Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Women – Social life and customs – Maldives'
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Razee, Husna Public Health & Community Medicine Faculty of Medicine UNSW. "???Being a Good Woman???: suffering and distress through the voices of women in the Maldives." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Public Health and Community Medicine, 2006. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/27258.
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This ethnographic study explored the social and cultural context of Maldivian women???s emotional, social and psychological well-being and the subjective meanings they assign to their distress. The central question for the study was: How is suffering and distress in Maldivian women explained, experienced, expressed and dealt with? In this study participant observation was enhanced by lengthy encounters with women and with both biomedical and traditional healers. The findings showed that the suffering and distress of women is embedded in the social and economic circumstances in which they live, the nature of gender relations and how culture shapes these relations, the cultural notions related to being a good woman; and how culture defines and structures women???s place within the family and society. Explanations for distress included mystical, magical and animistic causes as well as social, psychological and biological causes. Women???s experiences of distress were mainly expressed through body metaphors and somatization. The pathway to dealing with their distress was explained by women???s tendency to normalize their distress and what they perceived to be the causes of their distress. This study provides an empirical understanding of Maldivian women???s mental well-being. Based on the findings of this study, a multi dimensional model entitled the Mandala for Suffering and Distress is proposed. The data contributes a proposed foundation upon which mental health policy and mental health interventions, and curricula for training of health care providers in the Maldives may be built. The data also adds to the existing global body of evidence on social determinants of mental health and enhances current knowledge and developments in the area of cultural competency for health care. The model and the lessons learnt from this study have major implications for informing clinicians on culturally congruent ways of diagnosing and managing mental health problems and developing patient-centred mental health services.
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Woodruff, Sylvia. "Sherpa women." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1988. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/402.
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Thompson, Heather Ann. "Bloody women : rites of passage, blood and Artemis : women in Classical Athenian conception." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15182.
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The expected role for women in 5th century Athens as presented in evidence from myths, rituals, medicine and religion was socially and biologically conceived of in strict terms, but it was also perceived as conflicted. This conflict will be explored by investigating women in real life and women in myth and ritual. The ideal rites of passage women were intended to pass through in their lives as exemplified in medical texts required women to shed their blood at appropriate times from menarche to marriage to motherhood. These transitions are socially signified by certain rituals designed to highlight the change in the individuals' status. This medical conception of the female body and its functions was affected by social expectations of the proper female role in society: to be a wife and mother. Myths presented extraordinary women as failing to bleed in the standard socially expected transitions from parthenos to gyne. The discrepancy between the presentation of women in social and medical thought and the presentation of women in myth indicates the ambiguities and difficulties that surround the development of girls into complete women often explored in rituals. These two provinces, women in everyday life and women in myth and ritual, overlap, relate and interpenetrate in the presentation of the goddess Artemis. Artemis operates in a place where myth and real life function together in the form of rituals surrounding women bleeding in these rites of passage. The methodology of social anthropology adopted in this study allows the interpretation of myth in action in women's lives and investigates where social ideals, mythology and the goddess Artemis overlap to inform the lives of women. Rather than merely describe what occurred in myth and ritual or what a woman's life was meant to be, this model will illustrate how such elements combined to affect a woman's life and the functioning of the society in which she lived. The picture which is created of the position of women when this evidence is considered in conjunction with the precepts of social anthropology illustrates part of a discourse about the position women and reveals how the social structure of their place in society was produced and reproduced.
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Prag, Hanita T. "The coping resources and subjective well-being of dual-career Hindu mothers." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/593.
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With the increasing number of women entering the labour force internationally, the role of women is changing. Consequently, researchers are pressed to investigate how females of all cultures balance their work and family responsibilities. Amongst Hindu couples, this issue can either be a source of tension or positive support. An overview of literature indicates that the psychological aspects of dual-career Hindu women have received little attention in South Africa. The current study aimed to explore and describe coping resources and the subjective well-being of full-time employed Hindu mothers. The study took the form of a non-experimental exploratory-descriptive design. Participants were selected through nonprobability convenience sampling. The sample of the study consisted of sixty full-time employed Hindu mothers between the ages of 25 and 45 years of age who had at least one dependent primary school child aged between 7 to 12 years. Various questionnaires were used to collect data for this study. These included a Biographical Questionnaire, The Coping Resources Inventory (CRI), The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), and The Affectometer 2 (AFM2). Data was analysed by means of descriptive statistics. Cronbach’s coefficient alphas were utilised to calculate the reliability of the scores of each questionnaire. A multivariate technique was used to determine the amount of clusters formed. A non-hierarchical partitioning technique known as K-means cluster analysis was utilised in this study. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilised in order to compare the mean scores of the various clusters. A post-hoc analysis using the Scheffé test was computed to test for significant differences. Cohen’s d statistics was subsequently used to determine the practical significance of the differences found between the cluster means on each of the measures. The cluster analysis indicated three clusters that differed significantly from one another on all three measures. The results of the CRI indicated that the participants used cognitive and spiritual resources to assist them to cope with the transition from traditional to modern contemporary roles. It was also found that the participants with low coping resources had inferior subjective well-being compared to those who had average and high CRI scores. The findings indicated that the participants were generally satisfied with their lives and experienced high levels of positive affect and low levels of negative affect. However, as a group there was a trend for the participants to have experienced slightly lower levels of global happiness or slightly negative affect. The results of this study broadens the knowledge base of positive psychology with respect to the diverse cultures and gender roles within South Africa. Overall, this study highlighted the value and the need for South African research on the coping resources and subjective well-being of dual-career Hindu mothers.
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Drum, Mary Therese, and mikewood@deakin edu au. "Women, religion and social change in the Philippines: Refractions of the past in urban filipinas' religious practices today." Deakin University. School of Social Inquiry, 2001. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20060825.115435.
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This research is an exploration of the place of religious beliefs and practices in the life of contemporary, predominantly Catholic, Filipinas in a large Quezon City Barangay in Metro Manila. I use an iterative discussion of the present in the light of historical studies, which point to women in pre-Spanish Filipino society having been the custodians of a rich religious heritage and the central performers in a great variety of ritual activities. I contend that although the widespread Catholic evangelisation, which accompanied colonisation, privileged male religious leadership, Filipinos have retained their belief in feminine personages being primary conduits of access to spiritual agency through which the course of life is directed. In continuity with pre-Hispanic practices, religious activities continue to be conceived in popular consciousness as predominantly womens sphere of work in the Philippines. I argue that the reason for this is that power is not conceived as a unitary, undifferentiated entity. There are gendered avenues to prestige and power in the Philippines, one of which directly concerns religious leadership and authority. The legitimacy of religious leadership in the Philippines is heavily dependent on the ability to foster and maintain harmonious social relations. At the local level, this leadership role is largely vested in mature influential women, who are the primary arbiters of social values in their local communities. I hold that Filipinos have appropriated symbols of Catholicism in ways that allow for a continuation and strengthening of their basic indigenous beliefs so that Filipinos religious beliefs and practices are not dichotomous, as has sometimes been argued. Rather, I illustrate from my research that present day urban Filipinos engage in a blend of formal and informal religious practices and that in the rituals associated with both of these forms of religious practice, women exercise important and influential roles. From the position of a feminist perspective I draw on individual womens articulation of their life stories, combined with my observation and participation in the religious practices of Catholic women from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, to discuss the role of Filipinas in local level community religious leadership. I make interconnections between womens influence in this sphere, their positioning in family social relations, their role in the celebration of All Saints and All Souls Days in Metro Manilas cemeteries and the ubiquity and importance of Marian devotions. I accompany these discussions with an extensive body of pictorial plates.
