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Creating a Common Future: Opportunities for Confidence-Building Measures in Unresolved Conflicts of the Former Soviet Union
No full textUnresolved conflict in the former Soviet states is a common phenomenon: in addition to the most recent 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, negotiations over conflicts that began in the 1990s in Transdniestria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia remain frozen. After decades of isolation, harsh rhetoric, and no dialogue, people across the boundary lines of each conflict have little experience with, or confidence in, the other side. My research focuses on the use of confidence-building measures in the unresolved conflicts of the former Soviet Union as a method of increasing the trust needed for an eventual common future. Confidence-building measures develop trust between conflicting sides through cooperation on low-stakes, common issues, trust which can then carry over into the peace process. Increasing confidence is essential at all levels: negotiators must trust the other side’s commitment, while the public must be willing to accept an agreement. Although these measures can be incredibly effective, discussion of them has stalled along with the larger negotiation process. My project seeks to refresh the understanding of confidence-building measures in the former Soviet Union and as a global tool for conflict resolution.
To analyze confidence-building measures in the former Soviet Union, I present four case studies of unresolved conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Transdniestria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. I include interviews with representatives of local civil society groups working directly on conflict-related issues, which provide original insight into the challenges faced by these efforts, as well as successes and ideas for further improvement. I find that confidence-building measures are beneficial for alleviating harmful situations and encouraging the development of societies capable of reaffirming less dangerous narratives, working toward a shared future, and, eventually, accepting the prospect of peace.International Relation
Exploring the Relationship Between Previous Year Health Expenditures and COVID-19 Deaths: A country-level analysis
No full textWhen the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, a quest to understand the virus in order to find an effective solution increased interest in the factors contributing to a greater number of deaths. The factor of health expenditure seemed to be an important determinant of health status and economic development of a nation from the evidence of several research papers. This was true especially in poor and developing countries, where public health expenditures fell short. So, it was inferred that it should have an effect on COVID-19 deaths as well. With this in mind, this research used a multivariate regression model comprising over 200 countries with the cumulative COVID-19 deaths as the dependent variable and health expenditures as the independent variable. The controls that were used include population, GDP, share of population above 65 years of age, share of urban population and prevalence of tobacco use. I find that for the main multivariate regression model, the outcome of focus, health expenditure was positive and not statistically significant. The coefficient for the share of population over 65 was however positive and statistically significant, and so were the prevalence for tobacco use and share of urban population. For my second set of models, I divide the countries into low, middle and high income groups. I find that the health expenditure has a negative relationship with COVID-19 deaths for the low income countries, although it is still not statistically significant. For the high and middle income countries, the coefficients are still positive. For countries in the middle-income group, the relationship isn’t significant but for the high-income group, the relationship is significant at the 0.1 level (p<0.1). Additionally, I also perform a regression analysis of the external health expenditures and COVID-19 death rates in low and middle-income countries. I find that there is a negative relationship between external health expenditures and COVID-19 deaths, but it is not significant.Economic
Type One Cybernetics: Biotechnical Embodiment as a Crip/Queer Site of Feminist Knowledge Production
No full textAdvancements in medical biotechnology are moving at breakneck speed in the twenty-first century. These trends are especially clear in the developments of biotechnology for type one diabetes management, as medical technology analysts predict that 2021 will be a critical moment for the diabetes biotech industry. This projection of economic success for biotechnology companies comes amidst a worldwide health crisis that continues to illuminate many of the existing inadequacies of the United States’ healthcare system. This project aims to question the motivations behind biotechnological advancements as they relate to Foucauldian notions of biopolitics, power, and control, while wrestling with the reality of the positive changes these biotechnologies have brought to my own daily management and care rituals as a type one diabetic. This thesis is partially an auto-ethnography in the tradition of feminist science research, where much of my empirical data is gathered through my daily care practices of managing my diabetes with various technologies, in a constant conversation with my disease. I employ Laura Forlano’s (2017) methodology of data rituals and intimate infrastructures to explore what it means to become diabetic as a way of knowing the world, in an era of hyper-management through biotechnology.
Chapter 1 explores the history of type one diabetes diagnostics, care, and classifications, and some of the medical and cultural distinctions between type one and type two diabetes. Using theorists such as Rob Dunn, Ed Cohen, and Michelle Jamieson, I interrogate Western biomedicine’s ill-disposed and fraught relationship to autoimmune and chronic disorders, as they trouble the monocausal logic of biomedicine’s ontology. Type one diabetes is particularly complex in the notion of autoimmunity, as the processes through which pancreatic beta cells are depleted leaves many questions unanswered. Chapter 2 investigates insulin’s introduction as a manufactured hormone to treat diabetes in the first half of the twentieth century, its history of employment in psychiatric institutions, and addresses the question of the free market regulation’s failures to ensure insulin’s affordability to diabetics in the U.S. This chapter also illustrates different components of management technologies, including developments in creating an “artificial pancreas” or closed-loop system, and calls into question the motivations behind such rapid advancements in biotechnology. In chapter 3, using Paul Preciado’s (2013) theorization of the “pharmacopornographic era,” I examine the ways in which engagement with different diabetes management technologies in the United States produce a specific form of techno-crip subjectivity. Through the use of narrative, I question my own agency in relation to my data rituals (Forlano, 2017), and what it means to become an active patient (Sambrook, 2019). To conclude, I rely heavily on personal narrative and call into question what it means to “end” a project which is about a constant becoming. Using Halberstam’s (2011) theorization about queer failure, and McRuer’s (2004) discussion of de-compositional structures as a crip/queer methodology, I resist formally concluding by embracing the partials produced through crip/queer time. I turn to the figure of the cyborg (Haraway), and how it might be deconstructed and reimagined using a crip, queer-of-color critique to produce ontological possibilities of crip/queer embodiment and futurity.Gender Studie
Home and Becoming Through Photography
No full textHow do places become a part of us? I’ve been moving constantly since I was a child. When I was 19, I went to a different country for college. I believe each place I’ve lived preserves a fragment of me. At the same time, I’m shaped by these places, including its culture, its environment, and people, like how an apple is shaped by the jar in those eccentric experiments attempting to grow cubic apples by putting them in jars. Those places are stored in my memory and gradually become a part of my identity. I give new meaning to them. When I move forward, I carry my memory of those places with me. On the way, they collide and merge with each other, while distorted by the message I’m newly informed. I’d like to explore more about how people interact with space.
