Digital Commons Network^™

Burning Out: A Narrative Exploration Of The Adaptive Challenge And Scaffolds Built Toward Sustenance Among Immigrant Rights Activists In San Diego County, Anna C. Runion

Dissertations

Activist burnout has been identified as one of the greatest threats to social movement sustainability, and the lived experience of paid immigrant rights activists remains undertheorized. This narrative inquiry explored activist burnout among 10 San Diego County immigrant rights activists, revealing how this community understands burnout, what factors contribute to its production, and how activists sustain themselves within it. Using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) narrative inquiry methodology, the researcher conducted in-depth individual interviews with ten activists representing a range of intersectional identities and roles. Narrative profiles were analyzed through holistic narrative reading, narrative reporting, structural and emergent coding, and cross-narrative …

Tùn-Scene And A-Futurism: Biomythography, Opacity, And Posthuman Imagination, Minglu Du

Masters Theses

Grounded in the author’s position as a Chinese feminist, this thesis examines how East Asian women, as well as East Asian-coded femininity more broadly, are objectified and othered within futurist visual culture in the age of artificial intelligence. Through an engagement with ornamentalism, techno-Orientalism, and posthumanism1 , it argues that the persistent figure of the feminized humanoid cyborg continues to reproduce colonial and patriarchal structures of desire, rendering marginalized bodies as fetishized and violable surfaces. In response, the thesis develops Tùn-Scene, a biomythographic artistic framework and the first experiment in what the author provisionally names A-Futurism. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s …

Numb., Anna Rapson

Masters Theses

Social media platforms, from their conception, posed a break in the lived experience of the average human being’s day to day routines. Although access to information has always been shaped by portals into other lived realities—through photojournalism, print legacy media, news broadcasts both on radio and television—social media has posited a novel phenomenological architecture where borders between embodied reality and perception of lived experience are simultaneously blurred and reinforced. This morphed duality of consciousness positions the body and mind in tension, deconstructing pre-social media conceptions of the ontology of lived experience. In a digital world shaped by limitless input by …

Domestic Travelers: Transparent Machines, Hollow Bodies, Hanyi Wang

Masters Theses

Digitization is not a modern invention. Derived from the concept of fingers, this mindset of packing information into quantifiable, interchangeable units sounds mechanical, yet eerily physical. Try to imagine: a ghostly hand with millions of fingers with the same length, likeness, and function. Under the worldview of Digital Narrative, we live in a digital simulation: everything is representable with quantifiable units, fluid across media. Yet under this spectacle of convenient abundance, something is missing. The Unknowables are replaced with arbitrary symbols, while the Uncategorizables are omitted. This is a framework that cannot accommodate human subtleties and complexities. One needs to …

I Believe, Rusudan Dushuashvili

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how products become believable and desirable through the stories that surround them, and how design enables the continuous cycle of desire that defines consumption. Drawing on  the underlying structures of myth-making, identity, and belonging that allow consumer culture to function, it argues that consumer culture operates through the same instruments older systems of belief have always used — narrative, ritual, sacred objects, and shared language — and that design is what makes the story stick to the object.

“I Believe” is an archive of objects collected from contemporary consumer culture. Half are products found in the marketplace; …

Rainbow Promises, Uneven Promises: Framing Lgbtqia+ Educational Policy And Possibility In Education, Gerardo Lorenzo-Saucedo

Dissertations

Despite the expansion of LGBTQIA+ inclusive policies in K-12 education, disparities in students’ experiences with safety and belonging persist. This qualitative case study examines how such policies are interpreted and enacted within a high school and district in Southern California, and how these processes shape LGBTQIA+ students’ experiences.

Guided by ecological systems theory, queer theory, and multiple streams theory, this study conceptualizes policy implementation as a dynamic and socially constructed process influenced by power, ideology, and institutional context. Data were collected through interviews, document and artifact analysis, and observations, with analysis that used a multi-phased coding procedure.

