Sociology of Culture Commons^™

Towards Critical Agency: A Case Study Of Japanese Peacebuilding And Development In The Bangsamoro, Hana Soma

Master in Public Policy Theses

Asking “In what ways have anthropological methods been part of Japan's peacebuilding and development interventions in the Bangsamoro?”, this research hopes to make a contribution to the study of anthropology and development and their practical application by exploring the possibilities of the role of an anthropological approach in making sense of modern-day development programs, particularly through the case study of Japan’s peacebuilding-through-development efforts in the Bangsamoro. After outlining the research question as well as the design and methodology used to answer it and an overview of the histories of dispossession and the Japanese relationship to Mindanao, the essay …

Two Genres, One Narrative? A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Gendered Relationships In Top Hip-Hop/R&B And Country Songs (2015-2025), Alyssa A. Yarbro

Honors Theses

For this research, I examined how gendered relationships are depicted in the lyrics of 55 top-charting Hip-Hop/R&B and Country songs from the past decade (2015-2025). I employed Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis to examine how song lyrics use language to reproduce or challenge dominant ideas of gendered relationships. My analysis identified three prominent themes within the lyrics: Respect, Commodification, and Regret. Songs within the Respect category were characterized by these of romance, affection, and non-sexual intimacy. The commodification category included songs that had dominant themes of objectification, sexualization, and depicting individuals as disposable or interchangeable goods. The songs in the …

"The Guyana Chronicle's" Gender Portrayals When Covering Intimate Partner Violence And Suicide, Raiya Shaw

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Guyana, a geographically South American yet culturally Caribbean country, has the highest suicide rate in the Western hemisphere and has maintained one of the highest suicide rates globally for over a decade. Despite this public health crisis, limited research exists examining the issue. High rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) exist concurrently with the country’s high suicide rates, yet limited research exists examining these issues together. Considering the effect of the media on public perception and belief structures, this reflexive thematic analysis explores how gender is presented in articles regarding IPV and suicide from Guyana’s government-managed newspaper The Guyana Chronicle. …

Changing The Channel: How Queer Representation In Mainstream Media Influences Social Perceptions In Young Adult Viewers, Lillian Joy Myers

Master's Theses

This thesis investigates the impact of queer representation in mainstream film and television on young adult viewers, with particular attention to how these media portrayals influence social perceptions and cultural understandings of queerness and LGBTQ+ identities. While queer visibility in mainstream media has increased over the past two decades, the quality and complexity of that representation remain generally inconsistent and infrequent. Drawing on sociological theories of representation and cultivation, along with GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation)’s Vito Russo Test as a guiding framework, this study explores both the quality and impacts of LGBTQ+ media visibility. The purpose of …

"You Know The Rules": A Dramatic Experiment In Aromantic Literary Theory, April Chronowski

English

This paper proposes a new literary theory framework based on the zine "an aromantic manifesto" by yingchen and yingtong, as well as the work of Erving Goffman, using theater as a device to examine romantic relationships. Blending English and sociology, I focus each chapter on a different literary period and examine two plays each: early modern (Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing), modern (Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Djuna Barnes' "To The Dogs"), and contemporary (Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9 and Margaret Edson's W;t). In tandem with analysis of formal elements---like …

Picturing Consumer Culture, Cultural Hybridity, And Womanhood: Farah Al Qasimi’S Photographs From 2012 To 2020, Minji Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Farah Al Qasimi’s 2012-2020 color photographs, arguing that this work presents a distinctive and salient critique of domesticity, material culture, and womanhood in the UAE. Through her lens as a woman and a culturally hybrid subject, Al Qasimi explores the tensions of modernization, globalization, consumerism, and gender.

Sustainable Development: What’S The Problem Here? A Post-Structural Discourse Analysis Of The Global Reporting Initiative, Jenniffer Barnett

Master's Theses

The purpose of the study was to critically analyze how the problem of sustainable development is constructed in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and identify what underlying assumptions and historical events produced the problematization as the GRI aims to guide global behavior. The study explored how governing took place by identifying what was silenced in the problem representation and the discursive effects and subject positions it produced. Carol Bacchi's (2009) "What’s the problem represented to be?" (WPR) facilitated this Foucault-influenced poststructural discourse analysis. The interrogation revealed that (a) sustainable development is characterized as a problem of corporate transparency, and (b) …

