Previous centuries of European colonization experienced by nations located in the Global South have influenced a desire among modern-day customers to purchase cosmetic products that promise a lighter skin complexion. Earlier scholarship focused on this sector of the beauty industry from an economic perspective, but contemporary research has shifted towards analyzing the advertising materials to understand how customers are persuaded to invest in these goods. This study provides further information through a content and rhetorical analysis of thirty-eight advertisements that were originally posted on Gluta-C’s Instagram between November 2013 and April 2016. The frequencies of particular word choice from the posts’ taglines are considered along with their positive and negative connotations. These English-language artifacts were also classified based on the artistic proofs of ethos, pathos, and logos from Neo-Aristotelian criticism. This deconstruction reveals that Gluta-C strengthens its reputation by explicitly outlining the ingredients of its skin-whitening creams while reassuring its safety from potential side effects and emphasizing its outstanding abilities compared to competitors. Emotional appeals were primarily utilized to create associations with wintertime holidays, highlight the undesirable appearances of customers before using the products, and describe their perfect lifestyles after consumption. Logical reasoning was used to present a solution to buyers’ skin problems, offer convenience to their beauty routines, and explain the additional benefits of using these skin-lightening lotions. / Media Studies & Production

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I examine the impact of policies toward agricultural globalization on growth patterns, distribution patterns, commercialization, and the supply response of peasant farmers by analyzing agriculture in the Telangana region of South India between 1985 and 2000. I perform growth computations between 1970 and 2000 for agriculture in this region, track distributional changes based on the National Sample Survey (NSS) data between 1985 and 2000 using non-parametric regression techniques, and estimate an econometric model of supply response for Telangana farmers. This empirical investigation leads to two puzzles—one in the supply response arena and the other in the distributional arena. First, even as the prices of market-oriented crops have declined between 1991 and 2000 (during the phase of globalization), the planted area and the output of these crops have been rising rapidly. Second, between 1985 and 2000, the annual exponential growth rate of real agricultural output in the Telangana region of South India has been more than 4%, higher than much of the developing world during the same period, even as a majority of the farming population has undergone significant income/consumption losses, tragically manifested in the suicides of more than a thousand farmers. I explain these puzzles first by studying the historical antecedents (1925–1985) of agrarian change in the region, then through a theoretical peasant economy model with a lien constraint that is similar to the model that Ransom and Sutch employed in the context of the post-bellum US South, and finally by analyzing village-level institutional mechanisms based on field research (2000–01) in the region. The main conclusion of the dissertation is that the globalization-induced decline in the prices of non-food output in conjunction with local informal lending practices that require these very non-food crops as collateral help explain the tragic puzzles. The policy implications are also analyzed in the dissertation.

Community-based natural resource management has become immensely popular among some policy makers on the assumption that involvement of local communities can achieve conservation goals with greater efficiency and equity. However, the community is quite often conceived of as an undifferentiated whole. Given that diverse groups may exist within a community, with heterogeneous interests, abilities, incentives, and social affiliations, such a conception is problematic. This dissertation empirically investigates the effects of heterogeneity on use and management of common forests. This dissertation conducts a meso-level study of heterogeneity using the 'community' as the unit of analysis. The data are derived from fieldwork conducted in the middle Himalayan ranges of Himachal Pradesh, India in 2004. During this fieldwork, survey data were collected in 54 forest communities. This method contrasts with the usual practice of examining individual motivations or conducting a cross-section country-level study. There are two key findings. First, three dimensions of heterogeneity affect collective management of forests: heterogeneity in wealth, social groups and incentives. However, these effects are complex and non-linear. The empirical results suggest that both social and wealth heterogeneity have a non-monotonic relationship with cooperation. In addition, heterogeneity in incentives decreases cooperation conditional on the presence of wealth heterogeneity. These results imply that cooperation does not depend on social parochialism, very high levels of wealth heterogeneity reduce cooperation, and a divergence between wealth and incentive to cooperate decreases the level of collective management. Second, forest use is affected by heterogeneity as well. The sampled communities have access to forests that are common property, in that rights of use are vested with the community and not the individual. This means that all individuals in the community should be able to use the forest to the same degree. However, on investigating the effect of heterogeneity in forest use, the dissertation finds that wealth heterogeneity increases whereas social heterogeneity decreases the extent of forest use even after controlling for market related factors. The results therefore, suggest that the social structure of the community plays an important role in determining both the degree of cooperation and extent of forest use at the community level.

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The main argument in this dissertation is that changes in male nuptiality in rural India between 1921 and 1981 was a form of household adaptation to wage dependency and proletarianization in the countryside. The male nuptiality in rural India in 1921 was characterized by extremely early marriage throughout the country. Under conditions of high mortality of that period, early marrying men had an advantage in forming joint households (with both parents present). Male nuptiality in rural India grew more diverse in 1981, and came to be characterized by at least two distinctive nuptiality regimes: One which strongly resembled peasant nuptiality of the early 20th century and the second represented an emergent adult pattern of nuptiality among males in rural India. The variation in marriage age of males in rural India was significantly related to the level agricultural proletarianization in 1981. Regions characterized by early male nuptiality were generally dominated by household-based or peasant production, while regions of later marriage among males were more likely to have a substantial wage labor sector. Due to declines in mortality, the possibility of young men living in a joint household with both parents rose between 1921 and 1981, regardless of age at marriage. But within each level of mortality, early marrying men still had better chances of being able to form a joint household (with both parents). Marriage postponement among males in some parts of rural India may have modified many aspects of the household development process. More important, it may have allowed greater flexibility with respect to the timing of household formation, and also ensured that men were financially able to support a family when they married.

As nations economically prosper, do future generations undergo a steady shift in values? This thesis seeks to analyze the Post-World War II intergenerational shift in Japanese attitudes toward Japanese women and the LGBT, multiethnic, and indigenous communities. Centered around Ronald Inglehart's "Materialist" and "Post-Materialist" theories, this research seeks to contribute to current literature surrounding the development of contemporary Japanese values. Inglehart's "Materialist" theory consists of the idea that individuals pursued various goals in hierarchical order with their base necessities such as sustenance and safety gaining priority. After their base necessities are satisfied, Inglehart believed that people's values shifted, emphasizing belonging, self-expression, and quality of life, all considered "Post-Materialist" values. This thesis utilizes empirical data and qualitative materials to analyze the shift in Japanese views surrounding gender, sexual, and ethnic minorities. This thesis found that Inglehart’s Post-Materialist value change and intergenerational shift were present in views toward women and the LGBT community while views toward the Hafu and Ainu may be backsliding.

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