Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Black suffering'

African American Studies
Ph.D.
This study examines the problem of ethnic suffering and moral evil in Black Judaism. Black Judaism has been traditionally studied along anthropological and sociological lines, as a result, the core beliefs and theological issues which animate the faith tradition have not been the subject of critical study. This dissertation uses an African-American centered theoretical perspective and a black theology methodological approach to produce an autoethnography of my experiences living as a member of the Hebrew Israelite community. This study suggests that Black Judaism is best understood through an examination of the problem of black theodicy meaning the belief in an omnipotent and benevolent deity while acknowledging the historical oppression of African Americans. Black Judaism articulates a belief in black theodicy which asserts that African Americans are victims of divine punishment and must "repent" in order to experience liberation from ethnic suffering and moral evil in the form of anti-Black racism and white supremacy. This belief in deserved punishment has led Black Judaism into a state of mis-religion. By engaging in the process of gnosiological conversion I will identify the oppressive features of Black Judaism and offer corrective measures. Finally, this dissertation will discuss ways in which Black Judaism can conceive of liberation without the need for appeals to redemptive suffering. Concomitantly I will discuss the articulation of a Hebrew Israelite ethno-religious identity which is not predicated on the belief of redemptive suffering. Instead, I propose the basis for a restructuring of the core beliefs of Black Judaism based on humanocentric theism.
Temple University--Theses

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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico
This work aims at understanding of social suffering, caused by unsolved homicides in the black population. Thus, when the homicide occurs, family and friends become hidden or indirect victims of this crime. So, It will be made a historical imbalance of Afro-Brazilians to the capitalist system after slavery. Those who suffered from the absence of inclusive public policies. Also try to contextualize them within the current data with that place as the immediate victims of murder. Finally, reports from family members, through their life stories, and snippets from the ethnographic field notes were the methodologies used
Esse trabalho tem como objetivo compreender, o sofrimento social, gerado por homic?dios n?o solucionados na popula??o negra. Desse modo, ao ocorrer os homic?dios, familiares e amigos tornam-se v?timas ocultas ou indiretas desse crime. Sendo assim, ser? feito um resgate hist?rico do desajuste do negro brasileiro ao sistema capitalista p?s-escravid?o. Esses que sofreram com, a aus?ncia, de pol?ticas p?blicas integradoras. Ainda tentaremos contextualiz?-los na atualidade com dados que os colocam como v?timas imediatas de assassinatos. Enfim, os relatos dos familiares, atrav?s das suas historias de vida, etnografia e trechos do caderno de campo foram ?s metodologias utilizadas

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Pontif?cia Universidade Cat?lica de Campinas
This study investigates the effects of racism in the emotional experience of black Brazilians, who have known some upward mobility. Doubly justified, this work contributes to both bringing up theoretical and practical information on social suffering clinic and helping increase the visibility of the social phenomenon. The study is organized as empirical research by means of the psychoanalytic method, based on two interviews, recorded as "reports of interviews" and "transferential impacts . The interpretation of those registers has enabled the production of two fields of affective-emotional sense, "trapped by appearance" and "talent, effort and expertise. The former is organized from the perception that physical characteristics, especially skin color, have instant impact on people, generating immediate reactions of judgment and evaluation that capture, classify, discriminate, put the person down and humiliate. The second field is defined by the belief that the development of personal skills can be a way to obtain recognition and respect. The overall picture indicates that racism is a present reality in the emotional experience of collective personhood under study, generating major impacts on their subjectivity and way of being. Therefore, it endorses the specific literature that points out that Brazilian society is not free of racism. It also shows that social mobility does not mean the end of discrimination, since the personhood collectively considered is not primarily affected by their social condition of poverty, social class or economic insecurity, but by their features and physical appearance.
O presente trabalho investiga os efeitos do racismo na experi?ncia emocional de negros brasileiros, que conheceram relativa ascens?o social. Justifica-se duplamente, tanto por visar trazer subs?dios te?ricos e pr?ticos para uma cl?nica dos sofrimentos sociais, como por buscar contribuir para aumentar a visibilidade social do fen?meno. Organiza-se como pesquisa emp?rica com o m?todo psicanal?tico, a partir de duas entrevistas individuais, registradas sob forma de Relatos de Entrevistas e de Textos de Impactos Transferenciais. A interpreta??o dos registros permitiu a produ??o de dois campos de sentido afetivo-emocional: aprisionado pela apar?ncia e com talento, esfor?o e compet?ncia . O primeiro organiza-se a partir da percep??o de que caracter?sticas f?sicas, notadamente a cor da pele, causam impacto instant?neo nas pessoas, gerando rea??es imediatas de julgamento e avalia??o que apreendem, classificam, discriminam, inferiorizam e humilham. O segundo campo se define pela cren?a de que o desenvolvimento de aptid?es pessoais pode ser um caminho para obten??o de reconhecimento e respeito. O quadro geral indica que o racismo ? uma realidade presente na experi?ncia emocional da pessoalidade coletiva estudada, gerando impactos importantes em sua subjetividade e modo de ser. Concorda, portanto, com a literatura que vem apontando que a sociedade brasileira n?o est? livre do racismo. Mostra tamb?m que a ascens?o social n?o implica o fim da discrimina??o, pois a pessoalidade coletiva considerada n?o ? atingida prioritariamente por sua condi??o social de pobreza, de classe ou de precariedade econ?mica, mas por seus tra?os e apar?ncia f?sica.

