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Title
"To better serve God and to save my soul" : marriage, gender & honor in Spanish New Mexico, 1681-1730
Creator
Gonzalez, Jennifer de la Coromoto
Date
2016
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
Marriage in New Mexico, and indeed in all of colonial Spanish America, was significantly influenced by Spanish ideals of faith, honor, virtue and race. While it has long been argued that such ideals were handed down to the American colonies from the Iberian Peninsula unaltered, more recent scholarship asserts that the honor code, rather than a monolithic concept to be either accepted or rejected, was contextually determined and significantly influenced by socio-economic milieus and geo...
Show moreMarriage in New Mexico, and indeed in all of colonial Spanish America, was significantly influenced by Spanish ideals of faith, honor, virtue and race. While it has long been argued that such ideals were handed down to the American colonies from the Iberian Peninsula unaltered, more recent scholarship asserts that the honor code, rather than a monolithic concept to be either accepted or rejected, was contextually determined and significantly influenced by socio-economic milieus and geo-political circumstances. The contingent nature of the honor code and its influence on the institution of marriage clearly emerges in an investigation of colonial New Mexico, a region that for its peripheral position in the Viceroyalty of New Spain has suffered from a lack of deep historical analysis.Using prenuptial investigations, prenuptial disputes and deflowerment cases from the Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe conducted between 1681 and 1730, as well as administrative records from the Archivo General de Indias, I challenge current assumptions regarding what constituted an appropriate marriage partner in this remote/distant area of the Spanish Borderlands. The "voices" I capture from these investigations allow me to analyze concerns regarding free will, sexuality, legitimacy, honor, and race, and how these informed marriage choice in colonial New Mexico fifty years after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Moreover, by examining the mechanisms Spanish colonists used to contract their preferred marriages-sometimes despite familial opposition-I challenge current assumptions regarding the importance of free will, what constituted an appropriate marriage partner in this remote area of the Spanish Empire, and detail the ways the inherent flexibility of the sistema de castas was manipulated in this region to buttress the cultural hegemony of the Spanish Empire.
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Title
John Askin's many beneficial binds : family, trade, and empire in the Great Lakes
Creator
Carroll, Justin M.
Date
2011
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
This dissertation argues that John Askin, a prominent British merchant, provides a vista from which to view the fluidity of the Atlantic fur trade and the constraints of the British Empire in the late-eighteenth-century North American Great Lakes. Through the critical exploration of Askin's life, family, and trade, this work examines the complex contestation and negotiation that confronted individuals as they went about their lives, businesses and day-to-day interests. Consideration of the...
Show moreThis dissertation argues that John Askin, a prominent British merchant, provides a vista from which to view the fluidity of the Atlantic fur trade and the constraints of the British Empire in the late-eighteenth-century North American Great Lakes. Through the critical exploration of Askin's life, family, and trade, this work examines the complex contestation and negotiation that confronted individuals as they went about their lives, businesses and day-to-day interests. Consideration of the family that Askin nurtured, the imperial and economic relationships that he maintained, and the public image he crafted shows that Askin maintained constant involvement with the complicated economic and social processes of the multi-ethnic communities in which he lived. Likewise, the network of kinship and colleagues that Askin developed allowed him to mute disruptive imperial demands and quell the economic uncertainty that occasionally defined the Great Lakes. Askin nurtured relationships with important British imperial officials like Major Arent Schuyler de Peyster and maintained several multi-ethnic families that connected him to new regions of the fur trade. This dissertation argues that Askin leveraged these relationships into a prosperous trade and established him as one of the region's dominant merchants, but his economic initiatives competed with British imperial designs, eventually making him a target of zealous British officials during the crisis of the American Revolution.
