Digital Commons Network^™

Digital Griots Playing Lottery Tickets: A Study Of Hip Hop And Social Transformation In Ghana's #Fixthecountry Movement, Jaime M. Kowlessar

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

On June 28, 2021, activist Ibrahim Mohammed (Macho Kaaka) was murdered in Ejura, Ghana, after using social media to criticize government failures. When protesters demanding justice were shot by security forces, politically engaged Ghanaian hip hop artists refused silence, contributing to Ghana’s #FixTheCountry movement—the nation’s largest youth mobilization in a generation. Yet scholarly debates about how hip hop contributes to social change remain unresolved, divided between those celebrating its activist potential and those critiquing its limitations. This dissertation introduces the lottery ticket theory as an alternative framework for understanding cultural activism’s relationship to political transformation. Rather than asking whether hip …

Inked Mobilities: Tattoos As Embodied Visual Narratives Of Youth Migration Between Italy And Australia, Giulia Marchetti

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This article examines tattoos as embodied visual narratives within a broader study on youth transnational mobility (2019-2023). Focusing on recent Italian migration to and from Australia, 13 tattoos were documented among the 36 participants, acquired shortly before departure, during the stay in Australia, or upon return to Italy. Methodologically, the article proposes tattoo-based interviews as a participatory visual method that mobilises permanently inscribed images as sites of visual elicitation, enabling forms of reflection and storytelling. Tattoos thus operate as relational spaces of dialogue, co-interpretation, and reflexive meaning-making between researcher and participants. Epistemologically, tattoos are approached as visual narratives through which …

A Light Unto My Path? Discerning Prophetic Words For The Latino/A Church Today, M. Daniel Carroll R. Ph.D

Apuntes: Reflexiones teológicas desde el margen hispano

No abstract provided.

Taking A Seat In The Circle: Decolonizing Gender Roles That Argue Against The Participation Of Feminine Bodies At The Big Drum, Juli Suzukawa

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The origins of the Big Drum can be traced back to the 1860s when Tail Feather Woman, a Dakota woman, had a vision of its creation as a tool of resistance. The Big Drum has since expanded and can now be seen at various Indigenous ceremonies and social events. However, there has been controversy regarding the participation of feminine and queer bodies. While reasons for this vary, it has also contributed to harm amongst Indigenous youths that have a more fluid stand on gender identity and may not conform to colonial “gender norms”. In this paper, I will explore how …

Family Dementia Caregivers’ Disaster Preparedness In Chinese American Communities In New York City, Weiyu Mao, Bei Wu, Yaolin Pei, Zhen Cong

Health Sciences and Kinesiology Faculty Articles

Disaster preparedness is a significant public health concern. Disasters manifest in different forms and often lead to disruption of daily life. This is especially challenging for family dementia caregivers and their care recipients in the community. There remains much unknown regarding dementia caregiver disaster preparedness, especially in ethnic and racial communities. Guided by Protection Motivation Theory, with the backdrop of Hurricane Ida, this study explored the association between caregiving-related characteristics, cognitive appraisals, and disaster preparedness among caregivers in Chinese American communities. Data came from a pilot study on Chinese American family dementia caregivers in New York City between November 2021 …

Candice Scott, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Soror Scott authored the book "Color Me Nia" in 2017 and worked with Emmett Wigglesworth, the renowned artist and illustrator.

From 1978 - 1991 Soror Scott taught general science at CIS 166X, started their Arista Program, conducted Career Day with some of the Sorors in the Chapter. She held the position of Interim Acting Assistant Principal for two years without pay.

Dr. Scott's years of dedication and service had improved the lives of countless individuals, and she has received numerous awards, accolades, and proclamations of appreciation, including:

• Honored as the Woman of the Year for The Black Caucus of the …

  ---

  Go to article

Enduring The American Dream, Edward Grattan

Capstones

Martha and Rene - both Colombian nationals – have made the difficult decision to self-deport from the United States in the midst of the Trump Administration’s unprecedented immigration crackdown and deportation campaign. After working as day laborers in The Hamptons, New York for nearly eight years, the couple shares their experience of leaving their current life behind as anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy escalates across the country.

