Social Justice Commons^™

Reclaiming Healing Spaces: A Phenomenological Study On The Transformative Power Of Outdoor Therapy From The Lived Experiences Of Black Clinicians Working With Black Clients, Lynn Murphy

Dissertations

This phenomenological study involved assessing the experiences of Black therapists who engaged Black clients in outdoor therapeutic contexts. The study was founded on the existing literature that shows the quality of the therapeutic relationship is pivotal for client retention and the Western standards that have historically favored treatment within indoor environments. To contextualize this research, a comprehensive literature review was commenced, covering topics such as the decolonization of therapy, the historical and present-day relationship between Blacks and the outdoors in the United States, sedentary lifestyles, the psychological benefits of time spent in nature, various types of outdoor therapy, and the …

Artistic Expression Of Medical Experiences Of Mothers Of Color: Perspectives Using Art Therapy, Lauren Barrett

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine perspectives of mothers of color living in the US and their experiences in the healthcare system through art therapy. The study aimed to further identify personal narrative experiences of mothers of color navigating the healthcare system, promote individual voices, and acknowledge disparities impacting those within marginalized communities. The participants in this study included a total of eight identified mothers of color (non-White) living in the US. Participants took part in four weeks of consecutive art therapy sessions either in 60-minute group or individual virtual meetings. One art therapy directive was provided …

Perreando To New Lyrics: Integrating Feminist Reggaeton In Expressive Art Therapy A Literature Review | Perreando A Nueva Lírica: Una Revisión Literaria Sobre Integrar El Reggaetón Feminista A Las Terapias Con Artes Expresivas, Marilina Arsuaga

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This paper presents how feminist reggaeton can be used as a creative tool for women's empowerment. The literature review explores the work that has been done with feminism in expressive arts therapies, defines what feminist reggaeton is, and presents different considerations to incorporate the musical genre into a therapeutic intervention. Among these considerations, there is the social stigma that is held about the musical genre and female gender; the community-based work; the importance of cultural identity centered on the Latinx, more specifically Puerto Rican; and recognition of the LGBTQ+ community in the creative spaces. To navigate these issues, the author …

Liberation Chronicles: Reformulating Black Liberation In The Face Of Persistent Oppression, Nia P. Gadson

Honors College Theses

Liberation movements for Black people have been prominent throughout American history. Chattel slavery and Jim Crow laws caused centuries of anti-black oppression. They continuously evolved into other anti-black structures – mass incarceration, predatory loan companies, and healthcare inequalities, to name a few – that require us to address these issues still today. The most recent Black liberation movement, Black Lives Matter, experienced a brief uptick in support after George Floyd’s murder but, overall, failed to address these issues. This thesis outlines three approaches to Black liberation in the U.S. to determine the most effective. First, drawing on Frederick Douglass’ autobiographies, …

Cultural And Structural Barriers Of Utilizing Mental Health Services In A School-Based Setting For Latinx Populations, Silvia Lozano, Bridgette Guadalupe Calderon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This qualitative research study aimed to reduce mental health service disparities in Latinx communities and helps fill in the gap by addressing cultural and structural barriers to utilizing MHS in a school-based setting for Latinx youth. There is limited research regarding Latinx parents’ perspectives and the reservations they have on utilizing school-based mental health services (MHS) for their children. This study identified six important themes: cultural factors, trust and rapport, reservations, access and awareness, parental involvement and challenges, and school-based resources. Implications for school districts are that they can use these findings to increase early intervention mental behavioral health programs …

Victim Or Villain: Female Resilience And Agency In The Face Of Trauma In Chimamanda Adichie’S, Purple Hibiscus (2003) And Tsitsi Dangarembga’S, Nervous Conditions (1988), Adaobi Juliet Chukwuma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As long as disparities persist in the way women are treated as compared to their male counterparts, the issue of gender will continue to call forth literary productions. For this reason, female writers are on a mission to dismantle the stereotypes that keep women confined to societal roles. Grounded in a feminist framework, this study focuses on the gender disparity theme in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. The aim is to examine how these writers represent the trauma of women living in an African patriarchal system. The traumatic experiences of the female characters in both texts …

Manifesting The End Of Amerikkkan Theatre: Black Theatre’S Healing Power To Eradicate Anti-Blackness, R'Myni Watson

