Washington state is rapidly increasing renewable energy infrastructure, such as utility solar, to meet the state’s zero emission goals by 2045. However, struggles over land have raised concerns about the impacts of utility solar on largely rural, energy producing communities. Those impacts are spread unevenly across class, race, and indigeneity. In Klickitat County, residents of Goldendale have mobilized to create CEASE – Citizens Educated Against Solar Energy. Some Yakama Nation members have worked with the group to oppose solar infrastructure. I am investigating how solar energy impacts energy producing communities. I am conducting ethnographic interviews with relevant parties to solar siting in Klickitat, including: CEASE, members of the Yakama Nation, political representatives, developers, and agricultural organizations. This research expands on the growing field of energy justice literature that investigates how racial capitalism functions within energy systems. Is the use of rural and tribal land for energy extraction evidence of perpetual dispossession and colonization? Solar corporations in Goldendale are using state apparatuses to privitize and profit from rural and indigenous land, placing the burdens of energy production on rural residents and indigenous communities. Research on land use and solar energy helps us better understand how the clean energy transition interacts with power inequities, class, and indigeneity.

Preferred methods to engage with music vary among d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing people (d/DHH), depending on a number of social, environmental, and technological factors. Previous research on music for the d/DHH population has pursued specific methods such as dance, sound vibrations, and captioning. Other literature has focused on applying a hearing standard of music engagement and fluency to the d/DHH community and is outdated with regards to technological advances that improve music access. In this generative research, our goals are to understand how various social and technical environments affect music experiences and discover design opportunities to improve music accessibility for d/DHH people. We are conducting semi-structured interviews with d/DHH adults ages 18-49. These interviews undergo design research activities consisting of word exercise, image exercise, and cognitive mapping to uncover the background, current, and ideal music experiences of participants. We are developing a design prototype based on research findings that addresses the accessibility shortcomings of music experiences and adapts to numerous music scenarios and environments. This prototype can be used as a tool to inform future design solutions for existing music platforms to accommodate the needs and wants of the d/DHH community.

Voice has typically been understood as an external representation of an internal uniqueness or individuality, often at the expense of the recognition of its always already relational, multi-sensory, and multi-sitedness. This project engages with the interdisciplinary and critical study of voice, the archival and epistemic violences that have been enacted around it, and the ways in which it opens resistive and unsettling possibilities otherwise. I ask, how does listening, to past and present, to archives and voices, offer new and unsettling modes of relating to the world? Through this exploration, I intend to illuminate the radical potential of listening differently, and offer openings towards an anti-colonial listening practice. To do this, I engage a critique of Alan Lomax’s “Cantometrics,” a vocal/musical classification system for global music, positioning it as an example of colonial listening practice. I then turn towards the music of Wolastoqiyik singer Jeremy Dutcher, and their reimagining of archival Wolastoqey language songs and recordings. I position Dutcher’s music as a “voicing otherwise” that encourages listening differently. Additionally, in an effort to unsettle the ways that we write about and through music and sound, I explore various multisensory and performative writing practices, inviting the reader to listen differently through the form and structure of the written project. Voice and listening have the potential to become critically engaged elements of experience in a deeply liberating sense. My hope is that this project will contribute to such a widened conception of voice, particularly in the context of monumental reckoning and unsettling colonialisms.

The goal of my project is twofold: firstly, to analyze the philosopher Iris Marion Young’s (1949-2006) application of a “social connection model” to the problem of responsibility for historical injustice in her book Responsibility for Justice (2011) and pose a critique to this model in addressing harms against Black Americans. I do this by putting her chapter on historical injustice in conversation with Roy Brooks’ Atonement and Forgiveness (2004), a work of legal scholarship on the similarly constructed “atonement model” of reparations in the case of anti-Black racial injustice in the United States. Secondly, I hope to explore new avenues of philosophical research that are conducted in partnership with reparations organizations and individuals with a clear connection to specific past injustices. I do this through analyzing three group interviews of 3-4 activists each (Black, white, and integrated) and making use of three reparationist conference recordings in collaboration with the African American Redress Network (AARN), a coalition of national, state, and local reparations organizations. Overall, I argue that neither Young’s social connection model nor Brooks’ atonement model offer a satisfying solution to the problem of conceptualizing the Black redress movement in light of testimonies by and interviews with reparations activists. Instead, I propose a relational approach based on the principles of relational egalitarianism and the concept of “moral repair” in Margaret Urban Walker’s 2006 book of the same name. In this way, I hope to not only bring more on-the-ground perspectives into the philosophical debate on Black redress (and historical redress more generally), but also reflect on ways that philosophy can be reconceptualized as a tool to achieve racial justice goals.