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Title
Crime, punishment, and colonization : a history of the prison of Saint-Louis and the development of the penitentiary system in Senegal, ca. 1830-ca. 1940
Creator
Sene, Ibra
Date
2010
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
ABSTRACTMy thesis explores the relationships between the prison of Saint-Louis (Senegal), the development of the penitentiary institution, and colonization in Senegal, between ca. 1830 and ca. 1940. Beyond the institutional frame, I focus on how the colonial society influenced the implementation of, and the mission assigned to, imprisonment. Conversely, I explore the extent to which the situation in the prison impacted the relationships between the colonizers and the colonized populations....
Show moreABSTRACTMy thesis explores the relationships between the prison of Saint-Louis (Senegal), the development of the penitentiary institution, and colonization in Senegal, between ca. 1830 and ca. 1940. Beyond the institutional frame, I focus on how the colonial society influenced the implementation of, and the mission assigned to, imprisonment. Conversely, I explore the extent to which the situation in the prison impacted the relationships between the colonizers and the colonized populations. First, I look at the evolution of the Prison of Saint-Louis by focusing on the preoccupations of the colonial authorities and the legislation that helped implement the establishment and organize its operation. I examine the facilities in comparison with the other prisons in the colony. Second, I analyze the internal operation of the prison in relation to the French colonial agenda and policies. Third and lastly, I focus on the `prison society'. I look at the contentions, negotiations and accommodations that occurred within the carceral space, between the colonizer and the colonized people. I show that imprisonment played an important role in French colonization in Senegal, and that the prison of Saint-Louis was not just a model for, but also the nodal center of, the development of the penitentiary. Colonial imprisonment was not meant to be a true replica of that in metropolitan France. Therefore, Saint-Louis received people who were just charged, those sentenced, vagrants, and even people in transit who never committed any crimes. The driving forces of the system were the need for control over a poorly understood sociopolitical order, and for cheap labor force, that went hand in hand with French territorial expansion. The absence of a clear penitentiary theory, of basic technical expertise in prison management, and of sufficient financial resources, distorted the system and created space for a prison subculture never really understood by the French, and which had a serious impact on the penitentiary.I collected archival sources in Senegal (Dakar and Saint-Louis) and France (Aix-en-Provence). I root the study in the historiography of African colonization, and imprisonment in other colonial settings. I am inspired by the Subaltern Studies and am using theories developed by Michel Foucault, David Rothman and the literature on punishment they inspired. I borrow from James Scott's concepts of the "weapons of the weak" and "infrapolitics of subordinate groups" to analyze African agency in the prison space.The crisis in the prison system in many African countries, the political use of imprisonment, and the increasing development of "private" methods of policing and punishment due to the growing lack of trust by large components of African civil societies in the formal legal systems, are mostly informed by the colonial legacy. I argue that understanding these trends and their antecedents through historical inquiry is critical in the current process of building more democratic and socially just societies in Africa. Imprisonment is an institution through the history of which we gain a fresh view on the logics, the actors, and the outcome of French colonialism. My research sheds new light on a critical part of the history of Senegal and West Africa, but also opens up new research directions for a better understanding of the philosophy and politics of punishment and their implications for the rule of law in our societies in the postcolonial era.
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Title
Modes of resistance : colonialism, maritime culture and conflict in Southern Gold Coast, 1860--1932
Creator
Nti, Kwaku
Date
2011
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
ABSTRACTMODES OF RESISTANCE:COLONIALISM, MARITIME CULTURE AND CONFLICT IN SOUTHERN GOLD COAST, 1860-1932 ByKWAKU NTIBetween the period 1860 - 1932 coastal Southern Gold Coast communities, particularly the Fanti, demonstrated that they were willing and able to resist the colonial government in its project of controlling their lives. To this end, they pursued the means and mechanisms readily available to them; and were also quick to take advantage of whatever opportunities that opened up. These...
