Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons^™

Unsung Heroines In Black And White: Sixties Girl Groups As Sonic Rock Rebellion, Hilarie Ashton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Before the Beatles arrived in America, exploding open the intersection between pop music and the emerging genre of rock and in so doing, drawing heavily on the work of Black music and musicians, girl groups were powerfully enacting a kind of cultural rebellion in both of those genres. In contrast to the historical impulse to privilege a breathlessly incomplete white male lineage, "Unsung Heroines" examines in closer, more connected spotlights the subversive creative work of the Black and working-class teenage girls in the Ronettes, the Chiffons, and the Shangri-Las. Across four chapters, "Unsung Heroines" shows how these singers subversively tucked …

Examining Past, Present, And Future Of Agricultural Labor: From The Bracero Program To The Coalition Of Immokalee Workers, Francesca Paradiso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is a comparative study that examines the Bracero Program and the work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). The Bracero Program brought Mexican workers into the United States on temporary work visas from 1942-1964. The CIW is an organization of Mexican workers that was founded in 1992 as a response to the horrible working conditions that Mexican tomato pickers faced in Immokalee, Florida. In this thesis, I show that by putting these programs side by side, we can see the exploitation of Mexican farmworkers has relied on changing government tools—different forms of visas, different immigration regimes, different …

John Singer Sargent In Spain: Eluding The Stereotype, Cristina Domenech

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this thesis is to present John Singer Sargent's unique vision of Spain as well as to analyze this part of his work through the use of methodologies such as Orientalism and Spanish cultural studies, an approach that has not been undertaken to date.

The thesis intends to demonstrate that Sargent's early paintings -along with those of his American counterparts who traveled to Paris- were strongly motivated by the prevailing cultural orientalism of the moment in France, one of those extensions being the so called españolismo that exacerbated the most stereotyped dimensions of Spanish history and culture.

Undoubtedly, …

The Nawat Language Revitalization In El Salvador And How Its Digital Activism Transcends Borders, Sergio J. Mendoza Gallardo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this research project I seek to show how digital activism for Nawat revitalization can transcend beyond the Salvadoran borders. The goal is to show how the revitalization of Nawat can have a better chance to be successful thanks to technology. Nawat is the last indigenous language in El Salvador, and its position within Salvadoran society has been uncertain for many years. Thus, I aim to show how technological efforts can help revitalize Nawat language with the efforts that are already being done. Although El Salvador has had a dark ethnic history regarding indigenous people, there are actions being taken …

Chromatic Dissensus: An Otherwise Archive Of Natural Dyes, 1700–1856, Luke Church

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chromatic Dissensus: An Otherwise Archive of Natural Dyes, 1750-1856 works from the premise that the absences regarding subaltern life structuring the colonial archive are an epistemological problem—that is, navigating the colonial archive requires an interrogation of the parameters and practices of knowledge formation. Building from recent scholarship in early American studies which details how eighteenth-century colonial knowledge developed out of an epistemic entanglement between British colonists, diasporic Africans, and indigenous Americans, my dissertation queries the overdetermination of colonial knowledge and subsequent occlusion of alternative parameters for knowing. Enlisting aesthetics, in its broad definition as the theorization of sense making, my …

Is There Room For More?: Considering The Need For A Decoloniality Community Psychology Core Competency, Jesica S. Fernández, Janelle M. Silva

Ethnic Studies

From a decolonizing standpoint, as proposed by Cruz and Sonn (2011), the current community psychology competencies seem insufficient because these often leave power structures intact. Consequently, we propose a decolonizing, decolonial and anti-colonial competency in community psychology practice to facilitate the practitioner’s process toward decoloniality, specifically decolonizing language, discourses, relationships and research processes with communities. A decolonial competency in community psychology practice is characterized by an iterative process of critical ethical reflexivity that aims to de-link community psychology practice from hegemonic Western Eurocentric perspectives in order to foster and center community voice, knowledge and power. Through an autoethnographic methodology we …

Table Of Belonging: Exploring Social Reversal At St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Natalie Magnusson

