Tag: Political Science

Affirmative Action and White Males: A Study of the Impacts of Framing

Presenter: Angela Stelson, Political Science

Poster: C-6

Mentor: Daniel Ho Sang, Political Science

Ballot measure campaigns have served as a discursive battleground for various arguments (or “frames”) of affirmative action. Using this historical backdrop, this study tests three models designed to predict the success of frames using demographic attributes: liberal vs. conservative, group dominance, and parent morality. The study used a survey of 104 Caucasian males to analyze the relationship between demographic factors, political ideology and morality models for frames found in the campaigns for affirmative action ballot measures. The survey was based around a fictitious ballot measure which the respondent could vote on, and then change their vote based on exposure to frames. The findings ascertained that no one model could completely explain the effect of the frames. However, different model predictions correlated positively with different types of frames; the parent morality model best described frames which addressed the same socioeconomic group (“in-group”), and the liberal-conservative model best fit frames which were oriented toward other demographics (“out-group”). These results help to contribute to the body of framing knowledge by providing a comparative test of these models and indicating their flaws, while providing an alternative model which combines the strengths of each model.

“You Have Witchcraft on Your Lips”: Witches, Witchcraft, and Female Power in Modern Culture”

Presenter: Meaghan Forbis

Mentor: Julie Voelker-Morris

Poster: 16

Major: Political Science 

Ray Bradbury said that “a witch is born out of the true hungers of her time.” Witches and witchcraft have occupied a dynamic place within our culture for centuries, representing all facets of the feminine identity. Mother, warrior,
virgin, crone; witches can be all of these things. Female power as interpreted through witchcraft takes on an alien nature, removing it further from pressures of patriarchy. Starting from two points, Lilith, the Judeo-Christian Mother of Demons, and the Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of war, this multimedia collage experience explores the different ways in which witchcraft is represented in art and modern culture. The collage will include music, couture photography, reproductions of various traditional art works, excerpts from novels and poetry, and an interactive “altar.” The “altar,” presented on a small table, will include elements of pop culture witchcraft along side a variety of other objects, as a mean to convey the interconnectedness of modern womanhood and the traditional witch archetype. As female power has been demystified and trivialized through such things as modernity’s war on women and the “Grrl power” movement, monster girl culture has redeveloped. Witchcraft represents a place in which women can exist without needing to bow down to outside pressure, in which we can stride out into the night knowing that we are the most fearful thing in it, in which, as Joseph Campbell says, “all the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”

*Title from Shakespeare’s Henry V.

An examination into the Success or Failure of the EU Negotiating Group’s Climate Policy on Lowering Emissions

Presenter(s): Marie Moore − Environmental Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Sarah Crown, Ronald Mitchell

Poster 172

Research Area: Political Science

For my poster project I have chosen to research the climate policy of the European Union (EU) negotiating group. The EU negotiating group consists of 28 countries that have collaborated on one official climate policy. For my research I am investigated what carbon dioxide emission reduction commitments the EU negotiating group have established. I am exploring which European countries have met their goals or if they were unsuccessful in lowering emissions and why that is. I am researching variables, such as clean energy sources, that have led to countries successfully lowering emissions. By gaining a deeper understanding of what has worked for other countries in combating climate change, we as a country would have an effective template on how to successfully lower our emissions.

To What Degree Do Economic Circumstances Determine Compliance Costs That Consequently Push Like-Minded Nations Apart?

Presenter(s): Taylor Herman − Marine Biology, Environmental Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Ron Mitchell

Poster 158

Research Area: Political Science

Rainforest nations that are exposed to similar environmental conditions are often driven to implement different international policies out of economic necessity. The establishment of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations was intended to unite rainforest nations despite their differences. According to Vaahtoranta and Sprinz, countries are more likely to participate in coalitions if the costs of compliance are low. This paper will analyze the degree to which economic circumstance determines compliance costs that consequently push like-minded nations apart, using Costa Rica and Brazil as model nations. Though these are both rainforest nations, they each took different positions regarding their participation in the United Nations Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), which may be due to differences in economic standing.

