Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Kakali Bhattacharya / Thomas Vontz / The purpose of this study was to better understand constructs of national identity in transnational space by illuminating the processes and relations of national identity disruption and development. This study is pertinent as cultural and social identities are traditionally framed by nation-centric processes in education. However, the effects of globalization continue to transform education through learning abroad initiatives and changing migration behaviors, which necessitates perspectives de-centering the nation as an assumed boundary. The theoretical framework for this study was transnationalism. A transnational perspective has brought new focus to educational research and national identity development by questioning the multiculturalist assumption of nationality as stable national identity and exploring the concepts of national identity and nationalism in transnational spaces created by globalization. The methodological approach was critical autoethnography as informed by narrative inquiry, in which I critically examined my own disruptive experience as a teacher in the Marshall Islands by engaging in retellings of experiences with one of my former Marshallese students as an informant. The method of interactive interviewing with an informant was necessary to develop a critical lens and to connect individual reflexivity with writing ethnographically to relate to broader human experience. Qualitative coding methods were applied to our retellings as thematic analysis to categorize accounts in the narrative. Finally, writing as a method of inquiry and analysis was used to explore emotions, positionality, and perspective. Through iterations of performing narrative with the informant and applying narrative analysis I found that the theme of belonging was apparent as a personal feeling in our narrative. Recognizing this as the theme posed another question; how does this address the original guiding question: what is a sense of belonging in terms of relations and processes? To answer this I considered space-sensitive understandings of belonging as a transnational perspective. This conclusion reconceptualized and grounded national identity development in the materiality of belonging as a feeling to reflect (1) the material consequences of physical characteristics, (2) the allocation of resources, and (3) language as power. In curriculum and instruction, this understanding of belonging as process could reinforce the ideological inclusivity of multiculturalism while liberating constructs of identity from the constraints of the nation. This perspective could have implications on the development of students’ national and transnational identities, allowing for the recognition of diversity without diminishing issues of difference such as racism, sexism, classism, and xenophobia in society creating students capable of celebrating difference while recognizing inequity and promoting social critique.

The present dissertation explores the Congolese immigrant workers‟ meanings, their labour migration and their transnationalism in Pretoria through the perspective of south-south social transformation. It argues that this migration is partly an outcome and effect of various social transformations that have been occurring in Southern Africa since the end of cold war in the era of globalisation and age of mass migration. The study draws on Castles‟ middle range theory and the comprehensive sociology of Max Weber. This dissertation makes use of qualitative method, based on ethnography, and corresponding techniques such as interviews. The study shows that what drives Congolese labour migration to Pretoria are economic (wage differential or cost benefit), political issues (wars, violence against human rights, freedom of speech), cultural (the Congolese mythology of migration) and psychological reasons (prestige). These migration processes and patterns are also determined by migrants‟ social class position in the DRC. The latter to a large extent determines the nature and status of their employment in Pretoria. In addition, findings demonstrate that a number of structural constraints and features of Congolese qualifications, skills, and even culture contribute to Congolese immigrants negative performances in the South African labour market. Faced with numerous barriers to professional incorporation, Congolese migrants resort to any legal or illegal means to bypass these barriers. It is revealed that the Congolese conception of social and occupational mobility is mostly understood in terms of economic or income mobility. This dovetails with the socially constructed meanings that Congolese workers attach to their work. Concerning their transnational activities, research participants are shown to be involved in political, economic and socio-cultural activities. Most of their activities are nationally-oriented. Nevertheless, the weight of the tense political situation has an influence on their transnational activities and Congolese culture and/or homeland politics leads to their economic transnationalism. For these reasons, practices of remitting are connected with transnational political activities and culture. Despite the extensive contacts „back home‟ socio-cultural activities of the Congolese in Pretoria are marked by cultural hybridization between Congolese migrants and South Africans. / Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lk2014 / Sociology / MSocSci / Unrestricted

