Browsing by Subject "race"

This thesis examines the role of the three female protagonists in Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun. The thesis argues against the interpretation of the play as pro-integration and assimilationist and posits instead that there is an inherent radicalism in the play that reflects the feminist and political views of its author. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the feminist themes are highlighted through the three female protagonists of Raisin: Ruth, Beneatha and Lena Younger. In order to further assess these themes, the 1959 play is contrasted with three screen adaptations, by Daniel Petrie (1961), Bill Duke (1989), and Kenny Leon (2008). This comparison is carried out with a particular focus on how the protagonists are represented in these adaptations. The thesis begins with a discussion of the historical context in which the play was written, set and performed for the first time. This is followed by a discussion of Hansberry’s biographical background, in order to contextualise and clarify her political beliefs so as to better support the main arguments in the thesis. These arguments are also supported by the works of the Black feminist scholars Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, and Tricia Rose. The thesis examines the play and each of the three screen adaptations separately, presenting a close literary analysis of the play before contrasting it with the three films. The literary analysis discusses three core aspects of the play that serve as a rejection of racist and patriarchal values: the rejection of the American dream; the domestic sphere of the play; and the subversion of racialised gender roles and stereotypes. This analysis highlights the ways in which Black women experience a specific form of double oppression due to their race and gender, an experience that is reinforced by the use of racialised gender roles and stereotypes. This thesis argues, however, that Hansberry uses the female protagonists to reject these roles and the racist and sexist ideology from which they stem. The film analysis places the films within their temporal and socio-cultural contexts to observe how they reflect, highlight or undermine the three core aspects discussed in the literary analysis. This analysis reveals the significant role played by context in producing starkly different representations of the female protagonists. The analysis of these works, written and visual, demonstrates the enduring significance of Hansberry’s famous play, which continues to be revived and performed. The conclusion underlines the importance of challenging representations that perpetuate racist and sexist ideologies, and of granting agency to groups that have long been under- or misrepresented across mediums.

This research had the fundamental aim of closely examining the identity negotiation of people who are of bi-racial heritage. Utilizing a combination of the positioning concept and discourse analysis, the objective was to get an in-depth view of how the bi-racial identity is negotiated and situated within four sub-identities or variants, and those four subidentities being referred to are the singular, border, protean and transcendent identities by Rocquemore. The questions used to guide the research goals were the following: How does the identity negotiation take place? What are the discursive resources and tools used to facilitate the negotiation? Are all four sub-identities engaged equally? What is the relationship between the four sub-identities? What role does the media play in the identity negotiation? Through purposive sampling, the text was selected to represent cases from America, Britain, and Finland. Four cases were selected of which two are American. One from Finland and the other from Britain. The cases feature three females and one male. The study mainly utilized discourse analysis techniques with a particular focus on critical discursive psychology, which all form part of the qualitative approach methodologies. The outcomes indicated that for all the cases studied, the identity was observed to be negotiated within the confines of the four sub-identities. However, the ordering, the positioning of the identities, and the discursive tools that were employed to negotiate the identities varied, and this variation was found to be connected to an assigned identity or a challenged asserted identity. As a result, certain negotiations caused stress or cognitive dissonance, and to avoid the stress or minimise the dissonance, various discursive resources were strategically employed to help negotiate or situate other identity variants. As the analysis continued six theoretical themes emerged, that were found to be supported by the discursive works. This six theoretical themes were, self-agency, distant other, cognitive dissonance, emotional repertoires, sense of belonging and altruism. An interconnectedness between the six themes was also noticed, due to the proximity of functionality within which some of them operated. The implication is that the identity, whether assigned or asserted is rather complex, and is not without psycho-social conflict, perhaps its stability is through its continuous negotiations and mobility.

