Matching Items (27)
Description
Conducting an auto-ethnographic power analysis of a Service Industry Union (SIU) I use a feminist methodology to examine the ways women of color workers are accounted for, empowered, erased, silenced, or disempowered within advocacy organizations. As I examine the micro and macro structures of power between the SIU and the grocery store, janitorial, slaughterhouse, and union workers who compose this institution, I write with the goal of amplifying the voices silenced and lost in the translation of power in our everyday lives. Critical to this analysis are notions of advocacy, home, voice, and empowerment.
In “Voices: Power and Powerlessness in Experiences of the Self,” I write about my authoethnographic journey and the complicated sense of power I had within this organization, which often became a source of penalty. Throughout my work, I play on the etymology of advocacy—to give voice to another—and the idea of advocacy groups as “voices” for the seemingly disempowered. Concepts of voice and voiceless-ness, who can give voice to another, how, and if we should even be a voice for others, are a constant theme. In “Shadowing: Blurring the lines between Empowerment and Disempowerment Roles,” I explore moments where my translator role as a bilingual, among other roles, became imperative to my understanding of my own actions and those of others within the SIU’s advocacy. Lastly in “Speaking and Speaking Over: Getting tangled in the Web of the Relations of Power,” and in “Erasure and Representation: the Silences between the lines,” I capture a few of the ways the voices of others and myself were either amplified, spoken for, or erased whilst the Union attempted to advocate (“give voice to,” “call forth”) for workers using what I perceived to be a classic business-unionism model.
From my observations of the relations between workers and the union employees, I argue that the SIU operated within systems of power, and was often on par with corporations in terms of power. Then, I theorize that what is needed is a third-world feminist approach to unity and unions that seeks to dismantle all systems of oppression and reorganize the systems of power to end all kinds of oppression—not just class-based, worker versus corporation, oppression. This would be a solution to the problems of speaking for, silencing, and erasure that the union encountered. As I use a full-force combination of theory and activism in my “Praxis” chapter to make such claim, I delve into feminist of color ideals of solidarity. In a feminist solidarity, individuals are united by their differences, not by homogeneous experience or identity. I advocate for a third-world feminist approach to unionism through feminist solidarity, and I emphasize love and friendship as the backbone of such an endeavor.
In “Voices: Power and Powerlessness in Experiences of the Self,” I write about my authoethnographic journey and the complicated sense of power I had within this organization, which often became a source of penalty. Throughout my work, I play on the etymology of advocacy—to give voice to another—and the idea of advocacy groups as “voices” for the seemingly disempowered. Concepts of voice and voiceless-ness, who can give voice to another, how, and if we should even be a voice for others, are a constant theme. In “Shadowing: Blurring the lines between Empowerment and Disempowerment Roles,” I explore moments where my translator role as a bilingual, among other roles, became imperative to my understanding of my own actions and those of others within the SIU’s advocacy. Lastly in “Speaking and Speaking Over: Getting tangled in the Web of the Relations of Power,” and in “Erasure and Representation: the Silences between the lines,” I capture a few of the ways the voices of others and myself were either amplified, spoken for, or erased whilst the Union attempted to advocate (“give voice to,” “call forth”) for workers using what I perceived to be a classic business-unionism model.
From my observations of the relations between workers and the union employees, I argue that the SIU operated within systems of power, and was often on par with corporations in terms of power. Then, I theorize that what is needed is a third-world feminist approach to unity and unions that seeks to dismantle all systems of oppression and reorganize the systems of power to end all kinds of oppression—not just class-based, worker versus corporation, oppression. This would be a solution to the problems of speaking for, silencing, and erasure that the union encountered. As I use a full-force combination of theory and activism in my “Praxis” chapter to make such claim, I delve into feminist of color ideals of solidarity. In a feminist solidarity, individuals are united by their differences, not by homogeneous experience or identity. I advocate for a third-world feminist approach to unionism through feminist solidarity, and I emphasize love and friendship as the backbone of such an endeavor.
ContributorsHernandez, Carolina Renne (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis director) / Watrous, Lisa (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Every day we pass people without thinking everyone has a story. If an individual looks “normal,” any struggles faced living with an invisible disability are left without words or thoughts due to the dominant norm—ableism. Conversely, a more visible disability may not be dismissed as quickly. Who are unseen, ignored, and misunderstood are those who live with invisible disabilities not only in a dominant able-bodied society, but also within academic scholarship as well, because they do not fit into the dominant definition of disability. In turn, binaries form between power relations and within knowledge production that create exclusion. This thesis is an intersectional analysis on expanding the definition of disability, specifically invisible disability, in order to deconstruct, challenge, and transform the hegemonic conceptualization of disability and break binaries in order to give voice to ignored and misunderstood narratives of invisible disabilities as well as foster and create nuanced understanding within knowledge production and power itself. I particularly use an autoethnographic approach to conduct this analysis of my own everyday, lived experience as a young, mixed race woman living with an invisible disability, or chronic illness, on how ableism operates in the medical sphere and at the academy, further exploring what it means to be a “good” or “bad” chronic illness patient and categorized and labeled by the stigmas attached to the definition of disability.
ContributorsGarcia, Jordan Marie (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis director) / Watrous, Lisa (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
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.