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Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa ? CNPq
Based on the foundations and presuppositions of concrete psychology, the present work aims to critically examine four theses and one dissertation, produced in postgraduate programs between 1945 and 2015, that investigated racism from psychoanalytic perspectives. It is justified to the extent that such works can be considered as manifestations that define the constitution of a new field of research, whose development may prove decisive in the production of subsidies for the social clinic and for contemporary debates within the social movements. It is organized methodologically through readings that combine theoretical-methodological appraisals of these productions with their historical contextualization in terms of the black movement and the debates of the social sciences. It is observed that the studied authors converge in recognizing racism as an objective phenomenon that causes important emotional suffering, and it should be emphasized that conceptions about the social are not identical, including both Marxist visions and perspectives that emphasize symbolic-discursive dimensions. On the other hand, there are disagreements in that three authors use psychoanalytic knowledge only to demonstrate and understand emotional losses determined by racism, whereas only one author proposes psychoanalytically oriented care of black women in a public health device. The general picture probably indicates a conservative view that thinks the psychological clinic of psychoanalytical frame within the narrow limits of the standard frame, forged for the individual attention, but it does not know the fecundity of the differentiated frames of the clinical social psychology.
A partir de los fundamentos y de los presupuestos de la psicolog?a concreta, el presente trabajo objetiva examinar cr?ticamente cuatro tesis y una disertaci?n, producidas en programas de postgrado entre 1945 y 2015, que investigaron el racismo a partir de perspectivas psicoanal?ticas. Se justifica en la medida en que tales obras pueden ser consideradas como manifestaciones que delimitan la constituci?n de un nuevo campo de investigaci?n, cuyo desarrollo podr? revelarse decisivo en la producci?n de subsidios para la cl?nica social y para debates contempor?neos en el ?mbito de los movimientos sociales. Se organiza metodol?gicamente a trav?s de lecturas que conjugan apreciaciones te?rico-metodol?gicas de esas producciones con su contextualizaci?n hist?rica en t?rminos del movimiento negro y de los debates de las ciencias sociales. Se constata que los autores estudiados convergen al reconocer el racismo como fen?meno objetivo que provoca sufrimiento emocional importante, valiendo resaltar que las concepciones sobre lo social no son id?nticas, incluyendo tanto visiones marxistas como perspectivas que enfatizan dimensiones simb?lico-discursivas. Por otro lado, se perciben discordancias en la medida en que tres autoras estudiadas usan el saber psicoanal?tico s?lo para demostrar y comprender perjuicios emocionales determinados por el racismo, mientras que s?lo un autor propone atendimientos psicoanal?ticamente orientados de mujeres negras en dispositivo de salud p?blica. El cuadro general indica, probablemente, una visi?n conservadora, que piensa la cl?nica psicol?gica de referencial psicoanal?tico dentro de los estrechos l?mites del encuadre est?ndar, forjado para la atenci?n individual, pero desconoce la fecundidad de los encuadres diferenciados de la psicolog?a cl?nica social.
A presente tese aborda a tem?tica do racismo enquanto sofrimento socialmente determinado, visando produzir conhecimentos que contribuam para o enfrentamento desse grave problema brasileiro. Partindo dos fundamentos e dos pressupostos da psican?lise concreta, objetiva examinar criticamente quatro teses e uma disserta??es, produzidas em programas de p?s-gradua??o brasileiros, entre 1945 e 2015, que investigaram o racismo a partir de perspectivas psicanal?ticas. Organiza-se metodologicamente por meio de leituras que conjugam aprecia??es te?rico-metodol?gicas dessas obras com sua contextualiza??o hist?rica em termos do movimento negro e dos debates sobre racismo no ?mbito das ci?ncias sociais. O quadro geral revela converg?ncia dos autores quanto ao fato do racismo corresponder a fen?meno social que provoca sofrimento emocional importante. Por outro lado, indica discord?ncias quanto ao modo mediante o qual o saber psicanal?tico poderia contribuir com um processo de supera??o do racismo, na medida em que ? concebido como fecundo na demonstra??o de efeitos subjetivos, mas n?o clinicamente relevante. Provavelmente, essa vis?o se firma sobre um conservadorismo, que pensa o uso da psican?lise na cl?nica dentro dos estreitos limites do enquadre padr?o, forjado para o atendimento individual de neur?ticos, mas desconhece a fecundidade da psicologia cl?nica social.

