Master of Arts, Miami University, 2018, English

This thesis argues that the emergence of the reproductive justice (RJ) framework in reproductive politics not only shifted activist strategies and discourses, but also fostered the emergence and circulation of more complex abortion representations in U.S. popular culture. I examine these (still)-emergent counter-hegemonic reproductive justice abortion counternarratives as potentially transformational interventions in both RJ theory and activist practice. Chapter 1 introduces my project and highlights the differences between the “pro-choice” and reproductive justice frameworks. In Chapter 2, I outline RJ's theoretical foundations, analyze its historical emergence in reproductive politics, and juxtapose how abortion is represented in dominant cultural discourses vs. emerging RJ counterdiscourses through a comparative analysis of the abortion plotlines in Joan Didion's Play it as it Lays and Alice Walker's Meridian. Chapter 3 traces the post-Roe trends of abortion representations on television, and the last decade's shift towards more counter-hegemonic representations, analyzing abortion plotlines from television shows including Scandal, Shameless, and Black Mirror through the RJ framework. Finally, through a brief examination of abortion storytelling campaigns in ongoing RJ advocacy efforts, Chapter 4 frames the emergence of RJ counternarratives as a vital component of RJ movement strategies and an urgent intervention into dominant cultural discourses of abortion.

Committee: Stefanie Dunning Dr. (Committee Chair); Mary Jean Corbett Dr. (Committee Member); Madelyn Detloff Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Literature; American Studies; Comparative; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Literature; Rhetoric; Womens Studies

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2010, Leadership and Change

This dissertation is a mixed methods sequential study on the factors that sustain U.S. women's life-long peace and social justice activism. The specific cohort of women sought for this study was those who entered their social justice activism during the late 1950s through the early 1970s and were active in the U.S. civil rights struggles, the anti-Vietnam war movement, or participated in the second phase of the women's liberation movement. Through utilizing a snowballing process, fifty-seven participants were obtained for the quantitative survey phase of the study from which the ten participants (five White, five women of Color) were selected for the qualitative or interview stage. Based on the survey and interview data, four factors emerged as sustaining life-long peace and social justice activism: historical perspective, relationships, gender and race, and having a personal spiritual belief. The study also offers definitions for activist, social justice, long-term (or life-long), explains how peace is looked at herein, and briefly addresses adult development, feminist standpoint, and essentialist theories. This study begins to fill the gap in research on social justice and peace activist by including women, focusing on sustainability factors, and by extending the concept of life-long or long-term activism. Further research opportunities are suggested as this study is an entry into the subject matter, along with some suggestions to current and future peace and social justice activists on how to sustain their activism for the long haul. The study concludes with some personal reflections. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Committee: Laurien Alexandre PhD (Committee Chair); Jon Wergin PhD (Committee Member); Philomena Essed PhD (Committee Member); Bettina Aptheker PhD (Other) Subjects: Gender; Psychology; Social Research; Womens Studies

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2010, Leadership and Change

On December 14, 1957, after winning the Nobel Prize for literature, Albert Camus challenged artists attending a lecture at the University of Uppsala in Sweden to create dangerously. Even though Camus never defined what he meant by his charge, throughout history, artists involved in movements of protest, resistance, and liberation have answered Camus' call. Quite often, the consequences were costly, resulting in imprisonment, censorship, torture, and death. This dissertation examines the question of what it means to create dangerously by using Camus' challenge to artists as a starting point. The study then turns its attention to two artists, Augusto Boal and Ngugi wa Thiong'o, who were detained, tortured, and imprisoned because they boldly defied the dominant power structure. Lastly, the research focuses on a group of front-line artists, the Mississippi Caravan of Music, involved in the contemporary struggle for civil rights in the United States. The individual artists and the artist group represented in the dissertation are from different parts of the globe and were involved in acts of rebellion, resistance, revolt, or revolution at varying points in history. Portraiture, a form of narrative inquiry, is the research method employed in the dissertation. The qualitative approach pioneered by Harvard scholar Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot “combines systematic, empirical description with aesthetic expression, blending art and science,humanistic sensibilities and scientific rigor” (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 3). The dissertation extrapolates concepts from the traditional literature and expands the boundaries to make room for a more integrated understanding of social change, art, and transformational leadership from the bottom up. Artists and artist groups who create dangerously is an area often overlooked in the field. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd

Committee: Jon Wergin PhD (Committee Chair); Laurien Alexandre PhD (Committee Member); Philomena Essed PhD (Committee Member); Stewart Burns PhD (Other) Subjects: Adult Education; African Americans; African History; African Literature; American History; American Studies; Black History; History; Latin American History; Literacy; Music; Sociology; Theater

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

This dissertation connects the recent DEIB movement within organizations to larger social justice movements, specifically those that impact workers and the workplace. Critical human resource development (CHRD) professionals, who serve as “insider activists”, are highlighted due to their work to continue movement objectives within organizations. Through testimonios and critical platicas, this study explores how Black and Latino/x LGBTQ+ CHRD professionals, in particular, are experiencing the workplace, especially as it relates to their engagement with how DEIB is practiced within organizations. Through this study, these professionals provide insights into the ways that workplaces can be redesigned and reimagined to be more critically conscious and equitable spaces, especially for those from marginalized backgrounds. Their reflections can work to enhance the ways that DEIB is practiced within organizations. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Committee: Philomena Essed PhD (Committee Chair); Lemuel Watson EdD (Committee Member); Kia Darling-Hammond PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Black Studies; Ethnic Studies; Gender Studies; Glbt Studies; Hispanic American Studies; Hispanic Americans; Management; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Organizational Behavior

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Environment and Natural Resources

Is urban agriculture a ‘real utopia' (Wright 2010)? In other words, does urban agriculture provide a viable solution to inequalities within the dominant industrial agri-food system? Urban agriculture is part of an alternative food movement that aims to solve social and environmental problems created by industrial agriculture. Urban agriculture organizations frequently embrace food justice goals such as racial equity and improved food access for people with low-income. Research has found benefits associated with urban agriculture, including improved nutrition and increased food security (Audate et al. 2019) and opportunities for community development (Ilieva et al. 2022). However, scholars also criticize urban agriculture for failing to challenge the underlying values and economic system that support industrial agriculture (Davidson 2017; McClintock 2014). This dissertation furthers critical research into urban agriculture and other alternative food system strategies by examining to what extent urban agriculture in Ohio provides benefits that are equitable. First, I use a geocoded dataset of 426 urban agriculture sites to test the relationship between a count of urban agriculture sites in each of the 1,895 census tracts within an urbanized area in Ohio and tract demographics, measures of food access, vacant housing, gentrification, and historic redlining. I find a positive association between more urban agriculture sites and a higher proportion of Black residents, and a negative association with low food access designation. These findings challenge representations of urban agriculture as pervasively White and raise questions about the role food access rhetoric plays in establishing urban farms and community gardens. Additionally, I find a positive association between a higher number of urban agriculture sites, specifically urban farms, and gentrification. Second, I present case studies of two urban agriculture organizations in gentrifying neighborhoods in Columbus (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kerry Ard (Committee Chair); Linda Lobao (Committee Member); Shoshanah Inwood (Committee Member); Jill Clark (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; Environmental Justice; Sociology

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2023, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

Climate change affects everyone but lack of racial diversity in the climate movement makes it challenging for it to be truly inclusive, champion solutions that are equitable, and affect transformative change. This dissertation describes a two-part study of diversity in the climate movement using a survey of 1,003 climate activists and interviews with 17 people of color who work or volunteer in the U.S. climate movement. The study analyzes differences between Whites and people of color in terms of their (a) demographics, (b) engagement in climate action, (c) experience of climate impacts, (d) worries, (e) challenges and barriers to participation, and (f) proposed strategies for diversity, equity, and belonging. My research provides the following takeaways: (a) Progress has been made in terms of diversity in the U.S. climate movement, but diversity is insufficient without equity belonging. (b) Anti-racism must go beyond symbolic gestures towards deep transformation at the individual, interpersonal, institutional, and systemic levels. (c) Oppression is intersectional, with racism intersecting with other oppressions of gender, age, class, physical ability, among other identities. (d) People of color and those with marginalized identities contribute essential perspectives and skills to the climate movement. The discussion includes implications for theory, practice, and further study.

