Browsing by Author "Souza, Caridad, committee member"

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All at once, just once
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Peats, Ryann, author; Beachy-Quick, Dan, advisor; Dungy, Camille, committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member
All at Once, Just Once is a collection of poems structured to reflect the cyclical nature of the calendar year as someone who identifies as queer. The first and last sections introduce & explore themes of grief, coming out, defining the self in familial, interpersonal & domestic spaces, and tracing violence in the world. The three center sections include poems of a quieter and concise register that work through explorations of the feminine, nurturance, definitions of "woman," the multiplicity of queer bodies, being in a love relationship, and exploring violence against queer bodies in moments of crisis and healing.
Open Access
Anarchism and ecological epistemologies in transpacific speculative fiction
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Kim, Anthony, author; Ishiwata, Eric, advisor; Sorensen, Leif, committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member
This thesis examines works of transnational speculative fiction from across the Pacific for anarchist themes and the influence of ecologically-based epistemologies. Texts examined in this thesis include films by South Korean director Bong Joon Ho and works by writers and other creatives of color based primarily in North America.
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Anatomic diagnosis: a defense
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Combs, Sunset, author; Fletcher, Harrison, advisor; McConigley, Nina, committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member
This collection of letters in the form of a defense looks to showcase poor white womanhood and the expectations for violence that are inherent in the systems that teach and protect them. Using personal experience, archival documents, and cultural critique Anatomic Diagnosis: A Defense questions the ways we can reenact the violence that has been to us. Looking specifically at the academy and state-run institutions, this collection exposes the possibility of exploitation when personal trauma becomes a commodity in a capitalist system. It uses the lives of three generations of women who have worked to barely live and learned to make a home out of the injustice that was their everyday reality.
Open Access
Clarifying the construct of compassion: ability to downregulate emotion as a potential mediator between empathic arousal and compassion
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Merriman, Leslie A., author; Rickard, Kathryn, advisor; Allen, Chris, committee member; Chavez, Ernest, committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member
The association between empathy and compassion was examined in a sample of Americans aged 35 to 86, using national survey and phone interview data, biological data, and neuropsychological data. Given the postulation that empathy is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for compassion to emerge, compassion is conceptualized here as an emergent process that is contingent upon empathic arousal. The degree to which an experience of empathic arousal translates into compassion is hypothesized to depend upon an individual's ability to downregulate the emotional response associated with empathic arousal, which is conceptualized as physiological upregulation in response to witnessing another's suffering. If this hypothesis is supported, then the ability to downregulate physiological processes associated with empathic arousal should mediate a positive association between the activation of empathic feelings and engagement with compassionate behavior. While empathic arousal was found to predict compassion, we were unable to infer that downregulation processes mediated the relationship. The results of this study present preliminary findings that may inform future work aiming to clarify the construct of compassion. The results may also provide useful groundwork for future work about "compassion fatigue" and about how the emergence of compassionate action in therapeutic interactions can be cultivated.
Open Access
Crisis in whiteness: white workingmen's narratives and the American dream
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Morrison, Joseph J., author; Ishiwata, Eric, advisor; Cespedes, Karina, committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Brinks, Ellen, committee member
This project examines the ways in which white working class men make sense of their own socioeconomic positioning in the contemporary U.S. economy. This is accomplished through the exploring of white workingmen's narratives of the American Dream, and how these narratives are informed by the race, class and gendered identities of the white working class men expressing them. Specifically, this project is a case study of five self-identified white working class men living in Upstate New York's Chemung, Onondaga, Tioga, and Tompkins Counties. Through this project's findings the researcher hopes to chart a new course for the field of Whiteness Studies into the twenty-first century.
