Work, Economy and Organizations Commons^™

Developed Toast, Modern Laundry: Nepali Household Appliance Discourses, Maureen Mccord

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project investigates discourses of modernity, globalization, class identity, and social change in Kathmandu, Nepal, through the lens of ten Nepali women’s purchase and usage of home appliances. Four weeks of ethnographic research sought to identify prevailing practices and attitudes toward household appliances in the city, situating them in broader discourses of globalization, modernity, class identity, and social change. The project is composed of participant observation in Nepali homes, including informal interviews, with project participants sourced from my own social network. My collaborators’ practices and opinions on appliances engage discourses of the developmentalist and modernizing South Asian state, fluid and …

Remembering Negdels: Nostalgia, Memory & Soviet-Era Herding Collectives, Maya Sutton-Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

During the socialist period Mongolia’s nomadic herders were grouped into collective herding units called negdels. Today, over twenty years after Mongolia transitioned to democracy, herding has been privatized completely and negdels are a distant memory. This study explores the history of negdels by conducting twenty-five oral interviews with herders about their memories of collective herding. This study focuses on a soum in the Mongolian countryside, Bayandelger, while also incorporating interviews with people from Ulaanbaatar. Bayandelger is a unique location for this project because it was selected by the Soviets to receive assistance in an effort to make it a model …

The Tribulations Of Moroccan Child Laborers: A Forced Existence And Loss Of Innocence, David Wien-Kandil

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The principal focus of this research paper is to analyze the prevalence and status of child laborin the Kingdom of Morocco and reflectupon the compounding conditions perpetuatingitsuse in the labor market, especially pertaining to the domestic sphere.Despite several regulationsoutlawing its practice, the use of child labor is common across many industries but working conditionsfound in the domestic sectors are particularly severe. Consequently,the primary subjects of this study are concentratedaroundchildrenemployed within the household as maids known as “petite bonne” or little maids[1]. Many of these child maidssuffer physical, verbal, sexual andpsychological abuses by their employers. Additionally, they are sometimes …

Creating Safe Spaces In A Homonormative Society: A Study Of The Hang-Out 010, Taryn Urban

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

During the month of April 2017, I interned with The Hang-Out 010, a nonprofit organization in Rotterdam that serves as a community center for LGBTQ youth. During this period, I assisted the volunteers and staff by attending events, writing blog posts, helping to plan future activities, and developing a feedback survey to be completed by visitors. My main objective was to gain a better understanding of the organization through immersive observation, feedback from visitors, and interviews with the volunteers and director of The Hang-Out 010. I analyzed the role of the organization in the context of a society characterized by …

Factors That Determine Civil Action In Opposition To Hydroelectric Development Along The Chiriquí Viejo River In The Chiriquí Province Of Panamá, Nora Sawyer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Hydroelectric development has increased rapidly throughout Latin America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries (del Mar Rubio et al. 2014). In 2014, Latin America represented 20 percent of the world’s hydropower (del Mar Rubio et al. 2014). It is also the main source of power generation throughout Latin America, accounting for roughly 65 percent of all electricity generated (Wheeler 2012). Within Panamá, significant hydroelectric development has been happening in the Chiriquí province. Local peoples’ dissatisfaction with the actions of the hydropower companies has increased with time, resulting in civilians and organizations taking action in opposition to these companies …

The Bamboo Ceiling: A Study Of Barriers To Asian American Advancement, Emily Cheng

UROP Posters

The idea of cultural diversity in the workplace is a popular one, generating much discussion about the inclusion of and affirmative action toward minorities. However, these conversations rarely involve Asian Americans, who despite above-average levels of educational achievement, household income, and employment, find themselves underrepresented in and shut-out of upper-level management positions. In this project, I investigated the stereotype of East-Asian Americans as a model minority (created by non-Asians) to find out why East-Asian Americans are underrepresented in upper-level management in corporate workplaces, a phenomenon known as the “bamboo ceiling.” I explored a variety of scholarly sources that analyzed the …

Happiness Index Methodology, Laura Musikanski, Scott Cloutier, Erica Bejarano, Davi Briggs, Julia Colbert, Gracie Strasser, Steven Russell

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The Happiness Index is a comprehensive survey instrument that assesses happiness, well-being, and aspects of sustainability and resilience. The Happiness Alliance developed the Happiness Index to provide a survey instrument to community organizers, researchers, and others seeking to use a subjective well-being index and data. It is the only instrument of its kind freely available worldwide and translated into over ten languages. This instrument can be used to measure satisfaction with life and the conditions of life. It can also be used to define income inequality, trust in government, sense of community and other aspects of well-being within specific demographics …

Happiness In Communities: How Neighborhoods, Cities And States Use Subjective Well-Being Metrics, Laura Musikanski, Carl Polley, Scott Cloutier, Erica Berejnoi, Julia Colbert

