Indigenous adoptee scholars across Turtle Island and beyond have done good work in coming to understand their identity through community connection, culture, education and practice. A plethora of research has guided young Indigenous interracial adoptees on their journey, yet there are few stories focused on the experiences of interracial Maya adoptees reconnecting to their culture in KKKanada. Currently there is limited research documenting Maya adoptees experiences of displacement and cultural reclamation in KKKanadian adoption studies. Research must make more space for these stories and the stories of local Indigenous communities supporting them. In this story (thesis), through engagement with current literature and ten research questions, I explored what it meant to live as an interracial adoptee in West Coast Indigenous communities. An Indigenous Youth Storywork methodology was applied to bring meaning to relationships I have with diverse Indigenous Old Ones, mentors and Knowledge Keepers and their influence on my journey as a Maya adoptee returning to my culture. My personal story was developed and analyzed using an Indigenous decolonial framework and Indigenous Arts-based methods. This storying journey sheds light on the intricate intersections of interracial adoption, specifically for Maya Indigenous Youth who currently live in KKKanada. The intention of this Youth Storywork research work is to create space for Indigenous, Interracial, Transracial and Maya adoptees in Child and Youth Care, Social Work and Counselling Psychology education, policy and practice. / Graduate / 2021-11-18

abstract: Human connection is fundamental for a shift toward sustainable societies. Small groups of people working in response to their unique conditions and environment can find joy in the co-creation of a shared existence. A collaborative network of related efforts can contribute to a broader understanding of resilience and adaptation, aiming toward a regenerative relationship with the Earth and all species. Such an approach ameliorates both pervasive loneliness and extreme inequity that have grown from modern consumerist individualism, through a strong focus on trust, respect and authenticity. I have created a structure to pursue these goals as an applied Sustainability researcher and artist. First, I present a tool that measures and guides community-based work to support the values of equity, justice, transformation and connection. I follow this with an in-depth process of qualitative inquiry grounded in an applied participatory design project to gain insight on the act of building connection across perceived divides. Finally, I share “The Building Community:” the group and process I formed with formerly homeless individuals who are co-designing a tiny home ecovillage of transitional supportive housing for homeless human beings in the Skid Row neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles. The Building Community method combines Council-style talking circles with elements of Action and Design research in which equal co-learners embark on a fun and challenging journey to nurture housing security, interconnectedness, and sustainability. The results of this research indicate an opportunity for community-based researchers to further incorporate support for the rights of nature, decolonization efforts and preservation of the commons into their projects. Flexible structure, consistency, balanced effort and shared decision making proved to build a strong foundation for group processes centered on trust. Finally, The Building Community showed that intimate local groups can produce abundant and creative sustainability solutions when partnered with academic guidance and resources. Sustainability scholars have the chance to balance power, amplify voices and make collective visions manifest if they immerse themselves in efforts on the ground. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2019

There are a number of organisations offering Employee Wellness Programs (EWPs) to South African companies, while other businesses have established their own in-house EWPs. Broadly speaking, EWPs are designed to promote employee wellbeing in order to increase productivity. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to determine whether a music therapy intervention could address employee wellness needs. A single music therapy workshop was conducted with five participants who were employees at a South African Employee Wellness Organisation. The workshop comprised active and receptive music therapy techniques. Participants were interviewed in a focus group after the workshop. Data were prepared by means of thick description and transcription and were analysed using thematic analysis. The following themes were identified: ‘making and feeling connections’, ‘navigating boundaries, ambiguity and change’, ‘quality of group music-making’, ‘the workshop experience’, ‘personal development’ and ‘team building’. Findings indicate that the music therapy intervention addressed wellness needs associated with personal development and team building. Reflection was shown to have a significant relationship with both personal development and team building. Other notable relationships within these categories included stress-relief, acknowledging diversity and increased trust in the group. A model was proposed illustrating the embedded and interconnected conditions present during the workshop that addressed the employee wellness needs of team building and personal development. / Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Music / MMus / Unrestricted

<p>This study advances communication scholarship on fragments (McGee, 1990), while demonstrating how to create and use an innovative approach to scholarship in this field. The research goal was two-part. First, to better understand the everyday critic’s role in co-creating discourse. This master’s project prompted eight collaborators to create an artifact in response or interpretation to a focal work, the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Ethnographic and autoethnographic methods were used to observe the discourse that emerged from this prompt. Observations challenge the separation between text and context, revealing the significant impact that vernacular fragments have on the rhetorical life of a work. The second research goal was to create an arts-based approach that would be most appropriate to reach this better understanding. This work can be used as an exemplar of arts-based research approaches applied to achieve theoretical understandings in communications scholarship.</p>

