Browsing by Subject "Agency"

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AI assistants in workplaces : implementation, workers, agency, and organizational policies a qualitative study
(2024-05) Li, Siyu Catherine ; Stephens, Keri K.; Shorey, Samantha
Artificial Intelligence is becoming more and more common in every aspect of people’s lives, including their work routines. Workplace integration presents individual employees and organizations with both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, individual employees are able to gain help from an intelligent assistant, possibly reducing their workload and increasing their productivity. On the other hand, organizations might not have developed clear guidelines to manage employee’s use of AI assistants, leading to associated issues, such as data security. This study explores the interplay between employees’ AI assistant usage and organizational dynamics, with a specific focus on employees’ autonomy, organizational policies, and the material features of AI assistants. It uses qualitative research methods to investigate the topic through in-depth semi-structured interviews across multiple industries, grounded theory data analysis, and a participant-centered oral history lens. These methods enabled the researcher to facilitate conversations that lead to a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in the dynamics of employees’ AI assistants adoption and organizational policies. The study results indicate that while employees generally view AI assistants as tools capable of enhancing productivity, their actual implementation in work routines still requires significant human labor. This includes tasks such as training AI assistants and ensuring data security, which are necessary due to their limited capabilities and the absence of clear organizational guidelines. The findings also suggest a complex relationship between increases in productivity and changes in workload. Additionally, the results highlight employees’ agency in utilizing AI assistants, which is reflected in three aspects: resistance to AI assistants at an individual level, self-disclosure of AI assistant usage, and data security concerns. Notably, the absence of clear organizational policies around AI assistants’ use creates strategic ambiguity, allowing employees to adapt the technology to their specific needs. Finally, the study underscores the importance of clear and supportive organizational policies for the use of AI assistants in workplaces and stresses the importance of incorporating employees’ input in the policymaking process.
Attachment, articulation and agency : a glimpse into the world of women digest writers in Pakistan
(2024-02-05) Ahmed, Kiran Nazir; Ali, Kamran Asdar, 1961-; Harlow, Barbara; Stewart, Kathleen; Strong, Pauline
This dissertation presents an ethnographic account of women fiction writers’ engagement with digest genre and the community (of readers and writers) formed around it. Digest genre is published in Urdu monthly magazines, usually known as women’s digests. These fictional stories are extremely popular and have the highest circulation of all fictional genres in Pakistan. However, they are socially perceived as “low brow” and disavowed as having no literary merit. In this context, this ethnography traces the specific forms attachment, articulation and agency take in the lives of women whose stories resonate with many, but who also face the critique of not being authentic writers. It does so by exploring questions such as: How do digest writers develop attachments and bonds of friendship in the absence of physical proximity (since writers rarely meet each other or their readers)? How do digest writers articulate lived realities—both of attachments in the digest community and the larger dynamics of living as a woman in Pakistan’s changing social milieu? How do they see fiction writing and what role do they see it playing in their individual lives? What challenges or opportunities do writers experience as they enter the arena of script writing for television, and how do they speak back to notions of their writing as inauthentic and frivolous? Methodologically, this research draws on twenty months of fieldwork, carried out in four urban cities (Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi) and villages in two provinces (Sindh and Punjab). Fieldwork took the form of archival work, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation. I closely followed the daily lives and work of digest writers of varying ages, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds. In addition, I conducted work with editors (who select and tailor digest narratives), admins (volunteers who manage readers’ groups through social media), readers and voluntary non-readers (individuals who are familiar with this genre but choose not to read it), television channel heads (who employ digest writers as script writers) and content managers at production houses (who select and tailor digest narratives for television audiences).
Begin. Begin again : an intersectional dissection of my current directing philosophy
(2024-05) Lavery, Jenny; Sanchez, K. J.; Bassett, Alexandra; Lynn, Kirk
In this process paper, I examine how my personal life and career have intersected. Throughout this thesis, I return to the question, ‘How do we take care?’ while annotating my current directing philosophy and distilling strategies for leading creative teams that envision pathways towards positive creative experiences, where wholeness is valued, healing is possible, and joy is abundant, not despite the work, but because of it.
