Digital Commons Network^™

Explaining Animosity Towards The Roma: A Case Study Of Twitter Communication In Italy During The Refugee Crisis, Mayuko Nakatsuka

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Italy is known for hostile treatment of the Roma, one of the largest ethnic minority groups in Europe. This paper seeks to understand what is causing Italians to talk negatively about the Roma on Twitter. Statistical analysis is performed utilizing the data mined from Twitter along with other variables. The study finds that Roma population, foreign population, and number of refugees all have significant effects on the total number of tweets or the average negative sentiment of tweets. The results indicate that native Italians may group minority groups all together and regard them as “others”. Although the research design has …

A Critical Assessment Of The Internship At The Ngo Committee On The Status Of Women, New York, Ching-Kang Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone research project is the critical assessment of my internship paper at the The NGO Committee on the Status of Women, New York (NGO CSW/NY), which documents my experience of working from September, 2017 to December 2017. Part one focuses on the analysis and observation on LGBTQ human rights work at the United Nations. Part two records my work and experiences at the NGO CSW/NY, including the UNGA Gender Mapping Project and UN meetings. Part three is my observations and reflections upon the half-year internship experience, which serve as reference for people who intend to do NGO advocacy work …

Out Of The Shadows: Women Of The Fmln Guerrilla Army In El Salvador’S Civil War, 1979–1992, Erica Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the course of a century, revolutionary movements have emerged every few years across the region of Central America, movements that fought for overturning dictatorships and confronting socio-economic inequalities. Women experience higher levels of poverty, human rights violations and discrimination due to gender inequalities. Representing 30% of the FMLN guerrilla army, women in El Salvador took a quantum leap into one of the most horrific and violent armed conflicts in the history of the country (Montgomery 123). Theorists have sought to explain why women became involved in the war. Experts of insurgent collective action agree that women's participation played a …

Everyday Violence And Women's Lives In Zambia: An Autoethnography, Amina Shikupilwa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Gender inequality has been a prominent feature of human societies for the longest time. Zambia, like most countries in Africa, is very conservative and patriarchal in nature. In a typical Zambian household, the male is the head of the family. I am going to talk about my experiences as a female growing in a culture that was highly patriarchal and traditional, and how those experiences have shaped me into the person that I am today. Central to my experiences, is the issue of violence in our home which I experienced from a young age. Domestic Violence is prevalent in most …

A Qualitative Case Study: Jamaican Nurses Intent To Migrate Internationally, Mabel Lewis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of the study was to ascertain why Jamaican nurses intent to migrate internationally. Six Jamaican black female nurses, graduates of both private and public nursing schools, with one-five years work experience in both private and public institutions, participated in the study. A single unit case study design was used to collect the subjective data via face-to-face interviews. Themes in the data were assessed through the professional environment framework. The findings suggested a breakdown in the professional environment, which led Jamaican nurses to intend to migrate internationally. Recommendations included improvement to the professional environment through policies that explore diverse …

Heat Stress Vulnerability: Analyzing The Socio-Environmental Factors Influencing Heat Stress Hospital Visits And Implementation Of Green Infrastructure In New York City, Jose Pillich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this study was to identify factors leading to heat stress hospitalizations visits in New York City through the use of climatological and social science data, thus enabling greater targeting of individuals and groups with heightened vulnerability to extreme heat. Recent research has established that climate change will increase overall temperatures in New York City in the future. Heat waves are predicted to increase in frequency and severity, adversely impacting public health and increasing heat vulnerability that could lead to heat stroke or other comorbidities. This dissertation takes into account existing data to generate a new model that …

"I Was Not Sick And I Didn't Need To Recover": Methadone Maintenance Treatment (Mmt) As A Refuge From Criminalization, David Frank

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) has been undergoing a cultural and epistemological shift away from an approach that emphasized client stabilization and a reduction of social harms towards one grounded in values associated with the recovery movement. These changes include promoting a view of addiction grounded in the disease model as well as efforts to make abstinence and ancillary services such as recovery coaching/counseling, programs emphasizing proper citizenship, and concern for clients’ spirituality necessary parts of the program. As such, the increasing use of recovery as the dominant conceptual framework for MMT represents a change in how methadone, MMT, and those …

Deconstructing City Hall Park: The Development And Archaeology Of The Common, Alyssa Loorya

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

City Hall Park in lower Manhattan, once known as The Common, has a long history of public use dating as far back as the Dutch in the seventeenth century. As the site has been continually occupied for almost 400 years, it is an integral part of New York City’s only recognized Archaeological District. Over half a million artifacts, numerous structural features, and human burials have been recovered and documented on archaeological projects since the 1980s.

