Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

The Disproportionate Impact Of Hiv On Young Women In Durban: Exploring Gendered Vulnerabilities And Socioeconomic Barriers, Adrian A. Nolasco

Capstone Collection

South Africa has a high rate of HIV, with young women in Durban especially affected due to social, economic, and cultural challenges. This study looks at the experiences of young women living with HIV and the views of healthcare professionals caring for them in KwaZulu-Natal. Using a qualitative, phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five women and three medical professionals to explore how HIV affects their lives, the challenges they face, and how they cope.

The findings show that both structural and personal barriers make it hard for young women to stick to treatment. Long waits at clinics, limited …

El Vínculo Entre El Arte, La Política Y El Espacio Público: Una Investigación De Colectivo El Muro Cusco Y Su Resistencia Contra Poder Estatal Y La Censura Del Espacio, Stella Gould

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El Colectivo El Muro Cusco es un colectivo libertario y autogestionado dedicado al apoyo a las luchas sociales y al intercambio de información alternativa. Activo durante los últimos 20 años, El Muro,1 como se le conoce coloquialmente, ha sido un proveedor de la verdad en Cusco, utilizando el arte y la protesta para expresar descontento con las injusticias perpetuadas por el gobierno peruano. Utilizando el muro del Paraninfo Universitario de la UNSAAC ubicado en la Plaza de Armas de Cusco como su centro focal, el Colectivo utiliza el espacio como galería de arte y lugar de exposición, pero también como …

Aït Khbach Nomads And A Thousand Plateaus: An Investigation Into The Challenges Of Nomadism Using Concepts From Deleuze And Guattari, Ryder Hobbs

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Aït Khbach nomads of Drâa-Tafilalet Region in Morocco face several challenges to their lifestyle. Namely, their obstacles relate directly to desertification and the state. Through interviews with the Aït Khbach, this paper seeks to present their narratives. Additionally, this paper grapples with the metaphysics of nomadism and the groundwork of its praxis. In their work, A Thousand Plateaus, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari construct concepts, such as smooth space, the state apparatus, and nomadism, which can be utilized pragmatically to complement and explore the narratives of Aït Khbach nomads.

An Analysis Of Communication-Related Information And Services Offered To Parents Of Deaf Children In Puerto Rico, Brenda Belcher

Capstone Collection

The period from birth to five years is a critical stage for human language acquisition, and inadequate access to language during this period can cause far-reaching negative effects. Young deaf and hard-of-hearing children face barriers to acquiring language through speaking and listening techniques, and their parents must make consequential decisions about what communicative strategies to pursue for their child. In Puerto Rico, information and support around communication approaches flow to parents from a variety of sources, including the Island’s local Early Hearing Detection & Intervention (EHDI) system, three dedicated schools for the deaf, and a variety of community-based organizations. This …

Escuchando Y Enseñando: Un Proyecto De Investigación-Acción Participativa Sobre El Tema De Radio Con Los Estudiantes Del Centro Calpulli, Delaney Zuver

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este proyecto de investigación-acción participativa examina mis experiencias produciendo radio con los estudiantes de Centro Calpulli en Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca. Durante un período de cinco semanas, participé en diez sesiones donde mis suposiciones sobre mi papel como una participante en la organización fue desafiado. A través de reflexiones y un análisis de mis notas de campo, pude entender que al utilizar pedagogías liberadoras y una alfabetización mediática como la define Hoeschsmann y Poyntz (2012), podría equilibrar muchas de las suposiciones de la organización y los principios de investigación-acción. Basado en mi experiencia y análisis, ofrezco sugerencias a la organización …

Packaging Morocco For The Foreign Eye: A Survey Into The Moroccan Tourism Industry, Pangrum Boonbaichaiyapruck

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The history of tourism in Morocco cannot be separated from the country’s colonial legacy. Tracing its’ roots back into the 1920s, tourism was yet another medium where the West manifested their fascination with exoticness in “the other”. Within the past decades, the Moroccan tourism industry has witnessed continued growth in tourist arrivals and media attention. Morocco’s geographical and linguistic proximity to Europe has made it an “accessible” option to many European tourists. Tourism is not only a promising driver of economic growth, an employment generator, but also has become how many foreign individuals come to understand the country. Through the …

La Construcción De Espacios Para La Memoria: El Rol De Los Actores En Tres Ex Centros Clandestinos De La Ciudad De Buenos Aires, Quentin Bernhard

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En esta investigación, cuento la historia como espacios de memoria de tres ex centros clandestinos en la ciudad de Buenos Aires y noto aspectos importantes de ellos que me conocí a través de entrevistas con trabajadores en los sitios en visitas ambas formales y informales. Analizo el rol de los actores sociales como el gobierno, el barrio y los visitantes en el funcionamiento de cada sitio, y a partir de eso exploro la identidad única de cada uno y cómo construyen la memoria por medio del espacio de memoria.