Findings revealed that …

The Body Has Its Own Time, Wen Zhang

Masters Theses

In embodied practice, the artist’s experience and body become the medium through which thought and expression take form, not as illustration, but as primary material. Performance art has long occupied an unstable position within contemporary art: celebrated in retrospect, underfunded in practice, and selectively institutionalized. Its marginality has never been evenly distributed. Certain bodies, female, racialized, aging, non-normative, have remained further outside the archive than others, their work harder to collect, harder to value, and easier to forget. To work in performance, particularly as a woman, is to work within that contradiction.

For me, performance is less a form than …

Material Costs, Karima Weinman

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how migration fatality and disappearance data can be reinterpreted through material craft to create a more reflective encounter with information. Working with the Missing Migrants Project's dataset, this project asks how design can communicate dimensions of human loss that conventional data visualization cannot reach.

The work situates contemporary border violence within a longer colonial history, arguing that the logics of surveillance and quantification that structured European imperial expansion persist in the databases that govern mobility in the Mediterranean today.

Terrazzo is a 15th-century Venetian flooring technique built from discarded fragments bound together into a unified surface. This …

Hidden Systems, Samuel Choi

Masters Theses

Across buildings and cities, moisture is managed, concealed, and discharged through convoluted systems of containment. Still, water ultimately resists this framework. It reveals itself as leaks, puddles, condensation—moments typically understood as technical failure. Hidden Systems reframes these conditions as architectural knowledge, one that becomes evidence of water’s material capacity, limits of infrastructure, and a record of time.

NYC is constructed on, powered by, and profiting from water. Although it hosts a robust network, seepages disrupt control, allowing systems to be traced across scales. As pipes expand, contract, and freeze, the project unfolds seasonally, moving through water’s three states: solid, liquid, …

Just Between Us (And Everyone We Tell...), Deborah Khodanovich

Masters Theses

Graphic designers are often obsessed with a broader public. The desire to be seen, to be heard, to have our work reach the broadest audience possible—these are goals deeply ingrained in our discipline. But why? Just Between Us (and everyone we tell…) challenges us to abandon this fixation, proposing instead that graphic design should concern itself with the private—the intimate, the local, the unseen.

This is where gossip comes in. Gossip is the language of the invisible, a form of sharing, and a means of knowledge-production and preservation that has historically been dismissed as frivolous, immoral, and—most egregious of all—associated …

The Educational Gender Gap Explored Through The Lens Of Hegemonic Masculinity, Marcell V. Csikos

University Honors Theses

Women's college attendance skyrocketed with the passing of Title IX, and by the eighties, college campuses featured men and women at an even fifty-fifty split. Today, women make up over fifty-seven percent of college students. It is not a new phenomenon, studies and surveys have shown that women are doing better at school for decades, but they rarely tie men's underperformance to the concept of masculinity. The study of hegemonic masculinity is an overarching theory that looks at the values, rules, and dynamics that men have to follow in order to keep their social status. This literature review uses said …

Tuning The Neighborhood: Purifying People, Places, And Environments In Suburban Kolkata, Sourav Saha

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In modern science, disciplines such as physics, mechanical and civil engineering, seismology, and acoustics have conceptualized vibration as a quantifiable mechanical phenomenon, measured through the metrics of frequency, amplitude, and resonance. In contrast, scholarship in anthropology, musicology, and sound studies has approached vibration as a socio-historical, cultural, and political phenomenon. This article examines how vibration (spandan) operates as a metaphysical, sensory, and ethico-affective force that mediates relations among people, places, and environments. Focusing on the practice of satsang adhibesan (devotional congregation), the article demonstrates how members of the Deoghar-Satsang community participate in sonic rituals of prayer, silent chanting, meditation, sacred …

The Autonomy Plan In Morocco: Legal Foundations, Political Dimensions And Prospects For Resolving The Sahara Conflict, Limam Boussif, Jalila Ait Soudane

Journal of Maya Heritage

Summary: The territorial conflict over the Sahara is one of the most enduring territorial disputes in international relations, involving issues of sovereignty, self-determination, and regional stability. In this context, Morocco’s 2007 Autonomy Plan is presented as a negotiated framework of self-government under Moroccan sovereignty.