Research on education outcomes in Finland reflects how migrant pupils generally have poorer performance and lower levels of well-being than non-migrant pupils. However, research on the causes of this has been concentrated on migrants themselves, rather than critiquing education structures. This thesis explores discourses found in the Finnish National Core Curriculum and analyses the ways in which these discourses represent migrants, and what potential impacts these discourses can have. This thesis focuses on both migrants and persons of colour, because previous research showcases how these two groups often become conflated with one another. The material used is the Finnish National Core Curriculum 2014, which is the most recently implemented version of the national curriculum. I conducted a critical discourse analysis, drawing from Van Dijk, Bacchi, and Critical Race Theory for my methodology. These allow for analysis on meanings and constructions, and on how they tie into social power hierarchies and inequalities. The analysis also draws from literature regarding how Finland has used discourse in the past to construct national identity, history, and social hierarchies. The research identified three main categories of discourse: Finnish values and normativity, “us vs. them” framing and representations of difference, and selective inclusion of topics, meanings, and terminology. They reflect different discourses and/or discursive strategies used to create a homogenous national identity that is heavily associated with whiteness and speaking Finnish, whilst any divergence is framed as not belonging. Representations of difference also reflected how “migrants” are categorised somewhat homogenously, evading an intersectional perspective. Choices of terminology and what is left unsaid reflect underlying values of Finnish exceptionalism and unwillingness to discuss race and racism. In the discussion of findings, I identify how these discourses represent migrants and persons of colour as not belonging to the national identity, and how the contribute to broader societal discourse of faulting individuals over structures. I also identify the potential impacts on the well-being and school performance of pupils, and how discourse disseminated through education can ultimately be internalised by pupils and teachers alike in ways that continue to reproduce dominance and inequality in society.

Labor market effects of military service have been a popular topic for economic research, and in a subset of these studies, interactions with elements like race, parental socioeconomic status, and ability have been submitted as considerations. Introducing an Mincer-type empirical model for framing the problem, I undertake a literature survey of studies concerning themselves with such treatment effect heterogeneities, complemented by a brief empirical survey using CPS data. It is found that, whether the overall effect of service is positive or negative, comparatively gains/non-losses in earnings and education tend to accrue to the disadvantaged individuals over advantaged ones. The plurality of studies correspondingly find positive-to-neutral effects along this gradient, although neutral-to-negative findings are also featured. The contexts under study commonly involve notable influence from educational subsidies and draft deferment incentives, but there are some counterfactuals, which however are unable to establish a definite causal mechanism between service and earnings or education. The main findings of the paper should be considered in making adjustments to existing compulsory service policies.

Women of colour across the globe have played key roles in leading resistance to oppressive regimes, across time and space. Beginning with the anti-slavery freedom movement in the colonial era from the 16th century onwards, and into the digital spaces of the twentieth first century, women of colour’s activism has been pivotal to securing social justice. While this phenomenon has gained momentum in international scholarship, there is very little research on the women of colour digital activism in Finland. This study seeks to answer the following research question: How do women of colour in Finland use digital media to raise their voice[s]? The notion of raising one’s voice signals the need to move from an abject silenced position to take up space in public discussion. For the purpose of this thesis, digital media platforms and spaces represent potential or actually powerful routes for forging solidarity, spreading awareness, advocacy and campaign work in pursuit of social justice. In this thesis, the notion of raising one’s voice has a second implication: it refers to activism aimed at supporting those who are not heard to amplify their voices in public spaces. The study was conducted in the form of 19 semiconstructed interviews with women of colour living in Finland who engage in activism in digital platforms. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings, based on data derived from a thematic content analysis of the interviews, suggest that women of colour in Finland use digital media platforms as a resource to facilitate their participation and amplify their voices in public conversations from which they would otherwise be silenced.

