Graduate Works

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Open Access
Disaster Survivors’ Journey Back Home: An Ethnographic Study of the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Huang, Haisu; Harrison, Jill
This dissertation explores the lived experiences of wildfire disaster survivors, through ethnographic methods including 84 interviews and two-year participant observation. This dissertation extends sociological inquiry to an understudied population—rural communities—in the field of environmental justice, with a focus on the survivors’ decisions around home during and after the fire crisis. This dissertation focuses on how place shapes disaster experience, with attentiveness to variations based on class and place attachment. Although class backgrounds greatly influence the survivors’ recovery choices, they are not the only factors motivating the survivors’ responses and behaviors. This dissertation sheds lights on the possible non-economic reasons for their choices to increase the understanding of the vulnerability of the rural population. A central goal of this dissertation is to emphasize the importance of place as an axis that structures experiences and social relations in the context of disaster recovery. The rural place characters meant a different kind of social norm under which the survivors operated, largely shaped by how they were connected to place. Such varied connections to place in turn affect their perceptions of home, as in when home is safe or unsafe, when one should hold on to their home and when to give up, where to reestablish home after disaster, and ways to come up with creative solutions to home, such as informal housing like RV homes. This dissertation concludes that the survivors’ experience is culturally and structurally shaped and place specific. Its primary contribution is to foreground the meaning of home during climate crisis, connecting social inequalities in disaster recovery with the characteristics of place. The findings contribute to environmental sociology, rural sociology, and sociology of place, demonstrating how place shapes experiences of recovery and rebuild, and how gendered care, residence time, and the informality of housing in the rural space influence the experiences of evacuation and recovery.
Open Access
Examining Group Differences in Health and Depression among Sexual and Gender Diverse Individuals: An Intersectional Approach
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Folger, Austin; Kelly, Nichole
Sexual and gender diverse (SGD) individuals experience significant health disparities; yet, little is known about the unique risks of the individuals within this diverse community, particularly at the intersection of sexual, gender, racial, and ethnic identities. The present study aimed to examine differences in depression, suicidal ideation, and chronic health conditions (CHCs) at the intersection of SGD and ethnic and racial identities. Qualtrics Panels recruited 1329 U.S. adults from various SGD subgroups (389 cisgender heterosexual, 289 cisgender bisexual, 219 cisgender gay, 157 cisgender lesbian, and 275 cisgender gender diverse adults) and racial and ethnic subgroups (415 non-Hispanic White, 387 Hispanic or Latinx, 268 Black or African American, 252 Multiracial adults). Participants completed online surveys. After adjusting for income, education, and age, SGD adults had higher depressive symptoms and were more likely to experience suicidal ideation frequently and have CHCs compared to non-SGD adults (ps < .05). There were important variations within SGD and racial and ethnic subgroups suggesting that bisexual, gender diverse, and multiracial adults experience worse mental and/or physical health compared to cisgender, heterosexual respondents. The study findings and extant research underscore the need to examine how health disparity risk varies across SGD subgroups as certain groups may be at greater risk and these risks may vary based on the outcome being examined. There also appears to be a complicated interaction between SGD status, race, and ethnicity. Future research elucidating risk for health disparities should take an intersectional approach to more effectively direct research and intervention.