Open Access
Cuidate mija: power in everyday discourses about adolescent pregnancy in urban Ecuador
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Ortega, Cynthia, author; Kwiatkowski, Lynn, advisor; Snodgrass, Jeff, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member
Adolescent pregnancy is a phenomenon which is heavily contested by local, national, and international entities. Problematically, the topic is predominantly referred to as a "social problem," a view which is often rooted in pathologized narratives about young people and their sexual and reproductive lives. This critical ethnography challenges these narratives by centering the voices of young people and their experiences with sex, sexuality, and pregnancy in the urban cities of Quito and Cuenca, Ecuador. Drawing upon interviews with young women who have experienced pregnancy and professionals working with pregnant adolescents, as well as a survey distributed to male and female adolescents, I identify several dominant discourses related to adolescent pregnancy in urban Ecuador. I argue that these discourses are informed by raced, classed, gendered, and aged notions about young women and their sexual and reproductive lives. Through the lenses of critical-interpretive medical anthropology, governmentality, and reproductive justice, my findings show that young women negotiate these discourses, reproducing some aspects while rejecting others. I further contend that these discourses work through the lives and bodies of young women through different forms of power. Although these young women could identify their desires, emotions, and frustrations, they were restricted in their social and bodily autonomy during and after pregnancy. I conclude by offering suggestions for advancing sexual and reproductive justice for young people based on the experiences that were shared with me by young women.
Open Access
Decolonizing transness in sport media: the frames and depictions of transgender athletes in Sports Illustrated
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Matthews, Tammy Rae, author; Knight Steele, Catherine, advisor; Kodrich, Kris, advisor; Champ, Joseph, committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member
This discourse analysis examines depictions of trans athletes in Sports Illustrated and sport culture through the lens of queer theory and the interpretive-packages model proposed by Gamson & Modiglani (1989). Four interpretive packages emerged from the print content: (1) Marginalization, (2) Labeling, (3) Fighting and Fairness and (4) Pride and Affirmation. The results illustrate that discourse has generally become more sensitive to trans issues. The author presents these results with cautious optimism. Blindingly affirming and romancing the transgender can be equally as superficial as marginalization, and representations of trans athletes secured by one person are problematic. Researchers and sport organizations should dismantle antiquated, coercive sex segregation in traditional sport and decolonize how it contributes to gender-based oppression. The author recommends that media outlets focus on presenting fair, accurate and inclusive representations of transness that combat oppressive positions.
Open Access
Drifting sands; shifting identities: reclaiming an identity through the looking glass
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Haghighi, Mehzad, author; Ishiwata, Eric, advisor; Daum, Courtenay, committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member
The aim of this research is to introduce a different narrative, and thus the ways in which a new understanding of Middle East can emerge. Worldwide, corruption is endemic. In developing countries, the circulating capital surplus dividend subsequent to autonomy has not been widely shared. Services—protection, prosperity, health, and housing—are fundamental support pillars for the Social Contract between sovereign and citizen. Contrary to their anointed leader, populaces in developing countries are no longer willing to be complicit with sustaining Matured Democracies' nationalistic interests. This research, then, is a reasonable attempt to outline these multifaceted trends by disentangling history, economic, and politics of the region. The culturally specific logic to these localities, the forces of globalization, and the governmentality of the nation-state, has led to flawed ethnography of the Middle East as a delimited land and romanticized nomadism. In the Middle East, the Sykes Picot Agreement disrupted tribal composition, alliances, and politics in the region. The analysis will conclude with suggestions of how to avoid a verbal high-wire act, with fresh impetus on nationalism and patriotism encouraging identity as a continuum and not just a spectrum. Thus, we must begin by introducing different narratives, invert the scripts, alter the discourses, and directly engage and educate the Joe Six-Packs' of Matured Democracies.
Open Access
"Even machines get a rest": the commodification of the H-2A Indigenous sheepherder in Colorado's Western Slope
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Coenen, Shirley Man-Kin, author; Sagas, Ernesto, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Fernandez Gimenez, Maria, committee member
This project uses an exploratory, qualitative study to examine the ways in which the H-2A "guestworker" program in the United States is racialized and gendered as a temporary, state-controlled, foreign labor system. This project is accomplished through the exploration of testimonios of H-2A sheepherders in Colorado, and how these narratives are informed by race, class and the gendered identities of guestworkers. While there is significant descriptive work on labor and migration throughout U.S. history, there is a paucity of contemporary scholarship on guestworkers situated within a critical race and gendered lens. This work aims to bridge that gap by drawing from the conceptual frameworks within ethnic studies to integrate both race and gender. By analyzing patterns that emerge within the H-2A visa workers narratives, one can gain a perspective on the role of temporary guestworker programs in modern day transnational immigration practices. This leads to a basis for a theoretically grounded perspective on how race and gender influence modern guestworker labor practices.