The purpose of this study is to explore the cultural meanings of Asian/American and Asian female skaters through an examination of the US media narratives of them from a period beginning in the early 1980s and ending in the late 2000s. Main subjects are Tiffany Chin (Taiwanese American), Kristi Yamaguchi (Japanese American), Michele Kwan (Chinese American), and a group of Asians such as Japanese skaters (Midori Ito, Yuka Sato, Shizuka Arakawa and Asada Mao), Chinese skaters (Chen Lu), and Korean skater (Yu-Na Kim). Drawing on Reading Sport Project as a methodological tool and the Sporting Black Atlantic as a theoretical tool, I deploy what I call the Sporting Yellow Pacific as a theoretical reading frame for this project. It refers to a genealogical space that is geographically transnational and historically neo colonial, in which the difference of Asian females is epistemologically subjected as ‘Other’ in the ontological space of American white national imagination. With this frame, I attempt to conceptualize the skaters as what I call the yellow female skater, a racialized and gendered sporting icon, which signifies a number of sets of complex and sometimes ambivalent images: nationally American but racially Asian; culturally favored as a model minority but also perilous and foreign as yellow peril; naturally primitive and/or childish but also hyper-sexual and exotic; and, biologically talented or superior but aesthetically underdeveloped. Through an analysis of these images in relation to representation, discourse, and power, I eventually write this dissertation as a genealogy that traces a historical trajectory of the yellow female skater.

Illicit firearms and the proliferation of them are an increasingly discussed topic worldwide. This thesis uses content analysis to analyse the 2005 EU Strategy and revised version of it, the 2018 EU Strategy, on how to combat the proliferation of illicit firearms. With a post-structuralist approach, related theoretical aspects and the use of Carol Bacchis’ six questions in the What is the Problem Represented to Be? (WPR) approach, the thesis examines problem representations in the thesis, and discusses these to identify the shift of the representation of illicit firearms in the EU Strategies. By doing this, it is filling the research gap of policies on illicit firearms that are examining problem representations. The comparison between the two Strategies shows that there is a significant shift in the problem representation, and that contextual factors and norms play an important role in why this shift has taken place. The thesis has identified the political climate at the time of the implementation of the EU Strategies as a vital factor to the differences in the Strategies.

The terms “refugees” and “refugee crisis” have been prominent in media discourse all over the world – especially since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and large incoming numbers of refugees into Europe since 2015. Germany, whose media initially celebrated its “Willkommenskultur”, has become increasingly critical of refugees; political and civic exclusion has intensified, and emphasis has been placed on belonging based on peoples’ passports and hence nationalities, which determine whether or not someone belongs in a country. The author Olga Grjasnow, born 1984 in Baku, Azerbaijan and who is of Russian-Jewish descent, took on the task of describing the horrific circumstances in Syria in the midst of its ongoing civil war in her latest novel, entitled Gott ist nicht schüchtern (2017). Moreover, she depicts individuals’ flight across the ocean and their eventual arrival and life in Germany. In her book, Olga Grjasnowa describes the lives of three young Syrian individuals and their extremely limited possibilities of leading a free, peaceful life due to their nationality and the resulting closing of diverse borders for them.Based on the scholarly discourse on transnational fiction and how this work may or may not fit into this notion, especially with regard to globalization and powerful nations’ economic interests, this thesis seeks to analyze how nationalist and capitalist policy makings affect people in drastic ways, as they find themselves uprooted and persecuted.By excluding a Western narrative voice, Olga Grjasnowa zooms in on the lives of Syrians and their hopeless circumstances, while showing how a “wrong” passport makes life for people difficult to navigate in Syria, Germany and beyond. By means of close reading, I analyze the novel pertaining to the war in Syria and the resulting politics, media coverage and individual “fate”, which is tied to limitations for people to escape these circumstances based on documents and national borders.

The work deals with the current Czech emigration to Poland. It examines how its representatives perceive their integration into Polish society and at the same time maintain transnational social ties in the Czech Republic. The author is based on the theory of transnational migration. Within this the- ory, migrants maintain ties with both the new country and the country of origin. This creates a transnational social network that connects the space of two states. At the same time as this process, however, an integration process is underway. Migrants thus integrate into the host society without breaking ties with their homeland. The imaginary space in which migrants find themselves is called the transnational social field in which migrants' identities are formed. These migrants are referred to as transmigrants. In the theoretical part of the work, the author introduces the theoretical basis of re- search on transnational migration and transnational identity. He also deals with general migration to Poland and Czech minorities in Poland. In the second part, he explains the research methodology, focusing mainly on the (auto) biographical approach, data collection techniques and their analysis. The author conducted a total of 11 in-depth interviews, which she analyzed by coding. It summa- rizes the results...

