African Languages and Societies Commons^™

South African Marriage In Policy And Practice: A Dynamic Story, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

Law forms one of the major structural contexts within which family lives play out, yet the precise dynamics connecting these two foundational institutions are still poorly understood. This article attempts to help bridge this gap by applying sociolegal concepts to empirical findings about state law's role in family, and especially in marriage, drawn from across several decades and disciplines of South Africanist scholarly research. I sketch the broad outlines of a nuanced theoretical approach for analysing the law-family relationship, which insists that the relationship entails a contingent and dynamic interplay between relatively powerful regulating institutions and relatively powerless regulated populations. …

"Black People Don't Tip": Racism In The Restaurant Industry, Hortance E. Houngbeke

Undergraduate Research Posters

Due to discrimination, waiters are less likely to provide good customer service to their black dinners solely based on the assumption that they are poor tippers. The theory of discrimination is the foundation of this observational study where attentiveness is measured to reflect waiters’ avoidance of African American diners. Assuming waiters start with their preconceived notions about Black customers, this research will use the critical race theory to determine if waiters are less attentive to African American diners. To further understand the subtle discriminatory behavior of waiters toward African Americans, this study analyzes observational data from a sample of waiters …

Ethiopian And Eritrean Businesses Growth Barriers In The Washington, Dc Area, Sereke-Berhan Meres

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prior studies have revealed that recent Asian and Hispanic immigrant entrepreneurs have made significant contributions to social change in the United States. Although African immigrant entrepreneurs have made such contributions, few studies exist about them, and there is limited knowledge about this business community. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify the barriers of growth in Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrant-owned firms in the Washington, DC area who were in business for a minimum of 3 years and represented various trade lines and geographical locations. The enhanced integrated model of ethnic business development, which proposes growth strategies by …

Success Strategies For Small Business Owners In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Marcellinus Emeka Madu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African immigrant business owners create jobs and often stimulate economic growth in distressed inner-city areas, yet they continue to experience barriers obtaining financial support in the United States when trying to gain entrance into the broader economy. The objective of this multiple case study was to explore strategies African immigrant business owners used to succeed in business beyond 5 years. The conceptual framework of this study included resource-based theory, human capital theory, and disadvantage theory. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 3 African immigrant business owners in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who had succeeded in business beyond 5 years. Thematic analysis from interviews, …

Consequences Of The Niger Delta Amnesty Program Implementation On Nigeria's Upstream Petroleum Industry, Chisomaga Ihediohanma Ezeocha

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Niger Delta militancy ravaged the Nigerian upstream petroleum sector between 2004-2009, bringing it to a standstill. In response, the Nigerian state adopted an amnesty policy―a globally recognized tool for conflict resolution and peacebuilding―to protect the sector and the economy from collapse. Little is known, however, about the unintended consequences of the amnesty implementation for the Nigerian upstream petroleum sector. Thus, the purpose of this study was to fill this gap in the research literature on the Niger Delta amnesty program. Polarity management was the conceptual framework applied; relative deprivation and polarities of democracy constituted the theoretical foundation for this …

Parent-Adolescent Sexual Health Communication In Immigrant Nigerian American Families, Susan Modupe Ogunnowo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Poor sexual health communication among first generation Nigerian American parents and their adolescent children due to disparities in cultural integration constitutes a barrier to effective parent-child relationships. The purpose of this phenomenological study, which was guided by the acculturative family distancing (AFD) model, was to explore the lived experience of Nigerian immigrant families in the United States regarding communication effectiveness about sex and integration into the American way of life. The research questions addressed cultural bias, parent-adolescent communication effectiveness, strategies employed, resources available to new immigrants, and barriers to their usage. Data collection was by individual interviews of 5 Nigerian-born …

Motives And Methods Of Social Mobilization In Rural Senegal, Antonia Morzenti

Capstone Collection

Senegal, a predominantly Muslim West African country, has demonstrated political stability, sustained a constitutional democracy, and maintained a pluralistic society since independence in 1960. Amidst this, there are several small groups of social organizers who are engaging in effective social change. Tostan, a regional INGO focusing on community empowerment through nonformal education, has been working in Senegal for more than 25 years and has reached more than three million people in West Africa. After completing Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program (CEP), the social organizers have decided to travel from village to village educating and sensitizing others on what they have learned. …

