Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Implications Of Waste Streams At Camp Au Train, Timothy J. Maze

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Archaeological remains from Camp Au Train provide an opportunity to understand sanitation methods during its use as a Civilian Conservation Corps camp and later used to house German Prisoners of War during World War II. Seven refuse features from this camp were excavated and their contents linked to functional locations within the camp in order to reconstruct waste streams across the site and to observe how military aspects of sanitation were implemented by an organization infamous for its emphasis on cleanliness, order, and hygiene. While the importance of sanitation is often mentioned by historians and archaeologists in research of these …

An Examination Of Scientific And Technical Communication For Forensic Engineering And Forensic Pathology., Tori C. Reeder

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Police communication sits at the unique intersection of risk communication, scientific and technical communication, and medical communication, as we see in forensic reports. In this dissertation, I examine the communicative underpinnings of forensic pathology and forensic engineering reports. I argue that there is not only an inherent link between the unpredictability of a written text and the reception of said text by both its intended and unintended audience, but also a link to the broader socio-cultural contexts. I will examine an atypical forensic pathology report (autopsy report) of George Floyd, a more standard forensic pathology report of an inmate who …

The Rhetorical Art Of Risk Assessment: Lessons From Risk Management In Rural And Tribal Communities, John L. Velat

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Risk assessment, mitigation, and communication rely on data from multiple sources to form a complete understanding of hazards and how to manage them. Experts can use these data to make informed decisions about the nature and extent of risks and inform the public to protect health, the environment, and economic welfare. However, in an effort to objectively make decisions, technical experts and policymakers increasingly rely on quantitative data as the most important determiner of risk, which can alienate the public, limit risk understanding, and delay or miss obvious signals of impending catastrophe. I examine several cases based on my experiences …

Rhetoric Of Surrogacy: Re-Considering Agency Through Embodied Performance, Ann Kitalong-Will

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Surrogacy as a medical practice goes back, in a practical sense, to 1988, when the court case, “In the Matter of Baby M, A Pseudonym for an Actual Person,” was tried in the Supreme Court of New Jersey. At the heart of the issue, was the question of who Baby M’s legally-recognized mother was in the relationship between the contracting parents and the woman who gestated and gave birth to Baby M. Using this case as a jumping off point, this dissertation traces a history of surrogacy as a global industry. This project explores rhetorical agency in the embodied performance …

The Motivation To Volunteer: Understanding Volunteer Motivation At United States Industrial Heritage Museums And Organizations, Cooper Sheldon

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Industrial Heritage Museums and Organizations (IHMOs) in the United States (US) and their volunteers are underrepresented in the literature on volunteerism. The motivation and demographics of volunteers in IHMOs within the US are examined in this paper. Research into this topic is exploratory and little is known, therefore any hypothesis was based on personal observations as an AmeriCorps VISTA member in a variety of US museums. An online survey was sent out to three hundred and eighty-five museums across the US, along with conducting twelve in-person or over-the-phone interviews with museum practitioners and volunteers. This research found that a majority …

Expatriate Middle Eastern Muslim Mothers’ Stories About Sex Education In U.S. Schools: Communication Privacy Challenges And Narrative Typologies, Nada Alfeir

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study examines the stories of expatriate Middle Eastern Muslim (EMEM) mothers in the U.S. about how they talked with their children about the sexual education classes offered in U.S. public schools. Three concepts from the Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM; Petronio, 2002) were adapted to an interpretive narrative perspective drawn on Frank's (2013) typology of narrative types. A total of 15 EMEM mothers who had lived for more than one year in the U.S. were recruited in the study. Qualitative data were collected through written stories and interviews, and supplemented by the author's observations. All written stories and interviews …

Quantifying Water Recharge And Water Use In Hand Dug Wells: A Case Study Of Thiawor, Senegal, West Africa, Celine Carus

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

For many rural communities in Senegal, water is an essential life-giving need received only through a network of hand dug wells. Increasing rainfall variability in the Sahel has driven greater water insecurity for those communities that rely on rain-irrigated systems for agriculture. This study investigates the retrieval, purposes, and quantities of seasonal water usage on a small domestic scale, as well as an analysis of perceived water availability in the wells during the rainy season. Additionally, using a combination of interview data and pumping test data obtained from the village wells, water usage and estimated daily needs are calculated and …

The Archaeology Of The Postindustrial: Spatial Data Infrastructures For Studying The Past In The Present, Daniel Trepal

