International and Area Studies Commons^™

The Experience Of Guatemalan Women Who Seek Asylum In United States Courts: A Legacy Of Paternalism And Gendered Violence, Nina E. Harris

Honors Papers

Karen Musalo, a leading asylum attorney, explains,“In the United States, few refugee issues have been as controversial as that of gender asylum.” Despite perceived progress, inconsistent judicial decisions engender doubts about the viability of gender-based asylum cases. The U.S. courts continue to see violence against women as a personal or family matter rather than a pattern of accepted social behavior supported by the political and legal authorities. Using cases from Guatemalan women seeking asylum, my research scrutinizes the asylum system, and shows how the U.S. furthers a colonial, paternalistic narrative—allowing U.S. judges, adjudicators, and policymakers to decide who is worthy—or …

Fanm Pa Chita: Mobilities, Intimate Labour, And Political Subjectivities Among Haitian Women On The Move, Masaya Llavaneras Blanco

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation asks: how does intimate labour interact with the mobility and political subjectivities of Haitian migrant women and women of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic (DR)? It answers this question in three specific ways. First, it explains the relationship between intimate labour and the spatial trajectories of women of Haitian ancestry who work as domestic workers. Second, it examines how the interaction between intimate labour and human mobility plays out in the Dominican border regime. Third, it explains how these subaltern women act politically in the midst of the intersections between borders, mobilities, and intimacy.

The dissertation proposes …

“Daughter” As A Positionality And The Gendered Politics Of Taking Parents Into The Field, Menusha De Silva, Kanchan Gandhi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research on gendered politics of the field has delved into the practices of accompaniment and its implications on research and knowledge production, particularly through the case of researchers’ children and partners. In comparison, the tendency to seek assistance from parents is neglected within the scholarship. Drawing on the PhD fieldwork experiences of two researchers in their “native” country, specifically a Sri Lankan researcher conducting fieldwork in Sri Lanka and a North Indian scholar researching in South India, the paper reveals parents’ contribution to the research process, in terms of enhancing researcher credibility, facilitating contact‐making and access, and providing emotional and …

Empowering Rural Participation And Partnerships In Morocco’S Sustainable Development, Yossef Ben-Meir

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This essay explores the vast potential for participatory and sustainable human development in Morocco. Though Morocco is a country with many diverse resources, it remains burdened by severe levels of poverty and illiteracy, and now growing social discord. There have recently been increased public calls for participatory development programs designed and implemented by and for local people. The essay identifies six existing Moroccan Frameworks intended to initiate decentralized human development programs, and critically examines their efficacy. Ultimately, the purpose of the article is to suggest a new model to implement these Frameworks with maximum impact. The six Frameworks deal with …

The Influence Of Gender On Female Business Owners In Ho Chi Minh City, Abby Busis

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Ho Chi Minh City is commonly referred to as a developing business hub, largely due to the rapidly increasing number of private enterprises. Since the implementation of the Doi Moi in 1986, Vietnam’s private business sphere has grown tremendously, and women have played a large role in this development. Today, women own just under a quarter of formal enterprises in Vietnam, but this impressive statistic does not consider the many challenges these women have faced.

Through in-depth interviews with female business owners themselves, along with an online survey, this study determines how gender influences these business owners’ professional experiences. Gender …

Gender-Based Experiences Of Migrant Smuggling At The Us-Mexico Border, Sarah E. Rinehart

Student Publications

The US-Mexico border has been increasing its security measures, which has corresponded with increases in migration. Due to increasing restrictions on who is able to legally migrate, many turn to irregular migration, and the more effective way of achieving irregular migration is through use of a migrant facilitator. Migrant smugglers are individuals who receive compensated for assisting others in crossing a national border through illegal means. In discourses about irregular migration from the media and political, migrant smugglers are typically portrayed as criminalized men who take advantage of vulnerable, victimized women migrants. While the experiences of men and women migrants …

Uneven Influence: Why Female Representation Affects Some Migration Policies But Not Others, Lauren M. Olsen

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

In the wake of the 2015 migration crisis, immigration policy has become one of the most critical topics of academic scholarship and political debate. Despite this prolific response, very little research has investigated how the gender of policymakers affects immigration policy. This raises an interesting question: is there any difference in immigration policy among countries with high and low numbers of female legislators? To investigate this matter, I use panel fixed-effects regression to systematically compare the immigration policies of the original EU-15 from 2000 to 2010. As a single policy area, I find female representation has no significant impact on …

Listen To The Voices Of Maasai Women In Kenya: Ensuring The Well-Being Of Their Families Through Collective Actions, Taeko Takayanagi

International Journal of African Development

This is an ethnographic study that provides insight into grassroots activities managed by Maasai women leaders in the Narok area of Kenya. Four women’s narratives were used as a basis of analysis to demonstrate their roles in facilitating grassroots activities to improve village women’s well-being despite gender discrimination and multidimensional constraints. The women’s group leaders commented that low literacy had a negative influence on Maasai women’s development; however, the issue of illiteracy could be overcome through cooperative learning during women group activities in their village. The results showed that the women’s group leaders played a facilitative role in improving women’s …

Puerto Rico's Coffee Region: A Socio-Economic Profile, Carla B. Lee Ms.