Don't tell me who to blame : persuasive effects of implicit arguments in obesity messages on attributions of responsibility and policy support
(2014-12) McGlynn, Joseph III; McGlone, Matthew S., 1966-; Bell, Robert A; Donovan, Erin E; Pennebaker, James W; Vangelisti, Anita L
Obesity is an epidemic that causes physical, emotional, and financial tolls for both individuals and communities. The United States experienced a dramatic increase in obesity rate from 1990-2010 (Flegal, Carroll, Ogden, & Curtin, 2010), with more than one-third of adults and 17% of children in the United States now considered obese (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, & Flegal, 2012). Although most people agree obesity is a problem (Oliver & Lee, 2005), it is a disease with multiple causes (Wake & Reeves, 2012) and no straightforward solution (Phil & Heuer, 2009). Informed by theory and research on agency and attributions, the current study examined effects of explicit arguments and linguistic agency assignment on attributions of responsibility for obesity and support for public obesity policies. Participants (N = 211) were randomly assigned to read one of six versions of a health flyer defined by a 3 x 2 (Explicit Argument x Agency Assignment) factorial design and thereafter completed a questionnaire derived from previous research. Respondents across conditions agreed that obesity is a serious health threat, but differed in how they attributed responsibility for the illness. Those who read a message that consistently assigned agency to the disease (e.g., Obesity causes health problems) endorsed genetics as the cause to a greater degree than others who read a different version assigning agency to humans (e.g., Obese people develop health problems). In contrast, the human agency version prompted higher attributions of individual responsibility and greater support for upstream public policies aimed at reducing obesity (e.g., a snack tax on junk food, eliminating soft drinks from public schools, adding warning labels to foods with high sugar content). Results suggest explicit arguments are less effective in shifting perceptions of a stigmatized health threat than the implicit arguments created by linguistic agency assignment. The findings demonstrate specific message features that affect social attributions of illness (Heider, 1958; Weiner, 2006) and perceptions of responsibility for the onset and solution of health problems (Barry, Brescoll, Brownell, & Schlesigner, 2009; Niederdeppe, Shapiro, & Porticella, 2011). Theoretical implications, practical applications, and future research directions are discussed.
Educar con compromiso : Chicana teacher identity and activism through comadrazgo in a teachers’ association
(2019-05) Espinoza, Katherine Elise; Urrieta, Luis; De Lissovoy, Noah; Salinas, Cynthia S.; Valenzuela, Angela; Machado-Casas, Margarita
This dissertation examines the process of identity and agency construction of bilingual teachers by exploring the experiences of three activist maestras involved in a teachers’ association in a right-to-work state. I draw on a postpositivist perspective (Moya, 2002; Hames-Garcia, 2011) and LatCrit (Delgado Bernal, 1989, 2002; Solórzano, 1997; Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001) to highlight the knowledge we gain from exploring individuals’ unique experiences. I frame my inquiry through theoretical frameworks that accentuate lived experiences of Chicana teachers – culturally responsive teaching (Valenzuela, 2016; Ayers and Kumashiro, 2015), funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gónzalez, 2001), and lived critical literacy curriculum (Vasquez, 2003, 2010, 2012). My study demonstrates the ways in which activist Chicana activist maestras find non-traditional ways of integrating pedagogical practices to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse Latinx students and how their pedagogical practices are informed by their advocacy efforts – inside and outside of the classroom – in their pursuit of a social justice curriculum. Specifically, I examine their life stories (childhood, teaching, and union activism) to contextualize how these Chicana bilingual teachers have developed a sense of conciencia con compromiso (Prieto &Villenas, 2012) for their students, fellow teachers, and the communities they serve. Findings show that Chicana activist maestras reveal the stark reality of the daily lives of teachers. In turn, maestras develop the sensibility of sobrevivencia which enables to educar con compromiso. I define educar con compromiso as an obligation, both moral and ethical, that Chicana activist maestras possess to advocate for fellow teachers, students, and communities. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that previous experiences and the current spaces they encounter provide Chicana activist maestras with the opportunity to manifest different identities simultaneously. In studying activist Chicana bilingual teachers who are politically active, this study contributes to the larger body of work exploring non-traditional ways in which bilingual teachers develop an activist maestra identity by exploring how identity construction transpires within a teachers’ association in a right-to-work state.