While archaeological work at City Hall Park has been undertaken multiple times by multiple archaeologists, all have been instigated by construction projects. As a result, …

The Way We Dream Now: History, Theory, And Lgbtq Memoir In America, Megan Paslawski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines American memoirs written after 2000 by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer authors with an eye to how the recent institutionalization of queer theory and the open production of LGBTQ histories affect these writers’ conceptions of their lives, aspirations, and cultures. I argue that these memoirs, sometimes consciously, find themselves struggling with what are also competing ideas within queer theory about the queerness of futurity even as they turn to the past of queer/trans literature and history to bolster their senses of possible identities and communities. This often has the effect of positioning contemporary LGBTQ writers as …

The State Of Hate In America: A Study Of Hate Group Permeation In The United States By State, Michelle Rogers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper will analyze some of the statistics regarding hate groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has studied hate groups in the United States in depth for decades, developing tools and providing some useful statistics. They have developed a hate map that describes the quantity of hate groups in America individually by state and helps specifically identify trends in year over year comparisons. However, the hate map does not offer per capita breakdowns for a state or reasons for hate group permeation unique to the demographics and culture of each state. Factors and elements in conjunction with the hate …

Movements And Political Parties In The 21st Century: Exploring The Role Of Icts, Human Development, And Political-Activism Culture In East Asia And Latin America, Wilneida Negron

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dynamics between social movements and political parties are shifting in the 21st century. Due to the emergence of information communication technologies (ICTs), political parties are facing increased pressure to use ICTs to co-exist, complement, and nurture social movements and empowered civic communities (Nahon, 2015). However, this shift is not ahistorical and technologically deterministic. Rather, the shifting relationship between social movements and political parties is one that can be shaped by a variety of demographic and socio-economic factors as well as preexisting cultures of resistance, activism, and electoral campaigning. This research examines potential patterns and casual mechanisms which can help …

Betty Friedan And Juliet Mitchell: Critiques Of Ideology And Power, Jennie Eagle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My thesis attends to a common thread of critique in two founding documents of “second-wave” feminism: Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) and Juliet Mitchell’s “Women: the Longest Revolution.” I am interested in the ways in which both foundational texts de-naturalize male supremacy by defining it as ideological. The concept of ideology as employed by three notable social theorists – Marx’s concept of a social mythology disseminated by ruling elites to uphold various forms of hierarchy, operating through internal contradictions; French communist Louis Althusser’s concept of a social practice disseminated by the institutions of civil society; and Michel Foucault’s identification …

An Analysis Of Successful And Unsuccessful Terrorist Assassinations: Informing Counterterrorism Through Situational Crime Prevention, Marissa Mandala

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study applies environmental criminology and situational crime prevention (SCP) to study successful and unsuccessful assassinations by terrorists. Using these perspectives, a series of hypotheses were devised to understand the situational factors that contribute to successful compared to unsuccessful assassinations. A random sample of roughly 1,000 successful and 1,000 unsuccessful assassination attacks taking place between 2005 and 2014 was acquired from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). Open source materials were then consulted to supplement the GTD with the creation of new SCP variables. The hypotheses were tested in a binary logistic regression, and additional regression models were created for 4 …

Moral Mode Switching: From Punishment To Public Health, Stephen Koppel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A public health response to drug offenses has potential to improve both public safety and public health. However, the public’s desire for retribution represents a possible hindrance to reform. Relying on dual-process theory of moral decision-making, this dissertation examines agreement among laypeople about the relative blame deserved for various crime types, and probes several possible predictors of support—the need for cognition (“NFC”), intergroup bias, and free-will doubt—for retributive as well as consequentialist responses to crime. Findings from several web-based experiments show: (a) in comparison to core crimes (eg., murder) substantially less agreement about the relative blame deserved for noncore crimes …

Race, Sexuality, And Masculinity On The Down Low, Stephen Kochenash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a so-called post-racial America, a new gay identity has flourished and come into the limelight. However, in recent years, researchers have concluded that not all men who have sex with other men (MSM) self-identify as gay, most noticeably a large population of Black men. It is possible that a tainted history of Black enslavement in this country that is inextricably linked with ideas of space, surveillance, subversion, and survival inform a Black male’s self-identification as being “on the down low” (DL). This begs the question: What does mainstream society view as gay-ness and how is the DL constructed …