Sustainability and Social Justice

Using demographic, social, and economic information from the US Census Bureau, this study portrays the current conditions of Puerto Rico’s Coffee Region. There is evidence for the decline of the overall population in Puerto Rico, specifically younger groups, while women are economically disadvantaged in this region. Although there has been significant decline in the agricultural sector as a percentage of GDP, coffee holds significant potential to improve overall economic growth in the region.

Visualizing Feminized International Migration Flows In The 1990s, Diego F. Leal Phd, Ragini Malhotra Phd, Joya Misra Phd

Department of Criminology

The authors estimate migration flows of women in the 1990s at a global scale and provide a description of these migratory movements. The authors produce these data combining the 2011 World Bank Global Migrant Stock Database and state-of-the-art techniques to estimate migratory flows from stock data. The authors examine these flows in light of the global demand for care workers in the 1990s, showing that migration flows of women in that decade map onto the global care chains discussed in the qualitative literature. The data show that feminized migration flows in the period under analysis have a strong regional component. …

A Gendered Intersectional Analysis Of The Private Security Industry, Noa Shapira

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis conducts an intersectional gendered analysis of the privatization of wars and armed conflicts through the use of private military and security companies (PMSC's), thus responding to an existing gap in scholarship on this matter. Two methodologies were used for this analysis. The first is a discourse analysis and interviews conducted in the 5th annual assembly of the International Code of Conduct Association, in November 2018. The second is a search in newspapers and secondary sources for specific incidences of gender-related human rights abuses. Based on lessons learned from peacekeeping operations, this thesis aims to answer the question how …

Volume 8: Gender, Governance And Islam, Deniz Kandiyoti, Nadje Al-Ali, Kathryn Spellman Poots

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Analyses the links between gender and governance in contemporary Muslim majority countries and diaspora contexts.

Following a period of rapid political change, both globally and in relation to the Middle East and South Asia, this collection sets new terms of reference for an analysis of the intersections between global, state, non-state and popular actors and their contradictory effects on the politics of gender.

The volume charts the shifts in academic discourse and global development practice that shape our understanding of gender both as an object of policy and as a terrain for activism. Nine individual case studies systematically explore how …

"We Get Nothing" : An Ethnography Of Participatory Development And Gender Mainstreaming In A Water Project For The Bhil Of Central India, Indrakshi Tandon

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Through the close examination of a state-sponsored watershed project being implemented by Association for Integrated Social Development (AISD) in the district of Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, this dissertation project explores how current development approaches in water projects impact its intended targets, in this case the Bhil tribal community. A key aspect of this research is to analyze in detail how development narratives such as participatory or bottom-up approaches and gender mainstreaming often result in unintended consequences. With a focus on the gendered nature of participatory policies, I argue that popular development practices in India often lead to governing and managing target …

The Everyday Sacred : A Symbolic Analysis Of Contemporary Yucatec Maya Women's Daily Realities, Crystal Sheedy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As a collaborative effort between myself and the Maya women with whom I worked, who live in Xocén, this dissertation seeks to illuminate the sacred world of Maya women, as well as dismantle the insidious narrative that younger generations of Mayas are losing their culture. Instrumental to this process is the use of decolonial methods (Lawless 1993) and descriptive theoretical premises (Geertz 1973; Turner 1967, 1969) that allowed me to analyze Maya women’s discursive speech, referred to as both chismes and heridos in Spanish, which can be translated as gossip, as well as the speech genre of u t’àan nukuč …

Who Runs The World? An Analysis Of The Internal Dynamics Of International Organizations And Their Impact On The Ability Of Women To Attain High-Level Leadership Positions, Sabrina K. Harris

Senior Independent Study Theses

This study asks how do the internal dynamics of international organizations (IOs) affect the ability of women to attain high-ranking professional positions within international secretariats? To answer this question, theoretical understandings of the autonomy of IOs and the influence of their staff members as leaders are employed, arguing that individuals that comprise the internal bureaucracies of IOs are independent and influential in determining the policies, processes, and performance of their organization. In reviewing the relevant literature regarding IOs, gender, and leadership, this research identifies three key internal dynamics that jointly interact to influence the ability of women to attain-high level …

A Qualitative Study Of Changes In The Traditional Roles Of Housewives In Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria, Rowland Edet, Julianah Babajide, Oluwayimika Ekundina

