Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons^™

Desde El Fuego Que En Mí Arde: Performance, Literatura Y Cine Afro-Latinoamericano Producidos Por Mujeres Afrodescendientes En Perú, Cuba Y Brasil (1960–2000), Elena Ekatherina Chavez Goycochea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines different films, literary, and performance art pieces created by contemporary afro-descendant women from Peru, Cuba, and Brazil after the sixties with emphasis on the most relevant works of Conceição Evaristo, Sara Gómez, Victoria Santa Cruz, and Lucía Charún-Illescas. I focus my research on the crucial role these artists played in the cultural identity formation of Latin America when inserting ‘race’ as a category of socio-political analysis and cultural production. How did their films, performances, and texts challenge national narratives and imaginaries after 1960? Although in the sixties, women improved their civil rights in different countries, the ‘mujer …

Gendered Conflict Resolution: The Role Of Women In Amani Mashinani’S Peacebuiding Processes In Uasin Gishu County, Kenya, Susan Kilonzo, Kennedy Onkware

The Journal of Social Encounters

The role of women in peacebuilding is acknowledged by many stakeholders central in peace work. While this is so, there are still concerns about what we know about women’s involvement in peacebuilding structures established by non-state actors. Drawing from Amani Mashinani (Peace at Grassroots) peacebuilding model initiated by the Catholic Church in Kenya’s North Rift region, we examine the role of women in processes of conflict resolution in Uasin Gishu County. Suggestions to support women’s participation will be discussed.

“Unspoken Understanding”: The Evolution Of Chinese American Adoption Communities, Annie Abruzzo

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

While scholarly work on adoption, transnational adoption, and specifically international adoption from China has been robust, it has tended to focus on studying parents and parenting. This paper analyzes the resources used by both parents and children to discuss race, culture, and adoption, and seeks to understand the effects of these parenting strategies on Chinese American adoptees, who have begun to reach young adulthood in the last ten years. Examination of the recent growth of adoptee communities reveals that a shared and complex adoptee identity is a more powerful nexus than shared Chineseness.

Black And White Health Disparities: Racial Bias In American Healthcare, Yasmeen Almomani

Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections

This paper explores the historical implications of race in American society that have led to implicit racism in the healthcare system. Racial bias in healthcare against Black people is a factor in the health disparities between Black and white people in America, such as the gap in life expectancy, infant death, and maternal mortality. Black people are more likely to report racial discrimination from healthcare providers, which is a reason for the decreased quality of care received. The past justifications of slavery, the Tuskegee syphilis study, and the medical experimentations on Black women are horrifying but were considered acceptable in …

Cldv 100 Introduction To Multicultural Studies In The 21st Century, Oluremi "Remi" Alapo

Open Educational Resources

A study of what "culture" is; how we see it based on several factors, how it influences the choices and decision we make; how to deal positively with conflicts that inevitably arise in working /living situations with people of diverse cultures. This is a course structured to raise multicultural awareness and fortify students' social skills in dealing with cultural differences. It includes ethnographic study of cultural groups in the U.S.A and responses to shared values, observations or experiences based on student's ancestry, heritage, travels. Students will learn about culture "do and donts" around the world and provide the class with …

Introductory Note, Alan Lebaron

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

A note from the editor, Alan LeBaron, reviewing the contents and structure of Maya America Vol. 3 Iss. 2.

Indigenous Youth Storywork: A Spiritual Awakening Of A Maya Adoptee Living In Kkkanada, Ana Celeste Macleod

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

Indigenous adoptee scholars understand their identity through community connection, culture, education and practice. In this Storywork, through engagement with current literature and ten research questions, I explored what it meant to be an adoptee in West Coast (KKKanadian) Indigenous communities. An Indigenous Youth Storywork methodology was applied to bring meaning to relationships I have with diverse Indigenous Old Ones, mentors and Knowledge Keepers and their influence on my journey as a Maya adoptee returning to my culture. My personal story was developed and analyzed using an Indigenous decolonial framework and Indigenous Arts-based methods. The intention of this Youth Storywork research …