DMin Project Theses

This January 2023 Doctor of Ministry project thesis at Lipscomb University explores the problem of a predominantly white, affluent Episcopal congregation confessing racial justice as a shared value while struggling to embody that conviction. The project pursues the following research question: How might a congregation of the most historically powerful, prominent, and affluent church in the U.S. imagine its life in the Jackson, MI community in light of Luke 14 and encounters with people who experience racial injustice? In the theological chapter, the Tower of Babel narrative in Genesis 11 and the Pentecost narrative in Acts 2 serve as interpretive …

Mental Health And Coping Habits Of Young Black Men In Stem At An Hbcu, Chamberlain Newman

XULAneXUS

This study examines the mental health and coping habits of young Black men pursuing STEM degrees at a historically Black college and university (HBCU) in New Orleans. Drawing on survey data from 43 Black male STEM students ages 18 to 22, the study addresses four research questions concerning factors affecting mental well-being, the role of the HBCU environment, stress coping strategies, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings indicate that peer camaraderie, faculty engagement, and access to supportive social networks are central to students' mental wellness and academic persistence. Positive coping mechanisms identified by participants included listening to music, …

Being Multicultural In The Workplace, Fiorella Morales

Dissertations

As the workforce becomes increasingly diverse and organizations elevate their efforts to address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), it is critical to engage in a deeper investigation of the experiences of multicultural individuals at work. In this qualitative study, nine multicultural individuals were interviewed using a sociological lens to gain their perspective on the relationship between their identity and their work experiences. The primary research questions that guided this study were: (a) how do multicultural individuals influence the workplace? In turn, (b) how do their workplace experiences affect their identity and sense of self? Data was coded and …

Archiving Blackness: Reimagining And Recreating The Archive(S) As Literary And Information Wake Work, Jamillah R. Gabriel

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

“…we, Black people everywhere and anywhere we are, still produce in, into, and through the wake an insistence on existing: we insist Black being into the wake.”

– Christina Sharpe, In the Wake (2016)

In this paper, I introduce Christina Sharpe’s conceptualizations of wake and wake work, as they pertain to archiving the experiences of Blackness to better understand how the archive and archives are vital for those living and working in the wake of slavery. I am particularly interested in the wake work conducted both in literary works (speculative fiction) and at information sites (archives). To that end, …

Mami Wata, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Mami Wata (2023), directed by C.J. "Fiery" Obasi.

From Extractivism To Adjacency. A Research Manifesto, Margarita Palacios, Anette Baldauf

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

This essay concerns with the ways in which extractivism continues to be reproduced in academic frameworks despite innumerous initiatives of decolonization. Engaging with artistic research and embracing a materialist approach that emphasizes embeddedness and embodiment, as well as acknowledging the affective-aesthetic flows that accompany research, the authors locate the heart of the problem at the disjuncture between critical epistemology and research practices. This disavowed space of knowledge production, they argue, is where the logics of extractivism and its racialized epistemic dualism are reproduced. The authors put forward the notion of adjacency, as in their view, dwelling on the power of …

Black Heritage Series: Ernest J. Gaines, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for Ernest J. Gaines commemorative stamp - Black Heritage Series, includes images of the stamps and biographical information for Ernest J. Gaines. First issued January 23, 2023.

Sorcery, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Sorcery (2023), directed by Christopher Murray.

The Persian Version, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Persian Version (2023), directed by Maryam Keshavarz.

"It Snows Year-Round Here": A Counterstory About Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx Students’ Experiences With Racism At A Predominantly White University In The Northeast, Martín Alberto Gonzalez

Chicano/Latino Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using critical race theory counterstorytelling, I tell a story about the experiences of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx (MMAX) undergraduate students at a private, predominantly white university in the Northeast. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observations, pláticas, and document analyses, I highlight the various ways MMAX students experience discrimination on campus. More specifically, discrimination and unsettledness are experienced by MMAX students through the following ways: 1) Racist Name Calling and Racial Slurs; 2) Discrimination by Professors; and 3) Class Discussions as Microaggressions. Through counterstories like this one, I argue that we can shed light on injustices while staying true to our ancestral ways …