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

This essay, the fourth and last of a series published by the Journal of Social Change, is intended as a tool for community organizers, local policy makers, researchers, students and others to incorporate subjective well-being indicators into their measurements and management of happiness and well-being in their communities, for policy purposes, for research and for other purposes. It provides case studies of community-based efforts in five different regions (São Paulo, Brazil; Bristol, United Kingdom; Melbourne, Australia; Creston, British Columbia, Canada; and Vermont, United States) that either developed their own subjective well-being index or used the Happiness Alliance’s survey instrument …

Global Movements In The Capitalist World System: Occupy Wall Street And The World Social Forum, Loren M. Collins

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Over the past forty years, the information revolution, a neoliberal agenda and globalizing financial markets have led to a quantitative increase in accumulation, widening inequalities throughout the globe. This widening inequality has cast doubt on the legitimacy of a world system governed primarily by the invisible hand of the free market. Economic power has taken priority over political power in determining the nature of social relations and our institutions. This imbalance has opened the door for resistance movements to challenge a system that fails to represent the interests of the vast majority of the world’s population while it benefits a …

Different Names For Bullying, Marco Poggio

Capstones

“There's all different forms of bullying,” says Steven Gray, a Lakota rancher and former law enforcement officer living in South Dakota. In this look into Gray’s life, we learn about two instances of bullying: the psychological and physical harassment that pushed his son, Tanner Thomas Gray, to commit suicide at age 12; And the controversial construction of an oil pipeline in an ancient tribal land that belongs to the Lakota people by rights of a treaty signed in 1851, which Gray sees as an institutional abuse infringing on the sovereignty of his people. Gray is involved in the movement that …

“Si No Participas, Alguien Ajeno Va A Decidir Por Vos:” Practicas De Autonomia En El Bachillerato Popular De Frente Popular Darío Santillán En Constitución, Buenos Aires / "If You Do Not Participate, Someone Else Will Decide For You:" Practices Of Autonomy In The Popular Baccalaureate Of Frente Popular Darío Santillán In Constitución, Buenos Aires, Sarah Kravinsky

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Los reformas neoliberales en Argentina durante las últimas décadas han causado una crisis en el sistema educativo público, los efectos de la cual todavía se sienten más profundamente en el sector de para adultos y jóvenes (EDAJ). Durante este mismo período, nuevos movimientos sociales, como el movimiento piquetero de trabajadores desocupadas, habían surgido para resistir las políticas de neoliberalismo y crear fuentes de educación, salud, y trabajo cuando el educación estado no está hacerlo. La presente investigación toma como su tema las prácticas cotidianas y dilemas de la educación popular como una de estas iniciativas, un bachillerato popular (BP) del …

Pelear Por La Dignidad: La Lucha De Las Mujeres Trabajadoras Sexuales Voluntarias Por Derechos Laborales En Un Clima Estigmatizado Políticamente / To Fight For Dignity: The Fight Of Female Voluntary Sex Workers For Labor Rights In A Politically Stigmatized Climate, Rosalind Jones

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Argentina is a country with a rich history of social movements and popular mobilization. Currently, the issue of women’s equality is highly prevalent in the national and political dialogue. An area that is frequently referenced as a divide in the feminist movement is sex work. Argentina has adopted a series of laws and regulations that have created an ‘abolitionist’ political atmosphere, outlawing the sexual exploitation of individuals and persecuting ‘pimps’, per se. The politics surrounding sex work, on paper, are meant to eliminate human trafficking rings and lower the amount of victims exploited through trafficking. However, the application of the …

Making It Work: Supporting Contemporary Artists In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Michael Curran

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Following the country’s political transition to democracy in the 1990s, a generation of Mongolian artists constructed an art movement rooted in the issues of the new society: transitional national identity, corrupt political and economic systems, and a growingly complex relationship with nature. The liberalization of the economy, however, hasn’t nurtured sustainable creative resources or helped artists reach domestic or international markets, pressuring them to find alternative ways to create livelihoods out of their craft. This study considers how emerging multidisciplinary artists sustain themselves through both formal and informal means, and the motivations behind their creative lifestyles.