Applied theatre projects that aim to address social justice issues almost exclusively involve those who are experiencing injustice; while members of the state, who actively maintain the status quo, are frequently overlooked, despite the fact that they are essentially gatekeepers of social justice. In projects that do involve current and/or future members of the state, the root cause of social injustice and the systems, institutions, and ideology which support capitalism are only briefly mentioned, if at all. For this arts-based, anti-oppressive research, I facilitated three applied theatre projects that involved future and/or current gatekeepers. For each project, I considered the conditions that provided participants the opportunity to identify and question dominant ideology through the dramatic process. Having analyzed each case, I found that when applied theatre is structured using a revolutionary approach, it can cultivate felt understanding and deepen critical consciousness. In order to truly address issues of social justice with the goal to ending them, I argue for dedicated spaces where future and current gatekeepers can participate in applied theatre to critically examine the ideas that support capitalism, and the tendency and temptation to draw lines in the sand between “us” and “them”. / Graduate

Thesis advisor: M. Brinton Lykes / Every day Muslim women in the United States wake up to a harsh political world that attacks their identities, communities, and freedom. In this context, Muslim women endure immense psychological tolls on their sense of identity, safety, and relationships. For many of them, walking out the door and claiming their Muslim identity is an act of political resistance. Despite the disempowerment they may experience, many engage in social actions to resist these oppressive forces. Yet, Muslim women activists have received strikingly little attention in the psychological literature. To date, no research has explored the psychosocial experiences of Muslim women who engage in activism, nor the meanings they make of these engagements or their trajectories of resistance. Using a participatory research approach informed by art-based inquiry techniques, this inductive qualitative study explored 10 Muslim women activists’ trajectories into and experiences of engaging in social action. A constructivist theoretical model of Muslim women activists' processes of resistance and community liberation was developed through qualitative inductive analyses of in-depth interviews and participants’ illustrations. Eight “clusters” have been configured to map a model that represents both processes and outcomes of how these 10 women engaged, experienced, and made meaning of their activism. They include: (1) living in a post 9/11 sociopolitical context; (2) navigating the Muslim community context; (3) internal experiences of being a Muslim woman; (4) guiding ideals toward activism journey; (5) development of political analyses; (6) resistance actions toward social change; (7) burdens and benefits of engagement in resistance; and (8) supportive forces in the process of resistance.  Although only representative of 10 participants, the model is sufficiently theorized to suggest that life in a multiply traumatizing context shapes Muslim women activists’ experiences, precluding and contributing to their persistence and resistance throughout and during their engagement in social change work. Political analyses and ideals are vital in their descriptions of their trajectories of becoming activists. Benefits and burdens that are inevitable in social change work include both the thrill and fun of engaging in activism as well as the costs to relationships and conflicts inherent in such work. Finally, encouragement by other Muslims and allies is discussed as a valuable source of support to Muslim women activists. Limitations are discussed and implications are proposed to inform possibilities for future healing centered research and action. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

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A high school visual art educator, along with 20 students enrolled in this teacher/researcher's Advanced Placement (AP) studio course, investigated the processes involved in creating artwork. Understanding artistic processes beyond skills and techniques is significant for curriculum development, but it is also key in conceptualizing art as a way of knowing. The arts based research strategy utilized in this study was a/r/tography, which focuses on the interconnectedness between artist, researcher, and teacher/learner. This highly reflective form of action research allowed the researcher and students to uncover new understandings of what it means to be an artist-researcher through a combination of knowing, doing, and making. Student-researchers learned several arts based forms of inquiry by analyzing the processes of contemporary artists. They were invited to record and reflect upon their own processes in a research journal as they generated artworks. The teacher-researcher also kept an intensive reflective journal concerning artmaking, but also included pedagogical concerns, questions, observations, and insights. At the conclusion of the semester, students were taught to analyze their own artistic process via their sketchbook entries by creating two visualizations: a mind map and an artwork as a data visualization of their process. Several important understandings are drawn from this study that transform this educator's practice as an artist-educator. These include the following concepts: not knowing as an artist, researcher, student and teacher; anxiety may be a necessary factor in artistic creation and pedagogy; and pretending is a strategy that allows one to productively move through uncertainty, ambiguity, and anxiety.