The Murder Of George Floyd: A Case Study Examining How The Policing Of Black Men And Grassroots Activism Influence The Will Of Black Women To Lead, Ella Gates-Mahmoud

Doctorate in Education

This study's objective investigates the viewpoints held by Black women in two urban areas of Minnesota about the social upheaval that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020 for using a counterfeit $20 bill. In the last decade, police killings of innocent Black people in the United States have received more attention, and Floyd's death is only one example of this phenomenon. In the U.S., the likelihood of a police officer taking the life of a Black man is higher than that of a White man. Between 2013-2019 there have been 1,641 fatal shootings of defenseless Black men by …

Review Of Alcohol And Drug Treatment For Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Marguerite Tracy, Bradley Freeburn, Kylie Lee, Julie Woods, Kate Conigrave

Journal of the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet

This review provides an overview of treatments for problem alcohol and other drug (AOD) use for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It includes information on the available research and discusses core principles for providing treatment. The review outlines how effective mainstream treatment approaches can be adapted to be more suitable for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of being or worldview. It also highlights that services, such as those offered by Aboriginal community controlled health organisations are in a unique position to offer culturally secure treatment approaches. The barriers to accessing treatment are discussed as well as recommendations for …

Mexica Monism And Daoist Ethics In The Philosophy Of Gloria Anzaldúa, Saraliza Anzaldúa

Comparative Philosophy

Critical scholarship regarding the philosophy of Gloria Anzaldúa has proliferated in recent decades, especially in the fields of feminist theory, phenomenology, and epistemology. However, there is little analysis of the metaphysics which undergird their work and make possible their views on identity, experience, and community politics. First, this article will explore the significance of Anzaldúa’s ‘nos/otras’ and its relation to Mexica (Aztec) monistic metaphysics. Such a concept resists an us/them construction of the world because it situates the other as us: the Spanish word for ‘we’ is ‘nosotros’ and holds the ‘other/otros’ as its …

Development Of Southern Interracial Marriage And Divorce: Why Our Children Are Code-Switching, Zoe R. Grant

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

The fundamental basis of my final paper will be of my own lived experience. In my paper, I will argue that as a result of an interracial divorce, mixed-race children are learning to code-switch leading to a greater sense of empathy and community. I will pull from the theoretical framework of Gloria Anzaldua’s “Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza” as well as other sources to support my claims.

By focusing heavily on a southern perspective, I will question whether or not a history of southern interracial marriage causes a strain on nuclear families. Are interracial children having new experiences, and …

Malintzin: La Mujer Americana, Alma D. Elías Nájera

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

Malintzin was a controversial Indigenous woman whose contributions to the Aztec conquest raised questions about what it meant to be a traitor with a limited agency. This essay recontextualizes Malintzin’s demonized identity and challenges masculinist sociocultural curations of gender, history, and knowledge production by infusing feminist theory into the cultural imaginaries of gender and racial stratification. By reintroducing Malintzin as a feminist emblematic figure trying to regain selfhood within an exploitative White cisheteropatriarchal society, her existence gives voice to those silenced by the violence of colonization, Manhood, and gender oppression. To do this, the author takes up the work of …

Hija De La Chingada: Visibility And Erasure Of La Malinche In Contemporary Mexican Discourse, Tania Del Moral

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

The mystification and subsequent reduction of La Malinche in Mexican national discourse presents a problem in which patriarchy and colonialism bind the native Mexican women into two archetypes: either traditional or treacherous. Historical accounts have fallen short of describing the woman behind the myth of La Malinche, further compartmentalizing her into a traitor to her people. Scholars such as Octavio Paz and Gloria Anzaldúa have illustrated her subjugation and erasure, highlighting this binary. This paper, however, considers a postcolonialist perspective to analyze La Malinche's story as one of erasure; particularly the ways that language was used by the Spanish Crown …

Àṣẹ After Man: The Rupture Of The Christian-Colonial Project As Decolonial Ceremony, Eden Segbefia

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

This project is a theoretical exploration of the Yoruba concept of àṣẹ and its role in unsettling the hierarchies imposed by Christian colonialism. Sylvia Wynter's explanation of the ways in which Christian colonialism has affected the very concept of Man proves crucial here. Àṣẹ is an example of a decolonial concept because of its ability to rearrange animacy, especially as it is conceived in Western European epistemology. Wynter and other interlocutors are utilized to support this argument and imagine new possibilities in considering the relationships between Christian colonialism, alterity, plasticity, and animacy.

