Law and science are fundamental to the operation of racism in the United States. Law provides structure to maintain and enforce social hierarchies, while science ensures that these hierarchies are given the guise of truth. Biologists and geneticists have used race in physical sciences to justify social differences, while criminologists, sociologists, and other social scientists use race, and Blackness in particular, as an explain-all for criminality, poverty, or other conditions affecting racialized peoples. Social and physical sciences profoundly impact conceptualizations and constructions of race in society, while juridical bodies give racial science the force of law—placing legal benefits and criminal punishments into play. Yet, no formal rules govern the use of empirical data in opinions of the Supreme Court. My dissertation therefore studies the Court’s use of social scientific evidence in two key cases involving race and discrimination to identify what, if any, social scientific standards the Court has developed for its own analysis of scientific evidence. In so doing, I draw on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Institutional Ethnography (IE) to develop a methodological framework for the study and use of social sciences in the law. Critical Race scholars generally argue that race is a social and legal construct and racism is endemic, and permanent, while Institutional Ethnography provides a social scientific method for rigorous study of the law by mapping and illuminating relationships of power manifested in social institutions that construct consciousness and place for marginalized groups in society. Combining methods of IE with epistemologies of CRT, I propose Critical Race Methodologies in the study of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin and Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. These two cases from recent terms of the Supreme Court involve heavy use of social sciences in briefing and at oral argument, and both cases set standards for racial inclusiveness in Texas. Throughout this dissertation, I look at how law and social sciences co-construct racial meanings and racial power, and how law and social science understand and misunderstand one another in attempting to scientifically understand the role of race in the United States.

This study weighs the connection of environmental crisis with race and gender in different cases of environmental crisis and conflicts. The study documents how Indigenous cosmologies and cosmopolitics, and scientific arguments converge in unexpected alliances in the advent of environmental crises. This research focuses on specific instances, or situations related to environmental justice movements addressing the environmental crisis in Mexico (and its convergences to other similar cases). I examine and present a discussion of the research methodologies and methods used to study the ‘environment’ as well as indigenous cosmologies and cosmopolitics. With this, I embark on a research that includes feminist decolonial theory, eco-feminism and material feminisms into a larger project for autonomy and decoloniality.

In particular, I discuss one of the concepts that have caught the attention of those studying race and ethnicity in the Americas: mestizaje as an ordinal principle in the context of Mexico. Also, I discuss the inscriptions of the mestiza body in relation to the materiality of race and gender in the context of Latin America. It is shown how the discourse of mestizaje is tangled with the idea of a modern civilization, such as in the Mexican state. Overall, this research analyzes different responses to environmental crises; from environmental activists, community organizers to plastic artists and scientific experts. Also, it includes a literary analysis of contemporary indigenous literatures to show how state sponsored violence and settler colonialism have an incidence in gender violence by placing the female body close to nature.

As global environmental problems have risen, this research contributes to the understanding of the underlying factors in environmental crises and conflict that have been overlooked. Herein lies an important possibility to reach a broader audience in different disciplines, ranging from indigenous studies to the global politics of human rights. Furthermore, this research aims to contribute to the work of environmental activists, scholars and scientists with regard to the understanding of how different arguments are used in research and advocacy work, and how they can integrate an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach when addressing environmental justice cases.

This dissertation presents a new tool for analysis of the way difficult experiences

or phenomena influence the process for constructing self-identity in the performance of everyday life. This concept, refraction, emerged as part of a grounded theory methods analysis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Itacaré, Bahia, Brazil from January to July 2014. The work here contributes to the field of performance studies as a possibility for examining how affective responses to difficult experiences contribute to a shift in perspective and subsequently shifts in the performance of self in everyday life. This research was conducted with critical and reflexive autoethnographic methods in order to hold the research accountable for the ways subject position influences the research. In this case the most salient theme that emerged from these autoethnographic methods was an unpacking of unacknowledged tourist privilege in this setting. The resulting work-in-progress

performance will offer ways for spectators to question their own assumptions

regarding tourist privilege in Brazil, and in so-called developing countries in similar

tropical climates. An additional contribution to the field of performance-based research that resulted from this dissertation is the articulation of a dynamic locus of creativity wherein rigorous established qualitative research methods complement creative practices in conjunction with a spectrum of tacit knowledge and theoretical sensitivities. This juncture becomes the theoretical space where creativity in research can be articulated in ways that are legible to both artists and researchers.

