Browsing by Subject "Whiteness"
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Item Beyond resistance : transgressive white racial knowledge and its limits(2014-05) Crowley, Ryan M; Brown, Anthony L. (Associate professor)This critical case study investigated the experiences of ten White preservice social studies and language arts teachers as they learned about race and racism during the first semester of an urban-focused teacher preparation program. Through observation, interview, and artifact data, this inquiry analyzed how the preservice teachers engaged with the topic of race through the conceptual framework of critical Whiteness studies. This theoretical lens seeks to identify the normalized, oppressive practices of Whiteness with the goal of reorienting those practices in antiracist ways. The author identified two broad themes of transgressive White racial knowledge and conventional White racial knowledge to characterize the progressive and problematic aspects, respectively, of the preservice teachers’ engagement with race. The participants displayed transgressive White racial knowledge through the way they combatted deficit thinking toward urban students and through their knowledge of the mechanics of Whiteness and structural racism. They displayed conventional White racial knowledge through their stories of early experiences with racial difference, their use of subtle resistance discourses during race conversations, and their tendency to misappropriate critical racial discourses. As a whole, the racial knowledge of the ten White preservice teachers points to conflicted, ambivalent feelings at the core of their racial identities. Their desires to talk about race and to develop an antiracist teaching practice were mediated by competing desires to maintain their identities as “good Whites” and to protect their investments in Whiteness. The complex ways that these White preservice teachers engaged with critical racial discourses have significant implications for critical Whiteness studies, teacher education, and social studies education. Their willingness to explore race in a critical fashion should push teacher educators to resist homogenizing, deficit views of the antiracist potential of White teachers. However, their problematic engagement with race points to the importance of viewing White identity as conflicted. If antiracist pedagogies begin with this understanding of White racial identity, they can encourage profound shifts in the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of Whiteness. These shifts can help White teachers to develop racial literacy and to build an antiracist teaching practice.Item Bodies, identities, and voices on American idol(2010-08) Boyd, Maria Suzanne; Staiger, Janet; Fuller, JenniferThis thesis examines the ways in which American Idol producers rely on the white, Christian, heterosexual, middle-class, Americanness of contestants’ bodies and identities to advance the show’s American Dream narrative. When contestants do not meet all four of the components of Americaness, producers highlight some aspects of the contestants’ identities while hiding other truths about who they are. Additionally, those contestants who are able to adhere simultaneously to their producer-constructed personas while also asserting their individuality tend to fair best in the competition.Item Brazil’s whiteness unveiled : a discussion on race with Cooperifa participants, Capelinha residents and Universidade Federal de Bahia (UFBA) students and professors(2010-12) Martinez, Lorena M.; Smith, Christen A., 1977-; Hale, CharlesThis thesis analyzes attitudes about race in Brazil in three research sites conducted in 2008 and 2009. The first research site was Salvador, Bahia where I asked a total of twelve students and professors their opinions about the importance of discussing race relations in Brazil and their views on Affirmative Action. These participants were mostly white middle-class students and professors. The second site was in the periferia of Zona Sul in the neighborhood of Capelinha, São Paulo. I interviewed four residents about the importance of race in Brazil. Here, the residents were mostly non-white, from various states in the north and northeast, and were working class. The last research site was Cooperifa, which is a spoken word movement located near Capelinha in Zona Sul. I found that non-white periferia residents subscribed to the same racial attitudes as the middle-class white participants when discussing the importance of race as a social phenomenon. In turn, I found that Cooperifa participants perceived white privilege as a social phenomenon that needs to be challenged. This thesis examines the links across these three sites and draws from theories of whiteness to understand them.Item The effects of color blindness and racial identity on audience attitudes towards general market advertisements with non-white lead actors(2012-05) Morris, Angelica Noelle; Kahlor, LeeAnnPast research exploring the effects of audience racial identity on attitudes towards advertisements featuring models of various races has yielded inconsistent results. The purpose of this study is to address these inconsistencies by expanding the definitions and measurements of audience racial identity. The researcher proposes that feelings of color blindness