Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

France's nuclear tests in the Sahara, conducted between 1960 and 1966, catalyzed a series of events that profoundly influenced global nuclear politics and the process of African decolonization. Set against the backdrop of the Algerian War, African decolonization, and Cold War competition, the atomic tests in the Sahara had far-reaching implications beyond the immediate scope of France's nuclear ambitions. This dissertation examines the relationship between France's nuclear tests, the unfolding decolonization in Africa, and the making of the global nuclear order. By situating the Sahara tests within the broader context of the end of colonial empires and the dawn of the nuclear age, it offers a fresh perspective on the factors that shaped nuclear decision-making in the post-World War II era. Divided into two parts with six chapters, this project's first part examines how decolonization affected nuclear politics, tracing the decline of the French colonial empire from the 1950s colonization of the Sahara to the establishment of nuclear infrastructure and Great Power nuclear diplomacy. The second part inquires the reverse dynamic, exploring how nuclear politics influenced the decolonization process and postcolonial countries in Africa. I argue that decolonization conditioned and shaped the initial conditions of nuclear politics at a global level, with France's Sahara tests serving as an exceptional event that catalyzed these profound impacts in both the Global North and the Global South. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources from multiple countries, including newly declassified documents from French, British, and U.S. archives, as well as materials from several African countries such as Nigeria, Zambia, Namibia, and Ghana, this research delves into the reactions and resistance of African states, non-state actors, transnational activist networks, and the international community to France's nuclear testing, revealing the web of interests and power dynamics that defi (open full item for complete abstract)

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

Great power declines are rare and highly varied events of world historical importance. Despite near universal agreement that understanding the causes and process of decline is of existential importance, there is nothing resembling a scholarly consensus on any theory of decline. The following three papers cover the extant literature and justify the need for new theoretical work, present a new theory of state decline, and test that theory on the most well-known case of decline in the modern period: the collapse of the Soviet Union. Paper One provides an in-depth review of the decline literature, a collection of work that goes back centuries. While rich with ideas, it is hallmarked by informal and ad-hoc theories with untestable assumptions and hypotheses, weak or absent empirical strategies, and social/political judgements disguised as unbiased historical analysis. To make progress in this field would require a novel approach to thinking about decline. Paper Two sets out a new multi-level systemic theory of decline, drawing from innovative work in Complexity Theory. I argue that great power decline is the result of states seeking greatness in the first place, a goal that requires sacrifices in other areas of resilience and stability. States' attempts to manage risk and reward to maximize power creates vulnerabilities and those vulnerabilities can lead to declines. The theory is iii formally tested through a computational simulation model that shows how the proposed mechanisms can lead to decline. Paper Three applies the theory to the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the most important political declines in modern history. Through in-depth case research, the case demonstrates the theoretical mechanisms and shows that the decline was the result of deliberate choices made by the state in the pursuit of power. The USSR accepted instability to break out of stagnation, making a rational risk calculation. But payoffs are never guaranteed: instead of increasing perfo (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2024, International and Comparative Politics

How alliance structures form and why states balance, bandwagon, or remain neutral against other states is an enduring and important question in international relations. This thesis adds to the discussion of how states make alliance decisions by testing whether perceptions matter in predicting state balancing behavior and by proposing a new theoretical framework which allows for a better understanding of the mechanisms which drive the perception of aggressive intentions as a factor within Stephen Walt's balance of threat theory. In this thesis, I explore the construction of threat through a comparative case study analysis of border states of Russia following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine to explore how differing states responded with varying levels of threat perception of Russia and how actions and characteristics of these states shaped their differing responses in balancing. The case studies for this analysis include Ukraine, Finland, and Mongolia in relation to their perception of threat of Russian aggressive intentions.

