Matching Items (12)
Deviant bodies resisting online: examining the intersecting realities of women of color in Xbox Live
Description
Employing qualitative methods and drawing from an intersectional framework which focuses on the multiple identities we all embody, this dissertation focuses on oppressions and resistance strategies employed by women of color in Xbox live, an online gaming community. Ethnographic observations and narrative interviewing reveal that women of color, as deviants within the space, face intersecting oppressions in gaming as in life outside the gaming world. They are linguistically profiled within the space based off of how they sound. They have responded with various strategies to combat the discrimination they experience. Some segregate themselves from the larger gaming population and many refuse to purchase games that depict women in a hyper-sexualized manner or that present people of color stereotypically. For others, the solution is to "sit-in" on games and disrupt game flow by 'player-killing' or engage in other 'griefing' activities. I analyze this behavior in the context of Black feminist consciousness and resistance and uncover that these methods are similar to women who employ resistance strategies for survival within the real world.
ContributorsGray, Kishonna (Author) / Anderson, Lisa M. (Thesis advisor) / Cheong, Pauline (Committee member) / Lim, Merlyna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
You Belong to Me is a creative project that unites photography, creative writing, phenomenology, queer theory, and cultural analysis to form a cohesive picture of the nature of transgender identity, the values of fictive kinship and community building, and the (hyper)visibility and erasure as visual metaphors. My project begins with Marta Cunningham's 2013 documentary "Valentine Road", which takes on the February 2008 murder of Lawrence "Larry" King, who was killed by another student. This is a source from which I gather my foundational thoughts about the institutionalized violence faced by gender non-conforming, queer, and transgender students, paying particular focus to Larry's life as one representative of those most in need of institutional and communal support. I then translate my analysis through my own photographic endeavors, which include returning to Oxnard, Californa, where the shooting took place, as a means of physically documenting my conception of queer recursivity. This theoretical framework informs my visual work and acts as a lens through which I locate other queer and transgender creatives with whom I was able to connect only through experiencing the trauma of Larry's murder. I utilize Maggie Nelson's invocation of "the many gendered mothers of my heart" in order to craft a family that inhabits a self-created and self-defined space where marginalized identities are able to exist. I conclude that this project is the first step in a larger dialogue about the aforementioned themes, necessitating material and sustainable changes in the lives of vulnerable youth who witness violence from multiple angles via legal, medical, and social institutions.
ContributorsMarks, Brandon David (Author) / Anderson, Lisa M. (Thesis director) / Lennon, Tara (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Armed violence is a contemporary global challenge especially in the developing world. It impacts immigration policies locally and internationally. Uganda experienced a twenty-four year -long civil armed conflict, which the president of Uganda declared ended in 2008. Following government instruction, displaced persons have been returning home since then. Despite this official closure, in the course of resettlement, youth specific needs and concerns have been ignored. Female youth have been the most affected due to the interlocking nature of their undervalued gender, age, and marital and reproductive statuses. Despite the complexity of female youth’s social location, research and frameworks about armed violence have focused on men as the perpetuators, marginalizing the impact armed conflict has on young women. Using the case of northern Uganda, this dissertation draws on feminist and indigenous epistemologies to examine the experiences of formerly displaced female youth. First, I deconstruct the western dominant construction of the stages of human growth and development including childhood, youth and adulthood. In this research, I prioritize local perspectives on human development; emphasizing the ambiguity of the concept youth, highlighting its age and gendered limited applicability to northern Uganda. I also examine the local understanding of armed conflict centering its forms and causes. Further, I explore the challenges female youth face, and the strategies they adopt to cope in situations of distress. I argue that studying formerly displaced female youth from their standpoint is critical since female youth have been marginalized in previous research and programs with gender-neutral perspectives. They thus provide a new perspective to armed violence given their multi dimensional standpoint. Female youth have different needs and concerns, which may not feature in mainstream programming largely informed by traditional male dominated systems and structures. Young women’s experiences thus deserve to be acknowledged if female youth are to benefit from the post-conflict reconstruction phase. To fulfill this objective, I used qualitative methods of data collection and analysis.
