Community-Based Research Commons^™

Sacred Space And Self: Feminist Reflections In The Church Of Mary, Ozan Can Yilmaz

Journal of Global Catholicism

This study recontextualizes Mary's obedience and nurturing characteristics as a counterbalance to Eve's disobedience, symbolically representing a trajectory towards reconciliation and redemption. It delves into Mary's multifaceted role as a bestower of life and grace, her intrinsic maternal compassion, and her facilitation of female empowerment. Through this analytical framework, it offers a nuanced perspective on pilgrimages to sacred sites associated with Marian veneration, suggesting that these journeys transcend mere historical and religious connections to become platforms for personal healing, spiritual growth, and the exploration of feminine identity. The research is underpinned by a fieldwork conducted at the Church of Mary …

"Because They Recognized Us": Triangulated Perspectives Of Syrian Mothers' Resettlement Experiences In The Eastern United States., Kayte Thomas

Journal of Applied Disciplines

Research indicates that post-resettlement experiences can be particularly challenging for people with refugee status. Despite finding safety in and adjusting to their new home, former refugees have indicated that this time can be stressful and even traumatic. The current Syrian crisis has created the largest wave of refugees ever known, and Syrian women are amongst the most vulnerable. However, women’s needs and preferences are often not taken into consideration during the resettlement journey and when they are, there is no distinction between mothers and their childless counterparts. As social workers strive to empower the individual person within their environment, it …

Women’S Communities And Landscapes In Deadwood, South Dakota In The 1870s–1880s, Jessica Kaye Long

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research focuses on the lives, experiences, and contributions of Deadwood women from 1875 to 1889. This range represents a defining period in Deadwood’s history stretching from its inception to the arrival of the railroad. Through this research, I seek to better understand the women living in a relatively isolated city during the gold rush. While previous research has focused on the city’s most famous women and sex workers of the Badlands, the lives of average citizens have been neglected. This research does not want to ignore the impacts of famous women or sex workers. Instead, this thesis attempts to …

757transfamily: Empowering Parents To Raise Their Transgender Child Through Knowledge, Connection, And Joy, Jessica Gurley

Institute for the Humanities Master's Papers, Projects, and Capstones

Parents of transgender and non-binary children often want to support their children, but are not sure how. Giving these parents the support and resources they need will increase their ability to support their children, further increasing the chance that their children will live a long, healthy, authentic life.

I built a website, and organized a workshop that parents can attend in order to access information and resources about the transgender community. These parents will receive the support they need to be better equipped to support their gender-diverse children. I will be collecting information about the parents' feelings and experience towards …

Coming Out In South Africa: What’S Beyond The Closet?, Sophia Ludt

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

For many queer individuals, coming out is a significant moment in their lives. In South Africa, this process is made even more difficult due to prevalent homophobia, discrimination, and anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes. The colonial influence of Dutch and British colonization has perpetuated the notion that homosexuality is "un-African," adding to the challenges faced by queer individuals as they navigate their racial and cultural identities. Coming out can be dangerous for them, as it challenges expectations of the patriarchy, marriage, and childbirth. The response to a queer person's coming out greatly impacts their sense of self, safety, and acceptance. This study …

Academic Women's Studies: An Institutional Failure For Scholarship On Violence Against Women, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Trans Futures In The Present Moment, Willow Grace Eckmayer

University Honors Theses

The current climate for trans folks in the U.S. remains increasingly hostile and many researchers have called attention to the "joy deficit" within the existing trans literature (Shuster & Westbrook, 2022). This study investigates what trans individuals are currently doing to survive, thrive, and resist in a belligerent socio-political climate. To answer this, five community conversations with 25 participants were held using a semi-structured conversation guide. Within the analysis, the central theme that emerged was that trans individuals are using their communities to create radical futures. Our communities are supporting us through mutual aid and radical acts of care, which …

Exploring The Influence Of Globalization And Self-Expression In Shaping The Vietnamese Lgbtq+ Community In Urban Vietnam, Minh-Thy Tyler

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The LGBTQ+ community is estimated to make up around 9% to 11% of Vietnam’s total population. Over the past few decades, Vietnam has undergone significant changes, marked by its increasing interconnectedness with the global community. These changes have also brought about a shift in perceptions and advocacy toward the LGBTQ+ community. Also bringing along a change in attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community in Vietnam is self-expression and fashion. Through drag or wearing gender-nonconforming attire, queer individuals are able to challenge the restrictive gender binary prevalent in Vietnamese society. Self-expression and fashion are also critical in helping queer individuals form and …

