<p>Young people in Japan contend with shifting understandings of family and friends, insecure jobs, and changing frames around global and national identities. The category of youth itself is unsettled amid a long period of social and economic change and perceived widely as crisis. Within contested social categories of youth, how do young Japanese people use the city, media, and body practices to create flexible, meaningful sociality across spaces of work, education, and play? What do youthful sociality and practices reveal about globally oriented connections and how do they inform conceptions of the future, kinship, gender, and pluralized identities? In short, what is the embodied and affective experience of being young as the category itself is increasingly unstable and full of risks? These questions shape the contours of this project.</p><p>This dissertation considers youth through its becoming, that is, the lived enactment of youth as energy, emotion, and sensibility always in motion and within range of cultural, spatial, bodily, and technological forces. Three groups of young people in this layered latitudinal study demonstrate various relations to the city street, visual media, globalized identities, contingent work within affect and cultural production, and education. The three groups are distinctly different but share surprising points of connection. </p><p>I lived alongside these three groups to understand the ways young people are innovating within the shifting form of youth. I skated with male skateboarders in their teens to early 30s who created Japan's most influential skate company; I taught kids attending a specialized cram school for kikokushijo (children who have lived abroad due to a parent's job assignment); I observed and hung out with young creative workers, the photographers, web designers, and graphic artists who produce the visual and textual content and relationships composing commercial "youth culture." </p><p>My project examines how these young people redefine youth through bodily practices, identities, and economic de/attachments. The skaters' embodied actions distribute/dissipate their energies in risky ways outside formal structures of labor. The kikokushijo children, with their bi-cultural fluency produced in circuits of capitalist labor, offer a desirable image of a flexible Japanese future while their heterogeneous identities appear threatening in the present. The creative workers are precariously positioned as "affective labor" within transglobal (youth) cultural production, working to generate visual and textual content constant stressful uncertainties. All three groups share uneasy ground with capitalist practices, risky social identities, and crucially, intimate relations with city space. In attending to their practices through ethnographic participation and video, this dissertation explores questions concerning youthful relations to space produced in material contacts, remembered geographies of other places and imaginary urban sites. </p><p>The dissertation itself is electronic and non-linear; a formal enactment of the drifting contact between forms of youth. It opens up to lines of connection between questions, sites, events, and bodies and attempts an unfolding of affect, imagination, and experience to tell stories about histories of gender and labor, city life, and global dreams. It asks if the globalized forms of Japanese youth avoid the risks of the impossible secure for the open possibilities of becoming and thus refuse containment by crisis?</p> / Dissertation

<p> The Sino-Indian relationship marked by mutual mistrust for the last six decades has seen definitive changes since the late 1980s. Though considerable issues remain unresolved, the two have begun establishing mechanisms to establish a certain level of trust that began with the visit of Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi to Beijing in 1988. The paper analyzes recent literature on this relationship and finds them predicting two outcomes primarily - either one where India admits Chinese supremacy and kowtows to it, or one that foresees increased clashes between the two. Neither outcome takes into account the complex association that the two nations are building guided by a series of frameworks, mechanisms and agreements. This paper posits that in the evolutionary arc of interstate relations, Sino-Indian relations have not reached a point where only one of the two options - cooperation and competition, will be chosen. This paper argues that economic interests of the two rising powers is behind the present behavior where the two are courting each other but at the same time, preparing for the other's rise. Both countries consider their economic identity to be primary and do not want to be distracted from the key national goal of economic development. They are particularly careful that their disagreements with each other do not come in the way of this goal. The paper analyzes the various frameworks and suggests that they are created with this end in consideration. Both India and China aim to continue collaboration in economic matters bilaterally or in international issues of mutual interest even when they don't see eye to eye on disputes left over from history. It is likely that competition will at times get the better of cooperation, driven by factors like strategic influence in the neighborhood, finding newer providers of energy as well as markets for their goods and services. But periodic flare-ups notwithstanding, in the absence of serious provocations, the two countries will avoid clashes that can escalate. The paper also analyzes certain black-swan events that might disturb the balancing act. Incidents like the death of the Dalai Lama creating a vacuum within the Tibetan leadership is one such scenario; a terrorist attack on India planned and executed form Pakistan like the one in Mumbai in 2008 is another. However, the presence of multiple bilateral platforms will continue to automatically insulate alternate channels of communication even in these situations. In conclusion, the paper suggests that as they grow, India and China will continue to engage each other at several levels, competing and cooperation, deterring and reassuring each other at once.</p>