The Trump administration has transformed the landscape for immigrants living in the United States, regardless of documentation status, by eliminating paths for legal residency, charging The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency with …

Ethnic Studies December Newsletter, Department Of Ethnic Studies

Ethnic Studies Department Newsletters

Student spotlight, faculty spotlight, event

Best Integrated Writing Fall 2025 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Tracy Smith, Kristie Mckiernan

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

Star Wars: Andor – An Abolitionist Study Guide, Marcelo Garzo Montalvo, Isaac Ginsberg Miller

Feminist Pedagogy

This study guide provides a set of activities for teaching abolition through Season 1 of the speculative fiction TV series Star Wars: Andor (2022). Through the practice of critical literacy (viewing, reading, and analysis), we offer various ideas on how to engage Andor as a relevant pedagogical tool for studying and teaching abolitionist movement histories and methodologies. By guiding students through a critical analysis of this widely-circulated, mainstream cultural text, we seek to activate an abolitionist pedagogical lens that can be applied across various genres and media – making tangible connections between popular culture and political struggles writ large. These …

The Maroons: The First Black Nationalists Of The Americas, Marquise K. Camp

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Maroon communities are seldom discussed in academic discussions about Black nationalism. This suggests that the goals and achievements of the Maroons differed from those of Black nationalists, and that there are no significant historical links between the two. This project argues that Black nationalists and the Maroons are closely related, not only because of their shared roots in the African diaspora but also because they both sought independence and self-governance for Black people. The aims of Black nationalists like Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X closely resemble those of the Maroons. By examining the Maroons alongside Black nationalism, one can gain …

Las Voices: The Impact On Black Young Males In A Critical Mentorship Program In The Las Vegas Valley, Sean C. Tory

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In America, Black young males face an enormous amount of pressure regarding their social and racial identity. They battle with racial macro/microaggressions, stereotypes, racism, and socialization from various industries and systems. The community organization, King of Jewels, has been able to adopt effective strategies to help Black young males navigate these issues through critical mentorship. This paper will first demonstrate the importance of critical mentorship, Black Racial Identity Development, and will then outline the steps necessary to fill the gaps found in mentorship and Black Racial Identity Development literature. This qualitative study investigates the use of critical mentorship (CM) and …

A World Between Worlds: The Hidden Disconnect Of Chinese Autistic Individuals, Joy Lu

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This paper examines the complex challenges faced by Chinese autistic individuals navigating both Western autism communities and broader Chinese cultural contexts. Drawing on personal experience, community observation, and cultural analysis, it explores how language barriers, cultural stigma, and differing values create a unique form of disconnection for the Chinese autistic community. This paper argues that current neurodiversity discourse is dominated by Western frameworks that often fail to account for this disconnect, resulting in the exclusion of entire groups. By centring Chinese perspectives, it calls for a more culturally responsive approach to autism advocacy: one that bridges linguistic, cultural, and historical …

Quien Soy Sin Mi Idioma Nativo?: The Loss Of The Spanish Language And Its Effects On Identity, Wilzaid L. Santiago-Maldonado

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Language is a mechanism of cultural preservation. The history of language has two parts: 1. the technical aspects and 2. how it is diffused and/or becomes extinct. According to the U.S. Census Data, the Hispanic population has grown immensely over the past several decades, particularly from 1980-2020. Even so, there has been significant loss of the Spanish language. The researcher examined this phenomenon in two phases. First, 14 peer-reviewed articles published between 2008-2024 were assessed to determine emerging themes. Results showed that articles cited “the lack of knowledge/use” of Spanish and the “language/cultural dominance.” Second, the researcher conducted four focus …

Trading Posts And "Old Pawn": Diné Navajo Trade And The Native Art Industry, Dustin Roberto

Native American Studies Student Publications

"Old pawn" is widely used to describe antique Native American jewelry and goods once pawned for credit at trading posts in the Four Corners region. This article traces how the trading post pawn system influenced Diné Navajo economic life from 1868 through the 1970s, when federal regulators documented exploitative practices such as inflated interest, withheld mail, and items sold without notice. Weavers and individuals pawning jewelry typically received store credit or overvalued commodities instead of cash, a result of the power dynamics of the setting. Today, "old pawn" functions as a marketing label for vintage goods, often without documentation. The …

