Digital Commons Network^™

Three Essays On Climate Change Adaptation In Rural African Communities, Hannah Patnaik

Dissertations - ALL

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of the present era, bringing new risks and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities across the world. While there is a broad recognition that solutions around climate change will require coordination and support across borders and governments, a large body of scholarship has focused on the local-level realities of climate change and the disproportionate impacts on the most vulnerable populations. The climate vulnerable poor do not have the privilege of waiting for global policy and commitment to emission reduction targets. They need planned and proactive adaptation support to build resilience to the changing climate and …

Three Essays On Climate Change Adaptation In Rural African Communities, Hannah Patnaik

Dissertations - ALL

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of the present era, bringing new risks and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities across the world. While there is a broad recognition that solutions around climate change will require coordination and support across borders and governments, a large body of scholarship has focused on the local-level realities of climate change and the disproportionate impacts on the most vulnerable populations. The climate vulnerable poor do not have the privilege of waiting for global policy and commitment to emission reduction targets. They need planned and proactive adaptation support to build resilience to the changing climate and …

From Georgian England To The Arctic: Gender And Cultural Transformation In The Samuel Hearne Expeditions (1769-1772), Bridget B. Kennedy

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

From 1769 to 1772, Samuel Hearne embarked on the first European overland expedition to the Arctic under orders from the Hudson’s Bay Company. In search of copper reserves and sites for future company forts, the Hudson’s Bay Company outfitted Hearne with a group of Chipewyan and Cree guides that would take him to the lands past the Arctic Circle where no other European had been. As the only European in his expedition party, Hearne had to quickly adapt to the Athabascan way of life and found his English and imperialist cultural ideas challenged by his native travel companions. Hearne also …

Narratives Of Dalit Women And ‘The Outsider Within’: Toward A Literary Practice Of Dalit Feminist Standpoint, Bhushan Sharma

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper establishes an experimental methodology for developing a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Theory through the analysis of Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke and Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of My Life. Exploration suggests an outline method to attain a standpoint and represents the more significant issues of marginalization of Dalit women, their subjectivity, their lack of voice as reflected in the Dalit Movement, Dalit Literature, Indian feminism, and in their everyday lives. This study claims that Dalit women writers have a potent standpoint as an 'outsider within,' and argues that their triply oppressed caste, class, and gender identity allows for …

A Gendered Environmental Justice Perspective Of Tiger Reintroductions To Sariska Tiger Reserve, Elena C. Rubino, Kalli F. Doubleday

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The reintroduction of Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) to the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, India, has resulted in perceived increases of human-wildlife conflict for local villagers. Because previous evidence from other settings suggests that women may experience human-wildlife conflict differently than men, this research employed a comprehensive environmental justice framework to explore how women have been uniquely impacted by tiger reintroductions. Findings from focus group discussions with villagers suggest that women bear greater burdens from increased tiger presence, yet these costs are not typically acknowledged by men, and women do not feel that their perspectives were considered …

The Challenges Of Transport And Egyptian Women’S Participation In The Job Market, Radwa Abo Shady

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to explore the effect of transportation on development in general and as a barrier to women’s contribution to the labor market in particular. A survey using a mixed method was filled online by working women in Egypt about their trip and perception about the transport problems. A framework was created to describe the relationship between different factors affecting women’s options. The findings suggested that transport parameters have an impact on the freedom of transport and eventually the final decision to join the labor market. The findings match the literature that transport should be gender-sensitive to empower women …

Transgressive Migrations: Gender Roles, Space, And Place In American Novels, 1900-1999, Selena Gail Larkin

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine how gender roles combine with changes in space and place to affect women protagonists in twentieth-century American literature. I argue that as these characters migrate, the (self-)perception of their identities shift. Particularly, their outward performances as well as their internal awareness change. My analysis concentrates on the novel genre because of specific characteristics—plot, characterization, and narration. The chosen literary works on which I focus are The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Quicksand (1928), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), The Dollmaker (1954), and Under the Feet of Jesus (1996).

Concepts that I …

“What Can There Be But Witchcraft?”: History, Women, And Witches In Sylvia Townsend Warner’S Lolly Willowes And Graham Swift’S Waterland, Thomas Bedenbaugh

Theses and Dissertations

The ambiguous relationship between history, women and witchcraft in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes and Graham Swift’s Waterland foregrounds the constructedness of historical narratives while also recuperating women’s marginalized positions within history. Both novels link historical narratives with the received ideas upon which norms of gender, sexuality, and the nation are constructed. In recognizing this, both authors challenge the monolithic male gaze of history, revealing it to be a story which, totalizing as it may be, is not in fact “natural.” While many women in both novels are configured as haunting figures - women who confuse the boundary separation presence …