This article analyzes the evolution and consolidation of the Autonomy Plan using a conceptual approach based on self-determination, territorial governance, and conflict resolution theories. It shows that the initiative has progressively evolved from a national proposal into an internationally recognized framework, particularly through growing diplomatic support and developments within the United Nations Security Council, including Resolution …

Les Grands Chantiers De La Transition Énergétique Au Maroc: Le Cas De Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Entre Réalisations, Facteurs De Réussite Et Perspectives, Limam Boussif, Jalila Ait Soudane

Journal of Maya Heritage

Résumé: Cet article examine la dynamique de la transition énergétique au Maroc à travers une analyse descriptive et analytique du cas de Dakhla-Oued Eddahab. Dans un contexte marqué par l’accélération des politiques de décarbonation à l’échelle mondiale, le Maroc s’impose comme un acteur stratégique en matière de développement des énergies renouvelables et de l’hydrogène vert. L’étude met en lumière les principaux chantiers structurants engagés dans la région de Dakhla, notamment le développement des énergies éolienne et solaire, les projets de production d’hydrogène vert, le dessalement de l’eau de mer, ainsi que la réalisation du port Dakhla Atlantique. L’analyse montre que …

Adapting And Promoting Tourism For Children In Venice And The Lagoon Islands: A Comparative Analysis Of Food-Related Discourse Strategies In English And In Italian, Daniela Cesiri Prof.

International Journal of Islands Research

According to the latest available version of the Annual Tourism Survey drafted by the City of Venice, in 2023, 12,628,079 tourists visited Venice and the Lagoon Islands (Bettiol & Marini, 2025). This survey does not provide data on the age groups of these visitors, but they are available in the previous version of the same Survey (Bianchetto & Marini, 2022), which reports that 29% of tourists were in the 46-71 age group. Therefore, we can presume that, excluding the older age groups, quite a large proportion of visitors is likely composed of young tourists and families with children. This study …

Book Review: Through The Brazilian Streets: The Migration Of East African Athletes To Brazil, Joao Paulo Melleiro Malagutti, Fernando Augusto Starepravo

Journal of Global South Sport Studies

This review examines the book Through the Brazilian Streets: The Migration of East African Athletes to Brazil (Rojo, 2024), which analyzes the migratory processes of African road-running athletes competing in Brazilian races. Situated within the field of the Sociology of Sport, the book combines theoretical discussion on globalization and migration with empirical research based on interviews and documentary sources. The review highlights the analytical framework proposed by the author, which examines sports migration through cultural, political, economic, and personal dimensions. Particular attention is given to the study’s focus on migration flows between regions of the Global South, a perspective that …

A Qualitative Study Into The Impact Of Sweeps On Homeless-Serving Mutual Aid Groups In Portland, Or, Clover Javurek-Humig

Dissertations and Theses

Sweeps and land use enforcement are among the most persistent issues impacting unhoused communities. Mutual aid groups in Portland network with unhoused people regularly to mitigate the impacts of sweeps, provide direct aid, and build social capital among encampments. This study aims to understand the impact of policing and sweeps on mutual aid groups working with unhoused communities in Portland, OR. I conducted 18 interviews with mutual aid organizers and 8 months of fieldwork with mutual aid groups in Portland, OR in the years of 2025–2026. Transcripts were analyzed using a general inductive approach. This study finds that 1) Mutual …

Shoplifting: Analyzing Spatial And Temporal Patterns, Elizabeth Petrenko

Dissertations and Theses

Shoplifting has contributed to significant losses in Oregon, reaching nearly $956 million in 2022. While overall property crime in Portland, Oregon, dropped between 2023 and 2024, reported shoplifting incidents increased by 50.0%. In Oregon, stealing property worth $100 or less is third-degree theft and a Class C misdemeanor. Second-degree theft involving stealing property between $100 and $1,000 is a Class A misdemeanor. Although often classified as petty or minor theft, shoplifting imposes strain on retailers, consumers, and communities, which raises questions about the spatial and temporal distribution of this crime. This study uses Portland Police Bureau (PPB) offense data to …