and strength of racial identity have strong effects on attitudes towards general market ads with non-white lead actors. Following a review of relevant literature, hypotheses development is discussed, and is followed by an outline of the study methodology. The results of the study's quasi-experiment are presented next. The results were shown to partially support the hypotheses, as color blindness and racial identity had a significant effect on audience attitudes towards general market advertisements featuring dominant non-white models. This paper concludes with a discussion of the study's implications for advertising disciplines, an outline of study limitations, and suggestions for future research.Item Gentrification by design : rhetoric, race, and style in neighborhood "revitalization”(2016-05) Stimpson, Kristin Svea, 1982-; Brummett, Barry, 1951-; Gunn, Joshua; Jarvis Hardesty, Sharon; Faber McAlister, Joan; Bolin, PaulStories about communities being displaced by gentrification in the name of revitalization and redevelopment are commonplace today and despite its many drawbacks, gentrification remains a pervasive mode of city growth and strategy for development. An analytical and interventionist project, my research is concerned with illuminating the disparities gentrification engenders, questioning the common assumptions and general wisdom shared on the topic, and ultimately critiquing this increasingly accepted form of urban change. At the heart of my dissertation I ask how gentrification has become such a powerful hegemonic force and aim to examine how rhetoric and communication have been employed in an agenda that marks serious change for neighborhoods with grave consequences for community members and public life. With this goal in mind, I develop a theoretical lens for exploring gentrification at the intersection of hegemony, whiteness, and style and develop a methodological approach for studying the rhetorical style of gentrification. Austin’s gentrifying East Riverside Drive and 11th and 12th Street Corridors serve as case studies for this research and I examine a range of artifacts and texts from community meetings, to slide presentations, architectural renderings, community surveys, articles in local publications, and neighborhood planning strategies. The analyses conducted in both case studies highlight the power of style in shaping discourses, opinions, the articulation of problems and solutions, and public sentiment about gentrification. I ultimately argue that gentrification is a rhetorical style that has been put to use to legitimize displacement and wholesale redevelopment, perpetuates inequalities, and has lasting impact.Item How the Irish, Germans, and Czechs became Anglo: race and identity in the Texas-Mexico borderlands(2010-05) Barber, Marian Jean, 1956-; Oshinsky, David M., 1944-; Miller, Guy H.; Stoff, Michael B.; Garza, Thomas J.; McKiernan-Gonzalez, JohnThis dissertation argues that Texas, a border region influenced by the disparate cultures of Mexico and the southern and western United States, developed a tri-racial society, economy, and polity in which individuals were designated "Anglo," "Mexican," or "Negro." When the Irish, Germans, and Czechs immigrated to the state in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they did not fit comfortably into these categories. They were always viewed as white, but certain traits kept them from being considered Anglo. Language, religion, the use of alcohol, and a real and reputed willingness to ally themselves with their black and brown neighbors set them apart. The Know-Nothing movement, the Civil War, Reconstruction and an 1887 prohibition referendum brought them significant hostility, even occasional violence. Their experiences in 1887 sparked efforts to "become Anglo," shedding or downplaying their prior identities. Even in the early twentieth century, the idea of Irish, German, and Czech "races" remained current; such thinking contributed to harsh federal immigration restrictions in the 1920s. But in Texas, the extension of Jim Crow-style segregation to Mexican-Americans during that period also extended the Anglo designation to all those who were not black or brown. The two world wars furthered Anglicization, making it undesirable to be identified as German-American and giving all Texans a taste of the wider world. Between the wars, the discovery of oil on land owned by some Irish helped make them Anglo. In the post-World War II era, education reform and other developments sounded the death knell for crucial Czech and German language use, while Mexican-Americans began to seek the privileges of Anglo-ness as a reward for service to their country, without having to become Anglo. Revelations of Nazi atrocities helped change understandings of race and the concept of ethnicity gained in popularity. By about 1960, most Texans considered the Irish, Germans,and Czechs Anglo. During the next decade, as legal restrictions based on race were repealed and black and brown Texans embraced their racial identities, the Irish, Germans, and Czechs not only embraced their Anglo-ness but once again began to celebrate their ethnic attributes as well.Item Radical possibilities : anti-racist performance / practice in 900 Gallons(2012-05) Gurgel, Nicole Leigh; Parédez, Deborah, 1970-; Bonin-Rodriguez, Paul; Anderson, Charles