Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

From high heels, hairspray, and lit cigarettes to personal alarms and location-tracking apps, self-defense has been the primary discourse to which universities have turned to respond to the problem of sexual violence on campus. In this thesis, I document and contextualize the use of self-defense rhetoric at The Ohio State University (OSU) by both students and OSU itself. I contextualize the use of self-defense rhetoric by situating it within the history of anti-rape activism present at The Ohio State University (OSU) from 1970s – 2023. I turn to various archives at OSU to demonstrate how the institutionalization of feminist politics and prioritization of individual responsibility has minimized attention to institutional structures of power and complicities. An intersectional feminist analysis of institutional archives not only reveals how gender and race structure self-defense discourse but highlights the limits of neoliberal, carceral and moral frameworks in combating sexual violence on campus then and now.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2021, Theatre

White American Theatre has a long history of practicing exclusion. In the summer of 2020, a new collective named We See You White American Theatre formed to create the “BIPOC List of Demands for White American Theatre” and to push for more equitable practice in the American theatre industry. Their 31-page initiative calls for widespread reform in the American theatre community including codified cultural competency, BIPOC recruitment and retention both onstage and off, and greater transparency in funding and hiring. This thesis studies the practice of what I call inward- facing theatre activism— that is, theatre activism that critiques and redresses issues within the industry itself, rather than use theatre as a medium for other modes of social or political activism. I employ a mixed methodology including historical analysis, digital and traditional ethnography, and qualitative interviews, framing my research through the context of political scientist Cathy Cohen's theory of marginalization. Using Cohen's framework, I investigate inward-facing theatre activism as it is situated along a continuum of theatre activism, as it resonates throughout community-specific theatre organizing, and— using We See You White American Theatre as a case study— as it exists within and attempts to disrupt the dialectical relationship between marginalization and resistance in the American theatre. My thesis breaks ground in the study of inward- facing theatre activism in three ways: first, by providing a foundational analysis of marginalization and resistance that will benefit future scholars seeking to study integrative and secondary marginalization processes and the American theatre industry as a microcosm of American politics; second, by connecting Cohen's framework to the study of activism in the American theatre industry to explore how current and future scholars and activists alike might utilize this framework to achieve industrial equity; and third, by developing nascent scholarsh (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2021, Environmental Studies

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?” Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg said this at the U.N.'s 2019 Climate Action Summit, and a video of her speech went viral across the internet. Her strong words and young age sparked a series of climate protests involving young people, called “School Strikes 4 Climate,” in 2018. Thousands of members of Generation Z participated in a worldwide school strike, joining Thunberg in her mission to thwart climate change, hold world leaders and polluters accountable, and create a global movement for change. Every young climate activist has a story that deserves to be listened to and learned from, in order to ensure their climate future is secure. Generation Z's climate activism is an important new phenomenon that is changing the landscape of climate activism and has the potential to change or influence policy across many scales. This project characterizes and analyzes climate activists to identify what is necessary to ensure that they have a secure climate future. Results of this thesis suggest that listening to the lived experiences of Generation Z will be crucial in looking towards a stable climate future. Their personal connections to visible effects of climate change, the uncertainty of their futures, their sense of community, their surprising view of older generations, their prioritization of intersectionality and social justice, and their unique sense of empowerment characterize them as a force that cannot be ignored.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, Media and Communication

In 2006, American activist Tarana Burke started the me too movement that helped survivors of sexual assault by telling them that there were other survivors too, and they were not alone. In 2017, Alyssa Milano used the same phrase as a hashtag and called for women to share their experiences of harassment using #metoo, or just use the hashtag to show they have been through something similar. This movement eventually brought about the conviction of former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. However, echoes of this movement reached far and wide, beyond the United States of America. Survivors of assault started using social media to call out what they had been through. This study examines the voice of women on the digital media platforms and how their calling out of sexual harassers on these platforms negotiates with the discourse of shame and guilt surrounding sexual assault. Shame is a prominent emotion associated with sexual assault that finds its space within the larger narrative of silencing women. Survivors often do not report assault for fear of being shamed. In news media, shame is reinforced by way of stock images that show a woman hiding her face or crying for help that accompany stories of sexual assault. Shame could force survivors to keep their trauma to themselves for years, resulting in other psychological issues. Social media intervenes in this. This study looks at three cases in India between 2017 and 2019 where survivors used social media to speak up about how they had been sexually harassed and/or assaulted. Using textual and discourse analysis, the study found that as opposed to portraying survivors in a pitiful light, social media gives the agency to the survivor to decide how they want to be seen. They are able to bypass passive narratives through first-person reporting. This subversion of shame does not necessarily affect the consequences that the accused will face but it focuses on the survivor's needs. The results of this research sugg (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

