ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- All Subjects: Gender Studies
Description
This study compares some sites, structures, theories and praxis of transnational feminisms in India and the U.S., simultaneously guided by and interrogating contemporary academic feminist theoretical and methodological trends. The goal is twofold: to understand similarities and differences in feminist praxis of two geo-epistemological spaces; and to interrogate the notion and currency of the "transnational" within feminist knowledge-creation. The phenomenon of transnational feminist knowledge-making is interrogated from a philosophical/theoretical and phenomenological/experiential standpoint. The philosophical inquiry is concentrated on the theoretical texts produced on transnational/global/postcolonial feminisms. This inquiry also focuses on some unpublished, uncirculated archival materials that trace the history of academic feminisms and their transnationalization. The phenomenological side focuses on interview and survey data on transnational feminism, gathered from feminist practitioners working in the U.S. and India, as well as being "transmigrant," or "traveling scholars." Digital/institutional ethnography is used to ground the findings in operational spaces of knowledge-making, including cyberspace. This research shows that the global logic of circulation and visibility organize the flow of knowledge as data, narratives and reports from the global south, which are analyzed, clarified and theorized in the global north. Perhaps responding to many critiques on "speaking of" and "speaking for" the "other," the trend to represent third world women as perpetual victims has given way to newer representations and accounts of resistance, collaboration, and activism. However, this creates a fresh "theory-here-activism-there" model of transnational feminism that preserves unequal feminist division of labor. This comparative and critical study focuses not just on feminist discourses in two countries but also their relationships, suggests some viable models of transnational feminism that can preserve epistemic justice, and aims to contribute to the theoretical corpus of transnational feminism.
ContributorsChakravarty, Debjani (Author) / Kitch, Sally L (Thesis advisor) / Fonow, Mary M (Committee member) / Koblitz, Ann H (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This dissertation examines how direct selling organizations compel women to believe that direct selling is, among other things, centered on the needs of women. Drawing upon feminist interdisciplinary methodologies, this dissertation brings together qualitative, archival, and ethnographic materials to analyze direct selling through a technologies of gender framework. I argue that multi-level marketing direct selling companies (like Avon, Tupperware, Mary Kay, etc.) are able to turn belief into profits because they strategically tap into gender ideologies. I show that discursive technologies of gender coalesce with race and class discourses and are put to work by direct selling companies to construct a specific type of direct seller. This dissertation attempts to unpack the complex technologies of gender that direct selling women engage with while constructing their identities as workers and women. I argue that the companies in this study deliberately tap into women's anxieties and desires to blend their perceived gender roles with their need for income. I find that direct selling companies are exceptional at branding their businesses as uniquely suited for women and that this branding hinges upon the construction of a direct sales imaginary. I argue that the direct sales imaginary taps into powerful discourses of race, class, and gender to market the American dream to women who are seeking out a space that is empowering and inclusive. Because the direct selling industry tends to see an increase in profits and recruitment during economic recessions, it is likely that the current economic situation has channeled even more women toward direct sales as a fallback for uncertain economic futures. While some women may be inclined to view direct sales as an attractive employment alternative it is not a realistic means of supporting families during difficult economic times and this study might help some women make more informed decisions. Furthermore, this study brings to light how gender might be used to organize structural relationships between markets, people, and businesses.
ContributorsLamoreaux, Tiffany (Author) / Hibner Koblitz, Ann (Thesis advisor) / Fonow, Mary M (Committee member) / Leong, Karen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
“(Dis)Locating the Sensual: Black Queer Placemaking in Brooklyn, New York” investigates the impact that gentrification has on Black queer subject formations and Black queer public culture. My research explores the interplay between social oppressions, the Black quotidian queer body, and lived sensations within two Black queer bars located in the epicenter of white middle class gentrification in Brooklyn, New York: Langston’s Brooklyn and Happiness Lounge. In doing so, my project expands Western conceptions of space while charging feminist and queer theories to explore interpersonal and personal dimensions of lived experiences that are conditioned by modes of normalization set by white supremacy. I use archival research and ethnographic methods to explore the way that Black queer people utilize space and the spatial dimensions that happen in and across the spaces they regularly occupy. I also collect and examine building information, such as the owners’ respective rental agreements, building permits, documented building violation(s), and incurred fees by the owners to understand who owns the land, who manages the properties, and the role of the state in regulating space. Additionally, “(Dis)Locating the Sensual” analyzes three analytic memos from my ethnographic fieldnotes including desire, spatial performance, and sensations to apprehend the implications of performance on a Black queer sense of place. Taken together, this data renders a complex picture of Black queer place-making that both resists and exceeds the structural constraints of racial capitalist expansion. My work both dialogues with and contributes to fields that are rarely drawn into conversation: Urban geography and Black queer studies. By analyzing sensations, nostalgia, and atmosphere within Langston’s and Happiness Lounge, I chart the ways in which gentrification continues to displace physical Black queer social spaces and impact the atmospheres and sensations that are unique to their vanishing social spaces. I introduce Black queer spatiality as a method that is informed by tracing Black LGBT spatial sensations and atmospheres; this analytic enables the linking of physical spatio-historical processes of extraction to the sensual geographic experiences that are emplaced in Black queer social spaces.
ContributorsMillhouse, Ricardo (Author) / Bailey, Marlon M (Thesis advisor) / Shabazz, Gregg R (Committee member) / Fonow, Mary M (Committee member) / McHugh, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021