viii, 116 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / As Mainland China transitions from a planned socialist economy to one more market-focused, its economic successes have garnered attention worldwide. However, this astounding economic growth brought with it a number of negative side effects, including corruption and a resurgence ofprostitution. Gender relations have also undergone major shifts from state mandated gender equality in the Mao era to a call for the refeminization ofwomen in the Reform era. How is the Chinese population navigating this transition? In this thesis, I utilize existing melodrama theory and relevant sociological studies to explore how three Chinese TV dramas-I'm Not a Hero (2004), Close to You, Make Me Warm (2006), and Give Me a Cigarette (2006), later renamed Evening Rain--expose and explore some of these existing social problems, providing a platform for their viewers to reflect on and explore these issues on their own. / Committee in Charge: Tze-Ian Sang, Chair; Alison Groppe; Eileen Otis

In the worlds of virtual reality, whole objects and bodies are created in an immaterial manner from lines, ratios and light pixels. When objects are created in this form they can easily be manipulated, edited, multiplied and deleted. In addition, technological advances in virtual reality development result in an increased merging of physical and virtual elements, creating spaces of mixed reality. This leads to interesting consequences where the physical environment and body, in a similar vein to the virtual, also becomes increasingly easier to manipulate, distort and change. Mixed realities thus enhance possibilities of a world of constantly changing landscapes and adjustable, interchangeable bodies. The notions of virtual and real coincide within this thesis, reflecting on a new version of reality that is overlapped and ever-present in its mixing of virtual and physical. These concepts are explored within my exhibition Immaterial - a creation of simulated nature encompassing a mix of natural and artificial, tangible and intangible. Within the exhibition space, I have created a scene of mixed reality, by merging elements of both a virtual and physical forest. This generates a magical space of new experiences that comes to life through the manipulated, edited, morphed and re-awakened bodies of trees.

The stories in this collection explore the fantastical, the power of memory, and the human capacity to love. Moving between the surreal, the absurd, the allegorical, and the metafictional, they elaborate on life's ordinary madness and the mysteries of the spirit. By challenging the either/or boundaries of the binary of realism and fantasy, the stories provoke the reader to engage actively with the text. Influenced by experimental US author Stacey Levine, the mid‐century British novelist Barbara Comyns, and the adventurous Chinese writer Can Xue, in most cases, they create a playful, experimental world that exists at a slight angle to the world as we know it.

This thesis examines why some governments and rebel organizations but not others recruit children to be child soldiers. The theory posits that if a country fights in a civil war of long duration, armed groups are more likely to recruit children as soldiers. I find that the probability of child soldier recruitment increases when a country experiences following conditions: a longer duration of civil war, a large proportion of battle deaths, a large number of refugees, a high infant mortality rate, and the presence of alluvial diamonds. An increase in education expenditures and civil liberties would decrease the probability of child soldier recruitments.

Human trafficking and slavery are horrific crimes that require strict penalties for perpetrators and effective protections for survivors, but these crimes are in part facilitated by a system of laws and norms that effectively marginalize certain populations--the "unskilled" migrant. In this thesis I aim to reexamine and reinterpret the problem of human trafficking and slavery in a way that highlights the background conditions to the problem. I argue that the framework used as a conceptual foundation for addressing the problem limits the scope of responsibility. Specifically, the framework fails to acknowledge structural contributing factors I show to be relevant: law, policy, and norms impacting immigration and migrant labor. I assert that the limited scope of responsibility, which focuses heavily on direct perpetrators of the crime, leaves largely unexamined the role of social-structural processes in contributing to the problem. I use the United States as a case study in order to provide a targeted analysis of social-structural processes that contribute to the problem. In this examination of the United States, I focus on agricultural and domestic slavery. In conclusion, I attempt to build a new conceptual framework that calls attention to social-structural processes and includes this understanding in assigning responsibility for the problem. I assert that anti-trafficking efforts must account for the role of social-structural processes and that these contributing factors must be adequately addressed and incorporated into the framework for prevention.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Previous research on post-conflict elections has found several criteria important in determining if an area is ready to hold elections and whether or not it is likely to succeed. Although rarely ranked in any determination of importance, several concepts are present in most post-conflict election research. Additionally, there is not an agreed set of standard criteria upon which success can be assumed. When researching the post-conflict election literature two questions arise: (1) is there a set of criteria established to determine if an area is ready to conduct post-conflict elections, and (2) do all criteria need to be present in order to ensure successful post-conflict elections? Most research agrees on common criteria but highlights or researches one dominant criterion, to which is then often attributed to the success of an election. This is found in Krishna Kumar’s focus on international assistance (Kumar, 1998), Staffan Lindberg’s attribution of success to repetition of the election process (Lindberg, 2006), Paul Collier’s focus on per capita income (Collier, 2009), and Marie-Soleil Frere’s research on post-conflict elections and the media (Frere, 2011). When reviewing multiple research sources, it is likely several factors at various times and in various elections will be credited with being the single source criterion for success. This kind of past research is well supported and conclusively argued, but still fails to provide a scope of understanding outside of a single event. In other words, it is case specific and not comparatively applicable across cases. Although this thesis does not intend to “McDonaldize” (Ritzer, 2009) the process of democratization, it does propose to define a common set of criteria necessary, even if in varying degrees, to conduct successful elections in post-conflict environments.