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Agricultural Communication, Education and Leadership

Conflict around the world is growing in middle-income, democratizing countries (ACLED Conflict Index, 2023). Even in the absence of war, conflict has the power to deeply impact a society and impact community development efforts. The impacts of conflict include the social, physical, and economic infrastructures, and can also leave lasting emotional and personal wounds. State fragility, ongoing violence, and illegitimate governments can further exacerbate an exhausted humanitarian system (Elayah et al., 2023). Conflict in places like Colombia is especially interesting because of the ways local gangs impact communities and post-conflict development efforts. The purpose of this study was to explore how NGOs engage with the community Vereda Granizal and leverage community capitals to pursue community development. This study in Granizal, Medellin Colombia, implemented a multiple-case comparative study designed with each NGO representing a case (Merriam, 1998). The State Failure Theory (Rotberg, 2004), the Conflict Transformation Theory (Lederach, 2014), the Community Capitals Framework (Flora & Flora, 2013), and a peacebuilding lens (Lederach, 1997) informed this study. Local NGO leaders were sampled, and data were collected using semi-structured interviews conducted in Spanish, which were transcribed, translated, and analyzed for themes and sub-themes among each case. Then, a cross-case analysis was performed to identify similarities and differences among each case. The results demonstrate a high-level of engagement with community members, the importance of social and built capitals, mid-level engagement with natural and cultural capitals, and low-level engagement with financial and political capitals. Education and programming proved to be invaluable resources to the community as was collaboration with other NGOs and external entities like universities. Ultimately, the NGOs demonstrated the ways in which they engage with their strengths and assets to promote commu (open full item for complete abstract)

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

Why have some countries returned their citizens from the Islamic State while others have not? Ever since ISIS was ‘defeated', roughly 11,000 foreign women and children and another 2,000 men have been held in detentions centers and makeshift prisons in Syria for their affiliation with the terror group. An unprecedented phenomenon has emerged however as many of these foreign nationals, whose citizenships are known, are not being acknowledged by their home countries. The variation in some 60 state policies towards the repatriation of citizens from the Islamic State is well documented—we can see in practice how states choose to handle their citizens who were affiliated with ISIL—however, there has been no systemic examination of what accounts for the variation in these policies. In other words, we do not know why, when presented with the problem of returning citizens from the Islamic State and taking on all of the associated challenges of investigation, prosecution, rehabilitation, and social reintegration, have some states met the task head on while others have avoided the problem. This research makes two arguments. The first is that repatriation is a state problem. Although, the problem of repatriation exists at the international level—where men, women and children are held as ISIS fighters and affiliates—the solution exists at the national level, where these men, women and children are citizens who need to be repatriation and reintegrated. The misalignment between where the repatriation problem exists and where it must be resolved has created an imprecise conceptualization of the repatriation task, consequently leading to ineffective argumentation for and implementation of return. After reframing repatriation as a national issue, my second argument is that repatriation should not be viewed as a single decision that is made but is rather the outcome of different conditions of possibility. Which is to say, repatriation is not a monolithic policy decision that is borne (open full item for complete abstract)

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

This dissertation argues that when leaders use ideological foreign policy rhetoric, it makes war more likely. The U.S. - led international order faces challenges from both Russia and China, and U.S. leaders are using ideological rhetoric to mobilize a response. I explain why such rhetoric is attractive to leaders and how it also makes the United States more likely to get pulled into wars it might otherwise avoid. Leaders use this kind of rhetoric because it allows them to explain to the public why they are being asked to endure the taxes, military service, casualties, and social disruption associated with efforts to shape the international order. Ideological appeals (e.g., “fighting for freedom and democracy”) tap into deeply held beliefs and identities, encouraging the public to bear the burdens of an active foreign policy. Unfortunately, this rhetoric also raises the stakes of international disputes, limits U.S. diplomatic flexibility, and creates a commitment to intervene in situations that implicate the country's ideology more than its material interests. Using an original dataset of rhetoric by leading states (1816-2014), I show that justifying one's international leadership in ideological terms is associated with fighting more wars. By contrast, a framing that emphasizes hegemonic goods provision has less mobilizational power but also produces less international conflict. This is the orderer's dilemma. The policies that help a state motivate its domestic population exacerbate tensions and make war more likely.

