SAGGSA Presents 10th Annual Spring Graduate Student Conference

Political Poetics Our Voices, Our Stories, Our Truth

Friday March 26th, 2021 9:00AM to 4:00PM

Zoom ID: 948 2932 2062 Passcode: Poetics1 Program Schedule

Welcome to the 10th Annual Graduate Student Conference!! 9:00AM

Introductory Remarks Tiffany Peacock, SAGGSA President 9:10AM

Graduate Program Director Gail Hollander, PhD 9:15AM

Get To Know Your Colleagues (Networking) 9:15AM-9:30AM

Session 1- Human Rights and Social Movements ______

9:30AM to 9:50AM Lisa Mueller, Global Sociocultural Studies

Local Roots, Global Vines: Engaging with Politics in Japanese Human Rights Museums

In 2017, sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui documented a global turn in the social and political identity of Japan’s Buraku caste-based minority group. While postwar Buraku rights organizations originally displayed a tendency to interrogate Buraku issues insularly, they have increasingly begun to situate the Buraku struggle within a worldwide human rights perspective, which has affected not only Buraku engagement with global organizations such as the UN but also the manner in which equality issues are framed at the local level. This presentation examines human rights museums in Japan as a case study of this phenomenon, dubbed a “global-local feedback loop” by Tsutsui. In the 1980s and 1990s, Buraku activists established a network of human rights museums throughout western and southern Japan. Through field visits to three of these Buraku human rights museums and qualitative content analysis of the museums’ brochures, I have collected evidence of this new global reframing of Buraku identity and political consciousness. This presentation will focus on how these museums reflect Buraku engagement in politics at the local, national, and global levels. 9:50AM to 10:10AM Amir Khaghani, Global Sociocultural Studies

Public space and protest in Tehran: Legacy of Enghelab street

Tehran has historically been the heart of social and political movements in Iran. Within the premises of Tehran, Enghelab street (literally meaning revolution) has had an enduring presence in all socio-political movements of the city as a place of protest. Accommodating University of Tehran (the biggest modern higher education institute of Iran) and Tehran’s main theater complex and all other cultural institutions, concert halls, boo stores and cafes that came along, made it the beating heart of Tehran and Iran. All through movements that led to the revolution of 1979 and the end of Pahlavi dynasty, Enghelab street was the main space for protests and resistance to happen. In the decades that followed the 1979, Enghelab street never calmed down. Iranian student movements of 1999, rallies of green movement in 2009 and its major incidents (namely the iconic death of Neda Agha-Soltan) and later the unrests of 2018 and 2019 all occurred on Enghelab street and its surroundings. Control and authority over this space has always meant power for various fractions of people, either seeking change and resilience or advocating the status que. This research aims to initially paint a picture of Enghelab street’s importance as a place of protest within the Iranian society and then propose a model of spatial behavior that has been reproduced at various points of its history. This model relates the socio- political power relations embedded in space with spatial identity and perceptions of place.

10:10AM to 10:30AM Tiffany Peacock, Global Sociocultural Studies

Re-articulating ‘Black is Beautiful’ Through the Re-Emergence and Expression of Natural Hair in the 21st Century

The mobilization of Black women in the 21st century is signaling a change in how images and identities are defined by the white gaze. No longer accepting how beauty is ascribed onto Black bodies, Black women are subverting past beauty ideals through the cultivation and styling of their own aesthetics and representation of Black beauty. Focusing on how the embodiment and assertion of Blackness is expressed through natural hair, I discuss how the growth of black consciousness in the Natural Hair Movement is cultivating transnational connections across the African diaspora. The increased embracing of kinky, coily, and curly hair textures signifies how prior idealizations of beauty instilled through colonialism are being broken and replaced by beauty practices that prioritizes the expression of Blackness. Originating within the Black is Beautiful and Black Power movements, the shaping of Black consciousness through the expression of hair is cultivating transnational connections across the diaspora. The reemergence of natural hair in Black communities depicts the growing momentum of Black women to reassert and stylize their own representations of beauty through the styling and re- imagining of Black hair. The expression and styling of hair is unique and contextually dependent on the socio-cultural environment of Black communities throughout the diaspora. Each culture, community, and nation face similar and diverse challenges depending on how colonialism, white supremacy, and the defining of a national image has occurred. The purpose of this paper is to address how Black women are engaging in transnational Black feminism through the assertion and expression of natural hair. Engaging blackness as a mobilizer, Black women are empowering women to love their hair while transforming and subverting prior notions of “good” or “bad” hair. Additionally, this paper will consider the theorizations of Blackness by examining how the Natural Hair Movement is displaying and engaging the ranging diversities of Black bodies through the re-articulation of “Black is Beautiful”.

