Digital Commons Network^™

Crafting Lives: Experiences Of Ethiopian Refugees In Cairo, Nayrose S. Abd El-Megid

Theses and Dissertations

There has been an ongoing influx of refugees for years driven by political instability, famine, and prolonged conflicts in the region, leading many individuals to seek sanctuary in other countries. Egypt has become a host country for many years, whether for settlement or transit, for various populations from different nationalities hoping to find refuge. However, amidst this influx, Ethiopian refugees often find themselves overlooked or usually associated on the sidelines with other African nationalities; their stories and struggles are marginalized in broader narratives of displacement. The experience of Ethiopians is heterogeneous and multidimensional in terms of their intersectional identities of …

This Life Is A Constant Rehearsal, Alex Schmidt

Theses and Dissertations

Alex Schmidt’s conceptual practice explores the artist’s precarious condition as an affective freelance worker; a utopian parasite. Schmidt employs paintings as props, performance as muse, and writing on transactional care as a metaphor for this cobbled life.

Skin Echoes, Andreia Santana

Theses and Dissertations

Santana’s explores the intersection of biology and identity, incorporating living matter and performative gestures into installations to reflect on social constructs of history and gender. By observing water and its qualities of defying Western dichotomies, Skin Echoes focuses on the material interchanges across bodies and the wider material world.

“All The Rights Of Native Cherokees”: The Appearance Of Black People In Cherokee Society, Ayanna Goines

Theses and Dissertations

The appearance of Blacks in Native spaces affected the very structure of Indigenous lives during the forced removal of Native groups in the 1830s to the emancipation of enslaved people in the 1860s contributing to the change from a “clan-based society to a society grounded in the modern concept of rule of law” as the need to control the actions of enslaved people called for the creation of laws. Tribal courts were also used to determine whether someone was recognized and adopted into the clan. Outside of government involvement, the status of enslaved Black people was reinforced by the social …

Piratical Transportation: Highlighting Silences In Carolina’S Enslavement And Exportation Of Native Americans, Jordan Stenger

Theses and Dissertations

When Carolina colony was established, its early financial success was inherently bound to its enslavement and exportation of countless Indigenous people in the colonial pursuit of Native land, wealth, and enslaved labor. However, given the Indian slave trade was largely illegal in Carolina, how did colonists export Indigenous people? This study seeks to expand the land-locked historiography and explore how enslaved Indigenous people appear in the historical record across the Atlantic world. Utilizing term proximity as a methodological approach in reading historical records, and privileging Carolina’s black-market trade with pirates, I propose that the trade with pirates also included enslaved …

Future Trash, Xinan Ran

Theses and Dissertations

Xinan Ran explores the politically different, yet similar cultural habits that China and the US share under the influence of late-stage capitalism. Through her handmade, speculative products inspired by novelty gadgets, or “Unitaskers,” she examines the heightened prevalence of the contemporary wellness market. The project “Future Trash” encompasses soft sculptures, printed materials, performance, and installation.

Every Force Evolves A Form, Nicholas Fusaro

Theses and Dissertations

Every Force Evolves A Form is a process-orientated, sculptural body of work that incorporates Shaker-inspired design as an all-encompassing system of display. Historical and contemporary methods of production are merged with the personal, the American past, and folklore, emphasizing scale, movement, play, and iteration.

Bloody Show, Leonie Weber

Theses and Dissertations

Leonie Weber reflects on how reproductive, domestic, and emotional labor is addressed in her artwork, and her experience as an artist-parent in the art world. Moreover, she specifically discusses mothers who are navigating their own artistic paths. Her practice encompasses sculpture, printmaking, performance, and installation.

The End Of Solidarity: America’S Postwar Turn Right And The Decline Of The Cio And New Deal Liberalism, David Patrick Bruno

Theses and Dissertations

Postwar America saw one of the greatest economic expansions in American history. The wealth generated was distributed across all aspects of American society, resulting in less wealth inequality than any other time in America. Organized labor was at the pinnacle of its power, offering working class Americans the upward mobility that is promised in the American dream. Since the 1940s, the US has regressed in these areas. Wealth inequality has rapidly increased and organized labor’s power has fallen, contributing to wage stagnation and less upward mobility. There is an abundance of reasons for these changes, and not one instance caused …

Trans* Streamers On Twitch.Tv: The Intersections Of Gender And Digital Labor, R. Lawson

Theses and Dissertations

Twitch.tv is a live entertainment platform where individuals live stream events, including playing video games, playing board and tabletop games, creating art, and more. Twitch has a diverse base of streamers, but Twitch has just begun. The most common approach has focused on cisgender, heterosexual white men in the cases where it has been studied. Though these streamers should be studied in sociology, this focus leaves out the experiences of both cis women and Trans* streamers. This research proposal tries to situate the relationship of Trans* streamers with both the platform and their audience, seeing if these relationships affect their …

Break Time, Quinlan Maggio

Theses and Dissertations

In this graduate thesis artist Quinlan Maggio describes their two-part art project in which they create site-specific private/public spaces and encounters within a larger public, specifically, that of the Hunter MFA community and its art-viewing audience.

