Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Labor Movement To Challenge The Billionaires: A Review Of "Class Struggle Unionism" By Joe Burns, Jonathan Kissam

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This book review of Joe Burns' Class Struggle Unionism (Haymarket, 2022) is republished with permission from both the UE NEWS (ueunion.org/ue-news) and the author (Jonathan Kissam).

Our thanks to UE NEWS and the Mr. Kissam.

The Only Commonality Is Uncommonality: Progressive Protest From The Mid-1980s, Globalization From Below, Environmental Devastation, Climate Change, And Questioning Of Industrial Civilization, Kim Scipes

Class, Race and Corporate Power

Noting the extensive number of progressive protests, mobilizations, and social disruption from below since the mid-1980s, not just in the US but around the world, this article suggests that what is going on is the expansion of the global economic and social justice movement, a bottom-up form of globalization. It suggests that this is, ultimately, a rejection of industrial civilization itself. And it points out, through an examination of the effects of climate change, that the continued existence of industrial civilization is imposing a burden on the peoples of the world that far outweighs its benefits, and suggests that protests …

Transnational Corporate Power: From Lomé To The Cariforum-Eu Epa, Melissa A. Boissiere

Class, Race and Corporate Power

The post-Lomé era, from the turn of the twenty-first century, marks a shift from an epoch of non-reciprocal preferential trade under successive Lomé Conventions to one of reciprocal trade within a free trade area under a neoliberal international economic order. Post-Lomé thus constitutes a new age in the relationship between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. In this context, there are several factors that distinguish the Lomé period of preferences from twenty-first century agreements between the EU and ACP states, and which have influenced this development in the Europe-ACP relationship. This article focuses on the …

The Transnational Investment Bloc In U.S. Policy Toward Saudi Arabia And The Persian Gulf, Mazaher Koruzhde, Ronald W. Cox

Class, Race and Corporate Power

U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf is driven by the economic and geopolitical interests of a U.S.-Saudi transnational investment bloc that derives steady profits from the region.

Digital Privacy In The Home, Kelley Flannery Rowan

Works of the FIU Libraries

This workshop covers how to stay safe in a digital environment while using the many conveniences a smart home offers. The first half focuses on understanding where the risks are in the digital environment and how to stay safe by creating secure networks and employing strong security tactics with biometrics, passwords, and other available features. The second half focuses on the Internet of Things, covering everything you are likely to find in a smart home. The presentation offers tips on how to reduce the risk of hackers invading your privacy through smart speakers and TVs, as well as addressing the …

Making The Grade: What's Motivating China's Educational Outreach In Lac?, Margaret Myers, Brian Fonseca

Research Publications

This paper considers the multiple motivations for China’s educational outreach in the region, drawing from Chinese policy and analysis and many dozens of examples of academic linkages forged between China and Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years. Whether initiated by Chinese or LAC institutions, these programs are an increasingly central feature of China-LAC relations, a part of the extension of China’s BRI to LAC, and a useful measure of China’s varied and evolving interests throughout the region.

Afro-Cubans, Incorporation, And Cubanidad In Miami, Fl, Elena M. Cruz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study is to investigate how Afro-Cubans as double diasporic subjects have been incorporated into the socio-cultural landscape of South Florida and the relationship between these methods of incorporation and the evolution of ethno-racial identification. The study examines the role of race and racism in shaping the socio-economic adjustment of Afro-Cubans in South Florida. Miami is the appropriate research site as home to half of all Cuban immigrants in the United States where cubanidad is most closely associated with whiteness. Miami also has a substantial population of other Afro-diasporic populations, including Afro-Caribbean immigrants as well as …

Fiscal Transparency And Fiscal Outcomes: Is There A Connection?, Merlene Patrice Quispe

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

FISCAL TRANSPARENCY AND FISCAL OUTCOMES: IS THERE A CONNECTION?

This dissertation answers whether a connection exists between an American State Government’s (ASG’s) level of fiscal transparency and attainment of improved fiscal outcomes. Improved fiscal transparency is normatively positive and expected to be rewarded by bond rating agencies with better ratings resulting in lower borrowing costs. Likewise, improved fiscal transparency is expected to lead to lower levels of debt. Yet, no empirical evidence exists to bolster such assertions.