Break #1: 10:30AM to 10:40AM

Session 2: In Death and Memorialization

10:40AM to 11:00AM A’keitha Carey, African & African Diaspora Studies/Global Sociocultural Studies Dance/Film

In Death…

In Death…is a solo featured in a larger ensemble work titled Rose Water. In Death…was created in response to the death of my grandmother who died of COVID-19 in Nassau, Bahamas in 2020. The solo is an exploration of the experience of pain, loss, (mis)information, resistance, and the process of healing and features 3 sections which explore 3 memories of my grandmother. This work investigates the emotional economy of family members and includes embodied narrative fidelity as a criterion for analysis and interpretation. Through this exploration, I engage with cultural performance (dance) as a method to express Caribbean realities as it relates to the (mis)education, healthcare, and trauma of those affected by COVID-19 in the Global South. I will show the third memory to discuss and code the performance demonstrating how embodied theory is a tool for analyzing socio-political themes.

11:00AM to 11:20AM Jacquelyn Johnson, Global Sociocultural Studies

Legitimizing liminality: From "feral" cats and crazy cat ladies to "community" cats’ caretakers

Human-cat relations in urban spaces depend on complex and contingent systems of overlapping policies, ordinances, and state statutes. While the recent trend toward reworking the concept of “feral” cats to be “community” cats is a strategic effort to engage with public perceptions of where these cats belong and legitimate cat access to urban spaces, the uneven acceptance and use of the terms perpetuate a liminal existence where governance strategies overlap in incongruous ways. Cats defy binaries and boundaries humans impose on life and space. This presentation draws from an empirical study of this rhetorical shift and explores how cat caretakers are perceived and experience the entanglements of human-cat relations in South Florida. Selections from ethnographic interviews will be read, and a discussion will argue that strategic shifts toward theorizing and labeling cats as “community” is part of a concerted effort to legitimize the liminal space and existence of cats and their caretakers. As the data will show, the process of legitimization is experienced unevenly. Confronting the negative associations associated with ferality is a pivotal first step, but much work remains to legitimize liminal urban animals.

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Break #2: 11:20AM-11:30AM ______

11:30AM to 12:15PM KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Vrushali Patil, PhD Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Global Sociocultural Studies Florida International University Creating Critical Knowledges in Post-Truth Times: Lessons from Histories of Knowledge, Power, and Insurgency This talk will address the current post-truth moment in historical perspective. First tracking the intimate entanglements between power relations having to do with coloniality, empire, race, gender and sexuality and legitimate knowledge claims, it will then consider the challenges posed by oppositional, subjugated, and insurgent knowledges. It will situate current attempts to weaponize knowledge claims for the sake of maintaining power within these histories, parsing continuities and discontinuities with older processes. It will end with some lessons for social scientists interested in producing knowledge connected to social justice work today.

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Lunch Break: 12:15PM to 1:15PM ______

Session 3- Mobility, Autonomy, Identity, and Ecotourism

1:20PM-1:40PM Kimberly Miller, African & African Diaspora Studies/Global Sociocultural Studies