Strategies To Sustain Small-And-Medium Sized Business Enterprises, Matthias Ikenna Chijioke

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Eighty-five percent of all firms operating in Nigeria are small-and medium-sized business enterprises (SMEs) and contribute almost 55% to the gross domestic product (GDP) in Nigeria. Capital flight and other growth inhibitors pose threats to the sustainability of SMEs in Nigeria. This exploratory multiple-case study was to determine strategies SME leaders use to sustain business operations in Nigeria. The study participants consisted of 15 SME leaders from 3 regional manufacturing firms who had successfully implemented strategies to sustain SMEs in Nigeria. Bertalanffy's general systems theory and Freeman's stakeholder theory were the conceptual frameworks used in the research. The data collection …

Immigration's Impact On Emerging Mental Health Issues Among Kenyans In The Northeast United States, Jane Itumbi Kabuiku

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Immigrants lose their unique psychosocial context when their experiences are subsumed under pan ethnic labels such as Hispanics, Latina/o, Asians or Africans. The stress from navigating different cultural contexts becomes problematic when immigrants operate within mainstream cultural norms that are in conflict with their traditional values. The number of Kenyan immigrants to the United States has steadily increased since the 1980s. The purpose of this descriptive phenomenological study was to study the lived experience of Kenyan immigrants by focusing on their integration experience and how the integration processes may have affected their mental health. Very few studies center on the …

The Relationship Between Nigerian Local Government Administrative Leadership Styles And Organization Outcomes, Adebayo A. Adanri

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite the multitude of existing studies of leadership and organizational outcome, there are few empirical studies of these phenomena in Africa. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the relationship between Nigerian local government administrative leadership and organizational outcome and between perceived leadership effectiveness and transformational leadership factors, based on Bass's full range leadership theory (FRLT). Data were collected through the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaires administered to a randomly selected sample of 240 department heads in 30 local governments in Osun State, Nigeria. Regression result shows a statistically significant correlation between the local public administrators' leadership practices and organizational …

Exploring Ghana's Strategies For Stability:Lessons For Postwar Reconstruction, Wilmot Nah Adekoya

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Between 1990 and 2005, the state of affairs in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, including Liberia, remained fragile due to continuous civil unrest and war. Although peace initiatives were initiated, progress toward peace has remained minimal. Ghana, one of the nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, has continued to demonstrate significant stability and progress in the midst of civil and political conflicts in the sub-region. Currently, little research exists on how Ghanaians managed to remain stable, while countries in the sub-region continued to experience civil unrests and wars. Using Eisenstadt's theory of sociological modernization as the theoretical foundation, the purpose of this holistic …

Perceptions About Sexually Transmitted Diseases In Akwa Ibom State Of Nigeria: A Qualitative Study Of Young Adults Age 18-24, Mfon Archibong Archibong

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite the ongoing investments in programs to increase sexual health awareness among young adults globally, many youths remain vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Two-thirds of all STDs occur among youths engaging in high-risk sexual behaviors, which put young adults at higher risk of STDs and can result in serious consequences including infertility. Additionally, the social consequences of STD affect families and communities. While a need exists for increased public awareness of STDs among young adults, extant intervention and prevention activities should be informed by a cultural perspective, including the integration of community and government roles. The purpose of this …

Nonstandard Languages: The Outcasts Of The Language Revitalization Movement, Whitney Snowden

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis compares the failures of the creolization movement with the success of the language revitalization movement and seeks to determine which elements are missing from the former to make it as successful as the latter. Education policy, identity, and language ideology are all examined as contributors to the future success of creole inclusivity in education and society, as well as the potential benefits such a movement would include. Specifically examined are Siegel’s research on creole education and Armstrong’s work on language ideology.

Life Is Calling ... How Far Will You Go ... Back In The Closet? Identity Negotiation And Management Among Queer, Peace Corps Volunteers, Kate Elizabeth Slisz

Theses and Dissertations

There is little to no research surrounding the experiences of queer, foreign-aid workers. To address this gap, a study was conducted to explore how compulsory heterosexuality affects the social construction of sexuality in societies where queer, foreign-aid workers serve and how this influences their identity negotiation and management processes. Participants consisted of ten self-identified queer, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs), as well as, the researcher herself who also identifies as queer. Data was gathered through both semi-structured interviews and autoethnographic research. Meaning structuring through narratives was used to analyze the data. Analysis revealed that strategies of silencing, counterfeiting, and lying …

Fearless Friday: Beau Charles, Christina L. Bassler

SURGE

In this week’s Fearless Friday, SURGE would like to feature the wonderful Beau Charles ’17!