Climate and Water Privatization in the Andes: Indigenous Livelihood and Political Agency vs. the World Bank’s Professed Faith in the Free Market

Presenter(s): Miles Evans − Music, Humanities

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Carey

Poster 150

Research Area: Natural Science, Social Science, Political Science

Water and climate change are inextricably linked on numerous levels: ecological, experiential, and political, to name a few. In the Peruvian Andes, climate change has had a profound impact on hydrology, which has in turn threatened the water supply of indigenous agricultural peoples. In the early 1990s, growing water scarcity provoked persistent criticism of the ability of Andean governments to provide water to their people, effectively paving the way for water privatization in the Andes, an effort spearheaded by the World Bank (WB). Although privatization has since been dismantled in countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador, it has more often endured despite various public protests, such as those in Lima and Santiago. These protests decry both the failure of private corporations to provide quality, affordable water and the growing political sway of multinational corporations in the Andes. This paper will analyze WB documents on climate change, water scarcity, water privatization, and Peruvian hydrology alongside academic articles on these same subjects (as well as on indigenous perspectives and political agency) in order to assess and criticize the WB’s arguments for water privatization. The stated rationale and intent of the WB will be compared to its apparent impact on Andean water supplies and to various indigenous criticisms. In particular, this paper will explore the following criticisms of the WB’s efforts in water privatization: they undermines indigenous political agency, have not meaningfully improved water supply, and espouse a free-market fundamentalist approach that is conducive to climate change.

War Paints (A Play About the Dangers of Racism and War Hysteria)

Presenter(s): Natalie Tichenor − Political Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Priscilla Yamin, Alison Gash

Poster 116

Research Area: Political Science and Theatre Arts

Funding: Wayne Morse Scholarship, Play Selected for New Voices UO Performance in 2018, Received Global Oregon Undergraduate Award

I believe plays have an unparalleled capacity to communicate a complicated and seemingly extraneous period as something relatable. In the same vein, theatre presenting historical periods has a profound capacity to illustrate the repetition of historical events, allowing for the errors of the past to highlight current troubles. This is the reason I, when troubled by the current political climate, I wrote a play. Demagogic claims about the alleged national security threats of immigrants and refugees hits close to home. During the 1940s, my family struggled in vain to obtain refugee visas for Hungarian Jewish relatives. They led rallies and lobbied the State Department, but were rebuffed because officials insisted that East European Jews were prone to radical political ideologies and thereby too threatening to receive asylum. Nearly all of these family members perished in the Holocaust. In the same period, the other side of my family, my German immigrant great- grandparents, and their family, faced discrimination because their loyalty was questioned as enemy aliens. In this prevailing political climate ordinary citizens need to mobilize on behalf of refugees, the most vetted migrants and also the group that political philosopher Michael Walzer calls “the most necessitous strangers.” From Brexit to the Trump administration’s constitutionally contested travel bans on migrants from six Muslim-majority countries, immigrants and refugees serve as convenient political scapegoats in even the most established democratic nations. Even when historical and social scientific evidence shows that these newcomers strengthen national economies and are less apt to engage in violent activity than native-born populations, they’re blamed for taking jobs, consuming public benefits, and posing significant threats. Today’s threats to constitutional principles and basic rights are frighteningly reminiscent of another haunting period in history. During the Second World War everyone with Japanese descent, regardless of citizenship, were forcibly, and without warning, placed into concentration camps. Detainees lost their homes and businesses, their educations and careers were interrupted, and their possessions stolen. They suffered the loss of faith in the government and the humiliation of being confined as traitors in their own country. My play follows closely real events. Dr. Seuss, who’s celebrated for progressive stances in his children’s books, was swept up in racial tensions and hysteria along with the majority of Americans. Seuss later travels to Japan for Life Magazine following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, distraught by the destruction he witnesses, writes Horton Hears a Who as both an apology and as a plea for future generations to stand up for the rights of others.

