Everyday Indivisibility: How Exclusive Religious Practices Explain Variation in Subnational Violence Outcomes

This project explores the puzzle of religious violence variation. Religious actors initiate conflict at a higher rate than their secular counterparts, last longer, are more deadly, and are less prone to negotiated termination. Yet the legacy of religious peacemakers on the reduction of violence is undeniable. Under what conditions does religion contribute to escalated violence and under what conditions does it contribute to peace? I argue that more intense everyday practices of group members, or high levels of orthopraxy, create dispositional indivisibilities that make violence a natural alternative to bargaining. Subnational armed groups with members whose practices are exclusive and isolating bind together through ritual practice, limit the acceptable decisions of leaders, and have prolonged timeframes, all of which result in higher levels of intensity, intransigence and resolve during violent conflict. The theory challenges both instrumentalist and constructivist understandings of social identity and violence. To support this argument, I construct an original cross-national data-set that employs ethnographic data on micro-level religious practices for 724 subnational armed groups in both civil wars and terror campaigns. Using this data, I build an explanatory “religious practice index” for each observation and examine its relationship with conflict outcomes. Findings suggest that exclusive practice groups fight significantly longer with more intensity and negotiate less. I also apply the practice model to qualitative cases. Fieldwork in the West Bank and Sierra Leone reveals that groups with more exclusive religious practicing membership are principle contributors to violence, whereas those with inclusive practices can contribute to peace. The project concludes with a discussion about several avenues for future research and identifies the practical policy applications to better identify and combat religious extremism.

Broadening the Scope of Ethnic Identity: A Social Sustainability Solution for Pan African Communities through Ethnically Relevant Educational Programming

This conceptual study explores ethnic identity development theory in order to argue that ethnic identity development education is a means of developing broad senses of community in the African Diaspora that expand beyond a tribal, local, familial level. This study suggests that the broadening of community understanding would contribute to establishing social sustainability on regional, national and international levels within the Pan African community. Establishing such social sustainability would have direct effects on the areas of economic and environmental sustainability. One of the goals of this project is to offer suggestions for ethnically relevant education that can develop social sustainability in several places throughout the Diaspora, such as in Nigeria where ethnic conflicts are a contemporary concern.

Acting White Among Black College Students: A Phenomenological Study of Social Constructions of Race

This study was a qualitative examination of Black college students' experiences with the Acting White label. In conducting this study, two gaps in literature were addressed: (1) the lack of literature on Black college students and the acting white label, and (2) lack of attention to a US racial history and current structures which allow a label such as "acting white" to exist. Thus, the purpose of this study was to call attention to the experiences of Black college students as it relates to the acting white label. Additionally, the study calls attention to social constructions that allow the acting white label to exist and to be sustained. Data was collected from 14 Black college students at a predominantly white, private, liberal arts university in the west. Based on responses from students in the study, Black college students do hear that they are acting white. Yet, their reaction to hearing the label does not cause them to underachieve academically, but does have an impact on their social actions. The ways in which Black college students in the study were labeled as acting white was based on academic pursuits, speech patterns, dress, and hobbies. Student reactions to the label ranged from ignoring the label to challenging the accuser. In regards to how the acting white label is sustained, students in the study expressed that they learned what it meant to act white or black from family interactions, social interactions and observations from family and friends, and from media sources. It was concluded that Black college students, despite reactions, do hear the label and that the label seems to be used as a means to attack Black students and their identity.

The role of the social environment in non-suicidal self-injury among LGBTQ youth: A mixed methods study

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), such as cutting and burning, is a widespread social problem among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Extant research indicates that this population is more than twice as likely to engage in NSSI than heterosexual and cisgender (non-transgender) youth. Despite the scope of this social problem, it remains relatively unexamined in the literature. Research on other risk behaviors among LGBTQ youth indicates that experiencing homophobia and transphobia in key social contexts such as families, schools, and peer relationships contributes to health disparities among this group. Consequently, the aims of this study were to examine: (1) the relationship between LGBTQ youth's social environments and their NSSI behavior, and (2) whether/how specific aspects of the social environment contribute to an understanding of NSSI among LGBTQ youth. This study was conducted using an exploratory, sequential mixed methods design with two phases. The first phase of the study involved analysis of transcripts from interviews conducted with 44 LGBTQ youth recruited from a community-based organization. In this phase, five qualitative themes were identified: (1) Violence; (2) Misconceptions, Stigma, and Shame; (3) Negotiating LGBTQ Identity; (4) Invisibility and Isolation; and (5) Peer Relationships. Results from the qualitative phase were used to identify key variables and specify statistical models in the second, quantitative, phase of the study, using secondary data from a survey of 252 LGBTQ youth. The qualitative phase revealed how LGBTQ youth, themselves, described the role of the social environment in their NSSI behavior, while the quantitative phase was used to determine whether the qualitative findings could be used to predict engagement in NSSI among a larger sample of LGBTQ youth. The quantitative analyses found that certain social-environmental factors such as experiencing physical abuse at home, feeling unsafe at school, and greater openness about sexual orientation significantly predicted the likelihood of engaging in NSSI among LGBTQ youth. Furthermore, depression partially mediated the relationships between family physical abuse and NSSI and feeling unsafe at school and NSSI. The qualitative and quantitative results were compared in the interpretation phase to explore areas of convergence and incongruence. Overall, this study's findings indicate that social-environmental factors are salient to understanding NSSI among LGBTQ youth. The particular social contexts in which LGBTQ youth live significantly influence their engagement in this risk behavior. These findings can inform the development of culturally relevant NSSI interventions that address the social realities of LGBTQ youth's lives.