O.This thesis centers around my autoethnographic performance 900 Gallons; it explores the importance of re-membering oppressive family histories and white supremacist legacies in particular. First, I explore the theoretical frame that whiteness studies offers this project, considering the ways in which performance can disrupt hegemonic whiteness, with specific attention to white invisibility, cultural appropriation and supremacy. Next, I discuss the project’s primary methodologies: performance autoethnography and queer genealogy. Performance autoethnography, I argue, illuminates the discursive potential of privileging both critical distance and critical intimacy. Queer genealogy foregrounds the importance of historiographical descent as well as dissent. Together, these methods reveal the resistant possibilities of embodied scholarship. Finally, I investigate the risks and possibilities of re-performing oppressive histories, arguing that when these narratives are performed with a critical difference, they can create radical possibilities. The Appendix includes the complete 900 Gallons script, as it was performed at the University of Texas on November 3 and 4, 2011.Item (Re)constructing a Brazilian model city : discourses of exceptionalism in making and imagining Curitiba, 1900-1945(2013-12) Ross, Evan Mark; Garfield, Seth, 1967-My dissertation examines the putative success of Curitiba, the Brazilian capital of Paraná, and seeks to understand how it came to be touted as the model city of Brazil. The standard explication for Curitiba’s success credits the power of a single city agency, the Urban Planning and Research Institute of Curitiba (IPPUC), and the vision of its first president, Jaime Lerner. According to this narrative, in 1971 IPPUC formalized a broad urbanistic vision for the city’s growth and initiated projects aimed at improving traffic congestion, expanding green space, and increasing city and social services. I argue that the narrative of the institute’s contributions provide an incomplete genealogy of Curitiba’s success. It fails to examine the historical context of the city’s status and does not consider the significance of publicity campaigns in sustaining this image. Also, IPPUC’s story is not only tendentious but derivative. My historical research shows how IPPUC has rearticulated longstanding tropes that celebrate the region’s unique characteristics -such as Curitiba’s edenic cityscape and its European social composition- and has recycled deterministic arguments related to race, ethnicity, and geography. My dissertation demonstrates that exceptionalist discourses have circulated for more than a century. I trace these claims from the 1880s to the 1940s and investigate how and why they changed over time. I show that politicians first initiated efforts to promote the region at the turn of the twentieth century to attract European colonists. Over the next fifty years, politicians, elites, and intellectuals forwarded new claims that positioned Curitiba and Paraná as ideal locations for economic and social development. Planning specialists from around the world have closely studied Curitiba’s urban development, but in their analyses they have largely failed to consider the intellectual and social constructs that undergird this story of progress. My dissertation focuses on century-old celebratory claims about Curitiba and reveals the epistemological roots of the current explications of the city’s success.Item Rednecks, revivalists and roadkill : the construction of whiteness in an Appalachian town(2010-08) Baker, Hannah Rose Pilkington; Hartigan, John, 1964-; Stewart, Kathleen C.This report examines the construction of whiteness in Appalachia through a close study of two New Year’s Eve celebrations in a small community in Brasstown, North Carolina. By examining these two celebrations, I draw out questions of race and racialization that have been largely overlooked in the study of Appalachia and illustrate the connections between the construction of a whitewashed Appalachian identity and the construction of an equally pale national identity. This report challenges the idea that Appalachia as a region is “racially innocent” and therefore does not play a role in discussions of race in America. On the contrary, I show that Appalachia’s position as a site of production of a national culture and identity means that in the context of Appalachia, race and racialization demand scrutiny as a means for understanding what “whiteness” is.Item The rhetoric of common enemies in the racial prerequisites to naturalized citizenship before 1952(2013-05) Coulson, Douglas Marshall; Roberts-Miller, Patricia, 1959-; Heinzelman, Susan SageThis dissertation examines the rhetorical strategy by which groups unite against common enemies as it appears in a series of judicial cases between 1878 and 1952 deciding whether petitioners for naturalization in the United States were "free white persons" as required by the United States naturalization act at the time. Beginning in 1870, the naturalization act limited racial eligibility for naturalization to "free white persons" and "aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent." Based on the conclusion that Asians were neither "white" nor African, many courts interpreted these provisions to reflect a