population. The work maps the shifting narrative, physical, and ideological topographies these communities occupy separately, and during times when they coalesce. I posit that, both in their everyday struggles and at times when their actions spill into public spheres, be it for economic, social, political, or other reasons, these communities influence how the broader population perceives and practices modern citizenship. To outline the wider socio-political and economic context of this work, an ethnographic account of each of these communities is provided separately, exploring both their contemporary circumstances and the historical trajectories and conditions that brought them about. This is followed by a closer examination of two cases in which these communities come together. The first case concerns the cooperation of members of the undocumented African migrant and Roma communities in the transportation and selling of various illegal and gray-market goods. The second case concerns the spontaneous coalescence of anti-establishment youth, undocumented migrants, and the Roma during the December 2008 civil unrest in Athens. Through these ethnographic accounts and case studies I develop the conceptual and theoretical framework that supports the central arguments of this work. In conclusion I demonstrate that citizens are turning away from state-sanctioned discourses descriptive/prescriptive of a nation-centered citizenship and, crucially, are beginning to reconsider modern civic identity and democratic engagement in relation to the influence unconventional citizens are having on the various public and private spaces where these are negotiated and enacted.

On the basis of extended field research in Sofia, Bulgaria, between 2004 and 2006, this project provides an ethnographic account of the predicament of art and culture producers after the end of socialism. The end of socialism deprived the Bulgarian intelligentsia from its economic security, prestige, and a sense of clear moral mission. Now young cutting-edge artists, writers, designers, theater directors and other culture producers seek a way out of this predicament and aspire to become moral leaders of the nation. Through ethnographic participant-observation at the lifestyle magazine Edno, a mouthpiece for this social segment, and through research radiating from the offices of the magazine to the fringes of contemporary Bulgarian art and culture, this project demonstrates that the new culture producers comprise a social segment in a state of flux, an elite in-the-making. While its future is uncertain---it could solidify in a new dominant faction of the intelligentsia, could disintegrate or could take the shape of a qualitatively new configuration---its present condition sheds light on post-socialist debates about artistic merit, the importance of national versus international recognition, and the changing value of cultural capital. The dissertation investigates how the young culture producers strategically code their artistic preferences and ways of life as "European," and demonstrates that they strategically capitalize on a historical local anxiety that Bulgaria is deficient and less modern than an imagined "Europe." The project is indebted to a Bourdieusian understanding of the relationship between taste and social class, and pays close attention to aesthetic preferences in two fields: lifestyle and creative work. At the same time, it departs from Bourdieu in recognizing that while well-suited to account for social reproduction, his model is less successful in explaining social production: the emergence of new social groups and the re-ordering of existing social relations in the context of rapid social change. The project addresses this problem through the prism of Foucauldian ethics. It suggests that the young culture producers have an at least partially correct understanding of their objective circumstances and consciously reflect on the mismatch between their expectations, and the reality of post-socialist Bulgaria.

The "New Institutionalism" (DiMaggio and Powell 1991) posits a Theory of Practical Action as the basis for persisting social arrangements in economic life. In this project, I use this perspective to explain the social construction and organization of the life insurance industries of New York and Arizona. I develop an institutionalized-strategies explanation of industry organization. Research by Dobbin (1994b) showed the influence of embedded "institutional logics" in shaping rational responses to the economic business of railroads in Britain, France, and the United States. I combine Dobbin's argument with recent research on the development of state-level economic policies in the United States. Leicht and Jenkins (1994) identified three distinct "strategies" employed by states in implementing economic policies, and they imply that the strategies differ mainly in their "assumptions about the nature of economic growth and the role of the state" in economic development (1994:257). 1 argue that these findings suggest that states adopt a particular strategy--a set of similar Policy tools ("tactics") for specific policy targets. Applied to the insurance industries of New York and Arizona, an institutionalized-strategies view proposes that variation in state insurance laws reflects the meanings lawmakers associate with the economic enterprise of "life insurance." Different public conceptions of life insurance as a business led to different meanings for policymakers, and these meanings defined what tactics of control are legitimate and appropriate. These meanings derived from the economic and cultural legacy in the state--cultural heritage and economic history gave meaning to images of life insurance as a business enterprise. The legitimate, rational actions (tactics) of policymakers followed from the cultural legacy of the two states, and they constituted overall strategies directed at controlling life insurance companies. The sociocultural and historical embeddedness of meanings associated with the business of life insurance makes the lines of action rational in the minds of policymakers. In addition to showing how this process operated in the two states, I document the outcomes of such organizing activity--different rates of organizational dynamics and industry trajectories as reflected in rates of foundings, entries, and failures of life insurance companies.

