Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Actually-Existing Resilience: The Adaptive Actions Of Miami’S Redland Farmers And Potential Pathways For Transformation, Melissa Bernardo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The concept of resilience has been applied to questions surrounding agricultural production and food security in the face of global climate change, gripping the attention of policymakers and scholars alike. In South Florida, the Redland represents a unique, biodiverse farming community of national importance as Florida is second only to California in terms of vegetable production and Miami-Dade is the second highest producing county in the state. With Greater Miami recognized as one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to sea level rise, this vital U.S. agricultural community is placed in doubt. Yet, little research engages directly with …

The (Cuban-)American Dream Of Post-Soviet Era Cuban Émigrés: Perceptions Vs. Realities, Veronica Diaz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cuban émigrés are among the myriad of immigrants who arrive in the United States hoping to achieve the American Dream—defined as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement” (Adams 1931, 404). However, powerful tropes of the American Dream­ obscure the economic and social barriers that impede economic mobility and the sacrifices that individuals make in its pursuit. Unlike Cuban émigrés of the 1960s-70s, émigrés of the “Wet Foot/Dry Foot” wave (1995-2017) arrived in Miami during more precarious economic …

Mobile Passages: Unpacking The Seasonal Lifestyle From Quebec To Topeekeegee Yugnee (Ty) Rv Park, Broward County, Southeast Florida, Tara Kai

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to investigate the lived experiences of multi-locational actors and the production of unique forms of socialization and community using the seasonal movements and settlements of the Québécois population (also referred to as “Floribécois”) in Broward County, Florida during the winter months. This study employs interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) which is theoretically rooted in hermeneutic phenomenology. IPA recognizes that there are shared perspectives and lived experiences of a group of people about a concept or a phenomenon. This analysis comprises of collectively shared meanings, while being mindful of the unique experience of a single individual and/or subgroup. The …

Impacts Of U.S. Immigration Detention And Transfers On The Well-Being Of Those Detained Within A Punitive For-Profit System, Karina J. Livingston

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States has the largest detention infrastructure in the world, with over 250 official detention centers and over 1,000 partner facilities. This research project aimed to analyze the U.S. immigration detention system to understand how the history of U.S. immigration and U.S. social structures like immigration law and detention practices, specifically transfers, affect immigrants. Woven into U.S. detention practices is a long history of exploitive and racist policies that have scapegoated new waves of immigrants since the late 1800s, which evolved toward the criminalization of immigrants in the mid-1990s.

One of the contributions of this dissertation is its focus …

Living Precariously: The Cultural Politics Of Becoming Transgender In Postcolonial Jamaica, Kemar Mcintosh

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the cultural politics of stigma, discrimination, and gender-based violence encountered by persons becoming male-to-female (MtF) transgenders in postcolonial Jamaica. The issue of stigma, discrimination, and gender-based violence has been the subject of considerable research in the Global North but has failed to adequately address institutional structures and cultural practices that continue to produce postcolonial realities in the Global South. Transphobic violence in Jamaica is captured by a 2014 Human Rights Watch report detailing the murder of 16-year-old Dwayne Jones, who was engaging in processes of becoming a male-to-female transgender. While attending a dance party attired in women’s …

Cooking Up Inequality: An Ethnographic Study Of Racial Hierarchies In Miami's Restaurant Industry, Judith C. Williams

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Racial inequality is a significant problem in the US Restaurant Industry. In Miami, a tropical tourist destination with a majority Latinx population, restaurants serve as a site of multiculturalism, and are promoted by officials as a place where visitors can enjoy ethnic food and culture. However, these same locations of diversity are also spaces where whiteness is normalized as superior and racial hierarchies ensue. Previous studies have documented racism in the restaurant industry but fail to address the intersectional complexities that arise when race is layered with gender, class, nationality, language, and sexual orientation.

