Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Against Nature: Imperial Law And Homosexuality In India, Juliano Estrada Donatelli

Outstanding Student Work in Asian Studies

In this essay, I will explore India’s Section 377, as a case study, to analyze the effect and legacy imperialism has had within former colonial territories, such as India. In order to do so, I will draw from literary sources to first characterize male homosexual relationships within India during pre-imperial rule. Then I will transition into the second part of the essay, in which I will discuss the motivation and inception of Section 377 under British ruling; to this section, I will also be contrasting the more official imperial mandates with the histories of European writers and travelers who, upon …

A Window To Urban Arabia, Andrew M. Gardner

All Faculty Scholarship

This set of images collectively seeks to provide viewers with a window into Doha, Qatar, and into the urban heart of the modern Middle East that’s arisen on the Arabian Peninsula. Designed as an exhibit of photography, the images include overlapping themes that explore particular facets or threads of the urban landscape and life therein. In the final accounting, the collection as a whole is intended as an ode to the city itself.

Choice Sets For Andean Mothers' Discounting, Alessandra Vidal Meza

Summer Research

Discount rates are used in cost-benefit analysis by private and public actors in Perú, yet the methodology of computing for this economic measure hasn’t been updates in decades. This research suggests using household-level choice sets to compute for Andean discounting. Andean mothers are a population of interest as following “La ley de reforma agraria” passed in 1969, Indigenous communities in the Andes were relabeled as the campesino community in an attempt to erase Indigeneity. The purpose of this research was to provide a review and consideration of context, culture, and condition in the design of choice sets that can capture …

Who Owns World Heritage? The Effects Of Western Based Cultural Heritage Management On The Local Populations Of Angkor Wat Archaeological Park, Lee Nelson

Outstanding Student Work in Asian Studies

The region of Angkor, Cambodia has historically been in a constant state of adjustment. From the early Angkorian Civilization, to the French colonization of 1863 to 1953; and from the Khmer Rouge era to the popular tourist destination it is today, the Angkor region has always been in flux. In 1992, Angkor Wat Archaeological Park was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in response to the critical condition of the historical monuments. This declaration has caused a rapid increase in tourism, tourist accommodations, and massive implementations of Western-based cultural heritage management programs. This increase has resulted in the displacement …

Tattoos In East Asia: Conforming To Individualism, Morgan Macfarlane

Outstanding Student Work in Asian Studies

Although Japan, South Korea, and China share a similar history of tattoo criminality, in modern times they all hold different legal policies concerning the practice. South Korea has the strictest laws, requiring a medical doctorate to legally tattoo, while China has few restrictions on body art. This paper explores this interesting difference via observational fieldwork in Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Beijing as well as interviews with local people. This paper hopes to explain the connection between a new tattoo culture supported by younger generations and the level of democracy and development of each country. Although a strong social stigma towards …

Oodles Of Noodles: The Story Of How One Dish Traversed Asia, Miriam Cohen

Pac Rim Posters

How noodles have adapted to several Asian cuisines is a testament to their flexibility, and also serves as a way in which to gather insight on the cultures they encounter. Noodles have stood the test of time and their evolution tells more than a recipe, but the stories of nations as well. The resilience and malleability of noodles have allowed the dish to persist all throughout Asia, as well as act as a mirror of the nations they are incorporated into.

Curating A Nation: The Role Of Asia’S Twenty-First Century Museums In Constructing National Narratives, Lee Nelson

Pac Rim Posters

Museums of the modern world act to preserve and promote cultural heritage, science, and art. Within the continent of Asia, museums have been crucial foci for various nations’ cultural ministries. By analyzing the missions of specific museums with a critical lens, the objective of national identity and narrative building becomes exposed in the decisions of museums’ exhibits and curations. With having used ethnographic methods and scholarly research concerning national museums in the countries of Mongolia, Japan, China, Thailand, and India, I argue that museums serve as mediums of communication for higher political and cultural institutions to foster, construct, and manipulate …

