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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Sociology

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Doctoral Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

Health

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Quotidian Quantifier: Fitness Tracking And The Mundanity Of Surveillance, Marianne Neal-Joyce Oct 2022

The Quotidian Quantifier: Fitness Tracking And The Mundanity Of Surveillance, Marianne Neal-Joyce

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation uses the rise of wearable fitness tracking as a lens through which to examine the predominance of quantification in everyday life. With over a third of U.S. adults owning a tracker, the increased use of body-surveilling technologies provides an opportunity to investigate some central sociological questions. In this project, I ask why individuals track their health behaviors with technology and how we may understand this behavior in the context of medical and corporate interests. I further ask how people think about the privacy implications of their use and what concerns they have about data collection and sharing. I …


Policing And Health: Police Encounters As A Fundamental Cause Of Racial Health Disparities, Richard S. Carbonaro Oct 2021

Policing And Health: Police Encounters As A Fundamental Cause Of Racial Health Disparities, Richard S. Carbonaro

Doctoral Dissertations

Structural racism has taken many forms throughout American history and to this day continues to drive social, economic, and health inequalities. Mass incarceration is a modern tool of social marginalization with well documented and deep-rooted racial inequalities. Research has continually shown that mass incarceration negatively impacts the health of disadvantaged communities. Even police stops, the most common and mundane form of criminal justice contact has been linked with deleterious health outcomes at the individual and community level. In this dissertation, I identify specific social and biological mechanisms connecting encounters with the police and health outcomes. In the first chapter, I …


Three Essays On Network Dynamics And Liminality, Diego F. Leal Nov 2018

Three Essays On Network Dynamics And Liminality, Diego F. Leal

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the emergence and evolution of social networks by paying particular attention to the spanning of cultural boundaries that segregate actors in the context of specific societies. In particular, I use systems science methods to study the bridging of cultural holes in small and relatively dense artificial societies, as well as in an American high school. I also study the significance of local triadic configurations in giving rise to the highly hierarchical system of aggregate-level migration flows in place in the Americas during the late 20th century. I use the concept of liminality as a way to …