Este trabajo se base en parte en la cantidad de obras …

Rebuilding Tunisia, One Artist At A Time, Caitlin Kelley

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper argues that Tunisia’s engaged artists are playing a key role in the development of Tunisian civil society and democracy. The bulk of the research is in the form of interviews with five Tunisian artists. Each artist is actively engaged in the project of building a stronger, more democratic society. Through their art, they exercise and protect the political rights won in the 2011 revolution. These artists resist censorship, powerfully and loudly exercise their right to free speech, and help Tunisian society envision a better future for itself. The five artists interviewed for this research represent the type of …

The Power Of Prayer, Victoria Dawn Thompson

Capstone Collection

If words are arbitrary, how does prayer have power?” is the question of inquiry in this paper. An unobtrusive Content Analysis inquiry methodology was used to answer this question. The answer lies in the finding that words and thoughts are not the same thing, and our thoughts expand beyond the audible and visible. The implication for professional practice these findings present is that a deeper awareness of “Self” is needed to understand people’s miraculous way of resolving conflict via prayer.

Bridges Out Of Poverty As An Anti-Poverty Strategy In Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, Katlyn M. Uhler

Capstone Collection

This paper explores the initial results of the Bridges Out of Poverty (“Bridges”) community framework as implemented by the organization Kennett Area Community Service in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. The aim of this research is to provide perspective on Bridges Out of Poverty’s contribution to the understanding of poverty in the United States and its potential as an antipoverty intervention. It does so first through an exploration of the historical and current discussion on poverty and anti-poverty interventions in the United States, followed by research on the Bridges model itself and its implementation in Kennett Square. This latter research includes content …

Connecting Beyond The Circle: A Restorative Approach In Co-Creating A Safe Space For Social Justice Education At Utec, Nikki F. Pelonia

Capstone Collection

“Social justice is both a process and a goal. The goal of social justice education is full and equal participation of all groups in a community that is [co-created] to meet the members’ needs. Social justice includes a vision of a community that is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure” (Adams, Bell, & Griffin, 2007, p. 1). In the process, one is used to going straight to issues of social justice before connecting by building trusts and relationships. This Course-Linked Capstone in Training focuses on SIT Graduate Institute coursework from Training Design in Experiential Learning …

Media, Borders, And Citizenship: Internationalization And Social Justice In An Undergraduate Communication Program At A Public University In New England, Kristi Mientka

Capstone Collection

Higher education in the U.S. is becoming increasingly internationalized, a process which is necessitated by the global economy and the increase in communication and mobility across borders. The process of internationalization has many effects on institutions, programs, faculty, and students. It also has many purposes, among them to improve students’ future employability and to foster understanding of social issues. The communication discipline, which encompasses a variety of studies ranging from media production to interpersonal communication, has seen the effects of internationalization. Those effects are evident in evolving curriculum and pedagogy that reflect the shifting dynamics of the media landscape and …

Transmitiendo La Identidad: Revalorización Sociopolítica Del Kichwa Por Los Medios De Comunicación \ Transmitting Identity: Sociopolitical Revaluation Of The Kichwa By The Media, Abi Mcdougal

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este Proyecto de Estudio Independiente considera cómo los medios de comunicación kichwas están involucrados en la conciencia sociopolítica indígena. Establece una historia de la opresión lingüística hacia los kichwa; provee un marco conceptual de los espacios de uso sociolingüísticos en la diglosia; e introduce el tema de los medios de comunicación kichwas, localizados en Otavalo y los pueblos de Imbabura cercanos. Presenta la información primaria sobre los medios de comunicación, obtenida a través de entrevistas, diálogos informales, observación enfocada y participante, y una encuesta pública en Otavalo. Considera el radio, lo audiovisual, y publicaciones escritas, a través de unas organizaciones …

Drama For Social Justice: Embodying Identity And Emotion In Elt, Riah Werner

MA TESOL Collection

In this thesis, the author makes the case that drama is a powerful tool for language acquisition because it develops and engages embodiment, emotion and identity, important aspects of learning and communication that are often neglected in traditional language classrooms. The thesis establishes a theoretical foundation for the use of drama in the social justice-oriented language classroom, reviews research on drama for language learning and describes common drama techniques. The author connects the theories of embodied cognition and multiliteracies to an intersectional model of identity and argues that drama helps students re-examine the way society positions them based on their …

Anywhere And Everywhere: Third Cultured Kids And Their ‘Stabilizing Factors’, Aman D. Singh Mr.

