Digital Commons Network^™

Most Vulgar And Barbarous: A History Of Tattoo Stigma, Sophie Luzier

Young Historians Conference

For thousands of years, tattoos have been used cross-culturally for purposes ranging from religious affiliation to ritual. Still, many societies today associate tattoos with deviance and criminality, making it difficult for tattooed people to find employment and acceptance within society. This negative stigma can be traced all the way back to Ancient Greece, when tattoos were used to mark slaves and prisoners of war. Other examples are given from Dynastic China, Japan, the American circus, and the Holocaust. This examination of tattoo stigma throughout history exposes larger patterns of racism, hegemony, and ostracism, and gives us an awareness of social …

Death And Vengeance Behind Every Corner: The Great Purge And The Psychology Of Joseph Stalin, Isabella Gurin

Young Historians Conference

Under Joseph Stalin’s rule of the Soviet Union, the Purges, or “repressions” as they are now known in Russia, led to the direct and indirect deaths of an estimated twenty million people through starvation, executions, and forced labor camps. As the uncontested dictator of the Soviet Union for nearly twenty-five years, Stalin made no attempt to gain popular support among his nation but enforced his interpretation of communist-socialist rule by means of unremitting oppression and terror. Why did he utilize such vindictive measures? Was it his absolute aversion to any authority and ruthless insistence on total control at all times? …

Reduced Fire Severity Offers Near-Term Buffer To Climate-Driven Declines In Conifer Resilience Across The Western United States, Kimberly T. Davis, Marcos D. Robles, Kerry B. Kemp, Teresa Chapman, Philip E. Higuera, Kerry L. Metlen, Jamie L. Peeler, Andres Holz, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Increasing fire severity and warmer, drier postfire conditions are making forests in the western United States (West) vulnerable to ecological transformation. Yet, the relative importance of and interactions between these drivers of forest change remain unresolved, particularly over upcoming decades. Here, we assess how the interactive impacts of changing climate and wildfire activity influenced conifer regeneration after 334 wildfires, using a dataset of postfire conifer regeneration from 10,230 field plots. Our findings highlight declining regeneration capacity across the West over the past four decades for the eight dominant conifer species studied. Postfire regeneration is sensitive to high-severity fire, which limits …

Raps Sheet, April 2023, Retirement Association Of Portland State

RAPS Sheet: Monthly Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Kurdish Filmmaking In Turkey: History And Narratives, Omar Sadik

Dissertations and Theses

This research investigates the history and politics of cultural production by examining Kurdish filmmaking in Turkey. Sadik provide an analysis of contemporary films and filmmakers to explore how Kurdish cinema in Turkey is situated in broader, global political-economic structures. By examining this important case through the lens of history and memory, Sadik clarify how production and aesthetics in Kurdish cinema point to important systemic processes. Sadik uses three main research strategies in this study: a historical survey of Kurds in Turkey, an analysis of ten semi-structured interviews with contemporary Kurdish directors and an analysis of films directed by Kurdish filmmakers …

Plantation Pasts, Plantation Futures: Resisting Zombie Water Infrastructures In Maui, Hawai'i, Kelly Kay, Chris Knudson, Alida Cantor

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Sugar plantations have fundamentally shaped water use in Maui, Hawai’i for over 100 years, with tremendous resulting impacts on ecosystems and Native Hawaiian communities. In this paper, we build on literature on the plantationocene and the political lives of infrastructure to examine plantation irrigation infrastructure. We center Maui’s vast water conveyance ditch system as a means of understanding how infrastructure continues plantation logics into the present, considering both the physical ditches themselves as well as the laws and politics which support continued water extraction. We also consider infrastructural futures, highlighting ongoing efforts of communities seeking water justice via infrastructural control.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet March 2023, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The March 6, 2023 Monthly packet includes the March agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held February 6, 2023.

