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Senior Theses

Organized chronologically by semester, mostly. In the format: Name, Title, Semester, Year

Copies of Senior Theses can be found archived in Watzek library and in the department office.

Name Year/ Sem
Title
 Abstract
Tara Ganser 2006 Spring Flex or Sex?: The Nature of Female Sports This thesis is an investigation of the increase in female sport participation the United States has seen over the past thirty years. It examines the structural and cultural changes which have occurred to allow for this increase. I critically explore the positive and negative ways this change is occurring, looking for the potential negative side effects in what, for the most part, has been a wide and positively received trend. In this way, I shed light on positive and negative ways that women are incorporated into modern sports activities in the United States. I conclude by offering potential solutions.
Lizzy Flaum 2006   The Age of Female Violence

 Over the past couple of decades, accounts of girls acting in aggressive and even violent behavior has increased at frightening rates. Adolescent girls are, for he first time in America, surpassing adolescent males in physical fighting, joining both all-female and mixed-sex gangs, being arrested on drug charges and dropping out of high school. The thesis will explore girl violence by focusing on one Hollywood California middle school called Bancroft Performing Arts. Frustration Theory, Equality Theory and Cinema Theory are investigated as possible explanations for the recent increase in girl fighting, bullying and even girl killing.

Issac Kaplan-Woolner 2006 Spring Dialing In Democracy: The Power of Independent Radio Radio is one of the most important communication technologies of all time, and has remained the most consistently popular medium in the United States. It has the power to create community and a democratic public sphere. This thesis is an examination of the potential applications of community radio as a democratizing force in the media, by examining movements in alternative radio throughout history and discussing emerging technological innovations that will aid in this effort.
Rachael Goldberg 2006 Spring Politicizing the Private Sphere: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

 In this thesis I trace the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’s movement from its origin to its current status. My goal is to explain how it was possible for a group of housewives to mount an important challenge to one of the most violent military regimes know to the world. I explain the event leading up to the military take over in 1976, which resulted in the emergence of the Mother’s organization. I also look at the ways social network theory and social capital, and in turn the international media, were pertinent to the success of their movement. I then outline the 1983 fall of the junta, and the Mother’s activities from 1983 to present day.
Gabrielle Haber 2006 Spring Imaging Gender: Nationalist Icons and Chicana Feminism

 This thesis examines iconic representations of Chicana femininity and their use in nationalist narratives of the Chicano movement. The figures chosen for discussion are Tonantzin, Coatlicue, La Malinche, La Llorona, and the Virgen of Guadalupe. These icons incorporate myth and social convention to prescribe ways in which Chicanas are to conceptualize themselves. In these icons, ethnic and gender empowerment help catalyze social activism to create an oppositional consciousness that unites theory and practice.
Sara Dasta 2006 Spring No Child Left Behind and the Achievement Gap: Mistreating the Symptoms, Ignoring Their Roots

 This thesis explores the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, focusing on whether or not it is suited to the task of eliminating the achievement gap for low-income and minority students. The study draws on both primary and secondary research to examine the effects of its implementation and its general potential for efficacy. The general findings are the NCLB will not result in the elimination of the achievement gap, because it neither acknowledges nor addresses the structural and cultural factors that contribute to the gap. Additionally, several of its policies are, in fact, shown to be exacerbating the problems they were designed to resolve. At the conclusion of the study, more realistic policies for easing educational inequalities are explored.
Nicola Wood 2006 Spring Vika Chahije, Vinash Nahin! The Movement to Stop the Narmada River’s Sardar Sarovar Dam Project

 This thesis is about the history of the Sardar Sarovar Dam Project, which is located in the Narmada River Valley in India. It specifically deals with the effect that the dam will have on the lives of the poor farmers and Adavasi people living in the valley who will have to be resettled. It will also explain the anti-dam movement that they started in the 1980s and how they have peacefully fought their government through until the present. This movement highlights the social and environmental effects big development can have on a developing nation when not properly researched and planned.
Genesis A. McKernan-Allen 2006 Spring There But Here: A Study of Transnational Migration and Gender in Azuay, Ecuador and Michoacan, Mexico
 The aim of this thesis is to examine the ways transnational migration affect traditional gender roles and ideologies in Azuay, Ecuador, and Michoacan, Mexico. Divisions of labor, economic responsibilities, and marriage patterns in Azuay and Michoacan each have traditionally gender specific roles that are being challenged by contemporary migration patterns. Each case study region has a different migration history. This goal of this research is to highlight how these two regions have arrived at different ways of interpreting gender role and ideology changes within their specific historical frameworks.
Amy Poole 2006 Spring The Caduceus and the Lotus: An Analysis of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States
 The following thesis investigates the growing popularity of complementary and alternative medicine in the United States. In addition, discontent with conventional medicine is shown to be a primary factor in the growing use of complementary and alternative medicine. Many people also feel that using both forms of medicine, complementary and conventional, is the most effective way to combat health ailments. In conclusion, integrative medicine needs to be emphasized by complementary and conventional practitioners.