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Nahanni, Phoebe. "Dene women in the traditional and modern northern economy in Denendeh, Northwest Territories, Canada." Thesis, McGill University, 1992. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=56663.
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The Dene are a subarctic people indigenous to northern Canada. The indirect and direct contact the Dene had with the European traders and Christian missionaries who came to their land around the turn of the 20th century triggered profound changes in their society and economy. This study focuses on some of these changes, and, particularly, on how they have affected the lives of Dene women who inhabit the small community of Fort Liard, which is located in the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories.Using as context the formal and informal economy and the concept of the model of production, the author proposes two main ideas: first, "nurturing" or "social reproduction" and "providing" or "production" are vital and integral to the Dene's subsistence economy and concept of work; second, it is through the custom of "seclusion" or female puberty rites that the teaching and learning of these responsibilities occurred. Dene women played a pivotal role in this process. The impositions of external government, Christianity, capitalism, and free market economics have altered Dene women's concept of work.
The Dene women of Fort Liard are presently working to regain the social and economic status they once had. However, reclaiming their status in current times involves recognizing conflicting and contradictory ideologies in the workplace. The goal of these Dene women is, ultimately, to overcome economic and ideological obstacles, to reinforce common cultural values, and to reaffirm the primacy of their own conceptions of family and community. The goal of this study is to identify and examine the broad spectrum of factors and conditions that play a role in their struggles.
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Prado, Luis Antonio. "Patriarchy and machismo: Political, economic and social effects on women." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2005. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2623.
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This thesis focuses on patriarchy and machismo and the long lasting political, economic, and social effects that their practice has had on women in the United States and Latin America. It examines the role of the Catholic Church, political influences, social, cultural, economic and legal issues, historic issues (such as the Industrial Revolution), the importance of the family's preference for sons rather than daughters, and the differences in the raising of male and female children for their adult roles.
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Liebenberg, Alida. "Authority, avoidances and marriage: an analysis of the position of Gcaleka women in Qwaninga, Willowvale District, Transkei." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002663.
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Authority as it operates in the daily lives of married women in Gcaleka society is reinforced and maintained by a body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances constitute part of the control system in the society whereby wives are being 'kept in their place'. Avoidances do not only restrict her, but also safeguard her position and her interests. Lines of authority emerge through the process of interaction; the structure reveals itself as avoidances are acted out in time and space. This study was conducted in Qwaninga, an administrative area in the coastal area of the Willowvale district, Transkei. The research started out as a study of ritual impurity and the status of women in a traditional, 'red' Gcaleka society. It soon became clear that pollution practices and beliefs associated with women form part of a greater body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances entail economic, dietary, sexual, linguistic and spatial prohibitions; as well as restrictions concerning what a woman is supposed to wear, and her withdrawal from social life. These restrictions are enforced through certain ritual and other sanctions. Three forms of avoidances are identified in this study, and are discussed and analysed. Avoidances are found in the everyday male/female division in society; in the ways through which the wife shows respect towards her husband and her in-laws (especially her husband's ancestors); and in the reproductive situations a woman finds herself in from time to time. In many anthropological studies in the past women have often been hidden in the background. This study is an attempt to give women the prominence they should be given, to show that nonwestern women are not as subordinated as people in Western society like to assume. In Gcaleka society the authority structure affecting the position of women is not only based on a distinction being made between males and females. It will be shown that a finer authority structure operates in this society whereby gender as well as age and kinship distinctions are being made. These distinctions constitute a system of classification which is safeguarded and protected by the avoidances and other restrictions imposed on women.
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May, Ester Ruby. "Virginity testing: towards outlawing the cultural practical practice that violates our daughters." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2003. http://etd.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=etd&.
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Elsley, Judith Helen 1952. "The semiotics of quilting: discourse of the marginalized." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/565534.
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Howard, Nancy Jill. "Reinterpreting the influence of domestic ideology on women and their families during westward migration." Virtual Press, 1992. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/834147.
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The purpose of this study is to reinterpret the influence of domestic ideology on middle-class Anglo women during westward migration using the Oregon Trail as a case study. By analyzing traditional cultural constructs which portrayed women as "reluctant drudges" or " stoic helpmates," a new paradigm for trail women emerged. The inculcated tenets of domesticity, comprised of a domestic routine and a values system, seemed to have equipped women with domestically-related role identities, and thus facilitated the accommodation of these women to the challenges of trail life. In addition, this ideology served as the basis for establishing relationships with Native American women, for Anglo women recognized similaritiesbetween the domestic routine of Native Americans and themselves. Finally, shared domestic chores and values enabled Anglo women to develop non-competitive, mutually beneficial relationships with each other, in contrast to the often competitive nature of interaction between men.Department of History
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Ackers, Helen Inge. "Portrait busts of Roman women in the third century AD." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:68647af9-5bd3-4f93-ab36-123c2e2f09dc.
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The purpose of this dissertation is to conduct a comprehensive study of Roman women's portrait busts of the third century AD. The free-standing portrait bust forms a discrete historical category through which to trace developments in third-century women's portraiture. The high-status, commemorative tradition of the bust and the durability of this format, which could be displayed and utilised in a large range of different contexts, made this an important portrait genre for women in the third century. These busts consequently offer powerful insight into the ideological function and status of Roman women in the third century. By placing third-century women's busts in the context of their form, history and provenance, I hope to create a methodology that allows me to ascertain the ancient intention of these portraits. My hypothesis is that, while elements of self-styling and bust-format reveal innovation, the moral vocabulary of Empire as presented in women's portrait busts did not change dramatically in the third century. I will argue that these portraits reflect the heightened ideological status of certain forms of Roman femininity in this period. Rather than being expressive of spiritual escapism or emotional turmoil women's portrait busts functioned as a means of re-confirming the Roman rhetoric of feminine virtue in the third century.
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Kimbro, Lucy Vincent. "Opening Doors: Culture Learning and Conversational Narratives with First Generation Hmong Refugee Women." PDXScholar, 1997. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4466.
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The life experiences of two first generation Hmong refugee women form the basis of this study. Through loosely structured but guided interviews, memories of their lives in Laos and in refugee camps in Thailand, as well as their perspectives, feelings, and opinions about current aspects of their lives, the effects of American culture on their family; and their engagement in the language and culture learning process are explored.
An examination of the involvement of Hmong women in research and ethnographic accounts concerning Hmong culture, history, and experience, show that Hmong women's perspectives have often been overlooked or disregarded. One purpose of this study is to afford an opportunity to hear the voices of these Hmong women, whose lives are centered in the home and in maintenance of family, and whose responsibilities and cultural roles have limited their contribution to research and literature on the Hmong and their participation in refugee and immigrant resettlement and English language programs.
The data for this study was collected in tape recorded interviews using an informal, loosely structured interview process: a conversational narrative rather than a formal oral history interview. This data was then transcribed and reconstructed to form both a chronological personal history and a view of the culture and current lives of the informants.
The perspectives of the women in this study, revealed through the conversational narratives, are shown to reflect the informants past reality and demonstrate their attempts to adjust to a new cultural identity and environment. Moreover, conversational narratives and oral histories are shown to be potentially valuable resources for culture and language learning and suggest meaningful applications for English as a Second Language education and refugee resettlement.
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Lin, Zhihui. "Self-representation and female agency in Qing China: genteel women's writings on their everyday practices in the inner quarters." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2018. https://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_oa/508.