Capstone Collection

The purpose of this research is to explore the significance of the Third Culture Kid (TCK) and the impact their ‘stabilizing factors’ or ‘constants’ have on their occupation outcome. Third Culture Kid is a term used for people who have travelled and lived in many different countries during their development years. Within that definition there are other subgroups such as: Bi/multi-cultural and/or bi/multi-racial families, immigrants, international adoptees, refugees and Domestic TCKs or CCKs. Ever since the term was first coined by Ruth Hill Useem, a sociologist, in the early 50s, there have been more and more families having the TCK …

A Dollar A Day: Child Sponsorship And The Marketization Of Human Development, Taylor Hallett

Capstone Collection

Child sponsorship as a method of international development offers child sponsors a personal connection to the process of alleviating poverty in the global South. As a form of human development, child sponsorship is constituted by neoliberal principles of marketization and social entrepreneurship. How does child sponsorship, in this context, require us to rethink the ethics of international development in light of ongoing debates about neoliberalism? In this research, I argue that child sponsorship reifies the binary of the “developed” and “undeveloped” worlds. Through undertaking a content analysis of three organizations (Compassion International, World Vision, and UNICEF) and applying post-structural critique …

Una Mueca Irónica: !El Travestismo Como Recurso Artístico De Las Yeguas Del Apocalipsis / An Ironic Grin: ! Cross-Dressing As An Artistic Resource Of The Apocalypseof The Yeguas, Sophia Cantizano

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Yeguas del Apocalipsis (Mares of the Apocalypse), were an art collective consisting of two men, Pedro Lemebel and Francisco Casas, who revolutionized the way transvestism was used in performance art. Active between 1988 and 1997, the Yeguas lit the way out of the dictatorship and into the post-regime transition period. For this reason, the context in which Lemebel and Casas made their art was more conducive to their own open criticism and explicit commentary of the political and social landscape, than that of the performance artists who functioned during the authoritarian dictatorship itself. This gave the Yeguas’ performances a …

El Rol De Los Supermercados Chinos En La Integración Social De La Población China En Buenos Aires / The Role Of Chinese Supermarkets In The Social Integration Of The Chinese Population In Buenos Aires, Dana Marrero

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Aunque la inmigración china es algo relativamente nuevo en la historia de Argentina, las personas de aquel país han tenido una presencia fuerte en la sociedad de Buenos Aires, la ciudad Capital. En gran parte, esto es debido al nicho económico en el que muchos de los trabajadores chinos se han concentrado: los supermercados. Los pequeños mercados de barrio manejados por dueños chinos son tan comunes que a menudo los porteños simplemente dicen frases como “voy al chino” para referirse a estos comercios. Y con razón: en el 2011, aproximadamente el 35% de todos los mercados de Argentina pertenecía a …

Los Nuevos Actores Políticos De La Izquierda Chilena Y El Cambio Al Sistema Político, Henry Manning

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Chile's political system is in a state of flux. Between 2011 and 2013, student protests and other movements spread across the nation, enflaming latent resentment of the political institutions and demanding that the government respond to society's problems. But despite this nearly unanimous public mandate, the political coalitions that control Chile have done little to temper the harsh neoliberal system, opting instead to go on serving the business and elite interests that profit from the country's extreme inequality. In this context of dramatic disaffection with the powers that be, a group of new political actors have emerged from the student …

Dropping In: The Emergence Of Skateboard Culture In Urban Nepal, Olivia Pincince

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since its inception less than a century ago skateboarding has epitomized youth counter culture. In recent years, this fringe sport has emerged in urban Nepal. Through in depth interviews with members of the skateboarding community and supplemental observational research, this study attempts to illuminate how social identity is realized for the skateboard community and how that conceptualization fits within the larger Nepali society. The following research suggests that skateboarding needs to overcome key economic limitations to truly become a cultural more in society.

Social Media & Revolution: The Importance Of The Internet In Tunisia’S Uprising, Aamna Dhillon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Our world has entered a digital age, where technology has made leaps and bounds and is accelerating in development. With this digital age came the widespread use of the internet and the emergence of “social media”—online platforms for communicating with others. Though the initial use of these social media platforms was to stay connected with friends and family, a sect of users have used the platforms to share news and important information. In the past few years, people have come together to demand change in their countries by protest and eventually even revolution, all of which is said to have …

On Air With The Community An Exploration Of Five Community Radio Stations In The Western Cape, Kelsey Warren

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The closing of apartheid in South Africa was brought by new measures for democracy in 1994. Community radio stations were seen as measures for local communication and involvement in giving different communities voices that has formerly been lost. This paper attempts to discover the relevance of community radio stations twenty years after democracy and just how citizens are participating.

