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Living between two cultures: a reproductive health journey of African refugee women

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…

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
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Too good to be true: discursive construction of the ideal girl in 20th century popular American girls' series

Description
This dissertation examines the discursive construction of the trope of the ideal girl in popular American girls' series in the twentieth century. Girls' cultural artifacts, including girls' literature series, provide sites for understanding girls' experiences and exploring girlhood itself as a socially constructed identity, yet are often overlooked due to…

This dissertation examines the discursive construction of the trope of the ideal girl in popular American girls' series in the twentieth century. Girls' cultural artifacts, including girls' literature series, provide sites for understanding girls' experiences and exploring girlhood itself as a socially constructed identity, yet are often overlooked due to their presumed insignificance. Simple dismissal of these texts ignores the weight of their popularity and the processes through which they reach such status. This project challenges the derisive attitude towards girls' culture and begins with the assumption that these cultural texts do ideological work and therefore require consideration. The dissertation traces the development of the ideal and non-ideal girl over time, taking into account the cultural, political, and economic factors that facilitate the production of the discourses of girlhood. I include analysis of texts from six popular American girls' series as primary texts; visual elements or media productions related to the series; and supporting historical documents such as newspapers, "expert" texts, popular parents' and girls' magazines, film; and advertising. Methodological approach incorporates elements of literary criticism and discourse analysis, combining literary, historical, and cultural approaches to primary texts and supporting documents to trace the moments of production, resistance, and response in the figure of the ideal girl. Throughout the project, I pay particular attention to the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality in the figure of the ideal girl and her non-ideal counterparts. I argue that girls' series, slipping under the radar as a denigrated cultural medium, capture and perpetuate cultural anxieties around heterosexuality, whiteness and American identity, appropriate gender roles, and class mobility. These texts discipline the non-ideal girl toward the ideal, always with the expectation of failure.
ContributorsHarper, Kate (Author) / Scheiner Gillis, Georganne (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Lisa (Committee member) / Switzer, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Grief Norms, Gender Norms An Intersectional Feminist Analysis of the Shaping of 'Acceptable' Grief in the United States

Description
The process of pathologizing grief and othering grievers is historically situated in white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy and is reproduced socially. ‘Grief norms, gender norms’ explores and complicates the ways that grief and gender are co-constitutive; mediated by social norms; and reinforced through institutions like psychiatry and medicine, workplace policies, and…

The process of pathologizing grief and othering grievers is historically situated in white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy and is reproduced socially. ‘Grief norms, gender norms’ explores and complicates the ways that grief and gender are co-constitutive; mediated by social norms; and reinforced through institutions like psychiatry and medicine, workplace policies, and public discourses around grief which all work together to create ‘acceptable’ structures of feeling. This dissertation uses a combination of in-depth, semi-structured interviews and digital grief content across two social media sites: Instagram and TikTok in order to explore various sites of this affective social reproduction and the multi-directional impact of gender and grief when studied side by side. This project is made up of three distinct, but thematically related sections: feminine embodied grief and masking; how the Widow is socially reproduced as ‘Other’; and the intimate publics of female grief influencers on Instagram. Each of these chapters explores a different aspect of the shaping of 'acceptable' grief through valences of gendered norms - which are already raced and classed - and explores the ways that those norms socializes individuals of all genders towards expectations about how grief 'should' be experienced and expressed. Feminine embodied grief is experienced beyond linear temporality, and felt sensationally and relationally. This means that grievers experiencing this kind of feminine embodied grief more readily rely on grief masking to 'pass' in non-grieving society. In the third chapter, the experience of the Widow is the primary focus. This chapter examines the social processes that render the Widow as 'Other', socially, and polices the active grief of the Widow through processes of isolation and exclusion. Each widow in this study experienced such othering, including John, whose partner died of AIDS in the 1990s. The end of this chapter explores his experience of ambiguous widowhood. The final chapter takes a wider view and focuses on the intimate publics formed by female grief influencers on Instagram. This chapter highlights two such influencers and the ways that the discourses about grief that they employ both disrupts and reinforces traditional, Western logics about 'acceptable' grief.
ContributorsLacey, Elisabeth (Author) / Switzer, Heather (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Lisa (Committee member) / Cacciatore, Joanne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023

The Transfer Experience: Overcoming Barriers And Paving The Path To Success

Description

Students who transfer to a university from a community college are a diverse, resilient group of individuals who often face many challenges and barriers upon transitioning from a 2-year institution to a 4-year institution. Due to their upper-division status upon arrival at the university, transfer students are often overlooked and…

Students who transfer to a university from a community college are a diverse, resilient group of individuals who often face many challenges and barriers upon transitioning from a 2-year institution to a 4-year institution. Due to their upper-division status upon arrival at the university, transfer students are often overlooked and even unsupported throughout multiple aspects of the transfer process. To further understand the issues that are faced by transfer students throughout the transfer process, we conducted research to get a better understanding of exactly who transfer students are, what challenges they face, and how universities can better support these students so they are able to complete their baccalaureate. We compiled this research into an annotated bibliography and developed a presentation to discuss our findings, personal anecdotes, and the suggestions we have to help Barrett, the Honors College move towards a more transfer-receptive culture. All questions asked during the presentation have been documented.
ContributorsAutote, Abreanna (Author) / Loera, Cristian Peter (Co-author) / Ingram-Waters, Mary (Thesis director) / Abril, Lauren (Committee member) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05

The Transfer Experience: Overcoming Barriers And Paving The Path To Success

Description

Students who transfer to a university from a community college are a diverse, resilient group of individuals who often face many challenges and barriers upon transitioning from a 2-year institution to a 4-year institution. Due to their upper-division status upon arrival at the university, transfer students are often overlooked and…

Students who transfer to a university from a community college are a diverse, resilient group of individuals who often face many challenges and barriers upon transitioning from a 2-year institution to a 4-year institution. Due to their upper-division status upon arrival at the university, transfer students are often overlooked and even unsupported throughout multiple aspects of the transfer process. To further understand the issues that are faced by transfer students throughout the transfer process, we conducted research to get a better understanding of exactly who transfer students are, what challenges they face, and how universities can better support these students so they are able to complete their baccalaureate. We compiled this research into an annotated bibliography and developed a presentation to discuss our findings, personal anecdotes, and the suggestions we have to help Barrett, the Honors College move towards a more transfer-receptive culture. All questions asked during the presentation have been documented.
ContributorsLoera, Cristian Peter (Author) / Autote, Aubreanna (Co-author) / Ingram-Waters, Mary (Thesis director) / Abril, Lauren (Committee member) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05