Disrupting Deficit Discourses about Hmong Culture

<p>The wellbeing experiences of young Māori mothers’ (ngā māmā) surrounding the birth of their first tamaiti and the impact of those experiences, often determine outcomes for wāhine Māori, their tamariki and whānau. A greater understanding and nurturing of young Māori mothers has far reaching implications that encompass hapū, iwi, community, Aotearoa and the health experiences and outcomes of Indigenous and other subjugated people in the global community. However, there is little exploration and information about the wellbeing experiences of young Māori mothers, and therefore little is known about their stories, thoughts, and feelings from their experiences. This thesis explores the experiences of young Māori mothers from their perspective, regarding pregnancy, birth and motherhood. Historical misrepresentation, western notions of gender and sexuality, negative statistics and reports have portrayed young Māori mothers as the least capable, least desired and deficient. Dominant western ideologies of motherhood and hegemonic perceptions fail to recognise the essence of wellbeing for young Māori mothers, and instead marginalise and render their aspirations invisible and irrelevant. This thesis brings to the fore the elements that ngā māmā signal as vital to their wellbeing. By utilising a kaupapa Māori approach to methodology, and a theoretical framework of kaupapa Māori and mana wahine, this thesis explores what matters to ngā māmā and their wellbeing, and how te ao Māori is an intrinsic part of those experiences. An integrated kaupapa Māori analytical framework is presented, which was developed for the thesis as a legitimate and authentic approach to research method and design to help make sense of and assemble the codes, symbolism and themes of the data. The findings of this thesis signify the power of the female to influence the wellbeing of ngā māmā through stability, guidance and empowerment. The thesis captures the tamaiti as ‘tohu aroha’, and explicates the journey of ngā māmā to greater rangatiratanga and identity. Furthermore, the vitality and balance of te ao Māori within the lives of ngā māmā contributes to what is significant to their experiences of wellbeing. The thesis emancipates ngā māmā from entrenched stereotypes by epitomising their experiences and thus denouncing deficit discourses, and advances the aspirations of ngā māmā and the lives of their tamariki and whānau. This thesis makes an original and complementary contribution to the growing knowledge around Māori maternal wellbeing, kaupapa Māori methodology and research.</p>

Buddhist Meditation as Strategic Embodiment: An Optative Reflection

Flashpoints for Asian American Studies ◽

10.5422/fordham/9780823278602.003.0016 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sharon A. Suh

Keyword(s):

Asian American ◽

American Studies ◽

White Supremacy ◽

Gender And Sexuality ◽

Asian American Studies ◽

The Common ◽

Racialized Other ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship ◽

Meditative Practices

Chapter 15 seriously scrutinizes the relationship of Buddhism, “one of America’s racialized other religious darlings,” to Asian American studies, which has yet to consistently recognize religion as a legitimate site upon which to map race, gender, and sexuality. Suh argues that “the common Buddhist units of measure and authenticity” —for instance, Orientalized monks and Eastern meditation— “are uncritically reproduced in larger Asian American discourses that continue to overlook the non-devotional and non-meditative practices of Buddhist laity.” Suh’s essay counters those discourses by engendering a new way of seeing meditation politics as a means of ameliorating bodily alienation and internalized white supremacy.

Tika Tonu: Young Māori Mothers' Experiences of Wellbeing Surrounding the Birth of their First Tamaiti

10.26686/wgtn.17072306.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Aria Graham

Keyword(s):

Research Method ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Gender And Sexuality ◽