Specifically, two interrelated research questions are addressed. Research Question one focuses on why some states have greater levels of fiscal transparency? This question …

Osm Science - The Academic Study Of The Openstreetmap Project, Data, Contributors, Community, And Applications, A. Yair Grinberger, Marco Minghini, Levente Juhasz, Godwin Yeboah, Peter Mooney

GIS Center

This paper is an Editorial for the Special Issue titled “OpenStreetMap as a multidisciplinary nexus: perspectives, practices and procedures”. The Special Issue is largely based on the talks presented in the 2019 and 2020 editions of the Academic Track at the State of the Map conferences. As such, it represents the most pressing and relevant issues and topics considered by the academic community in relation to OpenStreetMap (OSM)—a global project and community aimed to create and maintain a free and editable database and map of the world. In this Editorial, we survey the papers included in the Special Issue, grouping …

A Mixed Methods Approach To Exploring Nurses’ Covid-19 Experiences And Identifying Effective Coping Strategies For Common Nurse Job Strains, Natalie Armenteros

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given the substantial range of stressors exacerbated by COVID-19 and their detrimental effects on healthcare workers, researchers have called for a more thorough investigation into how COVID-19 has impacted the health and well-being of healthcare workers. With nurses working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a sense of urgency to empirically gather information on these experiences, particularly for those working in epicenters of the outbreak. The primary goal of this collected papers dissertation is to help inform organizational policies and practices in the healthcare industry related to nurses’ health and well-being. As such, this dissertation utilized a …

Human Rights And Professions Museums As Interlocutors Of Buraku Identity In Japan, Lisa Mueller

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Members of the Buraku minority group in contemporary Japan are traditionally perceived as descendants of outcaste communities who performed work deemed impure according to Shinto and Buddhist taboos in Japan’s caste system during the Tokugawa Era (1603-1867). After receiving emancipation in 1871, they continued to experience severe discrimination. Following successful activism culminating in government-issued affirmative action “special measures” funding beginning in 1969, Buraku people have now approached social and economic parity with mainstream Japanese. Partially due to these successes, the Buraku Liberation League, the largest Buraku rights organization in the country, has now embraced a new globalized, UN-centric Buraku identity …

Assigning A Guardian: Family Separation Planning Among Undocumented Immigrants With Us Citizen Children, Maryam Rafieifar

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Custody of children in the event of family separation is one of the significant issues that needs to be addressed in the preparation process. Some parents make arrangements to delegate the legal guardianship of their children to another person so that if they ever get deported, they would not lose ties with their children. Using a qualitative design, this dissertation has explored the undocumented parents’ decision to choose a guardian for their US citizen children in preparation for possible future family separation. It also looked at how the parents communicate such decision and their immigration status with their children. To …

Homoerotic Medievalism: Looking At Queer Desire In The Homosocial Relationships Of Chaucer’S “The Knight’S Tale” And Fletcher And Shakespeare’S The Two Noble Kinsmen, Juan P. Espinosa

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to explore queer interiority within the heteronormative social constructions of late medieval England. Queer interiority is not an occurrence of modernity, but rather a response to social constructions that date back to the Middle Ages. It is essential to account for queerness in the Middle Ages because authors like Chaucer promote the successive resurfacing of queer characters within heteronormative social constructions. Writing during the queer reign of Richard II, Chaucer constructs the interior identities of Palamon and Arcite as a reflection of the king and the political norms of England. Inspired by Chaucer, authors …

Jewish Conversion During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Victoria Davide

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

March 2020 saw a stark change to daily life and religious practices for many individuals because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those converting to Judaism, or in the process of wanting to convert, found themselves physically isolated from their Jewish communities. This thesis dives into what aspects are important when creating a Jewish identity and how individuals circumnavigate these changes in crisis. Through the use of qualitative interviews this thesis illuminates the many different changes and experiences that individuals went through converting to Judaism during the COVID-19 pandemic. I bring many different groups for comparisons including different branches within Judaism and …

Physicians Among Us: The Lived Experience Of Unlicensed Foreign Born And Educated Physicians Present In The Us As They Retrain For Non-Physician Primary Care Roles., Dwight Nimblett

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are as many as 65,000 unlicensed foreign born and trained doctors across the United States who are credentialed in their home countries but unable to practice in the U.S. The primary goal of this study was to describe and understand an understudied human experience: the lived experience of unlicensed foreign educated physicians who are present in the U.S. as they retrain for non-physician primary care roles.

The theoretical frameworks undergirding the study are Jack Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory (TL), also referred to as Perspective Transformation as well as the complimentary perspectives of Otherness and Liminality theories.