Institutional Stretching: How Moroccan Ngos Illuminate The Nexus Of Climate, Migration, Gender And Development, Shelby Mertens

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The global migration crisis the world has experienced thus far is only the tip of the iceberg. As the earth’s temperature continues to warm and extreme weather conditions worsen, millions of people across the globe will be displaced, and women in particular will face more difficult challenges. What the climate migration literature fails to study is these longer-term impacts beyond sudden onset disasters. Governments and institutions will be forced to respond and adapt to the new reality resulting from the climate crisis. This research provides a case study of Morocco and, by using institutional ethnography, investigates how NGOs working in …

Ordinary Power: Frontier Sentimentalism And Cultural Perceptions Of Gender In The Nineteenth-Century West, Erin Elizabeth Hastings

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will examine nineteenth-century women and their primary role in the cultural formation of frontier sentimentalism. White, middle class women primarily moved west with their husbands and families, initially to the Midwest in the early nineteenth century, and were continuing to settle in the Great Plains and further west by the end of the century. The first generation of women who migrated west were the pioneers of frontier sentimentalism, but it prevailed in successive generations of westering women. This thesis will argue that in the formation of their own form of sentimentalism, nineteenth-century women were at the heart of …

Beyond Community Characteristics: A Leader's Gender And Local Government Adoption Of Energy Conservation Practices And Redistributive Programs, George C. Homsy, Kristina T. Lambright

Public Administration Faculty Scholarship

Most research examining factors associated with local government adoption of sustainability practices focuses on the impact of community characteristics. Little is known about whether adoption is also related to the characteristics of the leaders in these jurisdictions. To address this gap in the literature, this exploratory study uses data from a national survey of U.S. local governments (n = 1,672) to examine the potential correlation between adoption of certain sustainability practices and the gender of a jurisdiction’s highest elected official. Our regression models find that jurisdictions led by women were more likely to have adopted redistributive programmes and practices encouraging …

Gender Representation In Elementary And Middle School Social Studies Textbooks In Turkey, Melis Akay Şahi̇n, Mehmet Açikalin

Journal of International Women's Studies

Gender inequality, stereotyping, and discrimination against women are issues that continue to spark debate in many countries. Women’s rights advocates in Turkey continue to struggle to reduce gender inequalities and stereotypes in every aspect of life. Education is one of the major fields where these issues should be explored and discussed. Because textbooks are the main teaching materials in a classroom, it is crucial to examine the ways in which they depict gender. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate how gender is represented in social studies textbooks. Thus, all elementary and middle school social studies textbooks in …

Hybrid Ethnobotanical Practices: Afro And Indigenous Place-Making In The Contemporary Colombia Andean Pacific, Rafael A. Mutis Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an ethnography of Indigenous and AfroIndigenous ethnobotanical practices in four communities in Cauca, in the Andean Pacific region in the Western Amazon of Colombia. Through collaborative field work, including interviews and active participant observation, I document the use of herbs and food as medicine, and agricultural and land tenure practices that depart significantly from those of racial-capitalist agribusiness. These ethnobotanical practices recuperate precolonial and ancestral knowledge as one of many efforts to build community autonomy and self-determination in Colombia as it fitfully enters the post conflict period.

Through an intersectional and topographic analysis, I show both the …

After Covid-19: Mitigating Domestic Gender-Based Violence In Egypt In Times Of Emergency, Diana Magdy, Hind Ahmed Zaki

Faculty Journal Articles

In times of crises and emergencies, violence against women tends to increase. The outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in severe precautionary measures such as social isolation, physical distancing, staying at home, curfews and lockdowns, which brought “normal” life to a halt and created a temporary convergence between the public and the private. The pandemic has forced the global community to turn its gaze back to the private, and compelled them to pay attention to the old/new problem of gender-based violence, particularly, domestic violence that spiked during the pandemic. Against such a backdrop, and using a critical feminist lens that analyzes …

The Dynamics Of Gender Differences On Tourism Governance In Indonesia, Ismi Dwi Astuti Nurhaeni, Roel Popping, Rara Sugiarti, Rino Ardhian Nugroho

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

Research on gender and tourism is very important at least because of three reasons. First, processes involved in tourism are constructed out of gender ideologies in the society. Second, gender relations contribute to the dynamics of the fluidity of gender identity in tourism. Finally, gender perspective is a tool for understanding the relationship between tourism and social process. Unfortunately, there have been limited studies on gender in tourism. This study offers empirical evidence of gender in tourism governance from Indonesia’s experience. It assesses the gender differences in tourism governance by proposing three variables, namely involvement, competence, and barriers to women …

Spatial Thinking, Gender And Immaterial Affective Labour In The Post-Fordist Academic Library, Karen P. Nicholson

