CSWS announces research grant awardees for AY 2020-21

The Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) is pleased to announce awards of more than $86,000 for scholarship, research, and creative work on women and gender for AY 2020-21.

A total of 22 grants were awarded to 12 graduate students, seven tenure-track faculty members, and one career faculty member. Moreover, given the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the Center is extending flexibility in the grant funding period so that researchers may conduct their project fieldwork and travel when conditions permit.

CSWS Director Michelle McKinley said she was pleased that four of the faculty awardees had research projects that qualified for funding from the Center’s Mazie Giustina Endowment for Research on Women in the Northwest.

“For many years the Giustina fund was underutilized,” McKinley said. “It’s important that Center-supported research is drawing attention to the position of women in the Pacific Northwest.”

Among the regional faculty projects supported by the Giustina fund is the second phase of the Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project by Judith Raiskin, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

In 2018, Raiskin and Linda Long, curator of manuscripts in Special Collections and University Archives in UO Libraries, began conducting video interviews and archiving documents from more than 140 women participating in the oral history project. In the projects second phase, Raiskin will be developing a website for students, educators, and the public to access the archived materials.

Other faculty projects supported by the Giustina fund include research on native women’s story circles by Theresa May, Theater Arts; an award-winning Russian-born Oregon author by Jenifer Presto, Comparative Literature and Russian Studies; and impacts of Oregon’s 2017 Fair Scheduling legislation by Ellen Scott, Sociology.

In graduate student research awards, Cristina Faiver-Serna, PhD candidate in geography, was unanimously selected as the next Jane Grant Dissertation award holder for her project, “Geographies of Environmental Racism and the M(other)work of Promotoras de Salud.”

According to Faiver-Serna’s project abstract, “Promotoras de salud (community health workers) are central to a public health model of care that addresses asthma in Southern California’s Latinx communities.” Drawing from environmental justice frameworks, Faiver-Serna critically analyzes the care-work of promotoras and “how it operates to (de)construct geographies of environmental racism.”

The Jane Grant Dissertation awardee receives an $18,000 stipend and UO student health insurance for the academic year. In addition, in partnership with the dean, the Graduate School provides tuition remission for the academic year.

CSWS has awarded the Jane Grant Fellowship to graduate students at the University of Oregon since 1983. This highly competitive dissertation award supports projects from a range of disciplines on topics related to women and gender. The award is open to eligible UO graduate students who are ABD and spend the award year writing their dissertation.

The following is a complete list of CSWS grant awardees and their projects:

Jane Grant Dissertation Fellowship:

• Cristina Faiver-Serna, Geography, for “Geographies of Environmental Racism and the M(other)work of Promotoras de Salud.”

Faculty Research Grants:

• Sangita Gopal, Associate Professor, Cinema Studies, “Mixed Media: A History of Women’s Filmmaking in India.”
• Helen Huang, Career Instructor, English, “‘Yes! We Have No Bananas’: Cultural Imaginings of the Banana in America, 1880-1945.”
• Theresa May, Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, Theater Arts, “WaterWays: Native Women’s Story Circle” (Mazie Giustina Fund for Women in the Northwest).
• Jennifer O’Neal, Acting Assistant Professor, Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies, “Beyond the Trail of Broken Treaties.”
• Jenifer Presto, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature, Director of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, “East Meets West: ‘Nina Fedorova’ and the Making of an Émigré Blockbuster” (Mazie Giustina Fund for Women in the Northwest).
• Judith Raiskin, Associate Professor, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, “Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project Website” (Mazie Giustina Fund for Women in the Northwest).
• Ellen Scott, Professor, Sociology, “Comprehensive Study of the Effects of Oregon’s Fair Scheduling Legislation” (Mazie Giustina Fund for Women in the Northwest).
• Arafaat A. Valiani, Associate Professor, Associate Department Head, Director of Undergraduate Studies, History, “Aspiring to Good Fortune: Chinese Mothers and the Biosocial Construction of Reproductive Care and Birth Tourism in the Pacific Northwest and California.”

Graduate Student Research Grants:

• Lara Boyero Agudo, Romance Languages, “Soy mujer, inmigrante y latina: An Intersectional Study of Linguistic Capital among Latina Women Immigrants in Oregon.”
• Polet Campos-Melchor, Anthropology, “El Noa Noa: Demystifying Love and Survival in Ciudad Juárez.”
• Nicholette DeRosia, Education, “Refugee Futures: Identity Based Motivation and the Unknowable.”
• Annalise Gardella, Anthropology, “Visibility, Risk, and Violence: Face-to-Face and Online Organizing among El Salvador’s LGBT Organizations.”
• Katherine M. Huber, English, “Re-mediating Ireland: The Nature of Modernization in 20^th Century Irish Culture.”
• Parichehr Kazemi, Political Science, “Reimagining social media images as sites of protest in authoritarian regimes: The case of #NoToCompulsoryHijab.”
• Molly McBride, Anthropology, “‘Raising our voices together’: Identity Politics in a Midwestern LGBTQ+ Chorus”
• Aidan Pang, English, “Hear Me Out: Remediating Bodies through Digital Voices.”

In addition, CSWS awarded $1,500 in Graduate Student Travel Grants for AY 2019-20. Travel grant awardees and their projects are as follows:

• Polet Campos-Melchor, Anthropology, “LGBTQ+ Migrants: Strategizing Survival and Love at the U.S.-Mexico Border” at the Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) conference in Washington, D.C.
• Nino Dgebuadze, International Studies and Nonprofit Management, the Oxford Consortium for Human Rights annual workshop on migration and forced displacement.
• Lola Loustaunau, Sociology, “Assessing the Initial Impacts of the First Statewide Fair Scheduling Law in Oregon” at the Advancing Equality at Work and at Home conference in New York.
• Carla Osorio-Veliz, Geography, “A Case Study of two Guatemalan Organizations Demanding Justice for 41 Girls” at the American Geographers Association Annual Meeting in Denver.
• Aiden Pang, English, “Three Minute Wo/men: Female masculinities on Japanese Music Television” at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Denver.

— by Jenée Wilde, CSWS Research Dissemination Specialist, Career Instructor of English