Matching Items (11)
Biophysics, rockets, and the state: the making of a scientific discipline in twentieth-century China
Description
This study takes biophysics--a relatively new field with complex origins and contested definitions--as the research focus and investigates the history of disciplinary formation in twentieth-century China. The story of building a scientific discipline in modern China illustrates how a science specialty evolved from an ambiguous and amorphous field into a full-fledged academic discipline in specific socio-institutional contexts. It focuses on archival sources and historical writings concerning the constitution and definition of biophysics in order to examine the relationship between particular scientific styles, national priorities, and institutional opportunities in the People's Republic of China. It argues that Chinese biophysicists exhibited a different style of conceiving and organizing their discipline by adapting to the institutional structure and political economy that had been created since 1949. The eight chapters demonstrate that biophysics as a scientific discipline flourished in China only where priorities of science were congruent with political and institutional imperatives. Initially consisting of cell biologists, the Chinese biophysics community redirected their disciplinary priorities toward rocket science in the late 1950s to accommodate the national need of the time. Biophysicists who had worked on biological sounding rockets were drawn to the military sector and continued to contribute to human spaceflight in post-Mao China. Besides the rocket-and-space missions which provided the material context for biophysics to expand in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Chinese biophysicists also created research and educational programs surrounding biophysics by exploiting the institutional opportunities afforded by the policy emphasis on science's role to drive modernization. Biophysics' tie to nationalistic and utilitarian goals highlights the merits of approaching modern Chinese history from disciplinary, material, and institutional perspectives.
ContributorsLuk, Yi Lai Christine (Author) / Koblitz, Ann Hibner (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane A (Committee member) / Tillman, Hoyt C (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
ABSTRACT
The early desire for and the pursuit of literacy are often mentioned in the teeming volumes devoted to African-American history. However, stories, facts, and figures about the acquisition of numeracy by African Americans have not been equally documented.
The focus of this study was to search for the third R, this is the numeracy and mathematics experiences of African Americans who were born in, and before, 1933. The investigation of this generational cadre was pursued in order to develop oral histories and narratives going back to the early 1900s. This study examined formal and informal education and other relevant mathematics-related, lived experiences of unacknowledged and unheralded African Americans, as opposed to the American anomalies of African descent who are most often acknowledged, such as the Benjamin Bannekers, the George Washington Carvers, and other notables.
Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through the use of a survey and interviews. Quantitative results and qualitative findings were blended to present a nuanced perspective of African Americans learning mathematics during a period of Jim Crow, segregation, and discrimination. Their hopes, their fears, their challenges, their aspirations, their successes, and their failures are all tangential to their overall goal of seeking education, including mathematics education, in the early twentieth century. Both formal and informal experiences revealed a picture of life during those times to further enhance the literature regarding the mathematics experiences of African Americans.
Key words: Black students, historical, senior citizens, mathematics education, oral history, narrative, narrative inquiry, socio-cultural theory, Jim Crow
The early desire for and the pursuit of literacy are often mentioned in the teeming volumes devoted to African-American history. However, stories, facts, and figures about the acquisition of numeracy by African Americans have not been equally documented.
The focus of this study was to search for the third R, this is the numeracy and mathematics experiences of African Americans who were born in, and before, 1933. The investigation of this generational cadre was pursued in order to develop oral histories and narratives going back to the early 1900s. This study examined formal and informal education and other relevant mathematics-related, lived experiences of unacknowledged and unheralded African Americans, as opposed to the American anomalies of African descent who are most often acknowledged, such as the Benjamin Bannekers, the George Washington Carvers, and other notables.
Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through the use of a survey and interviews. Quantitative results and qualitative findings were blended to present a nuanced perspective of African Americans learning mathematics during a period of Jim Crow, segregation, and discrimination. Their hopes, their fears, their challenges, their aspirations, their successes, and their failures are all tangential to their overall goal of seeking education, including mathematics education, in the early twentieth century. Both formal and informal experiences revealed a picture of life during those times to further enhance the literature regarding the mathematics experiences of African Americans.
