In theory, all that are involved in same-sex practices in Islam based on thecommon and mainstream interpretation of the story of the people of Lut are treated the same. In reality, however, and in the Arab world today, the penetrated and penetrator are not equally abnormal and deviant. Although Western activism involved in gay rights in the Middle East and local communities in several countries who call themselves Mujtamaa Al Meem, the community of the letter Meem, which is a localization of the term LGBTQA+ community, are advocating for gay rights for all Middle Eastern/Arab/Muslim “gay men” whatever role they play in those practices. The local culture of those societies does not do the same, nor do they believe in their normality. By looking at different interpretations of religious scripture, role of Westernization in local “gayness” and “homosexuality”, and how a penetrator/society-forced womanhood status, this thesis will discuss their effect on how a Muslim man, who takes on a penetrated role in same-sex activities navigate faith and sexual practices, and how religiosity, my existence as a Muslim, and my gender identity and/or expression are not measured by how sinless/sinful I am or by which sin I commit.

Despite the changing social, legal, and political context in influencing the definition of mental disability, medical scholarship has maintained its position as the primary reference to interpret mental disability in the immigration system. This preliminary study examines the role of medical scholarship in attributing to the exclusion of undesired immigrants through its definition of mental disability. This paper focuses upon immigration cases to determine the patterns that emerge when immigration intersects with mental disability. The data consists of four immigration court cases in 1951-1985, 1986-2005, 2006-2015, which mark the shift of immigration policy in the United States of America (US). The court documents are collected from websites that provide online access to these documents. The examination of the cases focuses on three important criterions: a summary of cases, mental disability circumstances, and judges’ considerations. This paper uses the analysis of political deviance in courtroom settings to get an understanding of the shift in the definition of mental disability in the immigration court by tracing economic, political, and social environments that are intertwined and relevant in creating a ‘mental disabilitiy’ definition. This study suggests that medical scholarship has historically become powerful in shaping mental disability as a form of social control. From historical and case analysis, there have been changes in policies and processes toward immigrants appear to take place in the aftermath of major events—World War II, AIDS epidemic, 9/11 terrorist attack, and now Covid-19 pandemic. Preliminary examination of documented cases suggests future analysis could look at how these major events shape immigration processes and policies that more heavily rely on definitions of mental illness and use competency to stand trial proceedings to indefinitely detain people.

My Critical Yoga Studies investigation maps from the early 20th century to present day how yoga has become white through U.S. law and cultural productions, and has enhanced white privilege at the expense of Indian and people of color bodies. I position Critical Yoga Studies at the intersection of Yoga Studies, Critical Race Theory, Indigenous Studies, Mobilities Studies, and transnational American Studies. Scholars have linked uneven development and racial displacement (Soja, 1989; Harvey, 2006; Gilmore, 2007). How does racist displacement appear in historic and current contexts of development in yoga? In my dissertation, I use yoga mobilities to explain ongoing movements of Indigenous knowledge and wealth from former colonies, and contemporary “Indian” bodies, into the white, U.S. settler nation-state, economy, culture, and body. The mobilities trope provides rich conceptual ground for yoga study, because commodified yoga anchors in corporal movement, sets billions of dollars of global wealth in motion, shapes culture, and fuels complex legal and nation building maneuvers by the U.S. settler state and post-colonial India. Emerging discussions of commodified yoga typically do not consider race and colonialism. I fill these gaps with critical race and Indigenous Studies investigations of yoga mobilities in contested territories, triangulating data through three research sites: (1) U.S. Copyright law (1937-2015): I chart a 14,000% rise in U.S. yoga copyrights over a century of white hoarding through archival study in Copyright Public Records Reading Room, Library of Congress; (2) U.S. popular culture/music (1941-1967): I analyze twentieth-century popular song to illustrate how racist tropes of the Indian yogi joined yoga’s entry into U.S. popular culture, with material consequences; (3) Kerala, India, branded as India’s wellness tourism destination (2018): I engage participant-observation and interviews with workers in yoga tourism hubs to document patterns of racialized, uneven access to yoga. I find legal regimes facilitate extraction and displacement; cultural productions materially segregate and exclude; and yoga tourism is a node of racist capitalism that privileges white, settler mobility at the expense of Indian people, land, culture.

This study aims to gain an understanding of higher education interventions taking place in refugee camps around the world that implement hybrid online and on-site models. Through an archival, database study, this uncovers the most salient characteristics of 8 international interventions (Australian Catholic University, Borderless Higher Education for Refugees, Jesuit Worldwide Learning: Higher Education at the Margins, InZone, Kepler, Mosaik, Global Border Studies, and Education for Humanity) in regard to logistics, academics, technology, and pedagogy. The study found multiple ways in which these programs seek to increase inclusion and success of refugee learners. These techniques include (1) free tuition, (2) nutrition, security, and transportation accommodations, (3) gender equity provisions, (4) course accreditation, (5) preparatory courses, (6) student support and development, (7) durable solutions related to employment, (8) tailored curricula, (9) flexibility of course structure, (10) critical thinking & reflection, (11) hybrid, adaptable, and portable course delivery, (12) on-site technology support, and (13) accommodations related to electricity and internet connectivity.