How does legislation of foot traffic in Machu Picchu affect the economic livelihood of indigenous groups in Peru?

Presenter(s): Emma Ziari—International Studies, Political Science

Co-Presenter(s): Edwin Guerrero, Eloise Navarro

Faculty Mentor(s): Matthias Vogel

Session: Prerecorded Poster Presentation

How does the legislation of foot traffic in Machu Picchu affect the economic livelihood of indigenous groups in Peru? In January of 2020, Peru deported five tourists accused of damaging a temple in Machu Picchu, the famous ancient Incan ruins in the Andes . Our presentation discusses how tourism in Machu Picchu has disaffected indigenous culture, indigenous people, and the environment in the Peruvian Andes . We examine societal and economic pressures and argue that each has been magnified by tourism as our analyses of policy changes, environmental degradation in Machu Picchu, and indigenous narratives show . We contend that while tourism in Machu Picchu seems to have clear economic benefits, the societal and environmental costs have been steadily increasing . Culturally, tourism has led to the desecration of indigenous burial sites . Environmentally, because the number of tourists has been increasing, the erosion of the site has continued to increase . Our research of this issue wants to contribute to a better understanding of the effects of global tourism . This information will be useful in identifying key global issues in tourism and contribute to informed decision-making processes for the implementation of a more environmentally and culturally-conscious tourism industry .

“Desde Abajo, Como Semilla:” Narratives of Puerto Rican Food Sovereignty as Embodied Decolonial Resistance

Presenter(s): Momo Wilms-Crowe—Political Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Dan Tichenor, Michael Fakhri

Session 1: Oh, the Humanities!

This thesis explores the power, possibility, and agency embedded in food in the contemporary Puerto Rican context . Building from participatory ethnographic fieldwork with activists, chefs, and farmers engaged in food sovereignty work on the island, I examine the concepts of agency and subjectivity as they relate to embodied experiences of politics . This approach is made possible with the understanding that the food we consume directly connects our individual lived experiences to broader structures of power in intimate and material ways . Through food, I offer a grounded critique of US colonial violence, inherently linked to ecological destruction, cisheteropatriarchy, and disaster capitalism . I also document dynamics of radical prefigurative politics as visible in people’s generative reimagining of relationships with their bodies, each other, and the land . This analysis is supported theoretically by key indigenous, anarchist, and queer/feminist perspectives which similarly connect the personal to the political and offer examples of political action that extend beyond state-centric formal politics . Ultimately, I argue that food is a powerful site of resistance, source of resilience, and mechanism of resurgence; as Puerto Ricans reclaim autonomy via food, they are resisting deeply rooted patterns of colonial extraction and dispossession and directly cultivating a more ecologically, socially, and politically just future .

Women Most Vulnerable: The Role Traditional Gender Roles Played in the Salem Witch Trials

Presenter(s): Maya Ward—Political Science

Session: Prerecorded Poster Presentation

This project looks at what were the largest influences in the accusation of a person during the Salem Witch Trials . After preliminary research the main question of inquiry became, why were women more likely to be persecuted in the Salem witch trials and what factors further increased likelihood of accusation and conviction? This question was answered through both analysis of court documents, recorded sermons, and secondary scholarship on the lives of the people accused . It was concluded that the women of Salem, especially the poor and outcast, supposedly influenced by the Devil, became the primary justification for instability in the community . The largest factors that amplified the likelihood of being accused, especially for a woman, was her age, economic status, and outspokenness in the community . These conclusions can help to explain why the moral panic in Salem occurred, and help to demonstrate the danger of oppressive genderroles in a society that, when not strictly followed, can create an ambiguity manipulated by powerful figures that can hurt those most vulnerable .