This dissertation investigates the social, emotional, and ethical implications of looking at the suffering and death of African Americans. Drawing on film theory, visual studies, literary criticism, and semiotics, the study addresses events and images from 1834 to 2000 in which the humanity of the black body was called into question. The events discussed include: a nineteenth-century riot over the abuse of slaves; the mass media depiction of Hurricane Katrina survivors; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's 1935 antilynching art exhibition; James Allen's 2000 exhibition of lynching photography; the Emmett Till case; and the Spike Lee-directed film Bamboozled (2000). The project ultimately argues for a nuanced appreciation of looking relations that takes into account the ethics of the look, especially when that look is directed toward bodies that cannot speak for and in defense of themselves.

Dissertation

This thesis is about a specific locality- the Central Methodist Church- and it details the lives and experiences of a large group of migrants who lived within this locality. The study also examines the activities of a wide range of humanitarian organisations that instituted interventions at the church and analyses how individuals’ suffering is dealt with by humanitarian organizations. The individuals who inhabited the church were a product of large-scale structural factors- political conflict, economic decline and fragmentation and social despair. These individuals were however following traditional mobile livelihoods routes that have been part and parcel of the Southern African labour migration history. The central questions that this study examines are how and in what ways experiential suffering is dealt with and how the different ways and technologies of managing suffering, impinge upon individual and collective subjectivities in the specific locality of the church. In addition the study examines the categorizations and representations of indigent Zimbabwean migrants within South Africa and how these representations have been constructed and transformed over time. The findings made in the study are drawn from a year of ethnographic fieldwork, which combined a number of different methods. These included archival research, participant observation, in-depth interviews and narratives with individual migrants, state officials and officials from humanitarian organizations. The study also made use of diaries in order to detail the everyday lives of individual migrants and capture the texture of everyday life at the church. The findings indicate that the migrants emplaced within the Central Methodist Church were not only victims of structural, political and socio-economic factors as has been the common refrain in recent literature but were also victims of the ‘invisible’, silenced, unrecognized and unacknowledged violence and exclusionary nation-building mechanisms and processes in post-independence Zimbabwe and post-apartheid South Africa. The study finds that the ways through which organizations deal with suffering is mediated by numerous factors and humanitarian interventions interact and articulate with the aspirations of individuals in complex and unpredictable ways often with perverse outcomes. One of the key findings that emerges from the study carried out within a specific locality challenges the notion of places such as refugee camps and asylum holding centres as being ‘exceptional spaces’ where individuals are bereft of rights and even their sense of individuality and worth. Rather such places ought to be understood in terms of contextual, material and historical realities. These places ought also to be understood in terms of the meanings that are attached to them by those who inhabit them. In this regard the study shows the Central Methodist church building to be a material and political resource used by the inhabitants and it’s also an economic and political resource utilized by NGOs and other actors. The thesis shows that the ways through which humanitarian interventions are deployed leads to the creation of categories of victimhood and oftentimes these categories are negotiated and constantly reconfigured at times without necessarily interacting with the realities of the beneficiaries in the manner intended. The thesis shows that the everyday lives of indigent individuals are characterized not only by hardships but the manner in which these individuals attempt to assist each are processes fraught with tension and ambiguity. By so doing, the study challenges the romanticization of the lives of the poor which is often depicted as resilient and where the poor assist each other. The thesis makes a contribution to the anthropology of humanitarianism. In addition, the thesis contributes to broader debates on the intersections between migration, indigence, victimhood and the logics and practices of humanitarian institutions.