ContributorsNamuggala, Victoria (Author) / Leong, Karen (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Beth B (Committee member) / Anderson, Lisa M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
WHO estimates that 830 women die every day due to maternal health complications. The disparities in maternal health are unevenly distributed between wealthy and poor nations. Ethiopia has one of the highest mortality rates in the world. Existing high maternal mortality rates worldwide and in Ethiopia indicate the shortcomings of maternal health interventions currently underway. Understanding the socio-cultural, economic and political factors that influence maternal health outcomes locally while simultaneously examining how global reproductive and development programs and policies shape and influence the reproductive needs and knowledge of women is important. Employing feminist and African indigenous methodologies, in this research I explore maternal health issues in Ethiopia in two of the largest regions of the nation, namely Oromia and Amhara, more specifically in Seden Sodo and Mecha districts. Using qualitative interviews and focus group discussions, I examined the various socio-cultural, political and economic factors that influence maternal health outcomes, assessing how gender, class, education, marriage and other social factors shape women's health outcomes of pregnancy and childbirth. I also explored how global and local development and reproductive health policies impact women's maternal health needs and how these needs are addressed in current implementation strategies of the Ethiopian health system. Recognizing women's social and collective existence in indigenous African communities and the new reproductive health paradigm post-ICPD, I addressed the role of men in maternal health experience. I argue that global and local development and reproductive policies and their implementation are complex. While comprehensive descriptions of national and maternal health policies on paper and gender-sensitive implementation strategies point toward the beginning of a favorable future in maternal health service provision, the global economic policies, population control ideas, modernization/development narratives that the nation employs that focus on biomedical solutions without due emphasis to socio-cultural aspects have a detrimental effect on maternal health services provision. I advocate for the need to understand and include social determinants in policies and implementation in addition to legal enforcement and biomedical solutions. I also argue for alternative perspectives on masculinities and the role of men in maternal health to improve maternal health service provision.
ContributorsTeshome, Yamrot Girma (Author) / Koblitz, Ann Hibner (Thesis advisor) / Leong, Karen J (Committee member) / Anderson, Lisa M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
“(Dis)Locating the Sensual: Black Queer Placemaking in Brooklyn, New York” investigates the impact that gentrification has on Black queer subject formations and Black queer public culture. My research explores the interplay between social oppressions, the Black quotidian queer body, and lived sensations within two Black queer bars located in the epicenter of white middle class gentrification in Brooklyn, New York: Langston’s Brooklyn and Happiness Lounge. In doing so, my project expands Western conceptions of space while charging feminist and queer theories to explore interpersonal and personal dimensions of lived experiences that are conditioned by modes of normalization set by white supremacy. I use archival research and ethnographic methods to explore the way that Black queer people utilize space and the spatial dimensions that happen in and across the spaces they regularly occupy. I also collect and examine building information, such as the owners’ respective rental agreements, building permits, documented building violation(s), and incurred fees by the owners to understand who owns the land, who manages the properties, and the role of the state in regulating space. Additionally, “(Dis)Locating the Sensual” analyzes three analytic memos from my ethnographic fieldnotes including desire, spatial performance, and sensations to apprehend the implications of performance on a Black queer sense of place. Taken together, this data renders a complex picture of Black queer place-making that both resists and exceeds the structural constraints of racial capitalist expansion. My work both dialogues with and contributes to fields that are rarely drawn into conversation: Urban geography and Black queer studies. By analyzing sensations, nostalgia, and atmosphere within Langston’s and Happiness Lounge, I chart the ways in which gentrification continues to displace physical Black queer social spaces and impact the atmospheres and sensations that are unique to their vanishing social spaces. I introduce Black queer spatiality as a method that is informed by tracing Black LGBT spatial sensations and atmospheres; this analytic enables the linking of physical spatio-historical processes of extraction to the sensual geographic experiences that are emplaced in Black queer social spaces.
ContributorsMillhouse, Ricardo (Author) / Bailey, Marlon M (Thesis advisor) / Shabazz, Gregg R (Committee member) / Fonow, Mary M (Committee member) / McHugh, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
This thesis closely reads black gay pornography and NeoSoul music from the 1990s to theorize the digital transformations of the adult entertainment and music industries during the commercialization and boom of the Internet. Acknowledging black sex workers and musical artists as knowers and agitators whose labor and artistry teased and troubled these transformations, I employ an American Studies analytic to archives and genres that highlights the economic and historical undergirding of black sexual economies in the United States. I argue that black musical artists and sex workers facilitate a mapping of black sexual economies and an ecosystem of labor and pleasure upended by the commercialization of the Internet that pronounces a dialogic relationship between the adult entertainment and music industries, black musical artists and sex workers, and black musical and pornographic genres. Through close reading and nut chasing methods, I intimately describe the musical and sexual performances of sex workers and musical artists in three pornographic films and one music video to analyze the complexities of instrumentation and cinematography during this technological era, how they narrativize sound and place, and the sensorial and physiological effects of witnessing and listening to these performances. In this project, I ask: how does porn and music remember sound and place, how does black music and black gay pornography narrate black sexual economies and geographies, and how did the commercialization of the Internet in the 1980 and 90s change black musical genres and (black) gay pornography?