Show moreABSTRACTMODES OF RESISTANCE:COLONIALISM, MARITIME CULTURE AND CONFLICT IN SOUTHERN GOLD COAST, 1860-1932 ByKWAKU NTIBetween the period 1860 - 1932 coastal Southern Gold Coast communities, particularly the Fanti, demonstrated that they were willing and able to resist the colonial government in its project of controlling their lives. To this end, they pursued the means and mechanisms readily available to them; and were also quick to take advantage of whatever opportunities that opened up. These communities acted on their own by drawing on ideas from their maritime culture. They also collaborated with the Western-educated elite. Together they openly resisted the colonial administration through demonstrations, discussions with government through delegations, official letters of protest, use of newspaper articles and editorials, and also took advantage of confusion and inaction of colonial officers as the main modes of resistance to colonial rule. Some of the issues on which their resistance centered included entrenchment of British power, weakening of the position of chiefs, colonial government attempt to take over "waste lands," and controversial 1932 legislative council elections. For instance, communities in this region conceptualized land as a cultural and religious resource, among others, whereas the colonial government saw it a resource the possession of which secured political and economic clout. This situation set the stage for a protracted resistance as colonial militarism was confronted by an equally militant people. Furthermore, the indecision and lack of action on the part of local colonial officers in critical moments portrayed them as taking a stand in support of one group in a dispute. This for instance presented an opportunity for a disgruntled majority to resist colonial government orders. In all of these experiences coastal Southern Gold Coast chiefs and their people organized under indigenous organizations sought and did get help from their Western-educated compatriots to navigate the complex bureaucracy of colonial governance. Yet, even this collaboration had its own challenges. This dissertation, explores the issues and events around which resistance to colonial rule in coastal Southern Gold Coast revolved, as well as the means and mechanisms by which they did so.
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Title
Practice and conversion of Asante market women to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission in the late 20th century
Creator
Antoine, Mikelle
Date
2010
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
ABSTRACTPRACTICE AND CONVERSION OF ASANTE MARKET WOMEN TO THE AHMADIYYA MUSLIM MISSION IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURYBYMikelle AntoineAsante Islamic history does not end in the 19th century. Asante women in particular, have been converting to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission since the late 20th century. This period also correlates to a time when women were victimized in Ghana as prostitutes, witches and non patriotic. The ill treatment of women also intersected with the failing socio-economy. Food...
Show moreABSTRACTPRACTICE AND CONVERSION OF ASANTE MARKET WOMEN TO THE AHMADIYYA MUSLIM MISSION IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURYBYMikelle AntoineAsante Islamic history does not end in the 19th century. Asante women in particular, have been converting to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission since the late 20th century. This period also correlates to a time when women were victimized in Ghana as prostitutes, witches and non patriotic. The ill treatment of women also intersected with the failing socio-economy. Food production was at its lowest and unemployment at its highest. Many people formed associations and consequently came to depend less on the state and more on social and religious networks. Women turned to religion unlike any other time in Ghana's history. One main reason why they turned to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, (formed in the late 19th century and came to the Gold Coast in 1921), was because of proselytizing efforts utilizing the local languages. Unlike the older Muslim communities, the Ahmadis preached using local languages and welcomed debates about Islam. By so doing, they won converts. In addition, Ahmadis established the reputation of being modern and championed western style education. Converting to Islam was not without its problems. Asantes lived among Muslims for centuries, even before the rise of the kingdom. While the monarchy welcomed the written and linguistic knowledge of Muslims, they curtailed the spread of Islam. This worked to maintain Islam as distinct from Asante cultural traditions. Consequently, Islam was remained the religion of the foreigner or non-Asante. This configuration has not changed.Asante women who converted to Islam during this period were ostracized by their families. Some were denied inheritance, property, titles and stools. Many left the family home and never returned. The friction caused by their conversion is partly because the Asante regard the Muslim as social inferiors. This was not always the case. British colonial rule gravely affected the relationship between Muslims and the Asante. While pre-colonial relations were positive and Muslims were held in high esteem, British use of Muslim troops to topple Asante transformed the Muslims from allies to Asante enemies. Furthermore, British rule also gave rise to an influx of unskilled young Muslim men to the new colony. Because these Muslims were not literate and were employed as menial laborers, the Asante came to regard Muslims as social inferiors. The Muslim Asante say this has not changed. Their family members continue to tease and insult their decision