Open Access
Drone Society: An Abductive Analysis of Civilian Drone Culture
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Issar, Shiv; Aneesh, Aneesh
While Sociology has historically engaged with the transformative social experiences associated with technology since the Industrial Revolution, the study of civilian “drones” (or unmanned aerial vehicles) in their current societal ubiquity has surprisingly remained neglected. This dissertation addresses this gap by taking the under-examined practice of civilian drone operations as its object of analysis and conducting an in-depth inquiry into civilian drone culture. Through an abductive, multi-sited investigation of drone pilots’ experiences, this study provides a sociologically-informed understanding of the processes that structure the identities and social practices of civilian drone pilots, as well as their role in the shaping of technonatural knowledge within the rapidly expanding “Drone Society”. By doing so, this dissertation positions civilian drones and their pilots as central components within an emergent social order, extending them far beyond their militaristic contexts, regulatory concerns, and other technical domains. Through its research questions and an interdisciplinary approach, the dissertation examines the mechanisms that concern the process of “becoming” a drone pilot, the nature of work within the drone society, the relationship between precarity and the use of civilian drones, and finally, the influence of drone media (i.e., drone photographs, videos, and other data) on perceptions of both, built and natural environments. Analysis of data collected through 29 in-depth qualitative interviews, participant observation, and digital ethnography performed over a year reveals how civilian drone pilots construct and negotiate their identities within broader technocultural networks and how civilian drone culture is often marked by a spirit of collaboration, economic informality and the exchange of specialized forms of knowledge. This dissertation’s findings also furnish an examination of the gendered dimensions of drone operation, highlighting significantexclusionary practices that result from the masculinization of technical expertise and novel forms of precarity that civilian drone pilots are exposed to daily. Crucially, the analysis reveals how the use of drones and drone media creates dual perceptions of environments (on a physical and digital level), and how an interplay between physical and digital realities fosters new forms of spatial knowledge, awareness, and experience, thus reshaping how people perceive and engage with their surroundings. Collectively, these findings underscore how drones are redefining social organization, leisure, work, and epistemic practices, thus positioning them as influential actors in the contemporary sociotechnical landscape.
Open Access
Parenting Stress, Acculturative Stress, Depression, and Financial Strain Among Latine Adults in an Emerging Immigrant State
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Romero, Lindsey; McWhirter, Benedict
Heightened anti-immigrant sentiment within recent history in the United States has exacerbated distress among Latine adults, especially by negatively affecting parenting practices and increasing acculturative stressors. Culturally responsive parenting interventions that acknowledge the saliency of acculturative stress among Latine adults present an opportunity to better support and understand mental health outcomes among this underserved population. Using the Family Stress Model and existing data from 241 Latine adults living in an emerging immigrant state, the present study addresses gaps in the literature by: 1) conducting an efficacy study of the parenting intervention Nuestras Familias (Martinez & Eddy, 2005) through an ANCOVA analysis, 2) examining the influence of parenting stress and acculturative stress on depression through hierarchical linear regression, and 3) assessing financial strain as a moderator of the relationship between parenting stress, acculturative stress, and depression through a moderated multiple regression. Implications for intervention and future research are presented.
Open Access
GENDER, POWER, AND EXPERIENCES OF FEMALE INTERNATIONAL GRADUATE STUDENTS WHO ARE MOTHERS IN U.S. INSTITUTIONS
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Krakani, Bernice; McClure, Heather
The unique barriers faced by female international graduate students who are mothers (FIGSMs) affect their general well-being, mental health, and academic achievement, which in turn affect their children’s well-being. The purpose of this study is to identify the gaps in existing research concerning this academic population, analyze the barriers they encounter, and present best practices that U.S. universities can employ to serve these students better. The study uses a qualitative research methodology drawing on semi-structured interviews and a focus group with FIGSMs from colleges in the United States. The results show that many FIGSMs have poor mental health due to interconnected social determinants, such as financial hardship related to immigration restrictions, academic challenges compounded by a lack of access to resources and events by international students with families, and social and cultural isolation exacerbated by large workloads and demanding reproductive labor. Based on FIGSMs’ reconceptualization of gender roles, the dissertation discusses the positive difference that improved university policies, programs, and practices geared toward their reality will make. By tackling the diverse obstacles encountered by FIGSMs, U.S. universities can cultivate a more inclusive and supportive learning environment and better ensure the success of these valuable students.