I’d like to develop my project by making a personal landscape in the form of three-dimensional photo collage. Such art form breaks the boundary between photos and objects, while it extends the space of photos and merges them with real space. I hope my work could be more interactive if I’m going to explore the subject as intangible as space. My reference would be artists who also work with photo installations or photo collage. In that case, they would be, Melissa Zexter, Odette England, Doug Rickard and David Hockney.Art Studi
Passing for Paradise: Colonial Mimicry and Desire in Pachinko and The Bluest Eye
No full textThis thesis is generally concerned with formations and relations of power: how are power structures formed and replicated across borders, and why are they replicated? Through a comparative literary analysis of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, I examine how each author explores racial subjugation, particularly its effects and the motivation behind it. I found that the desire of the subjugated person for colonial constructions of paradise and the propensity of the subjugated to perform passing, illustrates the insidious effectiveness of colonial indoctrination. Lee and Morrison point to the fictitious nature of paradise and the colonial identities constructed in relation to it through the characters’ inability to attain paradise. This in turn pushes the readers to contemplate alternative ways of being to the one available in paradise.Englis
Transforming the Status Quo: The Influence of Insurgent Presidential Campaigns on Political Parties in the United States
No full textBehind the Prosperity of the Video Game Industry: The Social Impacts and the Selling Strategies
No full textThe video game industry has become the most profitable form of entertainment since 2018. Despite the prosperity, probably few people could tell exactly what the social impacts of video games are and how video games generate profit. This thesis consists of a theoretical analysis of the social impacts of video games, a general introduction of the economic structures, and an empirical survey about consumers’ behaviors under the selling strategies. Through an economic and psychological examination, it is clear that the assumed causal relationship between video games and violent crimes is unreliable and video games are valuable tools to society and individuals. Few people know the economic differences between Pay-to-Play games (P2P) and Free-to-Play games (F2P) as well as the selling strategies adopted by game developers. Thus, this thesis provides an introduction to P2P games, F2P games, and the selling strategies behind them. This thesis also offers an answer to whether those strategies are efficient by analyzing consumers’ behaviors in the Chinese market.Economic
Back from the U.S.S.R.: Soviet Jewish Immigrants in a Fractured Promised Land
No full textBetween 1989-2001, 1.5 million Soviet Jews emigrated to Israel, representing the largest immigrant wave in the country’s history. Since their arrival, the Former Soviet Union (FSU) immigrant community has formed a salient Soviet-Russian identity through their Russian language, Soviet-Russian cultural traditions, and geographic concentration in Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Haifa. Most significantly, the FSU community has impacted Israel’s political landscape through their overwhelming support for right-wing politicians, such as the secular-immigrant party Yisrael Beiteinu, and their hardline stance on peace negotiations with Israel’s Arab counterparts.
Existing studies confirm the xenophobic views held by the FSU community toward Arab citizens. Through 78 survey responses and 20 in-person interviews, this study assesses the willingness of the FSU community to adapt their views of the Arab population through an in-depth analysis of how their negative outlook of the Arab population formed; and to what extent those views were shaped by the FSU community’s integration into Israel.
My analysis finds that the main factors that formed the FSU community’s negative views of Arabs are the following: an unfamiliarity of Arab culture and the Arabic language, a lack of interest in learning more about the Arab community, a fear of violence and support for security measures, and the belief that “good” interactions with Arabs are an exception to an established rule. Combined, these four factors indicate that the willingness of the FSU community to adapt their views of Arabs is low. In examining the four factors that contribute to these negative views held by the FSU community toward Arabs, this study provides a unique insight into the limitations of effective integration within Israel’s multicultural society; and how the failure to integrate these two communities stands as one significant impediment to an effective peace process.International Relation
Workshop Guide. Final Project for Mount Holyoke College class COLL- 224 (Being Human in STEM), Spring semester 2020
No full textFinal Project for Mount Holyoke College class COLL- 224 (Being Human in STEM), Spring semester 2020Context of this project from author notes in co-authored ancillary document: “For our group project, we focused on ways to improve the retention of underrepresented groups in STEM fields. We determined that a project focusing on 100-level STEM courses would allow us to have the most lasting impact on student retention as introductory course experiences often shape the long-term trajectory of students. When thinking about the possible ways we could improve retention relating to 100-level STEM classes, we thought the best approach was to develop a workshop focused on educating students and faculty about microaggressions in the STEM classroom. Through our group meetings, we expanded the workshop to include sections on implicit bias and stereotype threat.