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This research analyses Qing women's writings and paratexts to explore how women applied their agency to re-shape the nature of everyday practice in the boudoir, arguing that dutiful activities were not only responsibilities for the fulfillment of womanhood, but also a location for self-expression and a channel to cross the boundary of private sphere and public society. The main body of this study examines activities concerning rong 容 (appearance) and gong 功/工 (achievements/work), the practical aspects in side 四德 (four womanly virtues) defined in the Confucian values. In the part about women's appearance, this research will examine women's self-adornment and looking in the mirror, and in the part about women's work, it focuses on garment making and cooking. On this basis, this study rethinks the connotation of "four virtues," and further explores women's agency manifested in their everyday details in the late imperial period. Scholars in gender history and women's literature have conducted fruitful studies on multiple aspects of women's daily life, such as women's production and consumption, material life, household duties, literary pursuit, leisure activities, and social communications. This research attempts to examine a less-studied aspect of women's self-representation: their subjective experience in the practical aspects of the "four female virtues." How did common practices about rong and gong relate to women's opinion on body and material, inspire their emotions, and reflect their rich inner reality? How did women empower themselves through these everyday activities and in turn transform duties into a platform of self-construction and self-expression? This research focuses on the Qing dynasty, a transitional period in history that bridged traditional and modern China, to explore how women's agency was constructed in, manifested through, and embedded in the commonest everyday domestic practices. Specifically, this research focuses on four particular activities that represented rong and gong: self-adornment, looking in the mirror, garment making, and food management. I argue that women in the Qing dynasty not merely fulfilled but also tactfully transformed the Confucian expectation of "four virtues" through common practices in the everyday, and in the meanwhile, they empowered themselves by creating personally meaningful worlds within the inner quarters.
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Dolan, Mary A. "Socioeconomic status and sex role values as determinants of divorce among women." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1995. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1001.
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Wong, Sze Man. "Risk and pleasure : a comparison of the clubbing experiences between higher and lower educated female youth in Hong Kong." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2011. https://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_ra/1294.
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Dowling, Tessa. "Isihlonipho sabafazi : the Xhosa women's language of respect : a sociolinguistic exploration." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14268.
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Bibliography: leaves 166-172.Isihlonipho Sabafazi (the Xhosa women's language of respect) is a language in which syllables occurring in the names of menfolk are avoided by women. Thie thesis attempts to place the practice in it social context by applying both descriptive and analytical methodologies. The thesis include a literature survey and a critique on the dynamics of gender and language. The results of interviews conducted in three areas, one urban and two rural, are analysed and tabulated. A glossary of substitute words is included.
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Jacobs-Smith, Michelle Wilma. "Die sosiale en religieuse rol van die vrou in oud-Israel." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/53387.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2003.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study investigates the social and religious roles of women in Ancient Israel. The thesis comprises of four parts. Chapter 1 focuses on the role of women in an anthropological perspective. We take a look at how women were perceived within the pre-industrial communities. Israel did not live in a vacuum but was part and parcel of the ancient Near Eastern cultural world. Chapter 2 therefore focuses on the role of women in Egyptian and Assyrio-Babylonian cultures. Her social, economic, political and religious roles are under investigation. In Chapter 3 the focus shifts to the role of women within the social organisation. A short overview with a few examples demonstrates where the role of women expands beyond that of social organisation. This role, which could be described as a "political function", was only allocated to a few privileged women. Chapter 4 deals with the religious role of the Israelite women. This chapter forms the other focus point of the study. The religious activities of women within the official, popular and familiy religious spheres are examined. Chapter 5 presents a brief summary of the main conclusions of the study.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie studie word ondersoek ingestel na die sosiale en religieuse rol van die vrou in Oud-Israel. Die tesis bestaan uit vier dele: In Hoofstuk I word aandag gegee aan die rol van die vrou in antropologiese perspektief. Hier word nagegaan hoe die vrou gesien is in pre-industriële gemeenskappe. Omdat Israel nie in 'n vakuum geleef het nie, maar 'n integrale deel van die ou Nabye Oosterse kultuurwêreld was, word daar in Hoofstuk 2 op 'n oorsigtelike wyse op die plek van die vrou in die kulture van Egipte en Assirië- Babilonië gekonsentreer. In Hoofstuk 3 verskuif die fokus na Israel en word nagegaan watter rol die vrou in die sosiale organisasie gehad het. Daar word ook kortliks gekyk na voorbeelde waar die rol van die vrou wyer gestrek het as die engere familie kring. Hierdie rol, wat getipeer sou kon word as 'n tipe "politieke funksie", was egter net vir 'n paar vroue beskore. Hoofstuk 4 handel oor die religieuse rol van die vrou in Israel. Hierdie hoofstuk vorm die ander fokuspunt van die studie. Daar word gekyk na die aandeel van die vrou in die offisiële religie, die populêre religie en die familie-religie. In Hoofstuk 5 word die belangrikste bevindinge van die ondersoek kortliks saamgevat.
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Afari-Twumasi, Lucy. "Traditional and cultural practices and the rights of women : a study of widowhood practices among the Akans in Ghana." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/2844.
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The study investigates the human rights violations that underlie widowhood practices in Cape Coast and Komenda in the Central Region of Ghana. Review of the relevant literature on widowhood practices suggests that widowhood practices are a global cultural phenomenon, which is not confined to Sub-Sahara Africa. A survey of relevant studies on the phenomenon suggests that there are two competing perceptions on African widowhood practices: (1) a dominant negative perspective and (2) a minor positive perspective. The dominant negative perspective, which receives overwhelming research attention, focuses only on the negative characteristics of widowhood while the minor positive perspective which receives scanty research attention, rejects the criticisms levelled against widowhood practices as being externally influenced by Christianity and Western Feminism. Various stakeholders within the Akan community were given an opportunity to retell their own versions of widowhood practices. In order to achieve this purpose, the research extracted competing narratives from all the multiple sample subgroups of the proposed study: widows; widow family heads; chiefs; widowhood ritual practitioners; elderly female supervisors of widowhood practices; an official from the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ); an official from the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MOWAC); and an official from the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of Ghana. The study found out that despite legislative intervention and policy frameworks, the practice still persist among the Akan communities in Ghana. The reasons for the continued existence of such rituals are explained followed by recommendations for possible solutions.
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Folch-Serra, Mireya. "Communicating food images : women's consumption patterns and attitudes in a Mexican village." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=66167.
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Podmore, Julie. "St. Lawrence Blvd. as third city : place, gender and difference along Montréal's 'Main'." Thesis, McGill University, 1999. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=36682.
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At the end of the nineteenth century, St. Lawrence Boulevard, popularly known as 'the Main', attained mythical status in Montreal. Due to its particular location in the social and cultural geography of Montreal, the Main, which symbolically divides the working-class Francophone east and the Anglophone bourgeois west, has developed as a mixed-use commercial artery, an eclectic border zone of a bilingual, multi-ethnic city. The heterogeneous character of the Main is reflected in its material landscape---with its old and now largely re-used garment sweat-shops and labour halls, theatres of the red-light district, cafes, and the shops and restaurants of the mid-twentieth century immigrant shopping corridor. Shaped by the diversity of the populations that came to live, work, protest, shop or be entertained in these sites, it is an example of the social and cultural diversity of the metropolis. Such heterogeneous sites have often been interpreted as liminal spaces, but this research demonstrates that the construction and experience of the Main as a border zone have rarely been gender neutral. While physical, social and cultural heterogeneity are components of this landscape, these sites also attest to the importance of gender relations in the experience of the Main as a place of work and social life and, ultimately, as a space of representation. Its border status has often been represented through discourses and images of 'marginal' womanhood, articulated in terms of social, occupational, political, sexual and/or ethnic identity. Many of its locales, moreover, have been sites where women entered urban public life in contentious and distinctive ways.As a place that highlights the social and cultural heterogeneity of a supposedly 'divided' city, the Main is an ideal site from which to explore how ethnicity, language, class, occupation and sexual identity intersect with gender in the experience and representation of urban life. This thesis examines how a multiplicity of female gender identities have been defined and contested along the Main over the past century. It contributes to a broad literature on geographies of gender, difference and urban public cultures through an analysis of the relationships between feminist spatial metaphors and the material production of urban space. Through a series of events that move through time and sections of St. Lawrence, I examine how portions of the landscape of this boulevard have been marked by the enactment of specific sets of gender relations and forms of representation that became central to civic debates regarding gender. I argue that the construction and experience of the Main as a border zone has involved the production of specific relations of gender, alterity and space.
