Possible Masters Thesis Topic

Katie D.

May 7, 2011 - 5:14 PM

It's hard to believe that it's already time to begin my next thesis. It was about this time last year that I was desperately wrapping up my undergraduate Honors thesis. I was writing drafts, practicing my Thesis Defense presentation, and working through the nightmare of editing and formatting. And yet here we are, already beginning preparations for another thesis.

The good news is that I am thrilled to be beginning again. I am thrilled to undertake this next stage of academic work, and to hopefully create a document worthy of my ongoing studies. I will be going an entirely new direction, and directing new research and writing in a new field.

For my Masters Thesis, I will be researching the deportation experience of Central Americans who have lived many years as undocumented workers in the United States.

During my latest trip with No More Deaths, I spoke with four individuals who had recently been deported from the United States. All had lived in the US for more than ten years, and all had families they had been torn away from. Each had at least one citizen child, and one child who was not a citizen of the United States.

Leaving aside the question of the enforcement of laws, as a researcher I am drawn to these personal narratives, and to the struggle for belonging and safety these individuals face. With ten years of "belonging" in the United States, where is their home? With children left behind, where are their families? With the dangers of the borderlands and the threat of future deportations, can they risk an attempt to return to their lives in the US? What happens to their children? If the deportee chooses to stay in their country of origin, do they send for their children? What of their children's citizenship? If the deportees choose to return to the United States, how do they make that decision, what are the risks, and how do they undertake the journey?

Belonging and identity are hugely significant in peace and conflict studies. Our human needs for both the physical safety are accompanied by profound needs to be part of a psychological whole which encompasses both collective belonging and individual identity and agency. In countries rife with poverty and violence, many people choose to migrate. What, then, happens to their identities? In this increasingly globalized world, national boundaries no longer divide ideas and cultural expressions. Goods, cultural expression, interpersonal relationships, and ideas move freely through the global technologies that keep us together. For some, (like myself, for example) physical freedom of movement is also greater now than ever in history. For others, such as many citizens of Central America, the decision to migrate is one fraught with danger and constrained by questions of legality.

For my Masters Thesis, I would like to conduct qualitative interview research with deportees. In the international conflicts of structural violence and inequalities which trap some members of our human species in dangerous and desperate immobility, what does it mean to live as a migrant? More specifically, what does it mean when migration ends in deportation?

My hope is to explore some of the specific experiences of the individuals caught up in conflicts of personal and national goals. I also hope to explore the needs of these migrants and deportees. Structural violence are the aspects of society which oppress some individuals or groups, creating inequalities and trapping persons in poverty, disenfranchisement, and low-level violence. Because structural violence is not visible in the same way as direct violence, it is often much more difficult to identify and resolve. I hope to give voices to those suffering from structural violence within migration and deportation, through personal narratives of agency and identity. And, perhaps, to discover ways that practitioners of Conflict Resolution might intervene to create spaces of safety and an end to the structures of violence.