Parker Abt
“Federalism, Government Responsibility, and Citizenship in Texas Colonias”

Though American law evolved to allow labor unions to win important protections for factory workers, farmworkers were exempt from these changes. The Hispanic migrant farmworkers of South Texas faced enhanced challenges, such as substandard housing and dangerous working conditions, that continued long past the time similar problems had evaporated elsewhere. This project will compare the organizing practices of the UFW and IAF in the decades-long fight to bring basic services and protections to South Texas farmworker communities called colonias. It will describe and analyze their different approaches to community organizing and these methods have played in the groups’ success over the past thirty years. It will also focus on the doctrine of self-help, which both groups view as central to their organizing success.

Alisa Feldman
“Be Fruitful and Medicalize: IVF Risk Communication and the Politics of Assisted Reproduction in Israel”

Israel is a pronatalist (birth-promoting) country, in which the government funds virtually unlimited cycles of in vitro fertilization (IVF) for all women, between ages 18 and 45, until they have two children. The sociological and anthropological literature on IVF in Israel alludes to the tendency of IVF providers in Israel to downplay the risks of IVF in their communication with patients about the procedure. Yet, current explanations of this tendency are merely speculative. My thesis draws upon two months of ethnographic fieldwork at IVF clinics in Israel to identify key factors that shape provider-patient IVF risk communication in Israel. This thesis demonstrates that the manner in which physicians communicate with their patients about the risks of IVF in Israel is inextricably linked to broader issues of national conflict, budgetary politics, and the socio-cultural dynamics of gender roles in the country. Additionally, this thesis elucidates that the manner in which physicians communicate with patients about IVF risks contributes to women’s sense of access to IVF in Israel, alongside other prominent factors affecting access, such as finance and proximity to IVF clinics.

Julia Becker
“Street Art at the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Analysis of Anti-Trump and Pro-Immigrant Street Art Across Five Sites”

News, entertainment and presidential narratives have long informed public opinion about immigration policy in the United States. The 2016 presidential election was a particular flashpoint. From announcing his campaign in June of 2015 through his first year in office President Trump has made increased border security, the repeal of DACA and region-specific immigration bans a central talking point for mobilizing his base. This study looks at how non-commissioned street art in the border region responds to these narratives. The communities surrounding the two largest border crossings—San Ysidro, CA/Tijuana, MX and El Paso, TX/Juárez, MX—were surveyed for immigration, border wall and Trump themed text and street art. Numerous concentrated sites of street art and text on both sides of the border were found with clear evidence that many of the pieces were incited specifically by Trump. Additionally, a third location was found 130 miles north of the border in Long Beach, CA. A tunnel on a dead end street largely invisible to pedestrians served as the site for a curated series of dozens non-commissioned DACA and Dreamer themed street art organized by the street art collective Indecline. The art there was produced exclusively for a social media audience online. A textual, semiotic analysis of the artwork from these sites is followed by a discussion of citizenship and protest in the border region, and the transformation of the subversive genre of street art as it is increasingly shaped by digital media.

Rive Cadwallader
“Medicine in the ‘Athens of America’: Physicians and the Neoclassical Movement in Late Eighteenth Century Philadelphia”

In the post-Revolutionary period, the United States bloomed with an interest in the classical world, as the nation collectively sought to define its sovereign identity against the models of ancient democracies and republics. Not only in politics and the arts, but also in the realm of medicine, individuals employed classical thought to suggest that the ancient, exalted civilizations of Greece and Rome had been reborn in North America. Physicians in late eighteenth century Philadelphia, used ancient medical theory -namely Hippocratic notions of environmental health, the writings of Galen on regimen, and Thucydides’ description of social disintegration during the Athenian Plague- to understand and interpret the population health problems of their day. By creating a strong analogy within the professional medical literature between the United States and the ancient Mediterranean, and especially between Philadelphia and Athens, late eighteenth century American physicians helped to construct a neoclassical conceptualization of the national identity.

Jeffrey Careyva
“The Hostile in the Hospice: Derrida's Critique of Kantian Hospitality”

As one of the key texts of Enlightenment cosmopolitanism, Immanuel Kant's Toward Perpetual Peace limits cosmopolitan right to a right to hospitality founded on natural law. Kant included measures to limit European colonial violence in his plan for global constitutionalism, but some of these same measures would seem to inhibit today’s immigrants and refugees from finding asylum in places like Europe or the United States. Jacques Derrida argues that Kant’s cosmopolitan project leaves us with a hard contradiction; there exists a necessary gap between (a) the ideals set for hospitality in religious, ethical and cultural contexts and (b) the secularized policies that states enact and enforce towards all kinds of immigrants. Derrida's critique also highlights the problematic position of the state, especially as it acquires more and more evasive surveillance systems and police forces, in the hope that Kant’s troubled treatment of hospitality may teach us how we might make more hospitable public policies.