Committee: Abigail Abrash Walton Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Jason Rhodes Ph.D. (Committee Member); Carolyn Finney Ph.D. (Committee Member); Marcelo Bonta (Committee Member) Subjects: Climate Change; Demographics; Environmental Justice; Environmental Studies; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

The emergence of a nationwide transgender community in the United States is popularly understood as a new phenomenon. However, a small but growing body of scholarship demonstrates that transgender communities have long existed and played important roles in shaping changing conceptions of sex and gender, as well as color and race. Historians Joanne Meyerowitz and Susan Stryker describe the emergence of transgender communities following World War II, centering their accounts in large coastal cities. Coalitions at the Crossroads: Midwestern Trans Movements, 1945-2000 adds significantly to this research by documenting the lives and political mobilizations of transgender people in the Post-War Midwest, focusing on transgender women of color and the role of transphobia in maintaining racialized hierarchies. Using oral history interviews to contextualize cultural and archival sources, I chart the history of transgender movements as lived by transgender people and expressed in writing, art, and performance. I argue that, in contrast to activists in California and New York, transgender people in the Midwest formed long-lasting coalitions with lesbians and the women's movement based on shared feminist principles. In response to violence and geographic dispersal, transgender Midwesterners organized distinctive regional networks and participated in both gay cultural spaces and Third World mobilizations. Midwestern transgender feminist coalitions contributed significantly to the shift from a “gay and lesbian” movement to a national LGBT political consciousness. Coalitions at the Crossroads disputes the assumption that transgender women are newcomers to feminism, demonstrating that their movements have long been intertwined with larger feminist and racial justice struggles.

Committee: Daniel Rivers (Committee Co-Chair); Treva Lindsey (Advisor); Jian Chen (Committee Member); Guisela Latorre (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; History; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Environment and Natural Resources

What accounts for disaster mobilization in marginalized communities? Under what conditions do social movement organizations devote or redirect their limited resources to support the goal of another organization or movement? How do academics engage in disaster research without perpetuating colonial, extractivist practices? In this dissertation, I explore these questions through a study centered on #JustRecovery agroecological mobilization in Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria. I use a mixed-methods approach incorporating: participant observation, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and content analysis of digital and archival data which I thematically coded and analyzed. In an act of solidarity, I also volunteered on agroecological farms throughout Puerto Rico, participated in brigades rebuilding farms, and connected with various organizations promoting the expansion of agroecology across the island. I begin the dissertation by explaining my decision to pivot from positivist epistemology to critical qualitative research as a means to engage ethically with frontline communities. Second, I support the claims of coloniality expressed by #JustRecovery organizers and the people of Puerto Rico through a historical political economic analysis of agrarian change to explain how the archipelago's modern failed food-system is a byproduct of U.S. colonial rule. Third, I apply a social movement lens to the Our Power Puerto Rico #Just Recovery movement to make the case that disasters merit greater attention in social movement theory, and also to explain the convergence of agroecology and food justice, climate justice, and environmental justice movements using theories of frame alignment, collective identity, and psychological distance. I then draw from the collective agency and community resilience framework to explain the processes of scaling-up agroecology to promote climate resilient, sustainable communities. Using interviews from activists and farmers on the island, I conclude (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kerry Ard (Advisor); Eric Toman (Committee Member); Kendra McSweeney (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; Caribbean Studies; Climate Change; Environmental Justice; Environmental Studies; Epistemology; Latin American History; Social Research; Sociology

BA, Oberlin College, 2021, Politics

This paper aims to trace the development of carceral feminist politics within United States institutions and feminist movements. I first define and describe Modern Carceral Feminism. I then argue that the development of Modern Carceral Feminism hinged on two different political moments: the development of a homogenous understanding of women's oppression in the second wave feminist movement, and the rising political salience of racialized crime leading to punitive policies nationwide in the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. As a result, carceral feminist logics became pervasive within institutional and feminist activism against sexual violence. By the 1980s, reactionary feminist anti-violence movements, like the anti-rape movement and the battered women's movement, relied on mostly punitive enforcement and policing. This tradition expanded with federal action against the so-called "campus rape epidemic” solidifying the domination of carceral feminist approaches in the 2010s. I end by highlighting a different kind of feminism, abolition feminism, coined by activist and legal scholar Angela Y. Davis. Learning from Black and POC-led abolition feminist organizations, I find that there are three key elements to activism that works to reduce both interpersonal violence as well as the violence caused by the carceral state.