Through determined efforts, Mexicans in government and in communities created a national road network between 1925 and 1940, constructing approximately 10,000 kilometers of roads. This dissertation examines the processes of road-building and its effect on state formation and everyday life from national, regional, and local perspectives. Increasingly over time, national reconstruction and its road component included greater centralization of the nation's economy, polity, and culture in Mexico City. Looking at road construction in the states of Sonora and Veracruz shows how road building reflected and contributed to specific needs and rivalries within each region and between governors and the federal government. Roads viewed nationally belonged to federal government processes of centralization and demilitarization, and the larger spirit of economic and cultural nationalism. Mexicans built this network using Mexican financial resources and labor, and whenever possible, expertise. Mexicans often took enormous local and national pride in the country's roads as witnessed at opening celebrations. Moreover, lobbying for a road allowed communities and organizations to promote their region as a tourist destination, exclaiming with pride the cultural and national wonders for foreign and Mexican tourists to experience. Roads also brought unforeseen changes and consequences to many communities. Town leaders lost control of what ideas and consumer goods entered the village; in some cases, gender roles underwent transformations. Children's horizons of consciousness and aspirations for the future grew with the road, combined with educational expansion, which offered them new possibilities for the future such as professional careers and mobility. Local-level change and national state formation became linked by, and because of, programs such as road construction in post-Revolutionary Mexico.

Much has been theorized about the positive correlation between education and the change in women's status in society. Yet, in 1995, a United Nations report on women showed that although there has been much effort to eliminate discrimination based on sex, with greater opportunities and access to education, or formal learning, the most bias was due to socialization, or informal learning, as expressed through cultural values, norms and traditions. The report also showed that although governments claimed to be dedicated to erasing illiteracy and improving educational opportunities, they are very quick to claim cultural relativity when asked to review other elements of concern, such as harmful laws and customs. Education of girls and women has not accomplished the anticipated social transformation, especially the socially constructed patriarchal ideology which places them as primarily providers of biological and sexual services and unpaid labor. In a study on women and higher education in Modern Lebanon one finds the Lebanese case mimics international trends in the unwillingness to confront and reinterpret the strict ideology which impose on women the primary and at times sole function as "mother and wife." In Lebanon, one also finds that this hegemony has obviated the transformation of much female educational progress into change in the role of women in society. Although education has become more accessible, the hierarchy of opportunities is maintained and is more complex as it now intertwines class, religious affiliations and gender. Girls' formal education at the primary level was introduced into Lebanese society in the early nineteenth century. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the doors of higher education were opened to them. Today, women make up half of the student population at the tertiary level. Not only are they able to enter and compete with young men, they are exceeding all expectations by graduating at higher rates. However, there are a few points of concern. First, most women still register and graduate from traditionally female fields. Second, although there has been a tremendous increase of women attending universities, participating in the labor force and the political sphere, there is little change in the way society views women. Women and men regard education and work as secondary functions to women's primary purpose as "wife and mother." Third, when efforts are made to change harmful laws and customs, women are accused of trying to divide their community by placing mundane women's issues before national interest. Even worse, they may be accused of conspiring with the West to destroy Lebanese or Arab identity and traditions. Fourth, in the last six years, the initiation of various policies seem to thwart the advancement of women in the marketplace as government plans push women back into the home. Finally, one must not underestimate the role of the religious authorities in the continuous attempt to shape the strict division of labor between the sexes in Lebanon. The question remains, how can Lebanese women actively and cautiously participate in the formation of new truths, which will generate more inclusive and empowering myths for both girls and boys in the future?