“For Us, By Us": The Boondocks, Black Agency, And Black Spatial Reclamation In Comics, Luana Horry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper will construct a literary analysis of The Boondocks comic collections—syndicated from 1999-2006—that will demonstrate Aaron McGruder’s use of the theoretical concept of Black agency, as it relates to literature, birthed from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and the contemporary #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement. Not existing in a vacuum, Aaron McGruder’s comic strip is an important result of and reaction to Black literary thought produced during the 1920s and 1960s movements. Furthermore, The Boondocks is a precursor to the publishing industry’s #WeNeedDiverseBooks countermovement. The connecting thread between each distinctive movement and McGruder’s work …

Military Citizenship In The Post-9/11 Homefront, Estefania Ponti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In discussion with the literature on the treatment of veterans in the United States and the nature of American citizenship ideology, the following dissertation asks how post-9/11 veterans are defining, (re)creating, and contesting citizenship in the contemporary U.S. By studying a localized community of post-9/11 veterans, my dissertation highlights the dilemmas of U.S. citizenship at a time when the U.S. is engaged in a global War on Terror using less than 1% of the U.S. population as paid volunteers. Soldiers and veterans occupy states and spaces of exception, marking military citizens as distinct from civilians. Military citizenship benefits the nation …

A Democratic Conundrum: A Study Of Online Student Performance At Community Colleges, Lavita Mcmath Turner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Online education at community colleges has the potential to further democratize education by expanding access through the availability of anytime/anywhere courses for people who might be unable to attend college otherwise. However, the literature reveals the existence of performance gaps between online and face-to-face courses at community colleges, ones that can have negative consequences on the upward mobility of its diverse student population. This study investigates such a trend at one urban university. The study shows complexities in the relationship between online learning at community colleges through a mixed methods study of online performance at a community college. The findings …

The Production Of Space: Indigenous Resistance Movements In The Peruvian Amazon, Christian Calienes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The resistance movement that resulted in the Baguazo in the northern Peruvian Amazon in 2009 was the culmination of a series of social, economic, political and spatial processes that reflected the Peruvian nation’s engagement with global capitalism and democratic consolidation after decades of crippling instability and chaos. The recently discovered oil and natural gas reserves that occupy the subsoil of much the Peruvian Amazon provide the latest natural resource upon which the national project can continue to be implemented. In a context of neo-imperialism and neo-extractivism where through accumulation by dispossession, new markets are introduced into global capitalist structures after …

Contemporary Archaeological Looting: A Criminological Analysis Of Italian Tomb Robbers, Marc Balcells Magrans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Looters (in Italian, tombaroli), whether underground or underwater, have preyed on the Italian archaeology for centuries. The literature on both archaeological looting and, more specifically, the Italian case, has been widely developed by other disciplines, mostly archaeology. In spite of this body of literature, the number of studies discussing issues related to tombaroli is minimal, and the criminological contribution is nonexistent. After examining important gaps in the literature, this study explains the nature of the relationship between tombaroli and organized crime and how organized criminals learn and adapt during their careers. These topics have been both misrepresented and sporadically …

Conditions Of Personhood And Property, Zachary James Acree

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper seeks to demonstrate that a more robust understanding of personhood both reveals flaws in the underlying assumptions of modern property law, and orients that law to a more just application. To do this, the law needs not only a better definition of what persons are, but also a better understanding of how persons function in their society. First, in order to provide some context to the issues at stake, there is a brief historical introduction to some of the problems that personhood inquiries have faced. After the introduction, this paper is divided into four sections. Part I summarizes …

The Bronx Was Brewing: A Digital Resource Of A Lost Industry, Michelle Zimmer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Bronx: a bucolic oasis laden with history, a suburb within city-limits, an urban warzone, and thanks to the recent renaissance, a phoenix of progress rising from the proverbial ashes of the fires that burned through the borough in the 1970’s. But many people are unaware that the Bronx also brewed.
Uncovering the brewing industry of the Bronx tells not only the story of the lost industry, but it also communicates the narrative of the development of the Bronx. The brewers were German immigrants who developed a thriving industry by introducing lager beer to the United States by taking advantage …

Musicking, Discourse, And Identity In Participatory Media Fandom, Aya Esther Hayashi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I study three forms of music-making within media fandom and their respective communities: filk, roughly, the folk music of the science fiction and fantasy fandom; wizard rock, a punk/DIY movement inspired by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels; and the YouTube musicals of Team StarKid and AVbyte. I consider their individual histories and the popular music movements and genres that influenced their respective developments. Even though the practices of these three communities are very different, their participants use similar, if identical, discourses when discussing what they do and why they do it, including but not limited to: openness, …

