The City of Claremont, California—a suburb of Los Angeles and the home of the Claremont Colleges—stands out as disproportionately non-Hispanic white in comparison to neighboring cities and counties. This research employs the concept of racialization of place to examine how Claremont has been racialized as “white.” Through an analysis of land-use regulations and descriptions of the city, this research analyzes the structural and ideological processes that racialized the city. The city government used exclusionary zoning ordinances and private citizens employed racially restrictive housing covenants to maintain Claremont’s majority-white status. The city government and local organizations and businesses also implicitly assert Claremont’s white identity through maintaining that Claremont residents are unique among the area and through relating Claremont to New England. The city government and local organizations also frame the city as peaceful and principled, which is typical of places racialized as “white.” This research focuses on the process of Claremont acquiring a “white” identity, but further research should examine how this identity facilitates disproportionate resource capture.

The Black Consciousness philosophy with its focus on black solidarity, the exclusion of whites from the black struggle for liberation, being consciously black and black self-determination, amongst some of the principles espoused by the Black Consciousness philosophy may prima-facie seem to be advocating a parochial politics of race or even a racially exclusionist politics obsessed with cultural authenticity and racial peculiarity. Black Consciousness from such an optic may seem to be more in line with other race centred systems such as apartheid based on white superiority as opposed to a politics that rejects a race centred approach to political life. Certain readings of Black Consciousness reflect the philosophy as espousing a more regressive as opposed to a progressive liberatory politics. Furthermore, Black Consciousness with its focus on race its critics will argue is not in line with a politics of non-racialism which seeks a total rejection of race. However, such an understanding of non-racialism is a very limited and unsophisticated one as it entails a rejection of race without first engaging with the concrete reality of race, while also assuming that a rejection of race entails integration. Indeed, it may be a great goal to attain a society in which race does not matter and in which it is not a determining factor in the life of any individual. Yet, to not see race when race has had and continues to have a profound impact on South African society, especially the poor black majority, may serve to be more regressive than progressive. In a society where inequality manifests along racial lines a hastily sought integration may not serve to attain the desired outcome of a genuine non-racial society. Equality thus becomes a central perquisite to make possible the attainment of a non-racial society unhindered by the limitations of white superiority and black inferiority. With the persistence of inequality accompanied by white domination and acquiescing blacks a non-racial society will serve to be an illusion. Biko, through his articulation of the Black Consciousness philosophy sought the attainment of a radical egalitarianism; this from the Black Consciousness optic being the condition upon which a non-racial politics and society could be forged. Black Consciousness has the ability to create a truly non-racial subject, its sophisticated conception of race which conceives of race as being consciously contrived can serve to illustrate the implicit non-racial outlook of the Black Consciousness philosophy. Through the project of Black Consciousness the end goal could indeed be perceived as being a radical egalitarian non-racial society. The overall tenor is that Black Consciousness complements non-racialism more than it contradicts it.