Central to the study …

Jules Verne Constructs America: From Utopia To Dystopia, Dana L. Radu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In my dissertation, I examine visions of the United States in Jules Verne’s (1828-1905) Voyages extraordinaires (1863-1905). Of the sixty-four novels that make up that series, twenty-three, over one-third, feature American characters or take place on American soil. I demonstrate that in his early novels (1863-1886), he presents the United States in an optimistic and utopian light, while in his later novels (1887-1905), his depictions of the United States take on a pessimistic and dystopian aspect. In also showing that Verne had been influenced by utopian socialists Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Charles Fourier (1772-1837) and Étienne Cabet (1788-1856), I provide …

The Effects Of Job Characteristics On Home Care Workers’ Well-Being And Job Performance: Understanding The Psychosocial Effects Of Relational Care, Emily C. Franzosa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Home care workers are the lowest-paid and most precarious segment of the health care industry. Although these workers provide critical, non-medical support that allows elderly and disabled individuals to remain in their homes, the workforce is highly unstable, due to low wages, a lack of supportive benefits like health coverage, paid leave and retirement support, poor working conditions and a physically and emotionally demanding workload. But a lack of consensus around the nature and value of home care has made “quality”, in terms of both jobs and care provision, difficult to define, measure or improve. While home care is a …

Gifts Among Strangers: The Social Organization Of Freecycle Giving, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

The Freecycle Network, with its millions of members gifting objects to strangers, is a stalwart fixture of the increasingly popular sharing economy. Unlike the wildly profitable Airbnb and Uber, the Freecycle Network prohibits profit-making, or even barter, providing an altruism-based alternative to capitalist markets while keeping tons of garbage out of landfills. Why do millions of people give through Freecycle instead of selling, donating, or throwing away items? Utilizing participant observation of two overlapping Freecycle groups and a survey of their members, I investigate motivations for giving and the social norms that guide it. I find that while members of …

Problem Analysis In Community Violence Assessments: Reavealing Early Childhood Trauma As A Driver Of Youth And Gang Violence, Laurie Ross Phd, Samantha Arsenault, Sergeant Miguel Lopez

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

Problem analysis conducted by a university-based research partner can provide communities with data-driven options to address the local drivers of serious youth and gang violence. Situated in Worcester, Massachusetts, this article describes how after early childhood trauma was identified as a potential driver of adolescent and young adult violence, problem analysis using local data confirmed that being the victim or witness of a traumatic incident before the age of 12 was significantly correlated with involvement in violence in adolescence or young adulthood. While there is a robust literature on the relationship between early childhood trauma and later delinquency, local decision-makers …

Policy Brief No. 14 - The Underutilization Of Immigrant Skills: Trends And Policy Issues, Jeffrey G. Reitz, Josh Curtis, Jennifer Elrick

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Research/Policy Brief

Since 1996, the problem of underutilization of immigrant skills in Canada has grown significantly. University-educated immigrants are more numerous, yet our census analysis shows that their access to skilled occupations in the professions and management declined between 1996 and 2006. In these years, the value of work lost to the Canadian economy from immigrant skill underutilization grew from about $4.80 billion to $11.37 billion, annually. Given the significance of immigration for economic development, the evaluation of current policies and consideration of future directions seem urgent.

Escaping The Concrete Jungle: An Exploration Of Ecotourism Development In Dzongu, North Sikkim, Katrina Kniss

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The state of Sikkim in northeastern India is a place imbued with a sense of mystery. It is partially this spirit, as well as its pristine Himalayan landscapes and vibrant cultural diversity, that has established Sikkim as a major tourist destination in the region. In the Northern district of the state, the Dzongu reserve is inhabited by the indigenous Lepcha group, who hold the status of “Most Primitive Tribe”. Over the past decade, however, this primitive tribe has shown their strength in staging large-scale protests and hunger strikes in a movement against mega-hydropower development along the Teesta River. Employing their …

“La Guerra De Los Centavos” Y Contratos Sociales: Los Impactos Del Desarrollo Del Sistema Intermodal De Transporte Urbano En Loja, Ecuador / "The War Of The Cents" And Social Contracts: The Impacts Of The Development Of The Intermodal Urban Transportation System In Loja, Ecuador, Will Yetvin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El propósito de este estudio fue investigar el Sistema Intermodal de Transporte Urbano (SITU) en la ciudad de Loja, Ecuador. El contenido del estudio se basa en mis observaciones y entrevistas durante mi tiempo trabajando con la Unidad de Transporte del Municipio de Loja, y en fuentes bibliográficas relacionadas con los temas de transporte urbano, transporte sostenible, bus de rápido tránsito y gobiernos descentralizados. Además, utilicé un tesoro de documentos internos del Municipio y el Consorcio. Mi análisis es influenciado por el marco conceptual de desarrollo sostenible.