Monika Korsnes 2006 Spring To Die with Dignity: Empowerment through Physician Assisted Suicide
 This thesis examines the emergence of Death with Dignity laws in Oregon and the controversy surrounding the subject. I review the arguments for and against allowing terminally ill individuals to commit suicide with the help of legally prescribed drugs. By examining the current trends in medical and funeral practices, I demonstrate the ways in which the choice to end one’s life becomes an empowering tool for the terminally ill. I show that, contrary to popular portrayals of suicide, physician assisted suicide incorporates community and social support in order to legitimize the decisions of autonomous actors at the end of their lives.
Sara Calvert 2005 Fall Pinochet to Bachelet: Women in the Transition to Democracy in Chile This paper evaluates the role of women in the transition to, and the maintenance of, democracy in post-dictatorship Chile. In this paper I address some of the ways women fought against the dictatorship and what has been done since the re-establishment of democracy to improve women’s rights and lived experiences.
Kara Thielman 2005 Fall Feminism and Cosmetic Surgery: Do the Arguments Apply to Poor and Ethnic Minority Women? This paper evaluates feminist arguments about cosmetic surgery from the standpoint of poor and ethnic minority women. It argues that approaches emphasizing cosmetic surgery as a solution to individual problems or advocating the redeployment of the technology to destabilize ideals of beauty and the construction of gender are inadequate. The role of racial, as well as gender, ideology much be acknowledged if feminist arguments are to be.
Alyssa Chapin Denisco 2005 Fall Turning Cute into Cash: How Japan Targets the Global Millennial Child Consumer Japan’s global marketing strategy towards children consumers is so exceptionally successful in America because its characters have appeal beyond ethnicity, age, and gender. How its producers shaped the character loosely enough to be adjusted for American audiences –but maintain just enough similarities to identify it with the Japanese product –creates a complicated cultural mediascape that affirms a global identity while reproducing cultural distinctions between Japanese and American child consumers.
George Bordash IV 2005 Fall Sell Your Car –Ride a Bicycle: A Thesis Advocating for an Increase in Bicycle Use This research paper argues that the Americans should look to alternatives to automobile in order to curb its negative impacts on human health, the environment, the US economy and communities. To do this, people should embrace alternative modes of transportation, primarily bicycles. By promoting the benefits of bicycle use and advocating for increased usage, this paper aims to illuminate how bicycles can combat these negative trends.
Monica Harris 2005 Fall Lost and Found: Objects as Symbols of Life Transformation The objects that people own and cherish can serve as symbols of personal transformation. While the acquisition of cherished objects can enhance one’s identity, the loss of these objects can diminish one’s identity. Important events of life changes are often made memorable or meaningful by objects –whether these objects are kept as tangible relics of a past identity or only remembered as important links to the past.
Katie Detwiler 2005 Fall Reclaiming the Colonized Body: Colonialism, Addiction and Recovery in The American Southwest This paper describes the history of the United States imperialism in the American Southwest. I argue that the dispossession of northern New Mexican residents from their land cause severe alienation from their cultural traditions and identity. Religion is presented as a grassroots post-colonial response to drug addiction, and, by extension, U.S. colonialism.
Gianmarco Savio 2005 Fall Representing the Nation-State: Cultural Nationalism and Homogenization
 This senior thesis explores the concept of national identity and adopts that argument that nations are founded on abstract narratives. These narratives, in turn, contribute to the emergence of what I have identified as a ‘nationalist’ perspective, which, I argue, represents a view of nation as culturally and ideologically homogenous entities. The paper then considers the role of hybridity, multiculturalism, and globalization in providing counternarratives to homogenous views of the nation.
Lindsey Stuart 2005 Fall Dividing the Finite: Conflict over Public and Private Control of Water and Recommendations for a Holistic Approach towards Sustainability The finite amount of fresh water –for human consumption, agriculture, industrial development, and natural ecosystems –is rapidly diminishing. The future of water resource sustainability lies in the ability of the free-market and public realms to communicate and cooperate, so that there can be a combination of the free-market sector’s economic practicalities with the public sector’s community-needs recognition and organization.
Suzanne Flory 2005 Fall Cultural transitions and academic achievement: The Hmong Roses Project and the development of social capital beneficial for Hmong schoolchildren in Portland, Oregon. This thesis examines a number of factors important for the discussion of academic achievement of Hmong schoolchildren. Ethnographic research details how the Hmong Roses after school program empowers the Hmong community by fostering social capital necessary for school success. This non-profit organization provides the Hmong community the attention they deserve by American educators and the assistance they require in order to ensure productive academic and social development for Hmong children.
Colleen McNally-Murphy 2005 Fall Inking Out Deviance: The Shift of Tattooing and Piercing towards the Mainstream in Western Society Body modifications such as tattoos and piercings have been markers of inclusion and exclusion in Western society for millennia. I will argue that in the past few decades, tattoos and piercings have come to signify youth rather than membership to a deviant or marginal group. Western society is undergoing a cultural shift away from viewing tattoos and piercings as deviant behavior.
Tristan van Stirum 2005 Fall The Manipulation of Urban Space: Urban Development and African American Identity with a focus on Portland, Oregon This thesis examines the problems that African Americans have faced within the American urban environment since World War II. Harsh residential segregation practices initially prevented African Americans from inhabiting the spaces of their choice. Despite this, communities were formed and place-based identities were adopted as a result of their segregation to an isolated space. Looking at a case-study of Portland, Oregon, this thesis reveals the problems that an African American community faced as certain urban renewal projects began to fragment their community.
