Students Present at 2019 ICS Capstone Colloquium

Topics and overviews from the 2019 Capstone Colloquium:

Workers and Markets, Constitutions and Corporations
Commentator: Sumathi Ramaswamy

Global Worker Solidarity in the British Trades Union Congress | Nora Hafez

Using the theoretical framework considered in Marissa Brookes’s The New Politics of Transnational Labor: Why Some Alliances Succeed, this paper places the UK labor movement in the broader context of the global labor movement. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is the largest confederation of unions in the UK and is therefore used as a representative of UK union confederations. The first half of the paper uses official TUC documents to examine TUC rhetoric and evaluate how it aligns with the traditional understanding of global labor movements. The second half deals with the complications posed by Brexit and how the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union affects the TUC’s stated goal of global worker solidarity, as well as the implications it has for the idea of a global labor union. I find that the TUC typically engages in shallow, surface-level attempts to practice solidarity.

Nike and Corporate Social Responsibility: Green for the Environment or Money? | Max Feldman

This article is a close reading of Nike’s FY18 Social Impact Report and analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the context of Nike. It outlines a brief history of CSR as well as analyzing key terms to understand CSR today such as neoliberalism. Questions that arise include the real effect of Nike’s CSR, the main motivations and background of CSR, and how CSR should grow in the future. Main findings and discussion center around the neoliberal accumulation of capital being the root cause of CSR. This creeps into Nike’s CSR and influences the environmental impacts they choose to make, such as the dedication to energy efficient manufacturing, only within North America and Europe. After analyzing Nike’s FY18 Social Impact Report this article argues that Nike’s CSR has a better impact than other companies, but CSR as a whole has neoliberal undertones that consumers need to determine if this CSR brings enough benefit rather than harm.

Pesticide Use in Morocco: Historical and Political Context | Molly Mansfield

Pesticide use in occupational settings can cause significant health problems. Existing literature describes in detail the histories of pesticide use and subsequent health effects in world regions such as Latin America. This paper seeks to fill a gap in existing literature by characterizing pesticide use in Morocco and examining historical reasons for increased pesticide use within Morocco. Specifically, this paper aims to understand changes in Morocco’s agricultural industry that arose with French colonialism and the international political and economic structures which render pesticides advantageous for farmers in Morocco. This is done via a review of existing literature which discusses Morocco’s colonial and agricultural history and the history of pesticide use worldwide, as well as a brief comparison to fruit production in Latin America. Agricultural in Morocco experienced considerable shifts under French colonialism and that pesticide use in Morocco has been encouraged by international organizations.

The Origins and Implications of the “Gay Rights Clause” in the 1996 South African “Rainbow Constitution” | Donovan Bendana

In 1996, under the leadership of famed anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, South Africa became the first country in the world to ensure legal protections for gay and lesbian individuals in a state’s official constitution. The accomplishment came through strategic lobbying efforts by prominent gay rights organizations as well as a deliberate attempt to align the gay liberation struggle with the broader anti-apartheid movement and activists during the period of governmental transition following the collapse of apartheid. Despite legal successes, the inclusion of the gay rights clause into this new “Rainbow Constitution” was not without backlash and was passed at a time when public opinion of gay equality was relatively low. This paper analyzes the legal successes of the gay rights clause while also addressing the implications it had on lagging social sentiment. This paper concludes with a brief comparative analysis with the legal and social progress of the gay rights movement in the United States.

Capitalistic Cupid: Faces and Traces of the Matchmaking Market in Modern China | Phyllis Leong

“In an era of free love and free market, one can also create a market for love if one has love for this market.” In 2017, China’s National Bureau of Statistics recorded 215 million single adults; this sizeable population has encouraged the growth of China’s matchmaking industry as some individuals are willing to fork out $US15,000 for customized matchmaking services. By referencing scholarship on matchmaking mechanisms in modern China, as well as analyzing documentaries and reality dating shows, this project endeavors to understand how capitalism expresses itself in modern China’s merry/marry-making process. It leverages two platforms, the traditional marriage market and televised matchmaking variety shows, to examine the commodification of single adults to accumulate material wealth. The project includes a poetry collection that depicts the unique perspectives of stakeholders within China’s matchmaking industry. These poems also encapsulate the many traces of the matchmaker, matchmaking and matchmade.

Logics of Power, Intervention, and Exclusion
Commentator: Mbaye Lo

Government Influence in Education: A Comparison between Germany and the US from WWII to Now | Samir Agadi

This paper provides a history of education in Germany under Nazi governance. The Third Reich was extremely influential on German youth mainly through the education system. With power over curriculum, textbooks, and teachers, Hitler was able to influence and have power German children. Based on writings of Alfons Heck, A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika, and Lisa Pine, Education in Nazi Germany, education and youth groups were the most effective way to reach to children. This paper argues how education in Nazi Germany is not the only system to be controlled by a government. The United States’ education system after the Cold War had heavy government influence. Along with academic components, schools were becoming a vehicle to influence Americans to be more partial to military and war. Anti-communist propaganda was common in public schools. This paper gives historical context of the effects of government-controlled education and argues how it exists in this country. 