A variety of qualitative methods and archival sources are used to illustrate the importance of representations of gender to the production of this place and to illustrate how women have experienced and made use of material sites to express their specific occupational, cultural, religious, social or sexual identities. This thesis demonstrates the crucial role played by the border zones of urban public cultures in the construction of female identities that depart from dominant gender norms in the expression of social, cultural and sexual differences.
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Lemke, Clare. "Thinking Otherwise: Exploring Narratives of Women who Shifted from a Heterosexual to a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, and/or Unlabeled Identity." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1433947379.
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Altawail, Ghassan Mohammed. "Gender segmentation and its implementation in Saudi Arabia." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2003. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2281.
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The purpose of this project is to gain a better understanding of gender segmentation strategy possibilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The findings from this survey graphically illustrate and statistically demonstrate some critically important information about the consumer demographics, needs, and behaviors of the targeted female Saudi shopper.
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Yang, Yi-Chen. "A comparison of women's roles as portrayed in Taiwanese and Chinese magazine print advertising." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2004. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2630.
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The purpose of this project was to examine the similarities and differences in magazine advertisements directed to women in China and Taiwan. Through content analysis of advertisments in these two countries, the researcher identified how women were portrayed and the social values or lifestyle attributed to them of each society.
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Singh, Karmjit. "Post-positivist study exploring the resettlement experience of professional Asian Indian women." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1997. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1329.
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Dureau, Christine May. "Mixed blessings Christianity and history in women's lives on Simbo, Western Solomon Islands /." Phd thesis, Australia : Macquarie University, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/71278.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Macquarie University, School of Behavioural Sciences, 1994.Bibliography: leaves 357-378.
Introduction -- MANDEGUSU -- Totoso kame rane - time long ago -- Totoso rodomo - time of darkness -- EDDYSTONE ISLAND -- Tataviti bule - pacification -- Totoso taqalo - time of light/cleanliness -- SIMBO -- Tinoa - lives -- Koburu - child -- Tinana - mother -- Vinarialava - marriage -- Rereko iviva - significant woman -- Qoele, tomate - aged woman, ancestor.
This thesis considers the ethnographic history of Simbo, a small island in the western Solomon Islands. The particular focus is upon the significance of conversion to Christianity and subsequent Christian practice, in shaping social and cultural issues and practices in the 1990s. Women's lives, in particular those aspects concerned with kinship, are the lens through which historical changes are viewed. By juxtaposing the structures suggested by indigenous lifecycle categories and the differentiation inherent in individual biographical material, I try to reflect the regularities and continuities within Simbo society as well as the variability and unpredictability of sociality at any given moment. At the same time, the mutability of structure is reflected in the transformed significance of institutions and ostensibly similar practices. -- The period under scrutiny is that between c. 1900-1990, which covers social practices and events from immediately prior to pacification and the Methodist Mission's establishment in the New Georgia Group in 1902 up until the present. I argue that since pacification, the progressive development of indigenous Christianity has been the major determinant of Simbo responses to the world system. This is not to argue that pacification represented the first intrusion of Europe or the beginning of social transformations. Constructions of indigenous societies as having been static entities before contact with Europe are critiqued. Pacification, after more than a century of contact with Europe, had revolutionary implications because of its significance from local worldviews, as much as for its demonstration of British political "legitimacy". -- Christianity, then, cannot be divorced from the reality of political and economic subordination throughout the twentieth century. Nor, however, can it be simpHstically treated as merely the ideological face of expanding capitalism. Following J. Comaroff and J.L. Comaroff, I treat the non-material aspects of social life as being as significant as the material. From its earliest days, the Methodist Mission both facilitated and hampered the interests of government and traders. But it is not only mission personnel who are important here. Simbo people have consistently shaped and deployed their own Christian frameworks. If they never resisted it, they have certainly transformed what was imposed on them ninety years ago from ideology to lived hegemony.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xxiii, 378 leaves ill. (some col.), maps
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Binks, Gwendolyn Dale. "Taking another look at women and gender in Hemingway's works." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2001. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1969.
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This project supports the contrary argument that Hemingway provided a voice for the post-Victorian woman, a woman exercising her strength within relationships, her sexuality, her femininity, and her freedom from oppression during the twentieth century women's movement.
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Pauk, Filgueira Barbara. "Crossing the channel : socio-cultural exchanges in English and French women's writings - 1830-1900." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2009. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2009.0083.
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The focus of this study is an investigation of cross-channel exchanges represented in travelogues, historical works, journalism, letters and journals written by English women Frances Trollope, Lady Margaret Blessington, George Eliot and Julia Kavanagh on France and by French women Flora Tristan and Marie Dronsart on England. The work is based on the view that narratives about another culture betray preconceptions and beliefs and are never innocent descriptions. Nineteenth-century English descriptions of France, for instance, are not only marked by the stereotype of the gregarious French bon vivant but also by the often tense political relationship and economical concurrence between the two countries. French descriptions of England reflect the consciousness of England's superiority in the domains of economy, industry and colonialism as well as the stereotype of the boring, monosyllabic, haughty, egoistic and often xenophobic Englishman. Given that writings on the other culture are marked by practices and belief systems as well as notions of superiority and inferiority like texts emerging from a colonial context, ideas which have been developed in this field by scholars such as Sara Mills and Reina Lewis have been used as a basis for this investigation. I argue that the women whose texts I analyse strategically employ 'discourses of difference' (to use Sara Mills' term), or alignment and 'othering' in regard to nation, class, and political opinion, in order to gain positions which allow them to challenge contemporary ideologies of femininity. They take advantage of their positions in very different ways, according to their personal, class and economic situations, their agenda, and their gendered position within society which changes significantly during the century. The English women Frances Trollope, Lady Margaret Blessington, George Eliot and Julia Kavanagh construct themselves as part of the tradition of French salonnières from the seventeenth century to the present, while the French women Flora Tristan and Marie Dronsart align themselves with English travel writers, particularly Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Through a careful construction of these foremothers, which often differed from other representations of them, they criticise gender politics in their own country and endeavour to normalise their own activities as intellectuals and writers, in the case of Tristan as a socialist and feminist activist. This strategy is complemented by 'othering' with regard to nation, class and political convictions which confers on the women an authoritative authorial voice and / or allows them to support their argument. They endorse ideologies of gender, nation and class at the same time as they reject some aspects of them. This study reveals new aspects of nineteenth-century discussions of the so-called 'woman question' through a broader approach which encompasses not only the parameters of gender, class and political orientation but also cross-cultural experience.
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Cannon, Janet Bennion. "An exploratory study of female networking in a Mormon fundamentalist polygynous society." PDXScholar, 1990. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4025.
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The present study is comprised of two parts: 1) an exploratory ethnography of a contemporary polygynous community governed by a strong patriarchal ideology in Pinesdale Montana with emphasis on social relationships, and 2) an analysis of the factors which have allowed women's groups to develop in Mormon fundamentalism. The ethnographic account of the community contextualizes the occurrence of female groups in Pinesdale. A model of the formation of female groups designed by Nancy Leis (1974) in her study of the West African Ijaw is used to provide a better understanding of how female groups are formed, and is applied to the Pinesdale community. This model suggests that the combination of features relevant to the occurrence of female groups are virilocality, patrilineality, polygyny, and economic independence. In spite of the kin-based nature of her African study, which limits its applicability to Western society, Leis suggests that her model "would predict the presence or absence of women's groups elsewhere," and encourages a cross-cultural study to prove her hypothesis. My thesis investigates the strengths and limitations of Leis' model within an ethnographic framework.
