CSWS Graduate Student Research Grant

by Marc J. Carpenter, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History
When listening to Native students and community members talk about the “Pioneer” statues at the University of Oregon, I have heard the phrase “two sides of the same story” often enough that I do not know whom to credit. Until June 13, 2020, the Pioneer and Pioneer Mother monuments looked down from their pedestals on anyone passing either side of the President’s office at Johnson Hall. Both crafted by the same sculptor, each statue celebrated a different element of the colonial conquest of Oregon.

by Emily Masucci, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology
For many historically marginalized women, the state and its institutions are not perceived as reliable. State-sponsored violence against women—low-income, afro-descendant, and indigenous women in particular—is a weapon with which the Brazilian state was founded and has maintained power since. The fabric of Brazil is stained by histories of forced sterilization of indigenous and afro-descendant women, of brutal rapes of young women students by military officials during the dictatorship, and recently by the calculated political feminicide of Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman Marielle Franco. Given this legacy, survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) are justifiably apprehensive of appealing to state institutions as they pursue safety and redress.

By Katherine M. Huber, PhD Candidate, Department of English

COVID-19 confronted us all with an uncomfortable present. The fear for the health and safety of family and colleagues, the inability to make plans in the midst of ongoing economic and political uncertainty, shifting safety guidelines, racial and income disparity in healthcare, and imposed isolation all brought the immense injustices pervasive in U.S. society into sharp relief. The national uprisings and resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement that followed the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor made the meticulous work of research seem both urgently necessary and totally out of touch.

by Polet Campos-Melchor , PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology

The title, “El Noa Noa,” was inspired by Juan Gabriel’s nod to an infamous bar in Ciudad Juarez that burned down in 2004. The bar once hosted queer artists and was a reminder of the music and spirit of Juan Gabriel, the angel of the city. After my 2019 summer fieldwork at Respetttrans, a trans asylum seeker shelter in Ciudad Juarez, I was inspired to celebrate the lives of trans women through my research and practice.

by Lara Boyero Agudo, PhD Candidate, Department of Romance Languages

Oregon’s Latino population has kept growing during the last three decades. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the percentage of Latinx immigrants doubled from 25.8% in 1990 to 42% in 2017. Despite Oregon’s multiculturalism, there is a political and cultural environment where xenophobia has been accepted, and there is a tendency to dehumanization that creates isolation and fear among the Latinx community.

by Molly McBride, PhD Candidate Department of Anthropology

My research with Sistrum, a women’s chorus from Lansing, Michigan, unfolded in surprising ways over the past year. Supported by a CSWS Graduate Student Research Grant, I had originally proposed to look at the sexual politics of the chorus: how gender, race, sexual orientation, and class are performed in the chorus, both at an individual level and at a group level, as the chorus brings together many voices into one. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult to reconceptualize my project. Luckily, Sistrum pivoted to Zoom rehearsals, so I, too, pivoted to digital ethnography.

by Parichehr Kazemi, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science

In 2014, Masih Alinejad, an exiled Iranian journalist, posted on Facebook an image of herself running through a London street with her curly locks lifted in the air, captioning it: “When I run and feel the wind in my hair, I am reminded that I come from a country which kept my hair hostage for thirty years” (Mohseni, 2015). Little did Alinejad know at the time, this small, subversive act to reclaim agency in her new home would pave the way for thousands of Iranian women to do the same, but in the context of a regime bent on restricting them at every turn.

by Cristina Faiver-Serna, MPH, PhD, Department of Geography

One spring morning in 2011, I left my home in the Los Angeles Harbor region to drive to a community meeting in Long Beach, California. I was to present on the “Bridge to Health” program, a promotora de salud-led asthma education program funded by the Port of Long Beach. Merging onto the 710 freeway my car became sandwiched between big-rig diesel trucks hauling cargo from the Port of Long Beach. The 710 freeway is the main truck route from the Port to inland distribution centers in San Bernardino County. Together, with the Port of Los Angeles, more than 40 percent of goods imported into the continental U.S. come by way of the Los Angeles Harbor.