Open Access
The Development of Disability and Foreignness Concepts: A Comparative Approach
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Weinstein, Netanel; Baldwin, Dare
Human cognition often displays a tendency to “see beyond” the available perceptual input. Although inferences indicative of such seeing-beyond tendencies are fundamental to efficiency in human cognition, they may also be associated with the expression of prejudice towards stigmatized others. In this dissertation, we systematically compared college students’ and children’s inductive generalization tendencies regarding two stigmatized social categories: foreignness and disability. Since such cues may be apparent both in speech (i.e., a foreign accent; a speech disorder) and appearance (i.e., foreign garb; a wheelchair), directly juxtaposing children and college students’ reactions to such cues may be particularly informative regarding the development of foreignness and disability concepts alike. In a first study, we compared 180 North American college-aged students’ and 163 young children’s (Mage = 5.75) explicit assessments of a) three speech categories (neurotypical American English - L1, Spanish English - L2, and American English with Autism Spectrum Disorder - ASD), and b) four illustration categories (children whose appearance was: able-bodied typical North American appearance; able-bodied foreign appearance; typical North American wheelchair-bound with signs of contracture in the wrist and torticollis in the neck; and typical North American amputee appearance) along several key dimensions (i.e., foreignness, dependence, competence, interest in friendship and comprehensibility for speech). To further explore developmental change in inductive generalization tendencies, in study 2, we assessed 130 college-aged students’ and 143 North American children’s (Mage = 5.3) associations between speech variability and visual appearance. Specifically, participants listened to one of three speech conditions (L1, L2, ASD) while looking at two illustrations side-by-side (one of a typical American child, the other depicting a foreign child or a child with a disability) and were asked to select the child who was talking. Across both studies, college students, but not children, appeared to associate the variability they detected in the ASD speech with a latent disability concept in a similar manner to which both samples associated L2 speech with foreignness. Nevertheless, there was an emerging age-related increase in this tendency for children as well, particularly for those with advanced metacognition. Furthermore, whereas college students were biased against ASD speakers but showed a prosocial bias towards images depicting physical disabilities (particularly amputees), children were biased against wheelchair (and foreign) images but showed no bias in the case of ASD speech. This work advances our understanding of complex ways in which conceptual representations of the social world relate to the expression of prejudice, and how such relationships may change developmentally. Our findings also hold potential to inform development of empirically-oriented interventions to reduce the expression of prejudice in childhood and across the lifespan.
Open Access
RITUALS for Solo Electric Bass & Wind Ensemble
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Daley, James; Kyr, Robery
The purpose of this work is to synthesize various elements of mysticism, philosophy, and nature to reflect the inner struggle and difficulties that are inseparable from human existence. This is intended to show that the significance of our existence is highly ephemeral and microscopic within the immense scale of the universe. A work of this nature is important for many reasons but one central to my thesis is to contribute a meaningful work to the modern solo repertoire for bassists.Some of the techniques employed in “RITUALS” allow for a significantly more virtuosic level of expression, which effectively expands the capabilities of the bass as one might find in more pianistic styles of expression and phrasing. The four movements of this work combine several pre-existing musical styles and idioms in order to create a polystylistic fusion composition. Conceptually, this is a musical representation of mysticism in finding the common thread between all things we experience in life and nature. By incorporating these various styles and influences, it is my intent to ultimately challenge the soloist with a musical setting that requires a diverse skill set. The use of slowly building layers of atmospheric musical textures that feature the use of swelling dynamics to emulate a breath-like aural effect are meant to represent the human spirit. Some of the musical textures include extended techniques such as (but not limited to) air noises, multi-phonics, singing while playing, key clicks, vocal noises, etc.
Open Access
Hippocampal Repulsion as a Function of Memory Interference and Subjective Beliefs
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Guo, Wanjia; Kuhl, Brice
Resolving memory interference is critical for performing essential tasks in our daily life. The hippocampus is believed to play a critical role in distinguishing similar memories. This dissertation focused on understanding the mechanisms of hippocampal repulsion, which stands for when the representations of two overlapping memories are actively pushed away to be represented less similarly to each other than non-overlapping memories. The first chapter draws direct connections between repulsion and behavioral expression of memory interference resolution. In particular, we show that the timing when repulsion happens is exactly when memory inference is resolved. The second chapter focuses on why repulsion occurs. It provides evidence that repulsion can occur with distinct internal states, even when external stimuli are identical. The third chapter focuses on how the intensity of repulsion changes with different levels of experience and shows that repulsion is not simply a linear process that accumulates with learning. Instead, it is transient and subsides after memory interference is resolved. Across all 3 chapters, the hippocampus was also segmented into subfields, and we consistently found CA3/DG to be the region that showed the repulsion effect, but not CA1.