to become Muslims. It is because of such abuses that many refuse to speak to their family members. In cases when inheritance was revoked, the converts said they became second class members of their own families. While some acknowledge that they cannot accept some property from the family, such as stools, because of the non-Islamic customs associated with such authority, others say that they can be Asante and Muslim. Their families beg to differ. The matrilineal society has been undergoing changes since the colonial period. As more people migrate into the cities, the matrilineal loses influence and control over members. Women choosing to convert and marry Muslim men are just another example of how the power of the matrilineal society is waning. I argue the reason why the matrilineal family has turned against such converts is because they would be outside of their authority. The inability to control women members is a problem for this system. Because identity is passed via the maternal line, this system is threatened each time women leave. Another reason is that the oldest members of the matrilineal families are losing power over the youth. Their reaction against the converts is partly a result of their inability to control the youth. The women interviewed for this dissertation all claimed they faced discrimination as Muslims from their family members and society in general. They agree that they are no longer as welcomed to family functions. They also assert that they are willingly changing what it means to be Asante. One example of this change takes place during funerals. Muslim Asante refuse to wear the traditional black cloth. They opt to wear their traditional clothing which irks the family members. Wearing the Asante traditional black cloth at funerals is just one way of affirming ties to the matrilineal. Another way Muslim Asantes are changing the culture is within inheritance issues. The matrilineal system regulates and controls inheritance. As Muslim members are bypassed because of religion, other members, who would normally not inherit, are being given access to family wealth. In addition, Muslim members are another example of the matrilineal system's inability to control its members as in the past. Indeed, Muslim Asantes are proof positive that the matrilineal system is changing.
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Title
From shrines to prayer houses : a religious history of Igbo women, 1900--1970
Creator
Obasi, Winifred Uche
Date
2013
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
ABSTRACTFROM SHRINES TO PRAYER HOUSES: A RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF IGBO WOMEN, 1900-1970ByWinifred Uche ObasiThis dissertation argues that Igbo women in southeastern Nigeria played active roles in the religious transformations that occurred in their communities between 1900 and 1970. This time period is chosen to permit an exploration of the changes and continuities in Igbo women's religious experience in three successive periods: the late pre-missionary (before 1910), missionary (c. 1900--1940),...
Show moreABSTRACTFROM SHRINES TO PRAYER HOUSES: A RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF IGBO WOMEN, 1900-1970ByWinifred Uche ObasiThis dissertation argues that Igbo women in southeastern Nigeria played active roles in the religious transformations that occurred in their communities between 1900 and 1970. This time period is chosen to permit an exploration of the changes and continuities in Igbo women's religious experience in three successive periods: the late pre-missionary (before 1910), missionary (c. 1900--1940), and independence (c. 1940--1970). Focusing on the Ufuma-Igbo, this project first highlights the changes that occurred in Igbo women's religious experience on the eve of missionary incursion and British colonial rule by examining the role of women's personal shrines in spreading culture-specific ideas. Next, this study examines the ways in which indigenous women influenced European missionary strategies during the encounter between Ufuma and CMS (Church Missionary Society) missionaries. It particularly explores the role of early indigenous female Christians (remembered as "Bible women") in the mass conversion of Ufuma in the 1930s. Turning to the late colonial period, this project then surveys the conditions that led to the rise of spiritual churches founded by Igbo women. It also examines some of the ways in which Igbo men and women came to trust in "prayer houses" as auxiliaries to main-line churches. This study makes a number of contributions to African women's history as well as to African religious historiography. First, it highlights the dominant position that indigenous Igbo women occupied in the religious realm in pre-colonial times. Next, it clarifies Africa's religious history by identifying Ufuma women as key players in the religious changes occurring on the eve of colonial rule and European missionary incursions. Furthermore, by examining the ways in which Ufuma women drew closer to the church when they took advantage of maternity supplies provided by missionaries, this study shifts the focus from educational missionary strategies to the importance of medical missions in African church history. What is more, this study prioritizes the importance of local indigenous women missionaries ("Bible Women") in the evangelical project of the CMS in Nigeria in the 20th century. Finally, this study enriches our understanding of independent Christian movements by exploring the gendered character of "prayer houses" as a 20th-century Christian phenomenon in African history. Prayer houses prompt us to reconsider women's religious experience and African Christian categories in the 20th century and raise the question whether we can speak about womanist churches in African History.