In 2019, The Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) was voted onto the city charter of Toledo, Ohio. The charter amendment made it possible for citizens of the city of Toledo to sue polluters on behalf of the Lake, effectively giving Lake Erie more standing in court closer to that of legal personhood. A year later, LEBOR was deemed unenforceable by Judge Jack Zouhary, who critiqued it as vague and reaching too far beyond the jurisdiction of Toledo. This dissertation starts from those two critiques, analyzing how LEBOR fell short in 1. specifically connecting to the thousands of years of landscape practices and relations Indigenous residents had developed in the time before the region was colonized and 2. understanding the Lake as a place with a dynamic set of naturecultural relations with deep ties to the watershed and landscape within the jurisdiction of Toledo. This analysis uses theories from spatial rhetoric, placemaking, naturecultural critique, Indigenous scholarship, and postcolonial studies focused on the U.S. to understand why these shortcomings occurred and how future activist composers can possibly benefit from avoiding them. At the center of the analysis is an oral history composed using only the words of the activists in order to ground the work in their more immediate context. The dissertation concludes by evaluating how my analysis of LEBOR can be applied to teaching writing in and outside of the classroom and to scientific research projects that may otherwise be falling short in their connection with the public connected to the knowledge they gather and the organisms and entities they research.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2023, American Culture Studies

Recent research has examined how and why athletes engage in social justice activism, as well as the reactions and impact of such. Framed by feminist cultural studies and informed by Black feminist thought and intersectionality (King, 2018; Collins, 2009; Crenshaw, 1993), I explored the experiences of Black women athletes engaging in social justice activism. A feminist methodological approach (Ramazanoglu & Holland, 2002) guided this inquiry to understand how Black women athletes define social justice activism, their experiences with social justice activism, and their motivations. These Black women athletes shared powerful stories about their activism and the challenges they faced. Twelve Black women athletes participated in semi-structured interviews. These athletes represented six sports at the professional and colligate level. Using open and axial coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) the higher order themes include activism and intersectional identities, everyday activism, challenges, and cultivating a better future. Activism engagement is deeply personal for these Black women athletes given their experiences of adversity and their prescribed status as outsiders within. Because of this status, their activism engagement is largely on a day-to-day basis whereby they recognize the power of speaking up and building social connections. They also use social media as a primary form of everyday activism. A lack of support at the organizational and individual level was reported as a major barrier to their activism engagement, particularly for athletes attending historically White institutions. The cultural expectation for them as Black women to address social inequities was another challenge. Ultimately, motivations driving athletes' activism include their fierce determination and ethic of care to ensure the next generation of Black athletes and Black peers and family members can live safely and freely. As such, these Black women represent a new wave of athlete activism in whic (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2022, English

This dissertation examines the important affective labor of diverse feminist activists and sexual assault survivor advocates and contributes a theory of feminist affective resistance. I define feminist affective resistance as the transformative rhetorics and literacy practices feminists employ to challenge dominant pedagogies of emotion while building toward feminist and survivor-centered futures. In Chapter 1, I situate this dissertation within scholarship on affect, feminist rhetorics, and literacies, establishing how feminist scholars and activists have begun to identify and resist social-emotional scripts. In Chapter 2, I constellate a feminist trauma-informed methodology and introduce my participants and methods. I investigate feminist rhetorical strategies and literacy practices through interviews with eleven feminist activists and an ethnographic case study at a rape crisis center where I have volunteered for three years. In Chapter 3, I describe how feminist activists enact digital tactics of feminist affective resistance while making social media work for them. Participants in this study established feminist affective counterpublics online and carefully navigated the affective burdens of their online activism. In Chapter 4, I investigate the feminist rhetorical pedagogies at the Midwest Rape Crisis Organization (MRCO), including five rhetorical tenets that guide advocate interactions with survivors. MRCO rhetorics and pedagogies help survivors and advocates realign away from discourses of rape culture and toward feminist values of the organization. In Chapter 5, I present MRCO as a literacy sponsor that helps advocates affectively attune with survivors and affectively realign away from vicarious trauma. Literacy practices of MRCO advocates include reading to believe, writing to process, and gathering to heal. In Chapter 6, I review four lessons of feminist affective resistance, including the importance of rhetorical affective education. I conclude this diss (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2019, Environmental Studies