The Phenomenon Of Match-Fixing In Soccer: A Plague Without A Cure?, Nikolaos Petropoulos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Introduction: Today, match-fixing is considered as one of the most significant threats to the integrity of soccer. Everyone seems to talk about it. However, the phenomenon itself has received relatively limited academic interest despite the media coverage that match-fixing scandals have enjoyed, mainly over the last 10-15 years. This study will seek to explore the match-fixing landscape and provide a detailed account of how extensive the phenomenon is and who are the main stakeholders.To achieve this goal, we will rely heavily on a series of INTERPOL bi-weekly reports on match-fixing cases that cover the period from 1^st of …

Status, Power, And Apologies: How Status And Power Shape The Willingness To Apologize And The Perception Of Victims, Louis Lipani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Apologies are interpersonal tools that individuals employ to repair damaged relationships. Management scholars have largely ignored the role that power and status play in the apology process. Across three studies I experimentally manipulate power and status and examine the apology process via a workplace scenario. In Study 1 I propose that power and status have different implications with respect to one’s willingness to apologize. I orthogonally manipulate power and status and examine their effect on people’s willingness to apologize. I find that status, but not power, impacts one’s willingness to apologize. In Study 2 I posit and find that apologies …

Exploring The Roots Of Chronic Underdevelopment: The Colonial Encomienda And Resguardo And Their Legacy To Modern Colombia, Pedro Bossio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Colombian society has been historically marked by socioeconomic inequality, restricted social mobility, and institutional weakness. In order to understand the reasons for the country´s continuous struggle to achieve inclusive economic progress and stability since its independence from Spain in 1819, it is necessary to understand its colonial history. Central to this were the two most important colonial economic institutions, the encomienda and the resguardo, both designed for the exploitation of unfree Indian labor. Even when these were slowly replaced by more modern haciendas worked by free farm workers, the economic and political life of the country continued to be …

Pipeline To Failure: Social Inequality And The False Promises Of American Public Schooling, Adia Wilson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My experience as a New York City public school student was absolutely electrifying, though filled with many trials. While my mother would have preferred to put me in private school, having access to some of the world’s greatest institutions and resources offered unique opportunities and exposures. The performing arts provided me with an outlet to express myself and build skills and confidence. In particular, dance education kept me occupied and disciplined in a large city full of danger. Every so often, I witnessed hostile, or even violent exchanges between students, or students and staff. While some of my schoolmates became …

Female Autistic Perspectives: Limits In Diagnosis And Understanding, Alexandra Helmers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder has increased dramatically within the last two decades, with males being diagnosed, on average, four to five times more than females. Although researchers in the medical community have searched for a biological explanation for this discrepancy, no definitive cause has been found. I argue that our understanding of autism is primarily a social and cultural construction, in addition to a diagnosable medical disorder. The gender disparity in diagnosis reflects cultural narratives surrounding social interaction and the widespread belief in two distinct gender roles. Furthermore, narratives surrounding the topic of autism tend to unintentionally highlight …

The Politics Of United States Army Doctrine, David C. Rasmussen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The US Army made four significant shifts in the content of its capstone operations doctrine, Field Manual (FM) 100-5 / FM 3-0, along a spectrum of war since the end of WWII: 1) in 1954 it made a shift from a doctrine focused almost exclusively on mid-intensity conventional warfare to a doctrine that added significant emphasis to high-intensity nuclear warfare; 2) in 1962 it made an even greater shift in the opposite direction toward low-intensity unconventional warfare doctrine; 3) in 1976 it shifted back to an almost exclusive focus on mid-intensity conventional warfare content; 4) and this is where Army …

Powerhouse Chihuahua: Electricity, Water, And The State In The Long Mexican Revolution, Jonathan Hill Jr

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

State formation has for decades been a major analytical focus for historians of Mexico, especially during the armed Mexican Revolution (1910–20) and the “long” political and social revolution which continued for decades thereafter. Since the 1980s, the cultural turn in the humanities has produced groundbreaking works in the field and introduced a model of state formation framed around hegemony, subaltern agency, and the nation. While these reflect prevailing approaches, this dissertation joins more recent interdisciplinary work on Mexico in conversation with a ‘material turn’ in the humanities and social sciences. Focusing on the policy debates and infrastructural networks which attended …