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Postindustrial urban landscapes are large-scale, complex manifestations of the past in the present in the form of industrial ruins and archaeological sites, decaying infrastructure, and adaptive reuse; ongoing processes of postindustrial redevelopment often conspire to conceal the toxic consequences of long-term industrial activity. Understanding these phenomena is an essential step in building a sustainable future; despite this, the study of the postindustrial is still new, and requires interdisciplinary connections that remain either unexplored or underexplored. Archaeologists have begun to turn their attention to the modern industrial era and beyond. This focus carries the potential to deliver new understandings of the …

Gendered Recreational Fisheries Management And North American Natural Resource Policy, Erin Burkett

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation applies feminist theory to investigate women’s participation in wildlife-based recreation and how natural resource management organizations conduct stakeholder engagement in a North American context. Gendered social processes, including norms and expectations, as well as gendered cultures, can constrain women’s participation in recreation through social sanctions and disenfranchisement. Gender and leisure scholars have studied these dynamics in sport and leisure contexts, but how individuals negotiate these constraints is understudied in a wildlife-based recreation context. Social constructions of gender also contribute to imbalances of power within formal natural resource management organizations and influence how stakeholder engagement policies and programs are …

Interactive Sonification Strategies For The Motion And Emotion Of Dance Performances, Steven Landry

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Immersive Interactive SOnification Platform, or iISoP for short, is a research platform for the creation of novel multimedia art, as well as exploratory research in the fields of sonification, affective computing, and gesture-based user interfaces. The goal of the iISoP’s dancer sonification system is to “sonify the motion and emotion” of a dance performance via musical auditory display. An additional goal of this dissertation is to develop and evaluate musical strategies for adding layer of emotional mappings to data sonification. The result of the series of dancer sonification design exercises led to the development of a novel musical sonification …

The Implications Of Science And Technology For Chinese Women: A Cultural Study Of The Chinese Era Of Reforms, Wenjing Liu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the gendered implications of science and technology in the era of reforms. It argues that in this era, which began in 1978 and continues today, science and technology are highly romanticized as nearly omnipotent. This results in its being embedded not only into ordinary Chinese people’s lives, hoping to bring them positive changes, but also into the Chinese government’s political practices, hoping to achieve its political purposes through science and technology. It also points out that in the era of reforms, Chinese women’s lived experiences are full of tensions, struggles, and conflicts, as evidenced by the …

A Critical Review Of Current Approaches And Practices In Computing Ethics Education, Sophia Farquhar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Recent scandals caused by the results of negligent, malicious, or shortsighted software development practices highlight the need for software developers to consider the ethical implications of their work. Computing ethics has historically been a marginalized area within computing disciplines, so educators in these disciplines do not have a common background for teaching the topic. Computing ethics education, although often a required part of coursework, can vary widely in the method of implementation from university to university.

In this report I summarize the insights I gained from interviewing four educators from three different institutions on their pedagogical approaches to computing ethics. …

Music In The Northern Woods: An Archaeological Exploration Of Musical Instrument Remains, Matthew Durocher

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Archaeological and historical literature neglects music and sound. The quantity and distribution of musical remains found during archaeological excavations at Coalwood, a Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company (CCI) logging camp active from 1901-1912 in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, addresses the importance of music to the people that lived there. Musical reed plates from harmonicas, concertinas, and accordions were recovered and examined. These musical remains have traditionally been ignored as a diagnostic artifact, but here, I use them as primary evidence to access the daily lives of people in the northern woods. To do this, I will present how CCI developed Coalwood …

Articulating Digital Archival Practice Within Writing Program Administration: A Theoretical Framework, Amanda Girard

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Throughout Writing Program Administration scholarship there has been a clear call for archivization and archival work. This dissertation project takes an interdisciplinary approach to digital archival practices for Writing Program Administrators to consider and employ in their home institutions. While I recognize that WPAs are not typically identified as “archivists,” I situate the digital archive within the digital humanities as an interdisciplinary, collaborative project and offer suggestions that lead to recommendations for making an institutional archive. I review archival practice in order to justify the digital archive as an appropriate vehicle for WPAs’ work. Further, I argue that the digital …

Repackaging The Reach Of Dreams: News Coverage Of Daca Rescindment By Three National Newspapers On Twitter, Megan Pietruszewski

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis examines the frames used by three news organizations to cover the rescindment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The rescindment of DACA was a pivotal transition period open to new immigration policy, and frames used in the news coverage of DACA are important as frames influence public opinion and possible future immigration policy. This study uses corpus linguistic methods and Van Gorp’s inductive framing analysis to explore how a complex political decision like DACA rescindment is covered in condensed news stories on Twitter as well as in full-length news articles. The Executive Critique frame, which …

