Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1996. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Mary Boys. Dissertation Committee: Douglas M. Sloan. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-215).

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:00:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5846.pdf: 5676826 bytes, checksum: 963dad4516ecb83414ff9e5e020e9c72 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-25 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / Result of a field work among the Awá-Guajá, a Tupi-Guarani speaking people of Eastern Amazon, this dissertation focuses on the various relations of alterity that are currently being lived and experienced with the many powers that act directly and indirectly in Awá life. Are these Others, now approaching or distancing, but always present in some way, whether in speech, in memory or in action. The transformation is constant and the present study attempts to explore some of these developments whose dialogues, multiplied as they are, become essential for us to think about the Awá-Guajá politics. To this end, I go through certain paths that lead us to these agents full of enemies and/or affines: karaí (non-Indians), kamará (other Indians), awá ka a pahara (other Awá) and karawara (celestial beings). Sometimes ambiguous, these Others give the tonality of a "new indigenous politics whose contours never cease to be problematized. / Fruto de uma pesquisa de campo entre os Awá-Guajá, povo Tupi-Guarani do Leste Amazônico, esta dissertação tem como ponto central as diversas relações de alteridade que estão sendo atualmente vividas e experimentadas com as várias potências que atuam direta e indiretamente na vida Awá. São esses Outros, que ora se aproximam, ora se distanciam, porém estão sempre presentes de alguma forma, seja no discurso, na memória ou na ação. A transformação é constante e o presente trabalho busca explorar alguns momentos desses desdobramentos cujos diálogos, multiplicados que são, se fazem centrais para pensarmos as políticas Awá-Guajá. Para tal, percorro certos caminhos que nos levam a estes agentes cheios de inimigos e/ou afins: karaí (não índios), kamará (outros índios), awá ka a pahara (outros Awá) e karawara (seres celestes). Por vezes ambíguos, estes Outros dão as tonalidades de uma nova política indígena cujos contornos nunca deixam de ser problematizados.

It has become commonplace in academic studies, particularly those with a critical bent, to view nations as being historical constructs, as being without essence, though not without effects of exclusion and inclusion, of the constitution of the „authentic‟ national subject and the „other of the nation.‟ The critical impetus at work here is to show how a nation is constructed in order to bring into view the knowledge and power relations this construction entails, to show whose interests the construction serves, and whose it does not. This study examines the discursive production, the performative enactment and the spatial emplacement of post-apartheid „South Africanness‟ through a case study of Oppikoppi music festival. Oppikoppi is an annual event that emerged in 1994, on the threshold of the „new South Africa.‟ The festival is attended predominantly by young white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and is held on a farm in the northernmost province of Limpopo, South Africa, an area notoriously conservative in its racial politics. Yet, curiously, Oppikoppi has been repeatedly referred to, and refers to itself with an almost obsessive regularity and repetitiveness, as a „truly South African‟ event. Indeed, the festival has been promoted, since 1998, as „The Home of South African Music,‟ and in 2009 the site of the festival was unofficially declared a „national monument.‟ Through the employment of concepts drawn from the writings of French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault – particularly his earlier archaeological works – and from Sigmund Freud – particularly his metapsychological works – this study has posed two broad sets of questions. Firstly, from a Foucauldian perspective, what have been the conditions for the production of „South Africanness‟ at this festival? What have been the requirements, the discursive „rules of the game‟ for whiteness and Afrikanerness to become „South African‟? To what extent does this constitution of the festival as a „South African‟ event preserve older lines of division, difference and oppression? To what extent does this bring about meaningful social change? Secondly, from a psychoanalytic perspective, what are the fantasies constellated in the discourse of the festival as a „South African‟ event? Who, in these fantasies, is constituted as the „other of the post-apartheid nation‟? How has fantasy provided a kind of „hallucinatory gratification,‟ a phantasmatic compensation for, and a means of conserving, the losses of privilege in the new nation? And how has fantasy oriented the festival towards post-apartheid sociality, soliciting identifications with the post-apartheid nation? The overarching argument proposed is that anti-apartheid post-apartheid nation building has cultivated a melancholic loss of apartheid for whites in general and Afrikaners in particular, a loss that cannot be grieved – indeed, a loss that should not be grieved – and, as such, a grief that takes on an unconscious afterlife. Apartheid and the life it enabled – not only racialised privilege, but also a structure of identification and idealisation, of being and having – becomes a loss that is buried in, and by, the injunctions issued to post-apartheid memory and conduct. Without the discursive resources with which to symbolise this loss, disguised repetitions of the past, a neurotic refinding of the lost objects of apartheid, and melancholia are the likely outcomes, each of which engender a set of exclusions and enjoyments that run along old and new lines.

Master of Science

History / M.A. (History)

Thesis (DPhil (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / The uncertainty and insecurity generated by social transformation within local and global contexts foregrounds concerns with identity. South African society has a legacy of an entrenched racial order which previously privileged those classified ‘white’. The assumed normality in past practices of such an institutionalised system of racial privileging was challenged by a changing social, economic and political context. This dissertation examines the discourse of white middle-class South Africans on this changing context. The study draws on the discourse of Afrikaansspeaking and English-speaking interviewees living in urban and rural communities. Their discourse reveals the extent to which these changes have affected the ways they talk about themselves and others. There is a literature suggesting the significance of race in shaping people’s identity has diminished within the post-apartheid context. This study considers the extent to which the evasion of race suggested in a literature on whiteness is apparent in the discourse on the transformation of the society. By considering this discourse a number of questions are raised on how interviewees conceive their communities and what implication this holds for future racial integration. What is meant by being South African is a related matter that receives attention. The study draws the conclusion that in spite of heightened racial sensitivity, race remains a key factor in the identities of interviewees.