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) have been critical partners and key entities in addressing social and political issues throughout the world. However, as those organizations seek to challenge unjust and unfair conditions, they can hold organizational structures that perpetuate systems of hierarchy and positional power that create feelings of marginalization and oppression based on the proximity to power by staff. Decision-making within those organizations based on staff role and location can be challenging and contribute to feelings of marginalization because of the organization's hierarchal structure. This study seeks to address engagement in decision-making by remote staff in an NGO with offices throughout the world. The study examines whether the organization creates opportunities for participation in decision-making by remote staff and whether it is an intentional and deliberate function of leadership to communicate the importance of engagement with remote staff. Further, it explores the role of organizational culture and its compatibility with the local culture of the targeted country for project implementation. The study further seeks to determine if westernized leadership practices and hierarchal structures can inherently or inadvertently limit the ability of remote staff to feel engaged and connected to the organization. The relationship between the remote staff and the headquarters are examined to determine engagement at all levels of the organization to understand the perception of decision-making engagement at all levels. The study shows how organizational communication plays a key role in engagement across all employment categories with a particular focus on the diversity of management style and the autonomy of leadership in the field with remote staff.

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

This dissertation explores the role of democracy promotion in US foreign intervention with a particular focus on the weaponization of media and civil society by two important US democracy promotion institutions, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and US Agency for International Development (USAID). Focusing on these two institutions and building on scholarship that takes a critical Gramscian Marxist perspective on US democracy promotion, this study brings media imperialism and deep political scholarship into the conversation. Delimiting the study to focus on US activities, I trace historical patterns of intellectual warfare and exceptional states of violence and lawlessness pursued by the US government in case studies of foreign intervention in which democracy promotion has played an important part since 1983. I survey the evolution of elite US Cold War conceptions of managed democracy as well as transformations of covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) media and civil society operations into institutionalized, pseudo-overt US democracy promotion that became a foundational pretext and method for US interventionism post-Cold War. Case studies include the Contra War in 1980s Nicaragua, Operation Cyclone in 1980s Afghanistan, the 2000 overthrow of Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, the 2002 military coup against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, the 2004 coup against Haitian president Bertrand Aristide, and the 2014 Euromaidan Coup against Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. I dedicate the penultimate chapter to US-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011, demonstrating how USAID provided instrumental monetary, media, and civil society support to primarily sectarian, theocratic, Salafi rebels against the Ba'athist government. Throughout the dissertation, I argue that the NED and USAID represent important engines of intellectual warfare in US foreign intervention, mobilizing communications and organizational resources to reinf (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2023, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Political Science

This dissertation sought to address a major theoretical gap in the discipline of International relations (IR) by examining cultural affinity as a factor that can potentially explain the friendly relations between Iran and Tajikistan which share strong cultural and historical bonds with each other. Many IR scholars, especially those who adhere to the schools of realism and neoliberalism, for the most part have ignored the roles of culture, national identity, and historical legacies as variables that help shape states policies toward one another. Even social constructivism that is the only major IR paradigm that focuses on identity as a factor that shapes the nature of bilateral relations between states does not provide sufficient insight about why states with strong cultural and historical ties, including Iran and Tajikistan, maintain a warm relationship. This study demonstrates that cultural affinity between Iran and Tajikistan have led to the creation of intrinsic relations between the two states. In other words, deep-rooted cultural and historical bonds between Tehran and Dushanbe have been major factors incentivizing high-ranking political officials of both states to establish warm bilateral relations. Data for this study was drawn from 18 interviews with Tajik, Iranian, and Western diplomats, journalists, historians, and professors. In addition, I analyzed diverse sources of primary and secondary data, including journal articles, newspaper articles, speeches, interview transcripts, and other statements made by political officials of both states regarding their own governments' political, economic, and cultural interactions with the other side.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Educational Studies

Worldview diversity education is an integral aspect of preparing students to negotiate difference in an interconnected world and to work together toward solving global problems. It intersects with diversity and intercultural learning, contributing the missing piece of religious, secular, and spiritual worldviews to global learning. This study utilized a survey and comparative case study to explore non-U.S. global liberal arts colleges and universities' engagement in worldview diversity education, common approaches, and how senior campus leaders expressed worldview diversity education in relation to larger education purposes, policyscapes, and priorities. Incorporating a view of education practice as policy and of worldviews as representing not just systems of belief but also cultures of belonging, this study contributes to the identification and development of worldview diversity education policy and practice among global liberal arts colleges and universities.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Political Science