Moving In The Underground: The Politics Of Black Joy In Roller-Skating And Funk Music In Chicago, John West

Pomona Senior Theses

Skating provides a moment of limited protection from the dangers of being Black in the after-life of slavery. Skating provides a way to temporarily escape the pain of the outside that is depicted above. The pain of a modern post-racial colorblind slave society. A society plagued with hyper-surveillance, mass incarceration, and domestic militarism targeted at Black and Brown bodies. Our joy and pleasure are what sustain us. We turn to jubilee to offer a moment of freedom from the burden of racial capitalism. Subversive Black joy, the joy that allows Black folk to restore, recreate, and reinvent themselves is how …

An Arbitrary Aesthetic: Cultural Reproduction And Hegemonic Canonical Formations In The Western Theatrical Academy, Sim C. Rivers

Theses and Dissertations

Theatre as an artistic practice has often been celebrated as an art of and for the people, being a modality that in theory the common person has access to learn, explore and experience. In recent years I have become preoccupied with the growing rarification and privileging of this art form, particularly in how it is cognized and taught in the academic world. As such, I set out to investigate the mechanisms at work at levels structural, artistic, and personal that determine how theatre is taught and understood within the western academy.

This thesis seeks to examine and unpack the perceived …

Coping Strategies For Inner Conflicts Between Gay Bear Identity And Health Concerns, Chichun Lin, Darren D. Moore

The Qualitative Report

Gay bear refers to a burly gay man with a hirsute body and face. Chinese gay bear men are highly homogeneous and strictly emphasize a uniform bear appearance; however, obesity is an obvious health issue in this population. This study aims to explore the Chinese gay bear men's inner conflicts between bear identity and health concerns. Eleven Chinese gay bear men including four Taiwanese, two mainland Chinese, two Hong Kong, two Malaysian, and one Singaporean were interviewed. The study used a thematic analysis approach and found three coping strategies including (a) Eat healthy but maintain a minimal bear standard; (b) …

“The Worst Part About My Pregnancy Was Stuff That Didn’T Have To Do With My Pregnancy”: Medicaid Beneficiaries’ Pregnancy Intentions & Experiences In South Carolina, Andrew Michael Chen

Senior Theses

Low-income women and women of color experience adverse birth outcomes at disproportionately higher rates in the United States than most people who give birth. This thesis examines individual interviews conducted with 30 low-income women whose most recent birth was covered by Medicaid, the United States’ largest means-tested public health insurance program. The aim of this thesis is to examine how the women in the study thought about pregnancy, and how they described their intentions to become or avoid becoming pregnant at various times in their life. While public health researchers often frame pregnancy as an event that is either intended …

"Queering" Age-Friendly New York City, Austin G. Oswald

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background and aims: The global population is aging and becoming more culturally diverse. As such, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers are expected to think critically about strategies to improve the quality of life of people as they age. In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Age-Friendly Cities movement to improve the well-being and meaningful engagement of older adults living in the community. New York City (NYC) was the first city in the world to be designated “age-friendly” by the WHO, and is possibly viewed as a model for other cities to emulate. Few empirical studies have examined the age-friendly …

Equity + Catalyst Framework Guide, Naomi M. Silas

Culminating Experience Projects

There has been a shift in society, in light of Covid-19 and the global pandemic, more people have begun to recognize the structural and institutional injustices that exist in this country. Social innovation allows collaboration between people from different sectors, disciplines, industries, and backgrounds; in order to create sustainable change to complex social issues. Design thinking is an iterative process used in business to create innovation and products; it’s also used for social impact.

The goal of the Equity + Catalyst Framework is to bridge concepts that include design thinking, and embodiment, as well as lived experiences and community care …

Archiving Feminist Truth In Trump’S Wake Of Lies, Julie Shayne

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This article is about an assignment I do in one of my Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies social movement classes. I revised the assignment the first time teaching the class after Trump lost the 2020 election. For the assignment, students work in groups to research local feminist and gender justice organizations and deposit all of their original materials – recordings, photos, flyers, etc. – into a digital, open access archive I co-created several years ago with librarians and staff on my campus. In 2021 I had my students do the “post-Trump” edition where they researched local organizations about how their …

Learning To Be Gay: Narrative Socialization Of Young Indonesian Homosexuals, Amika Wardana