Open Access
Gas Mobility Patterns in Crystal Mush Analog Experiments
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Etheredge, MaKayla; Dufek, Josef
Volatile movement through crystal mush, which controls the efficiency of gas escape, is poorly understood. Previous studies using 2-D (Hele-Shaw) analog experiments show that the geometry (finger, fracture) and efficiency of gas escape is controlled by particle concentration. I extend this approach by adding photoelastic particles to track formation and destruction of force chains. 2-D analog (Hele-Shaw) experiments using solid particles (photoelastic disks), fluid (corn syrup), and gas (nitrogen) are used to quantify the role of varying injected gas flux (1000 cm3/s to 10000 cm3/s) on crystal and melt migration patterns. Experiments can be classified by gas geometry into fingering, transition and fracture regime; recorded pressure and light intensity provide a proxy for particle stresses caused by the gas flux rate.
Open Access
Advancing the Chemical Understanding of Hydrogen Sulfide and Related Reactive Sulfur Species with Small Molecule Tools for Delivery and Sensing
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Fosnacht, Kaylin; Pluth, Michael
Reactive sulfur species (RSS), such as thiols, polysulfides, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), and persulfides (RSSH), play essential roles in biological chemistry, including roles in redox homeostasis and small molecule signaling pathways. Previously known as a toxic gas, H2S was established as a gasotransmitter in the late 1990’s and is defined as a membrane permeable small molecule that is endogenously produced and involved in specific cell signaling pathways. For this reason, the association of H2S imbalances with various diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, and asthma, has been studied and changes in endogenous H2S are indicated as a potential disease biomarker. More recently, the importance of persulfides and other RSS in addition to H2S has become a major research focus due to their overlap in activity with H2S and newly discovered importance in biological processes. In particular, recent work has further clarified that many cellular signaling processes initially attributed to H2S are likely due to persulfides. Overall, understanding the RSS pool both fundamentally and also in biological systems is crucial. Carefully developed tools to both detect and deliver RSS are needed to further understand the rich chemistry of RSS within the body.Within this dissertation three main aims are addressed: (1) improved H2S sensing tools for longer duration studies, (2) donor molecules that release RSS, and (3) increasing fundamental understanding of persulfide reactivity. Chapter I is a comprehensive review of fluorescent probes of H2S and other RSS and includes discussion of the important advantages and limitations of each probe type. Chapter II features a cell-trappable H2S probe that provides a large, selective fluorescence turn-on to H2S and was used to sense H2S in live cells. Chapter III details a palette of thiol-activated H2S donors that also produce a fluorescent response in the blue to NIR emission wavelength range. Notably, the NIR donor was applied to live rats to image the fluorescence turn-on when subcutaneously delivered. Chapter IV describes the development of a small library of esterase-activated persulfide donors and kinetic analysis of persulfide release, donor side reactivity, and observed persulfide persistence. Chapter V is a combined computational and experimental analysis of persulfide reactivity with thiols where increasing steric bulk or electron withdrawal near the persulfide can shunt persulfide reactivity through the transpersulfidation pathway. Experimentally, we used a persulfide donor and persulfide trapping agent to monitor and measure transpersulfidation from a bulky penicillamine-based persulfide to a cysteine-based thiol, which is the first direct observation of transpersulfidation between low molecular weight species. This dissertation includes previously published co-authored material.
