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Browsing by Author "Jacobi, Tobi, advisor"

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    Bringing attention to carceral and criminal justice practices in Ghana: critical discourse analysis of international organizations' texts
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Dumavor, Roland, author; Jacobi, Tobi, advisor; Langstraat, Lisa, committee member; Hogan, Michael, committee member
    The prison and the criminal justice systems in Ghana are fraught with serious challenges that relate to injustice and inhumane prison conditions. Most of the incarcerated people suffer lack of adequate legal aid, torture, and imprisonment for minor offenses among others. Even though national governance in the area of criminal justice and its related concepts such as legislation, arrest, trial and punishment are obligations and responsibilities of a nation state, international organizations play a key role in ensuring that the nation states execute their duties in ways that meet international standards. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Amnesty International and the United Nations employ discourse, through text, to bring and sustain attention to the issues of human rights abuse and injustice in the Ghanaian carceral and criminal justice systems. The primary question driving this research is: What role do international organizations, specifically Amnesty International and the United Nations play in bringing attention to the issues of criminal injustice and dehumanizing conditions of the places of incarceration in Ghana, and how do they use texts to play this role? In order to address the research question underlying this study, I seek to understand: 1) how these international organizations use their texts to afford or deny agency to prisoners, 2) how the organizations construct identity and relations, maintain human dignity in carceral and criminal justice practices, and 3) how the texts produced and circulated by these organizations effect change in the carceral and criminal justice practices. This study presents a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of six selected texts produced by these international organizations on the carceral and criminal justice practices in Ghana. Norman Fairclough's three-level approach to the CDA (test analysis, discourse practice and social practice) was used to analyze the selected texts. The findings of the analyses identify and explain the discourses of humanization, effective criminal justice, and transformation through representations of power, human rights and justice, prison conditions and identity. Thus, representation and discourse are employed by Amnesty International and the United Nations in their texts to: 1) bring attention to injustice and dehumanization in carceral and criminal practices, 2) call for prison and criminal justice reforms, and 3) create space for the voices of the marginalized (the incarcerated) people.
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    Entirely different stories: autoethnography as women's literacy practice in southern Africa
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Johnson, Stacey J., author; Jacobi, Tobi, advisor; Doe, Sue, committee member; Pearson, Jonna, committee member
    This thesis suggests autoethnography as one methodology for more democratic adult literacy instruction in rural Southern Africa. Because of my experiences working as a Rural Education Development volunteer in Zambia, I am concerned with the postcolonial implications of many of the educational initiatives employed in the region. Using a postcolonial feminist framework, I seek to situate autoethnography as one way to both resist what Chimamanda calls the "one story of Africa" and to sponsor dual language literacy acquisition in rural Zambia. In this thesis, I work to analyze the mission statements of existing educational projects as representative of the limited narratives written for people in rural communities. I also propose a collaborative autoethnographic writing project based on existing community writing projects/theory that locate literacy as a site of resistance and hybridity, encouraging story-telling by and with others rather than about Others.
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    Tactical Thirdspace: the physical and virtual spaces of community literacy
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Haltiwanger, Talisha, author; Jacobi, Tobi, advisor; Langstraat, Lisa, committee member; Vernon, Irene, committee member
    Using the lens of Edward Soja's Thirdspace, this thesis investigates the physical and virtual spaces of two community literacy programs. This study makes use of narrative inquiry and presents a thematic analysis of the narratives of two literacy facilitators, and applies Michel de Certeau's framework of strategies and tactics to the narratives, demonstrating a tactical navigation of space within drop-in centers for homeless youth. The tactics used by the facilitators result in the production of a "Tactical" Thirdspace. Additionally, the study includes a dialogic analysis of discourse included in the online spaces of the two literacy programs, which examines the multiple ways in which the organizations and their writers challenges prevailing stereotypes against homeless youth through what Gwendolyn Pough describes as "bringing wreck," as well as the ways in which the discourse presented in the spaces produces and fails to produce Soja's Thirdspace. As in the physical space, the tactical nature of community literacy efforts produces Tactical Thirdspace. The study concludes with an exploration of the possibilities and limitations of Tactical Thirdspace within community literacy work and by arguing for additional spatial analysis of the physical and virtual sites of community literacy.
