Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Examining Migration Flows Across Kentucky's Counties, James Brady Stein

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The state of Kentucky is home to many rural counties which experience high levels of outward migration due to their relatively unfavorable economic conditions. While migration trends nationally have begun to plateau, migration flows from county to county show a much more volatile story. This study will examine the relationship between economic opportunity and migration flow estimates in Kentucky’s counties through a multiple regression approach with the response variable being annual migration flow estimates, with multiple predictor variables showing the economic composition of the county. Variables used in this regression include annual unemployment rates, educational attainment levels, county poverty rates, …

Negotiating Islam: Debating Authority And Ethnoreligious Authenticity Among Iranian Americans In The U.S. South, Erfan Saidi Moqadam

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

This dissertation examines the flexibility of Quranic exegesis in accommodating self-defined Muslims’ agency in the predominantly Christian society of the United States. This is a project to study Islam not from the perspective of an explicit ideology articulated by clerics, intellectuals, scholars and elites on scriptural texts, but rather one that focuses on Muslims’ readings of scripture and practices of Islam(s), reconstructed in their lived experiences. During fourteen months of ethnographic research in four cities in urban and rural areas in the U.S. South with Iranian Muslims, interlocutors were found to be engaged in a particular kind of relationship with …

Challenges When Identifying Migration From Geo-Located Twitter Data, Caitrin Armstrong, Ate Poorthuis, Matthew Zook, Derek Ruths, Thomas Soehl

Geography Faculty Publications

Given the challenges in collecting up-to-date, comparable data on migrant populations the potential of digital trace data to study migration and migrants has sparked considerable interest among researchers and policy makers. In this paper we assess the reliability of one such data source that is heavily used within the research community: geolocated tweets. We assess strategies used in previous work to identify migrants based on their geolocation histories. We apply these approaches to infer the travel history of a set of Twitter users who regularly posted geolocated tweets between July 2012 and June 2015. In a second step we hand-code …

"Roses Remind Me Of Aleppo": Ironic Home, Beckoning States, And Memories Of Syrian Armenian Women In Yerevan, Armenia, Anahid Matossian

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

This project contributes to anthropologies of the state, (diasporic return) migration, belonging, home, and conflict, including genocide and war. It intervenes in the anthropology of home by focusing on both the social and physical aspects of home, its pain, joys, and ironies, and it speaks to the anthropology of genocide by showing how a population a century removed from a genocide uses it to interpret their experience. This dissertation also deals with state constructions of ideal citizen formation--one of obligation and devotion to the socially constructed ancestral homeland, where descendants who share an ethnic identity have a role to play …

Building Quality? Migration, Suzhi, And Subaltern Masculinity In The Shanghai Construction Industry, Leif Johnson

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This doctoral dissertation providesa novel perspective on the everyday lives of construction workers in urban China, demonstrating the underpinnings of urban infrastructure and citizenship policy in affective and gendered relations surrounding the construction industry. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai, China, this dissertation makes a series of three related arguments: First, focusing on the role that migrant labor plays in the construction of urban infrastructure in Shanghai, I argue that the physical existence of infrastructure itself is inextricably tied to systems that govern rural-urban migration across China. Second, building from the Chinese concept of suzhi as both …

Masculinity, Migration, And Forced Conscription In The Syrian War, Kristin V. Monroe

Anthropology Faculty Publications

In this essay, I provide a different perspective on the Syrian conflict by examining how the war’s reach can also be located amid the losses, interruptions, and experiences of those Syrians who have until now largely escaped its incredible violence. By looking closely at how the war has altered the life trajectories of and produced distinct modes of vulnerability for military-age men, I develop an argument about how, although they avoid fighting by going to work in Qatar, the lives of a group of Syrian men remain defined by conscription. Through my investigation of how these men are located in …

Three Essays On The Economics Of Education Expansion, Xiaozhou Ding

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation consists of three essays that study the unintended consequences of education policies. The first two essays examine the impact of higher education expansion in China on household saving rate and individual migration rate. The third essay looks into the impact of a school redistricting plan and the construction a new school on housing prices in Fayette County, Kentucky.

In the first essay, I utilize the large national expansion on higher education in China which exogenously increase the enrollment of college students, to estimate the induced change in the expected college probability and how it affects saving rates for …

Evaluating The Labor Supply And Migration Effects Of The Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, William Clay Fannin

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

A growing body of literature suggests that occupational licensing distorts economic behavior through various mechanisms, such as inflating prices and inhibiting interstate mobility. To combat some of these ill-effects, policymakers have turned to interstate compacts as a way to promote uniformity in licensing requirements across states and facilitate license portability. Despite the development of interstate compacts for numerous licensed occupations and professions, evidence of their efficacy in the literature is thin. Based on data from over 70,000 physicians from 2012 to 2018, I construct a difference-in-differences model to estimate the effects of the adoption of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact …

Binational Farming Families Of Southern Appalachia And The Mexican Bajio, Mary Elizabeth W. Schmid