FIMS Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use spatial thinking (space-time) as a lens through which to examine the ways in which the socio-economic conditions and values of the post-Fordist academy work to diminish and even subsume the immaterial affective labour of librarians even as it serves to reproduce the academy. Design/methodology/approach – The research question informing this paper asks, In what ways does spatial thinking help us to better understand the immaterial, invisible and gendered labour of academic librarians’ public service work in the context of the post-Fordist university? This question is explored using a conceptual approach …

Competing Discourses And Cultural Intelligibility: Familicide, Gender And The Mental Illness/Distress Frame In News, Denise Buiten, Georgia Coe

Arts Papers and Journal Articles

Familicide – the killing of a partner and child(ren) – is a rare and complex crime that, when it occurs, receives intense media coverage. However, despite growing scholarly attention to filicide in the news, little research to date has looked at how familicide is represented. Situated at the intersection of filicide, intimate partner homicide and very often suicide, how the knotty and confronting issue of familicide is reported on is telling of the discourses available to understand complex forms of family violence. In this article, we argue that reporting on familicide mirrors broader feminist concerns about the tendency to frame …

The (Mis) Representation Of Racialized Minorities: Barbie Dolls As Social Problems In India, Namrata Ashvinbhai Bhadania

English Faculty Publications

The relation between commodities and consumers is directly related to the transactional relationship between kids and their interaction with the toys. The paper aims to critique how female representation through Barbie Dolls in popular culture shapes female identity. Production and consumption of Barbie dolls in India became a way of socializing mechanism to educate young Indian girls on the concept of beauty. A notion of beauty is attached to blue eyes, skinny waist, and fair skin giving rise to “American Exceptionalism” (Madsen, 2009, p. 14), where the model nation conceptualizes itself though national identity where perceiver compels to transform themselves …

The Meat Of The Gothic: Animality And Social Justice In United States Fiction And Film Of The Twenty-First Century, Amber Hodge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Meat of the Gothic: Animality and Social Justice in United States Fiction and Film of the Twenty-First Century— situates twenty-first century US gothic narratives in relation to animal studies, even as it illuminates how these narratives interrogate the effects of historic and ongoing global systems of human oppression: slavery, imperialism, and capitalism. Instead of reacting to bias by asserting a claim to a humanity perpetually imbricated in divisions of class, race, and gender, present-day authors and filmmakers create characters who form communities that include nonhuman actors as a means of generating empowerment and critique. My approach to these narratives …

"Let Me Know When I'M Needed": Exploring The Gendered Nature Of Digital Technology Use For Health Information Seeking During The Transition To Parenting, Bradley Hiebert, Jodi Hall, Lorie Donelle Phd, Rn, Fcan, Danica Facca, Kim Jackson, Ewelina Stoyanovich

Publications

This paper presents results of a qualitative descriptive study conducted to understand parents' experiences with digital technologies during their transition to parenting (i.e. the period from pre-conception through postpartum). Individuals in southwest Ontario who had become a new parent within the previous 24 months were recruited to participate in a focus group or individual interview. Participants were asked to describe the type of technologies they/their partner used during their transition to parenthood, and how such technologies were used to support their own and their family's health. Focus group and interview transcripts were then subjected to thematic analysis using inductive coding. …

Beyond Choice: An Intersectional Analysis Of Identity And Labor In Online Sex Work, Shawna F. Felkins

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

This intersectional project seeks to understand the complex labor, social lives, and community building of online sex workers. Building on the work of foundational sex work researchers, this project utilizes in-depth interviews, a survey, social media posts, and published writing and research from online sex workers to understand how marginalization and identity impacts participation and success in online sex work. Providing analysis on how race, gender, class, and ability intersect in the digital sexual marketplace, this project critiques the rise of neoliberal feminism in sex work spaces that stems from the centering of white and otherwise privileged sex workers using …

Women, Water, And Well-Being: Gendered Experiences Of Household Water Contamination In Parkersburg, West Virginia, Emily Brooke Tingler

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

DuPont Washington Works chemical plant knowingly pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic C8 waste into local waterways, water tables, and landfills for over 40 years, contaminating the drinking water for more than 100,000 residents in and around Parkersburg, West Virginia. Drawing on feminist political ecology and the political ecology of water with literature on perceptions of risk in contaminated communities, environmental reproductive justice, modern water, and hydrosocial waterscapes, I examine, through a qualitative case study, the lived experiences of women who have an intimate understanding of C8 water contamination from the DuPont Washington Works chemical plant. Specifically, I …

Differences In Ride-Hailing Adoption By Older Californians Among Types Of Locations, Manish Shirgaokar, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Bonnie Dobbs, Aditi Misra, Martin Wachs