Kinetic Landscape And Unalloyed Potential: Rethinking The Extractive Landscape Of Michigan's Native Mass Copper Mining Industry, Sean Gohman

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation examines the extractive landscape and persistent lifespan of native mass copper mining in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The historic native copper mining industry of Michigan lasted for over a century, though its impacts on the landscape can be broken into two distinct, though overlapping, phases of extractive practice: mass mining and disseminated lode mining. Each mined specific native copper deposits, utilized related but specialized technologies, and relied upon different sources of energy to power its practices. A first, formative phase of mass mining exploited fissures of pure metallic copper using traditional technology and organic sources of fuel. A second …

Novel Methods For Quantifying Spatio-Temporal Change In Glaciated And Subaqueous Environments, Jordan Mertes

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In many scientific fields, it is important to actively develop new approaches to monitoring and quantifying changes within different systems. Often adapting existing tools or applying techniques from alternative fields can greatly improve our ability to monitor spatial and temporal changes. In this dissertation, I present four studies aimed at demonstrating new innovative ways at improving our ability to observe and quantify changes occurring on glaciers, submerged cultural resources (SCRs) and supraglacial lakes by using technology such as Structure from Motion + Multi-view stereo photogrammetry (SfM) and ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveying combined with facies analysis.

I have successfully reconstructed …

A Landscape Of Water And Waste: Heritage Legacies And Environmental Change In The Mesabi Iron Range, John Baeten

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation explores the intersection between mining technology, industrial heritage, and environmental history, using iron mining in the Mesabi Range of the Lake Superior Iron District as its core case study. What impact did technological shifts in iron mining and ore processing have on the environment of the Lake Superior basin? How did the environmental changes wrought from low-grade iron ore mining and processing, such as the expansion of open-pits and the production of tailings, affect different communities in Minnesota’s Mesabi Range? And finally, how have the environmental legacies of iron mining been remembered and memorialized, or ignored and forgotten?

Language, Rhetoric, And Politics In A Global Context: A Decolonial Critical Discourse Perspective On Nigeria’S 2015 Presidential Campaign, Yunana Ahmed

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In this dissertation, I conceptualize a rhetorical and linguistic analysis of politics from a decolonial framework (Mignolo, 2011; Smith, 2012). My analysis draws on classical rhetoric (Aristotle, 2007), cultural rhetoric (Mao, 2014; Powell, et al., 2014; Yankah, 1995), and linguistics (Chilton, 2004) to reveal the different ways ideological and hegemonic struggles are discursively constructed in Nigerian political campaign discourse. The data for this study come from two speeches delivered by former President of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan during the 2015 electoral campaign. This includes his declaration-of-intent speech and his speech marking the commencement of his formal campaign activities. My …

Black-Americans In Michigan’S Copper Mining Narrative, Brendan Pelto

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis details the Phase 1 archaeological investigation into Black-Americans who were active on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan during the mining boom of the 1850s-1880s. Using archaeological and archival methods, this thesis is a proof-of-concept for future work to be done that investigates the cultural heritage of Black Americans in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Women, Cycling, And The Public Sphere: How Discursive And Community Practices Affect Engagement, Elsa L. Roberts

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This thesis considers the impact that discursive and community practices have on women’s access to the public sphere by examining female cyclists and a cycling community in Miami, Florida via interviews and observation. In the interviews, female cyclists frequently reported fears for their safety, including concern over harassment, when riding in public space. I interviewed participants of the cycling community and observed Emerge Miami’s meetings and events, where publicly organized cycling excursions were a major component. Using the theoretical and methodological lenses of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and Communities of Practice, I examined the interviews to understand how participants discursively …

Engaging Metis: Exploring An African Woman's Negotiation Of Change, Ruby Pappoe

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

African women’s emerging visibility as social and political actors has received a lot of attention in the past two decades. Scholars have explored women’s political movements and sociocultural activism from various perspectives to expose their contributions to social change. Although this scholarship has expanded to incorporate multiple voices as well as expose the contemporary strategies of resistance women engage in to overcome difficult challenges, there seems to be little research on ordinary women as they also confront their daily challenges in hope of improving their situations. This research takes up this gap by exploring a Ghanaian woman’s resistance in the …

The Crisis Of Images: A Reading Of Feed A Child’S Controversial 2014 Advertisement, Marcel Tchatchou