ContributorsAnderson, K (Author) / Bailey, Marlon M (Thesis advisor) / Roane, JT (Committee member) / Anderson, Lisa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Community advocates, scholars, and global social justice activists often undervalue the knowledge produced in marginalized, minoritized, and subjugated subaltern communities, diminishing the efficacy of equity-focused interventions and inhibiting collective work. This thesis articulates and theorizes the concept of community wisdom as an uncharted technology of knowledge production. Similarly, the literature review illuminates comparable concepts noted as subjugated and resistant knowledges which are distinctive to those oppressed by societal structures of power and privilege. As such, an argument locates resilience, agency, and resistance as constitutive attributes essential to how marginality intuitively devises strategies to survive and sometimes thrive as outsiders, sometimes referenced as deviants, in Western society. Hence, Hotter Than July: The Radical Promise of Community Wisdom and Black Queer Worldmaking in Detroit centers on the lived experiences and survival praxis of Black queer-identified people in Detroit by employing grounded theory methodology to examine and identify its point(s) of resonance. Thus, this research seeks to theorize the concept of community wisdom, identify where the technology is located within Detroit’s Black queer community; and articulate its relevance to critical social and justice theories; and applicability with the local to global social justice movement. By examining these inquiries, community wisdom provides an opportunity to renovate long-standing organizing archetypes by increasing recognition and respect for the capacity of subjugated knowledges to generate radical possibilities and promises from the margins.
ContributorsJenkins, Jr., Johnny L. (Author) / Ward, Mako (Thesis advisor) / Ore, Ersula (Committee member) / Bailey, Marlon M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Methodological Reparations is a 2-study multi-methods inquiry aimed at illuminating important nuances for engaging counter hegemonic empirical inquiries for Black, gender expansive and Black LGBTQI+ communities. If Black gender expansive youth are studied, they are often studied within the larger LGBTQI+ umbrella. Unfortunately, this makes them vulnerable to compulsory heterogenderism which often obscures their unique experiences transgressing racialized gender norms and with racialized gender oppression. This study makes methodological considerations called methodological reparations that begin to address the ways empirical research often negates, misunderstands, and obscures students’ identities as singular, stable over time and aligned with their sex assignment. It is important for researchers, data scientists and educators to challenge these hegemonic assumptions to ensure that Black gender expansive communities are visible and to ensure that education policies are data-driven, inclusive and effective. The United States Transgender Survey and the Gay and Lesbian Students Education Network have begun to conduct surveys that begin to address the complexity of gender within LGBTQI+ populations. Their surveys reveal horrific school climates that LGBTQI+ youth of color experience especially Black LGBTQI+ youth. The first study in this dissertation is a mixed methods study that focuses on Black gender expansive students’ experiences. The second study responds to the first study by providing an example of inclusive Black LGBTQI+ curriculum taught through a Black queer pedagogical approach. Since the presence of LGBTQI+ inclusive curriculum in schools has been linked to increased feelings of safety in schools in Black LGBTQI+ student populations, this study showcases James Baldwin’s final novel Just Above My Head, as a piece of blues literature that discusses racialized homophobia in a culturally relevant way. Baldwin’s work can be an important tool for Black LGBTQI+ students who do not have access to Black queer curriculum taught through a Black queer pedagogical approach.