What is summit diplomacy, and what does it do? Existing literature in International Relations (IR) considers the strategic motivation behind summit diplomacy by reducing it to leader-to-leader negotiations and interactions that are usually behind closed doors. Building on Erving Goffman's theory of impression management in social interactions, I argue that summit diplomacy disrupts an audience's international political reality as they know it because, as a public performance, a summit reproduces world politics materially. As a political elite-led public performance aimed at giving off some impression about the international political reality to influence an audience, an audience may interpret a summit by seeking their place in this performed reality. I confine the performance to being watched and interpreted by a domestic public audience while recognizing international audiences. A domestic audience's impression of summitry performance is linked to their sense of ontological security or their need for minimal disruption to the continuity of their international political reality. Political elites, therefore, face a tension or dilemma between the reality they want to perform for strategic reasons and the reality that an audience expects. Attending to lay people's ontological security needs associated with changes in foreign policy is thus essential so that public anxiety and resistance are minimized in light of strategic considerations. I look at the first summitry between two former or current adversaries: the 1972 US-China summit, the 1983-4 South Korea-Japan summits, and the 2000 US-Vietnam summit. I focus on the domestic audience reactions in the state where the particular summit was considered more controversial – the US and South Korea. Using original diplomatic archives, I show that political elites staged and performed these summits with the domestic audience in mind, mainly because the domestic audience would have some expectations as to what they would wan (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation seeks to unearth the inherent complexity of relations among evangelical missionaries, their filial churches, Catholics, and secular actors in the context of Protestantism's precipitous rise in Brazil between the 1910s and 1960s. It argues that American Protestant missionaries proved to be crucial agents of cultural change who successfully imparted to their Brazilian believers facets of their anti-Communist, paternalistic, and intermittently apolitical ideologies over the course of several systems of government, including two dictatorships. Crucially, this dissertation situates missionaries as intersectional, transnational, and non-state actors within the larger framework of U.S.-Brazilian religiopolitics, cultural transfusion, and the construction of gender, economic, and racial norms. Although far from passive recipients of American evangelical ideas, Brazil's newly-converted Protestants embraced U.S. missionaries' thought to a considerable extent, thereby cementing the incisive cultural change that American missionaries had sought to foster in Brazil. In doing so, Brazilian church workers and leaders refashioned U.S. norms of evangelicalism while also increasingly advocating for the nationalization (indigenization) of evangelical denominations. Basing itself on four case studies of U.S.-founded or influenced evangelical churches, this dissertation unravels the many contradictions and complications inherent to U.S. missionary work in Brazil. These factors include Brazilian evangelicals' wavering between apoliticism and political activism, a vying for influence with the Catholic Church, the legacy of Jim Crow and its consequences to mission work in Brazil, as well as a series of intra-church disputes that ultimately resulted in the nationalization (indigenization) of each church. At the core of the evangelical experience between the 1910s and 1960s stood an identitarian quest to gain legitimacy among Brazil's secular and religious authoritie (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2023, Educational Administration

Considering the high cost of shipping, the extensive nature of government customs policies and procedures, and the risks associated with art fraud, copyrights, and art security, research gaps about the benefits of international art exchanges limits the opportunities for individual artists. Using Goudie and Viles' framework of inquiry, this mixed-methods action research study investigated international art exchange benefits from two groups of German and United States artists. The results of the study indicated several benefits including the ability to critique/compare art styles with their overseas peers, the stimulation of international art meetings, and the appreciation of other cultures. The action plan included the creation of a systems-level model for international art exchanges to expand worldwide exchange opportunities to more individual artists.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Political Science

States are usually the starting point of analysis when we think about international politics. They are the agents that cooperate, fight, and bargain over how goods are to be distributed around the world under conditions of anarchy. But to the extent that this really does describe the world well, it is not a transcendental truth but a contingent choice. The determinants of this choice, which concerns the location and configuration of political agency, is in some ways the key political question about governance. When do constituent actors facing interdependence solve problems collectively while remaining free to act on their own, and when do they cede their agency to a new corporate actor? The question brings up some important ironies: actors will only give up their basic sovereignty in situations with obvious, existential shared stakes, but these circumstances are the ones most likely to produce cooperation without resort to extreme measures. So why does unification ever happen? I argue that this puzzle comes from the ways in which standard theories treat expectations and beliefs: as forward-looking inferences about specific others. I argue instead that unification and agency transfer are the result of recognized shared interests combined with generalized shared pessimism about the prospects of cooperation learned from history rather than inferred from calculations about interests. In turn, more habitually cooperative systems will tend to produce optimism and thus decentralized collective governance. I develop this argument both verbally and formally, then test it on three mixed-methods case studies: the foundation if the United States, the 19th-century Concert of Europe, and the early modern Ming Chinese international order.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Political Science