Open Access
Narrative Language Production: Examining How Young Spanish-English Learners Use the English Language
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Le, Trinh; Durán, Lillian
The study was conducted by examining 37 language samples of 37 Spanish-English kindergartners and first graders from a larger sample of the Multitudes Project in California. The focus was on investigating how these young English language learners produced narratives in English, what language elements they included, and whether these elements were correlated or had a relationship with the learner’s English proficiency. The language elements examined were divided into three different levels: macro-structure including the identification of narrative problems and solutions, micro-structure such as the use of nouns, pronouns, and verbs, and language complexity including sentence markers and tier-two vocabulary. The results showed that, at the macro-structural level, students identified more correct problems and solutions than incorrect ones. There was no significant difference between the identification of problems versus solutions and between kindergartners and first graders. At the micro-structural level, a large number of children did not use plural forms of nouns and no students used possessive case "‘s", which were explained respectively by the requirement of such use according to the narrative topic and language transfer structures. The use of pronouns was also Spanish-influenced with gender mixing and redundancy. Results of the use of past-tense verbs showed that most students provided more incorrect forms than correct ones. Only one-fifth of these students provided all correct verbs, suggesting an emerging skill of conjugating verbs in past tenses. Lastly, language complexity was reported to be starting to develop at this age. As these Spanish-speaking students started to learn English, they did not use complex vocabulary and structures in their narrative production, providing evidence to advocate for the use of emerging English vocabulary and translanguaging in language assessment for young English language learners. Weak and moderate correlations were found between grade and the use of pronouns, and between verbs and language proficiency. However, regression analyses indicated no significant relationship between language proficiency and these elements. Study limitations such as a small language sample size and the report of socio-economic status are discussed. Keywords: Language assessment, narrative assessment, narrative production, narrative language elements, multilingual learners, dual language learners, bilingual education, and bilingual development
Open Access
Fourier Transform Based Analysis of Mass Spectra: Disentangling Mass Heterogeneity and Polydispersity
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Swansiger, Andrew; Prell, James
Understanding the interactions of small molecules with biomolecules and their complexes is fundamental to the clinical interpretation of biological functions and pharmaceutical development. Conversely, these delicate interactions present a multiplexed problem requiring highly specific and sensitive analytical techniques to capture their subtle variances. Advances in soft ionization mass spectrometry (MS) methods such as electrospray ionization (ESI) and desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) have brought together solution phase separation techniques and sensitive gas phase analysis, reducing both sample concentration and purification requirements and enabling fast multiplexed analysis of data-rich biological samples. As the limitations on analyte size and complexity continue to be pushed back by instrumental and experimental innovations, MS deconvolution tools need to continually advance to keep pace with the increased mass heterogeneity and polydispersity of what we can successfully spray. Among current MS deconvolution algorithms, Fourier transform and Gábor transform (FT/GT) provide a consistent and invertible transform for quick recognition of several classes of periodic signal from polydisperse samples, requiring very few a priori assumptions about the sample while extracting the charge and mass information required by other algorithms for accurate modeling of congested mass spectra. The Prell group’s iFAMS software represents the state-of-the-art in Fourier deconvolution of mass spectra, enabling flexible selection of analyte signals from a spectrogram of m/z and frequency to filter out interferent ions. However, assignment of aperiodic mass shifts in data-rich spectra still proves challenging, as they do not produce unique frequency signals, requiring an understanding of previously unutilized aspects of FT/GT deconvolution for mass spectrometry. Additionally, although iFAMS results are highly reproducible, applications of iFAMS data analysis have remained mostly exploratory, as GT lacks a sufficiently high-throughput implementation for analysis of large data sets. In the first half of this dissertation, a new tool for mass spectrometry Fourier analysis is developed, utilizing the phase angle information from FT/GT for the characterization of small mass variants embedded in polydisperse mediums such as polymers and lipid membranes. The new method of FT/GT macromolecular mass defect (MMD) analysis achieved similar mass accuracy to mass-domain deconvolution methods and is robust to high instrument noise and low mass contaminants, enabling cross-validation of mass-domain deconvolution models. In a workflow complemented with liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, FT/GT MMD analysis enables characterization of polymer reaction intermediates. The second half of the dissertation extends the reproducibility of FT/GT analysis to protein quantitation of MS imaging data from biological tissue, developing a new workflow for batch deconvolution to process tens of thousands of spectra in a few hours. The distinct protein ion patterns generated by GT simplify characterization of brain tissue eluents, while expanding the range of isolatable proteoform signal available for imaging. This dissertation includes previously published and unpublished co-authored material.
