Codependency is a highly contested construct featuring in the popular, clinical and research literature. Within the academic literature, the voices and lived experience of individuals who consider themselves codependents are mostly unavailable. This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study explored the lived experiences of 8 individuals self-identified as codependents, who chose 12-Step recovery groups to frame their recovery process. This research addressed the following research question: What is the lived experience of codependency among people who have sought support from a 12-step recovery group for codependents? The idiographic, phenomenological and hermeneutic aspects of the study captured how participants made sense of their experiences of codependency and the meanings of the support group. The information was collected over 3-6 months by means of three in-depth semi-structured interviews and a visual method in which participants selected and analysed objects or photographs which, for them, expressed the meaning of codependency. Four main themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: (1) Codependency experienced as real and tangible: ‘Codependency explains everything’. (2) Experiencing an undefined sense of self: ‘Codependency helps me to discover my sense of self.’ (3) Seesawing through extremes in life: ‘Like a seesaw, I feel out of control’. (4) Finding meaning in codependency through exploring family experiences: ‘Down to childhood’. The findings revealed that the experience of codependency frames these individuals’ sense of identity, their lifeworlds and the way they view and experience life difficulties. It also provided a highly nuanced and fine-grained analysis of the lived experience of codependency. The study brings a new perspective on the lived experiences of this client group. Although the findings are not straightforwardly generalizable, they may inform clinical practice. It is hoped that this study will raise awareness about this controversial topic, bring a better understanding of codependency and inspire further research.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Lisa Melander / Okinawa, Japan has a long history of struggle with Japan and the United States of America. Okinawa was annexed by the Japanese during the Shogunate, mistreated by Imperial Japan during World War II, destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa, and occupied by U.S. military. Okinawa hosts some of the largest U.S. military bases outside of the Continental United States. Since Okinawa has been occupied by the U.S. military since World War II, it also has a history of contentious politics and protests against the occupation. Okinawa’s economy and cultural identity within the domestic and international spheres with the U.S. military and the Government of Japan has shaped its political protest identities. The “Okinawan Struggle” has evolved and into a new form, but often seen as a long lasting and unified struggle. This thesis explores Okinawa’s different protest episodes during different governing administrations and different economic structures.

Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / Palestinian access to higher education under the Israeli occupation is heavily restricted, amounting to substantial violations of international human rights laws and norms. The obstacles Palestinian university students face range from movement restriction to university closure to detention, on which this research focuses specifically. The detention of university students is often politically motivated—evidenced in the deliberate targeting of student government representatives, pending graduates, and those sitting for final exams, for example—as the Israeli occupation forces have identified the potential for empowerment inherent to university education, which poses an undeniable threat to an oppressive regime. As a result of this restricted access and in conjunction with its potential for political, social, and economic empowerment, Palestinians have attached a heightened cultural meaning to education, likening it to resistance. Accordingly, in Palestinian society, the struggle for education is linked to the wider struggle for liberation, and the former is considered to be integral to the success of the latter. This thesis will thus focus on the historical and social trends by which the connection between education and resistance developed in light of obstacles to access such as student detention. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

Thesis advisor: Franziska Seraphim / This thesis primarily focuses on jazz in Japan and the role it played in the American occupation after World war II. The trajectory jazz took in Japan changed a multitude of times: in the 1920s it was immensely popular with the rise of consumerism and internationalism, and was emblematic of the carefree attitude of that time period. After Pearl Harbor occurred, enemy music, clearly being American jazz, was formally forbidden in Japan but periodically still played for the entertainment of the troops. Thus jazz went from being incredibly popular to practically banned. As the occupation took place, jazz yet again was popular but became more associated with connotations of homogeneity and representative of America. The Japanese reacted in various and differing ways, which I demonstrate in this thesis by examining the work of Japanese director Kurosawa Akira and the widely popular Japanese singer Kasagi Shizuko. Therefore, jazz was not only a form of entertainment but a tool of manipulation by many throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and, most importantly, the American occupation in Japan. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: History.

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This dissertation studies three forms of mobility in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first chapter uses newly collected data from Union Army widows' pension files to isolate the causal effect of women's income on their decisions about marriage. Making use of exogenous variation in the processing time of pension applications, I show that receiving a pension caused widows to remarry at a significantly slower rate. This suggests that women's income directly influenced marital outcomes, largely by making women more selective in the marriage market. The second chapter explores the extent to which nineteenth century internal migrants in the United States were motivated by the possibility of upward occupational mobility. Drawing on the literature on contemporary migrant selection and sorting, I argue that workers with greater potential for occupational upgrading should have selected themselves out of counties with low skill premiums and sorted themselves into counties with high skill premiums. Using linked data from the U.S. Census and county-level wage data, I present results consistent with this argument. The third chapter of the dissertation (co-authored with Claudia Olivetti and Daniele Paserman) examines intergenerational income mobility across three generations between 1850 and 1930. Making use of the socioeconomic content of names, pseudo-panels of three generations are created by grouping samples of individuals by first name. Using G1, G2, and G3 to index generations one two and three, respectively, we find a significant correlation between G1 and G3, controlling for G2. We also find differences in this correlation by gender, suggesting that the process by which income was transferred from fathers to daughters was not the same as the process by which it was transferred from fathers to sons.