Ryan Wilder 2005 Spring It’s Not Simple, Being Simple: Minimalism and Pop Art’s Postmodern Introduction to the Art World Minimalism and Pop Art have come to represent the visual representation of the postmodern paradigm shift, while still remaining partially rooted in Modern art. Through three key elements these two groups of artists have come to introduce the basic concepts of postmodernism into the visual world. All of this was situated in a time of late capitalism that created a culture that was willing to accept some strong challenges to the concepts of Modernism.
Camille Coleman 2005 Spring Capitalism, Spectacle, and Crisis of Political Discourse No Abstract
Rebecca Novis 2005 Spring From Concrete Jungles to Native Gardens: Flaws in the U.S. Public Housing Policy and Resolutions through Environmentally Sustainable Design Public housing has carried with it a stigma of carelessness. Dilapidated buildings that utilize unhealthy building materials fosters a social environment of crime, pollution and hopelessness. I propose that redesigning public housing to incorporate environmentally designed structures can facilitate a nurturing community. By encouraging cooperation and self-sufficiency, members of low-income communities can increases their quality of life and move into the private housing market.
Miss E. Pace James 2005 Spring HIV/AIDS Risk Through a Human Rights Dialogue This paper argues that health and human rights are interconnected and that HIV/AIDS should be discussed using a human rights dialogue to form adequate prevention programs. Current methodologies focus on individual risk factors that contribute to vulnerability. This individual focus perpetuates stigmatization, thus increasing a person’s vulnerability to HIV-infection.
Drew Katz 2005 Spring Development as a Discursive Practice: Hegemony, modernization and the formation of alternatives at the grassroots level. By applying Gramscian and Foucauldian theories of hegemony and power, this paper explains how the discourse of modernization over the last fifty years has exacerbated problems of ‘underdevelopment’ in the Third World rather than reversed them. Drawing on the ethnographic work of the author, the paper then focuses on how Paulo Freire’s concept of dialogical education could be a viable grassroots alternative to the dominant development paradigm.
Whitney Hartzell 2005 Spring Searching for Home in a Commodity World: Building Meaning Back into Our Lives This paper examines the ways in our conceptions of home and place are conceptualized, threatened, transformed and reclaimed. This paper concludes in a short anthology discussing a few of the numerous ways people are resacralizing their lives through home, place and community
Jessica Persoff 2004 Fall Gendering the Advertising Dialectic No Abstract
Cedar D.W. Ousele 2004 Fall The Floating World: Art, McDonald’s, and Postmodernism in Japan This thesis deconstructs notions of postmodernism and cosmopolitanism as exclusively Western theories, as inspired by the portrayal of the assimilation of McDonald’s into Japanese culture in the art of Japanese-American artist Masami Teraoka. Through travel and relocation, Teraoka embodies the idea of traveling culture and creates a hybrid cosmopolitanism between the East and West. Through representation of Teraoka’s are in relation to themes of fast food and Oriental/Occidental dichotomy, this thesis decenters Western theories of modernism and cosmopolitanism.
Alanna Butler 2004 Fall The Conflict of Appetites and Construction of Desires This thesis investigates the abundance of eating disorder in adolescent girls in the United States using a cultural method. I posit the eating disorders are behaviors that are representative of societal values and desires. They are embodied conflict of the desires, in which some appetites become repressed over others. The contradiction between the desires is physically illustrated on the eating disordered body.
Milo Mitchel 2004 Fall Mutual Funds: Democratization of Finance or Bazaar Economy?: An Analysis of the Evolving Class Relations Involved in the Mediation of Capital Flows in the Mutual Fund Industry. This project is an analysis of the evolution of class domination in the mutual fund industry. These evolving class relations are marked by new market innovations that allow Wall Street insiders to exploit and skim from the capital flows of un-educated investors. I conclude that an independent mutual fund oversight board in necessary structural reform that would curb the incubation of various new forms of class oppression in the mutual fund industry.
Maggie Bogle 2004 Fall Undocumented Laborers or Undocumented Citizens? Transnational Migration and the Boundaries of Citizenship In this thesis I will look at the phenomenon of undocumented Mexican immigration into the United States to explore the ways in which citizenship is being redefined in the context of ‘globalization.’ In the current era of increasingly transnational flow of labor and capital, new citizenship paradigms which reflect the ‘flexibility’ o transnational migration are needed.
Ciara Wentworth 2004 Spring Trans-Sending Definitions of Gender
and Sex: Transpeople Define Themselves		 This thesis explores how transpeople, individuals who have undergone sex change procedures, are challenging contemporary understandings of male and female categories. I first delineate who transpeople are, highlighting the variety of outlooks and experiences that exist within the group. I then argue that transpeople destabilize anatomical and biological definitions of sex as they reveal the fluidity of sex definitions throughout history, particularly in court cases throughout the 20 th century. I present that transpeople draw attention to gender norms that make the biological/anatomical sex classification system ineffective in social spaces. I investigate transpeople’s alliances with feminists and gay liberation activists and argue that despite conflicts within these ties, transpeople are strengthening these activists’ efforts to breakdown stereotypes of sex and gender. Throughout the body of this thesis I underscore reasons that transpeople have been misunderstood by the public and how this has undermined the public’s awareness of the agitation of gender and sex categories.