Fondée sur une ethnographie combinant observation et entretiens, cette thèse analyse les expériences migratoires des résident·e·s français·es à Abu Dhabi. Nuançant le portrait d’« expatrié·e·s » fréquemment présenté·e·s comme hypermobiles, elle montre qu’elles et ils empruntent en fait des routes migratoires balisées. Ces routes sont notamment dessinées par la rencontre entre politiques émiriennes et État français transnational, dans un contexte de concurrences postcoloniales qui se traduisent par des stratégies de distanciation vis-à-vis du colonialisme britannique et de l’impérialisme étasunien. La construction du groupe national, encadrée par des institutions migratoires, se déploie dans la délimitation de frontières associant francité et blanchité, au travers des interactions tant avec les nationales et nationaux émirien·ne·s qu’avec d’autres groupes migrants. Si le rapport à la population majoritaire sud-asiatique est marqué par une mise à distance, toutefois perturbée par la fréquence de l’emploi domestique à demeure, le rapport aux citoyen·ne·s émirien·ne·s engage un trouble singulier dans l’ordre postcolonial. Les résident·e·s français·es font ainsi l’expérience d’une vulnérabilité limitée, mais anxiogène, vis-à-vis d’Émirien·ne·s perçu·e·s comme omnipotent·e·s. En cela, les migrations françaises à Abu Dhabi se révèlent le lieu d’une déstabilisation autant que d’une solidification de la blanchité. Mettant en lumière la façon dont ces reconfigurations blanches s’entrecroisent avec un régime de genre où se renforce l’hétéroconjugalité, la thèse apporte une contribution à l’analyse plurielle des rapports sociaux dans les migrations des Nords vers les Suds. / Drawing on ethnographic methods (participant observation and interviews), this research analyses the migratory experiences of French residents of Abu Dhabi – generally referred to as ‘expats’ rather than ‘migrants’. It describes their migratory paths, and explores how migration affects their social positions, relations, and representations. While these ‘expatriates’ have been described as ‘hypermobile,’ they actually proceed along marked trails. Their migratory routes are shaped by the encounter of Emirati public policies and the French transnational state, in a context where postcolonial competition involves complex distancing strategies vis-à-vis British colonialism and U.S. imperialism. While the construction of the national group is supported by those migratory institutions, it also delineates symbolic boundaries and blends Frenchness and whiteness, through interactions with Emirati nationals as well as with other migrant groups. Although there appears to be little contact with the majority, South-Asian population, this remoteness is complicated by the massive institutionalization of ‘live-in’ domestic services. Relations to national citizens trigger an interesting trouble in the postcolonial order: French residents experience a limited, albeit anxiety-ridden, vulnerability vis-à-vis omnipotent-reputed Emiratis. To that extent, French migrations to Abu Dhabi enact an ambivalent social theater where whiteness is both destabilized and solidified. Showing how the reconfigurations of whiteness intersect with a gender regime which bolsters heteroconjugality, this research contributes to the analysis of the plurality of power relations in North-South migrations.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo investigar as concepções de professores da educação básica a respeito do que significa ser branco. Para sua efetivação foram analisados trabalhos teóricos sobre a questão racial, em especial aqueles dedicados ao estudo da branquitude, bem como realizei pesquisa empírica que englobou observação participante em curso sobre a temática racial destinado a docentes e entrevistas com professores de diferentes pertenças raciais. As análises evidenciaram que a condição de ser branco se relacionou a duas dimensões: uma corpórea, construída com base em características físicas que permitem a classificação de pessoas e grupos como brancos, e outra não material (simbólica). Esta última subdividiu-se em dois patamares: um idealizado, em que se verificavam associações arbitrárias entre ser branco e valores e outro relacionado às experiências vividas por pessoas brancas, fossem os docentes entrevistados, neste caso os autoclassificados brancos, fossem pessoas com as quais os docentes negros e brancos conviveram. O primeiro patamar foi denominado idealização branca e caracterizou-se pela construção do branco como grupo privilegiado e como ideal ético, estético, econômico e educacional a ser alcançado pelos sujeitos. O segundo patamar da brancura não só desmistificou a idealização branca por meio de descrições que sugeriam que as experiências de vida de pessoas brancas eram entrecortadas por eixos de subordinação diferentes do de raça, como a reforçou, já que certos relatos ratificaram alguns significados de ser branco, principalmente os relacionados à opressão racial e ao privilégio institucional concedido a brancos e citado por eles mesmos ou por docentes negros. / The aim of this study is to examine the meanings of being white to teachers of Basic Education in the city of São Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil. In order to accomplish it, theoretical studies concerning race, specially those on whiteness, were analysed and empirical study that included participant observation in a course about race adressed to teachers and interviews with racially diverse teachers were carried out. The analyses of the interviews showed that the condition of being white was related to two dimensions: a bodily one, which refers to physical features such as skin color and hair type, upon which individuals and groups are classified as whites, and a symbolic dimension. The latter revealed two levels of meaning. In the first level, called white idealization, whiteness was arbitrarily associated to generic values, while the second one included the senses of being white experienced by the teachers in their own lives. White idealization corresponded to a set of ideas about white people as a privileged group and an aesthetic, ethical, educational and economic ideal that people aim to achieve. This set of ideas either lost its force in descriptions that showed different subordination factors social class, gender and geographic origin superposing to whiteness or was reinforced by accounts in which whiteness was linked to racial oppression and white privilege.

