Geography Commons^™

Transforming Trees, Transcending Binaries: Gender In Augustan Poetry, Kendall Swanson

College Honors Program

Humans have been inextricably linked to nature since before the rule of Emperor Augustus in Ancient Rome. Nature feeds humans, it gives people the tools to build a society. Because of this relationship, it is no surprise that authors, both ancient and modern, incorporate various themes of the natural world into their works. Additionally, nature appears linked to human conceptions of gender, as seen in literature and real-world experience. According to the United Nations, one goal to accomplish in order to achieve sustainable development is gender equality in all countries. Gender and nature work together: when inequality exists, environmental degradation …

The Value Of Education: School Policy Decisions During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elika W. Somani

Individually Designed Interdepartmental Major Honors Project

During the COVID-19 pandemic, lacking national U.S. policies, wide variation and conflict over chosen public school policy decisions emerged. What factors and guidelines informed the decision-making process in K-12 public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and who were the key stakeholders? This study examines three school district types – a large city, medium city, and small-town – across Minnesota as case studies to unpack how policy decisions were made during the pandemic. Stakeholder interviews uncovered that the school decision-making process was a) connected to a district's political opinions, b) made by the superintendent and school board, c) primarily influenced by …

A Street-Based Simulation Approach To Evaluating Crime Theories And Deterrence Efficacy In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Shaun Edward Williams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Criminology of place and deterrence strategy evaluations share separate yet similar paths towards incorporating microgeographic units of analysis within deterrence strategies. These transitions have been underway since Weisburd’s 2015 criminology of place work and Kennedy’s 1997 Ceasefire publication for deterrence strategy evaluation. Rather than purely theoretical or practical challenges serving as agents of change, scale appropriateness can arguably be pinpointed as the foundation for change in both areas. Microplace offers improved insight into the study of crime and place dominated by areal designs. This status quo has hampered evaluation but has not slowed the flow of resources to support strategy …

Emotional Geographies: Head, Heart, Time, And Place, Grace C. Conroy

Montserrat Annual Writing Prize

This paper is modelled on a study and paper by Kamila Klingorová and Banu Gökarıksel which used auto-photography to examine examined emotional geographies. The author takes the position of an independent participant by selecting and describing photos of seemingly non-descript places and then offering reflections on reasons why these photos elicited strong emotions.

Interrogating Race And Place-Based Inequities In Hiv And Covid-19, Rohan Khazanchi

EMET Projects

Over the last four years, I have developed a research focus examining the intersections of race, place, and health. My M.D. Honors Thesis reflects a snapshot of these efforts. In this collection of brief research reports, I leverage area-based measures to investigate structural inequities in three contexts: the HIV epidemic in our hyperlocal community, the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and clinical trials for novel COVID-19 therapeutics. I apply novel social epidemiologic tools to measure and explore disparate outcomes. And, in reflecting upon my findings, I discuss concrete implications for clinicians, researchers, and policymakers alike.

Chapter 1: Neighborhood-Level Deprivation …

Step By Step: Understanding Perceptions Of Time And Space In Nepal, Lillian Norton-Brainerd

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Time and space are part of everyone’s daily life; however, these concepts are rarely explicitly discussed. Hegemonic interpretations of time and space are part of capitalist, colonialist structures, thus understanding alternative perceptions is important to resisting these structures. To understand perceptions of time in Nepal, I spent a month in Gre, a small village near Langtang National Park. I interviewed villagers and spent time observing how people spend their time, talk about time, and give directions to physical places. While there is not one perception of time and space, I learned how time and space influence each other. Geography and …

In Place/Out Of Place Assignment, Peter Kabachnik

Open Educational Resources

This Geography assignment, ideal for Political Geography, Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, and so forth (and of course other related disciplines like Anthropology and Sociology), undergraduate courses, explores the concepts of in place and out of place. Based on a reading of the introduction of Tim Cresswell's 1996 book In Place/out of Place Geography, Ideology, and Transgression, this assignment is a great way to get students to think about these issues and connect them to their own experiences.