Open Access
Non-Hermitian Structures in Soft Matter
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Melkani, Abhijeet; Paulose, Jayson
Among the major advances in theoretical condensed matter physics in the past twenty years was to characterize topological insulators using the symmetry classes of Hermitian operators. These advancements were applied to various soft matter systems such as mechanical networks where they revealed the presence of topologically protected zero-frequency edge modes. They were also extended to Floquet operators (which occur in non-equilibrium settings) and non-Hermitian operators (occurring in systems with non-reciprocal couplings or subject to external gain/loss). In classical settings, such as in soft matter, non-Hermitian operators are ubiquitous and have revealed rich behavior such as odd elasticity/viscosity, skin effect, and nonreciprocal transitions across a variety of phenomenological systems. This dissertation deals with using non-Hermitian physics to understand collective behavior in soft matter systems. First, we consider a localization-to-delocalization phase transition when shear is applied to thermally fluctuating directed polymer chains. These chains cannot cross each other and are placed on a substrate consisting of a periodic arrangement of vertical grooves. We will characterize this phase transition using the properties of the diffusion operator governing the polymer configurations---this operator becomes non-Hermitian at nonzero shear. Second, we consider networks of classical mechanical oscillators with spring stiffnesses that are modulated in a time-periodic manner. We find the conditions for parametric resonance and one-way amplification to arise in these networks using the symmetries of the non-Hermitian Floquet operator governing the equations of motion. Specifically, we shall show how a clockwise moving wave in a ring of oscillators can be amplified while the counter-clockwise moving mode remains unamplified. In investigating these physical systems, we also developed some techniques which are widely applicable. Specifically, we developed a formulation to study systems that are invariant after a combined translation in both space and time. Compared to conventional Floquet techniques, this formulation involves integration of the system dynamics for shorter periods avoiding extraneous degeneracies of eigenvalues. We also characterized the real-to-complex eigenvalue transition in parametrized pseudo-Hermitian matrices which is typically accompanied by a drastic change in the behavior of the underlying system. This dissertation contains previously published as well as unpublished co-authored materials.
Open Access
PREDICTING AND EXPERIMENTING IN CLIMATE MIGRATION FORECASTING MODELS
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Modi, Dhruv; Muraca, Barbara
In this thesis, I pay close attention to the scientific literature to understand how knowledge is being synthesized in nine different forecasts of climate change induced human migration. I do so in keeping with Aykut et al.’s (2019) suggestion that performativity in model based predictions must be understood as belonging to a pluralized terrain of practices of anticipatory expertise which have become integral to policy making and governance. Thus, I situate the extant and most updated models forecasting climate migration in the context of the development of climate migration research as a highly methodologically dispersed and historically contested field of inquiry. I note that this context has led to wide agreement between critics of the ‘dominant quest for numbers’ (Cord and Methmann. 2012) and practitioners alike that socioeconomic phenomena like climate migration are far too aleatory and uncertain to accurately predict, especially for planning purposes. Within this formation, I consider how the tendency of competition in the sciences which might lead researchers to try to impose finality runs up against a limit imposed by the fundamental intractability of predicting future human migration. I theorize that a contradiction arises from the interaction between the performativity of scientific research trying to position itself as ‘policy relevant’ and the ‘difficulty of reality’ posed above which has led researchers to adopt a reflexive reflex in their own research in order to maintain their epistemic innocence. I explore how this reflexivity is enacted in a shift away from simulation as a predictive practice towards a more open form of active experimentation of the diverse drivers of climate-change induced migration which has yielded a different (and in my opinion rehabilitated) functional relationship between what this research is attempting to do and what it is actually achieving. I conclude by speculating on how the virtuality of these experiments engenders a certain freedom of exchange and imagination allowing for a scientific register that may actively resist the forms of ‘foreclosure on the future’ (Hulme. 2011) which some critics of reductive anticipatory practices are rightly anxious about.
Open Access
Examining Community-Based LGBTQ+ Suicide Prevention in Oregon
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Green, Aubrey; Seeley, John
Suicide is a public health issue that affects communities worldwide (World Health Organization, 2019). At the community level, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual, or two-spirit (LGBTQ+) individuals die by suicide at a disproportionately higher rate when compared to their heterosexual peers (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 2022; Aranmolate et al., 2017). While the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has identified suicide prevention as a national priority in the United States (CDC, 2023), there is a need to identify suicide prevention tactics that are informed by the target communities. The present study consists of eleven individual interviews that were conducted with recipients of CDC grant funding aimed at LGBTQ+ suicide prevention in Oregon. A case study approach and thematic analysis of these interview transcripts, as well as grant applications and reports from the grant funded activities will help create a richer understanding of community-based LGBTQ+ suicide prevention efforts. Available literature suggests that suicide prevention efforts lead to positive outcomes at the individual and societal levels. The present study aims to examine community-based suicide prevention efforts among LGBTQ+ communities to contribute to our understanding of how to reduce LGBTQ+ suicides. Findings revealed that impact of community, implementation drivers, and mentorship are all components of community-based suicide prevention. Future policy and community leaders would benefit from intentionally including the voices of community members in the development, delivery, and study of suicide prevention efforts.