policy of Asian exclusion. As the distinction between "white" and Asian became increasingly disputed, however, the racial eligibility requirements of the act raised difficult questions about the boundaries of whiteness. I examine the rhetorical strategies adopted in a series of these cases between World War I and the early cold war involving Asian Indian, Armenian, Kalmyk, and Tatar petitioners who were represented as political or religious refugees at risk of becoming stateless if they were denied racial eligibility for naturalization in the United States. I argue that by representing the petitioners in the cases as victims of persecution by the nation's adversaries, the cases reflect a rhetorical strategy of uniting against common enemies which is also prevalent in the legislative, executive, and judicial discourse surrounding the act. I argue that the prevalence of this rhetorical strategy in racial prerequisite discourse suggests that a martial ideal of citizenship often influenced racial classifications under the act and that by recognizing the ways in which this discourse adapted to the rapidly changing enmities of the early twentieth century, a rhetorical interpretation of the cases offers advantages over other interpretive approaches and highlights the value of a rhetoric of law.Item The struggle for authenticity : blues, race, and rhetoric(2011-05) Gatchet, Roger Davis; Gunn, Joshua, 1973-; Brummett, Barry; Cloud, Dana; Fuller, Jennifer; Maxwell, MadelineThe concept of authenticity has been central to the human capacity to communicate for over two millennia, and it continues to enjoy wide usage throughout popular culture today. “Authenticity” typically conveys a sense that one has reached solid bedrock, the unchanging foundation of an object or inner-self that transcends the context of the moment. In this sense, the search or struggle for authenticity is a quest for VIP access to the ineffable “real” that language can only inadequately gesture toward. This study investigates the contemporary struggle for authenticity, or what can be described as the “rhetoric of authenticity,” by exploring the way authenticity is negotiated, constructed, and contested through various symbolic resources. More specifically, it focuses on how authenticity is negotiated in the U.S. blues community, a complex cultural site where the struggle over authenticity is especially salient and materializes in a variety of complex ways. Drawing on a number of philosophical perspectives and critical theories, the study employs the methods of rhetorical criticism and oral history as it seeks to answer three central questions: First, what are the major rhetorical dimensions of authenticity? Second, what does rhetorical analysis reveal about the relationship between authenticity and its various signifiers? And third, what does our desire for authenticity teach us about ourselves as symbol-using creatures? The study employs a case study approach that moves inductively in order to discover the larger rhetorical dimensions of authenticity. The case studies examine the relationship between authenticity and the blues’ larger historical trajectory; between aesthetics and authenticity in the oral history narratives of professional blues musicians in Austin, Texas, especially as they converge along a style/substance binary; between identity and authenticity in the editorial policy of Living Blues magazine; and finally, between imitation and authenticity in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. The study concludes by exploring how authenticity is contextual, aesthetic, ideological, and political, and frames a rhetorical theory of authenticity that can be applied widely throughout popular culture.Item "We have a road map". Whiteness, biopolitics, and the rise of technocratic philanthrocapitalism: the emergent neoliberal governance project of the Guatemalan oligarchy(2013-12) Perera, Daniel Alejandro; Hale, Charles R., 1957-; Ballí, CeciliaScholars have tended to frame the rise of neoliberal governance in Guatemala as primarily shaped by the tangled, often contradictory relations between three main actors: multilateral organizations and international financial institutions, the state, and individual and collective subjects of rights. This thesis intends to contribute to the literature by focusing on a social actor that is seldom investigated academically—especially ethnographically—despite the determinant role that it has historically played in the destiny of Guatemala, namely, the oligarchy: an elite group of Guatemalans who by virtue of class position, family networks, and membership in business associations have “ruled since the conquest.” An ethnographic appraisal of elite discourses, attitudes, and practices, as well as an attunement to the affective dimension of elite subjectivities, can generate a better understanding of how historical relations of domination and exclusion in Guatemala are currently being reconfigured. Based on ethnographic research and a series of interviews with a dozen of its leading members in July and August of 2012, this thesis is an inquiry into the contemporary governance project of the Guatemalan oligarchy and the place that it allots to multiculturalism. In this sense, it has three main objectives: firstly, to characterize an increasingly coherent