Key words: Black students, historical, senior citizens, mathematics education, oral history, narrative, narrative inquiry, socio-cultural theory, Jim Crow
ContributorsLaCount, Marilyn Ruth (Author) / Zambo, Ronald (Thesis advisor) / Flores, Alfinio (Committee member) / Koblitz, Ann Hibner (Committee member) / Zambo, Debby (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Most studies on refugee populations tend to focus on mental health issues and communicable diseases. Yet, reproductive health remains a major aspect of refugee women's health needs. African refugee women in the United States continue to experience some difficulties in accessing reproductive health services despite having health insurance coverage. The purpose of this study was to understand the reproductive health journey of African refugee women resettled in Phoenix, Arizona. This study also explored how African refugee women's pre-migration and post-migration experiences affect their relationships with health care providers. The study was qualitative consisting of field observations at the Refugee Women's Health Clinic (RWHC) in Phoenix, verbally administered demographic questionnaires, and semi-structured one-on-one interviews with twenty African refugee women (between the ages of 18 and 55) and ten health care providers. The findings were divided into three major categories: pre-migration and post migration experiences, reproductive health experiences, and perspectives of health care providers. The themes that emerged from these categories include social isolation, living between two cultures, racial and religious discrimination, language/interpretation issues and lack of continuity of care. Postcolonial feminism, intersectionality, and human rights provided the theoretical frameworks that helped me to analyze the data that emerged from the interviews, questionnaire and fieldnotes. The findings revealed some contrasts from the refugee women's accounts and the accounts of health care providers. While refugee women spoke from their own specific social location leading to more nuanced perspectives, health care providers were more uniform in their responses leading to a rethink of the concept of cultural competency. As I argue in the dissertation and contrary to conventional wisdom, culture per se does not necessarily translate to resistance to the American health care system for many African refugee women. Rather, their utilization (or lack thereof) of health services are better conceived within a broader and complex context that recognizes intersectional factors such as gender, racialization, language, displacement, and class which have a huge impact on the reproductive health seeking patterns of refugee women.
ContributorsJatau, Mary (Author) / Koblitz, Ann Hibner (Thesis advisor) / James, Stanlie (Committee member) / Robillard, Alyssa (Committee member) / Johnson, Crista (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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
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
Description
This dissertation project examines the cultural labor of the drag queen in the United States (US). I explore how the drag queen can be understood as a heuristic to understand the stakes and limits of belonging and exceptionalism. Inclusion in our social and national belonging in the US allows for legibility and safety, however, when exceptional or token figures become the path towards achieving belonging, it can leave out those who are unable to conform, which are often the most vulnerable folks. I argue that attending to the drag queen’s trajectory, we can trace the ways that multiply-marginalized bodies navigate attempts to include, subsume, and erase their existence by the nation-state while simultaneously celebrating and consuming them in the realm of media and consumer culture. In the first chapter I introduce the project, the context and the stakes involved. Chapter two examines representations of drag queens in films to unpack how these representations have layered over time for American audiences, and positions these films as necessary building blocks for queer semiosis for viewers to return to and engage with. Chapter three analyzes RuPaul and RuPaul’s Drag Race to outline RuPaul labor as an exceptional subject, focusing on his investment in homonormative politics and labor supporting homonationalist projects. Chapter four centers questions of trans* identity and race, specifically Blackness to analyze how Drag Race renders certain bodies and performances legitimate and legible, constructing proper drag citizens. Chapter five utilizes ethnographic methods to center local drag communities, focusing on The Rock and drag performers in Phoenix, Arizona to analyze how performers navigate shifting media discourses of drag and construct a queer performance space all their own.
ContributorsCollier, Cassandra M (Author) / Anderson, Lisa M. (Thesis advisor) / Bailey, Marlon M (Committee member) / Himberg, Julia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020