Open Access
Social Anxiety and College Drinking Risk: Exploring the Moderating Effect of Experiential Avoidance
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Marchetti, Mary; Cronce, Jessica
Higher levels of social anxiety predict greater incidence of alcohol-related consequences among college students, yet little is known about for whom social anxiety may pose the greatest risk of experiencing alcohol-related consequences and the significance and direction of association between social anxiety and alcohol use remain unclear. This investigation aims to help elucidate the relationships between social anxiety and both alcohol consequences and use by examining experiential avoidance, or a tendency to suppress unwanted internal experiences, as a potential moderator of different aspects of the social anxiety–alcohol link. The current study utilizes data from the Healthy Minds Study, a national survey of college student mental health, which was collected across 79 U.S. colleges during the 2018-2019 academic year. Respondents who were (a) aged 18–30 years old and (b) given the opportunity to complete all key measures included for present analysis comprised the final sample (N = 1,584). A series of regression models using Hayes conditional process analysis were conducted to test experiential avoidance as a moderator of the relationship between social anxiety and alcohol-related consequences and a moderator of the relationship between social anxiety and heavy episodic drinking. Findings revealed a significant, positive association between social anxiety and alcohol-related consequences, while social anxiety was not significantly related to alcohol use. Experiential avoidance was positively linked to both alcohol-related consequences and alcohol use but did not moderate the associations between social anxiety and either outcome. Overall, findings suggest that higher levels of social anxiety may potentially increase risk for alcohol-related consequences but not for alcohol use among a sample of young adult college students, and that experiential avoidance may not modify the strength of either prospective relationship. This investigation paves the way for future explorations into the role of experiential avoidance in the social anxiety–alcohol link and offers insight relevant to the enhancement of preventive intervention efforts to reduce the burden of alcohol-related risk among socially anxious college students.
Open Access
Anti-Racist Teacher Well-Being and/as Curricular Praxis
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Cartee, MaryJohn; Mazzei, Lisa
This dissertation explores the well-being of public K-12 teachers in the United States who explicitly identify as anti-racist and/or anti-colonial teachers. Well-being has traditionally been conceptualized as attached to single human individuals in most Western academic scholarship. However, drawing on insights from the posthumanisms, community psychology, Critical Race Theory, and Indigenous studies, this dissertation argues that these teachers’ well-being is not only influenced by the larger institutional, political, and environmental contexts in which they live and teach; it is co-constituted with them on the level of ontology. In order to explore these teachers’ well-being, this study draws on immersive cartography (Rousell, 2021), a posthuman methodology that centers affect (Gregg & Siegworth, 2010), process, and emergence. While methods were also borrowed from traditional, qualitative, humanistic methodologies (i.e. interviews and focus groups), process, relationality, and emergence were centered. Four interviews and one focus group were selected for the dissertation based on affective resonances. Together, these interviews and an instance from a focus group map a terrain of anti-racist, anti-colonial teacher well-ill-being which co-constitutes with multiple temporalities from teachers’ pasts, collective histories, and multiple environments. Many teachers had deep personal connections of many types to various forms of oppression, and these histories informed their willingness to question societal common sense—including their own. Furthermore, the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) teachers in the study found themselves resisting or circumventing the white, feminized position of “footsoldier of colonialism” (Leonardo & Boas, 2021) in the teaching profession by doing work outside the classroom, or by leaving the traditional classroom for other work in the broader field of education. Implications of this work include a need to address the dividual—as opposed to individual—character of ongoing anti-racist, anti-colonial teacher education, particularly its hidden curriculum. The dividual substrate of the hidden curriculum of ongoing teacher education is aggregate, continuous, and pre-personal, and includes racist affects, gendered embodiment, and collective histories. Changing this dividual substrate is perhaps more challenging than changing individuals; nonetheless, anti-racist, anti-colonial teachers discussed being sustained in community with students and with other teachers similarly oriented.
