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Description
Few studies focus on the MOVE Organization (MOVE), let alone its presences in popular media during the years prior to the MOVE-Philadelphia Conflict (1978-1985), or pre-Conflict. To date, most information about MOVE derives from Conflict research which utilizes archival materials from the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (MOVE Commission) hearings. Generations

Few studies focus on the MOVE Organization (MOVE), let alone its presences in popular media during the years prior to the MOVE-Philadelphia Conflict (1978-1985), or pre-Conflict. To date, most information about MOVE derives from Conflict research which utilizes archival materials from the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (MOVE Commission) hearings. Generations of dominant representations about MOVE and its members, consequently, are mainly constructed by popular media from the MOVE Commission hearings, including video broadcasts of the proceeding. Using a Conflict documentary, I highlight concerns scholars face when heavily using archival materials from MOVE Commission hearings: (a) Archival materials from MOVE Commission hearings lack active MOVE members' voices and (b) Archival materials from MOVE Commission hearings include limited pre-Conflict information about MOVE members. Influenced by Kimberly Sanders and Judson Jeffries' (2013) work about the 1985 bombing newspaper reports' favorability, this project explores pre-Conflict popular media representations of MOVE to understand how the collective first got represented to Philadelphians and the ways which MOVE used popular media to respond to these dominant portrayals.

This mix-methods project utilizes 67-piece dataset materials of various popular media texts by MOVE members and non-MOVE members. It focuses on 48 Philadelphia Tribune newspaper entries as its main text dataset, with an emphasis on the 1975 "On the MOVE" editorial column space. This investigation employs a combination of Black feminist and critical discourse analysis (CDA) methods, with Sanders and Jeffries' (2013) favorability categorizations process, to explore the racialized, gendered, and classed aspects pre-Conflict representations of MOVE.

Quantitative findings suggest that MOVE got generally represented in favorable manners during the pre-Conflict years, with over 50 percent of pre-Conflict texts about MOVE portraying the collective in positive tones. Additionally, qualitative findings propose that MOVE members' authorship and presence in pre-Conflict texts within the Philadelphia Tribune functioned as a site of resistance against dominant portrayal of the collective. CDA findings propose that MOVE's racial attribute, beliefs, and culture, specifically related to self-determination, were central discussions within most pre-Conflict by MOVE members. Unlike Sanders and Jeffries (2013), this project concludes that overall pre-Conflict popular media depictions portrayed MOVE as a positive Philadelphia collective.
ContributorsEkeogu, Onyekachi Joi (Author) / Quan, Helen (Thesis advisor) / Bortner, Peg (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
Sentencing reform has been the subject of much debate in the 21st century and has resulted in a great deal of consternation in state and federal systems of government (Chesney-Lind, 2012). The public does not view incarceration as an important topic needing attention or requiring change, which makes invisible the

Sentencing reform has been the subject of much debate in the 21st century and has resulted in a great deal of consternation in state and federal systems of government (Chesney-Lind, 2012). The public does not view incarceration as an important topic needing attention or requiring change, which makes invisible the needs and histories of prisoners as a consequence of not addressing them (Connor, 2001). Through an analysis of the spectrum of women’s crime, ranging from non-violent drug trafficking to homicide, I conclude within this paper that the criminal justice system was written as a male-oriented code of addressing crime, which has contributed to women being made into easier targets for arrest and female imprisonment at increasing rates for longer lengths of time.
In the last decade, California’s imprisoned population of women has increased by nearly 400% (Chesney-Lind, 2012). The focus of this thesis is to discuss the treatment—or lack thereof—of women within California’s criminal justice system and sentencing laws. By exploring its historical approach to two criminal actions related to women, the Three Strikes law (including non-violent drug crimes) and the absence of laws accounting for experiences of female victims of domestic violence who killed their abusers, I explore how California’s criminal code has marginalized women, and present a summary of the adverse effects brought about by the gender invisibility that is endemic within sentencing policies and practice. I also discuss recent attempted and successful reforms related to these issues, which evidence a shift toward social dialogue on sentencing aiming to address gender inequity in the sentencing code. These reforms were the result of activism; organizations, academics and individuals successfully raised awareness regarding excessive and undue sentencing of women and compelled action by the legislature.
By method of a feminist analysis of these histories, I explore these two pertinent issues in California; both are related to women who, under harsh sentencing laws, were incarcerated under the state’s male-focused legislation. Responses to the inequalities found in these laws included attempts toward both visibility for women and reform related to sentencing. I analyze the ontology of sentencing reform as it relates to activism in order to discuss the implications of further criminal code legislation, as well as the implications of the 2012 reforms in practice. Through the paper, I focus upon how women have become a target of arrest and long sentences not because they are strategically arrested to equalize their representation behind bars, but because the “tough on crime” framework in the criminal code cast a wide and fixed net that incarcerated increasingly more women following the codification of both mandatory minimums and a male-oriented approach to sentencing (Chesney-Lind et. al, 2012).
ContributorsD'Souza, Kristin Tessa (Author) / Gomez, Alan (Thesis director) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Committee member) / Leone Hamm, Donna (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor)
Created2013-05
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Description
This dissertation presents a new tool for analysis of the way difficult experiences

or phenomena influence the process for constructing self-identity in the performance of everyday life. This concept, refraction, emerged as part of a grounded theory methods analysis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Itacaré, Bahia, Brazil from January to July

This dissertation presents a new tool for analysis of the way difficult experiences

or phenomena influence the process for constructing self-identity in the performance of everyday life. This concept, refraction, emerged as part of a grounded theory methods analysis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Itacaré, Bahia, Brazil from January to July 2014. The work here contributes to the field of performance studies as a possibility for examining how affective responses to difficult experiences contribute to a shift in perspective and subsequently shifts in the performance of self in everyday life. This research was conducted with critical and reflexive autoethnographic methods in order to hold the research accountable for the ways subject position influences the research. In this case the most salient theme that emerged from these autoethnographic methods was an unpacking of unacknowledged tourist privilege in this setting. The resulting work-in-progress

performance will offer ways for spectators to question their own assumptions

regarding tourist privilege in Brazil, and in so-called developing countries in similar

tropical climates. An additional contribution to the field of performance-based research that resulted from this dissertation is the articulation of a dynamic locus of creativity wherein rigorous established qualitative research methods complement creative practices in conjunction with a spectrum of tacit knowledge and theoretical sensitivities. This juncture becomes the theoretical space where creativity in research can be articulated in ways that are legible to both artists and researchers.
ContributorsPorter, Laurelann (Author) / de la Garza, Sarah Amira (Thesis advisor) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Mcelroy, Isis (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015