Cultures Of Critical Media Consumption In Asia, Olivia Langen

Pac Rim Posters

In the midst of a global dialogue on fake news and press legitimacy, the case for media literacy is more compelling than ever. Throughout the diverse media environments in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and India, cultures of protest are closely tied to a proficiency in media literacy among educated youth. Political settings, whether democratic, populist, or authoritarian, complicate a society’s ability to criticize its press. The rise of internet news further complicates traditions of news consumption by challenging press institutions and offering more sensational forms of media. Despite these rapid changes, young readers continue to critically analyze the …

In Search Of “Healthy White:” How Whitening Products Are Packaged And What That Means For Global, National, And Gender Identities, Indigo Dacosta

Pac Rim Posters

This interdisciplinary study in South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and India compares the origin of products—international and local—and the ways in which product labeling targets gender. I examine (1) the extents to which whitening products result from globalization and from local culture and (2) the ways in which whitening products and skincare at large reinforce traditional roles. This study concludes that whitening products (1) reflect neither globalization nor local culture and instead reflect complex and variable interactions between the two, and contemporary framing of national identity, and (2) enforce similar beauty standards on both men and women, …

The Impact Of Transboundary Water Management On Human Security In Developing States, Meadow Poplawsky

Summer Research

In recent years, the subject of “water wars” has been often repeated in news cycles as the next major world crisis, and water has been projected as potentially the source of the next world war due to growing world population and increasing scarcity of water resources due to climate change and increasing water use. This study aimed to consider whether major conflict over water is possible within the coming decades and how interactions between developing states who share rivers will impact the lives of those who live in these river basins, using the lens of human security. To study this …

(Re)Writing Home: Unimagining And Reimagining Haitian Identity In Diasporic Literature From The United States, Ashley Coyne

Summer Research

This study explores the responses of the members of the Haitian diaspora in the U.S. to the current historical moment. This historical moment in which the President of the United States would feel so inclined as to ask: “Why do we want people from Haiti here?” and “Why are we having all these people from sh*thole countries come here?” (Davis et al. 2018; Dawsey 2018). The same man who promised Haitians “I will be your champion,” has made the decision to force 59,000 members of the Haitian diaspora who currently hold Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to return to Haiti in …

K-Pop; Defying Or Perpetuating Orientalist Stereotypes?, Aya Goto-Hirsig

Outstanding Student Work in Asian Studies

K-Pop’s rising global popularity is often touted as the success story of a once peripheral country rising to challenge Western societies’ cultural hegemony. However, is K-Pop really an industry overcoming and challenging the West’s power structures and deep-rooted Orientalist stereotypes, or rather operating within them? I would argue that due to the embedded nature of Orientalist stereotypes, K-Pop is inevitably largely interpreted and used by Americans in a way which serves to support and perpetuate their Orientalist world views of Western hegemony and superiority, in contrast to Korean otherness. Additionally many entertainment companies within the K-Pop industry are frequently complicit …

The Journey To Arabia: A Visual Essay, Andrew M. Gardner

All Faculty Scholarship

This photographic essay includes numerous photographs portraying the journey transnational migrants take from South Asia to the Arabian Peninsula, and includes a short essay that describes the major features of this migration system.

Fighting An Invisible Enemy: The Polish Media Campaign Against Radio Free Europe, 1950-1972, Nicholas Kulawiak

Summer Research

This project builds off work done in Spring 2017 for a History 400 paper on the development of Radio Free Europe broadcast strategy in Poland from 1950 to 1956. Broadly, my summer project focuses on the way the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL) reacted to and sought to discredit RFE’s broadcasts from 1950 to 1972. The project’s specific analysis is on the way this reaction was manifested in PRL propaganda’s principal outlets: media organs such as state radio stations and newspapers.

My final paper’s central argument is that from 1970 to 1952, RFE was portrayed continuously as an obstacle to …

Circular Migration And The Gulf States, Andrew M. Gardner, Zahra Babar

All Faculty Scholarship

In this chapter the authors assess the application of the circular migration framework to the six Gulf Cooperation Council member states of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman. By some estimations, the six GCC states comprise the third largest migratory destination in the contemporary world, and for decades these states have hosted large transient migrant populations that, in some manner or another, appear to fit the definition of circular migration. Through an analysis of migration to the Gulf States this chapter provides an empiri- cal contribution to the expanding discussion of circular migration. In this chapter …

Viral Signs: Confronting Cultural Relativism With Children's Health In The Field, Denise M. Glover

All Faculty Scholarship

While many anthropologists and other scholars undertake fieldwork together with their families, this is often not mentioned even though children can have a major impact on their work. This volume explores the many issues of conducting fieldwork with children, offering a wide range of experiences that question and reflect on methodological issue.

