Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Identity
- Creators: Tsuda, Takeyuki
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
Ascribed elements of one's self-identity such as sex, race, and the place of birth are deeply related to one's national identity among Japanese immigrant women. Spouses, offspring, friends, networks in the U.S., or even information about their local area also represent the nation they feel they belong to. The feelings of belonging and comfort are the basis for their achieved sphere of identification with the U.S. This study found that few elderly immigrants would identify only with the host county. Likewise, very few elderly immigrants would identify only with the homeland. Therefore, most of them identify with both countries (transnational), or they identify with neither country (liminal) to an extent. Developing transnational or liminal identity is a result of how Japanese elderly immigrant women have been experiencing mundane events in the host country and how they think the power relations of the sending and receiving countries have changed over the years. Japanese elderly immigrant women with transnational identity expressed their confidence and little anxiety for their aging. Their confidence comes from strong connection with the local community in the host country or/and homeland. Contrarily, those with liminal identity indicated stronger anxiety toward their aging. Their anxiety comes from disassociation from the local community in the U.S. and Japan. With regard to the decisiveness of future plan such as where to live and how to cope with aging, indecisiveness seems to create more options for elderly Japanese immigrant women with the transnational identity, while it exacerbates the anxiety among those who have liminal identity.
ContributorsKawakami, Atsuko (Author) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Thesis advisor) / John, Johnson (Committee member) / Menjivar, Cecilia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This research examines four stateswomen fashion icons—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Diana, Princess of Wales, Michelle Obama, and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge—and the way these stateswomen used clothing and personal style to create a public identity. Dress is a powerful tool of personal expression and identity creation and when we look at stateswoman style, we see the ways that dress gives them agency to negotiate the “official” identity that’s being placed on them. Personal style is the way we use personal adornments (clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, etc.) to form messages about who we are, who we dream we could be, and what our personal values are. It is a system of communication with rhetorical influence on others that, in return, offers a way to embrace, challenge, or subvert societal expectations and cultural norms. The choice to embrace, challenge, or subvert to the expectations is fluid, and the women continuously move back and forth between these states. I argue for the ways the selected women in this analysis make choices and negotiate such expectations on the national stage through their clothing choices.
While personal style does not construct our identities on its own, our dress is often the first indicator of our identity and personality. Dress, therefore, becomes one way to express our identity, even in situations where we are otherwise silenced. Stateswomen are “not body as advertisement”—as celebrities are—but “body as a source of agency.” For every woman, stateswomen included, clothing is a rhetorical statement that they make every day. These women exemplify the way choices can be made powerfully—because they are “like us” more than fashion icons. These stateswomen icons show the public evolving negotiations between personal and public style and identity. They demonstrate the ways that clothing choices can be empowering ways to construct identity and use clothing as an identity statement. This is instrumental in helping average women of the public learn how they can use clothing as a rhetorical statement that creates agency and identity.
While personal style does not construct our identities on its own, our dress is often the first indicator of our identity and personality. Dress, therefore, becomes one way to express our identity, even in situations where we are otherwise silenced. Stateswomen are “not body as advertisement”—as celebrities are—but “body as a source of agency.” For every woman, stateswomen included, clothing is a rhetorical statement that they make every day. These women exemplify the way choices can be made powerfully—because they are “like us” more than fashion icons. These stateswomen icons show the public evolving negotiations between personal and public style and identity. They demonstrate the ways that clothing choices can be empowering ways to construct identity and use clothing as an identity statement. This is instrumental in helping average women of the public learn how they can use clothing as a rhetorical statement that creates agency and identity.
ContributorsSeverson, Andrea J (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Lamp, Kathleen (Committee member) / Boyd, Patricia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Rhetoric has traditionally enjoyed a close connection with ideals of citizenship. Yet, the rhetorical traditions of the medieval period have generally been described as divorced from civic life, concerned instead with theories of composition in specific genres (such as letters and sermons) and with poetics. This view is the product of historiographical approaches that equate rhetoric either theories and practices of speech and writing intended for state-sponsored civic forums, or alternatively with rules governing future speech or literary production. Consequently, the prevailing view of the medieval period in rhetorical studies is a simplified one that has not evolved with changing practices of analysis in the field of rhetorical studies. This dissertation contends that by employing alternative modes of historiography, historians of rhetoric gain a more accurate conception of medieval rhetoric’s civic roles, revealing the discipline’s role in shaping the individual and their relationship to civic and political institutions.
Organized around an introduction, a broad discussion of later medieval rhetoric and political thought (950-1390), four case studies, and a conclusion, this dissertation begins by identifying historiographical trends that have associated medieval rhetoric with technical treatises, minimizing connections to civic life. Challenging these assessments through a close reading of texts of rhetorical theory, political philosophy, and technical treatises, it contends that medieval rhetoric influenced activities such as grammatical education, didactic art, and political theory to inform practices of citizenship. Focusing specifically on representations of labor, this dissertation show that these venues idealized the political participation of manual laborers within an otherwise discursive theory of civic life that drew from both Aristotelian and Ciceronian sources.