Seven FEPs were …

Do Home Invasion Serial Killers Warrant A Distinct Classification From Other Serial Killer Location Types? A Retrospective Comparative Examination, Caroline V. Comerford

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to address the research gap in serial homicide regarding home invasion serial killers (HISKs) and add to existing policy by providing insight and approaches to assist in serial murder investigations of such killers. Data for the study was obtained from the 2019 Radford University/Florida Gulf Coast University Serial Killer Database (RU/FGCU SKD) and additional public information searches. A retrospective comparative design and proportionate stratified random sampling of 326 serial killers from the RU/FGCU SKD (2019) were used to examine the differences and classifications of HISKs and non-home invasion serial killers (non-HISKs) in three investigations: (1) common characteristics; …

Building Capacity For Data-Driven Scholarship, Jamie Rogers

Works of the FIU Libraries

This talk provides an overview of "dLOC as Data: A Thematic Approach to Caribbean Newspapers," an initiative developed to increase access to digitized Caribbean newspaper text for bulk download, facilitating computational analysis. Capacity building for future research in Caribbean Studies being a crucial aspect of this initiative, a thematic toolkit was developed to facilitate use of the project data as well as provide replicable processes. The toolkit includes sample text analysis projects, as well as tutorials and detailed project documentation. While the toolkit focuses on the history of hurricanes and tropical cyclones of the region, the methodologies and tools used …

Social Class And Workplace Norms: How African American And White Women And Men From Working-Class Backgrounds Learn Workplace Norms As They Experience Career Mobility, Anna Kallschmidt

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Professional workplace norms in the U.S., such as wearing a suit to an interview or offering a firm handshake as a greeting (Sharma & Sharma, 2012), are behaviors considered ideal among members of a specific occupation (Cohn et al., 2017). This project investigated how people from working-class backgrounds in the U.S. learned, adopted, and conformed to workplace norms as they moved from a lower-status to a higher-status position within their career. Guided by Intersectionality Theory, Cultural Mismatch Theory, and the Stereotype Content Model, these studies examined how workplace norms shifted as employees changed social class and interacted with employees’ racial …

Exploring Factors That Influence Human Trafficking Sentencing Lengths, Brent Blakeman

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The area of human trafficking and sentencing research is currently under-explored. Consequently, little foundational knowledge has been established in this area of sentencing research to ensure that sentencing biases do not exist that undermine the tenets of justice. This study produces research and findings that incrementally contribute to building this foundational knowledge on human trafficking and sentencing. It does this by creating and testing a conceptual framework of human trafficking and sentencing that identifies potential predictors of human trafficking sentencing lengths that can be used to identify potential problematic sentencing issues. The model tested in the study includes the following …

Perils, Pitfalls & Dilemmas In Responding To Transnational Organized Crime Groups., Juan Del Rio

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Governments employ several approaches to combat Transnational Organized Crime groups. These groups include drug trafficking organizations and armed-insurgent groups. Tactics such as High-Value Target strikes, Peace Accords, and vigilantism have shown to successfully debilitate criminal networks while at the same time sparking unintended negative outcomes. For example, some of these tactics are associated with an increase in cartel-related violence, terrorist attacks, and the lethality of terrorist attacks. What remains unclear is the degree to which these approaches affect these associations and which of these tactics has the most favorable outcomes in combating Transnational Organized Crime groups. The analyses conducted in …

Castles And Curses: An Analysis Of Speech Acts And Stereotype Threat In Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle, Jennifer Peña

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes significant moments and selected excerpts from Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle, focusing on the protagonist Sophie’s character development and uses of magic through speech in relation to stereotype threat and speech act theory. This thesis connects recent scholarly conversations about stereotype threat to the metaphor of Sophie’s spoken magic as the means by which she establishes her own identity and reclaims power over her life. This thesis considers Jones’s reflections about connections between fantasy writing and reality, as well as the potential significance of those connections for children whose experiences are reflected in fantasy works …

"You've Been Accepted"?: Homonormativity And The Imagination Of Queer Higher Educational Spaces, Faye D. Pelow

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spaces of higher education are often over-simplified in social science discourse, but their histories and evolutions are anything but straightforward. As colleges and universities have developed from institutions of religious social order to sites of perceived tolerance and exploration, they have also emerged as significant queer spaces. Indeed, some institutions of higher learning have even gained reputations for being particularly “LGBTQ+-friendly” safe spaces. Yet it is important to understand the social, political, moral and economic underpinnings upon which these establishments have been built and desire to uphold. Despite efforts to promote inclusivity, university spaces are also situated within an intricate …

