International & Global Studies Thesis Presentations

Cecilia Needham ’22.5, Global Security
Mira Vance ’22.5, Global Gender & Sexuality

Cecilia Needham ’22.5, Global Security
San Sante pa gen Lavi: An Ethnographic Analysis of State & NGO Healthcare Services in Centre, Haiti

San sante pa gen lavi – Haitan proverb meaning, “without health, there is no life.” Haiti is currently in the midst of a humanitarian crisis that has catastrophic effects on public health. There are many theories about how states, NGOs, and IGOs interact and influence these health outcomes, both in Haiti and internationally, but the perspective of the doctors and nurses who live and work in these systems is too often missing. Healthcare professionals at public and private hospitals and clinics in the Central Department shared their insight about the healthcare workforce, financing, and programs and their opinions about the MSPP and NGOs. This thesis contextualizes this ethnography with prominent NGO-state and global health theories to analyze how health outcomes are affected by these actors in the Central Department and provide recommendations for more effective yet appropriate policy and programs. It pushes against narratives of state failure or population helplessness by highlighting examples of MSPP capacity, Haitian self-determination, and overall cause for hope. This thesis serves as an urgent call to action for the international community to provide public health assistance that effectively addresses the crisis at hand while fostering collaboration, encouraging democracy, building capacity, and respecting Haitian human rights.

Mira Vance ’22.5, Global Gender & Sexuality
“The “Real Men” of China: Constructions of Masculinity Through Primary School Education for the Purposes of State in Contemporary China.”

In the past decade, culminating in official pronouncements in September 2020, the CCP, headed by Xi Jinping, has been rolling out policies designed to cultivate “real masculinity” and combat the “masculinity crisis” that is supposedly weakening China’s men and threatening the success of the nation. These policies have arisen from many overlapping, and often contradictory, motivations and cultural phenomena that have emerged from China’s unique history. As I will analyze, some of the motivations for these gender policies include increased militarism, fears for declining birthrate and the subsequent economic loss, and desires for control (particularly over younger generations). At the heart of China’s “masculinity crisis” and current gender education initiatives and policies is a nationalistic project and effort to create cultural and national unity. This thesis analyzes these efforts for gendered nationalism through primary school gender education textbooks published in 2016 and 2017 by Shanghai Educational Publishing House and interviews with college students with experiences of primary school education in China.