Violence against Women Policy and Practice in Uganda - Promoting Justice within the Context of Patriarchy

The goal of this study was to understand how and whether policy and practice relating to violence against women in Uganda, especially Uganda’s Domestic Violence Act of 2010, have had an effect on women’s beliefs and practices, as well as on support and justice for women who experience abuse by their male partners. Research used multi-sited ethnography at transnational, national, and local levels to understand the context that affects what policies are developed, how they are implemented, and how, and whether, women benefit from these. Ethnography within a local community situated global and national dynamics within the lives of women. Women who experience VAW within their intimate partnerships in Uganda confront a political economy that undermines their access to justice, even as a women’s rights agenda is working to develop and implement laws, policies, and interventions that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. This dissertation provides insights into the daily struggles of women who try to utilize policy that challenges duty bearers, in part because it is a new law, but also because it conflicts with the structural patriarchy that is engrained in Ugandan society. Two explanatory models were developed. One explains factors relating to a woman’s decision to seek support or to report domestic violence. The second explains why women do and do not report DV. Among the findings is that a woman is most likely to report abuse under the following circumstances: 1) her own, or her children’s survival (physical or economic) is severely threatened; 2) she experiences severe physical abuse; or, 3) she needs financial support for her children. Research highlights three supportive factors for women who persist in reporting DV. These are: 1) the presence of an “advocate” or support 2) belief that reporting will be helpful; and, 3) lack of interest in returning to the relationship. This dissertation speaks to the role that anthropologists can play in a multi-disciplinary approach to a complex issue. This role is understanding – deeply and holistically; and, articulating knowledge generated locally that provides connections between what happens at global, national and local levels.

Multiraciality Enters the University: Mixed Race Identity and Knowledge Production in Higher Education

“Multiraciality Enters the University: Mixed Race Identity and Knowledge Production in Higher Education,” explores how the category of “mixed race” has underpinned university politics in California, through student organizing, admissions debates, and the development of a new field of study. By treating the concept of privatization as central to both multiraciality and the neoliberal university, this project asks how and in what capacity has the discourses of multiracialism and the growing recognition of mixed race student populations shaped administrative, social, and academic debates at the state’s flagship universities—the University of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles. This project argues that the mixed race population symbolizing so-called “post-racial societies” is fundamentally attached to the concept of self-authorship, which can work to challenge the rights and resources for college students of color. Through a close reading of texts, including archival materials, policy and media debates, and interviews, I assert that the contemporary deployment of mixed race within the US academy represents a particularly post-civil rights development, undergirded by a genealogy of U.S. liberal individualism. This project ultimately reveals the pressing need to rethink ways to disrupt institutionalized racism in the new millennium.

THE ROLE OF THE MECHANICAL ENVIRONMENT ON CANCER CELL TRANSMIGRATION AND MRNA LOCALIZATION

Most cancer-related deaths are due to metastasis formation, the ability of cancer cells to break away from the primary tumor site, transmigrate through the endothelium, and form secondary tumors in distant areas. Many studies have identified links between the mechanical properties of the cellular microenvironment and the behavior of cancer cells. Cells may experience heterogeneous microenvironments of varying stiffness during tumor progression, transmigration, and invasion into the basement membrane. In addition to mechanical factors, the localization of RNAs to lamellipodial regions has been proposed to play an important part in metastasis. This dissertation provides a quantitative evaluation of the biophysical effects on cancer cell transmigration and RNA localization. In the first part of this dissertation, we sought to compare cancer cell and leukocyte transmigration and investigate the impact of matrix stiffness on transmigration process. We found that cancer cell transmigration includes an additional step, ‘incorporation’, into the endothelial cell (EC) monolayer. During this phase, cancer cells physically displace ECs and spread into the monolayer. Furthermore, the effects of subendothelial matrix stiffness and endothelial activation on cancer cell incorporation are cell-specific, a notable difference from the process by which leukocytes transmigrate. Collectively, our results provide mechanistic insights into tumor cell extravasation and demonstrate that incorporation into the endothelium is one of the earliest steps. In the next part of this work, we investigated how matrix stiffness impacts RNA localization and its relevance to cancer metastasis. In migrating cells, the tumor suppressor protein, adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) targets RNAs to cellular protrusions. We observed that increasing stiffness promotes the peripheral localization of these APC-dependent RNAs and that cellular contractility plays a role in regulating this pathway. We next investigated the mechanism underlying the effect of substrate stiffness and cellular contractility. We found that contractility drives localization of RNAs to protrusions through modulation of detyrosinated microtubules, a network of modified microtubules that associate with, and are required for localization of APC-dependent RNAs. These results raise the possibility that as the matrix environment becomes stiffer during tumor progression, it promotes the localization of RNAs and ultimately induces a metastatic phenotype.

Contested Play and Clean Water: McMillan Park, Race, and the Built Environment in Washington, D.C., 1900-1941

This study focuses on the intersection of the politics and culture of open public space with race relations in the United States from 1900 to 1941. The history of McMillan Park in Washington, D.C. serves as a lens to examine these themes. Ultimately, the park’s history, as documented in newspapers, interviews, reports, and photographs, reveals how white residents attempted to protect their dominance in a racial hierarchy through the control of both the physical and cultural elements of public recreation space. White use of discrimination through seemingly neutral desires to protect health, safety, and property values, establishes a congruence with their defense of residential property. Without similar access to legal methods, African Americans acted through direct action in gaps of governmental control. Their use of this space demonstrates how African-American residents of Washington and the United States contested their race, recreation, and spatial privileges in the pre-World War II era.