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ABSTRACT

As a graduate student earning both a Master of Arts in Social Justice and Human Rights and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership Management, I have tried to bridge the theoretical and the empirical in a meaningful way. A problematic chasm between the nonprofit professional and the client being served

ABSTRACT

As a graduate student earning both a Master of Arts in Social Justice and Human Rights and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership Management, I have tried to bridge the theoretical and the empirical in a meaningful way. A problematic chasm between the nonprofit professional and the client being served existed, and I wanted to research this chasm. I wanted to understand what challenges a woman of color faced if she was both a client and a nonprofit professional, possessing dual identities and engaging in a sort of welfare system border crossing. There was a gap in the academic research on women in the nonprofit sector, more specifically the charitable, human services sector, and there was little to no research on women who have been both clients and caseworkers. Therefore, I conducted a series five of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with women of color working at a local food bank. As an employee of the food bank, I recorded my own observations and field notes in order to write a feminist institutional ethnography. I employed interpretive, less conventional design methods, which were aligned with my commitment to social justice. The research highlighted many negative stories about oppression and exclusion women faced in the nonprofit sector. It also confronted the problematic stereotype welfare recipients, specifically women of color, are faced with as a result of the politics of disgust and dominant myth of the Welfare Queen. The research sought to explain how and why women of color transition in and out of the welfare state, and how they manage to work within a food bank, where they are constantly surrounded by inequalities.
ContributorsRoland, Kimberly (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Elenes, C. Alejandra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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This thesis reviews options available to women in rural India and whether these opportunities grant them freedom. Initially, I distinguish the term freedom from autonomy, recognizing the flaws in the theory of autonomy. I identify freedom as a human's ability to make choices without external coercion. This differs from the

This thesis reviews options available to women in rural India and whether these opportunities grant them freedom. Initially, I distinguish the term freedom from autonomy, recognizing the flaws in the theory of autonomy. I identify freedom as a human's ability to make choices without external coercion. This differs from the concept of autonomy because autonomy does not recognize culture as a form of coercion; autonomy also neglects to consider the possibility of a person making a decision that affects his or her life negatively. These concepts tie into battered women in rural India because of the pressure they receive from cultural forces to make decisions reflecting practiced gender norms. Through case study research, I found that battered women in India lack access to freedom, being unable to access their freedom because of the constant threat of violence and/or ostracism. I drew this conclusion after reviewing opportunities of financial freedom through micro-credit loans, land-owning, and women’s employment. I reflect on freedom of mobility, and examine women’s threat of violence in both the public and private sectors. Lastly, I reviewed women’s political freedom in rural India, reviewing laws that were passed to ensure women’s equality. Women in India are already in a vulnerable position because of existing gender norms that require women to perform tasks for the benefit of the men in her life. A woman under the threat of domestic violence is twice as vulnerable because of her positionality as a woman in her culture, as well as a wife in her marriage. She is bound by gender norms in society, as well as her expected marital duties as a wife. Being unable to escape the threat of violence in both her private and public spheres, a woman experiencing domestic violence has virtually no access to freedom. I suggest that state and community-level empowerment is necessary before individual-level empowerment is effective and culturally accepted.
ContributorsJoyave, Anna (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Forrest, Michael D. (Committee member) / Anokye, Akua D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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When the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency recently declassified documents relating to the 1953 Coup in Iran, it was discovered that American involvement was much deeper than previously known. In fact, the CIA had orchestrated the coup against democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadegh. This action was sold to the United States public

When the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency recently declassified documents relating to the 1953 Coup in Iran, it was discovered that American involvement was much deeper than previously known. In fact, the CIA had orchestrated the coup against democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadegh. This action was sold to the United States public as being essential to democracy, which seems contradictory to its actual purpose. U.S. political leaders justified the coup by linking it to what Charles Mills calls “racial liberalism,” a longstanding ideological tradition in America that elevates the white citizen to a place of power and protection while making the racial noncitizens “others” in the political system. Political leaders in the United States relied on bribing the American media to portray the Shah as the white citizen and Mossadegh as a racial other, the white citizen was restored to power and the racial other was overthrown.
ContributorsAnderson, Kira C (Author) / Forrest, M. David (Thesis advisor) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Behl, Natasha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Do adult women survivors of childhood sexual abuse see their past victimization as having any relation to or impact on their current political engagement? While it is important to know how having experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA) impacts women survivors’ adult personal relationships, health, and wellbeing, more research must be