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McMurray, David, and University of Lethbridge Faculty of Arts and Science. "'A rod of her own' : women and angling in victorian North America." Thesis, Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Arts and Science, 2007, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10133/537.
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This thesis will argue that angling was a complex cultural phenomenon that had developed into a respectable sport for women during the Early Modern period in Britain. This heterogeneous tradition was inherited by many Victorian women who found it to be a vehicle through which they could find access to nature and where they could respectably exercise a level of authority, autonomy, and agency within the confines of a patriarchal society. That some women were conscious of these opportunities and were deliberate in their use of angling to achieve their goals while others happened upon them in a more unassuming manner, underscores how angling also functioned as a canopy of camouflage within Victorian society. In other words, though it outwardly appeared as a simple recreational activity, angling possessed the ability to function as a meta-narrative for its adherents, where the larger experiences and intentions of women became subtly intertwined, if not hidden, within the actual activity itself.viii, 197 leaves ; 29 cm.
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Van, Heerden Lorinda. "The poetry of silence : perpetuating the profound burden : a female family narrative." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/18032.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (MA (VA)--Stellenbosch University, 2011.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The thesis investigate the family narrative. While engaging specifically with my female family narrative, it essentially questions how and why we create and perpetuate this narrative of absence and presence. The acts of memory, autobiography, testimony and the subsequent creation of the archive are probed. Such probes attempt to enter the sphere of the unsayable and unsaid, partially lifting the female existence, identity and body from the silence surrounding the private and intimate realm she dwells in. The creation and recreation of meaning through the use and manipulation of time and language is examined through-out whilst continually reading absence as presence. This is done in order to locate and access the silent and forgotten. The thesis problematises the notion of the ‘I’ and the ‘initial’ through looking at the repercussions of the employing linearity. Ultimately, this writing process reveals the contradictions and dualities we both create and aim to obliterate within the individual and collective composition of the family narrative.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek die familienarratief. Terwyl dit spesifiek die vroulike familienarratief bespreek bevraagteken dit hoe en hoekom ons die narratief van afwesigheid en teenwoordigheid skep en voortsit. Die dade van onthou, outobiografie, getuienis, en die daaropvolgende ontstaan van die argief, word gepeil. Hierdie ondersoeke poog om die sfeer van die ‘ongesêde’ en die ‘onsêbare’ binne te dring, en so die vroulike bestaan, identiteit en liggaam te bevry uit die stilte van die ‘private’ en die intieme terrein waarbinne sy woon. Die skep en herskep van betekenis deur die gebruik en manipulasie van taal en tyd word deurlopend ondersoek, terwyl afwesigheid as aanwesigheid gelees word. Dit word gedoen in orde om die stilte en vergete te vind en toegang daartoe te bewerkstellig. Die tesis problematiseer die begrip van die ‘ek’ en die ‘initiële’ deur na die reperkussies van die toepassing en gebruik van lineariteit te kyk. Uiteindelik onthul die skryfproses die kontradiksies en dualiteite wat ons beide skep asook poog om uit te wis binne die individuele en kollektiewe komposisie van die familie narratief.
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Hirsch, Brett Daniel. "Werewolves and women with whiskers : figures of estrangement in early modern English drama and culture." University of Western Australia. English and Cultural Studies Discipline Group, 2009. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2009.0175.
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Each chapter of Werewolves and Women with Whiskers: Figures of Estrangement in Early Modern English Drama and Culture explores a particular figure of fascination and fear in the early modern English imagination: in one it is owls, in another bearded women, in a third werewolves, and in yet another Jews. Drawing on instances from drama and other cultural forms, this thesis seeks to examine each of these phenomena in terms of their estrangement. There is a symbolic appositeness in each of these figures, whether in estranged and estranging minority groups, such as Catholics, Jesuits, Jews, Puritans, Italians, the Irish, and the Scots; or in transgressive behaviours, such as cross-dressing and gender trouble, infidelity and apostasy, intemperate passion and unnatural desire. Essentially unfixed and unstable, these emblematic figures are indicative of cultural uncertainty and therefore are easily adapted to suit changing political, religious, and social climates. However, adaptability and fluidity come at a price, since figures of difference have an uncomfortable way of transforming themselves into figures of resemblance. Thus, this thesis argues, each of these figuresowls, bearded women, werewolves, Jewsoccupies an undefined and undefinable space on the precarious boundary between the usual and the unusual, between the strange and the strangely familiar, and, most strangely and paradoxically of all, between us and them.
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Wallaert, Hélène. "Mains agiles, mains d'argile: apprentissage de la poterie au Nord-Cameroun. modes d'acquisition des compôrtements techniques." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/211720.
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Pfeffer, Miki. "An Enlarging Influence: Women of New Orleans, Julia Ward Howe, and the Woman's Department at the Cotton Centennial Exposition, 1884-1885." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2011. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1339.
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This study investigates the first Woman's Department at a World's Fair in the Deep South. It documents conflicts and reconciliations and the reassessments that post-bellum women made during the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans, the region's foremost but atypical city. It traces local women's resistance to the appointment of northern abolitionist and suffragist, Julia Ward Howe, for this “New South†event of 1884-1885. It also notes their increasing receptivity to national causes that Susan B. Anthony, Frances E. Willard, and others brought to the South, sometimes for the first time. This dissertation assesses the historical forces that goaded New Orleans women, from the comfort of their familiar city, to consider radical notions that would later strengthen them in civic roles. It asserts that, although these women were skilled and capable, they had previously lacked cohesive force and public strategies. It concludes that as local women competed and interacted with women from across the country, including those from pioneering western territories, they began to embrace progressive ideas and actions that, without the Woman's Department at the Exposition, might have taken years to drift southward. This is a chronological tale of the journey late-nineteenth-century women made together in New Orleans. It attempts to capture their look, sound, and language from their own writings and from journalists' interpretations of their ideals, values, and emotions. In the potent forum for exchange that the Woman's Department provided, participants and visitors questioned and revised false notions and stereotypes. They influenced each other and formed alliances. Although individuals spoke mainly for themselves, common themes emerged regarding education, jobs, benevolence, and even suffrage. Most women were aware that they were in a defining moment, and this study chronicles how New Orleans women seized the opportunity and created a legacy for themselves and their city. As the Exposition sought to (re)assert agrarian and industrial prowess after turbulent times, a shift occurred in the trajectory of women's public and political lives in New Orleans and, perhaps, the South more broadly. By 1885, southerners were ready to insinuate their voices into the national debate on women's issues.
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Burger, Catherin-Ann. "Heterosexual context and adolescent sexual risk-taking behaviour : an exploratative study in a coloured community." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/51788.