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    The rhetorical possibilities of representation: how survivor narratives frame sex trafficking
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Reed, Shelly, author; Jacobi, Tobi, advisor; Thompson, Deborah, committee member; Anderson, Karrin, committee member
    Many scholars across disciplines have highlighted and critiqued the existing dominant narratives of sex trafficking circulating in popular representations. These dominant narratives are also referred to as the neoabolitionist framework, which tends to tell a story of clear-cut criminals and victims. Recently, academics have advocated for the human rights framework, which aims to empower victims and examines the problem of human trafficking as part of complex systems rather than a phenomenon among deviant individuals. However, there is a gap in these scholarly conversations when thinking about how these frameworks apply to self-representations of survivors. This thesis looks at ten sex trafficking survivor narratives to examine the ways these narratives align with other representations. First, I use Kenneth Burke’s notion of terministic screens to examine how the author's context and publication platform affect the ways in which these women can represent themselves, in order to complicate ideas about the rhetorical possibilities of self-representation. Next, using Burke's theories on tragic and comic framing, I argue that the neoabolitionist framework tends to frame the issue tragically, while the human rights framework tends to frame the issue comically, and I examine the ways in which the women's narratives subscribe to either framework and/or how they blend them. While the neoabolitionist framework and human rights framework of sex trafficking are set up as binaries in the scholarly literature, my findings reveal that survivors combine these frameworks when telling their own story. This blending of frameworks suggests an alternative perspective, or in Burke’s words, perspective by incongruity. The conclusion of this thesis suggests how the findings from survivors can help inform and reshape the ways in which activists, scholars, government officials, media, and law enforcement represent sex trafficking survivors to more accurately reflect their lived experience.
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    Training at Colorado community corrections centers: understanding and evaluating varied training approaches in the corrections environment
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Dunlap, Makayla, author; Jacobi, Tobi, advisor; Doe, Sue, advisor; Gingerich, Karla, committee member
    Most depictions of the justice system suggest an environment that is strictly punitive. However, Community Corrections, as the last step before individuals reenter their community, is uniquely situated to be responsible for building agency in and actively communicating with those who have been incarcerated. This approach requires staff to be trained differently than others in the Corrections ecosystem so that they might interact with clients in a different, more humanitarian way. The current research aims to examine existing training for Community Corrections employees using the lens of Activity Theory (Engestrom, Vygotsky) and Design Justice (Costanza-Chock, Design Justice Network). To conduct this analysis, in an IRB-approved study, 24 participants, all of whom are practitioners of training or maintain some official role in the training ecosystem, were recruited from nine Community Corrections facilities across the state of Colorado and asked about their experiences with Community Corrections training. After the interviews were conducted, a critical content analysis of the qualitative data from the interviews was done, examining how the current training aligns with the six components of Activity Theory and the ten principles of Design Justice. In doing so, Activity Theory illuminates the complex and rapidly changing Community Corrections environment that staff are being trained in, while alignment with Design Justice principles helps measure the relative success of training. This project found that Community Corrections practitioners are aware of and, to some degree, are effective in applying Design Justice principles to their work even as structural challenges impede full effectiveness. However, current Design Justice principles did not fully capture the complexity of the institution. Activity Theory additionally revealed the complexity of Community Corrections organizationally and further amplified the need for structural changes that might influence overall effectiveness. This study shows that, moving forward, both Community Corrections itself and Design Justice principles can grow and improve.
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    "We just needed a place we could write": composing transitions in a first-year student writing group
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Hammond, Kathryn, author; Jacobi, Tobi, advisor; Kiefer, Kathleen, committee member; Merolla, Andrew, committee member
    A writing group could be beneficial for first-year college students because during that period of life, termed “late adolescence" (see Erikson; McAdams), many elements of identity are being negotiated. In connection with the changes related to college, many decisions are being made that will affect identity formation. Also, there is potential for an extracurricular writing group for this age group because the focused genre of writing during this first year is typically scholarly, not personal or reflective. Three main questions are guiding my research on this topic: 1) What are first year students’ perceptions of the outcomes of an extracurricular writing group? 2) Does writing through the transition to college raise awareness to identity formation? 3) How does experience-sharing in a writing group impact a students' transition to college? In order to address these questions, I am reviewing relevant literature to draw connections between identity formation, writing groups, and personal writing; I am facilitating a writing group for first-year students at CSU; and I am conducting post-writing group interviews so the participants can evaluate whether personal writing in a social context influenced them during their first year. The purpose of my thesis is tripartite. First, it will revisit expressive writing as valuable to the academic community. Secondly, it will argue for a place for a first-year writing group as a setting for personal writing beyond the classroom. Finally, this thesis synthesizes the potential positive outcomes of this college group through a survey of writing research, reflection on the facilitated writing group, and students’ reported perceptions of the writing group.
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    Whiteness, anger, and anti-racist pedagogy: toward a raced theory of emotion
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Earle, Christopher, author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Jacobi, Tobi, advisor; Browne, Kate, committee member
    This thesis examines the political and rhetorical functions of white racial anger in the anti-racist first-year composition course. Elizabeth Spelman poses a generative question: "[w]hy has anger been appropriated by and for dominant group or beings when in so many other ways emotions are thought to be the province of subordinate groups?" (264). Further, this thesis questions why the anger of white men has become so common and persuasive in and through racial discourses? To address these questions and to explore pedagogical strategies to address white racial anger in the anti-racist composition classroom, this thesis seeks to investigate and build upon the connections and overlaps (or gaps) between anti-racist pedagogy and critical emotion studies.