<p> Faith and culture enjoy a harmonious relationship. In the past centuries of Catholicism, evangelization did not take into cognizance the culture of a people. The translation and adaptation approaches were the dominant models missionaries often used in the context of evangelization. Sadly, these approaches failed to create adequate contact with the local cultures where the faith was transplanted. The distance between faith and culture has caused the Catholic faith to be foreign in many cultures across the globe including, North African countries and Japan. In Tiv society of central Nigeria too, Catholicism is yet to take concrete root. </p><p> Building on the worship experiences of educated emerging adult Catholics in institutions of higher education in Tivland, this dissertation uses the circle method and other related contextual approaches to contextualize Catholicism in Tiv culture. The data gathered from participant observation, one-on-one interviews, and focus groups discussions was narrowed to what most connects emerging adults with Catholic worship, and what the Catholic Church needs to know about them. The data revealed a constantly recurring notion of unappealing worship and inadequate catechesis on core doctrines. One way to connect their experiences of worship is by synthesizing cultural symbols with Catholic worship symbols. </p><p> Community formations, intensive catechesis, and service to the church are the three practical strategies that can synthesize faith and culture and ground the Catholic Church in Tiv culture. Pious organizations that bring emerging adults together as community will serve as forum to adequately catechize them by synthesizing Catholic symbols with cultural texts that are already familiar to them. This leads to a mutual enrichment of both Tiv cultural practices and Catholic worship symbols ultimately making emerging adults community theologians who can effectively articulating the faith to others including, those in rural communities.</p>

<p> The purpose of this thesis was to examine the factors associated with psychological distress among older Vietnamese adults. Utilizing information from secondary data called the California Health Interview Surveys (CHIS), a quantitative research method was completed for this study. The study explored levels of psychological distress with several factors including demographic characteristics, language use and proficiencies of patients, patients' understanding of rights to request for an interpreter during doctor visits, number of visits to doctors' offices, language used by doctors during consultation (English, Vietnamese, or other), and lastly, quality of interaction with doctors. </p><p> The result of this study indicated significant relationships among several factors and the level of psychological distress among older Vietnamese adults. These factors, include: demographics, patients' understanding of rights to an interpreter, number of doctor visits, language used by doctors during consultation, and doctor-patient communication.</p>

<p> The aim of this thesis is to analyze the human rights violations against one minority group in Myanmar &ndash; the Rohingya &ndash; by the majority Buddhist Rakhinese population with central government support, in order to call the international community to pursue immediate, cohesive diplomatic action to address this humanitarian crisis in Rakhine state. The scope of this thesis, which is organized in five chapters, focuses on the early 21^st century from 2000 &ndash; 2014, but it includes earlier background information on Myanmar and the plight of the Rohingya. This thesis includes a Preface, which contains maps and images of Myanmar and its people, for the benefit of the reader.</p><p> Chapter I, "Background Information on the Ethnic and Religious Conflict," sets the stage for understanding this problem from pre-colonial times to 1999. Chapter II, "Evidence of Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide Against the Rohingya in Myanmar," examines the implicit government policies from 2000 - 2014 that target the Rohingya for extermination. This chapter analyzes Myanmar's political, economic, and socio-cultural intolerance for the Rohingya that have left them stateless and forced them to flee Myanmar for security in neighboring states like Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia. Chapter III, "Responsibility to Protect the Rohingya," challenges the international community, consisting of the United States (US), European Union (EU), United Nations (UN), and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to pursue all peaceful means available to end the abuse of the Rohingya under the international norm of the responsibility to protect (RtoP). Chapter IV, "A Recommended Peacebuilding Plan for Ending the Plight of the Rohingya," identifies possible paths for integrating the Rohingya politically, economically, and socio-culturally into the fabric of Myanmar society as citizens of the country, with protection from different forms of persecution. Chapter V, "Conclusion," stresses that reconciliation with the Muslim Rohingya will pave the way for more peaceful relations between Myanmar's majority Buddhist population and its diverse minority ethnic and religious groups. Without peaceful relations with these minority groups, like the Rohingya, Myanmar's tenuous transition to democracy will not fully succeed. </p>

<p> This research investigates why typical strategies for promoting health, prolonging life, and preventing disease do not work in many communities. I use the liver fluke infection endemic in Khon Kaen, Thailand to explore the middle ground between Western science and Eastern culture. Prior work on the <i>O.viverrini</i> infection in Khon Kaen, Thailand has focused almost exclusively on developing effective medical treatment for the liver fluke infection. This dissertation employs a case study designed to explore the conditions that created and perpetuate the problem in the first place. In concrete terms, I analyze how the worldviews of local villagers shape their attitudes toward life (and death), which in turn determine if they engage in the high-risk behavior &ndash; eating undercooked fish &ndash; that makes them vulnerable to the infection. My research focuses on these people in-situ over a three-month period, and includes data from participant-observation, interviews, and video-recordings. This work seeks to illuminate how people&rsquo;s thinking and reasoning skills, and personal/cultural identities affect their abilities to learn and act on new health concepts. This potentially provides a window into future educational strategies in a complex world.</p>