A Parar Para Avanzar: To Stop/To Stand/To Strike To Advance, Christina N. Barrera

Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents the first fragments of a political framework outlining how I situate my work, which lives between “craft” and “art” models of making and between colonized and colonizing traditions. My writing proposes ways of making and being informed by practices, strategies, and organizing that work towards greater autonomy and liberation under these conditions.

The "Marry To Work" Approach: Understanding The Mechanisms Of Marriage Of Convenience Amongst Syrian Refugee Women In Egypt, Doha Badr

Theses and Dissertations

Transnational marriage of convenience in refugee context is a unique perspective to reflect the livelihoods reality of Syrian female refugees in Egypt as a host country. Transnational marriage of convenience is a gateway for many Syrian female refugees to be legally integrated and socioeconomically incorporated in Egypt, setting challenging conditions for refugees to attain a work permit. This paper employs the bargaining power model to uncover how different legal regimes contribute to shaping the dynamics of the transnational marriage of convenience. The paper argues that the position of Syrian female refugees in the Egyptian labor market is closely linked to …

Moving Without The Ball: Labor And Collectivity Beneath The Body Of The She-Wolf, Cristina Covucci

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, I consider my personal experiences as an artist, art handler, and athlete through the motif of the Roman She-wolf, addressing how value systems are constructed according to binaries by showing how the sculptural process can break down these binaries, giving agency to both the mother mold and “completed” form.

“Being Myself Paid Off:” Blackness, Feminized Labor, And Authenticity In Black Beauty And Lifestyle Content On Youtube, Melissa Monier

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis centers Black women in conversations of digital feminized and aspirational labor online, reframing prior scholarship that has generally identified digital content creators as young, white, female, cisgender, and upper class. I use an intersectional, Black cyberfeminist approach to better understand how race and gender impact digital feminized and aspirational labor. In a 2015 study of fashion bloggers, Brooke Duffy and Emily Hund identified three elements of entrepreneurial femininity: discourses of “the destiny of passionate work,” staging “the Glam Life,” and sharing “carefully curated” intimate details of one’s personal life on social media. My thesis applies these three elements …

Egyptian Women’S Agriculture Contribution; Assessment Of The Gender Gap For Sustainable Development, Noha El Khorazaty

Theses and Dissertations

Women’s contribution to the agriculture sector in developing countries is undeniable, yet they do not have equal access to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive. Sustainable development entails inclusive and effective management of natural resources, this entails gender equity in agriculture. Bridging the gender gap in agriculture far exceeds the benefits of the individual. According to the latest estimates bridging the yield gap in agricultural productivity could possibly decrease the numbers of undernourished people in the world by around 100 – 140 million people. Sustainable agriculture development and gender equity necessitate policy interventions targeting the gender …

Salt At Dawn, Salt In My Veins, Cecilia Hankyeol Kim

Theses and Dissertations

A contemplation on expanded time, over generations along my maternal lineage;

on being on the borders, embodying homeland;

on inheritance and shared labor;

occupying a void that is dense;

looking towards dawn.

Miamian Meets Mariel Boatlift Refugees: A Reevaluation Of The Effect Of The Mariel Boatlift, Derrick Lee

Theses and Dissertations

In the 1980s, a boatlift brought 125,000 Cuban refugees to Miami, known as the Mariel Boatlift. Using data from David Roodman’s blog and from National Bureau Economic Research and the synthetic control method, I examine the effect of the Mariel Boatlift on low-educated female non-Hispanic ages 18-65’s wages. The results suggest there is little to no effect of the Mariel Boatlift on the wages of low-educated female non-Hispanic aged 18-65.

The Business Of The Girl: Celebrity And The Professionalization Of Girlhood In Early Twenty-First Century Media Culture, Jessica Elizabeth Johnston

Theses and Dissertations

The achieving “can-do” girl, who thrives in her personal, academic, and aspirational endeavors, emerged in response to self-help crisis literature of the 1990s urging mothers to manage their daughters’ low self-esteem. However, even as media industries have adopted the successful girl subject in popular film, television, and digital marketing campaigns, public conversations of tween and teenage girls still identify rising levels of anxiety and self-doubt that diminish girls’ confidence well into adulthood. Responding to what critics call the “confidence gap,” girl culture of the twenty-first century has organized itself around the affordances of social media and digital celebrity in the …

Lifestyle Tv For Men: The Nostalgic Fantasy Of History Channel's Blue-Collar Infotainment, Stephanie Ann Menders