Terra Alysa Tolley 2004 Spring Myths, Missionaries, and Magic: A Culture Analysis of HIV/AIDS in East Africa This thesis explores the social and cultural roots of the myths surrounding HIV/AIDS in East Africa. These myths intensify the pandemic by preventing people from coming to a scientific understanding of the way HIV/AIDS is transmitted. It is therefore crucial that the origins and characteristics of these myths are explored, and new strategies for overcoming these myths are devised. This thesis is meant to contribute to this important enterprise. In this thesis, I examine the ways in which colonial legacies, religious fundamentalisms, and the inequalities influence contemporary myths about HIV/AIDS. I also draw on interviews and participatory observation to explore this mythology. In the conclusion, I describe ways that international and grassroots organizations can help overcome these myths and set the stage for more effective prevention and treatment programs.
Joshua Green 2004 Spring Cheap Labor in America: The Modern Prison Industry and its Relationship to Slavery This thesis looks at prison labor and the effects it has on people of color, specifically African-Americans. The concept of prison labor is not a new phenomenon. From a historical point of view many aspects of the prison labor industry can be compared to the post-slavery convict lease system. After slavery, there was a shift in the racial makeup of the prison population from being majority white to majority African-American. It was not until the mass incarceration of newly freed slaves that prison labor, known as the convict lease system appeared. Although the numbers evened out over the years (1920-1970s) shifts have begun to reemerge in recent times. The prison system has witnessed a mass incarceration of minorities, while at the same time re-implementing work programs, which profit off those incarcerated. This thesis looks at the shift and brings to light problems associated with prison labor, including the issue of companies profiting off those who are incarcerated.
Jennifer Prucher 2004 Spring The Flower that Perfumes the City: The Argentine tango and its Relationship with a National Identity. This thesis introduces and discusses the world of the tango in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I provide a brief history of the dance and show how the tango has been globalized. My focal point is to try to understand more about an Argentine through this dance and how the tango can create a sense of National Identity.
Malia Helfmeyer 2004 Spring Organic as Myth: A friendly Critique of Organic Consumerism The purpose of this thesis is to propose that the evolution of “organic” in society has led to the creation of a contemporary “Organic” myth. I use Organic Style magazine as a tool to inspect the characteristics of Organic myth, and to expose the contradictions and incongruities between the founding ideologies of the organic movement and the marketed Organic myth. The two most noticeably problematic trends are 1) the magazine’s juxtaposition of exotic and local images, which contradicts the sustainability principle of organic, and 2) the conflicted characterization of Nature as harmful and the packaged “natural” as beneficial. Through this lens I show that organic has evolved from movement to myth. In conclusion, I briefly suggest what I see as one potential progeny of organic’s transformation, in terms of a new opportunity for alternative consumption.
Mia Blagaila 2004 Spring Religion, Counter-Culture, and Revolution in Postsocialist Romania This is a study of the life of people who dared to be religious, even as they faced persecution in Romania under socialism. My research focuses on how Pentecostalism was a form of everyday resistance. I investigate the relationships between the rise of the movement and global and historical contexts. I pull from my qualitative data of over 40 interviews and theorists such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Jim Scott in order to analyze the rise of a fundamentalist movement under socialism and its progression in post-socialism.
Brian Love 2004 Spring Our American History: Ethnic Representations in American History Textbooks, A Content Analysis One of the principle ways ethnic communities are able to re-define themselves in society is through history textbooks. This thesis there examines tow of the most widely adopted textbooks using a content analysis. The analysis assesses the recognition, respect, and acceptance or treatment of ethnic minority populations offered throughout American history. My analysis proves the strength and presence of the traditional Western curriculum. Multicultural education has yet to reach full integration, though it is evident in certain aspects of both textbooks.
Eliza LaCombe Ginn 2004 Spring Women in the Information Age: Social Changes and Infinite Possibilities for Women in the US and India This thesis examines the digital divide in India and in the United States. It utilizes ethnographic research to illuminate the social and cultural implications for women in the new information age. Women traditionally are overlooked in the information technology world, and in many cases, deny themselves the respect that they deserve by claiming that they are not computer literate. Despite those who claim that women are being exploited in the new information age, the women themselves generally see the new technological revolution to be a positive addition to their lives, socially and economically
Julia Swanson 2004 Spring Power goes on Safari on the Dark Continent: An Analysis of Cultural Tourism in Kenya and Tanzania No Abstract
Lindsay Dance 2004 Spring Working Children in Ecuador: Alternatives to Cartwheels in the Street Volunteering with working children in Quito, Ecuador in the spring of 2003 led me through a journey of understanding the realities of child work, the ethnocentricity of my childhood ideals, and the need for change in international involvement with working children. I focus on ethnocentric ideals for childhood that underlie ideologies of international child labor organizations and potentially create barriers for progressive change. I propose a need for collaboration of NGO’s and the international community to improve the lives of working children today and offer hope for a future out of poverty.
Karen Hambro 2004 Spring Fueling Competitive Low Wage Labor: An Exploration of the Role of Undocumented Workers in the United States’ Labor Market This thesis explores the nature and history of Hispanic immigrants I the U.S, work force. This thesis demonstrates how the access to cheap labor in our capitalistic society functions as a way for the government and business to maintain low standards of wages and conditions for native born workers. By analyzing previous research and my own interviews I explain how the usage of undocumented Hispanic immigrants as an extension of our own labor force is a systematic exploitation of both immigrants and native-born workers.