On August 4, 2012, white American swimmer Michael Phelps was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the international swimming federation in recognition of his Olympic achievements. The unprecedented award – a specially commissioned sculpture – proclaimed Phelps as “the greatest Olympian of All Time.” This title may, at one level, be perceived as a benign honorific bestowed upon an extra-ordinary athlete. On another level, the title should be viewed as a result of the hidden ideological work done by and through discourses of swimming in America, discourses that are always racialized, classed, nationalized, and gendered. Michael Phelps is the point of entry to unpack how modern sport and the Olympics reproduce these dominant views and processes that lead to contemporary social inequalities. My focus is an examination of the power relations that enabled and produced him as the Greatest Olympian of All-Time. Phelps’s phenomenal performance in the pool is undeniable, but I argue that the ensuing adulation and recognition results as much from his privileged position as a white American man as from his hard work, skill, and determination. This dissertation unpacks and explains how these processes work in the contemporary sporting world. Scholars have long argued that sport is a site for understanding how race, class, gender, and nationalisms are performed and/or constructed. In this dissertation, I take a critical cultural studies approach to demonstrate that, from an ideological and cultural point of view, Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian of all time because he is the physical and symbolic embodiment of the modern Olympic movement, a movement founded upon 19th century ideals of humanism, liberalism, and modernity that continues to stabilize and reinforce dominant views of race, gender, class, nationalism and sexuality. To make this argument, I first historicize the sport of swimming itself. As one of the sports at the first Modern Olympics in 1896, swimming is an ideal site for understanding the modernization process through sport. Swimming has long been dominated by white athletes, and I deploy the recent concept of the sporting racial project to grasp how modernization is a racialized project fundamental to constructions of institutional racism. Next, I examine media representations of Michael Phelps in the early 21st century. These representations reveal the role of sport in popular imaginations of the nation and, specifically, the importance of the white male sporting hero in constructions of America in the post-9/11 world. Then, I explore and contextualize notions and meanings of “amateur” and “eligibility” within late 20th and early 21st century structures of Olympic swimming, including the complex and contradictory relationships between inter/national governing bodies. Finally, I show how these three seemingly independent processes involving race, class, gender, and nation are interdependent and fundamental to modern sport and the Olympics.

Health consciousness drives people to drink skim milk. Yet, improving the blue-white appearance and watery texture of skim milk is necessary to make consumers happy with skim milk. In this study, the influence of limited proteolysis with soluble or immobilized proteases, heat treatment, and pH on the whiteness of skim milk were examined to meet this goal. Limited proteolysis with milk-clotting enzymes increased the whiteness of skim milk. the proteases porcine pepsin and chymosin were immobilized onto nonporous ceramic, glass, and controlled pore glass (CPG) beads. The enzymes were coupled to beads either directly or via crosslinker proteins. Pepsin, immobilized onto CPG beads via crosslinker proteins, exhibited the best properties with respect to enzymatic activity, stability, and whitening efficiency. The L value (whiteness) of this immobilized enzyme-treated skim milk was 79.5, which approached the whiteness of 1% fat milk. Immobilized proteases whitened skim milk more effectively than did soluble proteases. The whiteness of skim milk was determined at various temperatures from 4 to 90°C. The L value increased with increasing temperature throughout the range tested. For samples not heated above 50°C, the increases in L values were completely reversible on cooling. Partial reversibility was observed with samples heated at 70°C and above. Milk whiteness was also determined at different pH values ranging from 5.0 to 8.2 at temperatures of 4, 20, and 30°C. The L value increased with decreasing pH and increasing temperature. A maximum L value of 80.0 was obtained at pH 5.0 and 30°C, which is higher than the L value of skim milk at its natural pH at room temperature. The temperature-dependent dissociation of major caseins was investigated by size exclusion chromatography at temperatures from 10 to 40°C. Free soluble β-casein and κ-casein were found only at 10°C.

