Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2005. / "Publication number AAT 3176995."

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4340. Adviser: Gillian Stevens. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-164) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> This dissertation uses Black Feminist Theory as a theory-methods package to examine the lived experience of terminal illness for Black women with advanced cancer. I developed and implemented a Black Feminist Methodology, which seeks to center the voices and experiences of Black women in order to challenge positivist constructions of knowledge production and increase research on, by and for Black women. This dissertation explores the intersections of race, gender, class, spirituality and health within the lives of Black women. Analysis of multiple in-depth interviews with Black women and observations of clinical interactions with their providers reveal new insights into the way these intersections co-constitute and shape the patienthood experience, the patient-provider relationship, prognostic conversations, and treatment and end-of-life decision-making for Black women. First, I examine the impact of financial security or insecurity on the way Black women approach and understand their disease and treatment. I go beyond questions of income and insurance status to illuminate the ways in which class intersects with race and gender for women undergoing treatment for advanced cancer and the implications those intersections hold for how the women view and understand their disease. Next, I expand upon previous research on the role of religion in oncology care to explore how Black women&rsquo;s faith impacts not only medical-decision making but also their view of self and illness. Finally, I trouble the notion of what counts as an intersectional identity. I posit that cancer patienthood, one&rsquo;s identity as a cancer patient post-diagnosis, is itself an important identity in studying the experience of health and illness. I describe the way the intersections of race, gender and patient identity impact experiences of patienthood, relationships with providers and understanding of disease and prognosis.</p>

<p> Sexual assault on college campuses in the United States has been a major social problem for many decades, however, in the past few years, many colleges and universities have been under investigation by the Department of Education and Office for Civil Rights for the lack of policy and response regarding this issue. </p><p> Using the model of insider ethnography, this study looked to compile the experiences of campus sexual assault survivors. The intention of this study was to gather a collection of sexual assault responses, while also collecting ideas from survivors as to how they could have been better supported in the aftermath of being sexually assaulted during their college experience. Several themes emerged amongst the participants in this study: (1) Arrived at college having already experienced sexual assault or rape, (2) Sexually assaulted within the first semester of college and in a campus housing structure, (3) Two of the four participants reported the sexual assault to local and/or campus police, (4) All four participants were sexually assaulted while under the influence of alcohol, (5) The first person each participant told about being sexually assaulted was a friend, (6) Two of the four participants dropped out of college as a result of being sexually assaulted, and (7) Each participant expressed the desire for educational programming that differentiated sex from sexual assault. </p><p> This thesis is intended to serve as a platform and megaphone for survivors of campus sexual assault. The hope is to raise awareness around the intense reality of sexual assault that still exists on U.S. college campuses, in addition to providing suggestions for how campus administration might better respond to sexual assault in light of current research and the experiences of survivors.</p>

<p> Exploratory projects have the capability to emerge new ways of understanding data. Non-traditional perspectives, like the intersectional-vulnerability standpoint used in this project, enable researchers to step back and look at experiences differently. At the beginning of this paper, I relate my experience of coming out as lesbian to the experience of coming out as a child witness of abuse in order to set the standard of how I conceptualize coming out. Coming out was an experience that connects LGBTQ people across the spectrum allowing me to use that experience to bring LGBTQ identities together. Assumptions about the coming out experience in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity are challenged and a new theory emerges. Related to coming out, the experience of getting out of an abusive relationship reflects parallel perceptions around fear, risk, and vulnerability. It is by building the bridge between researcher and participants that I was able to challenge bias and create a new idea about the coming out/getting out process for LGBTQ survivors. </p><p>

<p> There is a difference between diversity and inclusion in the workforce. More specifically, there is a difference in the understanding and experience that the U.S. cultural meaning of these words creates when interpreted and applied in a workplace setting. Understanding this difference is essential to the work businesses do in actualizing human capital as well as in creating and interpreting methods of providing access, recognizing diversity, and now, increasingly, moving towards a rhetoric of inclusion in the workplace (Roberson, 2006). This research looks at the existing body of knowledge around historical disenfranchisement and the evolution of diversity and inclusion research in the workplace. This literature is then used to analyze the data collected from employees who were asked to complete an online self-administered survey across a variety of topics related to their employment experience. These perceptions were then looked at against key indicators of job satisfaction including turnover intention. Overall this research found that: a respondent&rsquo;s gender identity, ethnic/cultural background, and sexual orientation all had significant impact on their perceptions of diversity and inclusion; that perceptions of inclusion differed from perceptions of diversity in this study; and that perceptions of inclusion were significantly connected to job satisfaction and turnover intentions for all participants. The findings suggest that focusing on inclusion in the workplace, not just diversity, affects all employees and that supervisors play an important role in this experience. Ultimately this study suggests that these factors have high implications for employee retention, especially among historically disenfranchised groups and those at the intersection of identities.</p>

