Digital Commons Network^™

Harry Potter And The Immersive Space: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter, Kendra Bolin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ability of humans to share stories has changed over time. From myths shared around a campfire to the introduction of cinema, we can now tell massive, immersive stories on an epic scale. One example of this is the storytelling present in theme parks. Present-day theme parks are continuously growing and expanding each year both in size and attendance. The continued success of these theme parks and the rhetorical influences of their audiences is a cultural phenomenon that deserves rhetorical scrutiny. My analysis looks at how one theme park, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida, immerses guests …

Climate And Extreme Weather Event Impacts On Administrators, Direct Care Staff, And Residents In Oregon Assisted Living, Residential Care, And Memory Care Communities, 2024, Dani Himes, Jacklyn Kohon, Madeline Fox, Laura Rodriguez, Sarah Dys, Diana Jacoby, Paula Carder

Institute on Aging Publications

This brief report on AL/RC staff and resident experiences with climate events highlights the voices of AL/RC direct care staff, former direct care staff, residents, administrators, and management representatives to promote well-being in these care settings. This study can inform Oregon’s efforts to support long-term care workforce readiness for future climate emergencies and inform future quantitative data collection on AL/RC and other long-term care workers, including those employed in home health agencies, nursing facilities, and adult foster homes.

Waking Up The Snake: Ancient Wisdom For Regeneration, Anne Poelina, Bill Webb, Sandra Wooltorton, Naomi Joy Godden

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The Anthropocene exposes the colonial paradox: ‘that Indigenous people were right all along, that landscapes are neither inert nor mute, but imbued with vitality’ (Ghosh, 2021, p 256). Now, humans must speak out to represent the vital living earth, to return persons of all species to cultures, stories and places. This is called ‘Waking up the Snake’ – using the ancient wisdom of our places to awaken the consciousness of the people to their obligations of stewardship through an ethic of care and love. Serpent goes by many names, being integral to Australia’s Earth Dream, a 65,000-year-old story of sentient …

Resisting Exploitation: A Study Of Karen Joyce Warren’S Ecofeminist Ethic In The Selected Indian Movies, Kogila S

Theses and Dissertations

According to Warren, “The exploitation of nature and animals is justified by feminising them; the exploitation of women is justified by naturalising them” (EPWP 27). Women and nature have the same right to live independently. They are not meant for exploitation. However, patriarchy has long exploited them.

The changes are happening only in the ratio, not in the act of controlling. This research aims to study the undervalued state of women and others in nature concerning Warren's eight features of ecofeminist ethic in Indian movies, namely Harish Ram L's Thumbaa (2019), Amit Masurkar’s Sherni (2021), and Rathindran Prasad R’s Boomika …

Law School News: Mandell-Boisclair Justice Camp Prepares Young Scholars To Become Future Lawyers, Social Justice Advocates 7-26-2024, Jordan J. Phelan, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Msw Portfolio: Falling Into Place, Rebecca P. Whitesell

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

From Steps To Strides: My Evolving Journey Into Social Work, Lacresha N. Ffrench

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

This paper reflects on my journey, shaped by my heritage as a first-generation Jamaican-American and my experiences in education. The narrative begins with the story of my parents, Desmond and Pauline Ffrench, who immigrated from Jamaica with the hope of providing me with greater opportunities. Their sacrifices and unwavering support have been instrumental in my success. My career in education began in 2019, where I transitioned through various roles, from an educational assistant to the restorative practices coordinator. These experiences, coupled with my deepening commitment to advocating for students, led me to pursue a master's in social work. Encouraged by …

Rwu School Of Law Social Justice Camp, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Gender, Security, And Climate Change Nexus: Taking Violence Prevention Seriously In The Global South, Laila Hanifah Ms

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

According to prior studies, a significant proportion of individuals affected by conflict regularly demonstrate that women experience violence to a greater extent. As the Cold War era came to an end, trends in major armed conflicts began to shift. Climate change has emerged as a new non-traditional security threat around the world, similar to traditional security challenges. The UNFCC recognises that women are disproportionately vulnerable and bear a greater burden from the impacts of climate change. Yet despite this, women are often marginalised from discourses on security. Research on security, gender and climate change shows that the consequences of climate …

Critical Media Literacy: Taking Steps To Understand And Implement (In First-Year Composition Courses), Kevin Shank, Lara Searcy

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article considers ways to advance critical media literacy (CML) in English language arts spaces, particularly first-year composition. Due to the growing need for critical media literacy, authors outline two steps — first, taking steps toward understanding CML and second, sharing resources to help educators integrate more critical media literacy into the field of English language arts. The authors created and share a Media Text Complexity Rationale (https://bit.ly/MediaTextComplexityRationale) that can guide educators in text selection, along with three other related resources to help teachers understand and implement CML during instructional design.