The popularity of Farmers’ markets is on the rise; in Canada there are 425 farmers’ markets, with over 130 in Ontario alone (Feagan, Morris, & Krug, 2004). Farmers’ markets provide high quality, local produce and are often considered an environmentally sustainable food practice (Taxel, 2003; King 2008). United States studies have scrutinized farmers’ markets as exclusionary white spaces that are not equitably accessible, but similar Canadian studies are rare. A case study at the Wychwood Artscape Barns, located in an economically and culturally diverse neighbourhood, in Toronto Ontario has been conducted. Demographics surveys of patrons were compared with existing demographic data; interviews were conducted to discover who shops at the market and for what reasons; results were analyzed using whiteness theory. Results were consistent with U.S. studies – Wychwood Farmers’ Market patrons were white, high income,individuals with university educations; these individuals shop at the market disproportionally to the demographic data.

This thesis explores the appeal of Israel and Zionism for Ashkenazi Jews in Canada. The origins of Diaspora Zionism are examined using a genealogical methodology and analyzed through a bricolage of theoretical lenses including post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, and critical race theory. The active maintenance of Zionist hegemony in Canada is also explored through a discourse analysis of several Jewish-Zionist educational programs. The discursive practices of the Jewish National Fund and Taglit Birthright Israel are analyzed in light of some of the factors that have historically attracted Jews to Israel and Zionism. The desire to inhabit an alternative Jewish subject position in line with normative European ideals of whiteness is identified as a significant component of this attraction. It is nevertheless suggested that the appeal of Israel and Zionism is by no means immutable and that Jewish opposition to Zionism is likely to only increase in the coming years.

The popularity of Farmers’ markets is on the rise; in Canada there are 425 farmers’ markets, with over 130 in Ontario alone (Feagan, Morris, & Krug, 2004). Farmers’ markets provide high quality, local produce and are often considered an environmentally sustainable food practice (Taxel, 2003; King 2008). United States studies have scrutinized farmers’ markets as exclusionary white spaces that are not equitably accessible, but similar Canadian studies are rare. A case study at the Wychwood Artscape Barns, located in an economically and culturally diverse neighbourhood, in Toronto Ontario has been conducted. Demographics surveys of patrons were compared with existing demographic data; interviews were conducted to discover who shops at the market and for what reasons; results were analyzed using whiteness theory. Results were consistent with U.S. studies – Wychwood Farmers’ Market patrons were white, high income,individuals with university educations; these individuals shop at the market disproportionally to the demographic data.

This thesis explores the appeal of Israel and Zionism for Ashkenazi Jews in Canada. The origins of Diaspora Zionism are examined using a genealogical methodology and analyzed through a bricolage of theoretical lenses including post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, and critical race theory. The active maintenance of Zionist hegemony in Canada is also explored through a discourse analysis of several Jewish-Zionist educational programs. The discursive practices of the Jewish National Fund and Taglit Birthright Israel are analyzed in light of some of the factors that have historically attracted Jews to Israel and Zionism. The desire to inhabit an alternative Jewish subject position in line with normative European ideals of whiteness is identified as a significant component of this attraction. It is nevertheless suggested that the appeal of Israel and Zionism is by no means immutable and that Jewish opposition to Zionism is likely to only increase in the coming years.