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Title
Trading India : commerce, spectacle, and otherness, in early modern England
Creator
Sen, Amrita, 1986-
Date
2011
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
ABSTRACTBy Amrita SenSpices - pepper, nutmegs, cinnamon and mace drove England's early quest for the East Indies. My dissertation charts the emergent stages of England's trade with the East Indies, exploring divergent English responses to both foreign objects and racialized bodies. Even before the establishment of the East India Company on December 31, 1600, `India' circulated as a series of images, myths and commodities. While drawing on these older depictions of `India' and the East Indies,...
Show moreABSTRACTBy Amrita SenSpices - pepper, nutmegs, cinnamon and mace drove England's early quest for the East Indies. My dissertation charts the emergent stages of England's trade with the East Indies, exploring divergent English responses to both foreign objects and racialized bodies. Even before the establishment of the East India Company on December 31, 1600, `India' circulated as a series of images, myths and commodities. While drawing on these older depictions of `India' and the East Indies, my project takes into account the new ways in which early modern England interacted with eastern bodies after London merchants finally gained direct access to "the islands of spicerie." As such my research has much in common with the recent emphasis on a `global renaissance,' situating England at the cross roads of transnational commerce and proto-colonialism. I argue that not just far flung tropical islands, but London itself needs to be recognized as a `contact zone' (citing Mary Louise Pratt) where actual East Indians roamed the streets and Englishmen consumed eastern objects. In turn, Indian subjects and commodities found their way into court masques, civic spectacles and the commercial stage, briefly transforming Cheapside into a pepper plantation for the Grocer's guild, or Henrietta Maria into an Indian queen in Whitehall. Nonetheless, trade expansion triggered divergent reactions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, leading to public disavowals or championing of the East Indies trade. Structured around civic pageantry, court entertainments and the public stage, my chapters examine a mutually constitutive relationship between mercantile forces and cultural productions geared to varied and distinct publics. Specifically, I focus on three particular publics: mercantile, courtly and playhouse gatherings. My opening chapter, "Imagining India: Discourse of the East Indies," reads the domestic spat between Titania and Oberon over the Indian Boy in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream alongside Mandeville's Travels, early cartography and the arguments against the East Indies trade set forth by seventeenth century pamphleteers like Robert Kayll and Edward Misselden. I argue that during the early modern period, older stereotypes of India as a land of aberrations transformed from a discourse on physical or moral monstrosity to that of economic deviancy. In my second chapter "Blackness, Spices and Civic Spectacle: Importing the East Indies in London's Lord Mayor's shows," I turn to mercantile publics and the Grocers Guild. I am particularly interested in how questions of indigenous labor, religious conversion and spice trade play out in Thomas Middleton's The Tryumphs of Honor and Industry (1617) and The Triumphs of Honor and Vertue (1622). A racially ambiguous Indian queen and her troop of singing Brachmani priests form the subject of my third chapter, "Playing an Indian Queen: Neoplatonism, Ethnography, and The Temple of Love." Focusing more on `becoming' Indian, this chapter analyzes William Davenant's masque for Henrietta Maria alongside the thriving new market of curiosities. My final chapter "`And make them perfect Indies': Alchemy, transmutation and the East India Company," examines the conflation of roguery and East Indies trade in Jonson, charting how the fabulous riches of `India' transform into a metaphor for an elaborate hoax. These concerns have much in common with popular perceptions regarding the `alchemical' quality of England's balance of the trade, and the shortage of bullion, seen to be the direct result of an over-consumption of eastern goods. As such this chapter tests the limits of `becoming' Indian, and the appetite for consuming spices, pearls and calicoes.
