URC – Halle Global Research

David Civitello, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, BIOLOGY

Peter Little, MD

PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, ANTHROPOLOGY

Linking Movement Patterns of Ranging Livestock Herds in Mwanza, Tanzania to Transmission Potential of Human Schistosomes

Schistosomiasis is an infectious disease caused by parasitic, waterborne worms that infect 150 million people. Despite the availability of treatment, communities experience high reinfection rates due to dependence on schistosome-infested waterbodies. Before infecting humans, schistosomes must first infect snails, with snails in nutrient-rich environments releasing more schistosomes, thereby increasing infection risk. In East Africa, a significant source of waterbody nutrient load comes from ranging herds of livestock that excrete nutrient-rich manure into waterbodies, with higher snail infection prevalences and greater per snail schistosome release rates observed in waterbodies visited by livestock. Despite livestock manure acting as a potential nutrient driver, herd movements are poorly understood, as are the socioecological factors governing herd movement, significantly limiting understanding on the spatial and temporal patterns of manure deposition into the landscape. We propose an interdisciplinary mixed-method approach to investigate landscape-level impacts of livestock manure on schistosomiasis. First, we will characterize herd movement patterns around Mwanza, Tanzania using GPS tracking collars (AIM 1). We will then conduct qualitative interviews to expound upon social norms and regulations governing herd movement (AIM 2). Finally, we will incorporate these data into an agent-based model to simulate landscape-level transmission dynamics while tracking snails, humans, and livestock and test how different livestock management decisions could alter transmission risk (AIM 3). This interdisciplinary project will improve our understanding of the socioecological mechanisms governing schistosomiasis in East Africa, engage Emory faculty in addressing novel questions to expand expertise, and transcend boundaries between social and ecological sciences to pursue societally impactful research. 

Erica Kanesaka, PhD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, ENGLISH

Tender Objects: Cute Culture and Infantile Fantasies of Asian America

This book project positions the contemporary fetishization of Japanese kawaii (“cute”) culture in longer histories of American racism and the alignment of Asian Americans with cute objects. Drawing on archival research in late nineteenth and early twentieth century children’s literature and material culture, the project illustrates how seemingly innocent objects such as picture books, dolls, and teddy bears have underpinned notions of Asian cuteness, associating Asian people with toys and children in the American imagination in ways that have disguised racial, sexual, and imperial violence as forms of love and care. In tracing the transpacific circulation of children’s books and toys between Japan and the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present day, this project exposes the importance of childhood’s lost objects—items that were quite literally “loved to pieces” before being discarded—to how we understand Japanophilia and its longstanding relationship with the gendered racialization of Asian Americans.

While most of the research on kawaii has focused on the context of postwar Japan, this book will be the first to place kawaii in a larger historical and transnational frame and to focus explicitly on how kawaii’s globalization has shaped Asian American culture and politics. A URC grant will support the completion of this book project through a course release and travel funding.

Jinyu Liu, PhD

PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, HISTORY

Outsiders in Town: Mobility, Exclusion, and Negotiation in the Roman West  (First – Third Centuries CE)

The proposed book project investigates the less favorable aspects of the experiences of (im)migrants in the early Roman Empire, challenging the overly optimistic views prevalent in contemporary scholarship concerning the interaction between (im)migrants and the local populace in the Roman world. In particular, I focus on six areas of inquiry: 1. the (im)migrants’ limited access to local benefits; 2. ethnic profiling; 3. various forms of exclusion in the occupational sphere; 4. marriage options; 5. spatial experiences of the (im)migrants; 6. (im)migrants and their religious practices. This project serves as a necessary corrective to the existing disproportionate emphasis on integration and connectivity within the ancient world. By centering on individual identities and the challenges encountered by individuals who moved around or permanently relocated within the Roman Empire, my research highlights the tangible and intangible costs associated with navigating rights, obligations, and necessities in their new environments. It is certainly not my intention to negate the importance of integration or to dismiss migration as a catalyst for change, nor to discount the agency of (im)migrants. However, it is essential to emphasize that the process of integration was neither straightforward nor universally positive. Structural barriers and exclusionary phenomena complicated integration efforts, resulting in inclusion through exclusion in certain instances. Ultimately, by examining the structural barriers that elevated negotiation costs for immigrants from diverse backgrounds in the Roman Empire, my research contributes to a broader dialogue regarding whether empires generally manage ethnic diversity more effectively than nation-states, presenting counterarguments to this notion.