Open Access
Excess flesh: a study on the universal commodification and consumption of the colored body
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Holmes, Jasmine Nicole, author; Lehene, Marius, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Plastini, Johnny, committee member
First, the breakdown of hegemony and the creation of "race" must be explored before moving onto the branching facets of commodified colored figures: Entertainment, Labor, Sexuality. Western societies' basic understanding of race is laced with phenotypical notions. The term itself is entwined within every societal construct that exists within the contemporary world. In order to completely discuss my artistic practice and the pieces that have developed throughout my time within this program, we must study these compartments of racial discrimation and overall consumption of the Black form.
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Food systems among Native American peoples in Oakland, California: an examination of connection and health
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Vernon, Rachel Valerie, author; Cespedes, Karina, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Pickering, Kathleen, committee member
This thesis is a critical engagement with Indigenous communities and the reclamation of food sovereignty as a movement that heals Indigenous populations. The Indigenous food sovereignty movement stands in opposition to a history of colonialism and disenfranchisement that sought to deny Indigenous people of their autonomy by creating dependency on Western institutions. Reclamation of a food system stands to signify the healing of community through the honoring of relationships and interdependence. Contemporary scholarship and policy efforts addressing health disparities have focused the debate on Indigenous food and health around personal accountability, and personal choice in eating and exercising. Although these behaviors improve health for communities, and individuals, they do not account for systemic disparities forged out of a history of colonialism and current institutional racism. Moreover, this focus is deeply engrained in Western models of health, rather than promoting the power of communities to forge their own culturally appropriate solutions. These mainstream attempts by Western institutions are singular in nature, denying the complex interaction at multiple points of colonialism and racism. This thesis focuses on Indigenous food sovereignty, and in particular attempts at urban community production, to address the emancipatory act of reclaiming traditional knowledge and the right to feed oneself and one's community. Food sovereignty is an ideological, cultural, and political act that can transform Indigenous communities that are "dying to survive" and transform them into thriving communities. This Indigenous food justice movement honors native peoples as visionary survivors of catastrophe. Using Indigenous methodology and photovoice I provide an analysis of one urban community in Oakland California where participants have been engaged in reclaiming their food system since 2010. This project allows us to understand how empowerment (of self and community) as well as relationships are strengthened because of such projects.
Open Access
HIV/AIDSneeds and concerns of immigrant Latinas in San Miguel County: an exploratory study
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Gonzales Garcia, Karla Giovanna, author; Vernon, Irene, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Griffin, Cindy, committee member
Working on creating paths to end gender, class and racial health inequalities in the U.S, this qualitative study explores the perspectives of immigrant Latinas on knowledge, cultural understandings, and access and barriers to HIV/AIDS services in San Miguel County, CO. Following a community based participatory research process through the use of intersectional lenses and transnational multiracial feminism, this research process seeks to further augment the literature on prevention intervention on HIV/AIDS, as well as to contribute to the construction of policies and recommendations based on their lived experiences. Grounded theory was used for data analysis to maintain women’s voices as the center of the research, where theory was constructed continuously based in their lived experiences and realities. Within this study, the interlocking relationship found between neoliberalism, transnationalism, U.S health care system and legal status, and the major themes such as, barriers to health care, HIV/AIDS related stigma and discrimination, Machismo, Latina sexuality, and knowledge of community resources, provides the context in which the epidemic of HIV/AIDS operates among immigrant Latinas.
Open Access
International development in two rural Kenyan villages: a transnational feminist approach
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Marweg, Abby Christina, author; Bubar, Roe, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Bruyere, Brett, committee member
This qualitative study explores the perspectives and stories of the women who live in the villages of Umoja and Unity in the northern Samburu region of Kenya and the impacts of Western driven international development projects in their communities. Through semi-structured interviews conducted in the villages of Umoja and Unity this thesis outlines the complexities of international development organizations and their relationship to the women, their access to resources, and the economic structures affecting their lives. This study augments transnational feminist theory with that of international development and economy to argue that the current system of development is inadequate. This study will show that this insufficiency in development initiatives is due to a failure by the Global North, global feminists, and development organizations to address the structural intersectionality that affects the women in Umoja and Unity and their lives.