liberal discourse of national development, modernization, and corporate social responsibility emanating from the economic elite’s private foundations, think tanks and business associations. Secondly, it summarily compares this discourse to the general observable trends of capitalist accumulation around new dynamic “axes”: megaprojects (the construction of major infrastructure such as roads and highways, bridges, airports, seaports; as well as call centers, corporate tourism, malls, technological corridors, hydroelectric power plants); the agroindustrial production of mega-monocrops for agrofuels (sugarcane and African oil palm), and; extraction and commercialization of natural resources (minerals, oil, cement), as documented by other analysts. Finally, it examines the current status of multiculturalism and the ascendancy of whiteness within this emergent material and discursive landscape. I have termed this emergent model of neoliberal governance “technocratic philanthrocapitalism.”Item “The white man’s burden” : rhetorical constructions of race and identity in U.S. naturalization cases from India, 1914-1926(2009-05) Coulson, Douglas Marshall; Roberts-Miller, Patricia, 1959-; Murphy, Gretchen, 1971-This report examines the rhetorical strategies employed in several judicial cases during the 1920s in which the U.S. government contested the racial eligibility of Hindus for naturalization under a law providing that only “white persons” were eligible for naturalization. Through a close examination of the arguments and evidence in the cases, the report argues that the decisions in the cases were inextricably linked to the the conflict between the British and a rising Hindu nationalism movement in the struggle for Indian independence during the period surrounding World War I, and thereby highlight the significance of a wide variety of group identities to racial identification as the courts in the cases negotiated the boundaries of America’s global identity through the lens of race.Item White principals' perceptions of race(2015-05) Caudill, Michael Kevin; Gooden, Mark A., 1971-; Brown, Anthony L; Brown, Keffrelyn; Somers, Patricia; Bell, Genese; Champion, BretThe history of the public school system in the United States is wrought with examples of marginalized groups and inequities (DuBois, 1989; Woodson, 1933). Public schools throughout the United States are still struggling to equitably meet the needs of all students. Students of color and students from marginalized groups continue to find the public school system difficult to successfully navigate and racially biased educational gaps are still prevalent. These struggles are compounded by the increasing percentages of students of color in our public schools today. Utilizing critical theory as the theoretical underpinning and qualitative interview methodologies, this study examined the perceptions five White principals held on race and racism. These five White school leaders were current elementary or middle school principals from a large racially diverse school district in the southern United States. The critical examination of these White school leader’s perceptions of race and racism yielded six themes: 1.) The White principals utilized deficit thinking. 2.) The White principals employed racial erasure and colorblindness. 3.) The White principals did not recognize Whiteness. 4.) The White principals did not understand systematic and institutional racism. 5.) The White principals were reluctant to address racial issues. 6.) The White principals demonstrated a nascent level of White racial identity. These findings invoked a need to better prepare our White public school leaders for the increasingly diverse student populations they serve. If White school leaders are to effectively address the racially biased outcomes in our public schools today they must develop a greater White racial identity. Formal training and instruction for White school leaders around race and racism is lacking and must be reconsidered and improved. Principal preparation programs in the United States must begin to weave discussions of race and racism into and throughout their programs to better address this profound knowledge gap. In order to effectively address racism and racial equity within our public school system White principals must stand up, recognize, and address race.Item Whiteness and Civility: White Racial Attitudes in the Concho Valley, 1869-1930Johnston, Matthew Scott; Pierce, Jason; Heinemann, Kenneth; Wongsrichanalai, Kanisorn; Stenmark, CherylImplicit in the ideology of White Supremacy is the idea of moral supremacy over non-white peoples. However, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century whites consistently crossed the blurry, racialized line that defined them by what they were not. In the west-central Texas region of the Concho Valley, breaching law and order and social mores condemned some whites to lose degrees of whiteness in the eyes of their peers. Some whites appeared hypocritical in their rebuke of racial terrorism. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century many white West Texans became guilty of the very lawless and violent attributes they generally applied to those of a different skin color, thus exposing the schizophrenic and ambiguous nature of the notion of white supremacy.