Drawing from a 13-month ethnographic study …

Entrepreneurial Intersections: An Ethnographic Study Of Entrepreneurial Strategies Amidst Crisis And Community In Havana, Cuba, John Vertovec

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation has two primary goals. First, to examine how structural conditions (e.g., state policies/regulations, resource scarcity, etc.) and intersecting inequities and inequalities shape opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurship. Second, to analyze how local experiences with, and interpretations of underlying social and economic narratives influence the ways that people conceptualize and draw upon local/global resources in order to act entrepreneurially in individual ways and with their communities in mind.

While scholars discuss how structural conditions impact entrepreneurship, and how entrepreneurship can improve communities (social entrepreneurship), the consequences of intersecting inequalities on both areas remain understudied. Using ethnographic data gathered in …

The Governance Of Homelessness In Miami, Rebecca Lynn Young

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2019 the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reported that 567,715 people experience homelessness in the United States on a single night (HUD 2019). This is the third year in a row that number has risen following a seven-year decline ending in 2016. Scholars have demonstrated that the causes of homelessness are primarily structural, including lack of affordable housing, living wage, and social safety net (Hopper et al 1985), issues which have been exacerbated since the expansion of neoliberalism in the late 1970s (Harvey 2005). While city strategies have varied from criminalization to medicalization (NCH and NLCHP 2006; …

Sephardi Identity & Legitimacy In The Age Of Direct-To-Consumer Dna Tests, Caitlyn Rose Campana

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today, individuals may purchase genetic tests that promise to “reveal” one’s “true self” through ancestry composition reports, health reports, and lists of DNA relatives. Such tests add another dimension to the ongoing debate about what it means to be Jewish, but also what it means to be “legitimately” Sephardi. Through qualitative interviews, this thesis illuminates the experiences of Sephardim who received identity-affirming DNA test results and Sephardim who received identity non-affirming DNA test results. Findings suggest that contemporary Sephardim consider a link to the Iberian Peninsula as indicative of Sephardi identity, despite expanding definitions of the label. They also suggest …

Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: An Ethnographic Study Of Transnational Chinese Corporate Culture In Southeast Asia, David A. Dayton

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Starting in 2001, China’s Going Out policy has encouraged Multinational Corporations (MNCs) and expats from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to participate in the global economy at an unprecedented rate. Tens of thousands of Chinese businesses and millions of expats now span the globe. Despite the addition of this large, recent, and influential population to global capitalism there is little academic work on PRC corporate cultures or expats outside of China. Even in Thailand, home to the largest Chinese community outside of China/Taiwan, there is almost no corporate culture anthropology and no systemic study of recent Chinese business behaviors. …

Transformative Constitutionalism And The Adjudication Of Elections In Kenya, Carl Bevelhymer

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The judicialization of politics has been an ongoing and expanding global phenomenon for decades. In Kenya, the record number of cases brought before courts prior to and following the 2017 elections is evidence of the continued growth and spread of the judicialization of politics, and more specifically elections; it is also the result of Kenya’s 2010 Constitution, which introduced a new form of governance, expanded the number of elective seats and mandated judicial and electoral reforms. One of the most remarkable events of the 2017 election period was the Supreme Court’s nullification of the presidential election due to electoral irregularities. …

Intimate Alterities: Shifting Indigenous Masculinities And Sexualities Within Amazonian Ecotourism In Napo, Ecuador, Ernesto Javier Benitez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers an ethnographic account of how indigenous Kichwa tour guides in Napo, Ecuador, the vast majority of whom are young men, negotiate the demands and expectations of the ecotourism industry and how, in the process, they produce and enact new understandings of their ethnic, gendered, and sexual identities. These new understandings are reproductive of outsiders’ expectations and fantasies about indigenous Amazonians, as well as personally and culturally meaningful. I engage with a variety of anthropological literatures, including the anthropology of race and gender, the anthropology of indigenous Amazonia, the anthropology of tourism and sex tourism, and the more …