Joe Giaudrone 2004 Spring From Ford to Wal-Mart: The Evolution of Capitalist Structure in the United States During the Twentieth Century This thesis focuses on the evolution of the capitalist structure of the United States of American throughout the last hundred years. I explain how over the last century the largest American capitalist intuitions have been transformed from highly bureaucratized and centralized to flexible network based institutions. I use the examples of the early American auto industry and Wal-Mart to exemplify this transformation.
Michele Christle 2004 Spring From Lost Boy to Found Man? Sudanese Refugees and the Negotiation of Identity in Response to an Irrelevant Metaphor This project is an analysis of a group of refugees from southern Sudan who have become known to the Western world through the name “the Lost Boys of the Sudan”. The way that the media often represents them is negative and therefore potentially detrimental to their ability to reconstitute their identities freely. In trying to construct new identities, these men seek to distinguish themselves as individuals, not homogenized members of the collective “Lost Boys” generation, as men not boys, as active agents not passive victims, and as people who belong and therefore not liminal beings. This thesis will look into the various methods members of this community use to transcend the “Lost Boy” identity and the obstacles they encounter in the process.
Sara Sluszka 2004 Spring Sojourners with a Vision: The Contributions of Transnational Communities to Senegal’s “Fight Against Poverty” In this thesis, I examine the economic relationship between Senegalese living abroad an their country of origin in order to assess the potential of diaspora in contributing to the economic development of Senegal. The majority of the study focuses on the situation of immigrants of Senegalese origin living in New York. The current lack of dialogue between Senegalese abroad and their home government has resulted in a lack of established coordination that would optimize the development potentials of Senegalese abroad.
Laura Willner 2003 Fall Educators in Complex Social Classrooms: An Evaluation of Reproduction Theory in Education This thesis explores issues of social class and reproduction theory in education. The project consists of a literature review of sociological and anthropological theory related to social class and reproduction combined with ethnographic research to evaluate these theories in elementary classrooms. The complexities of social class are revealed and necessitate the modification or reproduction theory to adapt to these intricacies. By focusing on elementary teachers’ assertion of agency in the classroom, traditional theories are challenged.
Joleen Fuller 2003 Fall But She’s My Wife: A Legacy of Justifying Domestic Violence Domestic violence is perpetuated, sustained and legitimated by our society’s ability to keep it behind closed door and protect against state intervention. Although today, our society’s awareness of domestic violence and the mistreatment of women are more established, the legitimation of abuse is now entangled in our notions of privacy. Legal and social constructions of privacy have helped us to deem this violence as a personal and private problem rather than a social problem that elicits prevention and intervention.
Usman Ally 2003 Fall Keepin’ it Real: Tracking the Clobal Hip Hop Narrative The purpose of this study was to examine various trend within contemporary global Hip Hop culture. In conclusion, I found that the effects of commercialization and commoditization of Hip Hope Culture are wide-ranging. Hip Hop has remained for 20 years a strong voice for the disenfranchised and for various youth groups.
Cathrine Magelssen 2003 Spring Perspectives on Potholes and Speed Bumps: The Implications of “Transitions” This paper explores the intricacies, incongruities, and implications of the transition process in postsocialism Serbia/Yugoslavia. Success in these areas is a goal set forth by the “new” and “democratic” government as the country aims for membership I the European Union.
Jane Cohen 2003 Spring Hegemony, Identity and Violence: The Debacle of the Dominated Under the Modern Chinese Nation-State This thesis examines the violent nature of the modern-state, and how this affects people who are oppressed under the nation-state system. In particular, the analysis is focused on the intersection between created categorizations as a method of control, and the hegemonic acceptance of those categories by the majority population in Communist China. This study focuses on the experiences and struggle of the Uyghur minority group in Northwestern China.
Anastasia Barron 2003 Spring Crafting Medical Selves: From Total Institutions to Physician Competence at Oregon Health Sciences University This thesis proposes that through the course of medical school students work through the process of formulating and reformulating conceptions of their professional selves. The aim of this research was to explore the phenomenological process in which students enter into the life world of medicine. More specifically I will be exploring the practices within medicine that are learned, repeated and taken for granted such as: the presentation of self in an institutional setting, the mind-body split, the language of medicine, and the acquisition of competence.
Suzanne Elizabeth Spencer 2003 Spring “The Law is an Ass” Rear-Ending an Ass-Backward Law: Sodomy Statutes and Institutionalized Discrimination On March 26, 2003, the United States Supreme Court began to hear arguments in the case Lawrence v. Texas, which questions the constitutionality of sodomy statues both in Texas and nationally. This thesis uses the term sodomy to trace its sociohistorical contexts and current uses in legal rhetoric to argue the repeal of sodomy laws and the term’s reclamation by positive interests.