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Materiality and discourse: toward a relational understanding of marginalizing onto-epistemologies in the ivory tower
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Varela, Elisa M., author; Griffin, Cindy L., advisor; Williams, Elizabeth A., committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member
Using epistemological and ontological lenses, this communicative study interrogates the experiences of the graduate community within the communication studies discipline. Specifically, and building on feminist methodologies and intersectional approaches, I seek to identify experiences of graduate students of color that call out and illuminate everyday discourses of silencing, erasure of difference, and disciplining. Additionally, I hope to identify not only these discourses, but also the ways in which corporeality and materiality become alongside these. One goal of this work is to encourage increased critical discussion around discursive theoretical and methodological approaches to scholarship within and beyond communication studies. A second, broader goal is to problematize and expand understanding(s) regarding how fragmented Western epistemological and ontological conceptual frameworks might actually "emulsify" and "curdle" to constitute complex somatic-semiotic matrices of domination (Hill-Collins, 2000) and emancipation within the academy.
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Perceptions of intimate partner violence: gender, sexuality, and the rules of engagement
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Aponte, Rebecca A., author; Chavez, Ernest, advisor; Bloom, Larry, committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member
Intimate partner violence is an important social issue. There is evidence that these cases are handled differently within the legal system as a function of the gender of the abusing partner, and the sexuality of the couple. Previous studies have examined these and other factors affecting arrest decisions made by police officers, but have not focused on instances of mutual violence. A study was conducted utilizing vignettes that depicted mutual violence. Factors affecting likelihood of arrest for each partner were examined, including the gender of the perpetrator and victim, the sexuality of the depicted couple, and participant variables. Participants were a convenience sample of 440 men and women who found the study on Amazon mTurk. Results indicated a significant effect for the gender of the perpetrator, the gender of the victim, and the sexuality of the couple across most vignettes.
Open Access
Picking up the pieces: place based race discourse in Pittsburgh opioid epidemic responses
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) LaFehr, Ericann A., author; Bubar, Roe, advisor; Ishiwata, Eric, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Glantz, Michelle, committee member
Public Health's dominant focus on white opioid users coupled with a colorblind ideology has resulted in the reiteration of racially stratified public health discussions, strategies, initiatives, and treatment both nationally and in the Pittsburgh region. This case study uses discourse analysis guided by a critical place-based intersectional and decolonial framework to explore the ways in which whiteness and place are considered by Pittsburgh Public Health entities who have positioned themselves as experts in addressing the opioid epidemic. Findings show that within Pittsburgh Public Health discourse, whiteness is reduced to a descriptor, omitting the reality of a racialized category with a distinct historical racial formation comprised of white supremacist violence. Findings also show that place is reduced to the backdrop in which opioid use happens resulting in the omission of the material relationships between land and people that are a critical component of the sociohistorical formation of whiteness within the industrial and deindustrial history of Pittsburgh. This study argues that the simplification of place based white racialized identity to a mere descriptor is a critical component that maintains white supremacy within Pittsburgh Public Health discourse and strategies that aim to address the opioid crisis. This study argues that if Public Health approaches are to be truly effective, discussions of the opioid epidemic in relation to white people must include the sociohistorical legacy of violent participation in white racial formations, as the collective historical memory holds the key in addressing the deeply seated underlying causes of pain.
Open Access
Power, politics, and the origin of the Chinese Exclusion Era
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Campbell, Jessica, author; Gudmestad, Robert, advisor; Payne, Sarah, committee member; Souza, Caridad, committee member
This study places the origins of the Chinese Exclusion Era (1823-1882) in a larger regional, national, and international context to reveal that the Chinese Exclusion Era was not a direct cause and effect relationship between labor and policy, but rather a negotiation between various groups including immigrants, laborers, politicians, and businessmen, where each group worked in its own self-interest to achieve or eliminate the exclusion of Chinese immigrants in the United States. This study focuses on issues of race, class, and gender, with particular emphasis on the ways in which existing structures and institutions within the United States such as the black-white binary, democracy, and capitalism shaped the reception and ultimate exclusion of immigrants.