Hydraulic fracturing is an environmental justice issue in Appalachia, particularly when it comes to the siting of waste fluid injection wells. Athens County, Ohio, is home to 8 injection wells that are actively receiving waste fluid from hydraulic fracturing. These wells pose threats to environmental and community health. This project: 1) documents risk perceptions of people living near the wells and 2) addresses the viability of inexpensive environmental monitoring technology for citizens to use. Through a risk perception survey sent to communities with and without oil and gas waste fluid injection wells in Athens County, citizens addressed their concerns about hydraulic fracturing. Some respondents discussed how hydraulic fracturing is disrupting their sense of place and raised concerns about environmental and human health issues. Others spoke to the economic and political benefits from hydraulic fracturing. This highlights contradictory perceptions and contention in these communities. Low-cost water quality monitoring devices that can collect and transmit data in remote areas may be able to address citizens' concerns about pollution and alleviate scientists' concerns about the legitimacy of citizen-collected data. Citizen science can be one tool to address citizens' water quality concerns and address environmental injustice in Appalachian oil and gas communities such as Athens.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2019, History

This is a case study of student activism in the 1960s at Bowling Green State University, located in Northwestern Ohio, that contributes to the growing historiography of student activism at non-elite state institutions. This study complicates the national narrative of student activism, which asserts that student activism was generally violent, radical, and largely restricted to elite universities. By examining student activism at BGSU, this study demonstrates that student activism was present at non-elite public universities and also introduces the concept of “educational activism,” a method of activism that focused on inclusive exploration of contemporary issues rather than radical violence. Prior to 1970, students and administrators established open channels of communication and formed an educational model of activism through the efforts of three areas of activism: the student power movement, the antiwar movement, and the Black student movement. The conservative nature of the university and its administration restricted radical and violent protest, which forced students to address their concerns non-violently. Student activists communicated with administrators to address their concerns and together they established a legacy of peaceful educational activism that mitigated the need for violent protest. Their efforts culminated in the formation of the New University, a series of teach-ins created following the Kent State Shootings. These teach-ins gave students agency in their education, allowed them to analyze contemporary issues, and explore topics that were non-existent in the university curriculum. As a result of the New University, BGSU faced no violent protest and was the only residential state university to remain open in Ohio following the Kent State Shootings.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2016, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

Women's environmental activism prior to the early 1960s in America focused on women's roles as municipal housekeepers or emphasized wilderness conservation. I offer in this dissertation the story of the Illinois Prairie Path, the country's first rails-to-trails conversion to apply for National Recreation Trail status, and the innovative women who fought for nature preservation in a suburban setting rather than in a wilderness area. Led by renowned writer and naturalist, May Theilgaard Watts, these women built support for the public footpath project by fostering an ecological awareness throughout their region. I place them in the tradition of Chicago female reformers as a bridge between women of the Progressive Era and members of the modern environmental movement. My aim in this research is to show the ways in which May Theilgaard Watts and the Illinois Prairie Path founders cultivated a new post-wilderness era model of environmental thinking through their emphasis on the restoration of a suburban open space. These women scientists and naturalists worked for democratic equality through ecological restoration and access to nature. Through an interdisciplinary focus on ecocriticism, the politics of place, and the history of the suburban landscape, specifically in Chicago's metropolis, I examine how these women redefined space by linking communities across a region. By analyzing the documents, letters, speeches, and photos generated by founding leaders of The Illinois Prairie Path not-for-profit corporation, I demonstrate that this community of women challenged the hierarchies of the day. Their vision for conservation and connecting people to nature continues to serve as a model for the future of the Illinois Prairie Path and other rails-to- trails conversions.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2016, American Culture Studies