<p> The purpose of this grounded theory study was to understand and describe key factors contributing to the success of Taiwanese women leaders in the predominantly male context of contemporary churches in Taiwan. Participants included five effective female senior pastors and fourteen followers from these leaders' churches. Data were collected using in-depth, semi-structured interviews and participant observations. Data analysis yielded six major leadership characteristics in three dimensions: (a) Interactive dimension&mdash;spiritual leadership, relational leadership, team-building leadership, (b) Task dimension&mdash;organizational leadership, productive leadership, and (c) Change dimension&mdash;visionary leadership. </p><p> There is no rigid, linear, step-by-step progressive relationship among the six characteristics; rather, the linkage is reciprocal. Further, despite individual differences, all six major leadership characteristics were present in all leader participants. Also, while all leaders clearly saw spiritual leadership as the most essential, all the qualities were deemed important. </p>

<p> This thesis is a reflection upon objects of power and their roles in the lives of people through the lens of a single case example: power objects as they appear throughout the narrative, philosophical, and ritual writings of the Tibetan Buddhist ritual specialist Sog bzlog pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan (1552-1624) and his milieu. This study explores their discourse on power objects specifically for what it reveals about how human interactions with certain kinds of objects encourage the flow of power and charisma between them, and what the implications of these person-object transitions were for issues of identity, agency, and authority on the personal, institutional, and state registers in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Tibet. </p><p> My investigation of Sog bzlog pa's discourse on power objects shows how the genres of narrative, philosophy, and liturgy are related around such objects, each presenting them from a slightly different perspective. I illustrate how narratives depict power objects as central to the identity of Sog bzlog pa and his circle, mediating relations that are in turn social, political, religious, aesthetic, and economic in tone, and contributing to the authority of the persons involved. This flow of power between persons and objects, I demonstrate further, is connected to tensions over the sources of transformational power as rooted in either objects, or in the people instrumental in their ritual treatment or use. I show how this tension between objective and subjective power plays out in Sog bzlog pa's philosophical speculations about power objects and in his rituals featuring them. I also trace the persistence of this discourse after Sog bzlog pa's death in the seventeenth-century state-building activities of Tibet and Sikkim, and in the present day identity of Sikkim's Buddhist population. Power objects emerge as hybrid subject-object mediators, which variously embody, channel, and direct the flow of power and authority between persons, objects, communities, institutions, and the state, as they flow across boundaries and bind these in their tracks. Finally, I illustrate how this discourse of power objects both complicates and extends contemporary theoretical reflections on the relationships between objects, actions, persons, and meanings. </p>

<p> Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) among Filipino American men is a rarely discussed phenomenon and continues to be an understudied topic. To date, theories and empirical research on CSA disclosures are predominantly based on the experiences of White Euro-centric females and males. In this study, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyze the narratives of 12 Filipino American men with CSA histories to gain a better understanding of their CSA disclosures. Specifically, this study highlighted factors that have prevented and promoted their CSA disclosures. Overall, results in this study indicated that Filipino American men's CSA disclosures were generally uncomfortable and included notable non-verbal experiences; however, they were very much relieved by their disclosures. Core themes that reflected the barriers to their CSA disclosures included: (a) protecting the family; (b) preserving masculinity; (c) sexual taboos and boundaries; (d) lack of containment for discloser's experience; and (e) lack of intimacy and connection. Core themes that represented the promoters to their CSA disclosures included: (a) having access to intimacy and close relationships; (b) having support, stability, and safety; (c) addressing emotional issues; (d) wanting progress or a better life; and (e) gaining cognitive awareness that they were subjected to CSA. Political and societal, as well as clinical and theoretical implications of findings are discussed.</p>

China’s current crop of leaders has inherited a country full of promise. After the disastrous socialist transformation under Mao, Deng Xiaoping and his successors have implemented large scale, successful economic and social reforms and in less than two generations brought China to the forefront of the global economy. As a result they have gartered most of the praise, glory, and often, economic windfall, associated with China’s success. The goal of this thesis is to examine the complex, non-linear fashion in which China’s top leadership is chosen, and explore the best possible paths to ascend the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party. An investigation of China’s current governing leaders’ paths to power will be included to illuminate how various factors including merit, patronage, institutional role, and luck play a part in the ultimate makeup of China’s top leadership. Key findings show that family pedigree, faction loyalty, and exceptional performance in important roles, especially in provincial governments are the most influential variables when predicting Chinese leadership.