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Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A combined quantitative and qualitative methodology was employed in order to explore the intimate heterosexual context of coloured* pregnant adolescents as a determinant of their sexual risk-taking behaviour. Structured questionnaires were completed by forty young women attending prenatal clinics in the Stellenbosch area, and unstructured open-ended interviews subsequently conducted with ten selected respondents. It was found that the heterosexual relationships in which these girls were involved, tended to be intense emotional attachments based upon a foundation of friendship and trust, and reinforced by cultural notions of romantic love. In the wake of working class socioeconomic circumstances these relationships became a primary source of meaning-giving in respondents' lives, pervading all aspects of their everyday existence and guiding their future prospects. And it is in this context that sex prevailed as a means of deepening the emotional experience and pursuing relationship maintenance. Reproductive health interventions for coloured female adolescents would have to acknowledge these complexities and act upon them in ingenuous ways.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: 'n Gekombineerde kwantitatiewe en kwalitatiewe metodologie is geïmplementeer ten einde te bepaal op welke wyse die intieme heteroseksuele konteks van kleurling* swanger adolessente hulle seksueel riskante gedrag beïnvloed. Gestruktureerde vraelyste is voltooi deur veertig jong vroue wat prenatale klinieke in die Stellenbosch area bygewoon het, waarop ongestruktureerde nie-leidende onderhoude met tien geselekteerde respondente gevoer is. Dit is bevind dat hierdie meisies se heteroseksuele verhoudings meestal intense emosionele verbintenisse was, wat gebaseer is op 'n grondslag van vriendskap en vertroue, en wat versterk is deur kulturele opvattings van romantiese liefde. In die lig van werkersklas sosio-ekonomiese omstandighede, het hierdie verhoudings 'n primêre bron van betekenis in respondente se lewens geword. Dit het alle aspekte van hulle daaglikse bestaan beïnvloed en hulle toekomsvooruitsigte gerig. En dit is binne sodanige konteks wat seks beoefen is. Dit was instrumenteel ten einde verdieping van die emosionele ervaring en voortsetting van die verhouding te probeer bewerkstellig. Reproduktiewe gesondheidsintervensies vir kleurling vroulike adolessente sal erkenning moet gee aan hierdie kompleksiteite en vindingryke oplossings daarvoor moet genereer.
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Piette, Valérie. "Servantes et domestiques: des vies sous condition; essai sur la domesticité 1789-1914." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/212035.
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Pan, Yu Lan. "Desire for the other in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior : Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts." Thesis, University of Macau, 2010. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b2456358.
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Kuberska, Karolina. "The meanings of sobreparto : postpartum illness and embodiment of emotions among Andean migrants in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/8524.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis concerns a postpartum condition known as sobreparto among female Andean migrants in the lowland city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. While sobreparto is a traditionally Andean illness, its occurrence in the lowland city of Santa Cruz opens up new dimensions of analysis. In addition to exposing transformations of the traditional understandings of health, illness, and the body, the study of this phenomenon in an atypical setting sheds new light on issues such as migration, social networks, biomedicalisation, or gender patterns. By means of narratives of lives interrupted by sobreparto, it is possible to locate this condition within a wider frame of life trajectories, exposing motifs beyond the temporarily dysfunctional body. I argue that the narratives of sobreparto can be used as a springboard for a study of transformations in the understandings of motherhood and womanhood, migration and social networks, as well as emotions. Looking at these processes through the lens of a postpartum illness also reveals the connections between the ill body, the troubled mind, and imperfect social relationships. On the one hand, sobreparto can be analysed at the micro-level – in terms of an understanding of the body, individual reproductive histories, or the availability of other people's support. On the other hand, sobreparto constitutes a commentary on phenomena occurring at the macro-level, such as large-scale internal migration in Bolivia or the increasing domination of biomedicine as a model of health and illness. The city of Santa Cruz offers a unique setting for scrutinising these changes using a traditionally Andean postpartum illness as a point of departure. Being much more than a postpartum bodily dysfunction, sobreparto, therefore, can be used as a lens through which it is possible to see the interplay of social and political macro- and micro-processes in people's lives at the time of reproduction.
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Jolly, Rachel. "Co-engaged learning : Xhosa women's narratives on traditional foods." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003331.
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This interpretive case study examines Grahamstown East Xhosa women's narratives on the nutritional value of traditional foods. It reviews reflexive learning interactions apparent in the co-engaged narratives of food preparation practices. The research design incorporates methods of reflective co-engagement through which a small team of women were approached as 'co-researchers' in order to work together on shared, local knowledge capital and nutrition concerns. It draws on findings generated using a combination of semi-structured interviews, cooking demonstrations, videography, photographs and field observations as methods of data collection. Data were member-checked and reviewed in a rural context before the emerging evidence was analyzed using Bassey's (1999) analytical statements. Contextual factors influencing the study are high poverty, unemployment and HIV/AIDS prevalence where nutrition levels have been found to be low. The women making up the study have spent the majority of their lives in the peri-urban area of Grahamstown and in some cases, are more than one generation removed from rural living and its associated knowledge. The accompanying shift to modernization was found to influence the interplay between their narratives and practice. Indigenous Knowledge is often characterized by being situated in practice with the knowledge-holders often not 'knowing that they know.' This study concludes that it is not possible to assume that knowledge can always be consciously expressed, especially when that knowledge is embedded in practice. Related to this, co-engagement and diversity among the group gave rise to greater disequilibrium as well as making the knowledge more explicit and hence, available for reflection. The study suggests that through the process of co-engagement and deliberation around indigenous ways of knowing, agency and cultural identity appears to be enabled and strengthened.
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Owen, Mary Elizabeth. "THREE INDIANA WOMEN'S CLUBS: A STUDY OF THEIR PATTERNS OF ASSOCIATION, STUDY PRACTICES, AND CIVIC IMPROVEMENT WORK, 1886-1910." Thesis, Connect to resource online, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1805/1636.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2008.Title from screen (viewed on July 8, 2008). Department of History, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Robert G. Barrows, Nancy Marie Robertson, Marianne S. Wokeck. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-172).
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Abbyad, Christine Weir. "Processes used by urban black women to prepare for childbirth : a grounded theory." 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/17722.
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Women prepare for childbirth in a variety ways. These preparations include visits to healthcare providers, seeking information from family, friends, and the media, and attendance at childbirth classes. Documentation of birth preparation comes primarily from studies of middle class white women. Few researchers have identified or included middle class black women in their samples. Instead, research with black women often highlights pregnancy problems in low income populations. Also unexamined, except tangentially, is how the social context impacts childbirth for black women. Therefore, nursing practice knowledge lacks an understanding of the processes black women use to prepare for birthing within their social context. The aim of this qualitative study was to identify a theory that described the processes used by urban black women to prepare for childbirth. Also explored was the social context within which these processes occurred. Women in the last four months of pregnancy were recruited through churches, hair salons, newspapers, radio and internet web sites. Data were collected from five focus groups and two individual interviews (n=22). More than half the women reported income adequate for daily needs, were partnered or married, were employed, had at least a high school education and were younger than 23 years. Data analysis followed the grounded theory methods advocated by Strauss and Corbin (1998). The theory describing the processes used by the participants was weighing the impact on me. These women actively engaged in determining the best course of action for themselves. They weighed and considered advice from others, what relationships were crucial, what information was most important to them, and many other issues. Woven throughout were the importance of relationships and the social context in which the women lived. The processes used for birth preparation were divided into four, discovering pregnancy, managing pregnancy, preparing for delivery, and experiencing personal change. These processes were not sequential but represented the dynamic and constant need to assess and decide the best choices in preparing for childbirth. Building on this theory, future research should identify ways in which black women can more readily access the quality healthcare and services they so desire.text
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Fang, Jin-cai. "The influence on Manchu women of changes in social institutions and the sinification of Manchu Society." Thesis, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/1957/28376.
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Gender relations as well as the social situation of Manchu women have long been
ignored in studies of the cultural evolution of the Manchu. By setting the discussion of
Manchu women in the context of cultural adaptation, this study reintroduces gender and
women's problems into the research on the Manchu culture by outlining the social changes in
Manchu society over 300 years, which in turn have affected the social position of Manchu
women.
