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

Everyone can relate to hearing stories about our changing world. Yet far fewer people ask how these stories change depending on where in the world they are told. Indeed, many ignore the wicked problem caused by garbage, and focus on narratives from the global North. This study aims to combat this by comparing the narratives of the global North and the global South through a decolonizing methodology. Specific groups from the global South include Indigenous American peoples, Aboriginal Australian peoples, as well as Bangladeshi and neighboring cultures. Specific groups from the global North include Americans and Canadians. To highlight these narratives, the art of storytelling is employed, focusing on scientific knowledge, Indigenous knowledge, narratives from fiction and documentary, and personal storytelling as sources to illustrate these points. The use of garbage as a commodity that intersects with cultural, social, and political influences is also explored. Issues of environmental justice and how it intersects with racism and colonialism to fuel the garbage crisis are investigated. The relationship between Indigeneity and garbage, along with traditional ecological knowledge, is another topic explored and expounded upon. Garbage as a wicked problem is analyzed through narratives, seeking a deeper understanding of its consequences, with a particular focus on how storytelling and wisdom may point to a way out of the crisis. This dissertation introduces the concept of the “Plasticocene,” a term coined within this study to encapsulate the era where plastic waste has become a defining feature of our environmental and cultural landscapes. This term highlights the pervasive influence of plastic pollution on global ecosystems and human societies, offering a critical lens through which to analyze the contemporary garbage crisis and potential sources of garbage justice. Through rigorous analysis of policy, literature, and cultural texts, this study contributes to a nuanced (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Amílcar Challú Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Amy Morgan Ph.D. (Other); Lara Lengel Ph.D. (Committee Member); Amy Robinson Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Environmental Justice; Environmental Studies

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2024, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

The legacy of colonialism has created a modern-day reality where Indigenous populations of the United States (US) experience mental, physical, and emotional distress at disproportionately higher rates than other cultural groups in the country. Increased distress translates to an increased need for supportive services. Because the field of Western Psychology is based in colonialistic EuroWestern worldviews which positions that worldview as superior, Indigenous clients and communities have often experienced further harm in their encounters with mental health services. In recent decades, there has been increasing attention to adapting research, training, academic and clinical work in ways that are culturally appropriate for diverse populations. Native American/Alaska Native groups are rarely accounted for in these efforts and cultural adaptation in general does not go far enough to account for culturally grounded worldviews and psychologies. Native American/Alaska Native therapists bring a unique and valuable insider point of view to formulation and application of culturally appropriate services for Indigenous clients that is grounded in Indigenous Psychology. Employing a Critical Constructivist Grounded Theory approach, semi-structured interviews were conducting with seven Indigenous clinicians who provide services and advocate for Native American/Alaska Native communities. They generously provided insight into the challenges of working within a EuroWestern based system of mental health and specific ways their expertise informs adaptation of their services. They v shared the ways they adapt their work with Indigenous clients and communities, providing protective and advocacy functions within all facets of the Western mental health field and society in general. This research conceptualizes their work as a method for restoring relationships and connections with Indigeneity, which have been disrupted by historical and ongoing genocide, discrimination, and marginalizati (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jude Bergkamp (Committee Chair); Michael Sakuma (Committee Member); Arthur Blume (Committee Member); Melissa Kennedy (Advisor) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Counseling Psychology; Ethnic Studies; Mental Health; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Native American Studies; Psychology

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2023, Leadership and Change

There is a paucity of theorizing concerning leadership enactments performed by African American women. The performances have been marginalized and obscured within the Western leadership canon as they fall outside its epistemological boundaries; they have also been sidelined within Critical Leadership Studies. This study employed Afrocentricity as a decolonizing paradigm and Africology as the research methodology to describe and define a leadership phenomenon enacted by African American women. Setting aside Western conceptions of leadership, focus groups of African American women examined video excerpts of Africana women's oral performances through an Africological lens. Participants' Afrocentric-oriented perceptions sparked collective storytelling and Meaning-Making regarding their lived experiences of African American women who mobilize and energize others employing spiritually-anchored, embodied, affective approaches to engagement. Centering the African American women's culturally distinct ways of being, knowing, and doing, the participants' collective narratives were used to identify the four elements of the leadership phenomenon which included: spirituality, knowing, orality, and embodiment. A framework emerged from the data reflecting the interconnected, interrelated, interdependent, Afro-circular dynamism of the enactment's elements and their characteristics; it served as the foundational architecture upon which to construct a theory of Empowered Presence, a culturally-distinct, spiritually-anchored, holistically-embodied performance of galvanizing, mobilizing, and engaging others within the collective. This study not only expands Western leadership theorizing but provides the groundwork for Afrocentric researchers to enhance decolonizing approaches to investigate African American women's leadership within a Africological methodological framework. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu/) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https:/ (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Donna Ladkin PhD (Committee Chair); Philomena Essed PhD (Committee Member); Chellie Spiller PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; Communication; Gender Studies; Spirituality; Womens Studies