I'm Not Who I Thought I Was: A Contextual Resolution to the Identity Loss of Combat PTSD.

Given the historical rates of combat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), one can expect 30% of soldiers returning from current military conflicts to suffer from PTSD. For these individuals, various cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) are the most commonly employed treatments. Unfortunately, however, symptom relapse can be expected with the various CBT approaches, as traumatic memories remain. Soldiers are imbued with a militarized identity, and the identity loss experienced by those soldiers who suffer from PTSD is particularly painful for this population, as the militarized identity effectively disavows personal suffering. For this reason, many combat veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder experience undue, prolonged suffering as they struggle to make sense of the different person they fear they have become. This paper contrasts certain versions of Western philosophy, which view the self as a fixed and reified entity with certain versions of Eastern philosophy, which view the self as more contextual and fluid, in order to illuminate the value of employing third wave behavioral treatments, specifically Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), to treat the identity loss experienced by military veterans with PTSD. ACT echoes the Buddhist principle that attachment to verbally-constructed conceptual notions of self contribute to undue suffering, and that more vital living can be achieved by assuming a more contextual and experiential perspective on identity. Research and anecdotal accounts are cited to illustrate why treatment for identity loss associated with combat PTSD should be less focused on reconstructing a historically substance-oriented self and more focused on an epistemological reorientation to a deconstructed, contextual self.

BigLaw Identity Capital: Pink and Blue, Black and White

This Article advances a new capital framework for understanding the bargain between large law firms and their lawyers, depicting BigLaw relationships not as basic labor-salary exchanges but rather as complex transactions in which large law firms and their lawyers exchange labor and various forms of capital — social, cultural, and identity. First, it builds on the work of Pierre Bourdieu regarding economic, cultural, symbolic, and social capital by examining the concepts of positive and negative capital, exploring the meaning of capital ownership by entities, and developing the notion of identity capital — the value individuals and institutions derive from their identities. Then, the Article advances a capital theory of BigLaw, in which large law firms and their lawyers engage in complex transactions trading labor, social, cultural, and identity capital for economic, social, cultural, and identity capital. Capital analysis sheds new light on the well-documented and troubling underrepresentation of diverse lawyers at BigLaw. It shows that the underrepresentation of women and minority lawyers is not solely the result of exogenous forces outside the control of large law firms such as implicit bias, but rather the outcome of the very exchanges in which BigLaw and its lawyers engage. Specifically, large law firms take into account the capital endowments of their lawyers in making hiring, retention and promotion decisions, and derive value from their lawyers’ capital, for example, by trading on the identity of women and minority lawyers in marketing themselves as being diverse and inclusive to clients and potential recruits. Yet, while BigLaw trades for the identity capital of women and minority lawyers, it fails to offer them opportunities in return to acquire the social and cultural capital necessary for attaining positions of power, resulting in underrepresentation. Moreover, these labor-capital exchanges are often implicit and made by uninformed participants, and therefore unjust. Exactly because the capital framework describes the underrepresentation of diverse lawyers at BigLaw as an endogenous outcome within the control of BigLaw and its lawyers, however, it is a cautiously optimistic model that offers hope for greater representation of diverse lawyers in positions of power and influence. The Article suggests policies and procedures BigLaw can and should adopt to improve the quality of the exchanges it offers to women and minority attorneys and to reduce the underrepresentation of diverse lawyers within its ranks. Employing the concepts of capital transparency, capital boundary, and capital infrastructure, it demonstrates how BigLaw can (1) explicitly recognize the roles social, cultural, and identity capital play in its hiring, retention and promotion apparatuses and (2) revise its policies and procedures to ensure that all of its lawyers have equal opportunities to develop the requisite capital and compete on equal and fair terms for positions of power and influence.

Identity Entrepreneurs

In my previous article Racial Capitalism, I examined the ways in which white individuals and predominantly white institutions derive value from non-white racial identity. This process flows from our intense social and legal preoccupation with diversity. And it results in the commodification of non-white racial identity, with negative implications for both individuals and society. This Article picks up where Racial Capitalism left off in three ways. As a foundation, it first expands the concept of racial capitalism to identity categories more generally, explaining that individual in-group members and predominantly in-group institutions — usually individuals or institutions that are white, male, straight, wealthy, and so on — can and do derive value from out-group identities. Second, the Article turns from the overarching system of identity capitalism to the myriad ways that individual out-group members actively participate in that system. In particular, I examine how out-group members leverage their out-group status to derive social and economic value for themselves. I call such out-group participants identity entrepreneurs. Identity entrepreneurship is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. Rather, it is a complicated phenomenon with both positive and negative consequences. Finally, the Article considers the appropriate response to identity entrepreneurship. We should design laws and policies to maximize both individual agency and access to information for out-group members. Such reforms would protect individual choice while making clear the consequences of identity entrepreneurship both for individual identity entrepreneurs and for the out-group as a whole. A range of legal doctrines interact with and influence identity entrepreneurship, including employment discrimination under Title VII, rights of privacy and publicity, and intellectual property. Modifying these doctrines to take account of identity entrepreneurship will further progress toward an egalitarian society in which in-group and out-group identities are valued equally.