Marginal Deterrence: The Association Between The Certainty Of Arrest And Monetary Reward On Robbery Escalation, Christopher E. Torres

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation serves as the seminal large-scale empirical analysis of the marginal deterrence principle. The extant literature on deterrence suffers from a great deal of controversy for two distinct reasons. First, prior research adheres to a myopic view of criminal offender decision-making because it focuses solely on the binary “yes” or “no” decision to commit a crime. It is thus plausible that prior work suppressed deterrent effects to some degree because the use of a binary outcome ignores any intermediate decision made by the criminal offender. Second, while the determination to perpetrate a crime is dependent on the sum of …

Longing For The Homeland: The Palestinian American Diaspora And Palestinian Advocacy In The United States, Mohamed Khaled Ghumrawi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how Palestinian Americans in the diaspora connect with Palestine, Palestinian advocacy, and the Palestinian question. It analyzes and synthesizes the interaction of the Palestinian American diaspora and Palestinian advocacy, exploring its domestic and transnational linkages. It also explores the nexus of domestic and transnational aspects relating to Palestinian identity, political life, advocacy, culture, and politics. This project utilizes two main frameworks, the first is the tripartite composite state theory, focusing specifically on the normative-social structure. The second applies a framework of intersectionality, highlighting the interconnectedness of the Palestinian diaspora and the Palestinian question with other social …

Semi-Presidential Executive Branch Institutionalization And Personalization Under Cuba's 1940 Constitution, Daniel Pedreira

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ratification of Cuba’s Constitution of 1940 ushered hopes for democratic stability, most notably through the implementation of a semi-presidential system. Innovative for its time, semi-presidentialism sought to reduce the “perils of presidentialism” that plagued the early decades of the Cuban Republic. Yet, over the next two decades, the Cuban Republic declined and fell as it devolved into authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

This study analyzes the extent to which Cuba’s executive branch was institutionalized or personalized under the 1940 Constitution. Taking a close look at the presidential administrations of Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar (1940-1944, 1952-1954, and 1954-1959), Ramón Grau San Martín (1944-1948), …

Governing Addiction: The Role Of The Government In Responding To The Opioid Crisis, Kaila Witkowski

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In light of the growing frequency of health emergencies and epidemics, state and local governments are beginning to take a more active role in response efforts. This role used to be exclusively held by health-related agencies such as health departments. Although public health has made significant progress in the study of these emergencies, they often ignore the existing strategies in the field of emergency management. Thus, limited research exists on the effectiveness of emergency management strategies within the context of public health emergencies. This research fills this gap by examining the impact of emergency management strategies used within the opioid …

Oral History Best Practices, Rebecca J. Bakker

Works of the FIU Libraries

This presentation was created to provide undergraduate students at FIU an overview of the oral history process.

De-Identifying Your Data, Kelley Flannery Rowan

Works of the FIU Libraries

This presentation was developed for a Digital Scholar Studio workshop at Florida International University. The presentation covers the legal ramifications and guidelines of collecting, processing, and sharing data, as well as a discussion on various techniques and tools available for pseudonymization and achieving anonymization. Definitions and workflows are provided at the beginning of the presentation and a discussion of encryption and anonymization services can be found at the end.

China's Investments And Land Use In Latin America, Monica Nunez Salas

Research Publications

Increased demand by China for commodities has impacted natural resources and local people in Latin America, at a time when climate change has created an urgency for sustainable practices. This report aims to contribute to a nuanced view of Chinese major investments and trade, analyzing the soy, copper, and beef industries. In many cases, it shows how unsustainability is not the result of the practices of Chinese companies but rather the nature of the resource, local legal frameworks, or global industry standards. Latin American countries must devise development plans for these industries and not rely solely on voluntary sustainability standards …

Bridges And Barriers: An Exploration Of Engagements Of The Research Community With The Openstreetmap Community, A. Yair Grinberger, Marco Minghini, Godwin Yeboah, Levente Juhasz, Peter Mooney

GIS Center

The academic community frequently engages with OpenStreetMap (OSM) as a data source and research subject, acknowledging its complex and contextual nature. However, existing literature rarely considers the position of academic research in relation to the OSM community. In this paper we explore the extent and nature of engagement between the academic research community and the larger communities in OSM. An analysis of OSM-related publications from 2016 to 2019 and seven interviews conducted with members of one research group engaged in OSM-related research are described. The literature analysis seeks to uncover general engagement patterns while the interviews are used to identify …