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

The increasing religious conservatism within Indonesian society has propelled the growth of hatred and vigilantism targeting sexual minorities—which are seen as committing an unforgiven sin—especially towards LGBTs (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender). This study addresses the processes that these minorities experience in order to express their sexual identities and forge social relationships with fellow same-sex queers. In specific, this study focuses on the ways young gays begin to understand and develop their sexual identity amidst a largely hostile social environment. By utilizing social media, these young gays have built digital communities for socialising with fellow gay people, as well as …

The Resiliency And Thriving Of Underrepresented Agricultural Educators: A National Mixed Methods Study, Caleb Michael Hickman

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Gay men in agricultural education do not have comprehensive support within the agricultural education profession. When gay men decide to become agriculture educators, they often keep their identity private. This national mixed methods study aims to seek if gay agriculture educators are resilient and thrive in rural communities. The thriving elements of spiritual influence, personal competence, peer support, and family cohesion were surveyed and analyzed using a resiliency lens. Findings include gay male agricultural educators thriving in a heteronormative profession. Recommendations include ensuring LGBTQIA+ teachers have a voice in agricultural education.

An Intergenerational Photo Exploration Of Self Care Actions In Self-Identifying Strong Black Women, Vanessa Patrice Goodar

Dissertations

The current study sought to expand upon the Giscombé Superwoman Schema (2010) specifically exploring the role of vulnerability resistance and help obligation as potential barriers to changing comprehensive self-care health commitments in self-identifying Strong Black Women (SBW). The Superwoman Schema characteristics of vulnerability resistance and help obligation along with socio-economic factors of income, religious affiliation and marital status were assessed in the project using a visual-ethnography approach to Photo Voice methods and five intergenerational focus groups of SBW's born between 1946 and 2002. The collective self-care knowledge of these eighteen participants was analyzed using a participatory action research discussion framework …

Desde El Fuego Que En Mí Arde: Performance, Literatura Y Cine Afro-Latinoamericano Producidos Por Mujeres Afrodescendientes En Perú, Cuba Y Brasil (1960–2000), Elena Ekatherina Chavez Goycochea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines different films, literary, and performance art pieces created by contemporary afro-descendant women from Peru, Cuba, and Brazil after the sixties with emphasis on the most relevant works of Conceição Evaristo, Sara Gómez, Victoria Santa Cruz, and Lucía Charún-Illescas. I focus my research on the crucial role these artists played in the cultural identity formation of Latin America when inserting ‘race’ as a category of socio-political analysis and cultural production. How did their films, performances, and texts challenge national narratives and imaginaries after 1960? Although in the sixties, women improved their civil rights in different countries, the ‘mujer …

Material Encounters: Making Memory Beyond The Mind, Ariel Wills

Masters Theses

Can acts of making carry the memories of our embeddedness within the world? This thesis explores how making things can nurture a sense of kinship that cuts across the organic and inorganic, erasing the distinction between living and dead, material and spiritual. Through handwork such as art-making, sewing, knitting, cooking, woodworking, and beyond, the burden of remembering and of archiving is shared across human and non-human bodies, cultivated through practices of making, and through the materials themselves. By recounting the stories of my family’s experience as Jewish immigrants in the United States, I aim to reveal how their domestic practices …

Pornography, Its Harms, And A New Legal Strategy: Research And Experience In Japan, Seiya Morita, Caroline Norma

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In this article we describe pornography’s harms in Japan, which are known about from surveys and research, and from the outreach and consulting activities of Japanese feminist-abolitionist groups. Among these are the Anti-Pornography and Prostitution Research Group (APP) and People Against Pornography and Sexual Violence (PAPS). We then propose a renewed classification scheme for pornography’s harms that centrally considers the experiences of victims in Japan. Lastly, we consider various legal approaches to addressing the myriad harms we describe and suggest possibilities for a new legal strategy. The article’s research comes from Japanese-language materials produced by the above-mentioned activist groups, as …

Yoga As Embodied Peacebuilding: Moving Through Personal, Interpersonal And Collective Trauma(S) In Post-Conflict Colombia, Mayme Lefurgey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this dissertation, I examine creative methods of peacebuilding that are both community-driven and embodied in their approach. I evaluate how these methods can simultaneously challenge the confines of conventional peacebuilding mechanisms in transitional and post-conflict contexts, while also offering a unique complement to existing programs and structures. I look at the multifaceted socio-cultural expressions of yoga globally, inquiring as to how this mind-body practice can offer opportunities in peacebuilding on both individual and collective levels.

