Sociology and Legal Studieshttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/98962024-03-29T12:24:43Z2024-03-29T12:24:43ZAn Analysis of How Community Organizations Support Abused Chinese Immigrant Women in the Canadian ContextNiu, Mengyaohttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/202762024-01-24T03:31:13Z2024-01-23T00:00:00ZAn Analysis of How Community Organizations Support Abused Chinese Immigrant Women in the Canadian Context
Niu, Mengyao
This thesis explores the assistance provided by community organizations in the Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, and Vancouver regions to Chinese immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence. Guided by postcolonial feminist insights and through interviews with community service providers, this study examines how the service providers define the needs of these women. In addition, it explores how they act with cultural sensitivity and acknowledge the distinct experiences of racialized immigrant women, while challenging orientalist narratives about ‘minority cultures’ causing domestic violence. My findings reveal the complexity and contradiction in how service providers conceptualize and respond to the women’s needs. Specifically, they blame ‘Chinese culture’ and the ‘women’s foreignness’ for their victimization and reluctance to seek support. They strive to inculcate a ‘non-culturalized’ way of thinking, despite knowing the multidimensional barriers and complex immigrant reality that shape the women’s actions. At the same time, this understanding encourages them to offer additional support, addressing the women’s immigrant- and cultural-specific needs. While doing so, they strategize to reduce the impact of structural constraints on women with limited resources. Their objective is to mitigate the system’s harm and women’s vulnerabilities. However, their understanding of ‘immigrant realities’ is not always accurate. This inadequacy is reflected by their assumption that financial empowerment approaches would also help immigrants. By analyzing the logic of these support services and what they entail, this study reveals a grassroots anti-violence approach that is culturally sensitive and informed by understandings of immigrant women’s distinct experiences, even though this approach can prove insufficient. At the same time, my findings indicate that the practices of anti-violence workers are both informed by and reproduce orientalist, hegemonic assumptions about abused immigrant women.
2024-01-23T00:00:00ZDoing Transparent and Reproducible Quantitative SociologyBrowne, Piersonhttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/202182024-01-09T03:30:17Z2024-01-08T00:00:00ZDoing Transparent and Reproducible Quantitative Sociology
Browne, Pierson
The ongoing replication crisis (Baker 2016; Gelman and Loken 2016; Freese and Peterson 2017; Wiggins and
Christopherson 2019; Bird 2020; Colling and Szűcs 2021) has laid bare quantitative sociology’s need for better standards of transparency and reproducibility in all published research. This dissertation’s core contribution is the proposal and articulation of a ‘foundational cycle’ of three interrelated methodological practices: Causal Inference (Rubin 1974; Pearl 2009b, 2009a; Pearl, Glymour, and Jewell 2016), Principled Data Processing (Ball 2016a, 2016b; Barrett 2022), and Bayesian Inference (Bayes 1763; Jaynes 2003). By enshrining the principles and practices of the ‘foundational cycle,’ researchers ensure that transparency and reproducibility is woven into each critical juncture of the research project – this permits other researchers to comprehend and reconstruct all aspects contributing to the published findings.
The first of the dissertation’s four substantive chapters contributes an account of the development of causal inference with a particular focus on the role the ‘graphical’ paradigm played in motivating the development (and, later, dismantling) of causal methods in quantitative sociology. It also provides a brief description of Judea Pearl’s theory of inferred causation (Pearl 2009b) and argues that quantitative sociology should adopt it as the baseline model for the purposes of causal transparency and reproducibility.
The second substantive chapter – which builds directly on that of the first – addresses a gap in extant sociological literature about the prevalence of explicit causal methodology in the field. This chapter contributes a review of the causal methods employed in the quantitative articles published in ‘top’ sociological journals in the year 2022 (see: Jacobs 2016). The review, which examined 283 quantitative sociological articles (out of a total 574 in the review’s corpus), found that – as judged by the criteria articulated in Pearl (2009b) – only 5 among them were ‘causally adequate.’
The third substantive chapter’s contribution takes the form of a software-based implementation of Patrick Ball’s Principled Data Processing framework (Ball 2016b, 2016a), which is designed to permit the development and maintenance of transparent, reproducible data processing pipelines, even in the context of large, distributed, collaborative, and technically-complex research efforts. The software package, titled pdpp (Browne et al. 2021), is an accessibility-oriented iteration on Ball’s original framework.
The fourth and final substantive chapter makes two contributions: the first is the development and articulation of
an ‘ameliorative’ class of argumentation designed to address gaps in Gelman’s typology of arguments in favour of
Bayesian inference (Gelman 2008) – extant modes of argumentation focus on ‘winning’ the debate between Frequentism and Bayesianism, whereas ‘ameliorative’ arguments seek to address Frequentists’ concerns and trepidations about the Bayesian paradigm or the transition thereto. The second contribution is an ameliorative argument reified as a software package titled pyKrusch (Browne 2021), which automates the creation of – and builds upon the functionality of – John Kruschke’s Bayesian dependency structure diagrams (Kruschke 2014).