Painting The Past: Trauma And Identity In The Best We Could Do, Ellie Heslon

Student Scholar Symposium

Born in Vietnam in 1975, three months after the fall of Saigon and the establishment of the communist regime, Thi Bui experienced her first few years of life in a nation wrought with crisis and confusion. Bui’s graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, paints an intimate history of her family’s journey as refugees from Vietnam to America. She details a personal record of the traumas of displacement, concretizing a biproduct of war often overgeneralized. Through shape and color, Bui portrays a non-linear narrative of stories that are both connected and disconnected, blending where identity and heritage begin and end. …

Improving Palliative Care Knowledge And Intentions Among Great Plains American Indians: Efficacy Results From A Randomized Clinical Trial Testing A Culture-Centric Palliative Care Message, Mary J. Isaacson, Kah Meng (Charlie) Soh, Christopher S. Wichman, Gina Johnson, Kelly Le Beaux, Semhar Michael, Lisa Sparks, Karla M. Hunter

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Background

Methods

Results

Improving Palliative Care Knowledge And Intentions Among Great Plains American Indians: Efficacy Results From A Randomized Clinical Trial Testing A Culture-Centric Palliative Care Message, Mary J. Isaacson, Kah Meng (Charlie) Soh, Christopher S. Wichman, Gina Johnson, Kelly Le Beaux, Semhar Michael, Lisa Sparks, Karla M. Hunter

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Background

Methods

Results

“I Found My Place:” Exploring The Counterspace Experiences Of Black Alumni On Historically White College Campuses, Jacquelyn Burns Rucker

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored the life experiences of Black alumni and their participation in intentional, multicultural programming of cultural facilities to create a sense of counterspace for Black students on historically White college campuses. The study captured the stories of 12 Black alumni who graduated from seven historically White institutions (HWIs), between the years of 2010 and 2016, across four different states. The 12 study participants completed undergraduate and terminal degrees during the years 2009 - 2016 and identified as Black, African, or bi-racial. The interviews, conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic, were conducted on zoom. The theoretical framework of the …

Israeli Hasbara And The Nba’S Palestine Exception: The Impossibility Of Capitalist “Social Justice”, Chen Chen, Anthony J. Weems, Roc Rochon, Daniel Sailofsky

Sport Management Collection

Sport is a notable site for the Israeli state in its hasbara (public diplomacy, or “explaining”) effort that seeks to normalize the conditions of ethnic cleansing, illegal settlement, and apartheid practices in historic and occupied Palestine. Against the backdrop of the genocide in Gaza and the lack of international sport sanctions against Israeli teams, this paper maps several hasbara activities/attempts featuring the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the last decade. This is a worthwhile case, not least because of the NBA’s self-branding as a socially “progressive” league composed of a primarily Black/African American athletic workforce. Two major observations are made: …

Confronting Settler Colonialism Through Indigenous Feminism: The Structural Roots Of Mmiw, Miah Schiavi-Munoz

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S) across the United States and Canada represents a manifestation of ongoing settler colonial violence. This paper examines the MMIW crisis through the frameworks of settler colonial theory and Indigenous feminist scholarship, arguing that contemporary patterns of disappearance, assault, and murder are structural outcomes of colonial law, governance, and heteropatriarchal control. Drawing on historical analysis, legal critique, and participant observation from the 2025 MMIP Training Conference in Monterey, California, this study traces how the settler colonial logic of elimination operates through jurisdictional fragmentation, bureaucratic neglect, data erasure, resource …

Mountain Communities During A Time Of War: A Case Study Of The Hutsul Region In The Carpathian Mountains Of Ukraine, Pavlo Rybaruk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the ethno-ecological technologies employed by the Hutsul people within the highland agrarian economy of the Carpathian Mountains. Over centuries, the Hutsuls have developed ethno-ecological technologies that maintain ecological integrity while supporting community livelihoods.

The study addresses three primary research questions: What are the most important ethno-ecological technologies of the Hutsul highland economy? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be applied to economic, agricultural, and tourism development in the Hutsul region? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be combined with contemporary approaches to encourage sustainable development in the region?