Envisioning a sociocultural digital reading curriculum : exploring teachers' collaborative professional learning online
(2022-02-25) Nash, Brady Lee; Skerrett, Allison; Kim, Grace MyHyun; Mosley Wetzel, Melissa; Schallert, Diane L; Coiro, Julie
This dissertation study examines the experiences of five middle school English language arts teachers as they engaged in inquiry-based, online professional learning (PL) over the course of one semester. Their purpose in this PL was to develop understandings of online reading and to create curricular materials about online reading for their middle school English language arts classes. The participants came to this project with experience teaching English and literacy from a sociocultural, workshop-based tradition, and the expectation at the outset of the PL was that teachers would draw both from their own pedagogical knowledge as well as from new knowledge gained during the PL as they designed curriculum. The PL was collaboratively designed by the researcher and the team’s instructional coach; within the original design, participants were afforded a great deal of flexibility in determining the direction of their learning within the parameters of the shared topic and goals, and opportunities to facilitate PL activities themselves. Findings focus on (a) how participants learned during the semester, (b) the ideas about online reading they developed, and (c) the curricular approach and materials they constructed.
An examination of temporal agency in courtship narratives
(2012-05) Kurlak, Rebecca Mary; McGlone, Matthew S., 1966-; Vangelisti, Anita L.
The reported study investigated temporal agency (i.e., the assignment of cause for temporal shift) in newlyweds’ courtship narratives. Transcripts of courtship narratives generated by each partner of 23 recently married couples (approximately 3 months) participating in the PAIR project (Huston, McHale, & Crouter, 1986) were analyzed for the presence of different linguistic strategies for encoding temporal shift. Statements were coded as “human agency assignments” when they assigned the cause of temporal shift to humans (e.g., we started seeing each other in June); statements that assigned temporal shift to abstract entities such as the events themselves (e.g., the summer started out well for us) or to the relationship (e.g., the relationship started to slow down) were coded as “abstract agency assignments.” The frequency with which narrators mentioned positiveand negative emotions was also coded to explore the possibility that emotional valence mediated agency assignments. The frequency of different agency assignments and emotion words were considered in the context of portions of the courtship accounts that narrators designated as describing “upturns” (episodes that increased the likelihood of marriage) or “downturns” (episodes that decreased marriage likelihood). Results indicated that the frequency of human agency assignments and positive emotion mention were higher in upturn than downturn narrative segments; in contrast, abstract agency assignments and negative emotion mention were more frequent in downturn than upturn segments. Subsequent analyses indicated that positive word mention partially mediated human agency assignments in upturns and that negative word mention partially mediated abstract agency assignments in downturns. These findings are consistent with previous research demonstrating an association between the emotional valence of an event and temporal agency assignment: In general, people assign temporal agency to themselves when describing positive events, but prefer abstract agency assignments for negative events (McGlone & Pfiester, 2009).