Organized around an introduction, a broad discussion of later medieval rhetoric and political thought (950-1390), four case studies, and a conclusion, this dissertation begins by identifying historiographical trends that have associated medieval rhetoric with technical treatises, minimizing connections to civic life. Challenging these assessments through a close reading of texts of rhetorical theory, political philosophy, and technical treatises, it contends that medieval rhetoric influenced activities such as grammatical education, didactic art, and political theory to inform practices of citizenship. Focusing specifically on representations of labor, this dissertation show that these venues idealized the political participation of manual laborers within an otherwise discursive theory of civic life that drew from both Aristotelian and Ciceronian sources.
ContributorsLoveridge, Jordan Thomas (Author) / Lamp, Kathleen (Thesis advisor) / Long, Elenore (Thesis advisor) / Goggin, Maureen D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
"Culture talk" figures prominently in the discussions of and about Muslims, both locally and globally. Culture, in these discussions, is considered to be the underlying cause of gender and generational divides giving rise to an alleged "identity crisis." Culture also presumably conceals and contaminates "pure/true Islam." Culture serves as the scaffold on which all that divides Muslim American immigrants and converts is built; furthermore, the fear of a Muslim cultural takeover underpins the "Islamization of America" narrative. This dissertation engages these generational and "immigrant"-"indigenous" fissures and the current narratives that dominate Muslim and public spheres. It does so through the perspectives of the offspring of converts and immigrants. As the children and grandchildren of immigrants and converts come of age, and distant as they are from historical processes and experiences that shaped the parents' generations while having shared a socialization process as both Muslim and American, what role do they play in the current chapter of Islam in post-9/11 America? Will the younger generation be able to cross the divides, mend the fissures, and play a pivotal role in an "American Muslim community"? Examining how younger generations of both backgrounds view each other and their respective roles in forging an American Muslim belonging, agenda and discourse is a timely and much needed inquiry. This project aims to contribute by shedding more light on the identities, perspectives and roles of these younger generations through the four dominant narratives of identity crisis, pure/true Islam vs. Cultural Islam, the Islamization of America, and creation of an American Muslim community/identity/culture. These narratives are both part of public discourse and themes generated from interviews, a questionnaire\survey, and personal observation. This ethnographic study examines how American born and/or raised offspring of both converts to Islam and immigrant Muslims in the Phoenix and Chicago metropolitan areas define self and community, how they negotiate fissures and fault lines (ethnicity, race, class, gender, and religious interpretation) within their communities, and how their faith informs daily life and envisions a future. I utilize participant observation, interviews, and surveys and examine digital, visual and published media to answer these questions.
ContributorsAli, Muna (Author) / Eder, James (Thesis advisor) / Jackson, Sherman (Committee member) / Hjorleifur Jonsson (Committee member) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
It is estimated that 3000 Mauritian immigrants live in the Canadian province of Ontario, yet despite this relatively small number they are culturally distinct in the city of Toronto. Using ethnographic methods, this dissertation examines immigrants’ changing identities, engagement in transnational politics, and transnational relationships with family members still in Mauritius. Mauritian immigrants in Toronto tend to conceptualize of a unified Mauritian community, created out of a sense of pride that Mauritians are doing well economically, as well as through shared cultural practices like speaking the Mauritian kreol language. However, there are also divisions within the diaspora along ethnic and religious lines, mirroring those in Mauritius. Immigrants also identify as Canadian to a degree, even though what it means to be Canadian varies. Mauritian immigrants’ engagement with Canadian governance influences their likelihood of engaging in transnational politics, even though this is further mediated by the context of migration. Those who migrated as adults with a fully established social network are more likely to try and actively engage in transnational politics compared to those who migrated as young adults to pursue higher education. The latter tend to show an aspiration to engage in transnational politics or a complete lack of engagement from the Mauritian state. Finally, family relationships, including transnational family ties, are an important factor in migration decisions, both in choosing to migrate and choosing to return home. The decision to migrate to Canada is not taken simply at the individual level but is made with input from other family members, or for the children’s welfare. Immigrants retain transnational ties to other kin through internet technologies, frequent visits back to Mauritius, and the sending of remittances. Immigrants are ambivalent about returning home because they do not wish to leave behind their children or grandchildren who have an established life in Canada. This dissertation contributes to the immigration literature by showing that there are generational factors in how immigrants identify and engage in transnational relationships. It also provides policy implications both for the Mauritian government and receiving countries concerned with culturally distinct diasporic populations.
ContributorsLuchmun, Rachel (Author) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Thesis advisor) / Estrada, Emir (Committee member) / Ruth, Alissa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021