Nationalist And Non-Nationalist Christianity In The United States, Aaron Epperson

University Honors Theses

Christian nationalism has broken into the American news cycle over the last few years through its connection to former President Donald Trump, and it's closely associated with violent events like the January 6th insurrection and the Charlottesville, VA, Unite the Right rally. However, its close association with Trump and depiction in a 24-hour news cycle makes defining what Christian nationalism is--and is not--difficult for those unfamiliar with nationalism and the broader American Christian tradition. This paper hopes to briefly explore what Christian nationalism is within the United States through an exploration of nationalism itself and a discussion of nationalist and …

A Habitat Stronghold On The Precipice: A Call‐To‐Action For Supporting Lemur Conservation In Northeast Madagascar, Timothy M. Eppley, Cortni Borgerson, Natalie Vasey, Multiple Additional Authors

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The northeast of Madagascar is as diverse as it is threatened. The area bordering the Analanjirofo and SAVA regions contains six protected areas and at least 22 lemur species. Many applied research and conservation programs have been established in the region with the aim of ensuring both wildlife and people thrive in the long term. While most of the remaining humid evergreen forest of northeast Madagascar is formally protected, the local human population depends heavily on the land, and unsustainable natural resource use threatens this biodiversity hotspot. Drawing from our collective experiences managing conservation activities and research programs in northeast …

Legal Geographies, Caroline Griffith, Sarah Klosterkamp, Alida Cantor, Austin Kocher

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

This encyclopedia entry defines and discusses legal geography. Legal geography is an interdisciplinary area of scholarship that focuses on the intersections and co-constitution between law and space and place: that is, how law and legal processes produce space/place, and how particular places in turn influence law. Rather than thinking of law as an abstract, universal, a-spatial set of rules, legal geography examines the ways in which law is situated in place, and how places are shaped by legal practices and processes.

Exploring The Impact Of Interpersonal Trust On Health Outcomes In Rapidly Gentrifying Neighborhoods In Portland, Oregon, Julie T. Ha

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Social determinants have been recognized to be significant factors contributing to the overall health outcomes of individuals. However, there is limited research on how these factors have directly impacted the mental and physical wellness of people in neighborhoods that are experiencing rapid gentrification. The objective of this study is to determine whether the present level of interpersonal trust between individuals in neighborhoods is associated with the mental and physical health outcomes among its residents. This quantitative study uses the Albina-Rockwood Neighborhood Promise Survey, which uses data from a random sample of families living in two rapidly gentrified neighborhoods in Portland, …

A Case Study Of Mexican Immigrant Parents' Involvement In Their Children's Education, Evelia Vega

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this phenomenological case study is to explore the misconception that is occurring in schools today about Mexican Immigrant parents' involvement. Using the Sociocultural and Funds of Knowledge theories to ground this study, I conducted in-depth phenomenological semi-structured interviews with six participants. The participants were Mexican Immigrant parents who resided in a specific Oregon county where their children attended school. They shared their perceptions and experiences about being involved in their children's education. The analysis led to three themes in the findings, which were: Perceptions, Culture, and Communication. The first theme provided a glimpse into the participants' lived …

A Collective Journey: Coalitional Critical Consciousness And Collaborative Methodologies In Bilingual Teacher Education, Rachel Snyder Bhansari

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article analyzes critical reflection groups held over the course of a year-long collaborative ethnography between me as researcher and five novice bilingual teachers. Drawing on feminist theories of emotion as knowledge, I argue that coalitional critical consciousness developed in our meetings through emotional expression and acknowledgment of identity in connection to systems of power. I also explore the affordances of collaborative methods in the formation of collective critique for practicing teachers.