This study examines the representation of Asian online brides by studying the images and profiles that are advertised on Asianonlinebrides.com. To do so, I combined the history and growth of the Human Trafficking industry, the idea of the Asian “exotic OTHER,” the power and structured/constrained agency, and social construction of gender theories. In particular, I utilized a mixed methods approach for data collection. The content and visual analysis in this study provided the two sides of the analytic coin: the written and the visual. I am particularly interested in the narrative comments offered by the prospective brides, e.g., what they state to be their preferences in their dream man/husband, and the personality traits, and characteristics that they write about themselves. The following were examined: the gender displays, picture frames, feminine touch, and the ritualization of subordination. For example, body language, clothing, skin, hair color, and texture, bone structure, posture, etc. I argue that this data alerts us to the whole host of ideas, assumptions, social, cultural, and gender constructions. The power relations that exceeds the text and inform us of these online brides. The findings have indicated that these women are vulnerable and caught within oppressive social structures. They have nevertheless utilized those structures to their advantage. By doing so, the brides have acted as assertive agents in that they have looked out for the interests of both themselves and their families. Moreover, a significant body of data was provided first hand through the written and visual narratives of the online brides. These brides have offered valuable insight into the field of Asian online brides. Their stories have presented a unique perspective to the online brides’ process that can only be captured through the narratives provided in this research.

This dissertation is comprised three main sections including a journal article, book chapter and a policy reflection piece. My guiding research question is the following—How do Jemez Pueblo people and their descendants who migrated to California as a result of the Relocation Act of 1956 define their cultural identities?



The journal article seeks to address the question: How can we explore the experiences of Urban Native Americans from a strengths-based approach, restructuring dominant narratives, and breaking barriers between urban and reservation spaces? Additionally, the journal article will provide a literature overview on urban American Indian experiences, including the stories of three generations of my family impacted by the Relocation period, in addition to the major findings of my research study. The book chapter is informed by the following question: How might Pueblo perspectives of identity benefit from examining multiple theories of Indigeneity? I seek to explore the complexity of Indigenous identities and examine multiple theories of Indigeneity that can assist Pueblo peoples in thinking about community and membership, and in particular, with regards to those tribal peoples who have relocated away from their Pueblos. I will include salient points from my dissertation research that help us to answer this question.

The policy reflections piece conveys the urgency to address the continued use of blood quantum in our Pueblo communities as a measurement for tribal citizenship. Like many other Indigenous parents, my interest in this issue is of personal importance to me as my own child is not eligible for enrollment in any of my tribal nations; thus, I have had to consider what a post “American Indian” identity is going to look like for her. I want to urge Pueblo communities and tribal governance to begin to rethink notions of citizenry and belongingness rooted in our original instructions, what Pueblo people refer to as our core values. The three sections of this dissertation are interrelated in that they seek to grow a more inclusive Pueblo community in effort to retain our cultural practices and belief systems for generations to come.

National mandates to decrease suspension numbers have prompted school districts across the country to turn to a practice known as restorative justice as an alternative to removing students through suspension or referral to law enforcement for problematic behavior. This ethnographic case study examines school-based restorative justice programs as potentially disruptive social movements in dismantling the school-to-prison-pipeline through participatory analysis of one school’s implementation of Discipline that Restores.

Findings go beyond suspension numbers to discuss the promise inherent in the program’s validation of student lived experience using a disruptive framework within the greater context of the politics of care and the school-to-prison-pipeline. Findings analyze the intersection of race, power, and identity with the experience of care in defining community to illustrate some of the prominent structural impediments that continue to work to cap the program’s disruptive potential. This study argues that restorative justice, through the experience of care, has the potential to act as a disruptive force, but wrestles with the enormity of the larger structural investments required for authentic transformative and disruptive change to occur.

As the restorative justice movement gains steam, on-going critical analysis against a disruptive framework becomes necessary to ensure the future success of restorative discipline in disrupting the school-to-prison-pipeline.

Much research has been conducted regarding the current state of public education within the United States. Very little of that research bodes well for the system’s current circumstances or for the direction our system is headed. The debate stems around two opposing ideologies. One believes that there needs to be more accountability via high-stakes testing and the continuum of the status quo that the country has maintained for centuries, regardless of the effect it may be having on the students’ well-being. While the opposing view sees high-stakes testing as a contributing factor to the seemingly unproductive, chaotic, and even harmful conundrum of bias and hegemony that shows a positive correlation of deleterious effects to student well-being. Although this paper references the research of highly esteemed scholars, it asserts that the voices of those that are most relegated to that of undervalued and ignored are precisely the voices that need to be gleaned most relevant. This paper’s purpose is to hear what the ‘experts’ in the field of education, the students themselves, have to say.

Many studies have suggested the existence of what is called the school-to-prison pipeline, a model explaining the process by which we hinder the academic development of students of color and push them instead toward the criminal justice system. This process takes place through a series of practices called exclusionary discipline practices, and these include such things as suspensions, zero tolerance policies, and the prevalence of school resource officers that often reflect larger biases or implicit racism. These practices alienate students from the academic process, increasing dropout rates and negatively affecting student achievement. There has been a great deal of research investigating these discipline policies, but significantly less research investigating how teachers perceive these practices. This study examines the perceptions and attitudes of student teachers throughout their first experiences in the classroom. It explores their attitudes toward these policies, as well as their perceptions of discipline practices and student behavior problems. In conducting interviews with four student teachers, qualitative analysis of the resulting data shows that teachers are aware of the disadvantage that students of color face, however, they perceive some of these exclusionary discipline practices to be beneficial or neutral. Teachers understood suspensions to be detrimental to students, but saw no issues with zero tolerance policies or school resource officers. For this reason, it will be important to better educate teachers to be advocates for their students, and push for better policies at the administrative and legislative levels.