Item – Theses Canada

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OCLC number
78097499
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
LAC copy
Author
Kelly, Jennifer Rosemarie,1953-
Title
Borrowed blackness : a case study of black identity and cultural formation among a group of African Canadian high school students.
Degree
Ph. D. -- University of Alberta, 2001
Publisher
Ottawa : National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, [2002]
Description
4 microfiches
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
This study, based on research conducted with African Canadian high school students, examines the ways in which media culture intersects formation of black identities. Drawing on a critical cultural studies framework the study discusses how these youths receive, interpret and make use of media and youth culture that they encounter in their everyday lives. In particular the students' narratives illustrate the ways in which the proliferation of media images (music, magazines, films, and television) from the US affect the formation of an African Canadian identity. It highlights an intersection of the local and the global--how media gets proliferated across national borders and comes to produce a hegemonic culture in Canada. Data generation and analysis is based on John Thompson's "depth hermeneutics." This process of interpreting and reinterpreting the students' discourses on popular youth culture is achieved via a three phase process that starts with an analysis of the theorisation of cultural studies literature, moves through formal or discursive analysis and finally undertakes an interpretation/reinterpretation of the existing data. The research highlights how analysis of the concept of ideology is still important despite more recent emphases on theories of postmodernism. The narratives reinforce our recognition of how, despite a discourse of critique, these youths still consume media culture. Style is highlighted as less than innocent, as a tool for differentiation from as well as alignment with "others." Despite the casual wearing and displaying of the body--especially the male body--style is something to be worked at. The conclusion of this study is that "culture as the everyday" offers a valuable insight into the ways in which discourses collide and compete in the formation of black identities. The students' narratives reveal that their identity formation is a complex cultural process involving the production of raced, classed, sexualized and religious selves. The concluding section discusses the educational implications of this thesis.
ISBN
0612603091
9780612603097