Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item SAFE SPACE: Architectural Sequence as a Healing Experience(2018) Babu, Lonna; Noonan, Peter; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Human trafficking is the second largest crime in the world with an estimated 4.5 million people trapped in forced sexual exploitation today. The goal of this thesis is to explore a new paradigm for the design a trauma rehabilitation shelter for victims of sex trafficking. It aims to further develop the relationship between the built environment and the healing process for trauma-specific victims, to design space as a part of the recovery and not just a place for it. As victims of a sexual crime, this thesis also explores a way to de-stigmatize girls from others and themselves by using site-specific advantages to foster interaction between girls and the public. From understanding the victim experience and how victims react to their surroundings this thesis aims to design for survivors by re-orienting their trauma experience into a “new normal.”Item THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RUSSIAN COUNTER-TRAFFICKING MOVEMENT: THE ANGEL COALITION AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ON CIVIL SOCIETY, FEMINISM, AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING(2014) Shupiko, Denise; Moses, Claire G.; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In recent decades, transnational advocacy networks (TANs) for women's rights have become major players in the international arena, but have also struggled to maintain egalitarian and democratic practices within their ranks, as members from different world regions attempt to have their voices heard. In this dissertation, I question what strategies TANs can employ to more effectively and democratically push states for change on important social issues. To address this question, I carry out a case study of the development of the Russian movement against human trafficking from 1998 to 2008, with particular focus on the organization that served as leader of this movement, the Angel Coalition. To better understand the global forces that gave rise to this development, I examine two transnational movements that collided in Russia in the late 1990s: the contemporary transnational movement against human trafficking, and the movement by the United States and other Western governments to promote the growth of civil societies in developing and post-socialist countries as part of democracy aid programs. This dissertation contributes to transnational civil society theory and transnational feminist theory. The Angel Coalition, an organization run by activists from Russia, other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and Western countries, and which received the majority of its funding from Western governments and foundations, overcame obstacles both to organizing across cultural and power differences and to influencing policy of the Russian Federation, a state known to reject the influence of foreign governments and foreign-funded civil society. I argue that two factors were especially important to the success of the Angel Coalition, as part of a transnational counter-trafficking network, in pushing the Russian state to take action against human trafficking: 1) counter-trafficking activists demonstrated a practiced understanding of the political environment of Russia; and 2) activists effectively communicated to the state how it would benefit from collaboration with civil society. Finally, I argue that organizational practices of the Angel Coalition, as a multinational NGO, facilitated its ability to implement these strategies. Most importantly, activists utilized their differences as resources and expressed respect for the unique contributions of all members of the coalition.Item Human Trafficking on the International and Domestic Agendas: Examining the Role of Transnational Advocacy Networks Between Thailand and United States(2008-05-23) Bertone, Andrea Marie; Schreurs, Miranda; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Thai activists, nonstate organizations, and transnational networks have been involved in trying to influence the Thai and international anti-trafficking agendas through their involvement with transnational and domestic advocacy networks since the early 1980s. Despite significant activism against human trafficking and related issues in Thailand throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. government and the broader international community did not seriously begin paying attention to human trafficking until the late 1990s. It was not until 2000 that both the U.S. government and the United Nations developed significant anti-trafficking policies. Why did it take until 2000 for the international community, including the U.S. government and many U.S.-based nonstate actors, to put the issue of trafficking on their political agendas, despite the fact that Thai-based nonstate actors and other Asian activists had been advocating for a response for nearly two decades? When the U.S. and the international community did finally put this issue on their agendas, how did Thai-based nonstate actors respond to international and U.S. styles of agenda-setting in Thailand? The issue of human trafficking has been put on the national political agendas in both the United States and Thailand; however, the issue took very different paths on its way to the agenda in each country. In the case of Thailand, we can find Thai activists working on related issues since the early 1980s, connecting and networking domestically and transnationally to advocate for a governmental response to complex international problems. In the case of the United States, an unlikely coalition of conservatives and feminist abolitionists has clashed with human rights organizations with regard to framing and defining human trafficking. One argument of this dissertation is that the emergence and operation of domestic and transnational advocacy networks have been instrumental in framing human trafficking in such a way to keep the issue on the national political agendas of the United States and Thailand. The primary drivers of the transnational advocacy networks are nonstate actors, and they have played key roles in spotlighting this issue, networking with one another, and interacting with governments in creative ways to address human trafficking.