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Although hinged on the principles of patriarchy, the Nigerian society has witnessed appreciable changes in the roles of women. This change is noticed in marriage particularly among married women or housewives. Thus, the phenomenon of full housewife is gradually fading away due to the joint influence of westernization, globalization, and modernization. Thus, this study delved into interrogating the various changes that have taken place in the traditional roles of housewives in selected locations in Ibadan. This study utilized a purely qualitative method of research because the subject matter focuses on making sense of meanings people attach to gender, gender roles, …

Urban Congolese Refugees’ Social Capital And Community Resilience During A Period Of Political Violence In Kenya: A Qualitative Study, Julie A. Tippens

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Community resilience has been used as a conceptual framework to promote urban refugee protection, integration, and well-being. In the context of this focus on “refugee communities,” it is critical to gain a deeper understanding of the ways urban refugee “communities” function. This study explored urban Congolese refugees’ use of social capital to promote resilience during a period of political violence in Nairobi, Kenya. Findings illustrate how refugees used social capital across different contexts to access and distribute resilience-promoting resources. Women primarily relied on informal bonding forms of capital while men exhibited greater degrees of access to formal bridging and linking …

Imagining Intersectional Anti-Rape Messaging At An Organization In Cape Town, South Africa: Visible And Invisible Subjects, Maslen Bode Ward

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Less than one month ago, South Africa held the first ever Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide to assess the most effective ways to approach solving the country’s high rates of gender-based violence. My study aims to consider anti-rape messaging and advocacy under an intersectional framework, using one organization in Cape Town as a case study. I examine how anti-rape messaging in South Africa has failed to consider intersectional identities in their imagined conceptions of survivors and perpetrators. I explore the potential for intersectional anti-rape messaging and the role of race, class, gender, culture, and language in the distribution, audience, …

La Implementación De La Ley De Educación Sexual Integral (Ley 26.150): Una Comparación Entre Escuelas Secundarias Públicas Y Escuelas Secundarias Privadas Católicas En Caba / The Implementacion Of The Law Of Comprehensive Sexual Education (Law 26.150): A Comparison Between Public And Private Catholic High Schools In Caba, Eve Gertzman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La promulgación de la ley 26.150, también conocida como la Ley de Educación Sexual Integral (ESI) en 2006, dio a todos los docentes de Argentina no sólo la oportunidad, sino también la responsabilidad de enseñar educación sexual sexual de una manera integral en sus aulas. Aunque han transcurrido más de doce años desde su aprobación, la ley no se ha implementado adecuadamente en las distintas regiones del país, incluyendo a la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Recopilando las opiniones y experiencias de tres docentes de escuelas secundarias públicas y privadas católicas en Buenos Aires, este estudio …

5.2 Sources Of Women Empowerment Information And The Role Of Language Policy And Practice In The Process: The Case Of The Sidama Zone, Ethiopia, Mekdes Tegegnework

International Conference on African Development

The population in Ethiopia consists of more than 50% women. Gender equality and women empowerment have been a fashion in Ethiopia’s governance discourse and by most of the NGOs functioning in the country for decades. Even though efforts by national and international agencies and the government have brought some changes in women empowerment to the country, significant numbers of women are still suffering from gender inequality. The fact that women empowerment is one of the key priorities in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda; calls have come for the importance of revisiting the subject from different angles. Women empowerment is a …

Women's Education, Intergenerational Coresidence, And Household Decision-Making In China, Cheng Cheng

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

ObjectiveThis study examines how intergenerational coresidence modifies the association between women's education and their household decision‐making power in China.BackgroundPast research on how married women's education increases their decision‐making power at home has focused primarily on nuclear families. This article extends prior research by examining how this association varies by household structure. It compares women living with their husbands with those living with both their husbands and parents‐in‐law.MethodThis article used data from the China Family Panel Studies in 2010 and 2014. It employed marginal structural models to address the concern that certain characteristics selecting women of less power into coresidence with …

Mumbai Macbeth: Gender And Identity In Bollywood Adaptations, Rashmila Maiti

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project analyzes adaptation in the Hindi film industry and how the concepts of gender and identity have changed from the original text to the contemporary adaptation. The original texts include religious epics, Shakespeare’s plays, Bengali novels which were written pre-independence, and Hollywood films. This venture uses adaptation theory as well as postmodernist and postcolonial theories to examine how women and men are represented in the adaptations as well as how contemporary audience expectations help to create the identity of the characters in the films. Ultimately, this project hopes to fulfil the gap in scholarship on adaptations in Bollywood.