The overarching purpose of my dissertation is to offer one Pueblo perspective about research and health education to contribute to critical dialogue among Pueblo people so that relevant research and health education approaches grounded in Pueblo thinking can emerge. Research was a pebble in my shoe that caused me great discomfort as I walked within academia during the many years I worked as a health educator at a university, and continues to bother me. The purpose of my journal article is to discuss why much mainstream research is problematic from a Pueblo Indian standpoint and to explore considerations for research with Pueblo people. The purpose of my book chapter is to reflect on my experiences as a Pueblo Indian health educator to add to the discussion about the importance of grounding Pueblo health education in local Pueblo knowledge systems and to discuss the limitations of delivering health education primarily grounded in a western biomedical disease model. Finally, my policy brief is an urgent call to action for tribal leaders regarding a recent change to the New Mexico Department of Health's race and ethnicity presentation in health data standard. This change resulted in 39,636 American Indians and Alaska Natives in New Mexico being reclassified as Hispanic. It is my intention to connect my ideas about research and health education with the work of other Pueblo scholars to add to the growing body of Pueblo informed writing to contribute to current and future scholarship that will ultimately benefit Pueblo people.

Few studies focus on the MOVE Organization (MOVE), let alone its presences in popular media during the years prior to the MOVE-Philadelphia Conflict (1978-1985), or pre-Conflict. To date, most information about MOVE derives from Conflict research which utilizes archival materials from the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (MOVE Commission) hearings. Generations of dominant representations about MOVE and its members, consequently, are mainly constructed by popular media from the MOVE Commission hearings, including video broadcasts of the proceeding. Using a Conflict documentary, I highlight concerns scholars face when heavily using archival materials from MOVE Commission hearings: (a) Archival materials from MOVE Commission hearings lack active MOVE members' voices and (b) Archival materials from MOVE Commission hearings include limited pre-Conflict information about MOVE members. Influenced by Kimberly Sanders and Judson Jeffries' (2013) work about the 1985 bombing newspaper reports' favorability, this project explores pre-Conflict popular media representations of MOVE to understand how the collective first got represented to Philadelphians and the ways which MOVE used popular media to respond to these dominant portrayals.

This mix-methods project utilizes 67-piece dataset materials of various popular media texts by MOVE members and non-MOVE members. It focuses on 48 Philadelphia Tribune newspaper entries as its main text dataset, with an emphasis on the 1975 "On the MOVE" editorial column space. This investigation employs a combination of Black feminist and critical discourse analysis (CDA) methods, with Sanders and Jeffries' (2013) favorability categorizations process, to explore the racialized, gendered, and classed aspects pre-Conflict representations of MOVE.

Quantitative findings suggest that MOVE got generally represented in favorable manners during the pre-Conflict years, with over 50 percent of pre-Conflict texts about MOVE portraying the collective in positive tones. Additionally, qualitative findings propose that MOVE members' authorship and presence in pre-Conflict texts within the Philadelphia Tribune functioned as a site of resistance against dominant portrayal of the collective. CDA findings propose that MOVE's racial attribute, beliefs, and culture, specifically related to self-determination, were central discussions within most pre-Conflict by MOVE members. Unlike Sanders and Jeffries (2013), this project concludes that overall pre-Conflict popular media depictions portrayed MOVE as a positive Philadelphia collective.

This master's thesis examines negative stereotypes of blackness in mainstream media in the Dominican Republic, and analyzes the manner in which racial identity has been reinforced and contested. Discourse analysis is utilized to analyze the language and rhetoric of editorials from Listin Diario. The rationale for this study is to assess how Dominicans have learned about blackness through the depictions in media and popular music, and therefore draw conclusions as to how Dominicans view their own racial identity. Considerable attention will be paid to the years between 2010-2013, using the Haitian earthquake disaster of 2010 and Verdict TC 0168-13 of the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal of 2013 as major historical events to frame the study. To these assumptions, this inquiry addresses the following questions: How have Haitians been portrayed in the mainstream newspaper of Listin Diario between the period of 2010-2013? How do the pedagogies in media and popular music educate Dominicans about portrayals of blackness during this period? What are the historiographical roots of these portrayals, particularly regarding the dynamics of race and citizenship? I will demonstrate that the prevailing depictions of Haitians adhere to a historically oriented construction of Dominican identity, known as "Dominicanidad" or "Dominicanness," and that these depictions largely omit African heritage as a contributor to national identity.