Este informe es organizado alrededor de tres temas vinculados pero distintos; 1) Un …

La Minería En La Conciencia Urbana: Las Estrategias De Los Yasunidos De Cuenca Contra La Minería En El Azuay, Alexandra Golden

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En la provincia del Azuay, Ecuador, hay dos proyectos mineros a gran escala. Los proyectos Río Blanco y Loma Larga/Quimsacocha consisten en minas subterráneas de oro y plata, y ambos se acercan a la fase de explotación. Los proyectos están ubicados en la Reserva de Biosfera Macizo del Cajas en la zona de amortiguamiento del Parque Nacional el Cajas. La zona es un páramo de alto endemismo e importancia con respecto a la regulación hídrica. Los páramos suministran agua potable a los pueblos campesinos y a los habitantes de la ciudad de Cuenca. La minería consume muchísima agua y energía …

Temporary Work On The Bakken Shale, Peter D. Ore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this thesis, I explore what accounts for worker consent to precarious employment in the context of rapid industrial change in the rural United States. In recent years, domestic oil development has transformed the landscape of western North Dakota and Eastern Montana into a zone of oil production now known as “the Bakken.” The acute demand for labor brought about by this development resulted in vastly inflated wages, which in turn drew workers from around the U.S. and the world. State and private labor market intermediaries, including temporary labor agencies, formed to organize and market this labor force for employers …

Power, Subjectivity, And Life In Spain: A Continuation Of Elite Power, Matthew Mason

Master's Theses

On December 20, Spain will hold national elections to determine the new prime minister and national and local parliaments. These elections will be another crossroads in the long history of Spain. The elections come about in a political and social atmosphere of ‘change’ and ‘regeneration,’ marked by the rise of two new political parties, Podemos and Ciudanos. These parties are the new forces in the political scene in Spain. This atmosphere of change is the result of the 2008 economic crisis. The economic crisis of 2008 was not only an economic crisis in Spain, but it provoked a political and …

Groundings Volume Two, Issue Two

Groundings

This is the full issue of Groundings Vol. 2, Iss. 2. It includes a wrap of both the 12th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium and the 3rd Annual Walter Rodney Speakers Series; a piece by Jesus Chucho Garcia that honors the late Norman Girvan; the official Save the Date for the 13th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium; information on the republication of The Groundings with My Brothers; a photo-narrative by Julian Plowden on the student protests at the Atlanta CNN Center; we then have 3 pieces surrounding the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry by Wazir Mohamed, Anne Braithwaite, and Rohit Kanhai, …

Sugar For Sale: Constructions Of Intimacy In The Sugar Bowl, Emily Zimmermann

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Private Military Contractors, Security Forces, And Mercenaries, Naomi Pearson

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Detaining Dialogue: Framing Treatment During The 2013 Guantánamo Hunger Strike (Abstract), Kristen Traynor

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In recent years, prisoner treatment during the “War on Terror” has re-emerged as a prominent topic in news headlines and government debate. However, the media’s framing of such treatment toward prisoners at Guantánamo Bay has received scant scholarly attention compared to that of Abu Ghraib.

With a focus on elite and media framing of treatment during the prisoner hunger strike from February to August of 2013, the goal of this paper is to explain whether government portrayal of prisoner treatment influenced the way the media framed the situation or whether the media acted with more autonomy. In the study, I …

International Organizations As Normative Agenda Setters: Social Influence And Reputational Costs In The Effects Of The International Human Rights Regime, Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz, Aldo F. Ponce

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This paper focuses on the question of how International Organizations (IOs) influence states. In particular, we assess the role of the mechanism of social influence in shaping states’ normative (discursive) behavior, by looking at the “reporting procedure” of the Human Rights Committee (HRC) of the United Nations (UN). Our study finds that in the definition of the substantive content of their “periodic reports,” states follow the human rights agenda set by the HRC in its “concluding observations.” In this sense, we provide systematic evidence that shows that, through social influence, even poorly “legalized” IOs can have an influence over state …

Social Movements, Protest, And Human Rights: Latin America And Beyond (Abstract), James C. Franklin

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The basis of this paper is research I have conducted into protests in Latin America. By recording the demands and actors involved in protests, I have been able to assess human rights-related protests. This, in turn, allows a systematic investigation of the relationship between social movements and human rights. One principal finding is that there are two different types of human rights contention. Argentina and Guatemala experienced national human rights movements, led by human rights organizations and focused on general human rights problems and solutions.

The other countries I studied in the region (Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela) experienced …

Putting It On The Line: Social Justice Frameworks For Human Rights Fieldwork (Abstract), Michael Loadenthal

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Research methodology is often understood as a dry, sterile arena of IRB forms and transcription. While this is a common portrayal, things get a fair bit livelier when our field work runs amuck of extrajudicial assassinations, police infiltration and academic isolationism. Investigating social movements and individual respondents who are actively engaged in criminality presents challenging dilemmas to researchers attempting to gain respond trust while simultaneous avoid repressive State security forces. In this discussion, I will examine two venues in which this difficult navigation surfaced: ethnographically investigating Palestinian armed fighters (Nablus: 2006-2007), and interviewing clandestine Animal Liberation Front (ALF) activists (UK: …