Dominica, Green Resilience, and the Politics of Ecotourist Identity Formation

"For the Caribbean, post-hurricane disaster models have sought to further develop through a “green” resilience framework, with ecotourism being just one of the avenues explored. In the last several decades, ecotourism has been a growing sector of the global tourist industry and proponents argue it offers more environmentally sustainable development models and cultural enrichment for Global South countries than traditional mass tourism. What are the strengths and limitations of ecotourism as a pathway of sustainable development for rural communities in the Caribbean? Initially pursued after the decline in its agricultural sector, the Eastern Caribbean island of Dominica has sought ecotourist development to diversify its economy and tout its lush natural landscape that counters the white-sand beach aesthetic featured predominantly in tourist marketing of the Caribbean. Dominica is also investing in the promotion of ethnocultural tourism primarily of the island’s indigenous Kalinago but also African descendant communities. Tourism Studies researchers argue Dominica is unique in the Caribbean for directing the entire thrust of its tourist sector to developing a comprehensive ecotourism industry. Moreover in 2019, Dominica’s Prime Minister pledged the island would become the “world’s first climate-resilient nation” in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria that wiped out a significant portion of the country’s GDP and devastated rural and indigenous territories. This paper focuses on tourism as a development strategy and green resilience from a variety of disciplinary frameworks in Critical Geography, Urban Sociology, and Post-colonial intersectional Black Feminism, to analyze processes of exploitation and articulate modes of resistance and that are rooted in African diasporic and indigenous Caribbean identities and cultural autonomy."

1:40PM to 2:00PM Jocelyn Moylan, Global Sociocultural Studies

Making Home Quick: Feelings of Home and the Home-making Process for Temporary Migrant Workers

In recent years, labor migration scholarship has seen an uptake in studies which focus on the experience of migrant workers who travel for temporary or seasonal work. A preliminary review of articles published between the years 2010 and 2020 across the social sciences reveals an emphasis on the economic motivation which leads migrants to accept temporary work, the everyday life experiences of migrants who travel for work, as well as the skills they develop to facilitate their success in that type of labor. One area of inquiry which has escaped considerable discussion, however, are the domestic aspects of labor migration. What insights can the places and the manner in which migrants reside provide in larger discussions of the migrant worker experience? How does the experiences of the domestic in the context of labor migration differ along class and gender lines? This presentation will take a look at the existing scholarship which connects labor migration to two topics traditionally associated with the domestic, the concept of home and the practice of homemaking. The discussion will make note of the ways in which current scholarship on home has already enriched and can continue to contribute to labor migration studies. Additionally, it will suggest specific avenues for future research which explores the unique experience of home by temporary migrant workers.

2:00PM to 2:20PM Melissa Cambero Scott, Global Sociocultural Studies

Afilando los cuchillos para perreo combative: the role of popular musicians in the #RickyRenuncia Protests.

The summer of 2019 marked a watershed moment in Post Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico. Citizens of the US Commonwealth responded to corruption in the local governments and successfully ousted the governor, through widespread protest. One of the main reasons that the protests were so successful was because the disdain of Ricardo Roselló transcended political party lines and social backgrounds. Nonetheless, the figureheads of the #RickyRenuncia protests were predominantly male musicians with pro-independence messages in their music like . In this article, I will explore how popular musicians in Puerto Rico became representatives of the 2019 protests. I will use critical discourse analysis to explore the political progression of the artists , Residente and into the figureheads of the #RickyRuncia movement. Through this analysis I will argue that there is a political shift occurring in Puerto Rico in which Puerto Ricans are turning to different conceptualizations of nationalism in unprecedented ways. ______

Break #3: 2:20PM to 2:30PM ______

Session 4 (Panel) Greetings, Covidians: Participatory Visual Analyses of Vulnerabilities and Transformation amidst COVID-19 in Miami

Panel Abstract: This panel presents findings from the “GREETINGS COVIDIANS” participatory visual research project. GREETINGS COVIDIANS is a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) project that combined visual engagement and critical reflection to explore how people and places have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. A primary objective of the project was to provide an outlet for public dialogue and participation on the personal and communal experiences with COVID-19 and its aftermath. This panel describes three dimensions of the project: one working with a broader ‘general’ population and the other two working with more vulnerable populations.