Beau Charles is currently a junior at Gettysburg and is majoring in English while minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Africana Studies. They’re originally from nearby Lancaster, Pennsylvania. [excerpt]

The Language Ecology Of Sierra Leone, George Tucker Childs

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many of Sierra Leone’s indigenous languages are robust and enjoy some support on the national level. Mende and Temne, for example, receive government support in terms of materials having been created for developing literacy in those languages. Other Sierra Leone languages receive support in nearby countries, e.g., Mandingo (Malinké) and Kisi in Guinea. Three languages in Sierra Leone, however, receive no such support and will likely disappear in a generation, namely, the three South Atlantic languages Mani (Bullom So), Kim (Krim) and Bom (Bum). A fourth language belonging to the same group, Sherbro, the subject of an upcoming investigation, has …

George Washington Carver And The Ancient Egyptian Connection, Jon Adkins

Professional Agricultural Workers Journal

No abstract provided.

Wearing Memories: Clothing And The Global Lives Of Mourning In Swaziland, Casey Golomski

Anthropology

This article situates a cultural phenomenon of women’s memory work through clothing in Swaziland. It explores clothing as both action and object of everyday, personalized practice that constitutes psychosocial well-being and material proximities between the living and the dead, namely, in how clothing of the deceased is privately possessed and ritually manipulated by the bereaved. While human and spiritual self-other relations are produced through clothing and its material efficacy, current global ideologies of immaterial mortuary ritual associated with Pentecostalism have emerged as contraries to this local, intersubjective grief work. This article describes how such contrarian ideologies paper over existing global …

Tacit Cultural Knowledge: An Instrumental Qualitative Case Study Of Mixed Methods Research In South Africa, Debra Rena Miller

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Notwithstanding the dramatic expansion of mixed methods research, research methodologies, methods, and findings are culturally situated. Problematically, studies conducted outside the global north often embrace canonical methodologies aimed at understanding concepts more explicit than tacit. Learning about the needs of researchers and participants in South Africa may bring to light taken-for-granted assumptions in Anglo-American orientations of mixed methods. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore aspects of tacit cultural knowledge that contextualize mixed methods research in South Africa.

In-person interviews among South African professors as well as a corpus of books, sections, journal articles, and theses informed the …

The Spark That Lit The Flame: The Creation, Deployment, And Deconstruction Of The Story Of Mohammed Bouazizi And The Arab Spring, Elizabeth Ann Cummings

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The story of Mohammed Bouazizi is credited with being the "spark that lit the flame," first of the Tunisian Revolution, then the Arab Spring as a whole, creating a domino effect that brought down the Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan and Yemeni leaders, and threatened to topple still more. In this thesis I explore the narrative structure of the Tunisian revolution, how the story of Mohammed Bouazizi represented that structure and how the narrative sparked the Arab Spring. I also ask how narrative is created and what role social media played in allowing this particular story to become a part of the …

Black Like Me? A Narrative Study Of Non-Anglophone Black U.S. Immigrant Selves In The Making, Yvanne Joseph

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished discriminatory national origin quotas that favored European immigrants. The U.S. has since experienced steady flows of immigrants of color. These diverse groups have brought their racial, social, cultural and historical experiences, which adds greater complexity to the existing Black/White and ingroup/outgroup models that shape group relations, and psychological theorizing about identity. This dissertation focuses specifically on the smaller, less visible, yet growing segments of these immigrant populations. It presents a study of the lives of ten individual immigrants of African descent originating from a non-Anglophone country within Africa, Latin America …

Reflections Of Globalization: A Case Study Of Informal Food Vendors In Southern Ghana, Arianna J. King

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the context of rapid urbanization, globalization, market liberalization, and growing flexibility of labor in the post-Fordist era, urban environments have seen economic opportunities and employment in the formal sector become increasingly less available to the vast majority of urban dwellers in both high-income and low-income countries. The intersectional forces of globalization, and neoliberalization have contributed to the ever-growing role of informal economic opportunities in providing the necessary income to fulfill household needs for individuals throughout the world and have also influenced social, cultural, and spatial organization of informal sector workers. Using a case study and ethnographic information from several …