A comparison study of cardiovascular risk factors between Anglos and Mexican-American Hispanics, by gender and age, was conducted with 1343 subjects in Pima County, Arizona. Data was collected through public health screenings at a variety of sites (39) throughout the community. A self-administered questionnaire and measurements of height, weight, blood pressure, total blood cholesterol and blood glucose provided the data. Risk factors (total blood cholesterol, hypertension, smoking, genetic tendency, diabetes, obesity and lack of exercise) were analyzed individually and in combination by age, gender and ethnicity. Some of the significant findings (p ≤ 0.05) were females, greater than 50 years of age, had higher cholesterol levels and more multiple risk factors than comparable males, that more Anglos (p ≤ .005) both males and females, had elevated blood cholesterol levels than did Mexican-Americans but that Mexican-Americans were more obese and exercised less than Anglos.

This thesis describes studies on the analysis of arsenic (As) in human biological samples, mainly urine but also hair and fingernails using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GF-AAS). The relationship between ethnicity and arsenic metabolism was investigated for the first time for a population in the United Kingdom. This investigation has been carried out through comparative analysis of arsenic in human urine, hair and fingernails in volunteers from three different ethnic groups (Whites, Asians and Somali Black-Africans) who are only exposed to background levels of arsenic. Results obtained with 63 volunteers showed ethnic differences in urinary arsenic excretion as well as differences in arsenic levels in fingernail samples. The averages of total arsenic levels for the Somali Black-Africans (urine 7.2 µg/g creatinine; fingernails 723 µg/kg) are significantly (P< 0.05) different from both the Asians (urine 20.6 µg/g creatinine; fingernails 153.9 µg/kg) and Whites (urine 24.5 µg/g creatinine; fingernails 177.0 µg/kg). The Somali group also shows a higher percentage (50%) of dimethylarsinate (DMA) and a lower percentage (48%) of arsenobetaine (AB), compared to Asians (16% DMA and 83% AB) and Whites (22% DMA and 77% AB). The effect of fasting on urinary arsenic species distribution was also investigated by monitoring urine samples from 29 Ramadan fasting volunteers, with each volunteer providing a sample at the beginning (RF1) and at the end (RF2) of an approximately 12 hours fast. The results obtained showed the frequency of MA detection for RF2 was 12 and 2-fold higher than for the non-fasting and RF1 groups, respectively. This suggests fasting may alter the pattern of arsenic metabolism and excretion. However, there was no significant difference (P> 0.05) in the average of total level of arsenic for RF1 (18.3 µg/g creatinine) and RF2 (17.7 µg/g creatinine). A relationship between excretion of arsenic and selenium in individuals exposed to background levels of arsenic and selenium was investigated through analysis of urine samples from 93 volunteers from Leicester, UK. A positive correlation between arsenic and selenium was found and the As:Se ratio was 0.7 ± 0.4. The intra-individual variation of As:Se ratio does not alter significantly over time, as determined by monitoring urine samples from a volunteer over a period of one year. Furthermore, within a single day, with urine samples collected at the beginning and after a 12-hour fast, the As:Se ratio was found to be similar (0.7 ± 0.5). These findings suggest a close relationship between these two metalloids, the biological significance of which needs to be explored in the future.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Diversity Studies). March 2014 / Despite the end of apartheid, South Africa remains a grossly unequal society. This has meant that the current social order must again be challenged. One of the tasks faced in post-apartheid South Africa is the philosophical and moral interrogation of white privilege. This research investigates the ways of speaking of Argentine immigrants living in South Africa. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed by making use of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory as well as Melissa Steyn’s characteristics of “white talk”. It was found that Argentine immigrants living in South Africa aligned themselves with the ways of speaking of white South Africans. These are largely informed by and embedded in Eurocentric discourses; in particular liberal ideology. In line with the agenda of Critical Whiteness studies, this positionality was exposed and theoretically interrogated. Keywords: whiteness, immigrants, discourse, Laclau and Mouffe discourse theory, white talk, racism, identity, liberalism

Structural racism is often perpetuated by well-intentioned White individuals who passively accept or are unaware of its existence. However, when their perceptions and understanding of the world are challenged through learning about structural racism, White people may experience emotions such as fear, and guilt, which seem to serve either a debilitating or a motivating role in multicultural attitude development. Self-compassion, which is the ability to process distressing emotions without resorting to avoidance of the emotional experience, may help White individuals work through strong negative affect that accompanies an awareness of structural racism and ultimately aid in the development of multicultural attitudes. This hypothesized model of moderated mediation was tested using a sample of White adults (N = 240; 70.8% women, 26.3% men, 2.9% gender-expansive) who completed an online survey. Awareness of structural racism had a larger positive relationship with White guilt in individuals who endorsed lower levels of self-compassion. For individuals with high levels of self-compassion, more awareness of structural racism was associated with more fear, which in turn was associated with lower multicultural attitudes. For individuals with low levels of self-compassion, more awareness of structural racism was associated with less fear, which in turn was associated with more multicultural attitudes. Contrary to the theoretical model, the indirect effect of awareness of structural racism on multicultural attitudes through White guilt was not moderated by self-compassion. Implications and recommendations for research and practice in the field of counseling psychology are discussed.