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Title
Islam, gender, and colonialism : social and religious transformations in the Muslim Court of the Gambia, 1905--1970
Creator
Saho, Bala SK
Date
2012
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"This dissertation focuses on the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Islamic, colonial, and gender history of the Senegambia region of West Africa. It combines the use of oral sources with a largely unstudied body of archival records generated by Muslim courts since their creation by the British in 1905 to explore the establishment and maintenance of multiple and often competing legal terrains and judicial traditions. The study reveals the complications and contradictions of British...
Show more"This dissertation focuses on the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Islamic, colonial, and gender history of the Senegambia region of West Africa. It combines the use of oral sources with a largely unstudied body of archival records generated by Muslim courts since their creation by the British in 1905 to explore the establishment and maintenance of multiple and often competing legal terrains and judicial traditions. The study reveals the complications and contradictions of British colonialism in the Gambia through the everyday lives of women and men in the colonial city of Bathurst. It also demonstrates how the creation of the Muslim court by the British brought changes to relations within Gambian households as women took advantage of opportunities provided by the British colonial administration to challenge existing systems of patriarchy, marriage, divorce, child custody, maintenance, and property rights issues."--Abstract.
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Title
A pearl in a world on the move : Italians and Brazilians in Caxias, Brazil (1870-1910)
Creator
Magie, Nicole Jean
Date
2014
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
During the late nineteenth century, while many Italians migrated to North American cities like New York and Chicago, they also headed to South America. While my research fits within this global context, it does not emphasize the popular images of Italian day-laborers and seamstresses in North American urban centers, or industrial workers and owners in Buenos Aires, or transient agricultural laborers in São Paulo's coffee fields. Instead, my study focuses on families of Italian settlers...
Show moreDuring the late nineteenth century, while many Italians migrated to North American cities like New York and Chicago, they also headed to South America. While my research fits within this global context, it does not emphasize the popular images of Italian day-laborers and seamstresses in North American urban centers, or industrial workers and owners in Buenos Aires, or transient agricultural laborers in São Paulo's coffee fields. Instead, my study focuses on families of Italian settlers recruited to southern Brazil, not with paid ocean passage like their migratory counterparts in São Paulo, but with promises of land ownership. Within Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, one of the most popular destinations for these migrant families was the mountainous area of Caxias do Sul, which was designated by the state in 1875 as one of its intentionally Italian migrant colonies.By examining this late nineteenth century migrant community through a nested series of increasingly broad lenses, I highlight the critical, yet underappreciated, roles of the state, non-Italians, and non-local trends within early Caxias history. The academic scholarship regarding this period, from 1870 to 1910, currently deemphasizes, and often neglects, the importance of these factors. The Brazilian state--at both the provincial and national scale--possessed considerable influence during the establishment of Caxias as the economically successful city it is today. Also, although Italians dominated the population of Caxias, the minority non-Italians who lived and worked there contributedsignificantly to the community's subsequent success. In addition, the broad trends and changes of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century at all scales--regional, national, diasporic, and global--also influenced local Caxias. Therefore, despite the current Italo- centric scholarship of Caxias's early history, these other forces provided major contributions to the social, political, and economic development of this Italian "pearl of the colonies."More than just a case study of an Italian migrant community, my work provides a model for the examination of microstudies at the meso and macroscales by adopting a global paradigm through which to view and analyze local histories. Scholars often use broad scale findings to simply provide context for their local work, not necessarily to deepen its analysis. In contrast, a "nested lenses" approach attempts to contribute more than just a wider context, instead offering--and this is of utmost importance--the opportunity for deeper analysis, broader perspective, and better explanations of the many interconnected processes involved, from the local to the global scale.