The paper begins with a review of history of community radio on different levels around the world through the use of literature. The arguments made centralize around the necessity of specialized community stations, the effect of community engagement, the lack of …

Who Are You Wearing? A Study Of Moroccan Fashion Discourse, Identity Performance, And Social Change, Leah Michalove

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Clothes and their consumption become almost invisible in their very ubiquity, yet fashion acts as a sort of optical litmus test for the mood of society. Clothing can express cultural norms, serve as shorthand for social grouping, and provide a kind of corpus of visual allusion; in short, clothes and how we wear them constitute a system of signification, a visual language as dynamic, complex, and arbitrary as any spoken communication. I set out to investigate the grammar and syntax of Moroccan fashion, to explore what the diversity of observed choices meant to the people who made them and how …

Building Bridges, And Reducing Anger: Liberal-Conservative Dialogue In The United States, Jeremy M. Moses

Capstone Collection

In the United States today, liberal and conservative citizens are becoming increasingly polarized in their attitudes of hostility toward one another. This has resulted in a socio-political climate in which liberals and conservatives routinely demonize each other, and political differences are unhelpfully framed as matters of good versus evil. Open and honest dialogue between liberals and conservatives has the potential to improve this situation, but a myriad of cultural, psychological, and societal challenges create significant barriers to liberal-conservative dialogue. This paper explores these barriers in detail through a synthesis of research in moral psychology, cognitive psychology, and sociology. It explains …

Headlines In Rhyme: A Case Study On Le Journal Rappé As An Agent Of Senegalese Sociopolitical Change, Jessica Hackel

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Le Journal Rappé is a weekly Senegalese television segment presented and created by “old-school” rappers Cheikh “Keyti” Sene and Makhtar “Xuman” Fall. Each Friday on the Senegalese television station 2S, the rappers take on the personas of broadcast journalists, delivering the week’s top headlines in rhyme—they literally rap the news. Since its initial inception on April 11^th, 2013 as a YouTube venture, Le Journal Rappé has garnered both national and international praise. The program superficially serves as an alternative source of media, one that deviates from the mainstream in its format, entertainment value, and appeal to …

Urban Arts And The Youth Of Morocco, Ruqayyah F. Ali

Morocco: Field Studies in Journalism and New Media

Three thousand six hundred miles away from Washington D.C., the United States Embassy is using U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund urban arts programs for youths in Morocco. In a country where arts are not promoted and youth unemployment is high, there are not many options for self-expression and youths to learn leadership skills. Local associations, funded by the U.S. Embassy, are attempting to provide youths with the space and tools needed to facilitate growth and development in life skills and the arts. These urban arts programs include workshops, exhibitions, and competitions in street art, music, painting, dancing, skateboarding, and BMX …

Language Shift And Development: A Case Study Of Zhongdian Southern Khams Language Vitality, Simon Peters

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The fields of language endangerment and maintenance address language shift overwhelmingly in the context of a local language being replaced by that of a surrounding oppositional dominant cultural group. There are, though, situations in which a local language is competing with the dominant variety of the wider cultural group to which it belongs. How a situation like this is dealt with by linguists and language planners depends largely on the recognition of participant tongues as their own languages or one as a dialect of another. Reversing language shift for a “dialect” is difficult to garnish institutional and financial support for …

Reading, Writing And Resources: The Conditions Of Creativity, Mariclaire O’Neill

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper addresses the question of whether young Samoans are adequately encouraged to pursue creative fields, specifically writing. It examines relevant literature on the role of libraries and catalysts for early-learning reading as well as the benefits of creative writing, uses interviews with professors, editors, authors and librarians in surveying the current state of creative writing among young Samoans and how the roles of the culture, resources and the curriculums impact this, utilizes surveys to gauge student interest in writing, and finally culminates in a creative writing workshop held to expose university students to writing. The findings point to a …

Influencia De Los Programas De Concurso Televisivos En La Construccion De Identidad Cultural En Jóvenes Cusqueños, Tess Renker

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este informe describe la realización de mi proyecto de investigación sobre las influencias de los programas de concurso peruanos en la construcción de las identidades culturales de los jóvenes cusqueños. En el primer capítulo, describo las motivaciones por esta investigación, la área temática, y las preguntas de investigación, así como el marco teórico y la metodología del estudio. El segundo capítulo incluye la revisión de unas lecturas previas acerca del tema. Estas lecturas se enfocan en la vinculación de la televisión nacional peruana con la globalización y la manera en que estos programas pueden influir las identidades culturales de la …

To Vote Or Not To Vote: Youth Political Agency In Post-Revolutionary Tunisia, Sarah Dickson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the wake of the Tunisian Revolution, young people in Tunisia have become very interested in politics. For some young people, this excitement has resulted in positive feelings about voting. For others, voting is not seen as an effective way to express political agency. This paper will analyze field research conducted by the author with young Tunisians in order to better understand Tunisian youth attitudes towards voting, and explore various interpretations of political agency. This paper will ask the fundamental questions: why didn’t revolutionary activism translate to voting for more young Tunisians, especially as they continue to express interest in …