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Ride-hailing services such as Lyft and Uber can complement rides offered by family, friends, paid providers, and public transit. To learn why older adults might wish to use ride-hail, we conducted an online survey of 2,917 California respondents age 55 and older. Participants were asked whether they would value four features hypothesized to be benefits of ride-hailing. We specified binary logit models and used market segmentation to investigate whether there were location-based differences in the use of ride-hailing. Our analysis showed that women, city dwellers, persons with disabilities, and those who rely on others for rides were more open to …

On The Basis Of Sex: Personal Status Law Reforms And Economic Growth, Kylie Bring

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how law reform toward gender equity has an impact on economic growth in Arab countries in the Middle East. Personal status law reform granting women economic, social, and personal freedoms is spreading across the region and showing substantial change. Using case studies of major PSL reforms in Tunisia and Morocco, this thesis outlines qualitative and quantitative evidence to support the case that gender equity benefits the economic growth of the given country.

“Valli” At The Border: Adivasi Women De-Link From Settler Colonialism Paving Re-Enchantment Of The Forest Commons, Deepa Kozhisseri

Journal of International Women's Studies

The forests of Attappady Hills part of the Western Ghats in Kerala homeland to Adivasi people is a frontier region where a settler population is now predominant. This paper aims to bring the concept of borders as a heuristic device to interpret gender-ecology-indigeneity in Attappady. The conversations among Adivasis, between Adivasis and settlers, between Adivasi women and their children become in media res dialogues of their border subjectivity. This was an empirical study in Attappady in which life experiences, oral history and myths were studied using narrative analysis. The paper discusses four findings: First how land dispossession disproportionately impacted Adivasi …

The Context And Experience Of Mobility Among Urban Marginalized Women In New Delhi, India, Krity Gera, Peter Hasdell

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Gender and mobility are two different yet complex themes that intersect to reveal the impact of the latter on practices related to gender. Indian women experience restriction on their movement because of social, cultural and economic issues. In such contexts, the informal modes of transport emerge as bottom-up solutions to fill in the voids left by public transportation system. Transportation is not just a means for geographical mobility but impacts social mobility of women resulting in enhancement of their overall quality of life. This research takes a descriptive approach to reveal the experience of mobility among urban marginalized women residing …

Men, Women And Witchcraft: The Feminist Reclamation Of The Witch In The Modern Horror Film, Brian Joseph Hadsell

Theses and Dissertations

The witch as a figure possesses a powerful and enduring legacy in Euro-American culture; she is both a victim of patriarchal persecution and the natural enemy of a deeply-gendered society. Recent horror films that employ the witch, however, have generally done so in the form of reclaimed feminist icon: a violently retributive figure avenging the wrongs done to women both past and present. The purpose of this research is to provide insight about our acutely gendered society and culture in the times during and preceding the #MeToo movement through a semiological analysis of three recent horror films that center on …

Straight Men Come Out: Queer Eye And The Path To A More Mindful Masculinity, Eli M. Roush

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

My thesis explores the culture surrounding the 2018 reboot of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in relation to contemporary arguments in masculinity studies about the costs of hegemonic masculinity, performance, and identity. This paper examines how Queer Eye carefully creates space where heteronormative men can safely express emotional vulnerability and embody a more functional masculinity that expands beyond the bounds of hegemonic performance. The bulk of the analysis involves close readings of specific episodes and scenes from Queer Eye that introduce and examine the strategies the Fab Five use to redefine their subject's engagement with masculinity, explore the effectiveness …

His And Hers: Gender-Specific Design In Mid-Twentieth Century North America Through Film And Television, Morgan O'Shaughnessy

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

The built environment exists as a variety of ‘spaces’ which are constructed by, and for, the people who occupy them. What is the relationship between social constructs of gender and our built environment in the 20^th century? How does film and television representing the mid-20^th century exemplify this relationship? The overall theme of this topic will include a positive relationship between social gender constructs and our built environment. Through the exploration of select film and television, this study attempts to answer the question of how gender-focused design reinforces traditional gender roles in North American society in mid-20^{th …}

How Are Key Demographic Indicators Related To Covid-19 Reported In The United States: A Data Review Protocol—Study Description, Charlotte Brasseux, Thoai Ngo, Mingqi Song

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The COVID-19 pandemic is evolving fast and affecting rich and poor countries; however, the social determinants of the health outcomes associated with COVID-19 have not been well characterized. While there is increasing discussion of COVID-19 disparities in the media, no systematic compilation of data exists that synthesizes what and how official reporting platforms disaggregate demographic indicators of COVID-19 testing, cases, hospitalizations, recoveries and deaths. This review will provide a comprehensive overview of what and how federal and local health officials report COVID-19 cases. Having this information nationally and subnationally can help health officials to deploy a more targeted response effort …