Examining ethnic identity and stereotypes of American-raised Chinese undergraduates in Texas
(2010-05) Soon, Kokyung; Falbo, Toni; Richardson, Frank; Valencia, Richard; Suizzo, Marie-Anne; Urrieta, Luis
Although there have been many studies focusing on Asian Americans’ ethnic identity and the stereotypes associated with them, little is known about how Asian Americans negotiate their multiple layers of ethnic identity and respond to the stereotypes imposed on them. The main goals of the current study were to examine American-Raised Chinese’ (i.e., Chinese who were born and/or raised in America) multiple layers of ethnic identity and their negotiation process of these multiple layers of ethnic identity, the relationship between their ethnic identity and stereotypes, and the creative ways American-Raised Chinese interpreted and responded to stereotypes. Another goal of this study was to examine the role of an ethnic student organization on campus and American-Raised Chinese’s participation in the organization. Through Chinese Cultural Association, I interviewed eighteen informants and observed their daily practices in public and private settings. The findings indicated that American-Raised Chinese undergraduates choosing to participate in an ethnic student organization over other organizations reflected their active negotiation of the multilayered ethnic identity. In addition, by meeting Chinese of different nationalities on campus and abroad, these undergraduates came to realize the diverse background of Chinese individuals, leading them to reexamine and reconstruct their ethnic identity. In particular, these undergraduates developed diasporic Chinese identity that not only acknowledged the diversity of Chinese community in America in terms of nationality, but also transformed their American identity into “ethnic” identity among Chinese of different nationalities. The findings also showed that American-Raised Chinese’ negotiation of their ethnic identity was closely related to their perception of the stereotypes. The informants came to recognize the changing nature of stereotypes and this realization led them to reconstrue their understanding of ethnic identity. Furthermore, using anecdotes of American-Raised Chinese undergraduates’ self impersonation, I argued that these undergraduates proactively responded to the stereotypes by making parody about themselves. Through self impersonation, these undergraduates achieved the double intents of performing themselves as Asian American and simultaneously challenged what the dominant American society expected them to be.
Her own works praise her : an investigation into the development of ambitious feminist teachers and their resistance to neoliberal mechanisms of curricular and pedagogical control
(2017-05) Johnson, Heather Scott; Salinas, Cinthia; Brown, Anthony; Grant, S.G.; Payne, Katherina; Wetzel, Melissa
The purpose of qualitative case study was to examine the development of activist feminist teachers, their viewpoints and understandings of the current neo-liberal educational system and their methods of resistance to the curricular and pedagogical controls placed upon them. This research was built upon a three part conceptual framework. First of all, that feminist consciousness needs to be nurtured in teachers rather than assumed to be present. Second that the enactment of feminism can take on many forms and is affected by the contexts of era, region and class. Lastly, to recognize as legitimate and effective, feminized forms of resistance which frequently veer from traditional ones and as such tend be dismissed and marginalized. Using a feminist post-structural theoretical lens, I explored the multiple pathways by which teachers reach a point of feminist consciousness and what were the important factors, which led them to apply these understandings to their work in the classroom. The data analysis revealed the many roads to feminist consciousness and its manifestations. Additionally it also uncovered common threads such as the importance of critical coursework in college, mentors and support networks. Teachers, using their feminist frameworks understood, responded to and resisted the mandated curriculum in a variety of ways. The first was through their content knowledge of both the dominant and counter-narrative. Secondly, they employed feminist pedagogies and fostered strong relationships with their students, which helped create space and acceptance for critical thought. Finally they used their understandings of the current values of the neo-liberal educational system to not only navigate but to leverage this fluency into change for themselves, their curriculum and their students. The goal was not to merely critique the system, but to illustrate real life examples of successful feminist teacher resistance that teachers and teacher-educators could recognize, understand and apply to their own work.
"Hips don't lie" : Mexican American female students' identity construction at The University of Texas at Austin
(2012-08) Portillo, Juan Ramon; Straubhaar, Joseph D.; Hogan, Kristen
While a university education is sold to students as something anyone can achieve, their particular social location influences who enters this space. Mexican American women, by virtue of their intersecting identities as racialized women in the US, have to adopt a particular identity if they are to succeed through the educational pipeline and into college. In this thesis, I explore the mechanics behind the construction of this identity at The University of Texas at Austin. To understand how this happens, I read the experiences of six Mexican American, female students through a Chicana feminist lens, particularly Anzaldúa’s mestiza consciousness. I discovered that if Mexicana/Chicana students are to “make it,” they have to adopt a “good student, nice Mexican woman” identity. In other words, to be considered good students, Mexican American women must also adopt a code of conduct that is acceptable to the white-centric and middle-class norms that dominate education, both at a K-12 level and at the university level. This behavior is uniquely tied to the social construction of Mexican American women as a threat to the United States because of their alleged hypersexuality and hyperfertility. Their ability to reproduce, biologically and culturally, means that young Mexican women must be able to show to white epistemic authorities that they have their sexuality and gender performance “under control.” However, even if they adopt this identity, their presence at the university is policed and regulated. As brown women, they are trespassers of a space that has historically been constructed as white and male. This results in students and faculty engaging in microaggressions that serve to Other the Mexican American women and erect new symbolic boundaries that maintain a racial and gender hierarchy in the university. While the students do not just accept these rules, adopting the identity of “good student, nice Mexican woman” limits how the students can defend themselves from microaggressions or challenge the racial and gender structure. Nevertheless, throughout this thesis I demonstrate that even within the constraints of the limited identity available to the students, they still resist dominant discourses and exercise agency to change their social situation.