Implications Of Extremity: The Digital Nexus Between Black Metal Subculture And Right-Wing Extremism, Samuel G. Crawford

Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to examine and offer potential explanatory frameworks for the apparent phenomenon of right-wing and similar extreme ideologies in the context of the musical subgenre of black metal and its corresponding subculture. Using Robinson’s (2007) analysis of classical symbolic interactionist theorists (Goffman, Cooley, Mead) in the context of digital spaces, this study conducted digital ethnography and discourse analysis of various online forums dealing with black metal and its subculture. In addition to this qualitative work, descriptive quantitative analysis of frequencies and proportions of thematic variables coded for extremity indicate that black metal does appear to have high instances …

Dialoguing Narratives Of Social Movement Theories And Subjectivities, Sarra Moneir

Future Journal of Social Science

This paper serves as a theoretical study for displaying a sample of the prime literature on social movement theories in comparison with one another, shedding light on the gaps and fundamental contributions. This will be carried out in comparison to the scholarship on subjectivity. Social movement and social movement theories have been inevitable tools of analysis since primarily the 1980s, serving as replacements for modes of apprehending popular mobilization. Since then, theoretical contributions in this field have grown and shown a multitude of orientations and focal strategies on how to focus and study social movements in their various forms and …

Dungeons & Dragons: Fractals Of The Human Self, Katie Anderson

Honors Theses

Dungeons & Dragons at its core is roleplay based storytelling, which implies the idea that the game is a work of fiction. While the world of Iad and the Free States of Tarvan does not exist on planet earth, the experiences and emotions felt by the players and their characters within the world are very much real. Players use extensions of themselves, their characters, to interact with the world around them, forging relationships and new lines of fate and destiny. Characters are fractals of their out of game personas, attached to one’s base personality and expanding outwards. The development of …

Through A Glass Too Brightly: A Long History Of Media, Social Expectations And Loneliness, Edward Brennan

Conference Papers

This paper looks at how media, social expectations, and chronic loneliness are intertwined. It uses a historical and cultural approach. Loneliness—a painful gap between the social connections that people have and those they expect to have—has always existed. However, modern life and new media technologies have changed how loneliness feels. Using examples from the telephone, radio, television, and social media, the paper shows that society regularly has greeted new technologies through a polarised hopes and fears discourse. A more long-term history, however, reveals that while media may have positive and negative effects on social connection, the relationship between media and …

Economic Disadvantage, Nativity, And Academic Performance And School Punishment Among Latino/A Children, Yolanda Chavez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cultural explanations of how familial resource inequality negatively impacts the academic well-being of a Latino/a child saturate the literature. This study examines the relationship between economic disadvantage and academic performance and school punishment through Family Stress Process Theory, providing a contextual analysis of resource instability. The additional myriad of legal and social constraints that parental nativity provides for family members can moderate this relationship. Data was drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal measure of U.S. couples and their children in 20 large U.S. cities. Regression models indicate the relationship between economic disadvantage and academic performance …

Postcolonial Indian Ruling Texts: The Ramayana, Shuchi Sanyal

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I shall be writing about the Ramayana as a ruling text and the post colonial interpretation of Hindu mythology perpetuating gender roles and encourages women to be submissive. The imposition of Western ideals alters the perception of cultural expectations of women and that to behave misogynistically is to be true to traditional Indian values. The Ramayana is a fable recorded in religious text, The Bhagavad Gita, and is taught to children to convey the Hindu objective of human pursuit composed of duties, prosperity, desire, spiritual liberation. The original text consists of nearly twenty four thousand verses in the Shloka meter, …

The Evolution Of Love: The Meaning Of Romantic Love In Contemporary Society, Jessica Salas

Senior Theses

Romantic love has long acted as a significantly influential social institution. This thesis examines how ideology and practices surrounding romantic love and partnership differ across gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. In order to carry out this investigation, a survey was administered to 141 participants between the ages of 18 to 84. Of these participants, approximately 62% were female, 36% were male, and 3% identified as Other. The majority of respondents were White, followed by Latino/Hispanic and Asian/Asian American. Overall, findings indicate that, when not accounting for race or income, men tend to demonstrate increased idealism in their romantic …

The Army National Guard: Recruitment, Retention, And The Balance Of Life, Stephanie N. Ashwell