A literature review provides a theoretical framework to the understanding of the
interaction between the social system of Manchu society and environmental stress. An
emphasis is laid on the role of the state in cultural evolution and its influence on Manchu
women. Two factors significantly affecting Manchu women's lives are the introduction of the
Banner system and the process of systematic sinification.
Cultural assimilation and maintenance are also major topics covered in this study. The
results of a field investigation at Outer Firearm Camp In Beijing reveal a pattern of a mixture of
Han and Manchu customs, which serves as a good example of how a cultural system be
partially destroyed and partially preserved in the process of adaptation, and how women's
status remains higher among the Manchu than among the Han. The Manchu's basic cultural
value system with its emphasis on women's equality has proven to be remarkably stable
despite many social adaptations to extreme pressures from the outside world.Graduation date: 1996
Best scan available for p.53 and p.106.
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Mensah-Aborampah, Osei. "Women in transition : a socio-religious study of the changing role of rural Hlubi women." Diss., 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/17435.
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The study examines the socio-religious role of women in traditional African societies using
the Hlubi of Qumbu, Transkei as a case study.
Qualitative methodology was used to look at Hlubi women holistically in their past and the
situations in which they find themselves today.
Primary sources of African traditional religion such as myths, proverbs and taboos were also
used in assessing the socio-religious role of Hlubi women.
The following observations were made about Hlubi women:
1. They do not constitute an homogenous group.
2. Sexual division of labour allocates to women the responsibility of sustaining the
household.
3. They have multiple workloads: namely, survival, household and income generating
tasks.
4. They experience ambivalence regarding their roles - responsibility without proper authority.
5. Hlubi women share with their male counterparts the role of traditional healers.
6. In spite of increased involvement of women in church activities they are still denied
leadership positions.Religious Studies and Arabic
M.A. (Religious Studies)
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Ntombela, Bongani. "Conformity: visual reflection on the social and cultural life of Nguni women." Diss., 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/19793.
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Text in EnglishThis study is a reflection on the culture and social life of Nguni women. The research is the interpretation and representation of how the Nguni culture and social values emerge as source of identity not a simple act of conformity. The manifestation of cultural values is presented through a body of artworks. The artworks seek to expose the complex nature of deep social bonds. These bonds are responsible for the creation of the ultimate value of aesthetic experience within a social and ethical context. The analysis addresses the significance and symbolic nature of traditional wedding rituals in relation to conformity and social identity. Various concepts and themes are discussed to ascertain how participating in these social and cultural performances helps individuals to pursue their own understanding and meaning of their experience within their lived environment. The main question this study addresses is how women make sense of their experience as mothers, wives, members of society and individuals. It is the study of cultural and social phenomena; their nature and meanings, and the focus is on the interpretation of the phenomena in terms of their individual experiences and how they relate lived experience to their identities. This is done by acknowledging the essence of meaningful nature of experiences that lead participating individuals into conformity and submission. Sculptural installation and performance are used to describe concepts in the production of visual presentation of this research. The visual installation in this research provides the symbolic meaning of nature of aesthetic experience which influences individual to connect with the society and thus creating impression of conformity. The reflection on cultural and social experience highlights the dilemma of containing conformity to an act of coercion while leaving the issue of human perception and understanding of value in relation to the experience of the body unattended. A phenomenological approach to this study has helped to address art installation as a stylistic phenomenon that is created and experienced visually in order to represents a relationship between artist and society.
Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology
M.A. (Visual Arts)
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Mohamed, Feroza Hamida. "Coloured women leaving abusive spousal relationships: a phenomenological study." Thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10210/906.
Full textAbstract:
Spousal abuse is a global phenomenon that occurs in many cultures and affects most of the world’s population of women. Over the past 30 years, spousal abuse has become increasingly recognized as a problem, and women in many countries have organized to advocate for change. The issue of wife abuse has been taken up by the public as an issue of general concern more than once since the latter part of the nineteenth century. It came into the limelight again in the early 1970’s in the United States, its progress towards public awareness corresponding with the growth of the women’s movement. In broad terms, the women’s movement may be divided into two major feminist perspectives. First wave feminism is principally concerned with equalities between the genders whereas second wave feminism uses women’s differences to oppose the ‘legalities’ of a patriarchal world. The phenomenon of women being abused in intimate relationships has been referred to as “the problem that had no name.” Indeed, one of the most important contributions of second wave feminism was the labels it provided to previously unnamed, largely unspoken, taboo problems that women confronted. Without a label to refer to a phenomenon, that phenomenon is extremely difficult to describe, to discuss, to count, and analyse. In South Africa concern about wife abuse, started in the early 1980’s. Inspired by the action of overseas movements, South African feminists began to mobilize around violence against women. In the South African context, violence against women must be viewed against the socio-political background of apartheid, race, class, and gender relations. In an historic context of overwhelming oppression and state-sanctioned violence, a culture of violence developed. Over time this situation is accepted as a norm and becomes a primary means of conflict resolution- including between domestic partners. Accurate statistics on the problem of spousal abuse in South Africa are unavailable since national prevalence studies have not been conducted. Difficulties in obtaining prevalence to date have been exacerbated by fragmentation created by the former apartheid bureaucracy; the lack of resources to confront the problem of spousal abuse; and the fact that the problem is often unrecognized and under reported. However, preliminary findings from available research indicate that spousal abuse in South Africa is a serious and extensive problem. The abuse reported in these studies ranged from verbal insults, threats, physical injury and even death. Numerous studies found that spousal abuse is seen as a private matter, so that the abused woman does not have the support of friends, family or the authority to help her stop the abuse or to leave the relationship. Spousal abuse is sequential, developmental and dynamic. The situation of the abused woman is unlike many other crisis in that it is transcrisis; that is, it is cyclical, reaching many peak levels over extended periods of time. For a variety of reasons it is rare for women to leave an abusive spousal relationship for good after the first abusive incident. Continued and increased abuse over a period of years is the typical pattern of abusive spousal relationships. Research has indicated that abusive spousal relationships typically include a life-threatening history of injuries and psychosocial problems that entrap the women in the relationships. Limited research has been undertaken on the experience of women who do manage to leave abusive spousal relationships despite the debilitating physical and emotional sequelae of the abuse and a lack of family and societal support. This investigation aims to address and explore the experience “Coloured” women who managed to leave abusive spousal relationships. As the literature review will indicate, the social-cultural context of “Coloured” is one that not only makes them susceptible to experiencing spousal abuse but it also predisposes them to remain in these relationships. The investigation seeks those themes, emotions and thoughts which are central and significant in the women’s experience. It explores the manner in which leaving comes about and is incorporated into the women’s sense of self and understanding of the world. Essentially, the research aims to provide some understanding of what the experience of leaving an abusive relationship entails and the personal meaning it holds for the women. In order to ensure that the women's own subjective experiences, and their own interpretations and understanding of those experiences will be the focal point, as opposed to that of the researcher, the existential-phenomenological system of inquiry is employed. The existential-phenomenological approach is not only utilized as a specific research methodology but is also adopted as an overall attitude towards doing research. The participants in the study are viewed as beings-in-the-world, thereby acknowledging that the experience of leaving occurs in a context in which the participants act on and are simultaneously acted upon by their lived-worlds. Qualitative access to the subjective realm of the women is attempted through a qualitative design through which rich data is collected through in-depth, open-ended interviews which facilitates unique and personal descriptions. A pilot interview with a woman who left an abusive spousal relationship indicated that the research question (How did you experience leaving the abusive relationship?) together with broad open-ended questions, facilitated the attainment of rich, vital, substantive descriptions of the experience of leaving. Three “Coloured” women, who left their abusive spousal relationships at least two years ago, were then sourced from previously “Coloured” designated communities and interviewed for the purpose of this study. The qualification in terms of time is important since this study is interested in the experience of women who left their abusive relationships permanently and research has shown that many women leave abusive spousal relationships only to return after some time.Dr. I. Van der Merwe Prof. W. Schoeman
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"Exploration on survival strategies of rural women in Qumbu, Eastern Cape." Thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10210/3270.