A Maya Migrant: A Journey Of No Return, Gaspar Pedro González

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

After years of listening to Maya migrants in the United states and listening to migrants forced back to Guatemala, the novella’s author Gaspar Pedro González created the story of Palas and Malkal, man and wife. The story begins with a discussion of the causes behind migration, and then proceeds to Palas while he arranges his trip with the coyote, makes his goodbyes to his family and community, makes the overland passage through Mexico, and when finally in the United States finds some hopes and plans unobtainable. Palas, and his family left behind in Guatemala, will encounter challenges to their cultural …

Sanctuary Says, Alexandra Délano Alonso, Abou Farman, Anne Mcnevin, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

In 2018, the New School Working Group on Expanded Sanctuary collaboratively organized a series of workshops in New York to reflect on the question of sanctuary as a conceptual and practical starting point for cross-coalitional politics, including its tensions and risks. This short piece is an attempt to bring together the sentiments expressed in those workshops by activists, organizers, students and academics focusing on anti-racist, pro-migrant, and pro-Indigenous struggles, in a form that engages sanctuary as an ongoing question.

Book Review: Remembrance And Forgiveness: Global And Interdisciplinary Perspectives On Genocide And Mass Violence, Amina Hadžiomerović

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The volume Remembrance and Forgiveness, edited by Ajlina Karamehić-Muratović and Laura Kromják, brings together a diversity of disciplines, authors, and cultural contexts to discuss the legacies of the post-Holocaust era genocides by focusing on the (de)mobilisation of memory in seeking truth, justice, and forgiveness. The book provides a compendious overview of the social, historical, and political contexts behind the insurgencies and gives a better sense of understanding of (the obstacles to) the healing process and reconciliation in the global frame.

Religious Mega-Events And Their Assemblages In Devotional Pilgrimages: The Case Of Círio De Nazaré In Belém, Pará State, Brazil, José Rogério Lopes, André Luiz Da Silva

Journal of Global Catholicism

The article presents a typological categorization of contemporary mega-events and their characteristics, in order to interpret the assemblages mobilized by sectors of the Catholic Church in traditional devotional pilgrimages in the northern region of Brazil. It uses ethnographic accounts of the Círio de Nazaré feast, in Belém, Pará state, Brazil, considered the largest Catholic procession in the West, in order to analyze how the promotion of this event is organized through institutional and market logics that overlap with the religious phenomenon, evincing a contemporary trend. These assemblages open a field of possibilities for institutional religious reproduction and generate concentric flows …

Young Brazilian Catholics Reaffiliating: A Case Study In The City Of Campos, Rj, Brazil, Cecilia L. Mariz, Wânia Amélia Belchior Mesquita, Michelle Piraciaba Araújo

Journal of Global Catholicism

Through a case study in Campos, a northern city of Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, this article analyzes reports from young people who state that they have undergone a process of revival or reactivation of their Catholic faith. They all declared to have participated in the “St Andrew’s School of Evangelization.” They also mentioned having experienced an "encounter with God." Their narratives were similar to conversion accounts reported by practitioners of other religious traditions. The interviewees describe faith as a personal choice, and emphasize the need for religious study and the value of religious knowledge. To what extent these values …

Contemporary Brazilian Catholicism And Healing Practices: Notes On Environmentalism And Medicalization, Juliano F. Almeida

Journal of Global Catholicism

Anthropological studies on Brazilian Catholicism traditionally focused on popular variants of this religious practice and their relationship with the official Catholicism. Encouraged by recent anthropological perspectives, which highlight the relevance of devoting researches not only on the margins, but also on the center of social practices, this paper analyzes contemporary practices of Brazilian Catholic friars and priests on health promotion. The analysis of their publications (books that include practices and tips on health and that became best sellers etc.), as well as interviews, allows us to perceive a process of environmentalization on the contemporary Brazilian Catholicism. This process seems to …

Strong Church, Weak Catholicism: Transformations In Brazilian Catholicism, Carlos Alberto Steil, Rodrigo Toniol

Journal of Global Catholicism

In this paper we explore data on Catholicism from the 2010 census in Brazil, as well as other data from the Center for Religious Statistics and Social Investigation. Using these statistics, we question those arguments that explain the reduction in the number of Catholics in Brazilian society as a problem in the institution’s adaptation in response to the challenges of evangelization, or as a lack of ministerial vocations to meet the religious demands of the people. Pursuing an alternative argument, we consider the weakening of the relationship between the Catholic institution and traditional popular Catholicism to be a fundamental aspect …

