ABSTRACTThe Tigray conflict, which erupted in November 2020, has inflicted profound human suffering, with one of the most distressing dimensions being Conflict-Related Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (CR-SGBV). This thesis aims to provide a meticulous exploration of the background, prevalence, and ramifications of CR-SGBV in the Tigray region, shedding light on the experiences of survivors, the tactics employed, and the inadequacies of response mechanisms. It also delves into the implications for international humanitarian law, the role of armed forces, and the urgent need for accountability and redress.

The issue of sex trafficking has been heightened the last several years but has deep history with racial injustice. Black women are disproportionately the victims of sex trafficking and criminalized in prostitution. However, within nonprofit agencies that help provide services and resources to these Black women, the women providing services do not proportionality represent the population being served. To investigate this problem of the lack of diversity and representation within antitrafficking organizations, the research conducts interviews with several Black women who are working for an antitrafficking organization. This study highlights the importance of representation within an organization to have better outcomes and participation of services without tokenizing the Black woman being hired. The research connects the individual experiences of being a token within an organization with the racial roots of sex trafficking to highlight the importance of representing the individuals being served. In order to accomplish this, the research employs qualitative interpretive research methods through semi structured interviews. It employs a critical race feminist theory approach to data analysis to show how Black women in antitrafficking organizations are tokenized but struggling to balance being the most likely to represent the women they are trying to serve.

This study analyzes the role of bipartisan coalitions in creating exclusionary, enforcement focused immigration policy. First, the thesis covers the history of federal immigration law and connects this to critical migration scholarship, which emphasizes the racialization of migration controls and enforcement regimes, by highlighting the growing federal categories of immigrant illegality and criminality. Next, the thesis develops an original framework that builds on prior scholarship in political science to systematically connect coalition building and the Democratic party’s complicity as a cause of this growing regime. Specifically, the thesis applies a coalition building analysis of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, with special focus given to how the president, congressional leaders, and interest groups, in the 1980s. A key finding is that both political parties pushed the enforcement narrative and played key roles to enact employment verification into federal immigration law. The thesis connects this finding to critiques about the two-party political system as well as scholarship that exposes the injustice of U.S. immigration enforcement regime that continued to grow in the interior, at the border, and globally.

It is extraordinarily well-documented that death, physical assault, rape, and psychological trauma are common to those working in the sex industry. This is true around the world, despite the varying laws of different countries. 20 years ago, two opposing policies were introduced in an attempt to end abuse and provide support to those in the industry: the Nordic Model of partial decriminalization, and legalization with regulation. Both models were created with the intention to decrease abuse of the vast number of primarily women and girls in the industry and increase their freedom and protection, as they are some of the most vulnerable and marginalized of society. However, these models approach the issue from conflicting views on the nature of the industry itself and use criminal justice approaches without connecting rights, resulting in unreliable means of protecting the rights of those in the sex industry. This paper utilizes a rights-based framework grounded in criminal race theory (CRT) and feminist rights-based literature in conversation with the reality of working within criminal justice systems to understand how fundamental understandings of the sex industry influence policy making, what the presence or absence of government involvement does to the protection and freedom of sex workers, and what kind of government involvement helps or hinders sex worker’s rights. This will be seen in a case comparison of how both policies have succeeded and failed to provide basic human rights to those in the sex industry in the Nordic Model of partial decriminalization in Stockholm, Sweden, and the legalization model of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

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.

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.

The ongoing Red for Ed movement in Arizona sparks an interesting discussion on its place as a social movement. This thesis examines the movement in close detail, particularly in regard to how it fits within the social movement literature’s insider/outsider framework. While partisanship is clearly important for understanding movement successes and failures, this study goes beyond party to explore through the case of Arizona how teacher movements are constrained by 1) teacher associations that operate as outsiders to state politics and 2) school districts that isolate the problem priorities (funding; teacher pay) from gaining large-scale public reaction that can be leveraged to change state policy. In short, I show how teacher movements face significant institutional barriers that localize their messaging and prevent insider access from state politics.

The United States of America incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, with the rate of growth for the imprisonment for women being currently twice that of men. Despite these alarming numbers women are often deemed the forgotten population within the carceral system. Using feminist inquiry within an interpretivist framework, I employ an autoethnographic account to examine my experience as a volunteer educator within the American Prison system. The 'data' within the autoethnography include my thoughts, eventualities, and reflections that are analyzed through an iterative cycle. Due to the creative nature of this thesis, 'data' are represented through a series of concepts, including art, photographs, and shifting narratives that mediate the language between theory and the lived experiences of incarcerated women. The data within this thesis however are not mine alone, they are cogenerated with the women of the Perryville Correctional Facility. Using feminist-based practices the representations of incarcerated women come from the women themselves , thus serving as a method of survival, as a form of activism, and as a tool of healing and justice that is not linked to reform. This thesis serves to simultaneously challenge and contribute to the traditional scholarship surrounding female incarceration by centering the voices of incarcerated women, and in turn serving as a form of liberatory action.

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.

International relations scholarship in recent years has given great attention to the rise of China. In the developing countries of the Global South, China’s presence has increased significantly, challenging the dominating Western presence that existed hitherto. Of the developing regions, Oceania often warrants the least attention, as it receives the lowest share of trade, aid, and investment under China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Despite this marginal role in China’s purview, international scholars offer the same, unbending conclusion: China is set out to challenge Western leadership and gain great power status in the region by incorporating countries into its sphere of influence. At the same time, Oceania has spawned anti-status quo sentiment against dominant western paradigms through the adoption of alternative regionalisms. Scholars attribute the rising anti-status quo sentiment to a ‘China Alternative,’ yet Pacific Islands continue to adopt positions counter to Chinese political and development tenants. In order to investigate the implications of China’s rise in Oceania, I depart from traditional realist and liberal models of the balance of power and soft power capabilities to explain international relations in Oceania. Through a constructivist theoretical framework conformed by an analytical process of Global IR, I set out to explain that anti-west sentiment does not signal the rise of China as a regional hegemon, but rather it grants more autonomy to the Pacific Islands that is sustained by islander agency.