ContributorsSan Nicolas, Juan (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis director) / Lee, Sangmi (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavorial Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
In this undergraduate thesis, I explore the relationship between politics and popular culture through an ethnography of Justice League Arizona, a cosplay ensemble devoted to costumed civic activism. While existing scholarship addresses cosplay ensembles and political theory, there is very little that examines how the act of cosplay can be a form of politics and what the impact of that interpretation has on both individuals and the community at large. Through both participant observation and interviews with members of the ensemble, I discovered that cosplay has the ability to intensify aspects of the self, the ability to expose new aspects of the self, and the ability to bring one closer to a particular character. I also found cosplay to be political through the sensibility and situated knowledge that proves to be in practice during cosplay, ultimately having the power to be used as a form of political resistance.
ContributorsBurrus, Ella Rene (Author) / Mack, Robert (Thesis director) / Behl, Natasha (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
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
Description
While abortion is a vital reproductive right, its absence is not the only threat to bodily autonomy. This thesis utilizes a reproductive justice lens to showcase how religion and politics have contributed to centering a ‘choice’ binary that limits a more nuanced understanding of reproductive freedom. This has led to the dominance of the abortion narrative, which overshadows discussions on other forms of reproductive healthcare. Religion and politics have also cultivated a pro-birth – rather than pro-life – approach to women’s reproductive health. This is particularly true in Oklahoma, where no previous research has been conducted on women’s broader reproductive healthcare experiences – consequently, this research turns to women and amplifies their voices to better understand the current state of reproductive healthcare. Participant survey responses were analyzed in the areas of contraception, abortion, prenatal care, and postnatal care. A t-test shows that there is not a statistically significant difference in care quality between birth and non-birth categories. However, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) test results do reveal that prenatal care in Oklahoma is rated much more highly than other forms of reproductive healthcare, and with much less variation than ratings in other categories. Additional findings reveal that more pain management is needed during intrauterine device (IUD) insertion, that finances are a major barrier to all forms of reproductive healthcare, and that sterilization is much more difficult to obtain than any other form of contraception. The study concludes that the experiences of respondents are reflective of a pro-birth approach to reproduction and motherhood. Findings from this research broaden existing scholarship on reproductive health and justice by contributing new knowledge that is relevant to women inside and outside of Oklahoma. The study recommends that additional research should be conducted to improve women’s reproductive healthcare in Oklahoma and beyond, particularly in a post-Roe world.
ContributorsStewart, Alexandra Noelle (Author) / Goksel, Nisa (Thesis advisor) / Comstock, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Funk, Kendall (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
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.
ContributorsTomlinson, Madeleine (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Smith-Cannoy, Heather (Thesis advisor) / Redeker-Hepner, Tricia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
The transgender community is often targeted by hate crimes at greater levels thananyone else under the LGBTQAI+ umbrella but the true scope of the epidemic is far from
understood due to dramatically low rates of reported hate crimes. The current study seeks
to understand the relationship between transgender people and authorities through an indepth
analysis of historical and current trends in reporting GIB hate crimes. In
conjunction, I apply the notion of regional identity to hypothesize which US region(s)
will have the highest rates of GIB inclusive policies based on their historical identities
and socio-political underpinnings. I posit the Pacific, Mountain, New England, and Mid
Atlantic (West and Northeastern) regions will have the highest rates of protection for
transgender people from 2013-2019. Additionally, I assert there will be a moderate (0.2-
0.4 correlation coefficient) to high (0.4+ correlation coefficient) correlation between GIB
inclusive policies and reported rates of violence. A simple linear regression found a high
correlation (.934) between regional political identities and their rate of enacted GIB
policies. Furthermore, based on the annual report data provided by the FBI, the regions
with the highest tallies of GIB inclusive policies were the same regions with the highest
rates of reported GIB hate crimes with an average of 0.537 over a seven-year time span.
This study provides evidence that regional socio-political underpinnings directly affect
policy enacted regarding GIB protections and that those policies are aligned with higher
rates of reported violence.
ContributorsMiller, Kassandra Elizabeth (Author) / Comstock, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Goksel, Nisa (Committee member) / Kramer, Zachary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
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.
ContributorsGoodnight, Ronald Eugene (Author) / Colbern, Allan (Thesis advisor) / Firoz, Malay (Committee member) / Behl, Natasha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Though LGBT people have been able to seek asylum in the United States since the ‘90s, they still face a multitude of challenges upon arrival in the US as well as in their application process, leaving an air of uncertainty for many whether they will be successful in their cases. This thesis seeks to understand these challenges and how they relate to the perception of identities of LGBT asylum seekers, especially as it relates to Western stereotypes of gender and sexuality. To examine these issues, this thesis includes in-depth interviews with four officials who work closely with asylum seekers to incorporate their input on the asylum system as a whole and how the system impacts LGBT asylum seekers. Based on the analysis of court cases and supplementary qualitative data, this thesis aims to reveal the implications of relying on “consistency” as evidence of credibility based on the stereotypes and how this can harm LGBT asylum seekers as well as others outside of the LGBT community. Finally, this thesis proposes an intervention to alleviate these challenges not only for those in the LGBT community but for everyone seeking asylum in the US and suggests a new framework for how to understand and communicate identities of asylum seekers without limited definitions of their sexual identities or stripping them of autonomy.
ContributorsCordwell, Cailan Rose (Author) / Lee, Sangmi (Thesis advisor) / Wheatley, Abby (Committee member) / Goksel, Nisa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023