Claiming the Mantle: Emulation via Representation in the Culture of Protest in France | Rasulan Inayat-Khan

The burgeoning of the Gilets Noirs movement in Paris has drawn attention to the plight of undocumented immigrants in France. This paper will examine the positioning adopted by the protesters at the forefront of the movement. Their strategy consists of laying claim to the imagery and methodology of the more famous “Gilets Jaunes” movement. Theorist Stuart Hall’s principles of representation describe the manner in which representations reaffirm, defy, or transform expectations, thus empowering those who effectively circulate them. Hall’s model accordingly provides a useful index by which to track the Gilets Noirs’ embrace, as well as reframing, of methods pioneered by the Gilet Jaunes. The emerging picture adds nuance to Robert Park’s seminal model of social integration, which envisions four stages marked sequentially by competition, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. The Gilets Noirs movement illustrates accommodation to a subversive discourse (the Gilet Jaunes movement) as a means to ultimate accommodation in society at large.

The Responsibility to Be Right: A British Perspective on R2P Intervention in Libya | Elise Kreiling

Adopted by the UN in 2005, Responsibility to Protect (R2P) allows the international community to intervene in humanitarian catastrophes when the domestic government is unable or unwilling to take action. Used for the first time in Libya, R2P intervention came in reaction to Prime Minister Muammar al-Gaddafi’s war crimes against his citizens. This paper analyzes the British perspective of R2P intervention by examining the “Letters to the Editor” submitted to a prominent British newspaper. Two dates in particular are compared: reactions to the initial UNSC declaration in March, and those in August, by which time it is apparent that a refugee crisis has emerged and that there are major roadblocks to rebuilding Libya.  Common themes in the letters give insight to the British perspective and the potential future for R2P.

Redefining Borders: How Citizenship Shapes Education in the Southwest | SarahAnne Perel

In this paper I broaden the definition of borders from concrete lines between nations to abstract divisions within a nation that produce varying degrees of citizenship. I use Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands La Frontera to shape the loss of identity that Chicanos feel living in the Southwest. Citizens of Mexican descent in this region are not given the same education opportunities. Instead, they are systematically excluded and kept in a state of transience. Standardized testing, school funding, and racial profiling are all tenets of this marginalization. I discuss the emergence of dual language programs and reform in Title 1 public schools in the region as a result of the labeling and “othering” these students experience. All of this leads to systemic poverty and unemployment. Being on the U.S. side of the southern border does not solve the obstacle of citizenship, but instead raises questions as to why this portion of society is denied equal opportunity in education.

Borders and Deportation in the “Union”: French Expulsions of Romani as an Articulation of Authority | Caroline Sprague

Following the addition of several eastern European countries to the European Union, Romani peoples have been able to travel freely to western European countries, including France. Official French policy has reacted forcefully to this increased migration, issuing deportation orders to many of the migrants. This paper argues that these deportations represent an instrument of state power, which reaffirms an imagined national border in contrast to the EU’s ideal of a borderless Europe. It begins with a brief history of the Romani experience in France and the events leading up to the issuance of then-president Nicolas Sarkozy’s Discours de Grenoble. Using the text of this speech and other public discourse, it demonstrates how deportations are used to “other” the Romani. Finally, it explores how deportations allow the state to define its border and, in doing so, to enforce control over its residents.

Researching “Others,” Resituating Selves
Commentator: Deonte Harris

Creating ‘Chinese Dance’: Locating Diasporic Identity in Movement | Lucy Dong

As embodied practice, dance provides meaningful space to negotiate meanings of cultural expression in diaspora. This essay is born from my lived experiences as a Chinese dancer/choreographer, Chinese American, and Chinese historian. “Chinese dance” started becoming institutionalized by the Chinese state in the 1950s. Aware of its diverse origins, practitioners of “Chinese dance” have long been invested in processes of innovation and research, maintaining the flexibility of tradition. Existing scholarship details how Chinese immigrant communities rely on ‘Chinese dance’ to locate themselves in a place and culture of origin. Based on my involvement with Duke Chinese Dance, I argue that Chinese Americans engage in processes of innovation inherent to “Chinese dance,” thus complicating the narrative that its practice in diaspora is only a form of ethnic construction. However, in ahistorically creating ‘Chinese dance’ which reflects their dual identities, Chinese Americans participate in the binary codification of traditional/modern and thus Chinese/American.

From North Korea to the United States: Struggles and Exceptional Outcomes | Anna Jestin

This paper narrates the life of Hae Youn Lee (1930-2002), a North Korean who migrated to the United States as an exchange student. Her success story is unique. After growing up in the North of Korea under the Japanese occupation, Hae Youn’s family faced the hardships of leaving everything behind at the beginning of the Korean War. They fled south for freedom. She overcame assimilation struggles and a traumatic past, while keeping a strong sense of her Korean self that shaped the identity of generations in her family. This paper provides historical and cultural background on Korea, its relationship with neighboring countries and the United States. It offers another perspective on the “us” versus “them” narratives associated with North Koreans today. Interviews with ten of Hae Youn’s family members, friends, and former colleagues are used as a tool to display challenges of auto-ethnography to recount the life of a deceased loved one.