Meet The 2024 Sustainability Fellows, Sustainability Institute

Sustainability Institute Blog

No abstract provided.

Water Throughout The Green Energy Transition: Hydrosocial Dimensions Of Coal, Natural Gas, And Lithium, Joshua J. Cousins, Alida Cantor, Bethani Turley

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Energy transitions are reshaping hydrosocial relations. How they will be reshaped, however, depends on location and water's material relationship to other resources and industrial activities embedded within energy transitions. To highlight this, we focus on three different resources—coal, natural gas, and lithium—to signal how the water–energy nexus will be reworked in a transition away from fossil fuels. We examine the water–coal nexus as an example of a resource relationship that is transitioning out, or that is being moved away from in the green energy transition. Natural gas represents the “bridge fuel” used through the transition. Lithium illustrates a resource inside …

Compelled To Care? Exploring College Instructors’ Conceptualizations And Expressions Of Care Toward Students, Krista Kimmel

Online Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation research explores how college instructors perceive and demonstrate care toward students. This research also seeks to consider how the Covid-19 pandemic influenced instructors’ caring behaviors. Although instructor care has been linked to several positive student outcomes, including persistence, little research has examined caring behaviors from the instructor’s perspective. In addition, how the pandemic’s aftermath continues to transform college teaching and learning is an area ripe for further scholarly investigation. Findings from semi-structured interviews and interpretive phenomenological analysis revealed that faculty conceptualize caring behaviors as a negotiated relationship between instructor and student. This negotiated relationship was characterized by responding …

Working (Around/Within/Against) Prior Appropriation: Diverse Hydrosocial Practices To Secure Water For Rivers, Alida Cantor, Jillian Farley, Thien-Kim Bui, Zachary Boyce

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water scarcity in the Western US, through the lens of political ecology, can be understood as inextricably shaped by power dynamics, governance structures, and legal practices of resource allocation. Water allocation in the region is determined largely by the legal doctrine of Prior Appropriation, the 'first in time, first in right' principle. However, prior appropriation is fundamentally based in anthropocentric and settler colonial assumptions, and in light of drought, climate change, and shifting social and environmental values, the system has been critiqued as inadequate to meet contemporary water challenges. Despite challenging historical legacies, water managers in the Western US are …

Vol.51 N.52 July 18th 2024, Voice Media Ventures

Black Voice News

No abstract provided.

Harmony In Collaboration: Curating Sustainability In Post-Pandemic Arts, Natalie M. Stepaniak

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In an interconnected world, collaboration in the arts is rising, challenging the traditional notion of the solitary artist. Interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial for advancing performing and visual arts, especially amidst declining audience attendance. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating challenges for the arts sector, recent data suggests a gradual recovery, with collaborative efforts fostering resilience.

This dissertation investigates the transformative potential of interdisciplinary collaboration from the perspective of musicians and their organizations. Through three case studies—collaborations between the Rapides Symphony Orchestra and Play On Theater Company, The Next Festival for Emerging Artists, and violist-composer Leilehua Lanzilotti and her collaborative relationship with …

Exploitation Of Child Domestic Workers In Ngenger Culture Of Javanese Society In Indonesia, Tri Joko Sri Haryono, Sri Endah Kinasih, Siti Mas’Udah

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study explains a Javanese cultural practice called ngenger—when girls volunteer to be domestic servants in exchange for educational benefits—as a form of exploitation of labor. The purpose of this study is to understand this Javanese tradition from the perspective of Gender Anthropology. This research is a descriptive study using a qualitative method. The location of the study was in Surabaya and the city of Malang, East Java, and was conducted by collecting data in the form of observations and in-depth interviews. The informants for this study were girls who are domestic workers, parents of the child domestic workers, and …

Assessing Environmental Injustice In Kansas City By Linking Paediatric Asthma To Local Sources Of Pollution: A Cross-Sectional Study., Elizabeth Friedman, Brian R. Lee, David Rahn, Beto Lugo Martinez, Atenas Mena

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

OBJECTIVE: A grassroots environmental-justice organisation in Kansas City has been examining the disproportionate exposure to air pollution experienced by residents living fenceline to the largest classification railyard in the USA. Prior analyses showed limited increased risk for asthma exacerbation for patients with asthma living closer to toxic release inventory (TRI) facilities and railyards. In this study, we assessed geographical asthma and environmental disparities, to further explore community-level disparities.

DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional study of population-level asthma rates, which included rates for all asthma encounters and acute asthma encounters (urgent care, emergency department, inpatient admission). Distances from census-tract centroids to …

Stakeholders’ Influence Of Voluntary Sustainability Reporting On Corporate Financial Performance, Delores Adams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study explores the relationship between voluntary sustainability reporting and corporate financial performance, focusing on the influence of stakeholders on sustainability initiatives. The research uses legitimacy and stakeholder theories, drawing from signaling and institutional theories, to examine the impact of sustainability initiatives on financial results. The analysis was conducted on United States aerospace and defense companies listed in the Fortune 500, and Bloomberg’s ESG database. The independent variables included GRI-2019 – GRI-2022, stakeholders influence “STAKE,” firm size, and growth. The dependent variables were return on assets and Tobin’s Q. Return on investment was used as the moderating and mediating variable. …

Public Realm For Enhanced Quality Of Life :Interactive Spaces Combating Climate Change, Amal M . El- Ellithy , Mohamed M. Yossef , And Mai W. Madkour

Journal of Engineering Research

Currently, facing climate change stands as a crucial focus within architecture, urban planning and design .Urban design is constructive endeavor aimed at benefiting the public. The public realm that creates the environment for individuals and communities to effectively, safely, meaningfully and permanently lead their lives .For a prolonged duration the public realm have been formulated to accommodate severe climatic conditions .the reality persists that the essence of a signification public realm continue to be widely disregarded . The aim is to clarify how exceptional quality, effectively designed, and well-managed approaches can be beneficial to implement as a strategy for climate …

Lithium And Water: Hydrosocial Impacts Across The Life Cycle Of Energy Storage, James J. A. Blair, Noel Vineyard, Dustin Mulvaney, Alida Cantor, Ali Sharbat, Kate Berry, Elizabeth Bartholomew, Ariana Firebaugh Ornelas

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

As a key ingredient of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), lithium plays a significant role in climate change mitigation, but lithium has considerable impacts on water and society across its life cycle. Upstream extraction methods—including open-pit mining, brine evaporation, and novel direct lithium extraction (DLE)—and downstream processes present different impacts on both the quantity and quality of water resources, leading to water depletion and contamination. Regarding upstream extraction, it is critical for a comprehensive assessment of lithium's life cycle to include cumulative impacts related not only to freshwater, but also mineralized or saline groundwater, also known as brine. Legal frameworks …

The Slow Lane: A Study On The Diffusion Of Full-Electric Cars In Italy, Monica Bonacina, Mert Demir, Antonio Sileo, Angela Zanoni

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Working Papers

The transition to a zero-emission car fleet is a pivotal element of Europe’s decarbonisation strategy.Italy’s participation in this trajectory is significant, given the size of its car fleet. Currently, only battery electric (BEVs) and hydrogen-powered are considered zero-emission vehicles. The final update of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) includes an ambitious target for the diffusion of electric cars in the Italian fleet. The aim is to have a total of 4.3 million electric cars on the roads by 2030. However, by the end of 2023, the Italian e-fleet totalled 220,000 cars, which equals a mere 0.5% of the …

Critical Geospatial Data Science: Principles For Curating, Analyzing, And Sharing Geospatial Data, Daniel Beene

Geography ETDs

Critical geospatial data science (CGDS) offers principles for engaging with geospatial data, methods, and translation by pulling from critical epistemologies in geography. CGDS interrogates objective “truths” in science by actively engaging in critique of geospatial data and methodologies. Specifically, CGDS contends with the political context and motivations behind geospatial data science (GDS) while using GDS methods to understand how social-spatial arrangements manifest and are reinforced through data. CGDS explicitly aims to inform practices for criticality from within GDS and provides opportunities for multidisciplinary research that incorporates social theories, contextualizes geospatial data, and critically evaluates the effects and ethics of (under)representation …

Reflections On The Past, Present, And Potential Futures Of Knowledge Hierarchies In Ocean Biodiversity Governance Research, Holly J. Niner, David Wilson, Kelly Hoareau, Mia Strand, Jennifer Whittingham, Dylan Mcgarry, Bolanle Erinosho, Sulley Ibrahim, Sirkka Tshiningayamwe, Senia Febrica, Alana Malinde S. N. Lancaster, Milica Prokic

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Governance of the ocean and its biodiversity is deeply entangled within social, political and cultural histories. The evolution of marine science has been subject to similar influences, and we (the authors) consider these factors to create, embed and reinforce knowledge hierarchies in ocean governance processes and associated research that set societal patterns of prioritisation and exclusion. Such knowledge hierarchies have constructed dominant Western-oriented knowledge systems as ‘rational’ and ‘objective’ approaches to environmental governance in contrast to non-Western knowledge systems and have led to a dominance of natural (normal) sciences over centralised biodiversity governance. The extraction and incorporation of traditional knowledge …