Full textAbstract:
M.A.African family structures have not been systematically studied in South Africa. This is a pilot study of household structures in the Qumbu village at the Mhlontlo district in the Eastern Cape. I researched household arrangements in the area, whether migration of husbands to the cities has disrupted the traditional family unit, what the survival strategies are of these women, and whether survival strategies influence household structure. Fifteen households were surveyed. Questions asked included marital status, household size, ways of earning a living, alternative survival strategies to wage employment and government social grants, contributions to the household, government role to such families, any knowledge about self help groups and decision making skills, power relations, perception of future developments in their communities, fulfillment of essential needs and service rendering, etc. The study revealed that since traditional family units were disrupted by migration, and wives were left at home to take care for the children, the traditional “extended” African household, dependent on various survival strategies. The main categories are: Five women survived through receiving social grants from the Department of Social Development. Four were domestic workers, three were supported by their lovers whom are from extra marital affair, two from doing piece jobs in the community and 01 from community projects. The majority have no wage employment and make a living on the land where they dwell, but because of migration, rural food production has declined. However, the community survives also by supporting each other, for example, kin and community networks and neighborliness account for much of the survival strategies. Many men migrate to the cities, and as a result wives have different feelings towards male migrancy such as anger, regret, self blame, confusion and powerlessness. Dominantly in black societies grandmothers play a vital role in maintaining households and raising the children of migrants
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Parry, Alison Ruth. ""Their works do follow them" : Tlingit women and Presbyterian missions." Thesis, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5975.
Full textAbstract:
Using an ethnohistorical method which combines archival material with ethnographic
material collected mostly by anthropologists, this thesis provides a history of Tlingit women's
interaction with the Presbyterian missions. The Presbyterians, who began their work among
the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska in the 1870s, were particularly concerned with the
introduction of "appropriate" gender roles. Although participating in the roles and activities
defined by the Presbyterians as "women's work", Tlingit women incorporated Presbyterian
forms of practice into their own cultural frames of reference. The end result, unintended by the
missionaries, was that Tlingit women were provided with a new power base.
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Blunt, Alison Mary. "Travelling home and empire British women in India, 1857-1939." Thesis, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/6722.
Full textAbstract:
This study focuses on the British wives of civil servants and army officers who lived in India
from 1857 to 1939 to examine the translation of feminine discourses of bourgeois domesticity
over imperial space. Three questions form the subject of this research. First, how were cultures
of domesticity and imperialism intertwined in complex and often contradicatory ways over
space? Second, did imperial rule, and the travel that it necessarily implied, challenge or reinforce
the claim that 'there's no place like home'? Third, how and why were places both like and yet
unlike 'home' produced by British women living in India? I start by examining the 'mutiny' of
1857-1858 as a period of domestic and imperial crisis, focusing on representations of and by
British women at Cawnpore and Lucknow. Then, considering the place of British women in the
post-'mutiny' reconstruction of imperial domesticity in India, I focus on two scales: first, home
and empire-making on a household scale; and, second, seasonal travels by British women to hill
stations in North India. In their travels both to and within India, British women embodied
contested discourses of imperial domesticity.
Throughout, I focus on the mobile, embodied subjectivities of memsahibs. While
imperial histories have often neglected the roles played by British women in India, revisionist
accounts have often reproduced stereotypical and / or celebratory accounts of memsahibs. In
contrast, I examine the ambivalent basis of imperial and gendered stereotypes and conceptualise
spatialised subjectivities in terms of embodiment, critical mobility, and material performativity.
As members of an official elite, the British wives of civil servants and army officers came to
embody many of the connections and tensions between domesticity and imperialism. Both
during and after the 'mutiny,' the place of British women and British homes in India was
contested. The place of British women and British homes in India reveal contradictions at the
heart of imperial rule by reproducing and yet destabilizing imperial rule on a domestic scale
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"The effects of biblical and cultural patriarchy on the lives of married Damara women in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELCRN)." Thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/161.
Full textAbstract:
This study aims to analyse the links between patriarchy in the bible, the Damara culture, and the ecclesiological practices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (ELCN). Using empirical research (interviews) and socio-historical methodology, the study demonstrates how biblical patriarchy affects married Damara women and evaluates the consequent roles of women in the religious context of the church, in the light of the biblical and cultural patriarchy which Damara women are subjected to.Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.
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"The agency of the minority women: a case study of the miao women in a rural community of Guizhou in China." 2003. http://library.cuhk.edu.hk/record=b5896120.
Full textAbstract:
Ding Lai-Ling.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-167).
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
Chapter Chapter One: --- Introduction
Chapter 1 --- The Miao History of Guizhou in China --- p.P.4-8
Chapter 1.1 --- The socio-economic background of the Miao rural community --- p.P.8-11
Chapter 1.2 --- Femininity of the ' feminized other' ´ؤ the Portray of the Miao women
Chapter 2 --- The concept of agency --Literature Review --- p.P.13-20
Chapter 3 --- Methodology --- p.P.20-22
Chapter Chapter Two: --- The Miao women's agency over the traditional drinking custom
Chapter 1 --- The traditional drinking custom in the Miao community Of Guizhou in China --- p.P.23-47
Chapter 2 --- The acquisition of drinking habit by the Miao men And the Miao women
Chapter 2.1 --- The Perception of drinking among the Miao men of different ages --- p.P.48-50
Chapter 2.2 --- The Miao women's agency over the traditional drinking custom
Chapter 2.2.1 --- Among the unmarried girls --- p.P.50-53
Chapter 2.2.2 --- Among the married women --- p.P.53-58
Chapter 3 --- Traditional drinking custom and wife battering / killing --- p.P.58-60
Chapter 4 --- Concluding remark --- p.P.60-64
Chapter Chapter Three : --- The Miao women's agency over the contraceptive technology
Chapter 1 --- The concepts of reproduction and body --- p.P.65-72
Chapter 2 --- The Birth Planning Policy in the national minority regions --- p.P.72-74
Chapter 2.1 --- Among the national minority groups in Guizhou --- p.P.74-75
Chapter 2.2 --- Within the villages --- p.P.75-76
Chapter 3 --- Norplant ´ؤ The contraceptive devise assigned to the Miao women --- p.P.77-81
Chapter 4 --- The coercive use of Norplant ´ؤ a devastating challenge to the Miao women's agency --- p.P.81-86
Chapter 4.1 --- As the economic burden levied on the Miao women --- p.P.86-90
Chapter 4.2 --- As the health burden levied on the Miao women --- p.P.90-94
Chapter 5 --- Concluding remark --- p.P.94-96
Chapter Chapter Four - --- The Miao women's agency over the family violence
Chapter 1 --- Theoretical orientation of family violence-wife abuse --- p.P.97-102
Chapter 2 --- Major dominant script of family violence and wife abuse by the Women Federation in China --- p.P.102-106
Chapter 3 --- The gender relation within the Miao rural community of Guizhou in China --- p.P.106-113
Chapter 3.1 --- The unequal sexual division of labor within the family --- p.P.113-121
Chapter 3.2 --- Drinking and wife abuse in the Miao community --- p.P.121-124
Chapter 3.3 --- Wife abuse in the Miao community - From scolding to killing --- p.P.124-130
Chapter 3.4 --- Fro Passive to active - a coping strategies continuum --- p.P.131-139
Chapter 4 --- Concluding remark --- p.P.139-140
Conclusion --- p.P.141-149
Interviewee's profile
Reference
Appendix