Committee: M. David Forrest (Advisor); Kristina Mani (Committee Member); Cortney L. Smith (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology; Gender Studies; History; Political Science; Social Research

BA, Oberlin College, 2020, Environmental Studies

This study seeks to compare grassroots organizing efforts against two different fracked gas pipelines. Rooting my analysis in the theory of social movements, I focus on the role of the ideological grounding of the resistance movements, the composition of resistance coalitions formed, and the tactics and strategies employed in opposition to these pipelines. I find that a broad-based coalition with a focus on relationship-building is important to the success of the movement. Additionally, I determine that the presence and involvement of small, medium, and large nonprofits as well as the use of direct action strongly contribute to the success of anti-pipeline movements. These insights are useful for those working to build successful resistance movements against the fossil fuel and extractive industries. This investigation adds to our understanding of grassroots movements, environmental justice praxis, and left politics in practice.

Committee: Swapna Pathak (Committee Chair); Christie Parris (Committee Member); Baron L. Pineda (Committee Member) Subjects: Climate Change; Comparative; Energy; Environmental Justice; Environmental Studies; Sociology

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2020, Sociology

This study explores environmental justice at the point where it intersects with public policy and practices regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) justice through analysis of social movement building in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This research helps to better understand the interaction between LGBTQ and environmental movements and determine how social movement organizations (SMOs) within these movements can work more collaboratively to promote their shared political and social reform objectives. This research was conducted by analyzing semi-structured interviews of 22 representatives of SMOs that work in political advocacy and community engagement focusing on environmental or LGBTQ issues in each country to provide a more holistic understanding of the relationship between the two movements. Through open-ended questions and in-depth conversations, the interviews provide insight on the political opportunity structures that exist in each country for the two movements and inform directions for future research.

Committee: Stephen Scanlan (Advisor); Howard "Ted" Welser (Committee Chair) Subjects: Comparative; Environmental Justice; Glbt Studies; Political Science; Public Policy; Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Political Science

This dissertation responds to the global ecological crisis of climate change, showing how the temporal and spatial dimensions of the crisis challenge our capacities to imagine and implement effective political solutions. Rather than being natural limits, I argue these dimensions of the crisis are inherently social and political, derived from contradictions and antagonisms of the global capitalist nation-state system. I thus take a critical approach to ecology and politics, in the tradition of Marxist political ecology. I read Antonio Gramsci's political theories of hegemony and the integral state through an ecological framework that foregrounds the distinct roles that human labor, capital, and the state system play in organizing social and environmental relations. I develop an original conception of hegemony as a fundamentally ecological process that constitutes the reproduction of human relations within nature, which I use to analyze the politics of climate governance and climate justice. Grounded in textual analysis and fieldwork observations of state and civil society relations within the UNFCCC, I show that struggles for hegemony among competing coalitions of state and non-state actors have shaped the institutional frameworks and political commitments of the Paris climate regime complex. I demonstrate how climate governance reproduces capitalist political relations predicated on formal separation of `state' and `civil society,' and the endless accumulation of capital, thereby serving to reproduce, rather than resolve, the contradictions of the crisis. I then center my focus on the global movement of movements for climate justice. Using textual analysis and qualitative fieldwork conducted as a critically-situated, participant-observer of the climate justice movement at various sites, including the COP22 and COP23 climate negotiations, I show how the climate justice movement constitutes itself as a distinctly anti-systemic and ecological historical bloc in world p (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alexander Wendt (Committee Co-Chair); Joel Wainwright (Committee Co-Chair); Jason Moore (Committee Member); Alexander Thompson (Committee Member); Inés Valdez (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Studies; Geography; International Relations; Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, Sociology

Drawing from archival and interview data, this study examines and compares the historical and contemporary processes through which Indigenous fishing rights have been negotiated in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, where three unique patterns have emerged and persist. Framing these battles as episodes of political contention in broader struggles for tribal self-determination and decolonization, the author takes a systematic, case comparative approach to expose the movement-level dynamics and the broader structural constraints that have resulted in varying levels of success for Indigenous communities who are struggling to maintain their traditional fishing practices, while also gaining economic stability through commercial fishing enterprises. By focusing on the interactions that occur between state actors and Indigenous resisters at the highly-contested, cultural and ideological frontiers of these nations' socio-political landscapes, this study is able to expose the dynamic processes through which cultural meaning-systems both affect collective action and are capable of transforming formal systems of racial/ethnic domination. More broadly, this study reveals contemporary trends in the struggle over ethnic identity and culture in post-colonial societies. These trends reflect both changes in colonial structures as well as enduring dissimilarities in the worldviews and relative political influence of Indigenous peoples and members of dominant societies.

Committee: Vincent Roscigno PhD (Committee Chair); Korie Edwards PhD (Committee Member); Andrew Martin PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative; Environmental Justice; Sociology