Slow Violence And Racial Capitalism: Understanding Mass Incarceration Through A Case Study Of The California Prison System, Mason Joiner

Senior Theses

This thesis will analyze the growth of the California prison system, situating it in the national context of mass incarceration in the United States. In Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s book Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, Gilmore utilizes the theory of racial capitalism to explain the history and development of the California prison system. By analyzing Gilmore’s arguments about racial capitalism and integrating them with Rob Nixon’s theory of slow violence from his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, this thesis provides a new perspective in the current discourse around mass incarceration. …

Race-Ethnic Population Changes In Mountain West Metros, 2010-2020, Joshua Padilla, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

The 2020 census shows continuing nationwide trends in population growth when compared to the last decade. The growth of various race-ethnic groups across the country contribute to the diversification of the population in selected regions. Using the U.S. Census Bureau 2020 data prepared by William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution, this fact sheet focuses on the population changes in nine Mountain West metros.

Lee Isaac Chung, Minari (2020): Having An Amerikorean Life, Nagehan Uzuner

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Minari by Lee Isaac Chung is a drama which chronicles the life of a Korean family who moves to the USA during 1980s in pursuit for a better life. The acculturation process is experienced differently by family members. Children are mostly bored with their new life in the rural area of Arkansas while their mother, Monica, is terrified of living in a mobile home which is made of a truck trailer in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, the grandmother joins the family from Korea to take care of the kids with a more positive approach dealing with their struggles. The …

Social Production Of An Internal Colony: Urban Space In Black Chicago, 1945-1970, Connor M. Barnes

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Utilizing an internal colonial model combined with Henri Lefebvre’s ideas about the social production of space, this paper argues the urban space in Black Chicago was intentionally constructed to maximize the control and exploitation of Black Chicagoans. Driven by material interests, primarily, and inextricably tied to America’s race-based hierarchy, hegemonic institutions confined and restricted Black space via discriminatory housing practices to ensure continued economic exploitation. To enforce the spatial barriers they had erected, hegemonic institutions weaponized the police force, using it to occupy and control Black space. This essay establishes theoretical background of internal colonialism and social production of space, …

Regenerative Tourism Model: Challenges Of Adapting Concepts From Natural Science To Tourism Industry, Asif Hussain, Marie Haley

Journal of Sustainability and Resilience

The study proposes a regenerative tourism model. The application of the natural science ideas of regeneration needs to be clarified before the tourism industry can adopt a regenerative tourism model. Without such clarification, there is a high risk of ‘green washing’ and inappropriate adaption of a regenerative model. The borrowing of natural science to industry and its application in social sciences confuse the essence of the true concept of regeneration. In a regenerative agriculture context restoring a holistic system that mimics nature and includes social and economic spheres contributes to improving the whole system. When a social system aims to …

International And Domestic Tourist Hunting: A Critical Review On Environmental And Socio-Economic Implications In Sub-Saharan Africa, Abel A. Mamboleo

Journal of Sustainability and Resilience

Tourist hunting is a regular consumptive wildlife utilization occurring within and outside core protected areas for trophies and leisure attainments. It is one of the most renowned tourism undertakings which involve the killing of animals for recreational purposes. In essence, hunters acquire trophies for different purposes including production of decorations and traditional medicines. Currently, there is a hot debate on whether to continues or cease tourist hunting as animal activists, some conservation stakeholders believe that hunting is cruel to animals and threat to ecosystems. In this paper, the author reviewed and analyzed various documented evidences which opponents and proponents of …

Unraveling The Geographies Of The U.S. Public Education System: An Analysis Of Scale, Segregation, And Hegemony, Olivia Ildefonso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Other than one or two studies that focus on specific state-wide systems of public education, there has been no accounting for how the U.S. public education system came about in relation to space and scale. My dissertation research seeks to fill in this gap. Through focusing on the development of public education in the North and the South, I provide a foundation for understanding the grounded and contested processes of scale production that largely determined the U.S. public education system’s design and function.