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the potential of Black Theatre as a catalyst for healing anti-Blackness within American theatre. Acknowledging the limitations of systemic change, this study advocates for incremental shifts within communities to combat ingrained racial biases through narrative change and theatrical exploration. Grounded in the theory of Black Theatre's energy force, Nommo, the study proposes the framework of Acknowledge, Dismantle, Re-Educate to address and eradicate anti-Blackness. Through directing the production of Blood at the Root, incorporating Black Theatre methodologies atop eurocentric foundations, this research documents the healing experienced by participants and audiences. Key findings reveal increased community engagement, support, awareness, …

Zamrock: Negotiating Masculine Urban Identity In Zambia And Music Success In A Postcolonial World, Emeline Avignon

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis analyzes, through predominately an ethnomusicologist approach and methodology, the lyricism, instrumentation, performance, and album art of the movement of Zamrock in Zambia from 1970 to the mid-1980s. I explore the agency and construction of urban youth masculinity by Zamrock artists in the context of Zambia’s colonial history of the Copperbelt, into its decades after independence. First, I look at the socio-political and economic context of colonized and independent Zambia, and how out of these conditions Zambian rock music was fused and forged. I break down the negotiations and desires of Zamrock artists in their identity construction via their …

Towards Sociobiogeochemistry: Critical Perspectives On Anthropogenic Alterations To Soil Nitrogen Chemistry Via U.S. Urban And Suburban Development, Christopher D. Ryan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The ecological impacts of changes to land use are relevant to concerns about climate change, eutrophication of waterbodies, and reductions in biodiversity. As a foundational component of ecosystem functioning, changes to soil biogeochemistry have significant effects on overall ecosystem health. With cities continuing to grow and develop in extent, the impacts of urbanization and suburbanization on soils are of particular concern. Despite a wide range of natural climatic and geologic conditions, several factors have driven similar patterns of land transformation and management across the United States. In particular, federal initiatives including the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration, …

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

Dancing Around And Through Harm: Examining The Lived Experiences Of Women Of Colour With Gender-Based Violence In The Toronto & Kitchener-Waterloo Latin Dance Communities, Lexi Salt

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Given the systemic nature of gender-based violence in Canada, as well as the increasing popularity of Latin dance, it is important to better understand the particular and culturally-specific ways gender-based violence manifests itself within the Latin dance community. This research study examines the lived experiences of women of colour with gender-based violence in the Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo Latin dance communities. Two groups of participants took part in semi-structured interviews: 14 women of colour dancers, and six “Power Players”, leaders in the Latin dance community who are in a position of power (e.g., instructors, organizers, DJs). The data was analyzed using …

Mapping With The Land: Co-Developing A Cumulative Impact Monitoring And Land Stewardship Framework With Sambaa K’E First Nation, Northwest Territories, Canada, Michael S. Mcphee

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Across the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada, Indigenous populations are striving to achieve effective environmental protection, whilst navigating complex methods, policies, and research relationships within co-management contexts. This thesis seeks to identify how differing cultural systems, environmental change, and fractured partnerships may be unified to align with the needs of the Sambaa K’e First Nation (SKFN), a remote Dehcho Dene community. Indigenous methodologies guided co-development of research questions with SKFN leadership which yielded objectives a) develop a GIS-based method to manage, organize and mobilize cultural and environmental data; b) develop a new stewardship monitoring procedure so that users can apply the …

Housing Equity In Golden Gate Village, Nicole White

Social Justice | Senior Theses

For generations, the African American community has faced many forms of housing discrimination that have created major inequalities in their everyday lived experiences (Lockwood, 2020). This study explores the long-lasting effects of discriminatory housing policies in creating disparate housing conditions within the public housing community in Marin City called Golden Gate Village, as well as the role of the Marin Housing Authority in practices of displacement and neglect. The methodology for the study included seven different interviews with Golden Gate Village residents to obtain knowledge about the community as well as grasp an understanding of the lived experiences of the …

Dismantling Anti-Blackness In Teacher Education: Centering Black Epistemologies To (Re)Construct Elementary Language Arts Education For Linguistic And Racial Justice, Jasmyn Kymberly Jones

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Black students and their linguistic resources are undervalued, disdained, disrespected, and disregarded in language arts classrooms. Not only is Black Language often ignored in English language arts instruction, but language more generally remains largely hidden within elementary ELA. Elementary ELA educators are tasked with teaching a vast array of skills, content, and concepts. So, teacher education programs are responsible for ensuring that preservice teachers leave prepared to take on the task of cultivating language arts classrooms that foster students’ literacy development. However, traditionally, literacy teacher education and the ELA curriculum has maintained white mainstream English as the standard for which …

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

Moving At The Speed Of Trust, Sun Ho Lee

Masters Theses

Moving at the Speed of Trust is a workbook of strategies — practices, definitions, and techniques — to nurture community-building in support of inbetweeners who live between power structures and cultures and are often left out. Inbetweeners are those individuals whose lives are in transition through recent immigration or forced translocation from Asia to America.