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

Over the last four decades, farming families throughout North America experienced significant transitions due, in part, to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. This multi-sited dissertation investigates the ways in which a network of binational (Mexican-American) families organize their small- to mid-scale farming enterprises, engage in global networks as food producers, and contribute to rural economies in the southeastern U.S. and the Mexican Bajío. To mitigate difficult transitions that came with the globalizing of agri-food markets, members of this extended family group created collaborative, kin-based arrangements to produce, distribute, and market fresh-market fruits and vegetables in the …

With Careful Consideration And Managed Expectations: Migration From Ex Libris' Voyager To Ex Libris' Alma/Primo, Julene L. Jones

Library Presentations

The University of Kentucky migrated from their long-standing ILS, Ex Libris Voyager with SFX, to Ex Libris Alma (and Primo) in six short months! As the person who runs reports and performs authority control and batch changes to UK’s MARC metadata for print resources, Julene was responsible for migrating that metadata so that it displayed well in Alma / Primo with minimal data loss, for training all library faculty and staff on the use of Resource Management and Analytics, and for coordinating the multitude of migration events with the Systems, Acquisitions, Circulation, Electronic Resources, and ILL librarians. She will describe …

Should We Stay Or Should We Go?: A Study Of Indian It Migrants In Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina: Deciding To Stay In The United States Or Return To India, Andrew Robert Patrick Ashley

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Over the past two decades, an increasing number of IT professionals from India have been migrating to the United States on temporary H-1B or F-1 visas. This thesis offers a case study to address how migrants on such temporary visas decide whether to seek further residency in the United States or return to India. Based on interviews conducted in 2013 and 2014 in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, I examine the factors migrants consider, as well as how the struggles presented through the visa programs may effect these considerations. I also analyze how mass migration from India has changed …

Componentes Sociais Da Migração: Experiências Da Província Sul, Zâmbia, Lisa Cliggett

Anthropology Faculty Publications

As suposições comuns atribuem causas econômicas e ambientais às decisões de migração. Este trabalho revela a importância das estruturas do poder local – ao nível da comunidade e da família – para entender a migração. São examinados os processos migratórios na Província Sul da Zâmbia por meio do uso de informações coletadas de dois projetos de pesquisa qualitativa. Até recentemente, quando a seca e as doenças bovinas começaram a devastar a área, a Província Sul era conhecida por suas condições ideais para agropecuária. Até os últimos anos de 1980, os agricultores da Província Sul começaram a migrar para áreas da …

Security, Development, And (Im)Mobility: The Uneven Geography Of Migration And Border Management In Ukraine, Jonathan Austin Crane

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

As a country of origin, transit, and destination for migrants that now borders four European Union (EU) member countries, Ukraine has seen future integration possibilities with the EU become, in part, conditional upon its willingness to cooperate in controlling cross-border migration. The EU is now “externalizing” aspects of migration and border control to Ukraine through making investments in Ukraine’s capacity to selectively “manage” cross-border flows in line with EU security and economy priorities. In the context of this emerging spatial arrangement of EU externalization, this thesis analyzes how, by whom, and to what effect migration is being managed in and …

The Public Sector, Migration, And Heterogeneity, Carlos J. Lopes

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Questions on the optimal size of government always provoke intense political debate. At the center of this is the public goods problem, where certain goods and services are “under-provided” by the market due to problems with rivalry and excludability. These goods are usually provided by the public sector and financed through taxes. Questions emerge over the optimal level of provision, as different individuals value these goods differently. This dissertation consists of two studies which address preferences for the size of government from different perspectives.

The first study provides a method that can be used to estimate demand for changes in …

"Historical Forgetfulness" In Post-Unification Italy: Black African Migration In Politics And Performance, Raffaele Furno

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

Factors Affecting Relocation In Response To Reservoir Development, Rabel J. Burdge, Richard L. Ludtke

KWRRI Research Reports

The focus of this paper is on the question of how rural people anticipate forced moves as a result of flood control projects and how they change their life in accepting separation from familiar surroundings.

A model of faced migration is presented which sees the variables of socioeconomic status, knowledge of reservoir projects, vested interests and the degree of identification with place of affected persons as producing differential apprehension over moving. Differential apprehension is then seen as producing different attitudes toward the project which will influence the type of migration plans.

To test this model of forced migration, data were …

Evaluation Of The Social Impact Of Reservoir Construction On The Residential Plans Of Displaced Persons In Kentucky And Ohio, Richard L. Ludtke, Rabel J. Burdge

KWRRI Research Reports

The states of Kentucky and Ohio have numerous reservoir projects at various stages of planning and construction. Each of the projects produces substantial social impact for the residents of the area and particularly for those persons affected by a loss of property and homes. This impact is not uniform in that people respond differently to displacement and the methods of adjusting relocation are known to differ among people.

This research was initiated to develop and test a model for explaining migration under such conditions. The model includes a consideration of people's potential for transferring existing statuses to new residences, the …