Flowing Borders: U.S. Border Externalization In Latin America And The Los Angeles Declaration On Migration And Protection, Magdalena Olvera Hernandez

Master's Theses

In recent years, Latin America has emerged as a central transit region for extracontinental migrants originating from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East who seek to reach North America through alternative routes. This thesis examines the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, among other regional migration governance frameworks that have reshaped migratory flows, state responsibilities, and protection outcomes in the Western Hemisphere. Focusing on the Darién Gap as a strategic chokepoint, the study analyzes the effects of coordinated migration policies, border externalization, and differentiated state roles on extracontinental mobility.

Drawing on official migration statistics from Panama, the United States, …

Justice By Geography: District-Level Variation In Pretrial Release Outcomes Across Oregon, Ethan Loomis

Dissertations and Theses

AbstractOregon’s pretrial system operates under a common statewide legal framework, yet detention and release outcomes do not appear fully consistent across jurisdictions. Earlier research on pretrial decision-making has largely focused on judicial discretion, individual-level legal factors, and the use of risk assessment tools, while giving less attention to the district-level environments in which those decisions are made. This study examines whether variation in institutional capacity, political context, demographic composition, and socioeconomic conditions corresponds with differences in pretrial outcomes across Oregon’s circuit court districts.

The study draws from focal concerns theory, racial threat perspectives, and organizational approaches to court decision-making. Rather …

Community-Based Participatory Research In Developing Online Nutrition Tools: A Pathway To Relevance And Engagement, Laura Justice, Stacy Phillips

EFNEP

This article explains how Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) can strengthen the design of digital nutrition tools by ensuring they are culturally relevant, accessible, and grounded in community needs. By engaging participants as equal partners, CBPR enhances trust, usability, and long-term impact. The approach aligns with EFNEP’s mission to deliver inclusive, community-driven nutrition education and provides a framework for developing sustainable, adaptable tools that reflect the lived experiences of the families Extension serves.

Who Gets To Be Taken Seriously? Three Atypical Scholars Navigate Doctoral Education At The Intersections Of Race, Neurodivergence, And Veteran Identity, Sr. Richard De La Garza

Dissertations

As a first-generation, neurodivergent, Mexican American/Chicano veteran, I entered the University of San Diego's doctoral program having had experiences that most institutional intake processes would label as risk factors. The Findings chapter of this dissertation begins by describing those experiences—not as a confession, but as the foundation for a systematic inquiry into how doctoral legitimacy is produced, withheld, and defended. The description of my life experiences is followed by a discussion of the doctoral journeys of two other study participants who also were atypical doctoral candidates.

The central argument being advanced is this: What higher education calls "fit," "rigor," and …

“Being Comrades And Friends”: Friendship Networks Of Activists In College, Lance Paul L. Sunga

Sociology Undergraduate Senior Theses

Friendship is often thought of as a byproduct of activism. People naturally get close and form bonds as they become involved and participate in collective action with others. While scholars have focused on how social networks influence mobilization, there has been a lack of research on the other direction of this relationship, the already commonly held assumption. Using the case of student networks at a liberal arts college, this leads to the following questions: “To what extent do variations in social movement mobilization explain patterns and outcomes of friendship network types? How does activism impact a respondent’s understanding of friendship …

Research Progress And Think Tank Contributions To Regional Coordinate Development, Major Function Zoning Strategy, And Modern Spatial Governance—Based On Review And Analysis Of Contributions By Fan Jie’S Team In Bulletin Of Chinese Academy Of Sciences, Jie Fan, Jian Gao, Kan Zhou, Gan Li

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Based on the think tank research published by Fan Jie’s team in Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences, this study reviews the progress of human geography in the fields of regional coordinate development, major function zoning strategy, and the spatial governance system. Furthermore, it focuses on reviewing the think tank contributions that serve the need of major national strategic decision-making. Think tank contributions include the followings. (1) Through continuous engagement in major preliminary research for national Five-Year Plans, the team has established a prominent think tank brand for the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This brand focuses on regional coordinate development …