Alonso Llosa, MFA

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, FILM AND MEDIA

Lagarto, a narrative short film

Lagarto is a narrative short film that follows a woman’s search for her deceased father’s body in an abandoned mining camp in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. The film explores the theme of abandonment from dual perspectives: the personal abandonment experienced by a child from a parent, and the environmental abandonment inflicted by those entrusted with its care. The film will be shot entirely in the outskirts of the city of Puerto Maldonado in Peru and the majority of the crew will be Peruvian. The completed project will serve both as a standalone short film and as a proof of concept for Discoman: The Voice of the Jungle, a narrative feature film with a runtime of 90 minutes. Presenting the film at international film festivals will serve as significant accolades for both myself and Emory University's Film and Media department. More importantly, however, will be the opportunity to expose audiences to the increasingly deteriorating conditions of the Amazon rainforest.

Malinda Lowery, PhD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, HISTORY

Black, Native, and Southern Foodways

Black, Native, and Southern Foodways is a documentary film project focusing on Black and Indigenous foodways in the U.S. southeast. My proposal to the URC funds the second phase of the project, which includes post-production and additional travel for a 30-minute documentary film suitable for screenings in cultural centers, schools, and community institutions, as well as film festivals. Through historical and ethnobotanical research with Black and Native North Carolinians, this film seeks to answer an urgent question for the health and welfare of these communities and the land they steward: what will it take to re-Indigenize southern food and the food system? The film demonstrates how Black and Native people in the American southeast are reconnecting to one another after centuries of forced separation; how farmers, chefs, and herbalists are reclaiming their food traditions and restoring ecosystems with heirloom ingredients; how they are taking charge of the southern food story; and how they are advocating to change a food system which has brought disastrous health outcomes to people and their environments. Using ingredients created in the Americas and those that migrated here from around the world, the film shows these traditionally marginalized communities taking center stage to navigate identity, memory, and belonging in a Southern landscape shaped by colonization and displacement.

Sarah Rodriguez, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, RUSSIAN AND EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

Growing Old: A History of Aging in Global China

By 2050, over one-third of China’s population will be at least 60 years old and retired. Yet state efforts to meet the needs of the swelling senior population have not kept pace with demand for eldercare. Since the late 1970s, the rollback of the collective-era social safety net, uneven economic development, and limited healthcare have compounded the challenges senior citizens face. My proposed monograph, “Growing Old: A History of Aging in Global China,” investigates how these shifts have shaped experiences with aging in three Chinese locales with differing social welfare policies and levels of economic development: Shanghai, Chengdu, and Shenyang. Drawing on archival research and interviews with 100 urban and rural retirees, this research considers when old age begins and how gender, ethnicity, and class have influenced the timeline of aging since the 1949 Communist revolution. “Growing Old” also explores how different models for addressing eldercare—the traditional multigenerational household, the Soviet socialist approach, and the privatized American model—have historically informed China’s approach to this issue. Additionally, this research connects Mainland and overseas Chinese diaspora experiences with aging. Focusing on nursing homes for Chinese immigrants in New York City, “Growing Old” compares eldercare in the People’s Republic and the US. This project not only provides a historical framework for interpreting China’s contemporary demographic challenges, but it also positions these findings within global trends.

Holli Semetko, PhD

PROFESSOR, EMORY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, POLITICAL SCIENCE

A Cross-National Comparative Study of the Drivers and Consequences of Affective Polarization in Mexico and India

The growing problem of affective political polarization in the U.S. is the focus of a substantial body of research but less is known about its prevalence in non-western multiparty contexts. To address this gap, we compare the drivers and consequences of affective political polarization in Mexico and India. We address a number of hypotheses framed as questions here: What are the drivers and consequences of affective polarization? Are more frequent and politically attentive users of social and traditional media more likely to be affective partisans than partisans or others including first-time voters? Are affective partisans stronger party supporters than partisans? Do affectively polarized partisans in winner and loser camps display more or less trust in government leaders? Do they display more extreme emotions? This cross-national comparative study will make important and novel contributions to the concept and measurement of negative partisan affect and the prevalence of affectively polarized partisans in two large understudied countries in the global south. Measuring attention to political news, media use, and more, the study models influences on vote choice among affectively polarized partisans as distinct from partisans for each party controlling for demographics. We also model influences on trust and emotional reactions among affective partisans, partisans, and others in winner and loser groups. Results will be published in academic journals and reported in news articles by the authors in both countries along with policy recommendations. Results will be the basis for external grant proposals to extend this research to a larger number of countries.