[from description of book]

China's Ineffective Water Pollution Policy: An Issue Of Enforcement, Taili Ni

Outstanding Student Work in Asian Studies

China faces an immense water crisis characterized by serious water pollution and water scarcity. The country’s rapid economic development over the past decades occurred without the restrictions of environmental protection standards. In the past twenty years, China has made great strides towards environmental protection, including developing one of the world’s most comprehensive set of environmental laws. However, the condition of China’s water continues to devolve as issues of enforcement prevent environmental law from becoming reality. This enforcement gap is the primary issue in China’s environmental policy. Prioritization of the economy over the environment, decentralization of enforcement power, powerless NGOs and …

How The City Grows: Urban Growth And Challenges To Sustainable Development In Doha, Qatar, Andrew M. Gardner

All Faculty Scholarship

This book chapter considers how sustainable development fits in the social, political, and cultural context of contemporary Doha, Qatar. After a review of sustainable development and urban development in Qatar, this chapter makes several contentions. First, it contends that sustainable development poses a challenge to the political stability of a society that distributes state-controlled wealth to its citizenry through urban development. Second, it points to the fact that Qatar's tribal/authoritarian political regime is antithetical to some of the bottom-up democratic principles thought to underpin sustainable development. Finally, it suggest that the consignment of sustainable development efforts to the spatial discourse …

The Potential And Limitations Of Alternative Trade Practices On Improving Coffee Producer Livelihoods In Matagalpa, Nicaragua, Melanie Mazza

Summer Research

This research investigates the income disconnect between the producers and consumers of high-quality single-origin coffee through a case study in the producing region of Matagalpa, Nicaragua. By investigating the different schemes already in place to help improve the livelihoods of farmers, this research aims to uncover the ways in which these schemes succeed or fall short.

People, Plants, And Fungi: Examining The Ecological And Social Landscapes Of The Swan Creek Park Food Forest, Renee Meschi

Summer Research

This summer, I researched the plants, fungi, and people of Tacoma’s Swan Creek Park Food Forest (SCPFF) in order to allow the site to tell its own story through the histories in which the local plants and people are both rooted. My overall goal was to unearth the submerged influences that have shaped the SCPFF which, in their exposure, can create an approach to sustainable community building that is inclusive of multiple cultural identities, as well as respectful of the sovereignty of those identities.

I began my investigation with plants and fungi that are indigenous to the area, with a …

The Myth Of The Immigrant Entrepreneur, Daniel Thorson

Summer Research

Abstract: In this paper, I examine the unique business environment with regard to Small- to Medium-sized Enterprises that has manifested in Hong Kong over the last two decades, looking especially through the lenses of financial and immigration regulations as well as cultural considerations. Business in Hong Kong is presented with an unprecedented opportunity in the form of its open regulatory environment, but how do the regulations in place currently contribute to or subtract from entrepreneurial pursuits? I propose that even with Hong Kong’s immigrant industrialist legacy and reputation for free business with well-endowed financial institutions, it is impossibly difficult to …

The Politics Of Transgenic Food: An Ethnographically Informed Analysis Of The Ban On Genetically Modified Crops In Bolivia, Kristin Gjelsteen

Summer Research

This research investigates a country that has recently committed itself to replacing all genetically modified crops with non-altered crops. Limitations and benefits associated with allowing or banning transgenic technology are examined through interviews with farmers, agricultural researchers, agronomists, biologists and environmental advocates in three diverse communities in Bolivia. This research explores how these stakeholders experience and understand the recent national rejection of this agricultural technology. Controversy surrounding development and use of transgenic technology illustrates moral, political, social and economic conflicts, presents risks and creates complex societal decisions with the potential to impact ecological systems, diversity of life, health (both natural …