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

The National Guard is an institution with a history older than the United States. Members are drawn to Guard service for a variety of reasons, and they face a range of difficulties as they manage their experiences in the Guard and in their civilian lives. This project offers a small case study, based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews, with six current or former Guard members. Findings highlight that these members experienced a range of frustrations that clustered around issues of recruitment, retention, and the balance of life. The purpose of this study was to gain a better idea of what are …

The Effects That Family Form And Medical Practices Have On The Willingness Of Consumers To Adopt Entomophagous Practices, Mackenzie Conlon

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

To help reduce amounts of destructive methane produced by livestock, climate activists are advocating for the inclusion of entomophagy in the mindset and culinary choices of Western society. Entomophagy, customary in most regions of the world, is seen as a deviant and disgusting food practice by most Westerners. In order to challenge this perception, producers of insect-based products are changing the appearance and marketability of their commodities. To successfully target markets, they need to determine the ideal household for entomophagy acceptance. My research tests the hypothesis that family form and medical practices affect the willingness of consumers to adopt these …

The Role Of Food And Culinary Customs In The Homing Process For Syrian Migrants In California, Sally Baho

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This interdisciplinary thesis explores the foodways of six Syrian migrant families, both immigrants and refugees, in California and the role that culinary customs play in their homing process. The homing process is the dynamic way in which people create home according to their life circumstances: food, eating, and culinary customs after migration in this case. Home is not only the place where people live, but also, where they come from and how they feel comfortable; home is both a physical space and an abstract concept. Home, and the various definitions of home, are mapped out in this project because understanding …

Torn Apart: A Closer Look At Our Cover Image, Sandra Rios

Culture, Society, and Praxis

No abstract provided.

La Comida, La Identidad Y La Migración: Un Caso De Estudio De Inmigrantes Femeninas Y Su Relación Con La Comida, Susanna Morales

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta corta investigación se enfoca en cómo la comida, la migración y la identidad se entrecruzan dentro de la vidas de las mujeres involucradas en el Sindicato de las Trabajadoras del Hogar de la ciudad de Cochabamba. La mayoría de ellas han migrado del campo a Cochabamba en búsqueda de un trabajo. El enfoque está en cómo ellas recuerdan sus pueblos y cómo su identidad se expresa a través de la comida. Mi pregunta de investigación es la siguiente: ¿Cómo se entrecruza la comida, la migración e identidad en la vida de una inmigrante femenina? Respondo a estas preguntas usando …

Multicultural Narratives: Language As A Site Of Struggle For Amazigh Rights Activism In Morocco, Joyce Lee

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Moroccan constitutional monarchy’s officialization of the Amazigh language in 2011 was its response to a building coalition for Amazigh rights, which simultaneously narrowed and broadened the scope of the Amazigh Rights movement. This study’s purpose was to analyze Tamazight as it has currently manifested in the urban space of Rabat as a site of struggle for Amazigh people. The questions the study attempts to answer are: a) Has the Moroccan government found success in its chosen goal of standardization of the Tamazight language in schools? b) Do Amazigh activists share this same goal? c) Whose needs do the goals …

Year Of Cuba 2019-2020, Nashieli Marcano, Leslie Drost

Research Guides & Subject Bibliographies

No abstract provided.

Anti-Queer Microaggressions Towards Queer Black Men, Camisha D. Fagan, Anna Smedley-López

McNair Poster Presentations

Microaggressions are reoccurring derogatory messages that degrade and/ or discredit one’s identity. While invisible and unknown to many, they remain visible and apparent to those impacted by them. The research questions for this project are: (1) What microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within larger society? (2) To contrast with larger society, what microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within Black communities? By conducting focus groups, I will examine the intersectional microaggressions that Queer Black males experience in their own community, as well as document microaggression that they experience in larger society. After conducting my focus groups, I will be …

Causes And Consequences Of Child Marriage Among Syrian Refugee Populations In Jordan: An Investigation Of Perceptions., Alex Buckman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examined the perceived causes of child marriage among Syrian refugee populations in Jordan and investigated its perceived consequences. Further, perceptions of mothers with school-aged children were compared to the opinions of children themselves. Through interviews with both target populations, along with an analysis of the responses of humanitarian activists and organizations to Jordan’s marriage law, the reality of child marriage within the country was ascertained. In conducting interviews, the data showed that many believed child marriage to be a normal occurrence in Syria, at least since the beginning of the war, with only two interviewees believing child marriage …

Tourism And Representation: Digital Expressions And Implications Of Orientalism, Lily P. Ayau

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the tourism industry in Morocco expands, so does Morocco’s online presence. Digital representations of Morocco are often written by and geared toward Westerners; these are often projections of an imagined Morocco, one that is informed by Orientalist conceptions of the Arab/Islamic countries. This study aims to analyze a selection of online articles about touring Morocco in an effort to determine how the underlying Orientalist attitudes in these pieces fit into a larger narrative of exploitation and Western dominance.