These strategies revolve around threads of trust: kin, giggles, vulnerability, and shared experience. With these threads, we can question power. We can preserve stories, expand the ways we connect, shift perspectives on what is “standard,” and cultivate a community rooted in understanding. To understand each …

Benefits Of Having A Disability Cultural Center At Cal Poly, Chau Nguyen

Political Science

All colleges and universities in the United States are legally required to accommodate their students with disabilities. However, many schools do not support their disabled student body in ways that go beyond what they are legally required to provide under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Though every university and college in the United States has a dedicated ADA compliance office, students with disabilities still express that their holistic needs are unmet and that they feel unsupported by their schools. Establishing Disability Cultural Programs and Centers is one method that colleges and universities …

Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Woman FlyTrap is a short story zine collection that explores the topic of sexual violence through the perpetrator and victim relationship with an explicit lens. Replete with cultural and entomological themes and motifs, Woman Flytrap seeks to remind survivors that we are not alone. In our bodies or in our lives. Neither in the world. There are over a million insects to every human, proving that there is strength in numbers. All five stories in the collection present different abstracts: revenge, transformation, justice, healing, body image, self-harm, mourning, etc. There is also a playlist and a section about the author. …

Dance/Movement Therapy Used As An Intervention To Heal Racial Trauma Within The Black Community: A Literature Review, Jennifer Noboise

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The history of dance within the black community has served an important role while living through a racist and discriminatory society. Dance has been used to express anger, grief, and joy during hardships and moments of rejoicing from the black experience. African American people have endured years of trauma and abuse from oppressive systems. Research has been conducted to demonstrate that dance/movement therapy has been effective in treating those who have experienced a form of trauma since the trauma is stored in the body. Examining trauma symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and substance use, the research found these symptoms diminished …

Amending Amendments: Digital Colonialism, Bill C-11, And Assessing The Call For Improvement, Kayla Victoria Destiny Clarke

Major Papers

Media scholars Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias (2019) define digital colonialism as the “term for the extension of a global process of extraction that started under colonialism and continues through industrial capitalism, culminating in today's new form: instead of natural resources in labor, what is now being appropriated is human life through its conversion into data” (p. 22). This research will critically analyze the Canadian government’s ill-received Bill C-11: the Amended Consumer Privacy Protection Act by using digital colonialism as a conceptual framework to reveal the Bill’s essential limitations. It will consist of two sections: 1) an in-depth exploration of …

A Dream Come True: More Than 50 Years After Black Students Demanded Faculty And Student Leadership Roles At The University Of Mississippi, Students Of Color Are Still Grappling With What It Means To Be Included., Kaylynn Steen

Honors Theses

This thesis tells the story of University of Mississippi alumna Treasure Fisher’s journey in the organization Column’s Society, an organization known as the hosts and hostess of the University of Mississippi. Throughout Fisher’s story, historical moments from the university’s complex relationship with its Black students are weaved through in an attempt to provide context for some of the lingering racial issues at the university today. Fisher’s story, these historical moments, and other anecdotal experiences from current and former Black students, faculty, and staff at the university challenges the reader to examine what representation does, and maybe should, mean to this …

Examining Asian Americans' Perceived Barriers To Healthcare Access, Kathleen Nguyen, Jennifer Ramos

Honors Thesis

This research aimed to examine Asian Americans and their perceived barriers to healthcare access. Asian Americans, due to not being a homogenous ethnic group, experience health disparities that are different to those that other ethnic groups experience. Compared to whites in America, Asian Americans are less likely to have job-based insurance coverage and because of this are then less likely to be insured (Brown et al., 2000). Additionally, the most common perceived barriers to accessing healthcare for Asian Americans are cultural attitudes, financial and socioeconomic status, as well as language barriers. These barriers found in the literature served as the …