In search of "the cup of tea" : intersections of migration, gender, and marriage in transitional China
(2012-05) Wang, Yu; Yu, Wei-Hsin; Roberts, Byran
Widely considered the world’s largest migration, the ongoing rural-to-urban migration in China is unprecedented in terms of scale and impact. Millions of Chinese peasants flood to cities in waves to try their fortune. Among them, dagongmei, literally translated as “working sisters,” who are single, young, and undereducated rural women working in cities, are believed to be one of the most marginalized communities. Their segregation and discrimination in the labor market has been well documented. As a major life event, their marriages have also received academic attention, but the marriage of dagongmei in current literature is generally considered a means towards achieving social advancement, often terminating their migratory trajectory. Few studies address the question of how physical mobility and economic independence alter the social relations of dagongmei in their pursuit of dating and potential spouses across the rural-urban divide. The separations of dagongmei from patriarchal families empower them, but their legally classified rural citizenship and their lack of cultural and social capital constrain their aspirations. To closely examine how individual agency interacts with familial control and societal constraints, I conduct in-depth interviews with dagongmei, applying feminist standpoint theory, to hear their experiences concerning the social processes of mate selection. By situating marriage as a dynamic decision-making process, I identify three subgroups of women: independent seekers, resigned negotiators, and tradition reformers. My overall conclusion is that young rural women are empowered by their migration to pursue major life goals such as marriage, but traditional gender ideology still operates to confine their roles as daughters and wives in a transitional society with competing capitalist and socialist characteristics.
"It's like I can be myself here" : adolescent identity and agency in an arts-based out-of-school context
(2011-05) Jefferson, Jennifer Elizabeth; Urrieta, Luis; Brown, Keffrelyn; DeLissovoy, Noah; Mayer, Melinda; Skerrett, Allison
My dissertation, “‘It’s like I can be myself here’: Adolescent identity and agency in an arts-based out-of-school program” is a three-year post-critical ethnographic study (Noblit, Flores, and Murillo, 2004) of YouthArts, a free, out-of-school arts program for adolescents who self-identify as having a low socio-economic status. YouthArts, under the auspices of a non-profit art space, offers participants both a range of activities, such as field trips, artist-led workshops, and critique sessions, and materials, such as supplies and an electronic portfolio, to help foster artistic identity development. The program design demonstrates the complexity of artistic endeavors beyond technical prowess and highlights the role of collaboration, communication, inquiry, and curiosity in the process of art creation and consideration. I employ participant-observation methods, semi-structured interviews, and artifact collection, as well as narrative analysis and content analysis, to create a dynamic representation of how adolescents engage in this program. My theoretical approach to this project brings together social production theories, such as figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998), social and cultural capital (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977), community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2006), situated learning (Lave, 1990; Lave and Wenger, 1991) and the field of youth studies (James, Jenks, and Prout, 1998; Best, 2007) to explore learning, identity, and agency. I provide a thick description of the program’s professionalizing activities and offer detailed case studies of four focal participants in order to demonstrate the ways that the program helps participants transition from high school to post-secondary paths and from being students in high-school art classes to becoming practicing artists. I privilege youth voices to highlight the ways they see their identities as being informed by multiple communities, including their out-of-school activities, their schools, their families, and their friends and through intersecting classed, raced, gendered, and sexualized discourses, as well as to consider the ways that they enact agency in these multiple contexts. I highlight the need for more studies that research out-of-school learning from a place of positive youth development and explore the role of relationship building in learning environments.