Approved For All Audiences: A Longitudinal Content Analysis Of The Portrayal Of Women In Movie Trailers, Brooke S. O’Neil

Masters Theses

Movie trailers are ever present in our society and impactful in the way society constructs views about various aspects of life. Trailers are unique in that they are specifically tailored and edited to entice audiences to buy tickets to the film. Further, prior research has indicated that in various forms of media, women are continuously underrepresented, disproportionately sexualized, stereotyped, and victimized. The present study examines the portrayal of women through a content analysis of 230 of the top grossing trailers across seven decades: 1950-2015. The research focuses on women’s representation, sexualization, gender roles, and violence. The analysis reveals that in …

Television In Ireland Before Irish Television: 1950s Audiences And British Programming, Edward Brennan

Conference Papers

The first television broadcasts in Ireland were watched in the 1950s. These initial programmes were British. This history of these early viewers, however, has been ignored. A dominant narrative has addressed the history of television in Ireland as the history of the public broadcaster Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ). Thus, the history of Irish television often begins in 1961, overlooking Irish people’s experience of the medium in the preceding decade. This paper breaks with traditional historiography by employing life history interviews to explore the uses, rituals and feelings attached to television in the years before RTÉ.

Irish people who watched television …

Television In Ireland: A History From The Mediated Centre, Edward Brennan

Conference Papers

This paper identifies and critiques a dominant narrative in the history of Irish television, which is too often passed off for, or accepted as, the history of television in Ireland. The his- tory of television in Ireland has been written within an institutional framework and depends on the cultural binary of tradition and modernity, ‘old Ireland’ and ‘new Ireland’. This dom- inant narrative fails to interrogate television as a medium. It provides an account of the Irish broadcaster RTÉ rather than an account of the arrival of a new medium. Ironically this nar- rative which hinges on the role of …

The Rwandan Diaspora In Canada And The United States: Reconciliation And Justice, Jennifer J. Marson

Dissertations

This dissertation analyzed the attempts at achieving justice and reconciliation among the Rwandan diaspora located in Canada and the United States. Following the 1994 Rwandan genocide, many Rwandans fled and a modest diaspora found a home in various locations throughout Canada and the United States. The diaspora, located thousands of miles from the institutional mechanism of justice and reconciliation in Rwanda, are subject to many of the same concerns regarding justice and reconciliation as those who remain in Rwanda. This research focused primarily on how this specific diaspora attempted to achieve justice and reconciliation, if institutional mechanisms (gacaca) in Rwanda …

The Impact Of Religion And Culture On Coparenting In Morocco, Corrine Ahrabi-Nejad

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Coparenting is an important relationship between mothers and fathers, which children can benefit from.Coparenting involves the active role mothers and fathers play in raising a child as well as communication between mothers and fathers regarding child related issues. Findings show that positive coparenting relationships lead to overall more satisfaction among both mothers and fathers in terms of child rearing. Additionally, positive parental involvement, especially father involvement, is shown to result in overall better psychological, physiological, and emotional development among children. Identifying ways to create positive interactions and ways to coparent can improve a child’s development. This study involves interviews with …

The Relationship Between Fraternity Recruitment Experiences, Perceptions Of Fraternity Life, And Self-Esteem, Kendall Ladd

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Self-esteem on its own has been studied extensively, including as part of a study examining the effects of sorority recruitment on the self-esteem of the female participants (Chapman, Hirt, and Spruill, 2008). However, there is relatively little research on men’s self-esteem and no studies examining the potential impact of the fraternity recruitment process on students’ self-esteem. The present study examined this through a longitudinal study utilizing two surveys. The initial survey was completed the day before the fraternity recruitment process began to establish a baseline for 155 participants. The follow-up survey received a total of 99 responses from the original …