Queer Arab Writing Across Borders: Sexual Citizenship And Acts Of Belonging, Nicole Fares

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study provides a comparative analysis of various representations of sexuality in seven transnational Arab cultural productions: Salim Haddad's Guapa (2016), Rabih Alameddine's The Angel of History (2016), Ahmed Dany Ramadan's The Clothesline Swing (2017), Hasan Namir's God in Pink (2015), Fadia Abboud's I Luv U But (2016), Alissar Gazal's Lesbanese (2008), and Ayse Toprak's Mr. Gay Syria (2017). These productions demonstrate a range of experiences of discrimination and trauma experienced by queer Arab immigrants and refugees in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, as their national identities continue to be regarded as obstacles preventing them from fully integrating into the …

On The Politics And Conceptualization Of Gender Non-Conformity : Exploring Thailand’S Kathoey Population., Macey E. Mayes

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the politics and conceptualization of gender in Thailand, drawing specifically on the Thai understanding of sex and gender with regard to the kathoey population. This work considers the solidification of a third-gender category and looks to the ways this solidification can inhibit the fluidity of gender and sexuality. It also analyzes the dangers of transnational advocacy and the superimposition of Western queer advocacy and theory on Thai gender identities. I approach this issue from an interdisciplinary framework that seeks to include historical, cultural, and theoretical perspectives. In examining anthropological research, critiques of …

Building Brand Kurdistan: Helly Luv, The Gender Of Nationhood, And The War On Terror, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

In the early 2000s, the Kurdistan Regional Government hired a US-based firm to begin a public relations campaign called “The Other Iraq.” Since that time, it has worked with a number of PR and lobbying firms to build a cultural, political, and financial apparatus that I refer to as Brand Kurdistan. This apparatus aims to prove to Western audiencesthat the Kurds are a liberal exception in an illiberal Middle East, and to build prospects of KRG’s eventual national independence. This article explores the connections between Brand Kurdistan and the gendering of Kurdish nationalism, focusing particularly on Kurdish pop diva Helly …

Determinants Of Youth (Un)Employment In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Aynalem Megersa

International Conference on African Development Archives

Informed by the Macro-Micro approach (Steiber, & Haas, 20122 ), the paper aims to examine the major determinants of youth (Un)employment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from a gender perspective. The study primarily uses quantitative data from the 2014 urban unemployment and employment survey conducted by the Ethiopian Central Statistical Authority. The study employs descriptive statistics and Multinomial logit model to analyse the quantitative data. Qualitative data generated using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with selected youth in the City were also used to substantiate the quantitative results. Findings of the study reveal that different levels of factors- structural factors, …

Fear Of Violence During Armed Conflict: Social Roles And Responsibilities As Determinants Of Fear, Nathalie E. Williams, Dirgha Ghimire, Karen A. Snedker

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

This article investigates the prevalence and determinants of fear as a consequence of living through armed conflict. We use survey data from Nepal during the armed conflict (1996–2006) to examine how trauma, sex and gender, age, marriage, and household size affect fear of violence. We also disaggregate types of worry, and find substantial variance on whether respondents were more concerned about livelihood consequences of conflict than physical danger. We supplement quantitative analyses with discussion of in-depth interviews from the study area on these same topics. Overall, our results highlight the enduring impact of gender roles in Nepal and that conflict …

Vocational Training Programs And Youth Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From Nepal, S Chakravarty, M Lundberg, Plamen Nikolov, J Zenker

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Lack of skills is arguably one of the most important determinants of high levels of unemployment and poverty. In response, policymakers often initiate vocational training programs in efforts to enhance skill formation among the youth. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we examine a large youth training intervention in Nepal. We find, twelve months after the start of the training program, that the intervention generated an increase in non-farm employment of 10 percentage points (ITT estimates) and up to 31 percentage points for program compliers (LATE estimates). We also detect sizable gains in monthly earnings largely driven by women who start self-employment …

Género Sobre Género. Vestimenta, Cuerpo Y Trabajo Doméstico En El Cine De Manuel Romero, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

La vestimenta ocupa un lugar de privilegio en el estudio de las representaciones visuales y de los artefactos de consumo como textos culturales. Es una herramienta central de las corporalidades sobre las que se edifican las identidades sociales, puesto que la vestimenta cataliza las relaciones entre las representaciones impuestas por los que poseen los medios para significar y las que produce cada comunidad a partir del acceso a esos mismos medios. De este modo, las industrias culturales, especialmente el cine, la radio y la prensa vehiculizan figuraciones que mediante la publicidad y el consumo son apropiadas y resignificadas por los …

Really Effective (For 15% Of The Men): Lessons In Understanding And Addressing User Needs In Climate Services From Mali, Edward Carr, Sheila Onzere

Sustainability and Social Justice

The design of effective climate services requires the identification of a problem that might be addressed through the provision of weather and climate information, and the design and delivery of actionable information to a set of appropriate users. The utility of weather and climate information for a given user is shaped not only by exposure to particular weather, climate, and market shocks and stresses, but also the sensitivity of that user’s livelihoods to particular shocks and stresses and whether or not their adaptive capacity includes the ability to use such information. Therefore, effective climate services are very place-, time-, and …