My project explores the intersection of art, politics, and social justice in Brazil. I am particularly interested in street art, and the ways it is used by everyday people to comment on contemporary social issues. In Brazil racial identity and experience are a significant topic of concern. Accordingly, drawing on ethnographic research conducted between January and March 2017 in Sao Paulo, I analyze street art as a text to better understand racial politics in the region. I also examine how street art acts as a facilitator to social justice and politics and how Brazilians use street art as a means of resistance and/or healing in response to issues of racial inequality. The findings of this research apply beyond the borders of Brazil to all urban spaces around the world in which public artistic expression is entangled with major political and social issues.

Migration from the Northern Triangle in Central America – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – to the United States and Mexico spiked dramatically in 2014 due to an unprecedented influx of unaccompanied minors and families. In partnership with El Rescate, a non-profit immigrant rights organization based in Los Angeles, our research aims to shed light on the deepening cycle of human rights abuses that migrants face in their countries of origin, transit, and destination (prior to deportation and post-deportation) due to pervasive government negligence that violates international and domestic laws. Through secondary-source gathering, as well as analysis of demographic data from El Rescate, our findings indicate that these abuses become more pronounced as individuals repeat their journey, resulting in circular migration patterns. This signifies a collective failure of policy responses to this humanitarian crisis due responsibility being deflected among all of the involved governments. Our team analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data extrapolated from their Northern Triangle and Mexican clientele by manually digitizing the hand-written intake forms from El Rescate’s legal assistance clinic from 2013 to 2016 though a digital survey form. From our sample size of 1,269 case files we identified key trends in migrant demographics, the forces which compelled them to flee, and the rates of specific types of violence that many experienced. Our research culminates in a call to action for governments and authorities to uphold international and domestic laws to protect Central American migrants fleeing violence, and to process them as asylum seekers.

Brain Drain, the global movement of medical doctors from developing to developed countries, has contributed to South Africa’s inability to supply its rural populations with access to medical care. The drivers of medical migration are generally attributed to economic, educational, and security-centered motivations; however, despite these conditions improving widely across South Africa, the number of young South African doctors who choose to emigrate annually continued to grow. Thus, it is important to understand what motivations for migration are uniquely salient to the Born Free Generation, South Africans who were born after the end of Apartheid. Using data collected from surveys and interviews, this study explores how Born Free Doctors interpret their national identity, and how this understanding contributes to their motivations to emigrate. This investigation of identity is characterized primarily by Rainbowism, the national project to create a common South African national identity around Nelson Mandela’s vision for an inclusive and diverse “rainbow nation”. Using common narratives from the collective memory of Born Free South Africans as ‘cultural tools’ for decision mediation, this study presents a framework to interpret motivations for migration based on common national narratives that reflect the conflicted national identity of Born Free Doctors, resulting from unfulfilled ambitions of the Rainbow Nation.

The Syrian crisis has become the defining humanitarian concern of the early 21st century. With over 400,000 dead and millions displaced, regional and international actors have been overwhelmed by the logistical and political strains of supporting Syrians. Because women and children comprise eighty percent of all refugees and Internally Displaced Persons across Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey, this Task Force elected to focus on the specific needs of this vulnerable population. Our report employs an inter-sectoral approach to identify both short and long-term gaps in women and children's rights and representation, economic opportunities, and their access to healthcare and education in Syria and the four major refugee-hosting countries. Data was collected through a a wide array of sources ranging from government reports to academic articles, the diversity of which enabled the report to look beyond the symptomatic issues facing women and children towards some of the more systemic cultural, political and historical factors which have influenced the conflict and the place of women and children within it. Our report concludes with policy recommendations for short-term relief, as well as the eventual reconstruction of Syria. This report was prepared for the Jackson School's capstone course, and has been evaluated by Ryan Crocker, former U.S Ambassador to Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Indigenismo, a central ideology in Mexico’s post-revolutionary nation-building projects, both celebrated and sought to assimilate Mexico’s substantial indigenous population. The ideology was shaped by several disciplines, including biology and anthropology, and was adopted by the Mexican government to promote cultural nationalism in the 1920's and 1930's. There was a common agreement that education reform would be key to spread multiculturalism which, in theory, would create a more holistic and established “Mexican” identity. While the architects of indigenismo were predominantly privileged mestizo men, the subjects of their efforts were primarily women, who bore the burden of reproduction and family education. Nonetheless, the scholarship on indigenismo in Mexico has yet to explore gender roles and eugenics. My project adopts a gendered lens to explore if and how these cross-culture teachings reshaped the societal expectations of womanhood among indigenous women. Using archival research, teaching pamphlets and publications by these policy makers along with secondary scholarship, I hypothesize that reformers used education to control the indigenous female body.

