Exchanging Affect: The Migrant Domestic Workers Market in Turkey
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Since the second half of 1990's, Turkey has received a migration flow of women from the postsocialist countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucuses and Central Asia, into the domestic work sector. The demand for the migrant domestics is mainly for their live-in services, which also distinguishes them from the indigenous domestics since the latter prefer working strictly as live-outs. The migrants' willingness to work as live-in's has consequently caused them to be employed in three subfields of domestic work; care giving for the elderly, care giving for children and housekeeping in suburban houses. This research explores the emergence and expansion of "the migrant domestic workers market" as an ethnic niche in Turkey in the postsocialist period when migration and employment relations have formed a mutually fostering alliance. It argues that the migrant domestics of postsocialist origin are not demanded for an inherent ability. Rather the demand for their labor is a consequence of a capacity that they acquire by turning into transnational migrants. In this process, their subjectivity that was earlier shaped by an upbringing in a formerly socialist system also gets molded by a state of "migrancy". The latter then causes them to serve their employers in a distinct way that is characterized by a specific type of labor, which in this research is called "availability".
The Problem of Malawi in Western Discourse: Power, Patronage, and the Politics of Pity
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Advisor:
Barbara Katz Rothman
While recent sociological work on African social problems tends to focus on particular areas such as HIV/AIDS, this dissertation considers relationships and links between diverse social issues to argue that western-defined African social problems are not only disconnected from what Africans themselves see as their major needs but are also rooted in an historical pattern of power and inequality. Using Malawi as a case study I compare discourse about four diverse social problems--slavery, HIV/AIDS, climate change, and homosexuality. I demonstrate how these vastly different issues are related: each is framed and funded by foreigners and each is depoliticized, often blaming Africans themselves for various negative outcomes of global inequality. But despite the blame, these social problems are presented to the western public through a frame of pity that underscores the need for immediate western intervention.
INTANGIBLE HERITAGE'S UNCERTAIN POLITICAL OUTCOMES: NATIONALISM AND THE REMAKING OF MARGINALIZED CULTURAL PRACTICES IN TURKEY
Year of Dissertation:
2012
The scope of cultural heritage management has been extended from tangible to intangible products in the few last decades. Debates surrounding the field of heritage raise fundamental questions about its inherent political character, calling particular attention to the ways in which heritage programs are dominated by nationalistic concerns. This study examines UNESCO-initiated intangible heritage making in Turkey. I focus on the complex relationship between heritage and nationalism, and the various levels of heritage making of marginalized cultural practices by national governments. This study shows that global heritage protection mechanisms have diverse and uncertain outcomes even in the same country. Yet when examined together, these outcomes reveal how heritage mechanisms nonetheless continue to be dominated by nationalist government interests. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic research, and content analysis of the UNESCO documents, I offer three case studies of recent heritage management programs in Turkey launched by the Justice and Development Party (JDP) government to safeguard marginalized cultural practices. These are the Mevlevi Sema ceremony, Nevruz festival, and Alevi-Bektaºi Semah ritual. Radical differences in the Turkish government's methods of handling the heritagization processes of these three practices uncover a recent transformation in the official nationalist policy and discourse in Turkey, from secularist Turkish nationalism (of Kemalism) to Islamist Turkish nationalism (of the JDP). It is these shifting nationalist trends that make Turkey's intangible heritage practices not only an aspect of the politics of recognition (in the case of the Mevlevis), but also of nonrecognition (in the case of the Kurds), and misrecognition (in the case of the Alevi-Bektaºis) regarding the extent these marginalized ethnic and religious identities comply with the current government's nationalist agenda.
"Young, Brown and Down:" Second-Generation Indo-Guyanese Americans Constructing their Ethnicity in New York
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Advisor:
Hester Eisenstein
This study offers a new approach to understanding the role of nostalgic performances carried out by second-generation Indo-Guyanese Americans through ethnic institutions as a route into the American mainstream. The Indo-Guyanese are an Indian Diaspora group who arrived in the Caribbean during the Indian Indenture and who have been "twice removed from India." They have limited or no ability to speak Hindi, but their religious beliefs (Hinduism and Islam) have enabled them to maintain certain Indian traditions (e.g.. wearing saris). However, they have also adopted several Caribbean cultural practices, such as musical tastes, that have augmented their cultural hybridity. There has been a significant Indo-Guyanese migration to Queens, New York since the early 1990s, which has led to the creation of an Indo-Guyanese ethnic enclave which facilitates the provision of cultural goods, services and houses of worship. Taking Gans' (1979) concept of symbolic ethnicity a step further, my research shows how the American born children of this unique immigrant group carefully select traditions from their hybrid mix of Indian and Afro-Caribbean cultures to attain racial recognition in New York. Additionally gendered expectations significantly shape the Indo-Guyanese identity. Gendered pressures create and augment disparities between men and women in the second generation as they move towards negotiating their ethnicity within the American mainstream. Inter and intra-generational gendered expectations usually place women in the position of maintaining ethno-religious traditions, which may set limits on their ability to achieve an assimilation status similar to second-generation Indo-Guyanese men within the American mainstream. Therefore, I show how New York provides a space for ethnic navigation and negotiation with gendered constraints.