The research explores the devastating impact of the Russian …

Assembling Diasporic Faith Amidst China’S Rise: (De)Territorialization And The Multi-Scalar Production Of The Guangze Zunwang Cult In The Chinese Diaspora, Ningning Chen, Orlando Woods

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Faith in the Chinese diaspora has become increasingly vibrant in the context of China’s rise as a global power. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research exploring the temple networks of the Guangze Zunwang cult, this paper advances an assemblage approach to understanding diasporic faith and investigating its multi-scalar becoming by exploring three areas of inquiry. The first investigates the evolving development of the Guangze Zunwang cult and its formation into a faith assemblage based on temple alliances, which bring people, deities, institutions, places and material objects together across (national) borders. The second explores the multi-scalar becoming in which faith assemblages are …

Un-Tempering The Tempered Radical: A Phenomenological Study Of Black Female Superintendents In Neoliberal Education Systems, Melanie Fitzgerald Daniel

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The persistent and severe underrepresentation of Black women in K-12 educational leadership (just 1.4% of superintendencies) is a critical manifestation of Epistemic Injustice (Fricker, 2007) and the Architecture of Hostility. Dominant managerial paradigms in education structurally suppress the voices and devalue the expertise of Black women, leading to both testimonial injustice (credibility deficits) and hermeneutical injustice (misinterpretation of experience). This context forces them to pursue advancement within systems fundamentally structured to exclude them. This phenomenological study utilizes a nested theoretical framework, comprising Neoliberalism (macro-context), Epistemic Injustice (meso-critique), and Tempered Radicalism (Meyerson & Scully, 1995; Ngunjiri, 2012) (micro-agency), to illuminate the …

The Paradox Of Discipline: Equity, Standardization, And Black Student Outcomes In Public Schools, Latricia T. Davenport

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Despite efforts to address profound discipline disparities impacting Black students, the implementation of alternative disciplinary approaches like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and Restorative Justice (RJ) has failed to eliminate significant disproportionality in school discipline. This study investigates how teachers navigate the challenges of disciplining Black students within a paradoxical school environment that juxtaposes equitable, human-centered methods with a historically rooted managerial paradigm emphasizing uniformity and zero tolerance. Drawing upon systemic racism and the concept of 'apprenticeship of observation,' this study explores how teachers' implicit biases about Black students are formed by long-held institutional norms and personal experiences. It …

Reflections In The Mirror: An Examination Of Racially Congruent Mentoring Of Black Teacher Candidates In A Teacher Education Program, Mary Louise Gregory

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The high demand for Black educators in K-12 schools across the United States has caused several teacher training programs to rethink how they prepare Black teacher candidates for the teaching workforce (Andrews et al., 2019; Blazar, 2024; Milner & Howard, 2004). Improving teacher candidate training, especially for Black teacher candidates can boost K-12 Black teacher representation. Literature on Black teacher candidate’s experiences while being mentored identifies several challenges that include issues with implicit bias, microaggressions, stereotyping and other occurrences of racial discrimination (Daly et al., 2024; Hampton et al., 2008; Kardos & Johnson-Moore, 2010; Rodriguez et al., 2020). The process …

John Henryism And The African American Experience: An Exploration Of Risk And Protective Factors And Health Outcomes, Joseph L. Twitdy

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Racial discrimination has been tied to adverse mental and physical health outcomes among African Americans. In the face of this adversity, African Americans have developed strategies for coping with everyday experiences of discrimination. One such coping method is based on the concept of John Henryism. The folktale of John Henry tells the story of an African American steel-driver racing against a steam-powered drill to clear a path for trains through a mountain. Although John Henry wins the race, he later dies due to exhaustion, ultimately passing with his hammer in his hand. The psychological concept of John Henryism (JH) refers …

Review Of Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements In The United States By Rafael Martínez, 2024, Gabrielle Cabrera

Regeneración: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal

Review of Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States by Rafael Martínez, 2024 by Gabrielle Cabrera.

A Plática With Jimmy Santiago Baca, Nick Daniel Rivas

Regeneración: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal

A Plática with Jimmy Santiago Baca, interview by Nick Daniel Rivas.

Transnational Networks Of Film Repetitions In East Asia : Proliferation And Limitations, Roman Kusaiko

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

A growing number of contemporary film critics, influencers, and audiences criticize film remaking, a tested and successful Hollywood practice. The main complaints are a lack of originality, overreliance on repeated titles, and an openly commercial nature. Despite criticism, film remakes have existed for decades and are a vivid and resilient form of recycling under new cultural and geopolitical circumstances. Contemporary film remaking reflects the impacts of globalization, transnationalization, and the rapid development of new media and digitalization.

Nevertheless, there is a tendency to theorize on film remaking, often relying on the dichotomy of the source and a remake or, less …