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THESES

AND DISSERTATIONS

A repository for master’s theses and doctoral dissertations by BCSA and NBGN members. NBGN members can enter information about their thesis and upload pdfs, website administrators will approve final postings.

“Borrowed blackness”: A case study of Black cultural formation among a group of African Canadian high school students

Abstract 293

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 Iives. 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 Thornpson's "depth hermeneutics." This process of interpreting and reinterpreting the students' discourses on popuIar youth culture is achieved via a three phase process that starts with an analysis of the theorisation of cultural studies literature, moves through fonnal 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.

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DOCUMENT INFORMATION

Author

Kelly, Jennifer

Title

“Borrowed blackness”: A case study of Black cultural formation among a group of African Canadian high school students

Subjects

Black Youth, Higher Education, Media Literacy, Popular Culture

Document Type

PhD dissertation

Source

University of Alberta

Language

English

Publication Date

2002