“Why You Always So Political?”: A Counterstory About Educational-Environmental Racism At A Predominantly White University, Martín Alberto Gonzalez

Chicano/Latino Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using critical race counterstorytelling, I tell a story about the experiences of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx (MMAX) undergraduate students at private, historically and predominantly white university in the Northeast. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observations, pláticas, document analyses, and literature on race and space and racism in higher education, I argue that the racially hostile campus environment experienced by MMAX students at their respective university manifests itself as a form of educational-environmental racism. Through narrated dialogue, Aurora (a composite character) and I delve into a critical conversation about how educational-environmental racism is experienced by MMAX students through a racialized landscape in the …

Theorizing The Korean Wave| K(Q)Ueer-Pop For Another World: Toward A Theorization Of Gender And Sexuality In K-Pop, Jungmin Kwon

School of Film Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article argues that the K-pop space, which on one level appears to be homogeneously cishetpatriarchal, actually encompasses multiple configurations of gender and sexual identity. Nonetheless, academic discussions about gender and sexuality in K-pop have been significantly weighted toward the idea of “soft masculinity” regarding male performers, thereby muffling other possible interpretations. I suggest a new term, K(Q)ueerness. It means the aesthetics, imaginations, practices, performances, and ideas of K-pop players sublate binaristic identifications, including masculinity and femininity and heterosexual and homosexual—as well as Butler’s distinction between performance and performativity—to embrace the multifarious expressions of gender and sexuality surrounding K-pop. This …

Contextualizing Patterns In Short-Term Disaster Recoveries From The 2015 Nepal Earthquakes: Household Vulnerabilities, Adaptive Capacities, And Change, Jeremy Spoon, Drew Gerkey, Alisa Rai

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Disaster recovery is multidimensional and requires theoretical and methodological approaches from the interdisciplinary social sciences to illustrate short- and long-term recovery dynamics that can guide more informed and equitable policy and interventions. The 2015 Nepal earthquakes have had catastrophic impacts on historically marginalized ethnic groups and Indigenous households in rural locations, arising in the immediate aftermath and unfolding for years afterward. Analyzing factors that shape household recovery patterns can help identify vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities in addition to signaling potential future changes. We pursue this goal using survey data from 400 randomly selected households in 4 communities over 2 10-week …

Educational Myths Of An American Empire: Colonial Narratives And The Meriam Report, Madhu Narayanan

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Meriam Report is a remarkable historical artifact of the United States' colonial project. The idea of a stronger nation through education embodied in the report betrays the report's imperial core. The report's authors express moral outrage at the failure of the United States to respect the human dignity of Native Americans. To absolve these failures, the report repeatedly looks to education as the way forward. My interest is in the discursive construction of that argument, specifically how new discourses of progress, scientific management, and modern administrative principles were used to justify expansion of the federal government and solidify the …

#Blackatcmo: Challenging Charter Schools Through Youth Instagram Counterstories, Madhu Narayanan, Matthew Mccluskey

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

As protests flared in 2020, Black students took to Instagram to voice their experiences at ‘no-excuses’ Charter Management Organizations (CMOs). Such schools have presented a discourse of high achievement and social justice. Yet, in the span of a few weeks, hundreds of posts on Instagram offered rarely heard counter-narratives of the experience of being a student of Color at such schools. This paper analyzes how social media posts combine online discourse and youth culture to provide insight into the racialized experience of schooling. We show how these posts created distinct visual signatures, co-opted the well-crafted narratives of CMOs, and took …

Scientology's Faq: Sciencing, Tech-Romancing, Simulacra, & Simulation An Estranged Content Analysis, David Scott Morrill

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines how the practice of sciencing, tech-romancing, simulacra, and simulation manifests in both the text and symbols used on audiences of the Church of Scientology’s outreach materials. It specifically examines its official FAQ page. Self-framing was observed that satisfied the definition of sciencing and tech-romancing. Under an Estranged approach, Morrill examined selections of the Church’s FAQ pages, coding for instances of sciencing, tech-romancing, simulacra, and simulation. The data indicate that the Church frequently adopts simulacra and engages in simulation. The Church was seen frequently adopting technological and scientific symbols and jargon. The degree of sciencing, tech-romancing, simulacra, and …

Surveilling Threat: The Roles Of Ideology And Threat Perceptions In Support For Islamophobic Policy, Aeleah M. Granger, Kimberly B. Kahn, Joel S. Steele