Language learning, identity, and agency : a multiple case study of adult Hispanic English language learners
(2014-05) Sacchi, Fabiana Andrea; Urrieta, Luis
For the past 30 years, researchers in the field of Second Language Acquisition (Block, 2007; Lantolf and Pavlenko, 2001; Norton, 2000) have emphasized the need to integrate the language learner and the language learning context and to analyze relations of power and how they affect the language learner, the language learning processes, and the learner’s identities. Several researchers (Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001; McKay & Wong, 1996; Skilton-Silverstein, 2002; Vitanova, 2005) have studied the connections between language learning, identity, and agency. The participants in these studies were immigrants from Eastern Europe, Asia, or Africa living in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Few studies (Menard-Warwick, 2004, 2009) have analyzed the experiences of adult Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. in relation to English learning and identity construction. This dissertation reports on a study exploring how five adult Hispanic immigrants learning English in a major city in Texas negotiated their identities as English speakers and exercised agency in contexts where English was spoken. The study also analyzed the learners’ investment in learning English. The sociocultural theory of self and identity developed by Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain (1998) was the framework which helped conceptualize identity and agency. The work of Norton (2000) on language learning and identity and her notion of investment were used to understand the participants’ experiences learning and using English inside and outside the ESL classroom. A qualitative multiple-case study was conducted to understand the experiences of the participants who were learning English in a community-based ESL program, where the researcher became a participant observer during the six months of data collection. The findings of the study show the complex identity negotiations that the participants underwent in the different contexts where they interacted in English. Social class, immigrant status, and other social factors, such as lack of access to English-speaking contexts, high prevalence of Spanish in contexts where the participants interacted daily, and positioning of the participants (by others and by themselves) as limited English speakers strongly influenced how they negotiated their identities as English speakers. Despite these social factors, the participants exercised agency and were highly invested in learning English.
Loss of control and phenomenology in mental disorder
(2021-08-16) Evans, Amanda Lea; Montague, Michelle; Strawson, Galen; Sosa, Ernest David; Bayne, Tim; Pickard, Hanna
Any insights we can hope to gain with respect to what is going on with our mental lives and our agency will almost certainly require a close examination of the “worst-case scenarios”, since it is when things break down that the joints of the phenomena are revealed. This is a philosophical intuition of mine that pervades everything I work on, and the papers that make up this dissertation are no exception. In keeping with this guiding sentiment, this dissertation tackles three philosophical issues related to the so-called “loss of control” that occurs in mental disorder, and it does so in a way that places the phenomenology of agency at the forefront in some way or other. In my first paper on the sense of agency in anorexia nervosa (AN), I try to resolve an apparent discrepancy between the phenomenology of anorexics in the grip of their disorder and the psychological and neurological data that purport to describe what they are undergoing. I provide a solution to this apparent incongruency by offering an account of the sense of agency in AN that grants sincerity to anorexic testimony while also being able to explain why the relevant experiences of agency come to be illusory. Then, in my second paper, I broaden my scope to include not just AN but also substance use disorder (SUD). After outlining the debate surrounding the question of whether addiction ought to be categorized as a form of akrasia, I show that the phenomenon at issue is far more complex than either side has supposed. I then propose a “horseshoe model” of loss of control that is able to capture the complexity that is brought in by examining the similarities and differences between SUD and AN. Finally, in my third paper, I pursue a question that arises from the exposition of the horseshoe model introduced in the previous paper. The question is, roughly, “Why is one ‘half’ of the horseshoe model associated with the phenomenology of loss of control while the other “half” is associated with the phenomenology of extreme self-control?”. This line of inquiry ultimately leads to an understanding of how one’s pathological desires can be experienced quite differently depending on the content of one’s self-image. Taken together, it is my hope that these papers can contribute to the philosophical goal of unearthing the realities of our mental lives and our agency by examining the fault lines formed by psychopathology.