Queer Ecologies: A Final Syllabus/Zine Product Of Our Independent Study, Yeh Seo Jung, Ray Craig

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

This zine is the product of our independent study course Queer Ecologies, which is an exploration of bio-social systems using a queer and feminist theoretical lens. We aim to look critically at knowledge formation and construct alternative visions for more just and sustainable relationships between science, nature, and ourselves. While queer theory most directly interrogates the normative structure of heterosexuality both in humans and in biology more broadly, these studies include analyses of hierarchy, power, and value. Queer Ecology can be used to examine phenomena such as climate change, extinction, pollution, species hierarchies, agricultural practices, resource extraction, and human population …

Masculinized Sovereignty: Understanding Violence Towards Mice And The Nonhuman, Anisha Prakash

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

This paper attempts to analyze how the definition of the normative “human” categorizes bodies that represent alternative political order against settler colonialism, and how the subjects that go against the dominant ideal of human are prohibited from living a free life, if not altogether eliminated. While conducting research, I view the lab as a site of social advancement where the differences between humans and nonhumans create a community of shared purpose. An interrogation of the laboratory as a site of violence can help us better understand how the State’s capitalist modes of advancement and production harm those of indigenous people, …

Sitting Here With You In The Future: Reimagining The Human Through Digital Art, Jared Z. Sloan

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

This paper presents a novel construction of the Human that arises from digital art. Taking an interdisciplinary approach incorporating perspectives from queer theory, afropessimism, science and technology studies, and more, I analyze the works of three digital artists: Lucas LaRochelle, Arafa Hamadi, and Natalie Paneng. I chart the ways in which these artists negotiate borders between the physical and digital, human and non-human, and real and fantastical to challenge hegemonic Western ideas about humanity and the individual. I claim that by restricting the information available to the user in various ways, the picture of the Human that emerges from each …

The Afterlife Of Jennifer Laude: Trans Necropolitics And Trans Utopias, Max D. López Toledano

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

Jennifer Laude is a filipino trans woman who was murdered by a visiting member of the United States army in 2014. Her murder led to several protests in the Philippines and in the United States led by both queer and anti-imperialist movements that urged for the rejection of the 'Visiting Forces Agreement' in the Philippines. This essay explores how Laude's murder is located in a climate of 'trans necropolitics' that allocates death and disposability to unruly trans and brown bodies who fail to comply with cis-normative gender ideals. This essay understands her murder (and her afterlife) beyond her individual body, …

“The Work We Came Here To Do”: Crossings, An Introduction, José E. Valdivia Heredia , '23

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Written Out : The Silencing Of Regina Gelana Twala, Joel Cabrita

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Systemic racism and sexism caused one of South Africa’s most important writers to disappear from public consciousness. Is it possible to justly restore her historical presence?

Regina Gelana Twala, a Black South African woman who died in 1968 in Swaziland (now Eswatini), was an extraordinarily prolific writer of books, columns, articles, and letters. Yet today Twala’s name is largely unknown. Her literary achievements are forgotten. Her books are unpublished. Her letters languish in the dusty study of a deceased South African academic. Her articles are buried in discontinued publications.

Joel Cabrita asserts that Twala’s posthumous obscurity has not developed accidentally …

Seeing And Unlearning Whiteness: A Mindfulness Workshop For Racial Justice, Emily Haranas

Mindfulness Studies Theses

Racism is a deeply embedded, foundational aspect of American society. However, because the privilege of Whiteness insulates White individuals from the workings of systemic injustice and oppression and enables them to choose the conditions of their accountability in the movement for racial justice, many remain painfully blind to this fact. As such, there is a significant need for those who have been racialized White to develop a critical awareness of the powers and privileges ascribed to their racial identity. The working premise of this thesis is that mindfulness can assist White individuals in unlinking the socialized habits of mind that …