Health Experiences ◽

Kaupapa Māori ◽

Ideologies Of Motherhood ◽

The Impact ◽

Deficit Discourses ◽

Maternal Wellbeing

<p>The wellbeing experiences of young Māori mothers’ (ngā māmā) surrounding the birth of their first tamaiti and the impact of those experiences, often determine outcomes for wāhine Māori, their tamariki and whānau. A greater understanding and nurturing of young Māori mothers has far reaching implications that encompass hapū, iwi, community, Aotearoa and the health experiences and outcomes of Indigenous and other subjugated people in the global community. However, there is little exploration and information about the wellbeing experiences of young Māori mothers, and therefore little is known about their stories, thoughts, and feelings from their experiences. This thesis explores the experiences of young Māori mothers from their perspective, regarding pregnancy, birth and motherhood. Historical misrepresentation, western notions of gender and sexuality, negative statistics and reports have portrayed young Māori mothers as the least capable, least desired and deficient. Dominant western ideologies of motherhood and hegemonic perceptions fail to recognise the essence of wellbeing for young Māori mothers, and instead marginalise and render their aspirations invisible and irrelevant. This thesis brings to the fore the elements that ngā māmā signal as vital to their wellbeing. By utilising a kaupapa Māori approach to methodology, and a theoretical framework of kaupapa Māori and mana wahine, this thesis explores what matters to ngā māmā and their wellbeing, and how te ao Māori is an intrinsic part of those experiences. An integrated kaupapa Māori analytical framework is presented, which was developed for the thesis as a legitimate and authentic approach to research method and design to help make sense of and assemble the codes, symbolism and themes of the data. The findings of this thesis signify the power of the female to influence the wellbeing of ngā māmā through stability, guidance and empowerment. The thesis captures the tamaiti as ‘tohu aroha’, and explicates the journey of ngā māmā to greater rangatiratanga and identity. Furthermore, the vitality and balance of te ao Māori within the lives of ngā māmā contributes to what is significant to their experiences of wellbeing. The thesis emancipates ngā māmā from entrenched stereotypes by epitomising their experiences and thus denouncing deficit discourses, and advances the aspirations of ngā māmā and the lives of their tamariki and whānau. This thesis makes an original and complementary contribution to the growing knowledge around Māori maternal wellbeing, kaupapa Māori methodology and research.</p>

Saint Ashley

Gender and Language ◽

10.1558/genl.18687 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Julia De Bres ◽

Shelley Dawson

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

New Zealand ◽

Power Relations ◽

Social Groups ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Gender And Sexuality ◽

Director General ◽

Commercial Products ◽

Authority Figure ◽

Dominant Discourses

During Covid-19 lockdown in New Zealand from March to June 2020, gendered discourses appeared in artistic and commercial products featuring Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s Director General of Health and ‘hero of quarantine’. Using an analytical framework combining Foucauldian discourse analysis with critical multimodality, we explore how Ashley is shaped into existence through discourses portraying him as a superhero, love interest/sex symbol, national treasure, saviour, saint and authority figure. These emergent discourses ride on the wave of longstanding dominant discourses relating to gender and sexuality, alongside nation, class and ethnicity. While dominant discourses may provide reassurance when established realities are under threat, they simultaneously cause harm by reproducing unequal power relations between social groups. We contend that, even in periods of crisis, we should consider what broader messages we are sending when we latch onto the latest discursive trend.

Perspectives of Queer Hmong Youth

Annals of Social Studies Education Research for Teachers ◽

10.29173/assert27 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (3) ◽

pp. 19-26

Author(s):

J.B. Mayo

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Life Stories ◽

The United States ◽

Queer Youth ◽

Vital Part ◽

Hmong Americans ◽

Hmong Culture ◽

Hmong People

This article highlights some of the tensions that exist for Hmong people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ). It uncovers differences and similarities found between the experiences of queer Hmong youth and the larger population of queer youth living in the United States. Despite the perception that a traditional Hmong culture holds no place for queer Hmong Americans, individuals are finding spaces for acceptance and slowly moving the larger Hmong community to a place of understanding and tolerance. A vital part of this movement was Shades of Yellow (SOY), an organization that supported queer Hmong from its inception in 2005 until the group disbanded in June 2017. The life stories of three of its members inform this study, offering a more nuanced look at the experiences of queer Hmong youth living in the Midwest.

Gender and Sex(ualities)

10.1093/oso/9780190658540.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Tuğçe Kurtiş ◽

Glenn Adams

Keyword(s):

Relationship Satisfaction ◽

Cultural Psychology ◽

Gender And Sexuality ◽

Turkish Women ◽

Cultural Traditions ◽

Everyday Activities ◽

Socially Constructed ◽

Majority World ◽

Epistemic Violence ◽

Bidirectional Relationship

Cultural psychology highlights the mutual constitution of psyche and culture—that is, the bidirectional relationship between person-based structures of mind and socially constructed affordances inscribed in everyday cultural worlds. The experience of gender and sexuality requires engagement with particular sociocultural affordances, and cultural traditions of gender and sexuality are (re)produced by everyday activities. Western feminists have often viewed aspects of gender relations in Majority-World settings as pathological or oppressive. Adopting a decolonial standpoint, we proposes two analytic strategies to counter such epistemic violence: (1) normalize Other patterns that appear abnormal or deficient; and (2) denaturalize the patterns that prevail in Western high-income settings. We illustrate these strategies by describing our research on “self-silencing,” relationship satisfaction, and depression among Turkish women.