There is a long and unfortunate history of violence in communities of color at the hands of police. I aim to examine the role of police in the oppression of vulnerable communities, specifically communities of color, and how community alternatives bring equity to the justice system. Community alternatives are programs that divest from or abolish police departments. Divestment is a practice by which funds are redirected away from police towards community-focused departments and programs. Abolition is a practice that involves the full-on breakdown of a police department to replace it with community policing or mental health services. I would advocate for divesting first with abolition as a secondary measure should divestment fail. Some preliminary studies in Denver and Oakland, show a savings of $34 million dollars by removing police from schools. Austin and San Francisco have reallocated funding from police departments into programs like housing and healthcare. These early results are evidence of the efficacy of moving to a reallocation or abolitionist model. To explore this I have examined the history of policing in America, as well as current reports and investigations by civil rights groups and federal agencies to analyze historical and continued oppression by police departments. I have also reviewed abolitionist literature in order to paint the most accurate picture of the more equitable justice system. This research has revealed data from investigations into police departments from cities like Ferguson and Minneapolis that display gross abuses of power against people of color. Abolitionist literature discusses solutions such as the debate surrounding including social workers in the law enforcement process. The majority of the research and literature surrounding abolition is fairly young, so going forward information relevant to the topic will be monitored. Ultimately, the goal of reimagining policing is to ensure safety, security, and equity for all.

The student movement of the late 1960s roiled postwar West Germany with its demands for sweeping social and political change, leaving a controversial legacy. The purpose of this research is to analyze the concrete policy impact of the student movement on West German politics in the areas of education, democratization, and select foreign policy issues. The presentation consists of two parts: First, I describe key demands of the student movement as addressed in student-produced flyers from the 1960s, during interviews with student leader Rudi Dutschke, and by German scholars and journalists. Second, I present the results of a comparative analysis of the election programs of West Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the years 1965 and 1969 and discuss how these parties responded to the student movement. The results show that the student movement succeeded in influencing both parties, with the CDU and SPD addressing many of the students’ core concerns for the first time in 1969. While the parties yielded to student demands in certain areas, including education reform and parliamentary reform, they opposed students’ demands on other issues, including internal security and international military alliances. By examining the impact of the student movement on the two parties’ election programs, my research provides insight into institutional responses to popular movements, illustrating both the potential of these movements to shape the political agenda and the limits of their influence.

This project explores gender and identity during the Siege of Leningrad (September 8 1941 - January 27 1944) as articulated by child diarists Elena Mukhina and Iura Riabinkin. Iura is a disabled young man, who struggles to reestablish a sense of masculinity and purpose after being rejected from the army; he slowly loses his physical strength, a pillar of his male identity, due to extreme starvation and grapples with feelings of worthlessness. Lena is a young woman who grounds her femininity, and thus her self-worth, in her work as a hospital orderly; once she is required to return to school, she attempts to commit herself to the genderless “Soviet student” ideal but finds difficulty in relinquishing her feminine identity. During the German encirclement of the city during WWII, Leningraders suffered tremendously, fighting to survive without ample food, electricity, or water, all while isolated from the rest of the USSR. This deeply traumatic experience redefined Leningrad’s cultural landscape, specifically raising questions about Soviet gender culture. In their diaries, these two 16-year-old students demonstrate the changing norms through their perceptions of traditional gender roles, self-worth, and their own masculinity and femininity. This project focuses on the diarists’ use of gendered language and how it changes over the course of the war, offering historical context to suggest explanations for these changes. In the academic discourse surrounding the Siege, scholars have approached the event as a psychological phenomenon or a primarily female experience, but rarely as a child’s experience. Iura’s diary is the only published and translated diary by a male child, even then only available in excerpts, while Lena is one of very few female child diarists published in full. Through this project, I aim to illuminate this neglected aspect of Siege study and illustrate the nuanced gender discussion explored by these extraordinary children.