Touching Brýnstone is the story of Beth, a young journalist who is troubled by misfortunes in her family and work circumstances. In a Pretoria library she is seduced by a book that consoles her and progressively becomes a fetish object. It sparks a journey to Japan, where she arrives to teach English. She is intent on meeting the author, whom she confounds with protagonist and book. This Bildungsroman is an exploration of the complex relationship between inner and outer self, and the struggle towards wholeness. Beth must find a way out of the obsession so that she can return to South Africa with an enriched insight into her shadow self.

This study analysed the representation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the Mail and Guardian from 2000 to 2007. It drew on perspectives from cultural studies, the constructionist approach to representation and the sociology of news production. Through the use of the quantitative and qualitative research methods, content analysis and critical discourse analysis, this study established first, that few significant changes have occurred within the newspaper's coverage of the MDGs during this period, and second, that the people most affected by the MDGs and affiliated programmes are seriously under-represented and that the manner of representation marginalises and subordinates them.

No description available.

Why do revolutions happen? What role do structures, institutions, and actors play in precipitating (or preventing) them? Finally, What might compel social mobilization against a regime in the face of potentially insurmountable odds? These questions are all fundamentally about state-society (strategic) interactions, and elite and societal preference formation over time. The self-immolation of Muhammad Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010, served as a focal point upon which over twenty years of corrupt, coercive authoritarian rule were focused into a single, unified challenge to the Ben Ali regime. The regime's brutality was publicized via social media activism and satellite television, precipitating mass mobilization across Tunisia and, eventually, throughout the region and beyond. In light of the rapid and unforeseen nature of these events, scholars writing about the causes of the Arab Spring have focused their critiques on scholarship that they felt overemphasized the role of institutions and elite-level actors over 'under the radar' changes within society. This paper essentially agrees with this point of view, but is not content to simply 'throw out' institutionalism. As Timur Kuran (1991) argued in the wake of the unforeseen collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, one cannot understand revolution without understanding the 'true' preferences of social actors. In this way, the inevitability of revolutionary surprises seems a given so long as analysts continue to look from the top-down. Yet, this paper contends that institutions do still matter. They matter because different institutional arrangements incentivize and constrain regime strategies, which, in turn, inform the strategic calculations and preference orderings within society. These two societal variables are determined - in part - by the degree of regime flexibility, and they affect whether, how, and where social actors choose to vent their dissent. This paper proposes a model for the development of contentious social mobilization under authoritarianism. In order to do so, two models - one game-theoretic, and the other rooted in the contentious politics subfield of political sociology - are synthesized toward elucidating how altered societal preferences affect strategic interactions between the regime and society over time and during acute contentious episodes. The synthesized model is then illustrated through narrative case studies of two North African states that experienced divergent outcomes in the wake of the Arab Spring: Tunisia and Morocco. The limited spaces and institutions for the expression of dissent in Tunisia gradually changed societal preferences over time. In 2010, Tunisians' preferences shifted from various socioeconomic demands and other issue-specific grievances toward a galvanized demand for the fall of the regime. In Morocco, on the other hand, social actors, by and large, continued to prefer limited reforms to a complete upheaval of the political system. This paper contends that this divergence in preferences and therefore outcomes was in part determined by the variation in the two regimes' respective strategic mixes of concessions and/or coercion. To the extent that such strategies and institutions were more flexible - i.e. were more permissive of (limited) political contention and contestation - social movements were less likely to become emboldened against the regime.