Browsing by Department "International Comparative Studies"
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Item Open Access A Home of Our Own: Social Reproduction of a Precarious, Migrant Class(2019-04-29) Aguilar, ErickMany of the recent migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico have experienced the rise of drug-related gang violence and declining economic conditions in their home countries brought on by transnational agreements. With the ongoing collapse of their communities and homes via these conditions, many of these migrants move to the United States and join precarious jobs, such as agricultural labor. This thesis explores the ways in which family connections, inside and outside the home, affects the decision-making processes that leads migrant parents to join these precarious labor regimes. Through participant-observation and semi-structured interviews with migrant mothers and fathers from Honduras and Mexico living in rural towns in Eastern North Carolina, I investigate the social reproductive forces of the family that help fuel mass migration into rural North Carolina. Furthermore, I use my own experience as the son of an agricultural worker to complement my findings within the fields. My findings show that migrant mothers choose to migrate to North Carolina to raise their sons in proximity to their fathers, which they believe will allow their sons to learn how to become successful laborers in the future. Additionally, migrant parents believe that the home can be a place where the trauma of displacement can be undone. These findings show a glimmer of how lives can be structured and shaped outside of wage labor.Item Open Access Africatown: Mapping Space and Making Frenchness in the Goutte d'Or(2024-04-10) Murphy, ZoéMy research centers on the Goutte d’Or, a quartier of the 18th district of Paris, commonly flattened by media and academia as a “Little Africa.” Through multimedia methods of walking, journaling, and ArcGIS StoryMaps, I provide a sensory and data-informed analysis of the movement and dynamism of the quartier. I argue that the terminology “Little Africa” misrepresents the space as a restricted island of Africa in the French capital and use frameworks from Chinatown literature to deepen the lens of analysis. Researchers have reframed Chinatowns to consider a multiplicity of both Chinese and other identities in a space that is highly woven into its city. As such, I propose the adoption of the framework “Africatown” for the Goutte d’Or to reveal how the neighborhood is deeply woven into the fabric of Paris and France. By adopting the Africatown framework, I demonstrate the Goutte d’Or’s role and participation in the greater development of identity in France and make a commentary on the evolution of “Frenchness” as the country’s population continues to change.Item Open Access Agua es vida // Water is Life(2023-04-20) Brennan Agarwal, ChayaItem Open Access And the Winner Is...: Politics and International Film Festivals(2010-05-14T14:33:30Z) Jamison, CourtneyInternational politics dominate every interaction occurring at an international film festival. The Cannes Film Festival as well as the Pusan International Film Festival each offer unique aspects of international politics based on their locations, France and South Korea, respectively. But beyond location, international politics are a huge aspect of the environment of both festivals and a main factor in their existence.Item Open Access Application of the UNHCR's "Ceased Circumstances" Cessation Clauses to the Rwandan Refugee Crisis(2013-06-24) Rabideau, JelineOver one hundred thousand Rwandans are currently living abroad as refugees, mostly in the nearby countries of east and central Africa. The Rwandan government, under the authoritarian leadership of President Paul Kagame, is working to convince both its people and the powerful international donor community that Rwanda has recovered, that it has reconciled, and that it is now safe for refugees to return. In October of 2009 the United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR, issued a recommendation that its “ceased circumstances” cessation clauses—Chapter I(C), clauses (5) and (6) of the organization’s Convention—be invoked with respect to these Rwandan refugees. These provisions allow the UN and refugee asylum countries to determine when the reasons for a particular refugee crisis have ended. In July of this year, all remaining Rwandan refugees will lose their group refugee status and the legal protection and benefits this status carries. Many of them will be forced to repatriate. Citing the crimes of Kagame’s military forces both during and after the 1994 Genocide, as well as the repressive political conditions the country continues to experience today, Rwandan refugees are concerned that a forced return will mean exposure to very real and continued fears and dangers. Confronted by both this possibility and by the entirety of their lives and experiences in exile, these refugees must continually renegotiate their notions of “home” and “belonging.”Item Open Access Beautiful White: An Illumination of Asian Skin-Whitening Culture(2013-04) Pan, ElysiaThis paper uses Taiwanese and Chinese skin-whitening beauty products as a lens through which to study how globalization and the Japanese post-colonial context has influenced the nuanced East and West hybridization of skin-whitening beauty practices in primarily Culturally Chinese cosmopolitan cities such as Taipei, Taiwan. Applying Koichi