ContributorsClement, Valencia (Author) / McGuire, Keon (Thesis advisor) / Bertrand, Melanie (Committee member) / Bailey, Marlon M (Committee member) / Kim, Jeongeun (Committee member) / Durand, E. Sybil (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
The world of speculative fiction infuses the soul with the hope of the imaginary. My dissertation examines Afrofuturistic liminal imaginary space and the ways it is experienced as life-giving spaces. The imaginary and the aesthetics it births are formularies for art forms that speak to the hope of a transformed future. Speculative fiction, although in the realm of the imaginary, is an enlivened approach to express in the present collective possibilities and hopes of the people within those very imagined futures. During the past three decades, particularly, Black speculative fiction has been increasingly at the core of the new cultural productions of literature, film, horror, comics, fantasy, and music which tell the story of African descendant people. Afrofuturism is an analytic for exploration of the liberative revisioning of Black humanity in the face of persistent practices of structural injustice. My project presents the phenomenological exploration of Black Speculative Thought (ST) as it comes alive through artistic liminal spaces of Afrofuturist comic and science fiction conventions. I argue that Black imaginary liminal spaces such as Comicon Culture offer respite, renewal, and locales for creative resistance to thwart persistent alienation and nihilism of Black humanity. Furthermore, it is within these spaces where intersubjective agency can be taken up as a countermeasure to the existential realities and dominant hegemonic existences of everyday life. I examine the process, events, and experience of Black imaginary as it comes alive as potentiated hope for alternative futures. My intention is to marshal the theoretical specters of Critical Afrofuturism, Africana Philosophy, and Womanist Thought in this task.
ContributorsYoung-Scaggs, Sakena De (Author) / Martinez, Jacqueline M (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Lisa M. (Committee member) / Anokye, Akua D (Committee member) / James, Stanlie M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Though the concept of 'transgender' has gained a foothold in American culture, the representation of transgender subjects is both limited and limiting. Media representations of trans experiences generally exclude or negatively depict both trans-masculine people and trans individuals of color. Subsequently, many trans-masculine individuals of color — especially black transmen — turn to online forums to create original content, express what being transgender means to them, and explore topics excluded from mainstream conversations.
Utilizing participatory ethnography influenced by digital and visual approaches, “Tumblr Saved My Life”: An Interdisciplinary Investigation of how Black Trans- Masculinity Operates through Tumblr explores how black transmen articulate racialized trans-masculine experiences via posts, selfies, and hashtags on the social networking site Tumblr. Online observations revealed that Tumblr allows interlocutors an opportunity to ask questions, document physical changes, learn about the lived realities of transgender people of color, and connect with fellow black trans-masculine individuals. In addition to online observation, in-person interviews and observations explored the context for the content interlocutors create, as well as how online articulations of masculinity differ from everyday performances of gender.Tumblr interactions are important to participants; however, the platform is not where they discuss the more nuanced aspects of being black and transgender. In-person interviews illuminated how black transmen uniquely understand societal erasure as black women prior to starting hormone replacement therapy and experience hyper-visibility as black men after treatment. Specifically, interlocutors note the various forms of racism they experience, and how those forms change depending on whether their bodies are read as a feminine or masculine. For example, when read and socialized as black girls, participants noted being subjected to sexualization and predation. Conversely, when read and treated as masculine, they gain access to male-only spaces, but face exclusion and suspicion in other contexts. In short, this work articulates the complex relationship black transmen have to vectors of power, and how they utilize visual images, social media, and technology to present and construct their realities. Ultimately, understanding these experiences can expand the scope of trans studies and feminist theory.
Utilizing participatory ethnography influenced by digital and visual approaches, “Tumblr Saved My Life”: An Interdisciplinary Investigation of how Black Trans- Masculinity Operates through Tumblr explores how black transmen articulate racialized trans-masculine experiences via posts, selfies, and hashtags on the social networking site Tumblr. Online observations revealed that Tumblr allows interlocutors an opportunity to ask questions, document physical changes, learn about the lived realities of transgender people of color, and connect with fellow black trans-masculine individuals. In addition to online observation, in-person interviews and observations explored the context for the content interlocutors create, as well as how online articulations of masculinity differ from everyday performances of gender.Tumblr interactions are important to participants; however, the platform is not where they discuss the more nuanced aspects of being black and transgender. In-person interviews illuminated how black transmen uniquely understand societal erasure as black women prior to starting hormone replacement therapy and experience hyper-visibility as black men after treatment. Specifically, interlocutors note the various forms of racism they experience, and how those forms change depending on whether their bodies are read as a feminine or masculine. For example, when read and socialized as black girls, participants noted being subjected to sexualization and predation. Conversely, when read and treated as masculine, they gain access to male-only spaces, but face exclusion and suspicion in other contexts. In short, this work articulates the complex relationship black transmen have to vectors of power, and how they utilize visual images, social media, and technology to present and construct their realities. Ultimately, understanding these experiences can expand the scope of trans studies and feminist theory.
ContributorsBellamy, Shahan (Author) / Bailey, Marlon M (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Lisa M. (Committee member) / Duarte, Marisa E (Committee member) / Snorton, C. Riley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020