2024-01-08T00:00:00ZExploring the Care-Control Nexus Through Police Monitoring of Vulnerable Groups: A Case Study of Project LifesaverShore, Krystlehttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/201592023-12-14T03:31:02Z2023-12-13T00:00:00ZExploring the Care-Control Nexus Through Police Monitoring of Vulnerable Groups: A Case Study of Project Lifesaver
Shore, Krystle
Contemporary surveillance practices increasingly pursue the dual objectives of ‘care’ and ‘control.’ For instance, governments increasingly deploy surveillance to protect the health and welfare of those being monitored, though such practices tend to be coercive and prioritize implicit agendas. Thus, it is important to scrutinize emerging forms of ‘protective’ surveillance. This dissertation conducts a qualitative case study of ‘Project Lifesaver,’ a police surveillance program that involves equipping people with cognitive differences who wander (e.g., people who have dementia) with electronic monitoring bracelets so that first responders can track them if they become lost. This work explores how Project Lifesaver is designed, rationalized, and used, and the implications of this surveillance for individuals and society. Using an abductive approach, this study mobilizes Foucauldian theory to illustrate how surveillance logics are (re)shaping social practices. To achieve these aims, this study encompasses content and thematic analyses of a variety of data sources including Project Lifesaver marketing material, observations from international Project Lifesaver events, interviews with caregivers and first responders, and police documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests. Project Lifesaver is rationalized through constructions of ‘risk’ as a necessary protective measure for people who wander and, even more so, as a source of ‘peace of mind’ for their caregivers. Yet, in practice, the program operates primarily as a form of social control, undermining the autonomy and personhood of people with cognitive differences and placing the responsibility of managing their behaviour squarely on their caregivers. Notably, the program seems inherently aligned with police perspectives, treating both wandering behaviour and caregiver program compliance as matters of public security. Moreover, Project Lifesaver appears tailored to suit a distinct policing agenda that is largely unrelated to the protection of vulnerable populations, serving instead as a tool for reducing police operational costs and improving their public legitimacy. These findings prompt reflection on the tensions inherent to how protective state surveillance is framed and how it operates, and the interests prioritized when support for vulnerable groups is entrusted to the police. The state’s expanded use of electronic monitoring, from a punitive security mechanism to a form of population protection, transcends mere repurposing of carceral technology; it signifies the infiltration of carceral logic into the state’s provision of support for those in need. In the context of Project Lifesaver, this manifests in a coercive care practice that objectifies people with cognitive differences and deputizes their caregivers as agents of social control. Simultaneously, it extends the reach of an increasingly militarized and self-serving police apparatus into public health and welfare domains. These outcomes, however, are obscured by the ‘caring’ elements of the surveillance, which position it as in the best interests of all who engage with it. Thus, this study provides an empirical example of how, through protective police surveillance, population care and control not only coexist but collapse into one another.
2023-12-13T00:00:00ZVictim Services’ Implementation of Mobile Tracking Systems for Victims of High-Risk Gender-Based Violence Cases in OntarioBuehlow, Emilyhttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/196202023-07-20T02:31:12Z2023-07-19T00:00:00ZVictim Services’ Implementation of Mobile Tracking Systems for Victims of High-Risk Gender-Based Violence Cases in Ontario
Buehlow, Emily
Since 2012, Ontario Victim Services providers have been a leading force in implementing Mobile Tracking Systems, a technological device some victim advocates and law enforcement officials believe will reduce risks in gender-based violence cases. The Mobile Tracking System resembles a small pager-like device that clients carry at all times. When activated in a high-risk gender-based violence emergency, the device aims to facilitate timely law enforcement assistance by emitting a GPS tracking signal and alerting first responders to a ‘Priority 1’ call. Mobile Tracking Systems have undergone a rapid increase in attention by the media, government, service providers, and wider public as the devices are perceived to be a safety-enabling technology for gender-based violence cases. Mounting calls to fund such technologies have emerged in light of pandemic safety measures and during a 2022 Coroner’s Inquest held to investigate a triple femicide in Renfrew County, Ontario. In this Inquest, the Jury recommended that Mobile Tracking System technologies be funded by the Government of Ontario, while recently in Quebec, 41 million dollars was invested into GPS tracking technologies for gender-based violence cases. Despite gaining substantial traction in public and media discourse, Mobile Tracking Systems have been underrepresented in scholarly literature. To respond to this gap, this thesis employs qualitative methods to examine Mobile Tracking Systems in the context of gender-based violence cases in Ontario. In particular, through the examination of 91 textual documents and 10 semi-structured interviews with service providers involved in case referral and the administration of Mobile Tracking Systems, this study traces the history, development, and use of Mobile Tracking System devices in the context of gender-based violence cases in Ontario, and investigates the impact of panic button alarms on criminal justice responses to gender-based violence. To examine Mobile Tracking Systems, this thesis draws on relevant theoretical frameworks in the fields of Science and Technology Studies and critical perspectives on law and criminal justice. By tracing the development of panic button alarms to their current use in Ontario, this thesis reveals a shift toward pro-carceral safety measures that embrace technology as a perceived tool to reduce gender-based violence. As this thesis details, approaching safety work in this manner not only reflects, but also perpetuates particular assumptions about victims that pressure them to align their behaviour with the goals of the criminal legal system. The thesis argues that designing and administering a technological tool for victims of gender-based violence that centers the criminal legal system has direct impacts on victims when seeking support. The findings of this project have implications for Ontario Victim Services providers, police services in Ontario, and other agencies that support victims of gender-based violence cases, as they draw attention to how the implementation of panic button alarms as a perceived safety-enabling technology directly impact victims accessing support services for gender-based violence cases. Finally, the study’s findings can inform policy and practice related to the GPS tracking
technologies in the context of mounting calls to fund panic button alarm technologies in Ontario.
2023-07-19T00:00:00Z