Sexual And Gender Based Violence (Sgbv) In Post- Conflict Northern Uganda, Emily Thomesen

Senior Honors Projects

There is a sweet odor of earth and mangos as the sun rises over the fields of rice and pineapples. The silence of the morning is broken by the rising voices of women congregating together to worship as their little children dance to the music of their mothers’ voices. In the center of the African safari a refugee has been established for these mothers struggling under the weight of war and poverty. They learn the skills they need to provide food for their families, and counseled through the trauma of their pasts. Seven years ago this land was site of …

Citizenship Without Borders: Understanding Empathy And Domestic Direct Service As Powerful Approaches To Making Global Connections That Matter, Courtney Tielking

Honors College Theses

By unraveling a case study on Georgia Southern University's Alternative Break program, this research examines the relationship between empathy and globalization. Alternative Breaks are week-long trips, during University holidays, which facilitate and encourage direct service, immersion in a specific social issue, and guided reflection sessions. Four active Alternative Break participants and advisors were interviewed to outline accurately and depict their experience with culture-based Alternative Break trips. Their stories demonstrate an alternative to traveling abroad in order to achieve a sense of global citizenship. The research suggests that through empathy and direct service, one can become a global citizen without ever …

Education, Crystal C. Gray

Eddie Mabry Diversity Award

Education is a spoken word poem that explores many aspects of the African American struggle within (self-knowledge). It starts with an African American college student who is disappointed with the lack of courses about her culture. Most curricula in the United States tend to be from a Eurocentric perspective, leaving out a multitude of information about people of color. All groups of people of color have unique experiences, however, African Americans have the most known (or perhaps I should say, unknown) history. The standard explanation of their existence is often limited to the start of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, when …

Orphans’ Hope: An Evaluation Of Residential Orphan Care In Malawi Africa, Emily B. Johnston

Selected Honors Theses

It is estimated that over 7 million orphans are institutionalized worldwide (sos-usa.org). Research has shown that while orphanages are often able to meet physical needs better than alternative forms of care, orphanage life can be harmful for the wellbeing of a child. This study evaluated orphan care at one institution in Malawi, Africa, to determine the effectiveness of care and suggest interventions that could position the children for success. Through interviews with caretakers and administrators, it was found that residential care in Malawi could be an effective form of care. The greatest needs were consistent behavioral intervention and sexual activity …

Youth Narratives Of The Conflict In Northern Uganda, Ellen Eichelberger

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Narratives are an essential method of communication that create windows into human experiences. Narratives are also responsible for generating the societies in which they are told, or are shaped indelibly by the societies generated by more powerful narratives. In a post-conflict environment where society has been destroyed by decades of violence, the power of narratives to influence society is heightened. Such a postconflict environment is that of northern Uganda, as it emerges from the violence of the war between the LRA and the UPDF. Due to the heightened powers of narratives, it is necessary to give attention to what those …

Transnational Education Systems In Morocco: How Language Of Instruction Shapes Identity, Sarah Robertson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The North African country of Morocco boasts a rich history of linguistic diversity, which was further compounded with the introduction of the French language under the protectorate in 1912. Through a complicated mix of Fus’ha (Modern Standard Arabic), Darija (Moroccan Dialectical Arabic), French (historically the language of the protectorate), and most recently, the introduction of English, the system of education with respect to linguistic instruction is left in a bind. The divide between the public schools, private schools, traditional Arabic schools, and well-­‐ established French schools only grows, as the Moroccan Education system hurts for change. If language shapes education, …

Fearless Friday: Justina Molokwu, Christina L. Bassler

SURGE

Justina Molokwu ’17 has been fearlessly involved on campus in her first two years at Gettysburg contributing to the College’s goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. A Psychology and Organization and Management Studies double major and a writing minor, the list of Molokwu’s extracurricular involvement is impressive: Diaspora House house leader, Diversity Peer Educator, Vice President of GASA, and Career Development Liaison for BSU. In addition, she works at the Den, with Residence Life, for the Psychology Department, with the Women’s Center, and is a member of the Gettysburg Cheerleading squad. [excerpt]

Busy Intersections: A Framework For Revitalization, George Tucker Childs

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Slides from a presentation given to the 4^th International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation (ICLDC4), University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawaii. 26 Feb – 1 Mar., 2015.