According to the World Bank, Somalia has a mere gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of $309 USD, as compared to the $63,500 of the United States. The negative impacts of terrorists, government corruption, and poverty/famine have left Somalia a war-torn country battling a 30-year civil war. Due to this, foreign countries have become reluctant to provide aid. Fortunately, there has been some viable potential for economic growth through partnership of Non-government Organizations (NGOs) and promoting civic engagement. Recently, returnees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), who were forced to flee the country due to war and economic instability, have returned and partnered with government officials to take an initiative to improve the country's well-being. The question this report seeks to answer is what methods can be applied to solve Somalia's economic dilemma? Economists know the most important factors that determine a country’s well-being are education, infrastructure, human capital, and literacy rate to name a few. To gain better insight into each of these categories, I compared case studies of the economic driving factors of now industrially advanced countries. Countries like South Korea and Singapore who once experienced economic depravity, I then compared those economic factors against Somalia’s economy. I have found that from an economic standpoint, Somalia should focus on free or low-cost education for the masses, enabling international trade through specialization, and improving productivity per citizen through supplying more jobs.

This research will address climate change and its impact on migration to the US, specifically how it impacts Central America. Migration from this region is at an all-time high. Climate change, especially droughts and the decrease in precipitation, as well as extreme weather events, have agitated migration patterns in Central America and will compound in the near future with the increase of climate refugees from the region, putting additional stress on the already failing US immigration system. Before this problem gets out of hand, research needs to be conducted to understand the severity of the situation and steps towards a solution. This paper aims to uncover hidden data that often goes unseen that demonstrates the hardships and impossible situations that inhabitants of Central America are faced with. These hardships, compounded with new and emerging climate crises, are forcing many to migrate to more hospitable environments, namely, the United States. This study will first begin with an overview of the current situation and explain the problem at hand. It will then delve into the personal experiences of the participants of this study, those that are immigrants themselves, and those that have various and unique perspectives on this climate migration. This research will study how they have been impacted by climate-related issues such as extreme weather events, variability of precipitation, crop failure, etc. Finally, it will discuss the future of this issue and propose solutions and methods of adaptation for the coming decades.

My research questions for this paper are: What are the effects of the Extra Score Policy on Indigenous student enrollment in colleges and universities in Taiwan and is the Aboriginal Language Proficiency Certificate, in the context of the Extra Score Policy, an effective method of language revitalization? My hypotheses are that this policy has increased Indigenous student enrollment in colleges in Taiwan and the Aboriginal Language Proficiency Certificate is an effective method of language revitalization. Indigenous students have a higher chance at attending colleges with a boost to their university entrance exam score and with the addition of the Aboriginal Language Proficiency Certificate, students can receive an even greater boost in their score, so it should incentivize students to learn their Indigenous language to receive a higher score. Studying the enrollment and university population trends among Indigenous students, as well as the Aboriginal Language Proficiency Exam results, I examine the impacts of the Extra Score Policy. Through my study, I found that the Extra Score Policy increased Indigenous student enrollment in colleges and universities in Taiwan. However, I also found that there is no significant data which prove that the Aboriginal Language Proficiency Exam is an effective method of language revitalization. While this policy enables greater Indigenous student enrollment in college, Indigenous students are not attaining a college education at an equitable rate in comparison to non-Indigenous students. Furthermore, students do not have the proper support in these colleges to graduate from college and receive an equitable education. In turn, the implications of my research suggest that one policy cannot undo a system of inequity. Rather it is necessary to use this policy as a starting point to understand the impacts of it and highlight areas of improvements ranging from financial support for Indigenous students to culturally competent curricula.