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EVERY WOMAN HAS A STORY: NARRATIVES OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN WOMEN IN U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION

Banda, Roselyn Chigonda
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6795-3963
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1429373672

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, Educational Leadership.
My paper presents the tensions between the concepts of global feminism and transnational feminism and outlines the difficulties and contradictions of inclusions that continue to be characterized by power and hierarchical relationships that present (neo)-colonial tendencies. Attentively listening to the stories told by six women who are or have been through U.S. institutions of higher education, I sought to establish the availability of what I termed “global spaces” where difference is not only tolerated but accepted. The research questions that guide this study are what stories do Southern African women tell about their experiences in U.S. higher education in this era of globalization? What space is available for a healthy conversation that does not perpetuate the “them” “us” dyad that has complicated the formation of a global sisterhood? My theoretical foundations of transnational feminism and postcolonial theory challenge ethnocentrism, and implore curriculum to go beyond Tomlinson’s (1991) “zone of intelligibility” to learn, understand and accept our differences. My findings revealed that items of our “experience” are not in and of themselves unique phenomena in experience, but instead they are in relation to some other structures of meaning, in particular, location, space, and time. I also found out that identities can be ascribed due to stigma and stereotype, making it very difficult for some groups to claim a “global space”. Even though migration of women from Southern Africa, the so-called Global South, may cause a traumatic upheaval of dispossession of status, I argue for the possibility of locating oneself in a global context without erasing the cultural specificity of oneself. This study is particularly significant because these women speak of historicizing and denaturalizing the ideas, beliefs, and values of globalization such that the underlying exploitative social relations and structures are made visible.
Lisa Weems (Advisor)
121 p.
Education
Transnational Feminism; Post-colonial Theory; Globalization; Global Spaces; Global Feminism; Narrative Inquiry; Feminism; African Women; Intersectionality; Education; Migration; Identity Formation; Third World Women; Liminality

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Banda, R. C. (2015). EVERY WOMAN HAS A STORY: NARRATIVES OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN WOMEN IN U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1429373672

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Banda, Roselyn . EVERY WOMAN HAS A STORY: NARRATIVES OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN WOMEN IN U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION. 2015. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1429373672.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Banda, Roselyn . "EVERY WOMAN HAS A STORY: NARRATIVES OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN WOMEN IN U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1429373672

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami1429373672
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© 2015, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.