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Title
Replanting the seeds of home : slavery, King Jaja, and Igbo connections in the Niger Delta, 1821-1891
Creator
Davey, Joseph Miles
Date
2015
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
My dissertation argues that past examinations of West African slave systems have over-emphasized the importance of social, linguistic and cultural marginalization, highlighted by a lack of access to the enslaving society's kinship networks, as the defining factors of slavery in West Africa. By centering the narrative of renown nineteenth century slave-turned-king, Jaja of Opobo, my work argues that, as abolition took effect in the Atlantic world, Igbo slaves amassing in Niger Delta trading...
Show moreMy dissertation argues that past examinations of West African slave systems have over-emphasized the importance of social, linguistic and cultural marginalization, highlighted by a lack of access to the enslaving society's kinship networks, as the defining factors of slavery in West Africa. By centering the narrative of renown nineteenth century slave-turned-king, Jaja of Opobo, my work argues that, as abolition took effect in the Atlantic world, Igbo slaves amassing in Niger Delta trading state of Bonny were increasingly able to maintain elements of their natal identities and, in cases like Jaja's, were able to reconnect with their natal kinship network in the Igbo interior. Furthermore, my dissertation argues that the slavery-to-kinship continuum model, first put forth by Miers and Kopytoff in 1977, is inherently flawed, inasmuch as it only accounts for the ability of the enslaved to be absorbed into the kinship networks of the slave-holding society, ignoring completely their ability to reconnect with their natal kinship groups in this increasingly turbulent period of West Africa's history.
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Title
Race politics : perceptions of race and racism and its impact on rights of citizenship in contemporary Britain
Creator
Truesdell, Nicole Danielle
Date
2011
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
Race is a political tool used by nation-states to make and deny claims to rights of citizenship for those who are racialized within that nation. In this dissertation I examine the relationship between race, nation and citizenship in contemporary Britain. Specifically, I explore the ways racial ideologies within the UK are internalized, reproduced, employed, and resisted by racialized actors as they exercise their civil, political and social rights of citizenship. This dissertation addresses...
Show moreRace is a political tool used by nation-states to make and deny claims to rights of citizenship for those who are racialized within that nation. In this dissertation I examine the relationship between race, nation and citizenship in contemporary Britain. Specifically, I explore the ways racial ideologies within the UK are internalized, reproduced, employed, and resisted by racialized actors as they exercise their civil, political and social rights of citizenship. This dissertation addresses three questions: How do racialized actors in Britain take part in constructing and accessing their rights of citizenship within civil society? What is the nature of British racialized citizenship that is made available to individuals and organisations that represent racial and ethnic communities? What are the narratives used by individuals, Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups and the state to negotiate issues of race and racism within the boundaries of citizenship?I reviewed British immigration legislation and social policies directed at BME communities since 1945; conducted participant observations within a regional BME organization based in Bristol, England; and conducted one-on-one interviews with British citizenship living in England to answer my research questions. I develop a theory of "racialized citizenship" that utilizes Antonio Gramsci's concepts of hegemony, counterhegemonic resistance and contradictory consciousness within the realm of civil society, coupled with British sociologist T.H. Marshall's three-part classification of citizenship as civil, political and social alongside Du Bois' notion of "double consciousness."Increased non-white immigration post-1945 into Britain led the British government to redefine Britishness in terms of "whiteness." This active racialized re-creation of British national identity constantly questioned the legitimacy of non-white communities. I argue that access for racial and ethnic minorities to rights of citizenship is always through a racialized lens that is both limited in nature and predefined/predetermined by the state, or what I call "racialized citizenship." Obtaining full rights of citizenship for racial and ethnic minority individuals is difficult due to the hegemonic constructions of race that are both produced by the British state and reproduced within BME organizations. Racialized citizenship requires agents to use race as a political platform to seek their rights as citizens. However, the contradictory nature of race allows for its contestation by racialized actors within the realm of civil society. For racialized actors resistance occurs through the questioning of larger racial narratives that limit these organizations abilities to conduct the work they feel needs to be done for their communities through a subjugated position within society. This is seen in the strategies employed by BME leaders to raise awareness of their communities needs. Resistance also occurs in the ways BME organizations interpret mainstream funders aims and goals for money awarded. This is observed in the activism styles employed by BME members to access their rights. Finally, resistance occurs in the challenging ways everyday citizens questioned and reinterpreted racial classifications and discourse. But, resistance is slow and ongoing and there is always the risk of reproducing hegemonic constructs when mounting a resistance - the reproductions of "BME as disadvantaged" by the BME sector and the construction of race as biological by everyday citizens are just two examples. However, if we allow for the possibility of resistance to occur then there is a possibility that a new hegemony will emerge.