The contemporary debate over safe space has inspired a multitude of news editorials, blog posts, and passionate commentary, presented along a hard binary of proponents and opponents. Defenders of safe space strategies, including trigger warnings and call-outs contend that these practices benefit a larger social justice project, while opponents insist they reiterate past political correctness movements and constitute censorship. This project strives to situate the contemporary safe space debate within a broader historical and critical context through a textual analysis of the defenses and critiques published between 2011 and 2016. It considers three key themes that recur in that discourse, namely the belief that safe space takes identity politics to an extreme, the belief that safe space strategies create a population of hypersensitive victims, and the belief that calls for safe space constitute a form of violence or policing. Each of these themes is examined in comparison with another safety project, (e.g. women's-only spaces, domestic violence shelters, and public safety or policing). This method complicates the deterministic view of the contemporary safe space movement as a result of the rise in social media. It also challenges the binary that links safe space with progressive politics and opposition to safe space with conservatism. Ultimately, it allows for insights gleaned from the examination of previous safety projects to inform recommendations for effectively pursuing safety as a social justice aim.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, EDU Teaching and Learning

Informed by a critical multicultural framework, this research explores how youth raise awareness, critique inequitable structures, and engage in an array of social justice work. Two research major questions that guide this project are as follows: How do students create youth activist narratives using social justice experiences? What do students' reflections about the narrative writing process reveal about why they engage in social justice work? In order to answer these questions, I used critical narrative inquiry as I entered a ninth-grade World Humanities classroom at Justice High School for a ten-month qualitative study. In the Humanities classroom, I focused on how students developed social justice projects on a variety of contemporary injustices (e.g., human sex trafficking, domestic violence, discrimination against LGBTQI youth, gentrification) and explored how youth came to understand, speak, and write about social inequities and injustices as well as how they position themselves as advocates, allies, and/or activists. Through thematic analysis of their Capstone Project, I analyzed how four girls used stories to engage in socially just activist practices. The narratives that emerged from this work can offer insight into how K-20 classrooms can foster partnerships that generate transformative, activist curricular engagements. I propose that major implications of this dissertation research will ultimately impact theoretical, methodological, and praxis-oriented understandings of teaching, learning, and sustaining socially just partnerships.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2012, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

Hip Hop culture has been an influential force on the social fabric of the United States and abroad for nearly forty years (Rose, 1994 & 2008; Dyson, 2007; Light, 2005). Its praxis as an agent of social change has been inextricably connected to movements of empowerment for countless youth who embrace hip hop (Bynoe, 2004; Chang, 2004; Kitwana, 2002). This study explores its Afro-Diasporic, activist origins, and the origins of activist organization Hip Hop Congress, as well as the theoretical impact of hip hop culture on the identity and pedagogy of educators affiliated with the Urban Teachers Network. Currently, hip hop education is being taught in nearly every discipline and subject in the K-16 pipeline (Duncan & Morrell, 2008), with very little assessment of its effect on student performance and equally limited analysis of educator's role of its implementation. The results of this study will acknowledge the efforts of the Urban Teachers Network to connect educators who utilize hip hop pedagogy and evaluate the effect of their efforts while chronicling the activist role of Hip Hop Congress.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Psychology

When people develop activist identities they are more likely to engage in activism on behalf of a group or ideal, but what causes people to take on these consequential identities is not well-understood. In this dissertation, I examine how people start to think of themselves as activists after performing a single activist behavior. Three studies tested the effects of experiencing regulatory fit or non-fit while signing an environmentally friendly petition on the extent to which people felt like environmental activists. In Chapter 2, results from Study 1 showed that people who experienced regulatory non-fit felt more like environmental activists than people who experienced regulatory fit. Results from Study 2 showed the same pattern among people who had previously signed a petition on behalf of an environmental cause. In Chapter 3, I propose that people who feel committed to a cause will use that information to interpret the meaning of regulatory fit and non-fit, leading to different interpretations of their behavior than people who do not feel committed. Study 3 included a manipulation of commitment. Results showed that among people in the commitment condition who signed the petition, those who experienced non-fit felt more like environmental activists than those who experienced fit. Together, these studies suggest that preexisting beliefs about the self influence how people interpret the experiences of regulatory fit and non-fit, with implications for identity. In Chapter 4, I discuss implications for regulatory focus theory, the development of identities outside the domain of activism, and a more general model of inferring self-perceptions from behavior.

