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Browsing by Author "Sbicca, Joshua, committee member"

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    COVID-19, policymaking, and the production of harm in the meatpacking sector
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Luxton, India M., author; Malin, Stephanie, advisor; Opsal, Tara, committee member; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member; Sbicca, Joshua, committee member; Ipsen, Annabel, committee member; Hausermann, Heidi, committee member
    In March 2020, the United States was forced to respond to the impending threat of COVID-19. Businesses, schools, and many of society's institutions shuttered in hopes of preventing mass transmission. And yet, meatpacking plants remained open. By September 2021, over 59,000 meatpacking workers tested positive for COVID-19 and close to 300 workers had died from the virus (Douglas 2021). In this dissertation, I document the socio-political, structural, and institutional roots of high rates of COVID-19 transmission among meatpacking workers—and the impacts of firm decisions and federal, state, and local governance structures on workers. I utilize literature pertaining to industrialized animal agriculture, political economy, green criminology, and racial capitalism to analyze the intersections among policymaking and production of harm within the meatpacking sector. Drawing on 39 in-depth interviews, critical policy ethnography, and content analysis, I explore the impacts of labor and food policies on the safety and wellbeing of meatpacking workers prior to and during COVID-19. Through an extended multiscalar case study of the JBS plant in Greeley, Colorado, I trace the involvement of agribusiness actors in federal, state, and local level policymaking during COVID-19. I examine how legacies of racialized labor exploitation have enabled firms to uphold the treadmill of meat production and perpetrate hazardous working conditions—conditions further upheld through corporate self-regulation, rather than federal intervention. I document how regulatory power of the federal agencies tasked with protecting worker and public health, including the CDC and OSHA, has been greatly diminished in recent years due to declined funding, staff capacity, and a neoliberal political structure that favors corporate self-responsibility over state enforcement. I argue that a system of harm has been codified into the regulatory system; harm that emerges directly from policymaking and the outcomes of a neoliberal capitalist political-economic system. Throughout this dissertation, I analyze how meatpacking workers' vulnerabilities during COVID-19 were amplified by issues of procedural injustice and historical legacies of racial inequality and exploitation. I conclude with a discussion of theoretical and policy implications and offer suggestions for future research
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    Multicultural education & perceptions of racial inequity among White Americans: a cohort analysis
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Sims, Shelby, author; Roberts, Tony, advisor; Hastings, Orestes P., committee member; Sbicca, Joshua, committee member; Schmidt, Jenne, committee member
    Growing concern over racial injustice in the United States has warranted an investigation into the perceptions of racial inequality among White Americans. The phasal introduction of multicultural education (ME) in the United States has continually increased the exposure of newer cohorts of White Americans to diverse cultures and perspectives of social reality experienced by racial minorities. However, prior studies have neglected to empirically evaluate whether ME improved perceptions of racial inequity among White Americans. Using the General Social Survey (1972-2018), the present study uncovers patterns of changes in perceptions of racial inequity among White Americans. Specifically, I utilize an inter-cohort approach to illuminate patterns of association between ME cohort, educational attainment, and regionality. I conduct a thorough evaluation of the age-period-cohort dilemma in relation to racial attitudes and determine a year fixed-effects model the most empirically consistent model with the data. The multivariate analysis confirms that perceptions of racial inequity have in fact progressed with the implementation of ME. In addition, the results confirmed that more progressive racial perceptions are associated with increased educational attainment and less progressive racial perceptions are associated with Southern adolescence. Neither of these effects is contingent on ME exposure and both operate independently of educational content. The implications of these findings and subsequent recommendations for continued research on ME and White racial perceptions to continue striving for racial equity through public education.
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    Towards a dialectical account of eco-neurosis: developing a framework on the unconscious in an age of ecological degradation
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Leal McCormack, Rudy, author; McIvor, David W., advisor; MacDonald, Bradley J., committee member; Fattor, Eric, committee member; Sbicca, Joshua, committee member; Moore, Jason W., committee member
    In 2019, the United Nations Climate Summit in New York described climate change as the defining issue of our time. In an age of climate volatility owing to over-production and over-consumption, capitalism's transformation of nature has developed negative environmental impacts and physical health concerns. At the same time, research in psychology and related fields is uncovering worrying mental effects due to the changing climate. The production of uncomfortable psychological effects now has a direct corollary with ecological doom; burgeoning labels for this occurrence are climate anxiety, eco-anxiety. The prefix "eco" in front of the names establishes that mental conditions can be related to environmental shifts or transformations, including climate change. I wish to contend with these initial conceptual names and say they are too narrow in focus. I am presenting the term "eco-neurosis." I do this for two reasons, one I use it as an umbrella concept for all forms of emotional discomforts and maladies due to climate change (e.g., grief, mourning, anxiety, depression, etc.) Second, while psychological literature has abandoned the use of neurosis, post-Freudian psychoanalysis provides strong historical precedent for the use of neurosis as a concept that indicates the political rumblings associated with the term. Thus, I claim that Eco-neurosis (EN) is a byproduct of a historical civilizational development in the form of climate change. In effect, climate change is not only altering "business as usual" but appears to be leaving a mark on the human psyche.