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

After the attacks on 9/11, Muslims in the United States were the targets of increased surveillance by law enforcement on the basis of their religious identity, often resulting in mistreatment and unjustified imprisonment. The current study examined ideologies that are associated with Islamophobia and support for police surveillance of Muslims, as well as specific types of intergroup threat perceptions that mediate these relationships. Participants (N = 603) completed a survey measuring Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), Right-wing Authoritarianism (RWA), Nationalism, intergroup threat perceptions, Islamophobia, and support for an anti-Muslim police surveillance policy. Results demonstrated that higher levels of SDO, RWA, and …

Uncomfortable Yet Necessary: The Impact Of Ppe On Communication In Emergency Medicine, Jennifer Aengst, Grace A. Walker-Stevenson, Tabria Harrod, Jonathan Ivankovic, Jacob Neilson, Jeanne-Marie Guise

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: The efficacy of pre-hospital emergency services is heavily dependent on the effective communication of care providers. This effective communication occurs between providers as part of a team, but also among providers interacting with family members and patients. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced a number of communication challenges to emergency care, which are primarily linked to the increased use of PPE.

Methods: We sought to analyze the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on Emergency Medical Service (EMS) workers and pre-hospital care delivery. We conducted focus groups and one-on-one interviews with fire-EMS first responders between Sept 2021 and 2022. Interviews …

Reviving Knowledges Through Play And Resistance: The Case Of Navajo Conceptions Of Space, Daniel Ness, Richard D. Sawyer

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

The authors explore a possible cause of epistemicidal predispositions of the dominant Eurocentric curricula. They posit that one way to determine a plausible contributing factor of this increasing devastation is to consider epistemicide through the lens of intellectual development. To do this, the authors examine parallel patterns of behavior in the domains of developmental and cognitive psychology. The authors then discuss an alternative framework to the Western conception of space within formal K-12 education by presenting the Navajo conception of space and play. Throughout the paper, the authors argue that all students—and especially those living in poverty in commercially constructed, …

Challenging Epistemologies Of Objectivity Through Collaborative Pedagogy: Centering Identity, Power, Emotions, And Place In Teacher Education, Camille Ungco, Rachel S. Snyder Bhansari, Manka Varghese

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

In this essay, we discuss how we have attempted to counter the ongoing dominance and (re)inscription of White supremacist, ableist, and settler colonial ways of knowing and being within an elementary teacher education program (TEP) through a consideration of identity and power, emotions and place-based pedagogy. Our approaches indicate means for regenerating and expanding upon marginalized epistemologies in TEPs, challenging curricular epistemicide, while our stories also indicate that these approaches and related ways of knowing are intertwined with our own identities, histories and felt experiences as well as challenges to our enactment of this work.

Mobility Interrupted: A New Framework For Understanding Anti-Left Sentiment Among Brazil’S “Once-Rising Poor”, Benjamin Junge, Sean T. Mitchell, Charles H. Klein, Matthew Spearly

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

How do sequences of upward and downward socioeconomic mobility influence political views among those who have “risen” or “fallen” during periods of leftist governance? While existing studies identify a range of factors, long-term mobility trajectories have been largely unexplored. The question has particular salience in contemporary Brazil, where, after a decade of extraordinary poverty reduction on the watch of the leftist Workers’ Party (PT), a subsequent period of economic and political crises intensified anti-PT sentiment. This article uses original data from the 2016 Brazil’s Once-Rising Poor (BORP) Survey, using a 3-city sample of 822 poor and working-class Brazilians to analyze …

Reconstructing Culture: Seasonal Labour Migration And The Cultural Geographies Of Social Change In Rural Western India, Pronoy Rai

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper focuses on seasonal labour migration in rural India to examine how migrant returnees sought to reconstitute historical and hierarchical social relations in their home villages. I use qualitative research conducted in Maharashtra state in western India from 2014-15 among landowning farmers, landless returnees, and nonmigrant laborers. I demonstrate that for the returnees, an important element of social and cultural change in their home communities was their ability to upend and replace 'residual culture,' based on expectations of continued exploitation and performative hierarchy, with an 'emergent' one. I claim that the mechanics of counter-hegemony in rural Maharashtra includes a …