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Title
Emergent masculinities : the gendered struggle for power in southeastern Nigeria, 1850-1920
Creator
Mbah, Leonard Ndubueze
Date
2013
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"This dissertation uses oral history, written sources, and emic interpretations of material cultur e and rituals to explore the impact of changes in gender constructions on the historical processes of socio-political transformation among the Ohafia-Igbo of southeastern Nigeria between 1850 and 1920. Centering Ohafia-Igbo men and women as innovative hist orical actors, this dissertation examines the gendered impact of Ohafia-Igbo engagements with the Atlantic and domestic slave trade,...
Show more"This dissertation uses oral history, written sources, and emic interpretations of material cultur e and rituals to explore the impact of changes in gender constructions on the historical processes of socio-political transformation among the Ohafia-Igbo of southeastern Nigeria between 1850 and 1920. Centering Ohafia-Igbo men and women as innovative hist orical actors, this dissertation examines the gendered impact of Ohafia-Igbo engagements with the Atlantic and domestic slave trade, legitimate commerce, British colonialism, Scottish Christian missionary evangelism, and Western education in the 19th and 20th centuries. It argues that the struggles for social mobility, economic and political power between and among men and women shaped dynamic constructions of gender identities in this West African society, and defined changes in lineage ideologies, and the borrowing and adaptation of new political institutions. It concludes that competitive performances of masculinity and political power by Ohafia men and women underlines the dramatic shift from a pre-colonial period characterized by female bread-winners and more powerful and effective female socio-political institutions, to a colonial period of male socio-political domination in southeastern Nigeria."--Abstract.
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Title
Shared space, varied lives : Finnish-Russian interactions in dacha country, 1880s-1920s
Creator
Lam, Kitty Wing On
Date
2013
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
This dissertation examines the Russian summer house (dacha) communities in southeastern Finland as a site of diverse social interactions from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. It covers the period from the 1880s to the mid-1920s because it seeks to address how Finnish-Russian social, economic and cultural contacts were significant in the political context of Finnish nationalists' resistance to Russian authority and Finland's transition to independent...
Show moreThis dissertation examines the Russian summer house (dacha) communities in southeastern Finland as a site of diverse social interactions from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. It covers the period from the 1880s to the mid-1920s because it seeks to address how Finnish-Russian social, economic and cultural contacts were significant in the political context of Finnish nationalists' resistance to Russian authority and Finland's transition to independent statehood after the Russian empire's collapse. This project investigates why the dacha, entrenched in Russian thought as a symbol of Russian middle-class status, also became a physical and mental meeting place for Russians and Finns from various social backgrounds. Dacha communities in Finland were heavily concentrated in the Karelian Isthmus, a region within a few hours reach by train from St. Petersburg, Russia's imperial capital. This meant that interaction between dacha-goers from Russia and Finnish-speaking inhabitants formed an integral part of the social landscape. These summer house settlements therefore offer a lens through which to examine how social boundaries were created, sustained, and destabilized. This case study is illuminating because Finns and Russians came into contact with each other in a space that was generally seen as part of the personal, private sphere; yet, these contacts also resonated in the public context of community. By examining intercultural exchanges in a specific spatial setting, and asking how imperial imaginings of particular places intersected with everyday social realities, this project prompts us to reconsider issues of nationality, identity, and state-building from an alternate perspective that than of Russian authorities' efforts to control recalcitrant minorities.
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