In each of the seven chapters, I detail how fights over the structure and purpose of public …

Geographies Of Urban Unsafety: Homeless Women, Mental Maps, And Isolation, Jan Radle Roberson

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the intersection of urban unsafety and the marginalized population of homeless women. Specifically, it investigates how homeless women identify/perceive and navigate unsafe urban space. Specific research questions include:

1. What does housing insecurity look like for an unhoused woman?

2. In what ways is mental mapping a robust tool for gathering the stories (data) of vulnerable populations such as unhoused women?

3. What does the spatialization of unsafe locations look like and are demographic groupings dissimilarly affected?

4. What are the critical reasons for unsafety identified by participants?

5. How do homeless women respond to urban unsafety; …

“It’S Real”: Experiences Of Family Homelessness In Fort Worth, Texas, Bernd Scheffler, Dale Brooker Phd.

Pursue: Undergraduate Research Journal

Introduction: Despite the common public image of homelessness (read: a single “vagrant” person), families with children represent one-third of the homeless population—an especially-serious social problem since family homelessness has long-term negative impacts on two generations simultaneously. This interdisciplinary study examined the complexities of family homelessness in Fort Worth, Texas.

Methods: A literature review outlined pathways into family homelessness, shared experiences, and common intervention strategies. An original qualitative study followed, employing a phenomenological approach to interview families in a local rapid-rehousing program. Open-ended questions allowed free descriptions of personal realities. Audio-recorded responses were analyzed for relevant themes, commonalities, and variations.

Results: …

Care Infrastructure Accessibility And The Gender Wage Gap – A Way To Improve Women’S Ability To Equitably Engage In The Paid Labor Market?, Julia Schinnenburg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

World-wide, women are less integrated into the labor force than men and if they are, they earn considerably less on average. This unequal treatment of women results in negative consequences for all members of society, as it harms women’s financial realities and also affects women’s care receivers due to a lack of resources that women can spend on their care giving. The research presented analyses how much the institution of better accessible care infrastructure could improve women’s ability to work for pay and decrease their daily workloads. The extent to which improved care infrastructure accessibility affects women’s lives is determined …

Geovisualization And Open-Source Web Mapping Of Big Origin-Destination Data, A Test Case, Joseph Hiebert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Migration plays a key role in determining the health and success of cities, counties, and countries. It also plays a key role in determining the health and wellbeing of the individuals and families that undergo a migration event. This has led many scholars to map and study global migration patterns to understand how and why people move. While migration data are powerful, the origin-destination (O-D), tabular format of the data can be hard to interpret. To make O-D data more powerful, geographers can lean on computer cartography and new geovisualization techniques to help decision makers make sense of large, complex …

No. 54: Affordable Food Shops And Urban Food Security In China, Taiyang Zhong, Jonathan Crush, Yaya Song, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott, Yuxin Peng

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food subsidies have been widely implemented as part of government policies to mitigate food insecurity among the urban poor. The effectiveness of supply and demand-side subsidies have been a source of debate in the literature. One form of supply-side subsidy designed to make food more affordable to low-income consumers is to offer subsidies to retail outlets. China’s affordable food shop (AFS) program is one such example. The program was introduced by the central government in 2011 and implemented by municipal governments. Shops signing on to the program were required to sell a list of essential food items at a discount …

Mobility Of Older Adults In Mexico City: A Mixed Methods Approach, Jessica Villena Sanchez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation covers the topic of the mobility of older adults in Mexico City using a mixed methods approach. First, I looked at the literature to uncover what is known about elderly mobilities coming from the Global South. Second, I analyzed the 2017 Household Origin Destination Survey to reveal travel behavior patterns and transport mode choice of older adults in Mexico City. Third, I revealed mobility experiences from older adults living in different neighborhoods in Mexico City by conducting twenty two telephone interviews. Lastly, I created joint displays that included both previous results to better understand how the findings from …

No. 55: Food Clusters, Food Security And The Urban Food System Of Northern Namibia, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush, Ndeyapo Nickanor