Sexy selves: Girls, selfies and the performance of intersectional identities

European Journal of Women s Studies ◽

10.1177/1350506818804845 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 41-56 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Marijke Naezer

Keyword(s):

Young People ◽

Social Norms ◽

Present Article ◽

Social Position ◽

Gender And Sexuality ◽

Social Differentiation ◽

Specific Context ◽

Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽

Performance Of Gender ◽

Dominant Discourses

Teen girls’ ‘sexy selfies’ have become highly politicised over the last years, and while feminist scholars have comprehensively analysed present day discourses about this topic, research about teen girls’ own reflections is still scarce. Studies that did include girls’ voices demonstrated how girls’ navigations of sexiness are related to the performance of gender and sexuality. The present article, which is based on ethnographic fieldwork among Dutch young people, contributes to and extends this strand of research by exploring how girls’ navigations of sexy selfies are related to the performance of not just gender and sexuality, but also other intersecting axes of social differentiation, including axes that have remained undertheorised such as smartness, maturity and popularity. Through their navigations of sexy selfies, girls perform complex, intersectional identities in interaction with dominant discourses about sexiness, the materiality of their bodies, their social position and the specific context of self(ie)-making practices. Involving this complexity in discussions about sexy selfies can create promising opportunities for interrogating social norms, stereotypes and power inequalities.

Women, gender and sexuality: Changing historiographies of colonial India—A bibliographical essay

Studies in People’s History ◽

10.1177/2348448920951548 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 192-204

Author(s):

Charu Gupta

Keyword(s):

Women's Education ◽

Gender And Sexuality ◽

Colonial India ◽

Natural Category ◽

Historical Processes ◽

Dominant Discourses ◽

Ways Of Being

Drawing on fragmentary examples from women’s histories in colonial India, this paper underlines the problems and possibilities in historiographies of modern India. Feminist scholars argue that the three terms—women, gender and sex—have often been used interchangeably. However, the commonsensical term woman is neither a natural category (of non-men) nor a homogeneous community (of sisterhood), for there are historically many ways of being a woman in different times. Further, gender is not merely a natural or biological identity of a person. It is a historical, social and political construction of how to be a man or a woman. Even sex is no longer seen as the biological ground upon which gender is constructed, as sexualities too are socially produced and regulated by dominant discourses, which establish one kind of sexuality as normal and relegate others into the domain of deviance, perversion or criminality. Through selective readings from discourses around women’s education and conceptualisation of the modern women in colonial India, the paper reflects on how a gender-sensitive perspective produces a more complex and textured view of historical processes. While patriarchies were recast in more powerful, though subtle ways, they were also subverted, or at least questioned, in colonial India.

¡Los policías! Latinx children’s agency in highly regulated early childhood contexts

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood ◽

10.1177/14639491211021595 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 146394912110215

Author(s):

Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove ◽

Molly E McManus ◽

Jennifer Keys Adair ◽

Katherina A Payne

Keyword(s):

Head Start ◽

White Supremacy ◽

Well Being ◽

Bilingual Teachers ◽

Immigrant Communities ◽

Teacher Interview ◽

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy ◽

Children’S Agency ◽

Blinded Study ◽

Deficit Discourses

This article shows how two Latina bilingual teachers provided opportunities for their Latinx students from immigrant families to enact their agency in a highly regulated Head Start bilingual preschool classroom in ways that aligned with culturally sustaining pedagogy. Using video-cued ethnography and data from the Blinded Study, the authors center three- and four-year-old children who engaged in a collaborative, dynamic make-believe game involving a struggle between family members and los policías (“the police”). Using traditional qualitative methods, the authors first identify and name all the different ways in which the children enacted their agency and demonstrated capabilities in their play, particularly the cultural capabilities that challenge deficit discourses about Latinx immigrant communities. They contextualize the children’s play using teacher interview data in which the teachers explained their thinking behind the pedagogical decisions that made this type of learning and play possible. Finally, the authors explore how the teachers’ identities and histories positioned them to engage with their students in culturally sustaining ways. It is argued that with the growing global awakening to white supremacy structures and violence, there is urgency in creating time and space to support young children’s agency and their right to practice the skills they need to contribute to their communities’ well-being and survival now and in the future.

Teaching students to question assumptions about gender and sexuality

Phi Delta Kappan ◽

10.1177/0031721718803566 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 100 (2) ◽

pp. 27-31 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Mollie V. Blackburn ◽

Summer Melody Pennell

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Gender And Sexuality ◽

Religious Practices ◽

Active Citizenship ◽

Opportunities To Learn ◽

Political Systems ◽

Basic Requirement ◽

Cultural Traditions

Every student in our public schools should have opportunities to learn about differences in gender and sexuality, just as they should learn about the world’s differing cultural traditions, religious practices, and political systems. Such knowledge about human differences is, the authors argue, a basic requirement for active citizenship in a diverse, pluralistic, and equitable society. A description of an LGBTQ+ literature course, taught by one of the authors, illustrates what this can look like in practice.