Racism continues to be both a widely discussed topic and continuing problem within many of our societies. Yet, most of the mainstream discourse on race lacks any reference to the actual concept of race itself. This has led to a situation in which racism is understood as systematic discrimination but race itself is generally treated as a neutral and unproblematized identity category instead of a political system of oppression. In this master’s thesis I will examine the ontological relationship between the concept of race and power. The main goal is twofold. Firstly, I will show that the relationship between race and power is an inherent one. Secondly, I will show that it is not only possible but necessary to take Whiteness as a vantage point as we examine this relationship. For while we are generally accustomed to approach the topic of racism and racial injustice through the experiences of people of color, Whiteness continues to remain in the margins of our political, social, and theoretical conversations. This, I claim, results from the normalization of Whiteness that has rendered White people unable to see how race functions and affects their daily lives. I will begin by briefly examining how the ideas of race and Whiteness were historically constructed and implemented as oppressive systems. This will help us establish that race was never discovered but constructed to serve a specific purpose. From here I move onto examine the relationship between race and power through the frameworks of class and state power. First, I look at Charles Mills’ argument for why racial power relations are distinct from and transcend those of class. After this I examine how Michel Foucault conceptualizes race as a necessary technology of power to the modern state. Then I move onto examine George Yancy’s method that not only forces Whites to see the workings of race but allows us to comprehend that there is no sense in making a distinction between “good” and “bad” White people. Finally, I present my own method of asking the ethically laden question: “Is there anything good about Whiteness?” I argue that any meaningful discussions on racism must theoretically examine the historical construction of race and the purposes that it has been used. For this reveals the ontological relationship between race and power as an inherent one. In addition, it is also crucial to comprehend that race is first and foremost a lived experience that affects the daily lives of countless people before any of our conceptual analysis. Thus, examining both the theoretical and the empirical level of race is a necessity for us to have any change to move beyond race. And I suggest that we start by asking “Is there anything good about Whiteness?” For an adequate answer to this question requires an understanding of what it is to be White. Which then necessitates a thorough theoretical understanding of the construction, history and workings of race.

Modern life is saturated with advertisements that use images. We see them on our phones, our TVs, on billboards and signs, though very few are memorable or meaningful to us once they have reached the end of their lifecycle. One campaign that challenged the notion of traditional advertisements was HSL’s “Faces of Public Transport” campaign, which ran in autumn of 2013 and winter of 2014 in Helsinki. The HSL campaign featured 526 portraits of people from the Helsinki area who utilize public transportation in a unique and notable campaign in celebration of HSL reaching an annual ridership of one million people in the Helsinki region. The HSL campaign brings up questions about representation, the intersection of identities, and the power of images and the creator of images. Dyer (1997) and Hall (2003), among others, inform the theoretical background of the research on identity and representation, though the main focus of this work is methodological development and practice, specifically in terms of visual research methods and the use of photography as an ethnographic research tool. As the results show, making meaning from images does not produce neat datasets, but instead prompts further interrogation of local, national and global power structures that affect how identities are represented.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how race and racism are understood in the policy documents called Equality Plans of the Finnish language-based Universities of Applied Sciences. The research questions are 1) what is said about racism and other related concepts in the Equality Plans, and 2) where and in relation to what are they acknowledged? Moreover, the study examines how whiteness and other values of Finnish society are reflected in the Equality Plans and what types of solutions higher educational institutions offer to racism. The analytical reading of the Equality Plans is informed by the theoretical framework that includes perspectives of critical whiteness, intersectional postcolonial feminism, Nordic exceptionalism to racism and colonialism, and feminist and education policy studies that discuss interpretations and practices of equality in educational institutions. The research material includes Equality Plans in eighteen Finnish language-based Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland. The analysis utilises the tools of the abductive content analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis in identifying the explicit and implicit meanings connected to race and racism. The results of the study indicate that the understanding of race in Finnish policy documents is vague, and the synonyms such as “ethnicity” are connected to ethnic and racialised minorities. The solutions for racism are abstract and appeal to the attitudes of the university community instead of challenging the structures that maintain and produce racism. According to this study, whiteness remains unrecognised and unquestioned in higher education institutions. Thus, resisting racism and promoting equality and justice requires a systematic and profound analysis of institutional whiteness in higher education structures and practices. The results align with the previous research on policy documents in Finnish education institutions, contributing to the discussion with Universities of Applied Sciences.