Hungry Cities Partnership

A central feature of the transformation of urban food systems in cities of the Global South is the growing presence of supermarkets and their supply chains, often termed supermarketization or a supermarket revolution. A key issue in the African context is whether supermarkets are a threat to other sources of food including informal sector vendors. Most research on the supermarket revolution and competition with other food retailers focuses on large urban conurbations with little attention paid to the role of supermarkets in secondary urban centres. This paper aims to rectify this situation through a case study of the role of …

Wilderness And The Geotag: Exploring The Claim That "Geotagging Ruins Nature" In The Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Wa, Mara Gans

All Master's Theses

This research explores the claim that “geotagging ruins nature” by quantifying and qualifying patterns in geotag use and visitors’ experiences in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, in Washington, United States. Many have raised concerns that geotags increase recreational visitation to public lands, which subsequently contributes to negative resource impacts. Others, however, claim that geotagging has made the outdoors more accessible to less privileged communities and raise concerns that condemning geotags will perpetuate the exclusion of certain groups from outdoor recreation. This debate is studied within federally designated Wilderness, which is legally defined as “untrammeled by man,” a definition rooted in problematic …

Deep Roots In Eroding Soil: Building Decolonial Resilience Amidst Climate Violence And Displacement In A Louisiana Bayou Indigenous Community, Lia Mcgrath Kahan

Senior Independent Study Theses

The Pointe-au-Chien Indigenous community of coastal Louisiana is fighting for survival as climate change and socio-political factors threaten to displace them from their ancestral home. This project takes an ethnographic and historical approach to exploring how colonization and climate change have influenced Pointe-au-Chien tribal members’ ability to stay on their ancestral land. Climate projections estimate that the bayou this community has lived alongside of for generations will soon be unrecognizable, leading to potential displacement and devastating cultural loss. Due to the increasing severity of climate change, it is crucial to look to the experiences of frontline Indigenous communities to support …

"Ethnic" Some Days, White The Rest: Whittier, Ca As A Case Study In Mexican-American Racialization And Assimilation In Los Angeles County, Maria Gutierrez-Vera

CMC Senior Theses

Per the U.S. Census Bureau, the Latino population in the United States stands at 60.5 million. This thesis tells the story of a few hundred-thousand Mexican-Americans in Southeast Los Angeles County’s suburbs, who live in a region nicknamed the “Mexican Beverly Hills.” This is a unique site of middle-class ethnic affluence, but also a place where questions of “Hispanic” racial identity, assimilation, and belonging are played out. The Mexican Beverly Hills promises residents the fulfillment of their own (Mexican-) American Dream, but also plays into tropes of model minorities, demands assimilation and ethnic betrayal from its residents, and is the …

Critical Perspectives On Produce Prescription Programs & Us Federal Nutrition Policy, Alanna K. Higgins

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Produce prescription programs, interventions operating at the intersection of food access and public health, are steadily increasing in number across the United States since 2010. I leverage key informant interviews, participant observations, and event ethnographies to form a four-year institutional ethnography of the implementation of produce prescriptions within West Virginia alongside a legal-policy archaeology methodology to understand how produce prescriptions have been institutionalized and funded within the US Farm Bill. While much of produce prescription program growth is attributed to an expansion of federal funding starting in 2014, this dissertation demonstrates that these programs and the federal legislation which has …

'Indirect Pathways Into Practice': Philippine Internationally Educated Nurses And Their Entry Into Ontario's Nursing Profession, Lualhati Marcelino

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

While there are several studies that highlight the quantitative and statistical profiles of internationally educated nurses (IENs) from the Philippines who migrate to countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Canada, there is little research that delves deeply into the qualitative review and analysis of their experiences in their own words. This study addresses that gap by applying the transnational feminist concept of “global care chains” in a single case study design that explores the experience of nurses who migrated to Ontario through permanent and temporary immigration streams and were interviewed in 2011 to 2012 to …

Reviewers And Referees

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Submission Guidelines

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Statement From The Indiana Academy Of The Social Sciences And Board Of Directors, Mssj Staff

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Volume 24, Full Contents, Mssj Staff

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.