Kevin M. Gervais 2003 Spring Supreme Surrender: Cultism, Individualism, and the Hare Krishna In this thesis I examine the construction of the public image of contemporary religious movements as deviant “cults,” which occurs through a process of stigmatization, leaving us with binary categorizations of “cult” vs. “individual.” Rather than accepting these categorizations, this study will discuss the appropriateness of the pejorative images of one primary group that is labeled a “cult”: the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
Kyla Bollens-Lund 2003 Spring Individual Actors, Community, and Power Complexities: An Ethnography of Sisters of the Road Café. This thesis explores how community is constructed and enacted at Sisters of Road Café, a non-profit restaurant in Portland, Oregon. The main parts of this paper are: 1.) conceptualizing and situating community and space, 2.) analyzing individually situated actors complex positionalities 3.) addressing how community is experienced in relation to space, and 4) looking at how community is constituted through power.
Leia Petty 2003 Spring Running on Empty: Diesel as Spectacle, Simulacra, and Style In a society saturated by images, culture takes the form of spectacle where experiences are mediated and commodities colonize all aspects of life. Recognizing the shifting identity, I explore how the Diesel Corporation sells working classness as a form of dissent and use the internet as a venue for illusory political activism. Their current advertising campaign ACTION!, accessed online, consists of twelve staged protests taking place in urban settings and acted out by youthful models in Diesel attire.
Ashley Mills 2003 Spring Oy! Two Jews, Three Opinions: The Power of Jewish Memory, Conflicting Identities and the Attachment to Israel Jewish collective consciousness of persecution and the history of the Jewish state, play a significant role in the lives of American Jews. Jewish history is remembered as continuous accounts of destruction and discrimination and these memories currently construct the deep emotional attachment to Israel. By sustaining the dominant traditional ideology, which favors assiduous ideological commitment, it also exposes individual Jews to the pressures of one’s cultural group when trying to deviate, leave or challenge the collective.
Christopher B. Larkin 2003 Spring Turn on, Tune in, and Trance Out: The Exploration of Entheogens and the Emergence of a Global Techno-shamanic Ritual This thesis is an attempt to display how the emergence of entheogenic substance in the Western paradigm has given rise to a global trance culture rooted in the practices of traditional shamanism. Through participant observation in the trance ritual with and without the use of entheogenic substances, I propose that the trance-dance is an entirely new and unique redefinition of an ancient tribal ritual that holds great value for the future of anthropological and sociological studies on the nature of shamanism and entheogens.
Lara Elizabeth Law 2003 Spring Roses for Everyone? Deconstructing the ‘Common Sense’ of Urban Space, Class, and the ‘Homeless Identity’ This thesis draws upon Antonio Gramsci’s conception of ‘common sense,’ the common, unquestioned understandings of the world in any epoch, to explore what it is about our collective mindset that allows for anti-homeless legislation. I contend that it is the confluence of mainstream American ‘common sense’ about urban space, class, and the ‘homeless identity’ that leads to the instatement of this legislation and then allows for it to remain largely uncontested. In conclusion I introduce Crossroads a local community organizing project that works across class lines to systemically address human and civil rights issues faced by the homeless in our community.
Laura Kaplan 2003 Spring Salsa and its Borderlands: Identities in Global Transformation Salsa, evolving in the lower class Latino barrios of New York City, has transformed significantly in recent decades. I examine how salsa has transformed and, from a personal perspective, how these changes signify new understanding of cultural identity. Through a discussion of history, identity, commercialization, gender relations and the body, I examine the many cultural and social implications of salsa.
Karissa Dunbar 2003 Spring You Stupid Slut: Relational Aggression and Teenage Girls Relational aggression is a tactic that, researcher have documented, is used mainly by women, and that has very damaging effects. In addition to looking to those emotional and developmental effects, this paper explores other effects that are as insidious, and perhaps more damaging.
Zoe Helene McLaughlin 2003 Spring Community In Principle and Community In Portland: Perspectives on Community Life In the Sellwood Community Center and Dignity Village This ethnography focuses on the concept and formation of communities through the Sellwood Community Center, a locus for neighborhood activities, and Dignity Village, and encampment for homeless individuals. Though these communities share basic commonalities, their construction and goals are very different from one another. My analysis centers around the influences of the environment particularly focusing on the notion of locality and space and their effect on the formation of community-life.
Jeanice J. Hori 2003 Spring The Power of Food: Identity, Place, and Social Forces Food, which is ultimately social, becomes a powerful force through its creation of identity for individuals and groups, and represents culture, community, and history. Through different locations and places that one is situated in, many of these elements and social forms created by food get strengthened or may also distance a person which can bring to attention or question one’s identity through food.
Margot Jane Taylor 2003 Spring Brides vs. Wives From the Altar to the Kitchen: Women’s Roles, Resistance and Realities in Wedding ceremonies and the Institution of Marriage. The institution of marriage in American previous to the feminist movement was exclusively based on patriarchy. Post feminist women began to utilize everyday forms of resistance in an effort to rid their lives of male domination. However due to the popular discourse of marriage the efforts to dismantle patriarchy have failed, women are victims of patriarchy due to the disproportioned amount of housework they perform.
Hitomi Thompson 2003 Spring Negotiated Identities: Exclusion as a Method of Controlling Mainstream Identity in Japan This paper looks at how governments and social histories affect individual identities. This paper explores a common theme of people, whose identities are not so readily defined through citizenship, race, language, and ethnicity. Identities are increasingly being defined in terms of commodities values instead of traditional ways, such as religion or family origin.