Making a change : Aristotle on poiêsis, kinêsis and energeia
(2011-05) Chen, Fei-Ting, 1974-; White, Stephen A. (Stephen Augustus); Hankinson, R. J.; Woodruff, Paul; Mourelatos, Alexander P. D.; Koons, Robert
I examine the relation between the action of producing a change (kinêsis) in something else and the action of exercising one’s nature or craft (energeia). I call for the distinction between kinêsis and energeia by arguing that in Metaphysics IX.1-5 change should be construed as a transformational change that is still characterized in accordance with the categories, whereas in Met. IX.6-9 the action of exercising of one’s nature or craft should be construed as the presence of a state or an action that exhibits one’s nature or craft, which is meant to be a way of characterizing that-which-is (to on) that goes beyond the categories. Instead of the conventional patient-centered account of change, I argue that Phys. III.3 and V.4 suggest a non-patient-centered account of change and that the agent’s acting-upon (poiêsis) should also be construed as a non-self-contained change, just as the patient’s being-acted-upon (pathêsis), and therefore cannot be conflated with exercising one’s nature or craft. I also point out that a genuine Aristotelian event cannot be composed of the agent’s acting-upon and the patient’s being-acted-upon. I argue that Phys. VII.3 suggests a two-way relation between the action of producing a change in something else and the action of exhibiting one’s own nature, based on which I outline a hylomorphic proposal that a genuine Aristotelian event is composed of the action of producing a change in something else as the material part of the event and the action of exhibiting one’s own nature as the formal part of the event. While the former provides the material necessitation force from the bottom up to the occurrence of the event, the latter provides the formal constraint force from the top down to the occurrence of the event.
Mobility and environmental intimacy in Italian volcanic zones
(2019-12-05) McQuaid, Megan Louise; Sturm, Circe, 1967-
This thesis explores human and environmental movement and mobility in various Italian volcanic zones. Places and sites are typically thought of as stable, locatable in a specific location, pin-pointable. Places are not generally considered “mobile.” Stromboli, Italy and other volcanic sites force the ethnographer to reconcile a certain tension between movement and place. Volcanic sites are worlds that are materially and socially constituted through movement. How tectonic plates move creates volcanic activity, how lava moves up and out of the volcano transforms the landscape, and how people move to, from, around, through, up and down the volcano creates a volcanic social world. How do humans navigate this environment, and how does the environment agentially present itself as a force to be circumnavigated? Movement and mobility serve as a framework for theorizing human social relations with their environment and other non-humans. Thinking through mobility captures the unique limits and affordances that volcanic environments offer to their human, plant, and animal residents. Scholars differ on whether or not we can call a landscape “alive,” “lively,” or “vibrant.” This thesis argues that the answer to this question is based in observations about movement. That we can, in fact, locate agential capability in the way that a subject moves. The ability to move is the condition for agency.