Isabel Griffith
“Obstetric Violence: A Subtext of Voiced Experiences of Childbirth and Maternity Care in Costa Rica's Public Healthcare System”

This research focused on understanding lived experiences of childbirth and maternity care within Costa Rica’s renowned public healthcare system; a system that guarantees care to all pregnant women, regardless of nationality, coverage, or ability to pay. Drawing upon eight weeks of fieldwork and 15 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with women who gave birth in the public healthcare system, providers, and public health workers in Costa Rica, the problem of obstetric violence emerged, as women’s birth stories illuminated patterns of disrespectful treatment, abuses of power, and emotional trauma. This thesis analyzes accounts of obstetric violence within the socio-cultural context of medicalization, universal healthcare, and Costa Rica’s humanized birth movement. Birth stories became a unique set of data that gave voice to the frequently unseen and undocumented variables in healthcare, such as emotional wellbeing, the quality of treatment, and the experience of care during childbirth. These indicators tend to go unnoticed and underrepresented in healthcare evaluation, but are crucial to ensuring the health and wellbeing of the population. By shedding light on the perplexing issue of obstetric violence, this thesis hopes to help confront a crucial health and human rights concern for Costa Rica and the larger global health community.

Amanda Nart
Civil Society and Gender Politics in Batista’s Cuba, 1952-1958

On March 10, 1952, in the midst of a presidential election, Fulgencio Batista seized control of the Cuban government in a military coup. My thesis explores the 1950s in Cuba through the lens of gender politics and civil society by focusing on the organizational materials of two large women’s organizations—the Young Women of Catholic Action (JFACCC) and the Democratic Federation of Cuban Women (FDMC) from 1952-1958. Exploring the JFACCC and the FDMC in the same project reveals convergences and divergences in the visions of femininity that these organizations presented, the rhetorical strategies that they employed, and their ideological assessments. Although these organizations had very different aims and, in some senses, opposing politics, both groups of women politicized womanhood in distinctive styles to achieve their campaigns, including but not limited to labor organizing, speaking out against U.S. economic imperialism and exploitative capitalism, or protesting against the Batista regime. This project challenges the perception that women were politicized only by and after the 1959 Revolution.

Nubia Ortega
“The Experience of Managing Type II Diabetes Among Indigenous Maya In the Western Highlands of Guatemala”

As part of the Guatemala Health Initiative program, I spent ten weeks in the Western Highlands of Guatemala in one of the towns surrounding the lake region: Santiago Atitlan. My research question was, among indigenous Maya who have been diagnosed with type II diabetes in the Western highlands of Guatemala, what is their experience with diagnosis, treatment, and management of type II diabetes. With assistance from Hospitalito Atitlan, the primary referral hospital in the region, I conducted semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 41 patients. Patients were recruited from diabetes clubs at different health centers and a private clinic. There are key features in diet, history, and gender roles that with further evaluation could reveal a different explanatory model for the factors associated with managing type II diabetes among indigenous Maya. While most of the people interviewed were receptive to medication from their health care providers, there was division among those who preferred herbal remedies and those who preferred taking both medication and herbal remedies. Patients expressed a sense of distrust toward their health care providers that caused them to withhold information about their lifestyle change attempts and medication adherence. Overall, the experience of managing type II diabetes among indigenous Maya is one that is filled with hardship, loneliness, and alienation.

Michael Torcello
Let the People Rule: The Promises and Perils of Direct Democracy in the Modern World (PDF)

Democracy today is widely practiced as a representative form of government.  In contrast to ancient democracies such as Athens, the people vote for officials and then hope they will support legislation that aligns with their beliefs.  Increasingly, however, empirical evidence suggests that most people’s policy preferences have little impact on what the government actually does.  Rather than acceding to the will of the people, elected leaders often enact measures according to their own political views or those of special interest groups.  In light of this unresponsiveness, direct democracy offers ordinary citizens an opportunity to make their voices heard.  This work examines three distinct categories of direct democracy that are prevalent in the modern world: referendums; “local democracy,” which includes practices such as participatory budgeting and town meetings; and citizens’ assemblies, where people come together to make recommendations on electoral reform or other policies.  Each of these instantiations of direct democracy has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, which are examined through case studies from the United States, Brazil, Iceland, and elsewhere.  This thesis argues that although referendums improve on representative government in some ways, their democratic potential is limited because they reproduce many of the flaws inherent in elections.  Local democracy and citizens’ assemblies, on the other hand, tend to increase people’s autonomy, encourage productive deliberation, and provide educative benefits.  While they are not perfect mechanisms, they move participants closer to experiencing the freedom of self-rule that direct democracy promises.