Spatial And Temporal Analysis Of Pm 2.5 Concentrations In Chicago Along The Lakefront Trail Using Wearable Air Quality Sensors, Jacob A. Johnson

DePaul Discoveries

Mass urbanization and transportation practices have resulted in high amounts of air pollution. Air pollution can have detrimental effects on human health causing respiratory issues as well as other health complications. Certain areas of cities experience more exposure to air pollution which can also cause them to have more health issues and lower life expectancy. These areas are often associated with disinvestment and minoritized communities of color. This research explores patterns of air quality related to environmental justice areas using low-cost wearable air quality monitoring sensors attached to a bicycle. Data was collected along the Lakefront Trail stretching from Irving …

A Decade Of Earth-Centered Scholarship And Activism, Elizabeth Allison

CIIS Faculty Publications

Origin stories reveal the myriad causes that converge to birth a new initiative. On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, this essay looks back to document the context and intellectual lineage out of which the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion graduate program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) emerged in 2013, and suggests some possibilities for the future of transdisciplinary education and the fields of religion and ecology (e.g. Tucker and Grim 2001), religion and nature (e.g. B. Taylor 2010), and spiritual ecology (e.g. Sponsel 2012) more broadly.

"We're Going To Tear Up The Caldera So We Can Have An Electric Car": Competing Perceptions And Spatial Dimensions Of Open-Pit Lithium Mining In The Mcdermitt Caldera, Oregon, Elizabeth Bartholomew

Dissertations and Theses

As the world attempts to pivot away from fossil fuels and other greenhouse gas-emitting activities that fuel climate change, the proposed technological solutions all require raw materials, resources, and land; each of which have their own logistical and political dimensions. Lithium, a federally recognized critical mineral that is considered a crucial element in modern battery production, plays a vital role in decarbonizing efforts. Under the banners of national security, resource independence, and carbon mitigation goals, the United States has incentivized domestic lithium extraction, expediting exploration throughout the American West. The McDermitt Caldera, spanning from southeastern Oregon into northern Nevada, is …

Natural Dialectics: Māori & Sioux Ecosophy Encounters The Rule Of Law, Robert T.F. Downes

The Journal of International Relations, Peace Studies, and Development

In the age of intensifying anthropogenic climate change, an ecosophical shift is required in the epistemological and ontological comprehension of the interrelations between the human and non-human worlds. This shift is essential for refining existing social scientific approaches to investigating and adjudicating questions of environmental governance, environmental justice, environmental sovereignty, in addition to advancing democratic counters to the effects of ecological degradation and environmental catastrophe that move beyond rigid political-economic constraints. This essay constitutes a novel engagement with discourses of radical democracy and radical ecology that applies the philosophical method of dialectical naturalism to an ecosophical interpretation of the human-nature …

From Community Science To Community Justice: Protecting Data Usability In Community Air Quality Monitoring Networks, Marley Manjarrez

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Community science holds significant promise for empowering communities to address air quality disparities and advocate for policy change. However, the usability and legal defensibility of community-collected data pose significant challenges. This article argues that with the help of low-cost tools such as air quality monitors, community members can take an active role in combating the disproportionate distribution of air pollutants hidden by our current regulatory scheme. By examining the regulatory frameworks under the Clean Air Act and opportunities for procedural justice at federal, state, and local levels, the article identifies pathways for incorporating community-collected data into air quality regulation and …

Urban-Rural Disparities In Food Insecurity And Weight Status Among Children In The United States, Jayna M Dave, Tzuan A Chen, Alexandra N Castro, Mamie A White, Elizabeth A Onugha, Sloane Zimmerman, Debbe Thompson

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

Place of residence (urban versus rural) is a contextual determinant of health that has received less attention in the food insecurity literature. The purpose of this study was to assess the urban–rural disparity in the prevalence of food insecurity and weight status among US children. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2013–2016 with three age groups of children (2–5, 6–11, and 12–17 years old), the associations of weight status and child and household food security status by urban–rural residence were examined using Rao–Scott Chi-square tests. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Children living in urban areas were significantly more likely to experience household food insecurity (29.15%) compared to their rural counterparts (19.10%), among those aged 6–11 years. The associations between children’s weight status and child and household food security status were significant for children living in urban areas overall and different age groups but not for children living in rural areas. These trends were more pronounced in older age groups. Given the link between food insecurity and higher obesity rates, particularly among urban children, this study highlights the importance of incorporating food security interventions into future obesity prevention programs.