Iwabuchi’s notion of transculturation, I examine the exchanges between producers of skin-whitening cosmetics and their consumers. In particular, I analyze Taiwanese and Chinese fashion and beauty magazines to examine how ads for skin-whitening cosmetics align with the local, historical context of East Asia and appeal to members of the “Culturally Chinese” diaspora. Multinational cosmetic brands advertise their skin-whitening product lines to the “Culturally Chinese” consumer market in multiple ways. I investigate some common skin-whitening marketing motifs to see how marketers renegotiate common symbols and their conventionally signified meanings to create new sign circuits that influence female consumers and redefine Culturally Chinese ideals of beauty.Item Unknown Black Boi(2016-11-08) McGhee, JamieItem Unknown Branding Luxury: Japan, China, and Vogue(2014-05-18) Songer, ChloeThis thesis examines the role of luxury across histories and the democratization of modern luxury. This thesis then looks at the value of the Vogue brand as both a product and an agent in the development of luxury taste and participation within emerging markets, particularly within Japan and China. A developed nation today, Japan was able to engage with modern international trade and luxury consumption decades before China’s currently emerging society due to internal socio political factors and events dating back to the 17th century. China’s particular political turmoil over the past century then further dissuaded essential participation. This paper discusses the varying ways Western luxury brands have entered these disparate economies and argues that the creation of luxury desire must be rooted in a localized cultural understanding. The paper then argues that just as Vogue allowed the emerging US economy to establish luxury and fashion tastes and industries independent of France and Other Europe following World War I, international editions of Vogue allow emerging societies the same confidence. This confidence translates to a more extensive repertoire of brand engagement and further refined taste as well as the development of a homegrown industry held to international standards. Employing a first hand analysis of Vogue Japan and Vogue China advertisements over time, this paper further confirms these assumptions by finding: advertisements and content reaching younger consumers through Vogue China must further localize and employ educative content when compared to the advanced readers of Vogue Japan and that since inception the number of participating domestic luxury brands within Vogue China has dramatically increased.Item Open Access Chieftaincy Reimagined: Modernity and Tradition in the Chefferie of Batoufam, Cameroon(2015-05-02) Grace, JaclynThis thesis uses chieftaincy in Cameroon, and specifically the chefferie (chieftainship) of Batoufam, as a lens through which to understand the complex tensions between modernity and tradition in postcolonial Africa. After presenting a historical study of Grassfield chiefs’ role in the modern Cameroonian state, I analyze the relationship between tradition and modernity through the case study of the chief of Batoufam, Cameroon. My research drew upon several weeks of conducting over twenty-five interviews with village leaders, including the chief and several notables, in order to understand why traditional institutions in African nations are continually excluded from the global development industry. I argue that, not only can traditional institutions produce aspects of Western modernity, but these institutions in Cameroon also utilize liberal and neoliberal practices in the interest of community goals, mobilizing Western strategies for new and different purposes. I conclude that traditional institutions in Africa are not merely reproducing a Western model of modernity, but are in fact reshaping modernity itself through new conceptualizations, forms and applications. These traditional institutions thus present a critical resource for development, suggesting alternate strategies and future realities.Item Open Access Chinese "Sea-Turtles" and Importing a Culture of Innovation: Trends in Chinese Human Capital Migration in the 21st Century(2013-04) Sieber, HannahThis thesis explores efforts in China to create an indigenous culture of innovation aimed at freeing China’s economy from dependence on foreign sources of capital and technology while propelling China to the top tier of global industrial powers. Beginning with the historical, cultural and political traditions that led to the establishment of China as an imitator rather than creative inventor in areas of science and technology, the study moves to research recent policy efforts in China to stimulate indigenous innovation through educational reforms and various forms of financial and immigration incentives. The human resource engineering effort to encourage Chinese students (“sea turtles”) to study in the West and then return home to engage in entrepreneurial activity is one element of the Chinese government’s “Long Term Plan” to stimulate innovative capacity, creative research and development, and economic growth. Using current literature on innovation, this study draws on a framework illustrating the ways that the innovation process helps a product move from a creative idea to market-based reality, and analyzes patent filings and research citations to illustrate a shift in ownership of intellectual property in China from foreigners, to “sea turtle” Returnees, to locals. This