Janelle Lamereaux 2003 Spring Danzine: Situating (Re)formulations of the Whore Danzine is a non-profit organization in Portland, Oregon, created by and for sex workers. This thesis is an ethnography of the organization; it gives an account of Danzine programs and the mentalities that shape them. The organization demonstrates a new mode of progress, allowing action to transpire on an individual level. Simultaneously, Danzine advances a collective movement around issues of health and safety.
Susannah R. Bone 2003 Spring The Meaning of Empowerment: Micro-Credit Lending Programs and Women in Developing Countries This paper suggests that micro credit lending programs are a means of empowerment for women in developing countries. In order to present this argument, the paper focuses on two micro-credit programs, one functioning in Kenya, the other in India, both ex-British colonies. Although each program takes on two different developmental approaches to providing credit to their female members, the cultural factors remain to play an important role in each programs’ survival.
Elissa Fisher 2003 Spring The Ideological Veil: Ideology, Meaning and Gender in Alcohol Advertisements Alcohol advertisements work by drawing on differences between men and women. This thesis addresses how ideology works to hide the influence that alcohol advertisements may have on us viewers. Through the mechanisms of image creation and humor, ideology obscures the meaning created from the sign and allows us to not question the influence of the ad.
Fairley M. Parson 2003 Spring Black-Bloc Borders: Anarcha-Feminist Challenges to Green Anarchist Subjectivity No Abstract
Courtney Mustad 2003 Spring Selling a War: A dominant narrative, collective memory, and the power of discourse This thesis examines one of the dominant discourses that was employed by the Bush administration and the mass media during the build-up to war with Iraq in September 2001 through March 2003. This discourse was about the narrative of good verses evil. Those who resisted narrative and opposed a war with Iraq used language, images, and symbols to incite the American public to question the good vs. evil view of reality.
Ryoko Sakurai 2003 Spring A Consideration of Comfort Women in Occupation Japan: The Reflection of Pre-modern Ideologies of Gender and Sexuality My thesis is an exploration of postwar comfort women system. I show how the perception of these women was parallel to the pre-modern ideologies of gender and sexuality, which divided women into two categories: women for pleasure, and women for procreation. The development of postwar comfort women system was an outcome of pre-modern ideas of female sexuality.
Tracy Jonas 2002 Fall Pioneers: How the Ideas of Masculinity of the Lewis & Clark College Football Team are Constructed, and How these support or Negate Other Ideas of Masculinity Based on my ethnographic work with the Lewis and Clark football team this paper explores issues relating to masculinity and gender. Football is unique in that it allows for legalized violence unlike any other. This along with ideas of success, bonding and male athletes controlling what society thinks is masculine, all play into why football players support stereotypical or hegemonic ideas of masculinity.
Elizabeth Kulin 2002 Fall Sex Education For Whom; Sex Education For What? This thesis explores the Federal governments’ involvement in sex education. The “Abstinence Only” programs inherently instigate the gender roles needed for this particular family structure. Unfortunately, this type of sex education leads to issues of gender, race, and class inequalities and is currently becoming more popular within sex education classrooms of the United States.
Shannon Harty 2002 Fall The Mother’s Body and Breastfeeding This thesis examines the meaning of the mother’s body in the United States, especially as it relates to breastfeeding. Motherhood and breastfeeding are inherently powerful activities that only women perform, yet the above structures work to suppress the power of the mother’s body in the name of maintaining a patriarchal framework. While nearly all authorities contend that breastfeeding provides the most benefits for mom and baby, structural support is necessary for change to take place.
Joanna Staebler-Kimmel 2002 Fall Public Privacy: Blurred Boundaries in Online Communities In this paper I will show how a dichotomy between private minds and public bodies in offline communities, and public minds and private bodies in online communities, can be utilized as a framework for understanding the nature of the two mediums of interaction. I will then examine how the dichotomy holds true and in what aspects of interaction it falls short.
Allison Deverman 2002 Fall Renters and the American Dream This thesis looks at the growing scarcity of affordable housing in Northeast Portland. I conclude that tenants in Portland face increasing housing costs, unequal structures of power within the landlord-tenant relationship, and overlapping institutional and economic inequalities. Tenants needs are overlooked because of the centrality of the American Dream of homeownership and the historical role of ideologies such as possessive individualism and “Culture of Poverty.”
Leah G. Colby 2002 Fall Cultural Exploration of Domestic Violence in Vietnam This paper will discuss some of the social and cultural factors surrounding the construction of domestic violence in Vietnam. I explore how Vietnamese women’s understanding of domestic violence change as they come to the United States and interact with woman’s shelters. Through exploring the ways in which domestic violence is understood in different cultures and parts of the world, we are able to better understand, prevent, and help those who have been abused.
Bonnie Rose Porter 2002 Fall Faces of an Epidemic: The Social Roles of Muslim Women in Zanzibar in the Age of AIDS This thesis focuses on the following concepts: the complex roles of Muslim Zanzibari women and how the AIDS virus impacts their sense of identities and roles within the community. Through ethnography and subsequent research, I examine how and why women and (in this case) the nation of Zanzibar are thereby stigmatized and blamed for the generation and proliferation of the virus.