Les transferts d’argent des émigrés attirent l’intérêt des organismes internationaux qui les considèrent comme une manne financière à mettre au service du développement des pays d’origine. Ils constituent également un objet d’étude qui occupe une place centrale dans la littérature scientifique notamment dans le domaine de l’économie. Dans cette thèse, les transferts d’argents seront considérés dans une perspective socio-anthropologique, mettant en perspective les remises des émigrés par rapport au processus d’individualisation à l’oeuvre en situation migratoire et dans les sociétés africaines. Les enquêtes par entretien semi-directif réalisées qui viennent en appoint des observations classiques et netnographiques permettent de mettre en évidence le sens que les émigrés accordent à l’aide financière individuelle et collective qu’ils apportent à leurs proches, les différentes stratégies qu’ils mettent en place pour en contrôler l’usage, et les interprétations qu’ils font des normes de redistribution communautaire. / The remittances of migrants attract the interest of international organizations which consider them a financial windfall for the development of countries of origin. They are also an object of study which occupies a central place in the scientific literature, especially in the field of economics. In this thesis, remittances are considered from a socio-anthropological perspective, putting into perspective the remittances of emigrants in relation to the process of individualisation at work in migratory situation and in African societies.Semi-directive interviews carried out in addition to classical and netnographic observations make it possible to highlight the meaning that the emigrants give to the individual and collective financial assistance they provide to their family, the different strategies employed by the emigrants to control the use of remittances, and their own interpretations of the standards of community redistribution.

This thesis presents the results of a historical investigation of the arrival and presence of Vietnamese immigrants in Prague between 1974 and 1993. Methodologically, the research is based on interviews with witnesses of the program of socialist internationalism and on the study of the Czechoslovak government administrative documents from the period between 1974, ie. the year the signing of the Agreement between the Government Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam about employing Vietnamese citizens in Czechoslovak organizations1 , with a milestone in 1989 as the collapse of the communist regime, and the year 1993, as the separation of Slovakia and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak Republic This work is not only based on the assumption that this program influenced the integration of the first generation in Czechoslovak society, but it also shows an indirect influence on the second generation coming after the Velvet Revolution, due to the program's effect on the emergence of Vietnamese social networks. The research aims to uncover the factors that influence the adaptation of the first and second generations in the majority environment and to indicate the effect that the normative framework of the program had on the formation of ethnic social networks. It...

This thesis explores swedes and the Swedish community in Paris as a diaspora and not simply as forming a temporary, touristic and fragmented stance. The case is set within the specific locality of Paris and considers the historic relationship between the two countries. This, alongside Frances’ policies towards immigration constitutes the context of the Swedish diaspora in Paris. Furthermore, the studied diaspora is viewed partly in relation to other diasporas in France, such as the African, the Kurdish, the Chinese and the Scottish – all facing different conditions as a diasporic group.  The material for this study was assembled through qualitative interviews and analysed with a qualitative content analysis approach. Furthermore, it was analysed in the light of diasporic and transnationalism theories. Through the analyses we see how swedes in Paris fulfil many of the criteria of a diasporic group which is featured in the theoretic literature. They have a dispersion, voluntary and touristic in its form with a focus on the new locality, a homeland orientation where the homeland serves as a present source for values and identity, and boundary-maintenance through a wide range of institutions and social connections. The members of the Swedish diaspora live transnational lives: present in, affected as well as being affected by, both Sweden and France simultaneously. Hence obtaining a form of transborder citizenship, although lacking a political focus. The analysis and discussion paint a picture of a privileged state bound diaspora without a political struggle. They enjoy a high rate of mobility and their ethnic heritage is viewed as an asset – hence no discrimination in the new homeland. The privilege entails the freedom characteristic of that of a nomadic diaspora. However, this nomadic state result in a certain degree of ambivalence and a sense of up rootedness, alongside the positive effects of being at home in two places at the same time. With its extensive mobility and flexibility, which sets it apart from other diasporas, the Swedish population in Paris form a different kind of nomadic and privileged diasporic unit.

The main content of this Thesis is to assess the situation of the Greek minority in the territory of the Czech Republic in the context of its arrival, settlement and integration to the major society. The aim is to assess the current situation of the minority and its transnational activities. The Greek minority in our country is numerically stable and fully integrated into the main society. The typical feature of minority is the identification with other members of minority trough their organizations and also through the internal identification with the country of their origin (namely Greece), by the traditional culture, history, cuisine and language. The Thesis is divided into eight parts that are relevant to understanding the problems of Greek minority in our country in the context of involuntary emigration from war torn Greece in the 1950's. The methods used in this thesis were the secondary analyses and the field research (the questionnaire survey). The simple statistical methods were used to gain final result. Key worlds: Greek minority, migration, identity, transnational, diaspora.