study concludes with a large body of original survey data on Chinese students in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park and in Shanghai, examining different motives for leaving and staying in China, as well as reactions to new government incentives to entice people back. What emerges is a surprising twist on the idea of “the brain drain.” More than sixty percent of China’s wealthiest individuals—themselves sea turtles—are in the process of emigrating from China to Canada, the US, and other countries. In an examination of some high-profile entrepreneurs this study points to a lack of confidence in genuine government reform and a deep concern with corruption on many levels as reasons why, despite the best laid plans, successful sea turtles are using their international connections to exit their country of birth.Item Open Access Confronting the 'Post-Conflict’ Label: An Exploration of Ethno-Sectarian Identity in Northern Ireland and Cyprus(2016-04-27) Brody, LauraGhosts of conflict haunt many societies around the world. In those that remain divided, sectarian sentiment governs societal norms and structures. Assigning the 'post-conflict' label to these societies marginalizes the need to actively work towards reconciliation between opposing communities. It also creates a hierarchical perception of suffering by dismissing experiences of first-hand and trans-generational trauma. This thesis aims to challenge the 'post-conflict' label by extending the popular definition of violence past that of bloodshed to one that encompasses representational forms of violence. I will explore patterns of representational violence in societies divided along ethnic lines through the lens of Northern Ireland and Cyprus. These case studies will be placed side by side to demonstrate the shared patterns that enable sectarian sentiment to perpetuate and resurface throughout time. Both Northern Ireland and Cyprus are considered 'post-conflict' on the basis of treating their most recent eras of violence, the Troubles and the Cyprus Problem respectively, as isolated historical events. These are not isolated events, but parts of much larger conflicts driven by centuries-old Irish-British and Greek-Turkish rivalries. In the first chapter, I will outline legacies of Greek-Turkish and Irish-British tension. In the second chapter, I will explore the heroic and villainous archetypes that perpetuate ethno-sectarianism in Northern Ireland and Cyprus. In the third chapter, I will explore present-day spatial and mental divisions that inhibit interaction between opposing communities and harden existing ethno-sectarian tensions. The patterns revealed in Northern Ireland and Cyprus may aid in understanding the social practices of divided societies around the world.Item Open Access Confronting the Imperial Narrative: Counter-Narratives from Iraqi and Syrian Refugees in Jordan(2018-05-22) Ahmed, MahaThis thesis explores how individual refugees respond to imposed narratives about their communities. Iraqi and Syrian refugees in Amman, Jordan (n=40) were interviewed during the summer of 2018. Each interviewee’s response was recorded and coded to gain insight into attitudes towards Western institutions responsible for resettlement cases. Given that normative social roles can be constructed in institutional narratives that serve to sustain power inequalities, the interviews reveal how these roles that define the “refugee” are constructed, naturalized, and challenged in displaced communities. The counter narratives from those who were interviewed directly point to the way institutional narratives shape neo-liberal forms of control centered on human rights rhetoric and explain how states use the commodification of suffering through the normative refugee asylum story to distance and other the marginalized. Finally, this thesis finds that refugees’ resentment towards imperial control, which comes out of counter-narratives, is centered around an unease with Western power and the rise of the military-industrial complex.Item Open Access Cultural Commingling: The Impact of Western Medical Conceptions on Igbo Cultural Understandings of Disease(2013-04) Anigbogu, UcheSince the beginning of colonialism, people of different cultures have adamantly fought changes that can irreversibly alter cultural identities. Sub-Saharan African societies, specifically, have been victims of aggressive Western indoctrination. Colonialism changed the entire face of societies it touched, including the domain of medicine. Western medicine (biomedicine) and indigenous medicine (culturally and socially specific medicinal practices) have contested with each other for centuries. Western biomedical knowledge has long challenged the ideas and medical understandings of non-Western societies. Each society has its own distinct reaction to these struggles, with many African societies taking an all-or-nothing approach. Some societies embraced the ideas and conceptions of the West, effectively sidelining indigenous values and ideals in the exchange. Other communities, in order to shield themselves from outside influences, refused all permeation of biomedical knowledge and continue to operate according to their native medical traditions though this is progressively rarer. Very few cultures have been able to adapt some of the beliefs, habits and measures of foreigners as well as maintain the systems of their own culture in a collaborative fashion. Igbo people have progressively blended the indigenous and Western