Marie Knapp 2002 Fall “Fat”: Reclaiming Women’s Bodies and Power Through the Fat Liberation Movement Weight discrimination is a form of discrimination that results from negative meanings of “fat” in mainstream Western culture. Because “fat” is a gendered concept used to the detriment of women, changing the meaning of “fat” makes it no longer a source of control over women and their bodies. Fat Liberation is thus key in achieving the goals of this wave of feminism.
James Christie 2002 Fall The Fascism in Our Heads: Power and the Inner Life of Weberian Calvinists and Middle Class Americans This work asks and provides an answer to the question of whether the ideal type of professional middle-class American is free. Additionally, this thesis compares and contrasts the ideal type of the Weberian Calvinist and middle-class American both submits themselves to self-examination and self-discipline, the former to achieve assurance of his salvation and the latter to achieve self-actualization. This work ends by suggesting that because of these similarities that a historical connection exists between the Calvinist’s soul and the middle-class American psyche.
Jen Hughes 2002 Fall Queer Homeless Youth: Marginality and the Contestation of Patriarchal-Capitalism I argue that the complex marginality of queer homeless you is a contested identity that threatening and challenging the dominant hegemony in such a way that these youth cannot be successfully assimilated into the system as it stands. This accounts for the statistical data revealing that queer homeless youth are more likely to engage in high-risk behavior due to more experiences of institutionalized and individuated oppression (rejection, hatred, violence). I argue that this also reflects conceptions of self that are the direct result of a Patriarchal-Capitalist hegemonic ideology that constructs its margins so as to reinforce them in their ‘other’ stats even in resistance.
Kristen Mahan 2002 Fall Shaken Futures: Land Privatization in Mongolia and its Impacts Upon Rural Women Throughout this thesis I show how land privatization will significantly affect Mongolia’s pastoralist culture of nomadism. Land privatization will ultimately unravel the herding economy which is the basis for the livelihood of Mongolian people through the buying and selling of land at prices which most Mongolians will not be able to afford. Mongolian women in particular will feel the negative affects of this transformation as their freedom is stifled by the modernized patriarchy of Western development.
Kristin Anne Juelson 2002 Fall AIDS Action Now!: The Political Discourse of AIDS in San Francisco This thesis focuses on the ways that the AIDS virus has been culturally defined as a political epidemic. Specifically, it examines the history of AIDS activism and the current structures of AIDS service organizations in San Francisco, California to explore the different forums in which the definition of AIDS has been negotiated.
Matthew Feitelberg 2002 Fall The African American Comic Arena and Humor, as the So-Called Language of Freedom: Roots of African American Comedy and Affects upon American culture, from Jim Crow to The Kings of Comedy By analyzing texts concerning comedy as cultural representation and tracing the development of African American comic roles alongside the social roles and acceptance of African Americans, this paper shows that, in the case of African Americans, comedy has served as a principal medium for communication and cultural representation, correct or incorrect, to the public, black or white. Assisted by discussion of social power and subaltern consciousness, I show that comedic portrayals of African Americans have only recently begun to represent the actual voices of African Americans and serve to their benefit, unlike the one-sided, detrimental voice given to them by Caucasians/dominant social agents.
Teresa Kurtak 2002 Fall
Salvation in a Head of Lettuce?
No Abstract
Maggie Kral 2002 Fall
Female Aggression: Subverting Notions of Sex and Deviance
No Abstract
Rosemary Schmidt 2002 Fall Renegotiations: Contemporary Urban Aboriginal Australian Art and Postcolonial Identity In this thesis, I explore contemporary, urban Aboriginal Australian art in order to further understand Aboriginal Australian postcolonial identity. I explore how all of these factors (spirituality, perceptions of history, use of new materials, and social critique) relate to contemporary Aboriginal Australian identity, which I discover is composed of elements of contemporary Western and traditional Aboriginal cultures.
Sarah E. Martin 2002 Spring A Dance That Goes On and On: Gender on Stage in 20th Century America This thesis examines the relationship between dance and gender in the United States as it has evolved in the twentieth century. Structures of constructing and understanding gender and ideas of voyeurism are discussed, both in general and in the context of dance. Movement analysis and an application of theory are critical to the understanding of the relationship between dance and gender.
Shana Harris 2002 Spring The Social Dis-ease of ‘Epidemic’: Myth, Power, and Language in the Construction of the Contemporary Scottish Heron ‘Epidemic’ This project is an exploration of the social construction of a contemporary Scottish heroin ‘epidemic.’ Based on fieldwork at a drugs crisis center in Glasgow, I examine the use of the word ‘epidemic’ in the production of a myth of a ‘disease’ of heroin use. I conclude that the language used in the discourse of Scottish heroin use is enveloped with the powerful myth of heroin use as ‘disease’ that reflects a larger worldview.
Bren Reis 2002 Spring The Ultimate Community: A Study of Americans’ Social Habits and the Ultimate Frisbee Community
 This project explains the importance of community and social networks in our lives as Americans. Through empirical evidence and my own experience, I show that elevated social involvement can increase a person’s health, happiness, wealth, and intelligence. Furthermore, I include the unique ethical wisdom that is imparted by playing Ultimate Frisbee.
Laurie Young 2002 Spring Adolescent Dating Violence: The “Othering” Culture of Media, Violent Boys, Invisible Girls The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of adolescent dating violence, how it is a product of the social dehumanization