This thesis is a political history of the trials of wartime collaborators in Norway after 1945. It offers a first scholarly investigation into the central actors behind these trials, looking at the ways in which Norwegian authorities planned, implemented and interpreted the 'reckoning' with wartime collaborators between 1941 and 1964. In doing so, it evaluates the broader political purposes the trials served, how these changed over time, and the mechanisms that brought about these changes. The analysis distinguishes between 'internal' and 'external' influences on the trials. 'Internal' influences are understood to be both the inherent doctrinal and institutional limitations of the law, as well as the personal and political convictions found within the authorities that governed the trials. 'External' influences meanwhile constitute the broader public attitudes and debates surrounding the trials in politics, the media and civil society. This thesis therefore seeks to deepen our understanding of the trials in two ways. Firstly, it goes beyond existing scholarship by focusing not on questions of 'morality' and 'justice', but instead on competing institutional dynamics and political representations of legitimacy and authority. Secondly, unlike most previous scholarship, it provides an encompassing account of the policy decisions underlying the trials by looking at the full timespan of the Norwegian authorities' administrative engagement with them, from their initial conceptualisation to the handling of their legacy. Thereby, individual decisions and events can be seen in relation to one another, allowing us to understand what purposes the trials served at different stages of their implementation, and how legal and administrative measures related to their political purposes. In response to previous scholarship on the trials, this thesis argues that the driving agent of the trials was not the static agenda of any one institution or group, but that their final shape was the result of the complex interaction of demands for legal consistency with a rapidly changing political and social context, both at the national and the international level.

This dissertation examines the lives of Japanese disabled war veterans and the activism of the Japanese Disabled Veterans Association (JDVA: Nippon Shôigunjin kai) in the early postwar period, beginning immediately following the Allied Occupation in the summer of 1945 and ending in 1963, when the National Diet passed the "Act on Special Aid to the Wounded and Sick Retired Soldiers" (Senshôbyôsha Tokubetsu Engo-hô). Established in 1952, the JDVA would play a leading role in securing welfare for Japanese disabled war veterans.

This thesis explores the British Commonwealth experience of occupation in Japan from 1945-1952. It draws on official and private records from the four participating British Commonwealth countries ??? Australia, Britain, India and New Zealand- to examine the complex relationship that developed between the occupying troops and the occupied Japanese population in the period between the cessation of hostilities and the formal ratification of a Peace Treaty. The thesis begins with an analysis of the preconceptions British Commonwealth troops brought with them to Japan, to establish the context for their cross-cultural encounter with Japan and the Japanese people. An understanding of the historical background enables the impressions formed by BCOF troops during the occupation to be presented not as random observations, but as part of a tradition of contact and cultural critique. The British Commonwealth experience in Japan was shaped by a number of external factors. Delays in moving to Japan weakened media and public interest in the force, eroded morale and precipitated a ???foreign force??? mentality. Once in Japan, the dominant US presence, the subordinate status of BCOF and the shortcomings of the isolated, rural area allocated to the force were a source of disappointment and frustration. But the difficulties attending British Commonwealth involvement in the occupation should not obscure the simultaneous development of a significant cultural encounter. The circumstances of the occupation created a particular dynamic between BCOF troops and Japanese civilians. The responsibilities and obligations that SCAP conferred on the British Commonwealth force invested BCOF personnel with authority over the Japanese. The disparity in power was reinforced by participation in occupation tasks that confirmed their status as occupiers. The occupation relationship was heavily influenced by the nature of personal interactions established between BCOF personnel and the Japanese people. Service in Japan provided opportunities for troops to reassess their views of the Japanese in the light of personal experience. For some, the cultural differences they observed only reinforced their sense of the ???otherness??? of the Japanese. For many others, the occupation provided a bridge between war and peace, as contact with Japanese people eased the intense hatreds generated during the war. For most British Commonwealth personnel, service with BCOF impacted in some way on the beliefs they held about Japan and the Japanese.

This exploratory study investigated the strategies that eight older New Zealanders use to enable participation in day-to-day occupations that they need or want to do, in their homes and the community. The types of strategies older people use to overcome barriers to participation and manage limitations are not widely known or reported. Exploring strategies for participation employed by older people is important because the majority of older New Zealanders live in the community and their numbers are growing, and projected to reach 25% of the total population by the year 2051 (Ministry of Health, 2002). New Zealand’s Positive Ageing Strategy (Minister for Senior Citizens, 2001), advocates for a society where people can age positively, where they are highly valued and their participation encouraged. The literature relating to occupation, participation and health was explored, and provided some evidence that older people are developing strategies and, with some education, are able to manage their own health conditions. The assumption underpinning this study is that they are equally able to manage strategies for participation, particularly those devised by older people themselves. A qualitative descriptive methodology was used. The participants were selected following a presentation to a group of older adults and snowball recruitment. They were aged between 73 and 98 years old and were receiving assistance to live in community, which was taken to indicate they had experienced some limitation in, or barrier to their everyday activities, in response to which they might have discovered or developed coping strategies. Interviews were conducted in the participants’ homes, and analysed using a general inductive approach. Four main categories emerged; strategies for keeping me safe, strategies for recruiting and accepting help, strategies for meeting biological needs, and strategies for conserving resources. Overarching themes of managing and getting on with it, sprinkled with a sense of humour by some participants was present in the attitudes of many participants. The study revealed that this group of older people can and do use strategies to enable occupation in their everyday lives, which differ from those recommended by occupational therapists and other health professionals. This finding suggests that health professionals, policy makers and educators have much to learn from older people. The provision of help to older adults should take into consideration the importance of social interactions, not just the physical needs. There is a need for transport to be more readily available and affordable for older people to attend occupations that meet social needs. Health professionals complement the strategies developed by older people, and finding ways to combine the strategies should be developed. Listening to older adults’ current ways of managing and working with them to develop alternate, yet acceptable methods will provide a challenge. Health professionals should take a greater role in advocating for the social and transport needs of older adults. A self-management approach in education for older people, using peers and making use of existing education groups in the community and health system, is suggested. Education of those who engage with older people, such as carers, family, health professionals and community groups should include developing their skills in assisting older people to identify their strategies and developing strategies for the future.