2016 Grant Recipients

2016-17 CLLAS Graduate Grant Awardees

• “The Price of Progress: Guatemala and the United States in the 1960s.” John Bedan, Department of History. This project seeks to examine how the Guatemalan state transformed during the Alliance for Progress era. The research will explain how the idealism of the Alliance for Progress gave way to the realities of Cold War confrontation in Guatemala.

• “Small Farmer’s and Indigenous People’s Adaptation to Oil-Related Infrastructure in the Amazon Rain Forest of Ecuador.” María Belén Noroña, Department of Geography. This project will evaluate economic and cultural changes taking place at the community level as people adapt their lives to oil-associated infrastructure. Specifically, Noroña will be working with the Kichwa people and rural farmers who have to adapt to the construction of roads and small towns in the rain forest within a very short period of time.

• “Navigating (Non-)Belonging: Lifeworlds of Long-Time Authorized and Unauthorized U.S. Residents Deported to Mexico.” Tobin Hansen, PhD candidate, Department of Anthropology. This project critically examines the effects of U.S. government deportation practices on deported, long-time U.S. residents, their families, and communities. This phase of the project examines how deportees navigate sociocultural and spatial geographies in their receiving communities.

2016-17 CLLAS Faculty Grant Project Summaries

• “Intersectional Gender Justice: From Guatemala to Oregon.” Erin Beck, Department of Political Science; and Lynn Stephen, Department of Anthropology. This is the first phase of a long-term collaborative project which explores Guatemalan women’s transborder experiences of violence and search for justice by examining women’s access to Guatemala’s femicide courts and to gendered asylum in Oregon. We are interested in how these two relatively new systems of gender justice affect women who attempt to engage with them, and how sharing women’s experiences might impact perceptions of, and policies related to, gendered violence, indigenous populations and transborder immigration.
• Project ACCESS. Krista Chronister, School of Education; and Project ACCESS. The purpose of Project ACCESS is to evaluate the effects of a work and vocational support group intervention (ACCESS; Advancing Career Counseling and Employment Support for Survivors; Chronister & McWhirter, 2006) with Latina survivors of partner violence. This pilot work is foundational to examining the implementation feasibility and cultural relevance of the ACCESS intervention. The project is possible because of a 10-year collaborative partnership sustained between the UO counseling psychology doctoral program, UO Career Information Systems, and Centro Latino Americano of Eugene.
• “Women’s Role in Afro-Indigenous Healing Traditions in the Caribbean and its Diasporas.” Ana-Maurine Lara, Department of Anthropology; and Alai Reyes-Santos, Department of Ethnic Studies. This is an interdisciplinary study examining Caribbean women’s roles in Afro-Indigenous healing traditions and how their healing work contributes to their empowerment in their communities. Research sites include the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the Pacific Northwest. Prof. Lara is an anthropology professor and ethnographer and Prof. Reyes-Santos is a professor of ethnic studies trained in literary and cultural studies. The study draws on their methodological areas of expertise to incorporate a) analysis of cultural narratives centering Caribbean women healers and b) ethnographic research among Caribbean women healers.