Editor's Introduction, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Placing God: Defining “Post-Christianity” For Contemporary Japanese Christians, Leryan Anthony Burrey

Master's Projects and Capstones

This work suggests that we consider a new, working definition of post-Christianity. This new paradigm is in response to Western Christian thought being too dominant a force that fails to take into enough account other global experiences— like those of Japanese Christians. These reflections are based on scholarly opinions claiming that Christianity is a “global culture,” and ultimately argues for more international inclusivity in Western Christian thought and institutions, especially regarding the Asia-Pacific. Moreover, this paper illuminates how iitoko dori allows Christian thought to peacefully coexist in Japan’s greater society. The research also explores specific Japanese cultural practices that make …

Mapping Out Our Space In Stories: A High School Curriculum For A Social Justice Tour Of San Francisco, Elena Ramírez Robles

Master's Projects and Capstones

How do youth engage with the spaces around them? In what ways might students connect their personal, lived knowledge to the politics and intricacies of space? The manners in which schools approach outside-of-school learning includes non-critical Place-Based Learning and field trips as optional material; however, doing so breaks the powerful relationship waiting to be explored between Critical Geography and Critical Education. This field project uses Henri Lefebvre’s concepts of The Production of Space and Rhythmanalysis as foundations to argue for the implementation of Critical Geography into high school curricula, and offers a 9-week high school curriculum to create a student-led …

An Aesthetic Of Authenticity: The Use Of Turquoise In American (Counter)Culture, Madison Staples

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Turquoise is a distinctive part of the material culture of the Indigenous tribes of the American Southwest, including the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo peoples. The stone, particularly its color, is situated within complex systems of culture and meaning for each tribe, but the physical nature of material culture makes such pieces accessible for outsiders to borrow, buy, or steal. The aesthetic of the southwestern Indigenous tribe, traced in this paper through the use of turquoise, has been drawn upon by non-Native Westerners pursuing authenticity in their American lives. My findings suggest that true authenticity is marked by authentic engagement, …

Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Benefit To Climate-Displaced And Host Communities, Gül Aktürk, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Climate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues …

An Archaeological And Spatial Exploration Of Yard Use At The Oval Site, Stratford Hall Plantation: A Mid-18th-Century Mixed-Use Site On The Northern Neck Of Virginia, Delaney Resweber

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The Oval Site (44WM80) is located on the grounds of Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia and was excavated by the Department of and Center for Historic Preservation at Mary Washington College/the University of Mary Washington between 2001- 2014. The Oval Site was one component of a larger eighteenth-century plantation and is comprised of four structures. These buildings are currently interpreted as an overseer’s house, a barn, a kitchen, and an unidentified building. The kitchen had also served as a quarter for the enslaved Africans and/or African Americans that worked on this site. Using methods developed in landscape archaeology …

More Than Just A School: Medicinal Practices At The Abiel Smith School, Dania D. Jordan

Graduate Masters Theses

The Abiel Smith School, located on the North Slope of Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest Black schools in the United States in one of the oldest free Black communities. The Abiel Smith School was constructed between 1834 and 1835 as a means to resist racial discrimination in the public school system. The Smith School is central to Beacon Hill’s Black history because it helped Black Bostonians advance in society and mitigate against the effects of racism through education. However, the Smith School may have served a dual role in the Black community. Medicinal bottles excavated …

Como Lobos, David Andrew Place

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In a world of conflict, Storm Crow, a Comanche warrior, leads a war party making its way through Mexico and Texas, stealing horses, abducting children, and wreaking chaos as he seeks spiritual and magical power, increasing his notoriety and prowess as a warrior. During one raid, Storm Crow abducts a white child, six-year-old Wade Vance. When Wade tries to escape, Storm Crow attempts to shoot him. When Storm Crow's gun fails twice, he realizes that the boy is not meant to die and adopts him, renaming Wade, "Broken Gun," in praise of the perceived magical intervention, the gun misfiring twice, …

How Racialization Shapes Work Conditions For H2a Migrant Farmworkers: Literature Review, Zoi Johns

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Scholars have argued that an existing gap between the idealization of American prosperity and actualization of American exploitation occurs on account of racialization. Racialization refers to the process in which subsets of people are reduced to a set of occupational practices, beliefs, or narratives that work to define their low position within societal hierarchy (Garcia 2014). This concept distinguishes itself from racism as it focuses on the conditions that exist in order for the reproduction of racism and oppression to occur (Gonzalez-Sobrino and Goss 2019). Thus, it will be argued that the reproduction of these tenants occurs capitalistically and perpetually. …