My project is rooted in the principles of community-engaged research and feminist research ethics. More specifically, this dissertation closely engages with the work of …

Building The Fat Girl Table: Excavating Cultural Memory Of Queer Fat Activism In The ‘90s, Rose Gelfand

Scripps Senior Theses

When we recount the histories of social movements, there is a tendency to imagine either a steady, linear march towards progress or a slow descent from radical ideas into complacency. The feminist movement gets painted in waves, progressing from white to intersectional, while in the LGBTQ+ rights movement the contrast of the Stonewall Riots & ACT UP with late 2010s focus on gay marriage and the corporatization of Pride is understood as a watering down and betrayal of the movement’s origins. Cultural memory is a constant process of construction and revision, and of course the truth of movements’ trajectories are …

The Resilience Of Female Survivors Of Intimate Partner Violence In Southwest Nigeria: An Interdisciplinary Analysis, Tobi F. Oloyede

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Female survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Nigeria endure harsh and traumatic experiences that affect their rights as women and their well-being. As the phenomenon of IPV persists in Nigeria, it is not only a family problem but a critical social and psychological problem. This study examined Nigerian female survivors’ hidden strength, agency, and resilience, rather than their powerlessness and vulnerability. Analysis of survey questionnaires, interviews, and secondary scholarship reveals that some Nigerian female survivors of IPV are able to cope whilst navigating stressful and traumatic experiences. The results also show that survivors’ ability to thrive and cope under …

A Mule For The Patriarchy: Waking Up To The Harm Of Prostitution To Wives And Families, Andrea Heinz

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

I exited from commercial sexual exploitation eight years ago. Here, I share my reflections on how my actions directly impacted other women. I describe how my participation in the sex trade adversely affected the wives and girlfriends of sex buyers. I posit that sex sellers negatively impact these vicarious victims by subscribing to and endorsing “sex work” ideology. I assert that the collective good of all women is diminished by viewing sexual services as a market commodity. I stress that the collective good of all women is enhanced by assuming responsibility and compassion for one another.

On Exiting From Commercial Sexual Exploitation: Insights From Sex Trade Experienced Persons, Andrea Heinz

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

As a woman who exited after seven years in licensed commercial sexual exploitation in Canada, I share my reflections on my experience, which led to the development of the Insights from Sex Trade Experienced Persons (InSTEP) Model. The model was constructed based on interviews with “service providers” in the sex trade. Twelve exited women share their experiences inclusively. InSTEP is geared toward a population of quasi-autonomous providers who have alternate economic options. Three levels are introduced in the InSTEP model to describe the continuum of agency among service providers; Level 1: trafficked/controlled; Level 2: quasi-autonomous; Level 3: autonomous. The InSTEP …

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

“You Feel Like You Belong Nowhere”: Conflict-Related Sexual Violence And Social Identity In Post-Genocide Rwanda, Myriam Denov, Laura Eramian, Meaghan C. Shevell

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Globally, the systematic use of sexual violence in modern warfare has resulted in the birth of thousands of children. Research has begun to focus on this often invisible group and the obstacles they face, including stigma, discrimination and exclusion based on their birth origins. Although sexual violence during the Rwandan genocide has been documented on a massive scale, little research has focused on the relational dynamics between mothers who experienced genocide rape and the children they bore. This paper explores the post-genocide realities of these two under-explored populations, revealing two key tensions in relation to identity-building and belonging. Drawing upon …

Exploring The Relationship Between Gender, Race, And Space, And Toronto Community Housing Policy, Anita Rachel Ewan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation presents the racial-gendered lived experiences of Black women living in Toronto Community Housing (TCH; subsidized housing). This research found that Black women and their families are disproportionately faced with challenges due to barriers caused by housing policy and procedures that also affect the overall development and wellbeing of their children. It also highlights the ways in which Black women continue to thrive and survive in the face of detrimental and derelict living conditions; accomplished through community development and support initiatives, and fostering strong communities.

This is a qualitative research project that includes an art-based method. Utilizing a feminist …

Queen Nanny, A Case Study For Cultural Heritage Tourism: The Archaeology Of Memory And Identity, Lacy Risner

Liberal Arts Capstones

This research project is intended to provide a foundation of knowledge of the Maroon culture in Jamaica, through the legends of one of their most prominent founders, Queen Nanny, as an aid for those who want to educate themselves before approaching community leaders about tourism development. Documentation of Queen Nanny’s life is contested and shrouded in mystery. Yet, that is part of what makes her memory so powerful. The various roles that Queen Nanny is associated with feature her adamant pursuit of an independent life for herself and her Maroons. Whether she is catching bullets or teaching the Maroons how …