medical perspectives to achieve a complex and detailed understanding of disease. This paper is concerned with the relationship between biomedical beliefs and cultural medical knowledge, examining the effect of the former on the latter.Item Open Access Deconstructing Institutional Narratives and Building Institutional Alternatives: The Legacy of Ivan Illich and the Center for Intercultural Documentation (CIDOC) (1961-1976)(2023-04-20) Beza-Juarez, RachelThis thesis examines the combined theories and histories of humanist radical thinker Ivan Illich and the alternative educational institution, the Center for Intercultural Documentation (CIDOC), founded in 1967 in Cuernavaca, Mexico. By analyzing this history through a lens of alternative institutionality, I evaluate and examine how its institutional critiques were actualized at CIDOC and what lessons can be taken from this endeavor. This thesis utilizes Illich’s theory of institutionalization to analyze how CIDOC attempted to implement structural solutions to the alienating and professionalizing relationships of education fostered by the schooling process by creating alternative institutional life. I first study Illich’s work on institutionalization by tracing the influences and development of his earliest thought and life. I then provide a historical account of CIDOC to provide context for how the “schooling” structure of learning was reimagined in this institution and how this attempt ran counter to the deeply embedded institutional narratives of progress and development of the industrial age. Finally, I weigh the limitations and opportunities that arise from building alternative institutions like CIDOC toward the end of creating new social relationships of learning and promoting broader social change. Building on how the relationship between individuals and their learning shape the broader society, these histories ultimately grapple with the question of how to build societal institutions that can avert the alienating dangers of institutionalization while maintaining their counter-institutionality—the avenue toward building a different society.Item Open Access El Tango Extranjero(2010-05-06T17:07:31Z) Garibaldi, DianaThe evolution of the Argentine tango is examined, demonstrating the importance of fragmentation and international influences on its creation and endurance as a national symbol for Argentine identity. It looks at the evolution of the tango chronologically, highlighting important moments in its development both domestically and abroad that have furthered its development and importance culturally and in regards to its relationship with national identity. Specifically, five major periods in tango will be explored: its beginnings; its early travels to Europe; its repatriation to Argentina and the subsequent Golden Years; then its renaissance and endurance abroad, which finally led it back to Argentina for a local renaissance. The current renaissance in Argentina demonstrates the lasting importance of the tango to national identity, as well as the durability of various hybrid forms of the tango. It also shows us that tango has particular transnational characteristics, which enables the tango to leave its borders, only to come back with renewed vitality and popularity. The national symbol therefore, benefits from its international travels and exposure, as it furthers its development and helps the tango endure.Item Open Access Fact-Checking in Buenos Aires & the Modern Journalistic Struggle Over Knowledge(2019-04-15) Flamini, DanielaIn news environments all around the world, journalists are frazzled about what they consider to be a deplorable state of the media. With large demographics of consumers having access to digital technologies and new methods of story-telling via social media platforms and the Internet, newspaper reporters of the past are finding themselves constantly having to catch up to a rapidly changing realm of knowledge-production. This thesis uses fact-checking as a lens through which to study the modern relationship between power, information, and the creation of narrative, and it is rooted in observations from my various engagements with fact-checkers in Buenos Aires and at an international conference in Rome. Applying Antonio Gramsci’s notion of ‘the intellectual,’ I examine how Argentina’s polarized political environment and clashing of class interests inspired the organic rise of Chequeado, a fact-checking organization committed to holding elite groups accountable to the rest of society by establishing a new kind of journalistic authority over knowledge-producing processes. Using my experience traveling with the Duke Reporters’ Lab to Global Fact V in Rome, I broaden this discussion to fit a globalized framework. In spaces where ideological battles wage and the very definition of reality is at stake, fact-checkers are vying for a narrower kind of authoritative power over the information that gets exchanged between classes, one that mobilizes the public to use their access to knowledge and counter hegemonic narrative.Item Open Access France and the Headscarf: Exploring Discrimination through Laïcité and a Colonial Legacy(2013-06-24) Tropper, SamanthaOn March 15, 2004, the lives of veiled Muslim women in France changed. A new law banned the Islamic headscarf in all public schools, claiming laïcité—secularism—as its reasoning. But this law was not solely the product of Islamophobia leftover from 9/11. It had been building for generations on a history of colonialism