How do food memories help someone connect to their upbringing, background, and identity? Every person holds a unique set of food memories surrounding family recipes or culinary traditions that have the power to tie them to their wider, yet still personal, cultural, ethnic, or familial heritage. The term ‘food memory’ refers to a form of embodied memory someone has of preparing or eating food. In my analysis, I explore these ideas through an extensive literature review based in academic works focusing on food and memory, culture, and identity. I conducted open interviews on the topic of culture and food background with a wide range of Seattle residents, most who have multiple cultural identities. Does cooking or eating help them navigate the potentially difficult task of understanding and connecting with their heritage(s)? I then asked each interviewee for a recipe they feel best represents a part of their culture. Their stories and recipes accumulate to form a personal and checkered cookbook. I hope that by transforming dishes and stories into the form of a cookbook, I can better understand the importance culturally relevant culinary traditions play in the growth and identity of an individual within their community. Is the semi-rigid format of a cookbook potentially stifling for certain dishes? How can I most effectively address that issue, to respect the integrity of a dish? Certain cultural groups have been, and still are oppressed through dominating food practices. Heritage within food could be disrespected or misrepresented, and here, I explore these effects as I attempt to best illustrate people’s stories. Food holds the power to connect a diverse set of people through celebration and education. This project has taken on a timely significance as people within the US continue to fracture and segregate in part due to fear of differences. This research is a focused point to celebrate diversity through food heritage. 

This project compares the results of recent political shifts n the US and Brazil on human rights in both countries, and examines how gendered perceptions of corruption and media consolidation led to the rise of the political right in both countries.  In this research, corruption is examined as a political tool which is particularly 'gendered'; that is, mobilized in order to portray women in power as inherently corrupt. Instead of attempting to ascertain the validity of corruption in either country, I focus on subjective experiences and conceptions of where corruption is situated, disrupting the idea of countries in the Global South as inherently more corrupt than countries in the Global North by examining corruption as a political tool. Thus, this project examines the rhetoric of gender and corruption in the media during political upheaval within the last year in both the Brazil and the US, comparing the conception of "fake news" with #Globogolpista in order to understand the role the media plays in constructing corruption. Discourse analysis is important in order to attempt to understand the possible impact of gendered corruption on politics and human rights in two countries with low levels of female participation in politics. The project concludes that despite different historical and political contexts, both the US and Brazil mobilize corruption as a gendered political tool which centers on women in power. 

For our Jackson School of International Studies capstone class, Task Force, we created a strategic communications plan tied with a digital story to create a social media campaign. The goal of this campaign is to communicate Tribal Treaty Rights between tribal and non-tribal millennials in the Puget Sound area. The Treaty Rights target issues in the Puget Sound caused by climate change, including decreasing salmon populations and managing non-tribal fishing rights around the region. Most millennials are unaware of these rights, or these issues in general, despite living in the Puget Sound. Our research, primarily self-hosted surveys and focus groups, show a trend in millennials to be sensitive to cultural diversity and climate change acceptance, making them a prime demographic for a marketing campaign. After data collection, we created social media groups, including Facebook, Instagram, and a digital story for potential use in the Tulalip Tribes website. We worked closely with the Tulalip Tribes in Marysville, and visited their location, supervised by Tulalip Tribes' Public Affairs Coordinator Francesca Hillery. UW campus resources will be invaluable in our pursuits; we will contact the school newspaper "The Daily", as well as collaborate with various departments, such as the Intellectual House, to spread awareness and to set up relevant lectures. Millennials are apt to be interested in this topic, therefore, one of our main campaign goals is to create the knowledge in the first place. If successful, our social media campaign will grow towards increasing implementaion on campus and for the tribes themselves. Overall, this can lead to future, independent student involvement and efforts to make a change for themselves, for the tribes, and for all in the Salish Sea region. 

This research explores what role the U.S. should adopt in the new nuclear era to ensure that the expansion of nuclear energy capabilities proceeds safely, securely, and without further proliferation of weapons. Does the U.S. need to expand its own reactor fleet, using advanced reactor technology, to maintain a position of influence? What policies and measures should it take, if any, with regard to Russia’s plan to become a nuclear superpower? Through a broad literature review and interviews with world-renowned experts, this research answers these questions, as well as provides key policy recommendations for the U.S. going forward. Ultimately, our findings make it clear that expanding nuclear energy is critical to meeting U.S. climate objectives, buffering national energy security, and becoming a leader in critical energy technology.