<p> In this dissertation, I sought to give postpartum women their own voices so that they could help define the postpartum experience on their own terms. It fills important gaps within the literature on new mothers&rsquo; experiences. A phenomenological approach was used, emphasizing the lived experiences of the women, with an overlay of autoethnography, where the personal experience of the researcher becomes important primarily in how it illuminates the phenomenon being studied. Thus, my personal experience of pregnancy into early motherhood is interwoven throughout this dissertation. Forty-two women participated in the in-depth, face-to-face interview, followed by a questionnaire. The qualitative data was analyzed, specific themes became prominent, and were coded for this study. Little of the quantitative data obtained by the questionnaire was used for this study. The following are forefront in this study of understanding how do women learn to navigate the &ldquo;new world&rdquo; of motherhood. First, throughout pregnancy, labor, postpartum, and early motherhood women experience control in a variety of ways, specifically a lack of control. Secondly, women are often afraid of doing something wrong, during pregnancy, labor, birth, and motherhood, such as differing from the norms put forward by friends, family, and the medical field, leading to feelings of guilt. When things do go right, they can feel pride, but were not likely to express this in my study. The third area of study in this dissertation, is that mothers are judged in both appearance and motherwork. In a sense, two ideals, &ldquo;The Motherhood Mandate&rdquo; and &ldquo;Beauty Mandate,&rdquo; are fighting against one another, that of being and ideal mom in terms of mothering and of being an ideal woman in terms of beauty is intertwined. These three themes are discussed in relation to three sociological theories. Medicalization and Foucault&rsquo;s &ldquo;docile bodies&rdquo; thesis both aid in explaining women&rsquo;s thoughts and experiences, as well as constraints in the postpartum stage. The social constructionist approach of &ldquo;doing gender,&rdquo; is applicable as well, as a general framework under which women think and act.</p>

<p> Black people's denial of bondage and colonial domination set the tone and frame for much of contemporary resistance to community and state violence. Like then, as it is today many individuals and groups are focused on dismantling the aspects of the system that oppress them. In Oakland Black women are working amongst themselves and in coalitions to dismantle the prison industrial complex, community violence, and other manifestations of institutionalized oppression. These women show a deep commitment to reversing the legitimatized abuse of state power and high instances of community and state violence in Black urban lives. </p><p> Violence, like any other disease, has the potential to seep into the cracks of every community and in the lives of every individual that it touches. Like a virus, violence travels through the various arteries of a family network or city streets and finds one more person to potentially infect with disengagement, a lack of self worth and the perpetuation of violation that plagues the community. In Oakland, the roots of violence are tied to historical realities, social inequity and structural barriers to opportunity that have left low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately experiencing and witnessing high rates of violence. </p><p> Because of this Black women in Oakland are familiar to instances of high murder rates, mass incarceration and racial profiling. In a qualitative research project I (1) explore the impact of state and community violence in the lives of Black women in Oakland; (2) examine the potential social and political conditions that contribute to the perpetuation of these experiences and (3) provide recommendations for community and systems change.</p>

<p> This study uses foodways theory to build knowledge about the lived experience of incarceration by analyzing women's narratives about prison food and eating. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 formerly incarcerated women in New Haven, CT. The interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed. Findings explain the different ways that inmates collect, prepare, distribute and consume food, and the centrality of these activities to incarcerated life. By shedding light on these daily routines, the world of prison life comes into greater focus. </p><p> Thematic analysis of the data further illuminates the prison experience by suggesting the positive and negative ways that food impacts inmate's perceptions of themselves, their social networks and the State. Negative foodways humiliated the women, accentuated their powerlessness, and reinforced their perceptions of the State as nonsensical and apathetic towards their needs. Positive foodways illustrated the inmates' capacity to resist State power, build/maintain relationships and construct positive self-narratives. Racialized foodways narratives began to reveal how food stories may be deployed to reinforce prison's racial character and construct the identities of self and other. </p><p> Foodways interventions to support the rehabilitative goals of correctional facilities are proposed. These data suggest that inmates want to build positive relationships and identities and that prison food systems could do more to help women realize these intentions.</p>

<p> In a global context of rapidly expanding security practices, those cast as social threats are themselves often most risk of harm. In this dissertation, I develop the concept <i>surveillance threat</i> (ST) to describe the perception or experience of impending or actual harm faced by targeted civilians when they are stopped or screened by law enforcement. Singled out by race and other lines of sociocultural force, those stopped risk physical, legal, sexual, and spatial consequences. Yet focusing solely on the risk of harm limits the full meaning of this encounter. As I show in my research, civilians persistently struggle against these threats. Using the police practice of "stop and frisk" in New York City as a case study, I analyze ST and civilian response from the civilian perspective. In my mixed methods approach, I bring together survey and narrative data on stop and frisk, widening the unit of analysis from unidirectional harm to multidirectional struggle. Shifting attention to the interaction as a dynamic reframes these relations of power as more than a simple, imbalanced opposition. Instead, based on my findings, I theorize an embodied civilian <i>psychology of responsiveness to threat</i> that enables those targeted to engage the encounter as an active site of conflict. I find civilians consistently claim their rights, protect themselves and others, assert social power, construct critical knowledge, and pursue justice. Applying Abu Lughod's (1990) insight "where there is resistance, there is power," I then study how civilians enact urban civil life through their interactions with police, recognizing a <i>collective imaginary </i> civilians draw on to influence the conditions of their daily lives. With concern for the ways police practice is restructuring urban environments by enforcing particular raced sexualities and genders, I bring a special focus to civilian constructions of racialized, sexual, and gender-infused space. </p>