Modeling disorder in the experience of agency
(2019-05-03) Evans, Amanda Lea; Montague, Michelle
Tim Bayne and Elisabeth Pacherie (2007) propose an integrated model for agentive awareness that incorporates features from both the narrator and the comparator-based accounts found in the literature. Although they think the comparator system is responsible for generating the bulk of agentive experience, they believe the narrator module is responsible for forming agentive judgments and conceptually-laden intentions. Crucially, they also suggest that in some instances the narrator module may “override” the deliverances of the low-level comparator mechanisms. In this paper, I apply Bayne and Pacherie’s integrated model to account for an issue in the psychopathology literature, namely the presence of anosognosia (i.e. ignorance with respect to one’s illness) in anorexia nervosa. In particular, I show that by implementing the integrated model we can solve a problem that arises out of a recent advancement in the empirical literature concerning anorexia’s pathogenesis and persistence. If my proposal is correct, the explanatory power of implementing an integrated model for agentive awareness would bolster Bayne and Pacherie’s account. It may also be of use to researchers seeking to develop a better understanding of anosognosia in anorexia nervosa, which remains a poorly understood feature of the disorder
Orthodox women in America : the making of the conservative-liberal subject
(2017-05) Kravchenko, Elena Vladimirovna; Graber, Jennifer, 1973-; Traphagan, John; Schofer, Jonathan; Morgan, David; Shevzov, Vera; Seales, Chad
This dissertation asks: what does it mean and feel like to be an Eastern Orthodox woman in America? It answers this question by exploring how it is possible to become an Orthodox woman in the present day United States. By attending to the Orthodox Christian and Western liberal discourses, everyday practices and material spaces in which practitioners – Russian immigrant women and American converts – are immersed, this dissertation unveils the slow process of becoming and the everyday experience of being an Orthodox Christian subject. This dissertation proposes that it is possible for the Orthodox women in the United States to embody a double subjectivity that reconciles conservative values, such as doctrinal commitments to gendered hierarchies, with liberal values, such as personal professions of individual freedom in complex and sometimes unpredictable ways. In doing so, this dissertation complicates an assumption that Orthodox Christian identity is best understood as a subject position, which is always already opposed to the secular liberalism that defines the West.
Racial queer : multiracial college students at the intersection of identity, education and agency
(2010-05) Chang-Ross, Aurora; Urrieta, Luis; Brown, Keffrelyn; Saenz, Victor; Cary, Lisa; Vincent, Gregory
Racial Queer is a qualitative study of Multiracial college students with a critical ethnographic component. The design methods, grounded in Critical Race Methodology and Feminist Thought (both theories that inform Critical Ethnography), include: 1) 25 semi-structured interviews of Multiracial students, 2) of which 5 were expanded into case studies, 3) 3 focus groups, 4) observations of the sole registered student organization for Multiracial students on Central University’s campus, 5) field notes and 6) document analysis. The dissertation examines the following question: How do Multiracial students understand and experience their racialized identities within a large, public, tier-one research university in Texas? In addition, it addresses the following sub-questions: How do Multiracial students experience their racialized identities in their everyday interactions with others, in relation to their own self-perceptions and in response to the way others perceive them to be? How do Multiracial students’ positionalities, as they relate to power, privilege, phenotype and status, guide their behavior in different contexts and situations? Using Holland et al.’s (1998) social practice theory of self and identity, Chicana Feminist Theory, and tenets of Queer Theory, this study illustrates how Multiracial college students utilize agency as racial queers to construct and negotiate their identities within a context where identity is both self-constructed and produced for them. I introduce the term, racial queer, to frame the unconventional space of the Multiracial individual. I use this term not to convey sexuality, but to convey the parallels of queerness (both as a term of empowerment and derogation) as they pertain to being Multiracial. In other words, queerness denotes a unique individuality as well as a deviation from the norm (Sullivan, 2003; Warner, 1993; Gamson, 2000). The primary purpose of this study is to illustrate the agentic ways in which Multiracial college students come to understand and experience the complexity of their racialized identity production. Preliminary findings suggest the need to expand the scope of racial discourses to include Multiracial experiences and for further study of Multiracial students. Their counter-narratives access an otherwise invisible student population, providing an opportunity to broaden critical discourses around education and race.
Refraining, agents, and causation
(2013-05) Harrington, Chelsea-Anne Linzee; Dancy, Jonathan
I consider two versions of an argument against (so-called) negative action, both of which take it that causation is a defining feature of actions. The first asserts that when an agent refrains, her mental states do not cause the absence of an event; as such, the refraining does not qualify as an action. The second asserts that when an agent refrains, she does not cause the apparent results of her refraining, and so again, the refraining does not qualify as an action. The idea motivating the second argument appears to improve on the first, insofar as it allows for the agent to play a role in her actions. I argue that both accounts rely on a narrow conception of causation, framed in terms of a physical connection between cause and effect. This narrow conception does not appear to be justified, and the focus on physical connection causation leads both accounts to misconceive agency. Fortunately, there is available a broader conception of causation, which is both intuitively plausible and better able to capture the phenomenon.