Open Access
Reading Ché Guevara’s "new man" through the praxis of misfitting: towards a revolution for "people like us"
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Putnam, Bryan Rodrigues, author; Cespedes, Karina, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Sagás, Ernesto, committee member; Velasco, Marcela, committee member; Aragon, Antonette, committee member
This study incorporates reflections from five Cuban participants about the contemporary status of Ernesto Ché Guevara’s “new man” in Cuba. Grounded in the Marxist tradition of praxis as philosophy, the thesis integrates Pan American articulations on the theme of Latin American liberation alongside interview data. In light of research findings pertaining to the “new man,” I evoke Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s feminist materialist disability concepts of “fitting” and “misfitting” alongside Tobin Siebers’ assertion that by way of “misfitting” one produces critical knowledge revealing the “blueprints of power” that have constructed exclusionary reality for some and a contingent fit for others. I argue that the state imposed ideal of the “new man” failed to create the proper channels within which everyday misfit knowledge could be elevated to the level of social theory. However, the “new man” as a set of embodied values and mechanisms for social integration did succeed at various levels, which are explored throughout the chapters.
Open Access
Relationship quality and men's oxidative stress
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Merriman, Leslie A., author; Steger, Michael F., advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Harman, Jennifer, committee member
The association between oxidative stress and quality of romantic relationships was investigated in a sample of 98 college males. Given a postulated life history trade-off between current and future reproductive potential, men currently in higher quality romantic relationships may expend less general mating effort (i.e., less energy allocation to finding, attracting, and competing for new mates) than single men or men in lesser quality relationships. Reduced mating effort may allow greater allocation of energy to anti-oxidant defense systems, and increased resistance to oxidative damage by reactive oxygen species (ROS). Consistent with this prediction, men who reported being in higher quality romantic relationships (i.e., relationships characterized by greater mutual investment and emotional engagement) had significantly lower levels of oxidative stress than men lacking such relationships. Neither testosterone nor cortisol mediated the effect. Due to the correlational nature of the research design, causal relations are unclear; theoretical interpretations are discussed. Resistance to oxidative damage could be a physiological mechanism by which the experience of being in a higher quality romantic relationship manifests in direct health benefits. Alternatively, men with inherently greater resistance to oxidative damage (due to less ROS production, better functioning anti-oxidant defense, or both) may be more likely to achieve such relationships, owing to pre-existing superior quality or fitness.
Open Access
Semillas de concienca | seeds of consciousness: sowing change from the Ecuadorian highlands
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Radford, Hope, author; Kwiatkowski, Lynn, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Van Buren, Mary, committee member
This thesis is a small part of Pintag Amaru's story, and mine. I met Pintag Amaru – a small Kichwa organization in Ecuador – in 2022, and this work is the fruit of our collaboration. Focusing broadly on sumak kawsay, a Kichwa principle engaged in Ecuador's 2008 constitution, our research explores Pintag Amaru's understanding, and living out, of the concept. Sumak kawsay has gained recent attention in scholarship as a grassroots "alternative" to the paradigm of international development, but this conversation has rarely included the voices of Indigenous communities at the heart of sumak kawsay's conception and practice. Engaging the central analytical lens of post-development theory and a diversity of anthropological qualitative research methods including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups, I explore sumak kawsay through perspectives of – and relationship with – the people of Pintag Amaru. Built collaboratively from the onset, our work seeks to convey Pintag Amaru's grounded understandings on sumak kawsay, development, and their relation as they navigate today's world. Though they see the state's use of sumak kawsay as a co-option of a profoundly expansive and dynamic principle, I find Pintag Amaru conveys creativity and depth of autonomous efforts towards Indigenous resurgence, and sumak kawsay as part of it. They face challenges within the structures of a dominant development paradigm, but navigate these structures strategically to live sumak kawsay out amidst them. Through this work, too, I've come to understand sumak kawsay is dynamic, and deeply tied to place; it is not a prescription for us to replicate. I do believe, however, it is a view of the possible. We hope that this thesis, if nothing else, can offer such an opening – one seed of many – rooting in the cracks of decaying structures to grow something new.