In the first dimension we asked a broad group of people (i.e., anyone and everyone) to submit photos and captions to document ongoing changes to lived social experiences as brought about by different effects of the global pandemic. In the second and third dimensions of the project, members of our research team worked with people experiencing homeless (clients of Camillus House) and people living with HIV/AIDS (members of a support group at Miami’s Pridelines organization) to explore how experiences within other epidemics intersect with COVID-19. Our goal for all dimensions of the project was to facilitate a ‘living’ gallery and online platform in order to empower people to make their own interpretations and amplify their unique perceptions of the ongoing global pandemic and the nuanced ways it was personally impacting their lives. Overall, we wanted to promote cathartic critical reflection of collective as well as diverse experiences with COVID-19. The presentations in this panel attend to those goals.

2:30PM to 2:50PM Raymond Awadzi, PhD student, Global and Sociocultural Studies Kaila Witkowski, PhD candidate, Public Policy & Administration

The Transformation of Miami during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Participatory Visual Culture Analysis

While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt around the world, Miami, Florida provides an example of the specific and unique ways in which this pandemic was experienced in a subtropical climate. Drawing on the concepts of visual culture analysis and disaster literature, this presentation analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic transformed the everyday lives of people living in this southern American city. Specifically, this study draws on data collected from a digital participatory photography project launched in July 2020, as the novel virus began to spread rapidly. Through an inductive thematic analysis of participants’ photographs and captions, we discovered that the COVID-19 pandemic transformed not only basic daily needs but also led to the recognition of privilege and an awareness of the needs and vulnerabilities of others. While many of the complexities illustrated in this study are left unresolved, the photos and captions are useful examples of how visual depictions can be used to inform and realign the ways that people interpret and respond to global public health crises.

2:50PM to 3:10PM Natália Marques da Silva, PhD candidate, Global and Sociocultural Studies Elaina William, Independent Research Scholar

“COVID-19 has taken over!” A Biocultural Approach to Understanding Intersections between Homelessness, Chronicities of Modernity, and the Coronavirus Pandemic

Responses and adaptations associated with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic illustrate staggering transformations in many aspects of daily life as peoples around the world confront the virus and its aftermath. Some vulnerable populations, such as persons experiencing homelessness, may encounter additional challenges as they navigate social distancing protocols, lockdowns, and poor determinants of health. Drawing from Dr. Dennis Wiedman’s Chronicities of Modernity Theory, which highlights how modern life structures impact health and well-being, and Anna Friedler’s work on biocultural analysis, this presentation examines intersections between homelessness, containment, and contagion. Using the PhotoVoice method, it also advocates for collaborative research environments where research subjects are co-producers in the development of policy, narrative, and protocol. Preliminary data suggests that urbanization and policing, while helpful for certain aspects of a shelter environment, might contribute additional stresses and anxieties that exacerbate difficult living conditions and thereby decrease certain aspects of wellness

3:10PM to 3:30PM John “Jack” Vertovec, PhD candidate, Global and Sociocultural Studies

From uncertainty to solidarity: Participatory visual perspectives of people living with HIV/AIDS during COVID-19

Miami has one of the highest proportions of people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States. However, the experiences of this vulnerable population are often invisible to other people in Miami like elsewhere, and even though people living with HIV/AIDS can be subject to increased risk for COVID-19 their perceptions of the pandemic have been largely unaccounted for by the mainstream media or other mechanisms that would otherwise elevate their voices. In this presentation, we seek to amplify the unique perceptions of the ongoing global pandemic for people living with HIV/AIDS, and to visually analyze the nuanced ways it has affected their lives. Specifically, we describe the Pridelines dimension of the GREETINGS COVIDIANS visual research project. This PhotoVoice project brought together members of the Spanish-Speakers (HIV) Support Group at the Pridelines organization for weekly meetings from October 2020 to February 2021. In those meetings we used the PhotoVoice methodology to visually unveil and critically analyze how a specific set of vulnerable people perceived and interacted with the transformations taking place amidst the COVID-19 global pandemic. This presentation helps reveal how PhotoVoice is particularly apt in its ability to capture different themes – such as distrust in ‘the system,’ uncertainty regarding health / safety protocols, as well as practices of self-care – that are salient to the experiences of vulnerable populations during the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic. Acknowledgements

We want to thank the Department of Global Sociocultural Studies and the Graduate Student Community who helped to make this event possible!