Neocontradictions: The Politics and Ideology of American Welfare State Decline
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Advisor:
Stanley Aronowitz
This study historically investigates the circumstances - economic, political, and ideological - out of which the American political culture would shift to the right and become hostile to welfare. It is in part a genealogy of contemporary welfare reform discourse, which is comprised by the synthesis of varied and contradictory components of conservative philosophy about family, work, responsibility, and the role of government. This study also contextualizes that discourse within the development of a conservative politico-ideological apparatus. Today's conservative movement in the United States is the fusion of other sub-strands of conservatism and has successfully defined the parameters of acceptable discourse around the issue of welfare. It has developed a large pool of resources, become adept in the arena of activist and electoral politics, built a vast infrastructure for the production and deployment of ideas, and established a resilient presence in the everyday lives of Americans. Therefore a study of the erosion of the American welfare state must trace the development of these ideas and the means by which they became policy orthodoxy.
GENDER (IN)EQUALITY IN POLAND FOUR YEARS AFTER ENTERING THE EU: YOUNG POLISH FEMINISTS SPEAK THEIR MINDS - CASE STUDY OF KONSOLA ORGANIZATION
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Hester Eisenstein
This dissertation concerns the study of gender (in)equality in Poland as it is experienced by the young Polish feminists themselves. Through in depth interviews, an ethnographic study of young Polish feminists belonging to the most active feminist organization in Poznan, Poland, supplemented by works of contemporary Eastern European as well as Western feminists I have tried to show how feminism is experienced, explained, lived through, fought for and talked about in contemporary European Union belonging Poland. I argue that feminism, although known on a large scale in Poland, still has a status of a problematic word on which a spell of suspicion had been set due to particulars of Polish history, including the treatment of gender issues by the Communist government, the Solidarity Trade Movement and the understated power of the Polish Catholic Church in this matter. Because each of these institutions created their own meaning of gender rights and feminism overall, these confusing messages have for years entangled and problematized the meaning of feminism, creating unflattering stereotypes of what feminism is as a movement, who feminists are, what they are fighting for and in what manners. Feminism became associated with images of burly women who burn bras, don't shave their legs and hate men. Although feminism in Poland is still largely relegated to the academic sphere, the actions these young active feminists take, such as their growing presence on the local scale through organizing, sponsoring and coordinating feminist events, cooperation with other women's organizations in organizing, conferences and publications on the issues of women's presence on the local and national levels in the media, have been slowly paying off. Because of the efforts of women from KONSOLA, feminism is becoming a less problematic word in the contemporary Poland.
Are Sisters Doing It (All) For Themselves? Elderly Black Women And Healthcare Decision Making
Author:
Carlene Buchanan Turner
Year of Dissertation:
2009
ABSTRACT
STRATEGIC CITIZENSHIP: DUAL MARGINALIZATION AND ORGANIZED TRANSNATIONAL POLITICAL MOBILIZATION AMONG ECUADORIAN AND DOMINICAN MIGRANTS
Year of Dissertation:
2012
What factors define transnational political participation and citizenship for contemporary migrants? This dissertation focused on how and why migrant activists from Ecuador and the Dominican Republic pursued political engagement, how their home country governments influenced migrants' political activities, and how migrant organizations shaped their transnational activities. The study found that transnational political participation among these two populations was driven by a dual marginalization narrative, where migrants draw from their personal experiences to conclude that they are marginalized in both the U.S. and in their countries of origin based on their status as migrants. Ecuadorian and Dominican political organization leaders use this dual marginalization to create a political identity to demand minority-group rights in both home and host countries. Migrant activists make calculated decisions on where to focus their claims for rights, which I refer to as strategic citizenship
Making Up the Difference: Ecuadorian Women Engaged in Direct Selling
Year of Dissertation:
2009
As economic globalization progresses, employment is becoming more flexible and informalized in many parts of the world. In some developing countries, direct sales (selling branded products from person to person) is an increasingly attractive type of work, especially for women. Direct sales organizations benefit from cultural norms and structural forces that steer women away from full-time jobs in the formal economy, and also from the material conditions that lead to women's need to earn an income. This study examines the work experiences and social worlds of women affiliated with Ecuador's most successful direct sales company, Yanbal, with a focus on the ways in which women make decisions about their work and construct their identities as working women and members of families. The meanings and consequences of the women's work are placed in the context of gender relations, regimes of physical appearance, employment options, and consumption. Employing a combination of qualitative methods (ethnography, content analysis, surveys), the study argues that people's reactions to direct sales as an income-generating activity both shape and are shaped by their gendered economic strategies, behaviors that represent a reconciling of cultural norms of gender and work with material conditions and pressing financial needs. The work addresses questions such as: whether direct selling is empowering for women; how Yanbal can achieve success in Ecuador's challenging economic climate; and how cultural and social norms regulating women's physical appearance are related to ideas about gender, social class, and work. The findings of this study underline the importance of examining a rapidly-expanding type of work, a formal-informal hybrid that appeals mainly to women and helps to promote the expansion of consumer capitalism around the world.
Polling, Media Discourse, and the Construction of Ignorance: Public Opinion Formation and the Bush Tax Cuts
Year of Dissertation:
2010
The advent of polling brought anticipation of renewed government accountability as well as concerns that powerful interests would use the power of mass media to subvert public opinion's emancipatory potential. When early models of public opinion manipulation did not stand up to empirical scrutiny, its study took a decidedly technocratic turn. Critiques of public opinion today tend to be either so fundamental that they suggest its study is moot or so technical that it is difficult to see the larger substantive implications for public opinion formation. We know that public opinion on many issues is "irrational" in the sense that a more informed public would be, quite literally, a public of a different mind. At the same time, we know that mass media exerts a substantial influence over how the public thinks about issues.