The Need For Racial And Ethnic Health Disparity Curriculum In Genetic Counseling Programs, Yusra Aziz

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Racial and ethnic health disparities (REHD) exist across all organized medicine, including the spectrum of genetic counseling, particularly in genomic testing and access to care. While cultural competency and health disparities have been included as a part of the Standards of Accreditation for Genetic Counseling, there have not been previous efforts to define what topics related to REHD are most important to include in graduate program curriculum. Therefore, this study aimed to determine what topics related to REHD should be taught in genetic counseling program curriculum by assessing what topics genetic counselors (GCs) learned about and in what settings, …

Steps Toward Healing From The Possessive Other: The Vital Role Of Fantastical Literature In Trauma Theory, Rebekah Izard

English (MA) Theses

Fantastical narratives such as fairy tales and magical realist literature utilizes fantastic and intangible spaces to unpack that which is often beyond the limitations imposed on our understanding by reality: the stunting experience of individual and generational traumas. This study aims to contribute to the current literary discourse’s understandings of fantastic literature and its subgenres as a tool for healing from trauma through the application of ontological notions of Selfhood and Otherness supplied by 20th century philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, and the notion of Orientalism by postcolonial scholar, Edward Said. The dialogue generated by these schools of thought provide a space …

Systematic Barriers To Success: The Impact Of Redlining On Modern Educational Outcomes In Omaha Public Schools, Sarah Sedivy

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The systemic denial of mortgages, loans, and other financial services to specific neighborhoods on the basis of race, a practice known as redlining, has continued to have a disproportionately negative effect on communities of color since its inception in the 1930s. The contemporary impacts of redlining can be seen in ongoing disparities in household income, property values, generational wealth, and more. This paper uses a three-pronged approach to extensively examine the history, application, and implications of redlining, with an emphasis on how the practice affects modern educational outcomes in Omaha public schools. The paper analyzes statistical data from the Nebraska …

The Creation Of Political Survival Strategies By Black Collegiate Women On Virginia’S Predominantly White Campuses, Maya Jenkins

Student Research Submissions

The University of Mary Washington is a liberal arts institution founded in 1908 as a normal and industrial school for women (Our History - About UMW, 2015). Because of its small size, Mary Washington was historically known as Virginia’s “undiscovered gem” (Boyer, 2011). Mary Washington is described as a place built to support the “innovative, passionate, intellectual, and genuine” (Boyer, 2011). However, in 2020, the deaths of Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade and a racial protest that took place near the college’s campus caused many Black collegiate women at Mary Washington to question if their university was built to support …

Contemporary Environmental Art: The Multidimensional Relationship Between Black Communities And The American Landscape, Sophia Perkins

Honors Theses

Contemporary environmental art can be inspired by personal experience and reflections between the artist and their surroundings. Black women have a unique interaction with and relation to their environment. I would like to unpack the relationships between Black women and the environment by exploring a few different artists’ work, and by dissecting the effects race and gender have on one’s view of the natural world. I have studied the work of four artists: Torkwase Dyson, Allison Jane Hamilton, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Calida Garcia Rawles. Environmentally, I have a specific interest in bodies of water / Black waterways because of …

Bridging Knowledge Systems In The Peruvian Andes: Plurality, Co-Creation, And Transformative Socio-Ecological Solutions To Climate Change, Domenique Ciavattone

Capstone Collection

In the current era of anthropogenic climate change, Quechua farmers in the Peruvian Andes are some of the most impacted by, yet some of the lowest contributors to global warming. Dominant Western systems alone have proven insufficient in tackling the climate crisis, and there have been increasing efforts to elevate and center Indigenous voices and epistemologies when addressing climate change. Researchers and communities are calling for a bridging of knowledge systems, in which Indigenous and Western methods collaborate to co-create innovative solutions to climate challenges. This research sought to explore methods and successes in bridging Indigenous and Western knowledge systems …

Being Multicultural In The Workplace, Fiorella Morales

Dissertations

As the workforce becomes increasingly diverse and organizations elevate their efforts to address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), it is critical to engage in a deeper investigation of the experiences of multicultural individuals at work. In this qualitative study, nine multicultural individuals were interviewed using a sociological lens to gain their perspective on the relationship between their identity and their work experiences. The primary research questions that guided this study were: (a) how do multicultural individuals influence the workplace? In turn, (b) how do their workplace experiences affect their identity and sense of self? Data was coded and …