This paper critically analyzes the social and economic effects of a local business process outsourcing center, or BPO, B2R in three towns (Letybunga, Reetha, and Orakhan) in the state of Uttarakhand in India . This research intends to provide an understanding of the implications globalization has within rural communities, specifically for young women. Through participatory observation as well as qualitative and quantitative data gathered during semi-structured interviews, this project analyzed the changing perceptions of the community, employees, and the family members of employees towards B2R, its employees, and its effects on the community. Our primary goal was to better understand what people perceived as the positive and negative social and economic changes in the region brought on by development, specifically the addition of B2R. Our research sheds some light on changing gender and family dynamics in the region as young women increasingly enter the formal workforce.

With the rise of Islamist parties to power in Egypt, the question of how women will be affected by the Islamist agenda has gained new urgency. This research project examines the rise of Islamic health services as well as several Islamist political movements in Egypt in order to assess how women are affected by these phenomena. Governmental Egyptian health services have declined in both quality and quantity since the establishment of the Nasserist welfare state during the 1960s. Services affecting women, in particular, have varied in coincidence with the state’s pattern of repression, supervision and cooption of healthcare organizations in the Parallel Islamic Sector. Islamic hospitals and clinics, some affiliated with Islamist political organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, have grown in popularity and influence during the past several decades. I discovered through my research that Islamic and Islamist health clinics consistently out-perform the state in the provision of health services to many Egyptians, and generally provide high quality, modern and Western medical care. This trend towards religiously influenced healthcare provision raises several important concerns for women’s health in Egypt, as Islamist organizations promote female domesticity and oppose reforms to personal status laws seeking to improve protections for women within marriage bonds. My exploration of these diverse aspects of Islamic healthcare in Egypt will illuminate how these parallel institutions have substituted for and subsequently challenged the legitimacy of the state in providing healthcare to Egyptian women.

 “The Right to Recover Their Roots: Women, Memory and Identity in Postdictatorship Argentina and Chile” investigates the gendered division of memory and the ways women survivors of repressive governments construct a collective memory and identity. The Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990), and the Dirty War in Argentina (1976-1983) were responsible for hundreds of thousands of victims subjected to detainment, torture, death, disappearance, and exile. Additionally, these regimes severely limited, if not altogether destroyed artistic freedom in both nations. The post-dictatorship era (beginning in Argentina in 1983 and Chile in 1990) allowed for, and in some cases encouraged the documentation of memories conveyed through cultural production. However, lingering fears of censorship and contradictions with institutionalized narratives of the past oftentimes prevented the effective creation and communication of these traumatic memories. This paper examines theories on collective memory, history, identity, and gender with particular attention to the ways in which they intersect, influence, and depend on one another. Recovering identity is particularly difficult while a populace seeks to rebuild civil society, and becomes even more laborious when identities are located within memories that contradict the dominant narratives of history. I argue that women, who were excluded from civil society long before the state implemented terror, assume crucial roles in defining personal, political, familial, and national identities while narrating their memories of trauma and loss. Further, because women’s memories rely on collective rather than self-identification, they are able to articulate a collective memory. Research for this paper is based on the analysis of primary sources, including: novels, letters, documentaries, films, memorials, parks, street art, and blogs. These testimonials are analyzed through a gendered lens, arguing that memory is a gendered process operating to serve innumerable cultural, political, and social purposes.

Three groups that played an essential role in triggering the Queer Rights Movement in America, the Lesbian group Daughters of Bilitis, the mostly male homophile group Mattachine Society, and One Inc., that emerged from the Mattachine Society remain an understated and understudied part of history. Exploring the different tactics used by these groups and the debates over ideology and goals that emerged in their various publications, especially in the 1950s and early 1960s is an attempt to shed light on their influence and importance in American History. Various branches of these organizations were characterized as being more militant than others, which contributed to the debates among their members in their publications. By looking at primary documents obtained from the One Nation Gay & Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles, California from the Daughters of Bilitis’ publication The Ladder, the Mattachine Society’s publication Mattachine Review, and One, Inc.’s magazine One, a close examination of how different views of activism for queer people emerged well before the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. This extensive examination of their publications gives insight to how these groups viewed themselves, each other, and the larger society that surrounded them, highlighting the importance of scholarly recognition of diversity in civil rights movements, debates over the merits and drawbacks that emerge from in-group debates, and ongoing perceptions about how to define “militant” tactics within movements for equality. Through this analysis the question of queer minority status in America, which has been highly debated by many, reveals itself to be the core issue of conflicts within this movement. The result of the disagreement of whether or not the queer identity constitutes a minority proves to be the root of many clashes within the movement then and now.

Living in Southwest China for 15 months, I spent much of my time in lesbian designated establishments and spoke with hundreds of queer women about their lives. Homosexuality has been legal in Mainland China since 1997 and was removed from the list of mental illnesses in 2001, but same-sex unions are not legal and the public often remains ignorant or ambivalent when it comes to same-sex relationships. For most young adults regardless of sexuality, the pressure to marry and have children persists, yet adoption is only available to married heterosexual couples. At the same time, there are hubs in China with relative freedom where being openly gay or lesbian is not stigmatized. It is not uncommon for younger individuals to come out to friends, and not unheard of to be out to at least some family members. Still, I heard stories of heartbreak after either one or both women made the decision to give up on their relationship and suppress their sexuality, often at a great cost. Certainly not all lesbians in China follow this course however, and some are finding unique ways of navigating through or around traditional expectations. Given this general backdrop, my research documents how individual lesbians have responded to these pressures without denying their sexuality. The results demonstrate how different women have employed various degrees of agency in pursuit of options that are unavailable through Chinese social structures and institutions. Rather than attempting to portray lesbians overall, my focus remains on the small handful of women I spoke with in depth in order to convey the complexity of their circumstances. Their perspectives are not commonly known in China or abroad. By sharing their stories, I hope to expand the range of personal narratives to include the diversity of experiences I encountered among lesbians within Southwest China.

In this essay and presentation, I examine historical accounts of the civil rights movement to see how these narratives have perpetuated heterosexist domination that allowed male leadership and women's subordination to be normalized.  Furthermore, I examine the ways in which heteronormative forms of masculinity are performed by male leaders through the oppression of women and gays and lesbians. I read these instances of sexism and homophobia as attempts to avenge the alleged emasculation of black men by systems of white supremacy and patriarchy. These historiograhical gaps and obfuscations, I argue, are operations of power, but they also provide possible sites of resistance.