As the century and millennium draw to a close, radical changes affect all areas of human life. Such changes challenge the church to respond to new developments in the secular world. One such development (a long time in the making) is that the everyday life of every human being on the planet is being affected more and more profoundly by a kind of generic capitalism that prefers to remain faceless and anonymous but which prosecutes it interests with a brutality and ruthlessness that take no account of human beings who are themselves neither powerful nor influential - but who may reside on land replete with the kind of natural resources which constitute the essential raw materials necessary for capitalist expansion. It is not only human life that suffers in this rapidly changing world: forms of planetary life suffer. In the context of what we have said about global market dynamics, we are compelled to ask ourselves searching questions about the relationship between God and humans, humans and other human beings, and hnmans and other forms of planetary life. This will partly be an historical investigation into what Korean churches and South Africau churches might share with each other on the basis of experiences of suffering caused by past structures and systems. By understanding the past, historians hope to be able to understand the present and to make predictions and preparations for the future of suffering people. Solidarity is one of the most effective weapons in the struggle against the oppression of the poor. Suffering creates an absolute necessity for solidarity. By examining what the Korean church and the South Africa church did and said in their struggle against military dictatorship and racial discrimination, we shall find the basis for solidarity as a political, social and spiritual weapon.
Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology
D. Th. (Missiology)

This is a transdisciplinary study of how ‘popular cultures of survival’ regenerate and rehumanise township residents and communities whose social fabric and intergenerational bonds have been violently torn by endemic suffering. I focus specifically on township mothers’ and daughters’ lifeworlds with the aim of recentering these marginalised lives so that they can inform us about retheorising marginality and in this way enrich our limited academic discourses on the subjectivities of poor urban African women. Located in the interdisciplinary field of popular culture studies, the study draws on and synthesises theoretical insights from a number of disciplines such as sociology, political-science, anthropology, history, literary studies, womanist and feminist studies and indigenous studies, while using a variety of methods and sources such as interviews, reports, observation, newspapers, field notes, photo-albums, academic articles and embodied expressions to create a unique theory on the lived and embodied suffering and healing experiences of township women. I have called this situated conceptual framework that is theoretically aligned to African womanism and existential phenomenology, but principally fashioned out of township mothers and daughters ways of understanding the world and their place in it--Township mothers’ and daughters’ lived and embodied ‘cultures of survival’. And in order to surface their popular cultural survival strategies I have adopted an African womanist interpretative phenomenological methodological framework. This suggested conceptual and methodological framework has allowed me to creatively explore the dialectical tensions of the everyday township philosophies, aesthetics and moralities of ‘ukuphanta’, to hustle and ‘ukuhlonipha’, to respect, and show how they create the moral-existential ground for township mothers and daughters not only to continue to survive, but to reclaim lives of dignity and sensuality amidst repeated negation and historical hardships.
Sociology
D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)

The problem of universal oppression has caused Gutierrez, Cone and Moltmann to advocate that God is orchestrating an historical programme of liberation from socio-economic, racial and political suffering. They feel that God's liberating actions can be seen in the Abrahamic promise, the exodus and the Christ-event. Moltmann, especially, has emphasized both the trinitarian identification with human pain and the influence of the freedom of the future upon the suffering of the present. According to our theologians, Jesus Christ identified with us, and died the death of a substitutionary victim. Through the resurrection, Jesus Christ overcame the problem of suffering and death, and inaugurated the New Age. The cross and resurrection were the focal point of God's liberating activity. Liberation, or freedom, from sin and suffering is now possible, at least proleptically. We are to understand the atonement as having been liberative rather than forensic or legal, although judgement is not ignored. Both the perpetrators of injustice and their victims are called upon to identify with, and struggle for, freedom, with the help of the liberating Christ. We agree with our theologians that God has historically indicated his desire for justice and freedom. The magnitude of evil and suffering still existing, however, forces us to abandon the idea that God is progressively liberating history. Nevertheless, we affirm the idea that the Trinity has absorbed human suffering into its own story through the incarnate Son. Jesus identified with suffering in a four-fold way, namely: its existence, the judgement of it, the overcoming of it, and the need to oppose it. This comprehensive identification gives Christ the right to demand the doing of justice, because the greatest injustice in history has happened to him. The atonement was forensic, rendering all people accountable to Christ; but it was also liberative, validating the struggle against oppression. Furthermore, at his second coming, Christ will be vindicated in whatever judgement he will exact upon the perpetrators of injustice or oppression. For today the resurrection still gives hope and faith to those who suffer and to those who identify with them
Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology
Th.D. (Systematic Theology)