Do adult women survivors of childhood sexual abuse see their past victimization as having any relation to or impact on their current political engagement? While it is important to know how having experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA) impacts women survivors’ adult personal relationships, health, and wellbeing, more research must be done on how these abuse experiences affect women survivors’ political engagement. Nearly 25,900,000 women voters in the United States have likely experienced childhood sexual abuse (National Sexual Violence Resource Center 2011), therefore it is imperative and participation. This interpretive autoethnographic and ethnographic study examines the narratives of six women CSA survivors currently attending a counselling support group, and employs feminist methodology to conceptualize the women’s beliefs and feelings on the impact of CSA on their political participation. The findings of this study, however, do not seek to be generalizable to all women survivors of CSA, but instead reveal how six adult women survivors of CSA cope with and interpret their victimization as having an impact on their adult political engagement and participation. Utilizing interpretive concepts of power, citizenship, and civil society, this study finds that adult women survivors of CSA may be more politically active if they have a safe space to disclose their abuse experiences to fellow survivors of CSA. This study suggests that a civil society community of adult CSA survivors might be beneficial for survivors and may encourage survivors to see political engagement as a viable avenue for healing from the trauma of CSA.
ContributorsDykstra, Joelle (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Colbern, Allan (Committee member) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
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This paper examines the intersections of faith, patriarchy, feminism, and institutional failure in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Members of the faith believe the paternal structure of the organization is God's plan. The paper focuses on home, church, and the public sphere to provide a more complete

This paper examines the intersections of faith, patriarchy, feminism, and institutional failure in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Members of the faith believe the paternal structure of the organization is God's plan. The paper focuses on home, church, and the public sphere to provide a more complete understanding of the ways in which the practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints blur the lines between public and private and asks how women, most centrally the author, navigate contradictions in the doctrine and the institution of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Finally, this paper examines the tension between critical thought from a feminist perspective and being a devout member in the eyes of the church.Data was collected and presented using interpretivist methodology, ethnography and autoethnography. The author draws upon her experience as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and examines the ways power is layered and instrumental to the patriarchal teachings which are often contradictory and in tension with women developing full personhood.
ContributorsLunt, Sue (Author) / Colbern, Allan (Thesis advisor) / Goksel, Nisa (Committee member) / Behl, Natasha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
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The increasing job opportunities abroad as spa therapists attract significant numbers of young Indonesian women. Although the placement process is conducted by licensed recruitment agents and supervised by government officials, migrant workers might be at high risk of experiencing work exploitation and physical or sexual abuse. To investigate the phenomenon

The increasing job opportunities abroad as spa therapists attract significant numbers of young Indonesian women. Although the placement process is conducted by licensed recruitment agents and supervised by government officials, migrant workers might be at high risk of experiencing work exploitation and physical or sexual abuse. To investigate the phenomenon of documented, yet still vulnerable, female migrant workers, this research conducts interviews with several former spa therapists who were working in Malaysia and some civil servants. This study highlights that individual or personal resistances could be a collective political struggles. Specifically, this research connects individual experiences with the bigger picture of social, economic, and political condition, which, together, constitutes a gender-based labor migration system. To do this, the research employs qualitative-interpretive research methods through discourse analysis and in-depth and open-ended interviews. It also employs an intersectional feminist approach to data analysis to reveal how Indonesian female migrant workers are marginalized and oppressed and the power dynamics at play.
ContributorsNabila, Asma Zahratun (Author) / Colbern, Allan (Thesis advisor) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Goksel, Nisa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021