Dialogue Between Mind And Algorithm: Deep Symbiosis Of Psychology And Artificial Intelligence, Xiaolan Fu, Zheng Yan

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves from a supportive tool into a collaborative partner, the convergence of psychology and AI is gradually shifting from one-way application toward deep symbiosis. This study discusses the mutual empowerment resulting from their interaction, as well as the challenges they face and potential pathways to breakthroughs. On the one hand, psychology empowers AI by enhancing its human-like intelligence and social adaptability through cognitive modeling and ethical constraints; on the other hand, AI empowers psychology by leveraging multimodal data and algorithmic models to revolutionize psychological assessment and intervention methods. This deep symbiosis requires a clear-eyed acknowledgment of …

Functional And Structural Lesion Network Mapping: Insights Into Acquired Brain Injury And Insomnia, Kathleen Erekson Rugh

Theses and Dissertations

Insomnia disorder is the most reported sleep disorder and can negatively affect daily functioning. Acquired brain injuries can lead to insomnia disorder. Limited research has explored a causal link between brain networks and insomnia symptoms in this population. This study replicated a lesion network mapping methodology of an insomnia study (Helquist et al., 2024) and extended it to examine structural networks linked to insomnia symptoms in individuals with acquired brain injuries. Traced lesions (N =44) were used as seed regions to compare against normative functional and structural network data. For functional analyses, we used resting state fMRI scans from a …

Baseline Moderators Of A Transdiagnostic Adolescent Sleep And Circadian Health Intervention's Effectiveness At Improving Circadian Sleep Health: A Pilot Investigation, Jamon M. Jex

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined whether baseline demographic and clinical characteristics moderate the effectiveness of the Transdiagnostic Sleep and Circadian (TSC) intervention in improving adolescent circadian sleep health. Using an integrative data analysis approach, data from three independent adolescent samples (N = 134; ages 10-18) were pooled to evaluate changes across multidimensional sleep outcomes defined by the RU-SATED model of sleep, including regularity, satisfaction, alertness, timing, efficiency, and duration. Linear mixed-effects models were used to assess pre-to-post intervention changes and test moderation by age, sex, family income, and clinical status. Results indicated significant improvements in sleep satisfaction following TSC, with greater …

Health-Seeking Behaviors Of Ethiopian Women In The United States: A Pilot Qualitative Study, Hanna Belay, Felicia Leammuda, Ahmed Ugbad, Beamlak Kebede

InnovateHER Meeting 2026

This study explores how Ethiopian immigrant women understand health and navigate healthcare in the United States. Using qualitative interviews with two participants, findings show that health is viewed holistically, with strong reliance on traditional remedies. Participants engage with the U.S. healthcare system selectively, often seeking care only when symptoms become severe. Barriers such as system complexity, fear, and time delays influence healthcare decisions.

Awareness And Attitudes Toward Female Genital Mutilation At A Mid-Sized Midwestern University, Kaafiya Salad

InnovateHER Meeting 2026

This study utilized a confidential survey to examine awareness, knowledge, and attitudes toward Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) among the Saint Cloud State University community. Participants were recruited through campus outreach methods, and responses were collected voluntarily. The survey included questions assessing familiarity with FGM, sources of information, knowledge of associated health risks, and perceptions of the importance of awareness and public education.

From Service To Purpose: Helping Students See Civic Engagement As A Path Forward, Anna Spethman

Presentations

What’s one experience that shaped your career—but didn’t come from a formal job?

Civic engagement offers students more than an opportunity to serve.  It can build skills, confidence, connections, and pathways to meaningful careers.  Yet students do not always recognize or articulate the value of these experiences. This interactive session explores practical strategies for helping student connect service to career readiness and community impact through intentional reflection, skill identification, and storytelling.  Participants will leave with approaches they can use to help students move from service, to purpose, to pathway.