A Revisionist Autobiography: Deconstructing the Pākehā Self in Order to Hear | Ben Ayto

Drawing on both the accounts of indigenous Maori and other New Zealanders of colour as well as critical scholarship on whiteness as a global ideology, this paper takes as its starting point the challenge posed by Pākehā (non-Maori white/European) fragility to the twin projects of decolonization and the pursuit of historical justice in New Zealand. Building upon the work of Jill Stauffer on ethical loneliness and the injustice of not being heard, this paper argues that these projects of repair cannot be advanced or conceptualized without Pākehā individuals and institutions adequately listening for and hearing the stories of colonized peoples on their own terms. Pākehā fragility--the paralysis and defensiveness of Pākehā when confronted with stories that challenge Pākehā narratives, privilege and innocence--is thus understood as an inculcated inability to listen for, hear, and respond to the ongoing injustice and abandonment experienced by colonized peoples. This paper centers the voices and knowledge production of non-Pākehā in critically examining and challenging the narratives (as well as the institutions and power structures which both promulgate and are promulgated by these narratives) through which my sense of self has been constructed as a young, economically privileged Pākehā man isolated from Maori perspectives. Through this revisionist autobiography, I attempt to deconstruct the Pākehā self in order to better listen for and recognize my interconnection with and obligation to the colonized peoples of Aotearoa.

Crumbling Carcerality: The Fragility of Settler Colonial Logic in Durban Central Gaol | Catherine Farmer

This paper provides a brief history of Durban Central Gaol, also known as Old Durban Prison, which held mostly black and brown South Africans from 1847 to 1985. By the turn of the 20th Century, Durban Central, which planned to hold 160 prisoners in a segregated system, held almost 700 prisoners within its walls.  Based on readings of colonial despatches from the Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository, this paper considers the fragility of settler colonial logic through the lenses of housing and labor. I first attempt to queer the archives by highlighting sexuality where it is purposely rendered invisible by colonial administrators and relating this to colonial anxieties around race. I then consider the unique positionality of white prisoners as “disgrace[s] to the master race.”  Throughout the paper, I consider the ethical and emotional dilemmas I’ve grappled with whilst writing as a young, non-South African, black, female, prison abolitionist.

Migrant Roots Media/ICS: A Partnership for Structural Understandings of Migration
Commentator: Kathryn Mathers

In partnership with Roxana Bendezú of Migrant Roots Media (MRM), this team of students offers counter-narratives to prevailing media rhetoric about migration. In their work and the following presentations, they historicize and contextualize migration patterns, exploring the patterns of power that drive migration across regions.

Rerooting Migration Media: Understanding Migration to, from, and within the DRC | Lily Koning

Media gatekeepers often exclude movement within Africa from popular rhetoric surrounding global migration. Even when African migration is included in the conversation, it is severed from political and historical contexts. These elisions contribute to development discourses as articulated by Arturo Escobar, as they naturalize displacement as an inherent characteristic of African societies. This discourse functions to obscure the ways that those with power create, maintain, and benefit from the same structures that produce displacement. Through an interactive webpage describing Congolese migration, I destabilize these discourses, naming the contingent histories, policies, and global structures of power that produce displacement. I specifically analyze the DRC utilizing the following lenses of analysis: decoloniality, borders as structural violence, dependency theory, and foreign intervention.

Is Hawai‘i a Land of Racial Paradise? Understanding Migration to and from Hawai‘i | Brittany Amano

The media often touts Hawai‘i as a racial paradise, where people of every ethnicity can coexist, appreciate each other’s cultures, and intermix unlike racial segregation that happens in other parts of the United States. However, the history of Hawai‘i’s cultural diversity is rarely talked about. Through an interactive webpage describing Hawai‘i’s history of migration with the growth of sugar plantations, I hope to shed a light on the truth and history behind the current racial unity you read about in the media, the decline of the Native Hawaiian people and culture, as well as the current ethnic hierarchies that exist. I specifically analyze Hawai‘i utilizing the following lens of analyses: capitalism, colonialism, Eurocentrism, and racial power dynamics.

Narratives and Voices of Franco-African Migrants | Eyram Klu

Heavy immigrant migration from Sub-Saharan Africa to France can be traced at least all the way back to 1950 (even though the first African migrants arrived in France much earlier in the 20th century). But when migrants choose to migrate; where do they go and what happens to them? Some might migrate to provide more for the extended family, or pursue social mobility but when is on the other side of their journey? From Franco-African personal narratives to protests from the Gilets Noirs, this project explores Franco-African migration from West-Africa, to France, and to the United States from the perspective of those who left their beloved homelands for an odysseys of what is beyond; only to be faced with numerous challenges and stories along the way.

Also presenting as part of the team: Bailey Carkenord