Open Access
Un campo intelectual en tensión. El otro Borges
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Peñalosa Montero, Marina; García-Caro, Pedro
In An Intellectual Field in Tension. The Other Borges, I focus on the intellectual role of Jorge Luis Borges to explore how the author's lectures shaped Borges as a canonical Argentine writer, through the global evolution of his role in the intellectual field. The project seeks to address Borges' efforts to occupy a privileged position in the public sphere in the microcosm of the cultural field. I analyze the context of the cultural events from the 1920s to the late 1980s in Argentina through the lenses of literary analysis and cultural sociology. The role of intellectuals was as crucial to the State as a nation-building strategy as it was for the politicians, professors, writers… that occupied the cultural field of the city. The promotion of cultural and literary events was marked by an influence of European modernism that gave the intellectuals the space for promotion, dissemination, and later, a powerful position inside the cultural field. In the case of Borges, we can also find elements that help us understand Borges' lectures as a paradigm of a narrative genre in the River Plate. As the national writer for Argentina, Borges gave talks and lectures in an international setting. The talks were published first in the newspapers and later as books, switching the direction of the text from the public audience to an intentional reader. This work responds to the questions: what is the context of those first in-person events in terms of social power? How did the institutions switch the mode of the discourse to spread Borges' ideas internationally?
Open Access
HOW A COMMUNITY CLINIC HAS RESPONDED TO THE WAR ON DRUGS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Arredondo Sanchez Lira, Carolina; Yarris, Kristin
This thesis explores the profound social impacts that the War on Drugs in Mexico has had on women who use drugs and reside in the border town of Tijuana, Baja California. The War on Drugs was a failed policy initiated by Felipe Calderon, Mexican president from 2006 to 2012, which has led to an increase in violence, corruption, human rights violations, and marginalization of vulnerable communities. Nonetheless, Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), who promised to dismantle the War on Drugs, has instead strengthened it. From the beginning of his presidency in 2018 until 2024, AMLO deployed the National Guard to combat the insecurity in Mexico. Also, AMLO decided not only to cut all funding to organizations but also not to support harm reduction measures. The lack of resources and funding has made it challenging for people who use drugs, especially women, to receive the needed support. Through the lens of the Social Ecological Model (SEM), this research aims to investigate the multifaceted effects of the War on Drugs on women who use drugs, emphasizing gender and drug use. The project focuses on PrevenCasa, a non-profit community clinic in Tijuana. As well the study further examines the social and health outcomes of the harm reduction services provided by the clinic to women who use drugs. The research employs an ethnographic method, including observations and semi-structured interviews with focus group participants and staff members in the clinic. As well the thesis aims to understand what are the socio-effects of the services that PrevenCasa, a community health organization in the Zona Norte, has to offer to women who use drugs. Findings from this study will contribute to a better understanding of the negative impact of harmful policies on marginalized communities, such as women who use drugs. As well the project will contribute to understanding the critical role that harm reduction can have in improving the health and well-being of women who use drugs.
Open Access
The Drama of the Dialectic: Hegel, Marx, and the Theory of Appropriation
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Knowlton Jr, Kenneth; Muraca, Barbara
This dissertation develops a theory of appropriation through an account of dialectical materialism as a relational ontology. Appropriation is argued as creative-aesthetic activity definitive of the human species-essence through which sociality metabolically transforms. In turn, the universality of appropriation becomes an analytic for designating historical change through the mode of appropriation, where the transhistorical and ontological dimension of appropriation take on a historically specific character. I begin with a critical reconstruction of German Idealism through an account of FWJ Schelling’s critique of GWF Hegel’s Science of Logic. Schelling’s criticism initiates a tendency to misrepresent Hegel’s dialectical logic that extends into 20th century philosophy, a misrepresentation which also transposed itself onto the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. I trace this lineage in Part I, critically responding to it. Part II provides a materialist interpretation of Hegel’s Science of Logic, focusing on essence, necessity, universality, telos, and reason. I demonstrate the relational and anti-representational character of Hegelian dialectics through a systematic account of these categories. Consequently, I draw on Hegel to provide the logico-theoretical structure of the concept of appropriation as constitutive of a dialectical relational ontology. Part III develops appropriation and the mode of appropriation through an engagement with the works of Marx and Engels. I argue that their work is predicated on a dialectical relational ontology fundamental to their political, economic, and historical analysis. I show that the mode of appropriation is constituted by a triadic structure of changing labor-forms, property-forms, and belonging-forms that together elucidate socio-historical transformation.