Pilgrimage To Bawakaraeng Mountain Among The Bugis- Makassar In Indonesia: A Contestation Between Islamic Identity And Local Tradition, Mustaqim Pabbajah, Irwan Abdullah, Hasse Jubba, M.Taufiq Hidayat Pabbajah, Zainal Said

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This study discusses the contestation of Islamic identity and local traditions of the Bugis-Makassar people in socio-religious life. Tradition contains a belief with form and practices that can still be traced to the present. In this case, the identity of the hajj pilgrimage attached to Muslims has been adapted to the Bawakaraeng Hajj community in the South Sulawesi region. The current research employed a qualitative descriptive approach and field-based data collection techniques by conducting observations and interviews with key informants about the Bawakaraeng community. It was found that the Bugis-Makassar practice of carrying out a series of rituals on the …

Embodied Injustices: Covid-19, Race, And Epigenetics, Maria Encinosa

Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

Digital Projects Showcase Exhibitor Award Although historical and even modern accounts of race assume significant biological differences between racial groups, race has little biological meaning. Nonetheless, the social construct of race has real consequences. Racial identity defines boundaries of community and impacts the experiences of individuals, including how people live and die during a pandemic. COVID-19 has disproportionately affected minority communities in the United States, triggering many explanations for racial disparities in health. Through an analysis of sources spanning from popular media to traditional academic journals, I analyze the potential for epigenetic research to serve as a missing link that …

La Llorona, Picante Pero Sabroso: The Mexican Horror Legend As A Story Of Survival And A Reclamation Of The Monster, Camille Maria Acosta

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

For centuries, the relationship between Mexico and its infatuation with scary stories has been profoundly complex, but why? Perhaps it is the easiest way to communicate a Mexican culture, although proud and resilient, riddled with haunting narratives. For myself personally, the Mexican horror narrative La Llorona has served as a lens for conversation and communication that is unique and important.

In this thesis, I explore how Mexicans and Mexican Americans alike use the legend of La Llorona as a unique form of communication through personifying what truly haunts us. From using the narrative as a tool for entertainment, cautionary tales, …

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …

Crises Beyond Nationalities, J P. Linstroth

Peace and Conflict Studies Journal Conference

The aim of my presentation titled, Crises Beyond Nationalities, is to discuss the topics of “immigration and racism”, “nationalism and terrorism”, “genocide”, “racial trauma”, “biology, neuroscience, and humanity”, and “empathy, love, and peace” so as not only to theorize about these complex issues but to point to ways forward with some progressive thinking. If the topics of “racism and immigration” are isolated without discussing their broader associations such as with nationalism and violence, or in the most extreme with genocide, then the arguments are not broad enough. As an anthropologist and peace activist, it is important to analyze such …

Variations On Hunting And Care: Ownership, Kinship And Other Interspecific Relationships In The Eastern Amazon, Uirá Garcia

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article is based on fieldwork among the Guajá people, a small indigenous group of Tupí-Guaraní speakers inhabiting the eastern portion of Brazil’s Amazon region. Aiming for an ethnographic definition of kinship, this article engages in issues related to the figure of the “owner/masterin the Amazon, proposing a dialogue with a seldom discussed aspect of this subject—namely, its relation to conjugality. I argue that relationships included in the universe of “familiarity” and “mastery” are not only coextensive with the field of kinship; they also reveal a very particular conception of humanity. The process of Awá-Guajá kinship, where the spouse is …

Framing The Border: Liminality In The Network Narratives Of Alejandro González Iñárritu, Muhammad Muzammal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores liminality conveyed as displacement before death in the network narrative films of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. Due to their depiction of existential crises and possibly fatal scenarios of several characters in different countries and regions, these network narrative films are colloquially referred to as the “Death Trilogy.” Therefore, rearranging the many strands of death-related abstractions and notions in these films around liminality becomes a jumping-off point to explore deeper layers of these works. Through interdisciplinary yet markedly film studies excavations, this thesis projects the liminal spaces of Iñárritu’s films onto border spaces. With borders considered as sites of …