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2022, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

The 1961 Campana de la Alfabetizacion (CLC) [Cuban Literacy Campaign] looms large in the Cuban historical imagination as a moment of transformation, sacrifice, and triumph. Yet, until recently, the unique aspects of the CLC that made it a national success were in danger of being forgotten, thus losing its potential as a model for future ways to mobilize a nation toward an important social goal. The primary objectives of this project were to: (1) expand the scope of the discourse to include a much larger range of lived experiences; (2) collect and preserve lived experiences as shared by the teachers themselves; (3) create a bilingual, digital, community archive, composed of oral interviews, participant ephemera, and survey data; and (4) facilitate access to this data for both public and private scholars. This research examined public history by applying a decolonizing lens to research tools that integrated oral interviews, surveys, short responses, artifact collection, and archival research. Prior research focused on a narrow segment of CLC participants, the urban youth who traveled into impoverished rural areas without running water, electricity, or beds to teach illiterate adults how to read. My approach builds on previous research to include a wider array of teachers who were equally effective in eradicating illiteracy in Cuba. I analyzed conflicting statistics regarding the CLC and provided an explanation of the discrepancies. This research employs decolonizing research methodologies by implementing a culturally responsive, reflexive approach to the research collection and collaboration. Alfabetizadores (teachers) helped shape the interview and survey questions and interviewed each other. Participants continue to assist in curating a digital collection of ephemera, survey data, and oral interviews that will be accessible to the public.

Committee: Alesia Maltz PhD (Committee Chair); Elizabeth McCann PhD (Committee Member); Catherine Murphy MS (Committee Member); Malinda Wade PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Caribbean Studies; Education; Environmental Studies; History; Latin American History; Latin American Studies; Literacy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Art Education

This study examines how select aspects of art and practice are apprehended in Singapore, in terms of how they come into being, how they are known, lived and responded to. Situated within the broader context of postcolonial globalization, the study considers how art and practice can be understood within situated conditions in Singapore as a means towards decolonizing the pre-constitution of subjectivity of Singapore art in the curriculum. This qualitative research uses grounded theory, Adele Clark's situational analysis (2005) and case study to examine the interviews and works of six art/design practitioners. The work draws on concepts from Karen Barad's theory on the materialization of entities in human and non-human actions and relations (2007), Michel Foucault's grid of intelligibility (1971; 1978), and Appadurai's disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy (1990). Using these concepts, the study considers how subjectivities are made intelligible or constituted within physical-discursive conditions in phenomena. The research investigates how practitioners come to know aspects of art and practice; how they experience, enact, and act against pre-existing subjectivities embedded in structures of practice; and how they respond to these structures in and through their work. The study examines how art/design practitioners traverse and transgress pre-existing subjectivities, and reconfigured these dynamically through splicing strategies in their ongoing becoming in the global cultural economy.

Committee: Christine Ballengee-Morris Dr (Committee Co-Chair); Deborah Smith-Shank Dr (Committee Co-Chair); Sydney Walker Dr (Committee Member); Amy Shuman Dr (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Curriculum Development; Education; Education Philosophy; Education Policy; Educational Tests and Measurements; Epistemology; Ethics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, Art Education

This study considers the collaborative processes developed in creating a Web site with the Colors and Creations cooperative of artists in Cajamarca, Peru. Working through a participatory action research methodology, the study employed autoethnographic methods, “make” sessions and narrative research facilitating the emergence of participant stories about the collaborative process. These participants include nine artists from Cajamarca, Peru; Lisa Fousek, an undergraduate Visual Communications and Design student; anonymous Web users from the United States and Peru; and myself as researcher. Additional collaborators include Web Developer Brian Hill and Research Assistant Ryan Johnston. The study is grounded in critical and postcolonial theories and decolonizing methods that set the stage for the collaborative process. After reconsidering literature on non-governmental organizations' work with indigenous populations, exporters, entrepreneurs, businesses, and Fair Trade organizations working with artists in Peru, I review similar studies conducted in other developing nations and projects using participatory action research. Based on empirical observation, field notes, participant's journals, surveys, interviews and “make” sessions, several significant themes emerged; those revolving around issues of trust within the group, international economic policy issues (dis)serving the development of direct trade with artists through online selling, challenges surrounding international shipping, and language. Recommendations for future research and imagined subsequent studies could further knowledge about grass-roots development and advance the cause of social justice, cultural survival and economic sustainability. This study served the self-defined needs of participating artists as we collectively created a Web site through which customers can learn about traditional Peruvian culture, craft techniques and products. A byproduct of the study was my developing a deeper understand (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: James Sanders PhD (Committee Chair); Patricia Stuhr PhD (Committee Member); Karen Hutzel PhD (Committee Member); Palazzi Maria (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Fine Arts; Multicultural Education; Native Studies; Social Research