Bachelor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2010, School Of Interdisciplinary Studies - Interdisciplinary Studies

This project looks at the convergence of trends in craft and blogging to evaluate its potential as a platform for activism. As the craft movement has evolved away from the rigid boundaries of its past, a subculture of young women and men have embraced craft for its Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethics. A vast network of makers in and outside the U.S. comprises the indie craft movement, which channels ideas about sustainable living, anti-consumerism and the feminist reclamation of domesticity into handmade objects. The indie craft movement springs from the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s and is enhanced by a succession of new Internet technologies. Blogging's rise to ubiquity in the past decade provides indie crafters in disparate locations with disparate craft knowledge the ability to connect online. Craft blogs offer tutorials, inspiration and advice to their followers. The craft blogosphere's power lies in its ability to connect people through mutual creativity, making it an ideal platform for craft-related activism, or craftivism. Craft blogging offers crafters a forum for collaborative or replicable projects that can raise awareness about a cause or invoke action to end unjust practices. Craftivism blogs lead to meaningful change in a community when engaged bloggers share information. Therefore, this project includes a reflection on creating the blog Craftivista, which features craftivism-related speakers, events and projects in the area around Oxford, Ohio.

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2010, English

In the past twenty years, the field of feminist rhetoric has fully emerged (Campbell; Glenn; Hollis; Johnson; Lunsford; Mattingly; Miller and Bridwell-Bowles; Mountford; Ratcliffe; Ritchie and Ronald; Royster; Wilson Logan), offering students of rhetoric a more complete vision of women's history as rhetoricians. That said, more recently scholars have identified absences within the field of women's rhetoric, noting that our studies have been too narrowly centered on Western women (Schell) and too interested in individual women instead of their organizations (Sharer). Further, the emerging field of transnational feminism and its connections to feminist rhetoric (Dingo; Hesford; Queen) asks us to address the transnational connections between gender, power, and context. As Eileen E. Schell writes in Teaching Rhetorica, “more work needs to be done to fully engage the challenge of theorizing and practicing feminist rhetorics in an increasing globalized world” (165). My research draws upon these fields to inform my analysis of activists who situate themselves at intersections of women's and peace rhetorics. I analyze women peace activists who have been largely overlooked by rhetorical studies. Also, I historicize the tradition of women's peace activism by connecting earliest known efforts and methods to strategies used by women peace activists today. Furthermore, I argue that women peace activists both draw upon and subvert patriarchal, essentialist positions in their attempts to reach audiences and create change. To those ends, I study rhetorical strategies of women peace activists, roughly from 1914, when feminist peace activists first gained a unified voice, to the present. I provide a rhetorical study of women's peace activism that draws on diverse contexts and rhetorical strategies, including print and online primary materials. Ultimately, I argue that the women in my study both embody the gendered positions expected of them and complicate those positions to disru (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Political Science

In three papers, this dissertation challenges the ideology of military service by developing a critical theory of the military with a focus on labor alienation, affective attachments to violence, and the potential of anti-war narratives and activism to disalienate soldiers and lead to more reciprocal relationalities with civilians and the world at large. I first theorize the different forms of affective attachments that soldiers develop to martial violence, explaining how those attachments are supported or disrupted by discourses of military service and martial labor. To supplement my account of affective attachments, I address and expands theories of alienation to contend with the question of martial labor alienation and the specificities of this phenomenon among soldiers. I then turn to the antiwar G.I. Movement to argue that martial disalienation requires centering the material and structural character of martial labor, which encourages relations of transnational solidarity and political responsibility. Thus, I offer an integrated account of how militarism and the notion of military service obscures both the role of the U.S. military in the world and the effects over the subjectivity of soldiers and their estrangement from communities at home and abroad.

PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies

This action research study honors teacher-as-researcher and utilizes qualitative methods of data collection alongside emergent design to study arts-integrated teaching and learning at a mid-sized Midwestern university in a social studies methods course. The thinking and learning of both pre-service teachers and the teacher educator/researcher are analyzed using constructivist grounded theory, constant comparative and art-based methods. Findings offer a holistic view of teaching and learning including: 1) pre-service teachers' learning experiences as developing social studies classroom teachers and arts-integrated learners to expand capacity in order to see and think differently, communicate and express their thinking and learning diversely, and to engage challenges and discomfort divergently within alternative, transformative pedagogical practices; and 2) the teacher educator/researcher's learning experiences to expand capacity in developing a meta-teaching action plan toward teaching the arts-integrated social studies methods course and altering the process of the dialectic action research spiral within action research to become the dialectic action research lemniscate. Implications relevant in social studies teacher education and secondary social studies education include, transformative learning experiences and expanded capacity for pre-service teachers as they developed altered perspectives about arts-integrated teaching and learning as well as teaching civics/citizenship and engaging civic issues of equity and justice in the social studies and the early development of a partial framework for arts-integrated teaching and learning in social studies education. Implications germane to action research methodology reside in modifying the process of the dialectic action research spiral in offering the expanded capacity of the dialectic action research lemniscate as an alternative recursive process for action researchers.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Theatre

Over the past decade, especially in the United States, there has been a significant increase in what has commonly come to be known as athlete activism. Examples of this phenomenon include such moments as Colin Kaepernick's anthem protest in the National Football League (NFL) and the campaign for pay equality undertaken by the United States Women's National Team (USWNT). Though these examples, and many others like them, have affected important and tangible social change, there are many in the United States who claim that the practice of sport activism only serves to unnecessarily politicize the realm of sport. Opponents of sport activism often argue that sport should be kept separated from more serious matters such as pressing social and political issues. However, this argument is predicated on the assumption that sport is inherently apolitical or that it somehow exists independently of societal structures, which is demonstrably false. In “Finding Hope at the Arena: A Performance Studies Approach to Sport,” I make use of performance studies frameworks to investigate sport as a meaning-making mode of live performance with utopian potentiality. Using performance scholar Jill Dolan's theorization of the utopian performative as a theoretical framework, I examine several key moments and eras in United States sport history to interrogate the notion that sport is, or ever has been, separate from social and political issues. Through archival and performance analysis methods of research, I interrogate the ways in which sport, as a genre of live performance, produces myriad utopian visions of the country that often serve to uphold or critique the dominant social order. Moreover, I imagine this study as a step towards what I call a model of utopian sport spectatorship. Utopian sport spectatorship facilitates a form of engagement with sport similar to that of a theatrical production. In this model of spectatorship, participants, both those involved in the aspects of athletic c (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, American Culture Studies

This dissertation is an intervention into the sociocultural imaginaries surrounding New York City in the late 1960's to the early 1980's. Through the implementation of biographical, social art histories, textual and visual analyses, I bring to light the visual narratives created, directed, and administered for and by the immigrant communities of NYC's Lower East Side. Focusing on the alternative art scene, the dissertation discusses the critical role of the visual arts in the fight for community self-determination and voice. I achieve this by analyzing grassroots arts and culture initiatives spearheaded by the Puerto Rican community of Loisaida and student-based movements in Chinatown. To shed light onto the instrumental role of arts activism for communities, I delve into print media, public art, and architecture projects, demonstrating how the initiatives fostered a critical consciousness around communities' ethnic, racial, and cultural identities. From the arts and cultural collective Charas and their geodesic dome project which galvanized a consciousness around community and place, to the newsletter, The Quality of Life in Loisaida, which harnessed expression to unify residents under a mutual struggle, to the muralism movement in Chinatown in which artists inspired an awareness around Asian American identity and activism, to the publication, Bridge: The Magazine of Asians in America which fostered a diverse array of expressions, as the dissertation demonstrates, the arts were instrumental in developing strong, independent, and successful communities. Harnessing the productive, intellectual, and creative potential of themselves and their neighbors, the efforts put forth by these arts activists, highlight the seminal role of local arts and culture programing in transforming residents into activists and neighborhoods into communities.