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This work reads Feed A Child’s 2014 South African fund raising campaign advertisement (http://goo.gl/cRboV7) through Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model of communication. Utilizing concepts from Stuart Hall’s model this paper draws attention to racial questions raised by the commercial. Even though the commercial’s stated purpose is to raise awareness of unequal social conditions in South Africa, its visual elements are racially offensive. The turmoil generated by the commercial is the consequence of the complex structure of its message, and the fact that its meaning is not determined solely by the organization’s stated intentions. This work explores the way that the processes …

Lenses Of Industry: The Rise Of Industrial Photography In The United States And The Lake Superior Mining District, 1880-1933, Robert Anthony

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis, Lenses of Industry, examines how industrial companies and engineers adapted photography to their needs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Innovations in camera and plate technologies marketed to a broad range of people contributed to a steep rise in the number of photographers in the United States. Recognizing the potential that photography held for industrial companies and engineers, a handful of experts advocated the idea that photography had the potential to make many aspects of business faster, and easier, as well as to make visual records more truthful and accurate. Likewise, innovations in halftone printing technology …

A Phenomenology Of Mimetic Learning And Multimodal Cognition: Integrating Experiential Knowledge Into Programs In Rhetoric, Composition, And Technical Communication, Kevin R. Cassell

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

My dissertation emphasizes a cognitive account of multimodality that explicitly integrates experiential knowledge work into the rhetorical pedagogy that informs so many composition and technical communication programs. In these disciplines, multimodality is widely conceived in terms of what Gunther Kress calls “socialsemiotic” modes of communication shaped primarily by culture. In the cognitive and neurolinguistic theories of Vittorio Gallese and George Lakoff, however, multimodality is described as a key characteristic of our bodies’ sensory-motor systems which link perception to action and action to meaning, grounding all communicative acts in knowledge shaped through body-engaged experience. I argue that this “situated” account of …

From Mill Gates To Magic City: U.S. Steel And Welfare Capitalism In Gary, Indiana, 1906-1930, Carol D. Griskavich

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Gary, Indiana is a city with indelible ties to industrial paternalism. Founded in 1906 by United States Steel Corporation to house workers of the trust’s showpiece mill, the emergence of this model company town was both the culmination of lessons learned from its predecessors’ mistakes and innovative corporate planning. U.S. Steel’s Progressive Era adaptation of welfare capitalism characterized the young city through a combination of direct community involvement and laissez-faire social control. This thesis examines the reactionary implementation of paternalist policies in Gary between 1906 and 1930 through the purviews of three elements under corporate influence: housing, education, and social …

Students’ Rhetorical Strategies In Translingual Encounters On Campus, Laura Moeller

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This thesis examines the ways in which linguistic minority students assert themselves as rhetorical agents when faced with the expectation of impromptu verbal responses. Based on a study that aims at identifying specific rhetorical strategies these students employ, the goal of this thesis is to theorize ways in which linguistic minorities deal with the challenges of fast-paced, high-stakes interactions. The practices that emerge from data analysis suggest that such strategies tend to be reactive rather than proactive and highly dependent on context. While they are valuable ways for linguistic minorities to navigate their ways in specific moments, the thesis argues …

Living With Differences: From Everyday Fundamentalisms To Invitational Communication, Lisa M. Watrous

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This project examines fundamentalism understood as an everyday way of living poorly with difference. It demonstrates that the fundamentalist is not reducible to stereotypes of the terrorist, extremist, irrational madman, or religious zealot. All of these characterizations--common in mainstream media--depict the fundamentalist as them, and rarely, if ever, as us. Rather, this project understands fundamentalism in terms of fundamental interpretive constructs that constrain our ways of being-with others, skew our interpretive and responsive possibilities, distort our perceptions of difference, and affirm our poor treatment of others. Following Martin Heidegger's conception of the hermeneutic structure of existence, this dissertation calls attention …

Analysis Of Gender Relations In The Industrial Community Of Aguirre, Puerto Rico, Alejandra Alvarez

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This thesis is a study of the gender relations of the residents of Aguirre, Puerto Rico, between 1940 and 1991. The primary goal of the project was to explore how gender roles and relations in the Aguirre community were impacted by the social class system introduced by the Aguirre Sugar Company. This project was based on the interpretation of the past and present situation of the Aguirre community using oral history, by conducting a series of interviews among its residents. The interviews resulted in three main themes. First, the concepts of `normal and natural' were used to distinguish gender roles. …