Factors Influencing Terrestriality In Primates Of The Americas And Madagascar, Timothy M. Eppley, Selwyn Hoeks, Colin A. Chapman, Joerg U. Ganzhorn, Katie Hall, Megan A. Owen, Dara B. Adams, Néstor Allgas, Multiple Additional Authors

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Among mammals, the order Primates is exceptional in having a high taxonomic richness in which the taxa are arboreal, semiterrestrial, or terrestrial. Although habitual terrestriality is pervasive among the apes and African and Asian monkeys (catarrhines), it is largely absent among monkeys of the Americas (platyrrhines), as well as galagos, lemurs, and lorises (strepsirrhines), which are mostly arboreal. Numerous ecological drivers and species-specific factors are suggested to set the conditions for an evolutionary shift from arboreality to terrestriality, and current environmental conditions may provide analogous scenarios to those transitional periods. Therefore, we investigated predominantly arboreal, diurnal primate genera from the …

An Experimental Study Of Norton And Thule Cooking Pot Performance, Caelie Marshall Butler

Dissertations and Theses

Ceramic technology was adopted by hunter-gatherers of the Paleo-Inuit Norton tradition in the Western Arctic between 2800 and 2500 years B.P., corresponding with an increase in the use of aquatic resources. Pottery production and use continued until approximately 1,500 BP, and resumed during the Neo-Inuit Birnirk and Thule periods, approximately 1,350 years BP. The technical characteristics of Norton and Thule ceramics suggest they performed differently when used for cooking, with Norton ceramics best suited for cooking using direct or suspended heat, and Thule ceramics best suited for indirect heat. Prior experimental archaeological research has focused on Thule ceramics, with limited …

Issues With Variability In Electronic Health Record Data About Race And Ethnicity: Descriptive Analysis Of The National Covid Cohort Collaborative Data Enclave, Lily A. Cook Ma, David A. Dorr, Nicole G. Weiskopf, Nisha Mathews, Kelly L. Gonzales, Adam Wilcox, Charisse Madlock-Brown, N3c Consortium

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background:The adverse impact of COVID-19 on marginalized and under-resourced communities of color has highlighted the need for accurate, comprehensive race and ethnicity data. However, a significant technical challenge related to integrating race and ethnicity data in large, consolidated databases is the lack of consistency in how data about race and ethnicity are collected and structured by health care organizations.

Objective:This study aims to evaluate and describe variations in how health care systems collect and report information about the race and ethnicity of their patients and to assess how well these data are integrated when aggregated into a large clinical database. …

Dress And Identity: Using Sartorial Artifacts To Explore Identity At Fort Vancouver, Dana Marie Sukau

Dissertations and Theses

How an individual dresses is an outward expression of their identity, which impacts how they are perceived by others and their daily interactions. By modifying their dress an individual can better adapt to changing social situations. The Pacific Northwest fur trade brought people of varied backgrounds together at frontier forts like the Hudson's Bay Company owned Fort Vancouver, located in modern day Vancouver, Washington. In these areas of culture contact social relations were frequently changing, and by adapting their dress an individual could put on various "social skins" differentially influencing their daily interactions (Loren 2001). Through the perspective of practice …

Curating Conflict: The Material Record Of The Philippine-American War At The Oregon Historical Society, Silvie M. Andrews

Dissertations and Theses

1898 marked the beginning of U.S. colonialism in the Philippines and the formation of the Oregon Historical Society (OHS), an organization that would later inherit a vast collection of Philippine and Spanish war booty from the defunct Battleship Oregon Museum. This thesis will explore the meaning of this war booty by recreating the context around its collection, accession, interpretation, and later descent into obscurity, drawing on the Battleship Oregon Collection of the OHS Research Library and institutional records of the OHS Museum as well as secondary sources that explore the colonial context around museum collecting. The first chapter will show …