Theses and Dissertations

This work considers the commercial and ideological implications of History's branding shift as exemplified by the debut of its reality programming slate in 2007. History's blue-collar infotainment, which focuses on men in rugged and traditional forms of work, represents a masculinized and conservative response to the feminized and often socially liberal-minded lifestyle-programming trend. The social, industrial, and cultural context within which these texts exist, particularly the 2008 recession and the growing emphasis on workplace and TV diversity, are foundational to History's rejuvenated brand. Themes from Ice Road Truckers, Ax Men, Swamp People, Pawn Stars, American Restoration, American Pickers, and Forged …

Freedom And Food: Transformations And Continuities In Foodways Among The People Who Labored At Stono Plantation, James Island, South Carolina During The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, And Twentieth Centuries, Brandy Kristin Joy

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation compares archaeological assemblages from the Stono Plantation/Dill Farm, James Island, South Carolina between the periods of enslavement and Emancipation. Further comparisons are made with the neighboring Ferguson Road archaeological site and the Smith Plantation archaeological site, Port Royal, South Carolina. These comparisons are made in order to understand how Emancipation impacted the foodways including diet, vessel type and use, and cuisine of Lowcountry residents. Results suggest that while technological innovation and increased globalization enabled a shift in material culture, the overall foodways of the region remained relatively unchanged through time.

^A Weather Of Her Wake—Should Something Be Missing?, Chip Chapin

Theses and Dissertations

Conciliating an economics of care, support, and desire through the languages of state control, commodity, and shared resources ^A Weather of Her Wake confronts unspoken exchanges endemic to relationships in capitalist society, choreographing relationships that invites both performer and audience to negotiate architectures charged with intimate memory.

Imaging Exploitation, Complexity, And Paradox In Subaltern Labor Photography, Mahnure Janis

Theses and Dissertations

Imaging Exploitation, Complexity, and Paradox in Subaltern Labor Photography is an expanded cinema performance examining 'cheap' labor in the fast fashion industry through a self-reflexive diasporic lens. The images and narration explores the garment factories in Bangladesh and contains ‘a photographer’s cognitive meta-data’, including ethical dilemmas while taking the images.

Work And Work, Rebecca M. Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

work and Work chart tracks my work/job and my Work/art to see how one can change the other.

Professional Risk, Russell A. Perkins

Theses and Dissertations

This essay suggests a reading of Harold Rosenberg’s “American Action Painters” and John Cage’s “Experimental Music”, texts in which notions of chance and risk are mobilized to account for artistic production; I argue that this rhetoric mischaracterizes the relation between artist and material, confusing the labor involved in taking chances.

Containerizing Containment: The Automation And Globalization Of The National Security Waterfront, 1945-1997, John Douglas Forrest

Theses and Dissertations

After the introduction of the cargo container and related automation systems in the late 1950s, the numbers of maritime laborers who worked along the piers and aboard ship along American waterways steadily declined. In the late 1950s, tens of thousands of longshoremen and merchant mariners plied their respective trades, but the process of “containerization” reduced their numbers by nearly 70 percent by the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Department of Defense (DoD) similarly containerized and automated its cargo handling during this era. The introduction of the container also had negative consequences for defense maritime policy. Containerization of the National …

By Degree: A History Of Heat In The Subtropical American South, Jason Hauser

Theses and Dissertations

Heat has a history, both because temperatures changed and the way humans understand and experience those temperatures changed. This dissertation excavates that history by examining how southern heat—heat considered distinct to the subtropical American South—affected the social, economic, and political development of the United States. This dissertation argues that southern heat proved consequential for the nation as both a physical force and human construct, and that only by keeping the materiality of relatively high temperatures in conversation with the idea of heat does a full history of southern heat emerge. By looking at how humans interacted with southern heat, both …

Organizing The Unorganized: Migrant Domestic Workers Labor Union Organizing In Lebanon, Farah Kobaissy

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Recombinant, Ching-In Chen

Theses and Dissertations

The hybrid texts (poems and prose) in the following dissertation investigate female and genderqueer lineage in the context of labor smuggling and trafficking. In this book-length project, I examine the challenges of communal memory by juxtaposing voices from Asian, African and indigenous communities in the Americas. Set in a speculative future, these voices simultaneously inhabit their own spaces and share pathways, a theme developed through manipulation of white space on the page. The narrative speculates about the origins of M. Lao, a snakehead matriarch who has created a business empire from a fictional edu-tainment park, CoolieWorld, which traffics in the …

Determining Willingness To Adopt Mechanical Harvesters Among Southeastern Blueberry Farmers, Aaron Dillon Rodgers

Theses and Dissertations

Recent technological innovations allow Southeastern blueberry farmers to machine harvest highly profitable fresh-market berries with marginally equivalent quality as labor intensive hand harvesting, drastically reducing labor costs while minimally increasing equipment costs. Concurrent with these innovations, the largest blueberry producing Southeastern states of North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi have proposed statewide legislation affecting immigrant status and enforcement, leading to documented labor shortages and wage volatility among seasonal agricultural laborers. Using survey information, this study uses ex-post and ex-ante logit regression models to determine if machine harvester technology (MHT) adoption is explained by human capital variables, production differences, risk preferences, …