in North Africa as well as post-decolonization attitudes about immigration and Islam in the international sphere. This paper aims to disentangle this complicated concept of laïcité and how it has been manipulated in the past century to create a so-called “neutral” public sphere in which Muslims are placed in a subordinate position. Through an analysis of colonialism and its remnants as well as Islamophobia that has resulted from more current events portrayed in the media, this paper outlines the development of Arab and Muslim discrimination in France. In the final chapter, interviews from Muslim individuals in France are used to give them a proper voice in this debate, in which they are so often left unheard. Their stories act as the impetus to promote prolonged research and development of this topic in the future as events continue to unfold in France.Item Open Access Franco's Spain and the Jewish Rescue Effort during World War Two(2013-06-25) Olan, GenaAlthough a little known fact, Spanish diplomats helped save many of their own Sephardic (Spanish) Jews during World War Two. Three Spanish diplomats in three different locales – Bernardo Rolland in Paris, Sebastián Romero Radigales in Greece, and Julio Palencia in Bulgaria – made surprising and systematic efforts to save the Sephardim from the Nazis. Why was Spain, a fascist country and German ally, helpful to Jews during the war? This question lies at the heart of my investigation, and this paper will suggest some possible reasons for this historical conundrum. Spain’s expulsion of the Jews in 1492 provides a historical locus from which to consider several implications that emerge closer to WWII. The fact of individual diplomats acting on their own is equally important in speculating about possible reasons for inconsistent application of Spanish government policy. The behavior of these diplomats probably reflected considerations of modern Spanish national identity, which is intertwined with Spanish Jewry. Furthermore, the majority of diplomats came from the higher echelons of society who had class, cultural, and educational affinities with the Sephardim, creating empathy, which may account for the life-saving actions. The fact that Franco did not establish a clear agenda for his diplomats or an institutionalized training system prior to 1942 accounts for the flexibility granted to these diplomats, which they, in turn, used to save many Sephardim. The 1942 institutionalization of the diplomatic corps was Franco’s attempt to correct this problem and to create a cohort of diplomats that was an extension of his regime with the same ideological leanings. My primary source research in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Spain helps to shed light on this historical puzzle, itself a reminder of the importance of recognizing contingency and competing interests in historiography.Item Open Access Furnishing a Globalized World: Local Distinctiveness in the International Furniture Industry(2015-05-02) Schwartz, AlexandraAdvances in technology, communication, and transportation over the past thirty years have led to tighter linkages and enhanced collaboration across traditional borders between nations, institutions, and cultures. This thesis uses the furniture industry as a lens to examine the impacts of globalization on individual countries and companies as they interact on an international scale. Using global value chain analysis and international trade data, I break down the furniture production process and explore how countries have specialized in particular stages of production to differentiate themselves from competitors and maximize the benefits of global involvement. Through interviews with company representatives and evaluation of branding strategies such as advertisements, webpages, and partnerships, I investigate across four country cases how furniture companies construct strong brands in an effort to stand out as unique to consumers with access to products made around the globe. Branding often serves to highlight distinctiveness and associate companies with national identities, thus revealing that in today’s globalized and interconnected society, local differences and diversity are more significant than ever.Item Open Access Healers and Helpers: Colonial Power Imbalances in Medical Missions and Global Health(2024-04-10) Purnell, CatherineThis thesis is about colonial power imbalances within global healthcare provision. Evangelical Christian medical missionaries and many experts in field of global health both consider themselves to be “helpers” to populations of people they understand to be in need of help. This reinforces the flow of high income countries sending sometimes unwanted “assistance” to low and middle income areas, similar to colonialism. The movement to decolonize global health has added tools to remove colonialism from care, but has not yet been fully successful. I add to the wealth of information about decolonizing global health provision by integrating medical mission care and global health into the same conversation, and asks if it is possible for medical missions to decolonize in a manner that the ‘decolonizing global health’ movement seeks to do. I use the example of Partners in Health and its liberation theology-based method of care as an example of decolonized care. On the other hand, it is not possible to offer decolonized care under the label of “medical missions” as the field is currently defined.
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