How is peace experienced by everyday people after armed conflict? What on-the-ground stories do people tell themselves about continuing violences after war has ended? This dissertation represents a sustained intervention in the ways political science typically theorizes peace, developing an everyday ontology of peace which accounts for the persistence of everyday violences and the justifications for those violences across communities affected by the dual wakes of conflict and colonialism. I build a case that (1) our existing ontologies of peace in International Relations (IR) are essentially reverse, if not empty, ontologies of war, and (2) that even recent efforts to thematize peace as something more than the absence of conflict fail to address the central roles that gender and gendered subjectivities play in the lived realities of peace. Bringing postcolonial feminist theories to bear on the entanglements between gender, violence, and colonial durabilities after war, I unravel the stories of people who are trying to make sense of violence in the midst of recovering from it, where individuals carry hope and fear and peace and violence together in the same embrace. Using an interpretive storytelling methodology across two case studies—Northern Ireland and Burundi—I show how attention towards ‘good guy' logics of masculinist protection in the post-conflict space reveals distinct, gendered attachments to violence which are often recognized as part of the peace story by people living in the aftermath of war. Ultimately, an everyday ontology of peace illuminates both violent peaces, or peaces which are marked by routine, everyday violences, and peaceful violences, or violences which are invoked in the name of peace. From this everyday ontology of peace, I make the case that efforts to both understand and build peace must examine gender's centrality to human socialization and interpersonal relationships, and further, the coloniality of gender's role in constructing possi (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2023, History

Taiwan's postwar medicine has been described as “Americanized medicine.” How American was the “Americanization” of Taiwanese medicine? This research intends to explore biomedicine's internal cultural diversity in the history of medicine in postwar Taiwan (the 1940s-1980s). This period was known as the history of American Aid to the Taiwanese because American aid was the primary foreign aid pouring into multiple aspects of postwar Taiwan's development. Part of the aid was invested in improving Taiwanese health and transforming Taiwan's existing medicine into “American-style medicine.” Nevertheless, what are the meanings of “American-Style” medicine to medical practitioners, especially for the doctors trained under Japanese rule? What is the relationship between American medical knowledge and technology with medical practice? Histories address that Taiwan's medicine was “Americanized” post-American aid period. However, looking at Taiwan's medicine today, one would realize it has walked into a different path from American medicine. Studies have demonstrated the American influence on Taiwanese health and medicine. Current studies on the history of American aid to Taiwan's medicine establish that American aid introduced American-Style medicine and played a crucial role in advancing Taiwan's medical development since the postwar and reshaping Taiwan's existing Japanese colonial medicine. This dissertation intends to explore how biomedicine is entangled with Taiwan's society, culture, and postwar international politics through the perception and practice of biomedical knowledge and localized biomedicine. Medical anthropologists have pointed out that the development of science, technology, and medicine is embedded and interacts with society and culture. Biomedicine is neither natural nor universal and is continually adjusting in different cultures, contexts, and medical settings. Historical studies of culture and medicine are often erected around a binary where “trad (open full item for complete abstract)

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

This research study seeks to understand interested parties' perspectives on Cameroon's existing land tenure systems, the 1974 land law, and ongoing efforts to reform this land law. It identifies both concerns and specific recommendations from these parties on the formulation and implementation of future reforms. In the decades following the achievement of independence from European colonizers, most governments in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have adopted new national land tenure policies to meet their countries' needs and aspirations. In some parts of SSA, however, this process of land tenure formalization has negatively impacted the land rights of people observing customary land tenure. This has been a result of government interventions such as compulsory land acquisitions, which while technically legal, are ethically questionable. In the face of this challenge, efforts to reform post-colonial land laws have become a matter of urgency. A national land reform process for Cameroon, announced in 2011 has adopted a multistakeholder approach. My study seeks to understand interested parties' perspectives on Cameroon's existing land tenure systems, the 1974 land law, and ongoing efforts to reform the land law. This study applied a case study methodological approach and a convergent mixed-method design. Evidence from this study shows that interested parties in Cameroon are in agreement on 1) the reform of the 1974 land law, 2) the recognition of customary land tenure, 3) the continued use of multistakeholder participation in land law reform, and 4) the promulgation of the new land law through mass sensitization and information dissemination.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

