Digital Commons Network^™

Performing An Embodied Feminist Aesthetics: A Critical Performance Ethnography Of The Equestrian Sport Culture, Dawn Marie D. Mcintosh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While this research appears to be about horses and riding, it is really a project about the conditions of White women, White femininity, and feminist futurities. Driven by my investment in imagining possibilities of dismantling Whiteness and heteropatriarchy, this research begins to mark the dominant performances of White femininity and those fleeting moments of disruption by White women. My intentions for this project were to stage performances of feminist futurities that imagine feminist aesthetics as relational probabilities towards feminist alliances.

The research was drawn from a six month critical performance ethnography of a local Hunter/Jumper barn. This critical performance ethnography …

Colorism In The Spanish Caribbean: Legacies Of Race And Racism In Dominican And Puerto Rican Literature, Malinda Marie Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the impact of colorism on Spanish Caribbean literature--more specifically, works of fiction and memoir by both island and diaspora writers from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Colorism, or discrimination based on the shading of skin, manifests itself in Spanish Caribbean literature in a variety of ways. It is often used as a marker of class and/or class difference; it may reflect and/or play a part in shaping cultural standards of beauty or attractiveness; and it signifies the entrenched complexities of the Spanish Caribbean's history of conquest and colonization. Colorism appears in these texts as both a …

Decolonizing Moral Visions: Christian Political Economic Ethics, Latino/A Religiosity, And Postcoloniality, Rodolfo J. Hernandez-Diaz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines moral visions of the political economy of mainstream Christian social ethics through a liberationist and postcolonial analysis of the work of three leading political economic ethicists, Daniel Finn, Max Stackhouse, and Philip Wogaman. Constrained by their subject position within modernity/coloniality and a commitment to a neoclassical understanding of the political economy, mainstream Christian ethicists have stopped short of condemning the inextricable complicity of the capitalist political economy to colonialism and its racist, patriarchal, and oppressive power relations. This dissertation argues that the moral visions of mainstream Christian social ethicists must be decolonized and points to Latina/o thinking …

Cultural Factors That Predict Civic Engagement In African American Young Adults, Umieca Nicolle Hankton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In light of historical and current challenges related to oppression, racism, and socioeconomic inequities, civic engagement may be particularly beneficial for African Americans. Both quantitative (self-report measures) and qualitative (interviews) methods were used to investigate the role of socio-cultural constructs such as racial identity in predicting civic engagement in African American young adults. Participants were 171 African American students enrolled in a predominately white university in Northern Mississippi. A majority of the participants were single, female, freshmen, and heterosexual. Each participant completed survey packets that included a demographic questionnaire and measures that assessed racial identity, acculturation, self-efficacy, and experiences with …

Woven Kin: Exploring Representation And Collaboration In Navajo Weaving Exhibitions, Teresa Maria Montoya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Following recent trends in scholarship that establish museums as complex sites where representations of Native American cultures are actively negotiated, this thesis explores the relationship between representational strategies and the employment of critical Indigenous methodologies by museum institutions in the display of Navajo weavings. A postcolonial theoretical framework is utilized to analyze six Navajo weaving exhibition installments over the past decade. Additionally, a critical reflection is offered about the development of the author's collaborative exhibition, Na'ashjé'ii Biką' Biyiin (Chant of the Male Spider): A Holistic Journey with Diné Weaver Roy Kady, that reveals both the rewards and challenges of …