Contemporary Christian American politicians have diverse identities when integrating their faith with their political ideology and have developed their worldviews and interpretive schemas and have defended, enacted, and given meaning to their positions, knowingly or unknowingly. There are two distinct theoretical clusters which are a result of an already existing dichotomy. This ideological divide happens along the philosophical notions of individualism or communitarianism, libertarianism or egalitarianism, capitalism or collectivism, literalism or hermeneutics, orthodoxy or praxis. One cluster, Institutional Christianity, exerts a dominating influence on the political and cultural landscape in the US, particularly during the last ten years, and could be considered a hegemonic discourse; while the other, Natural Christianity, serves as the counter-hegemony within a political landscape characterized by a two party system. This study explores the relationship of these dichotomous clusters with contemporary Arizona Christian politicians. Using a phenomenological, qualitative study, interviewing sixteen Arizona Christian politicians, this study yielded ten themes, and binary meaning units within each theme, that describe the essence of politicians' faith and political behavior as they intersect. Finally, this study found, as reported by each subject, what political perspectives generally created a sense of dissonance with one's faith and what perspective exhibited a unified sense of congruence with their faith and political behavior.

The state of exception in Rwanda did not spontaneously occur in Rwanda, it was initially developed by German and Belgian colonizers, adopted by two successive Hutu regimes, and nurtured and fed for 35 years of Rwandan independence until its final realization in the 1994 genocide. Political theory regarding the development of the "space devoid of law" and necropolitics provide a framework with which to analyze the long pattern of state action that created a milieu in which genocide was an acceptable choice of action for a sovereign at risk of losing power. The study of little-known political theories such as Agamben's and Mbembe's is useful because it provides a lens through which we can analyze current state action throughout the world. As is true in many genocidal regimes, the Rwandan genocide did not just occur as a "descent into hell." Rather, state action over the course of decades in which the subjects of the state (People) were systematically converted into mere flesh beings (people), devoid of political or social value, creates the setting in which it is feasible to seek to eliminate those beings. A question to be posed to political actors and observers around the world today is at what point in the process of one nation's creation of the state of exception and adoption of necropolitics does the world have a right, and a duty, to intervene? Thus far, it has always occurred too late for the "people" in that sovereign to realize their political and social potential to be "People."

ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes the discourse surrounding proposed solutions to the immigration phenomenon in the United States. I conducted two qualitative media analyses on the rhetoric and conceptual frames found in mass media newscasts reporting on the immigration debate. The first analysis covered the general immigration debate and the second covered the appearance of American southwest ranchers. Specifically the analyses contrasted the media's coverage of root economic causes to the immigration phenomenon in comparison to reactionary solutions as proposed by leading immigrant attrition organizations such as the immigration think tank, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Republican linguist, Frank Luntz. The main argument of this thesis is based on an analysis of how the media has used southwestern ranchers as expert witnesses for reactionary solutions on a national level. An acute qualitative media analysis was used to compare the rhetoric found in the media coverage of southwestern ranchers versus the rhetoric found in 12 in-depth interviews I conducted with ranchers in the American southwest. This thesis contends that the media has successfully turned southwestern ranchers into spokespersons for border security rhetoric, furthering the binary debates on border security and immigration reform and thus obscuring the conditions which force migrants to leave their home countries. The grounding theoretical framework for this thesis is based on David Altheide's qualitative media analysis which identifies how certain frames and common narratives ultimately construct a way of discussing the problem or the kind of discourse that will follow. This was structured on Atheide's qualitative media analysis protocols to dissect mass media newscasts covering the immigration debate and more specifically the mass media's coverage of southwestern ranchers. The qualitative media analyses were employed to determine whether the discourse found in nightly newscasts falls in line with root causes of immigration or FAIR's concern with reactionary solutions. To further assess the media's ability to shape discourse, and ultimately policy, these qualitative analyses were compared with in-depth interviews of the ranchers.