Between 1954 and 1974 there was a concerted focus on improving global food security through the Food for Peace program. This dissertation explores the ways that voluntary agencies acted in concert with the U.S. government and recipient nations to address food security through programs focused on feeding vulnerable populations and providing food as payment-in-kind on work projects. Specifically, it looks at programs in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Additionally, it examines why, after 1974, the U.S. government chose to back away from its emphasis on Food for Peace. While Food for Peace was a popular aid program, this dissertation looks at how political maneuvering, the disappearance of surpluses, and a lack of emphasis on agricultural development culminated in the failure of the Food for Peace program to meet its goals in the countries identified above. Moreover, it suggests that this inability to address global food needs when the issue had ample attention reverberates even today, as food insecurity continues in much of the world.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Media and Communication

Media affect audience cognition and impact public and foreign policy decisions. People are influenced by the news narratives, and the sources from which the media obtain their information to report on political, economic, social, and security events influence what audiences internalize from the news. This study examines news narratives surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war from four media outlets within the two political camps: NATO allies (US and UK) and non-NATO allies (China and India). Through a document analysis of official government announcements for government positions and content analysis of news articles (n =230) examined for their news framing and source attribution strategies within the New York Times (US), Guardian (UK), China Daily (China), and The Times of India (India), the study finds that media objectivity remains a myth to news reporting and the unavailability of competing frames in the news report on the war across the media is an evidence of news reporting bias. The higher use of pro-Ukrainian sources within NATO ally media and pro-Russian sources within non-NATO ally media showed that political alliances influence media portrayal. Attribution of the cause of the war differed significantly across media with NATO ally media attributing the cause of the war to Russia/Putin whereas Chinese media made attributions to NATO and its allies (especially the U.S.). The research finds that the New York Times, the Guardian, and The Times of India used more provocative narratives against Putin/Russia in their news report, whereas China Daily's use of provocative narratives targeted only NATO. This research confirms the indexing and media propaganda hypothesis in reporting political and security events. The research also finds that news framing of the Russia-Ukraine war across both the NATO ally and non-NATO ally news outlets corresponded with the news media's home government's position of the conflict with US and UK media being pro-Ukrainian and China and Indi (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, French and Italian

In the last thirty years, Italy has experienced an unprecedented demographic revolution. Today, about 10% of the Italian population, five million, are of foreign origins. Migrants living in Italy come from more than one hundred countries. Nevertheless, Italian mass media and political discourses have increasingly depicted the arrival of these persons as a crisis menacing Italy's political stability, an emergency threatening Italian society, identity, and future. In contrast, contemporary Italian documentary has produced a significant body of work that can be defined as "of migration”: documentaries that narrate contemporary migrations moving to, across, and within Italy, which engage with the complexity of human mobility. This dissertation investigates non-fiction films' audiovisual language, production, and distribution practices in Italy by showing how Italian emigration and colonial pasts influence contemporary perceptions of migration phenomena and the Italian national identity. Exploring documentaries produced between 2006 and 2019, I analyze their nuanced representations and narratives. Within the corpus of non-fiction films I discuss, a strain of non-fiction films embraces a poetics of emergency that focuses on the dramatic spectacle of the endangered bodies of the migrants and promotes a humanitarian approach to the migration ‘problem' but, in so doing, reinforces the obsession for the space of the border and the primacy of images in sense-making. The privileged space to investigate the reality of human mobility is the Central Mediterranean Route that connects sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, East African, and North Africa to Europe. Thousands of migrants cross the Mediterranean to reach the Italian (and European) shores whenever possible. Every year, thousands die during the attempt. These documentaries show you the unfolding of the humanitarian crises at sea. A second strain of documentaries embraces what I call poetics of urgency: a filmmaking approach t (open full item for complete abstract)