Cinema and cultural memory in the Bahamas in the 1950s

Abstract This thesis is a cultural, social and historical research of cinemagoing and the memory of cinema audiences in the city of Nassau, Bahamas in the 1950s. Drawing from the methodological toolkits of New Cinema History and Memory Studies, the research situates oral history narratives within the broader contexts and underlying structures of cinemagoing as a social activity in a particular place and time. It is an exploration of everyday life in this small British colony through the recollections of persons who would have been young adults during the 1950s, at a time when the Bahamas was going through a period of social and political challenges to the status quo in this post war era. This history of the cultural effect of cinemagoing is revealed through the locations of cinemas and cinema space; the positioning of cinemagoing in the leisure activities of the Bahamian youth during that epoch; the influence of racial divides; and the impact and significance of the remembered film texts. The thesis offers a history of the cinema trade in an island nation, documenting the city’s main commercial cinemas, as well as their management and film supply structures. It then aims to understand how the cinemas worked as places within the city, and how they fit into the population’s leisure practices. This investigation reveals the profound effect of race relations on the distribution and exhibition of films and the practice of cinemagoing during this selected decade. It offers an audience perspective on segregated and mixed cinema spaces, as well as on the different experiences of the city according to gendered and racial divisions. This thesis thus provides not only cinema history for the designated time period, but it also contributes to the social and cultural history of The Bahamas. Accordingly, it is a memory study that reveals how race, space, location and leisure choice evolved around the memory of cinemagoing in the 1950s in Nassau, Bahamas and the contribution of those remembered experiences to the development of their future lives and the evolved history of a nation

IPV at the Margins: Conceptualizing Gaps in the Survivor Safety Net for Lower-Income Black Women

This paper evaluates U.S. social and criminal justice policies in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV) against lower-income Black women in the U.S. Theories from the literature on IPV and gender-based violence (GBV) at-large, as well as the literature on inequity, are utilized to examine how entrenched racist, sexist, and classist ideas influence policymaking. It is argued that this process has resulted in policies that reinforce the higher rates of IPV against lower-income Black women as compared to their upper-income white peers. Two overarching research questions are addressed to support this argument. First, how have pejorative stereotypes against Black women shaped U.S. social and criminal justice policymaking in relation to IPV? Secondly, what is the relationship between biased policy frameworks and IPV victimization among lower-income Black women? A heuristic, the contextual-targeted policy continuum, is developed to connect relevant state characteristics to different “policy environments” for IPV, as conceptualized in this paper. Four states are selected for their similarities and differences across these characteristics: Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota, and New York. Case study analyses focus on warrantless arrest laws and TANF programs in these states. Through these analyses, it is argued that states with larger and more concentrated Black populations generally adopt policies that directly address IPV rather than its risk factors—particularly those among lower-income Black women

Public Service, Leaders and Transformation in the Non-Western Context: The Case of Jamaica

In developing states, public service transformation is considered a critical contributor to economic prosperity and meeting the constantly changing needs of all citizens. Post-independent developing economies like Jamaica have undertaken a series of public administration strategies driven almost exclusively by Western philosophies such as New Public Management. This is especially the case for post-colonial developing states, of which Jamaica is one of many. With several of those strategies, the anticipated gains have not been fully realised and progress has been limited. There is limited evidence about why this is the case, especially from the unique vantage point of public administration actors.Through a qualitative case study, eliciting primary data from elite interviews with 18 senior leader stakeholders within public service transformation in Jamaica, this study found that several external and internal factors act as barriers to progress and effective senior leader practice. Elite senior stakeholders included public service internal stakeholders with direct political power (senior governmental ministers for example and those to whom they report) and external stakeholders (those with direct political influence like Permanent Secretaries as an example). Through the lens of constructivism and analysis of data using a thematic approach, the research reveals the imprint of post-colonial public administration based upon the Westminster model that put bureaucracy and administrative expediency at its heart. The imprint delivers structures that are dominant in rigidity, codified rules and regulations that cannotaddress fundamental problems because they ignore deep cultural country norms evolved over time through country history and because of its size as a Small Island Developing State (SIDS). These same factors also influence the internal environment generating competing expectations of the leader actions and behaviour. These alongside low levels of psychological safety and trust serve to stifle critical leader behaviour that contributes to organisational success; that of leaders as agents of innovation and change. These factors typically remain unrecognised within transformation efforts. These findings help us to understand that a deeply nuanced approach to public administration reform is required in developing economies. Such an approach should be explicitly cognisant of the whole context of the society in question including its history, cultural norms and traditions, and internal organisational climate. These aspects need to be critically prioritised because of the need for internal high-level trust to create the conditions for effective leader practice to take place and be maximised for successful contextually aligned transformation that meets the needs of all citizens

Someone who looks like me

2005 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Thematically, my paintings reflect the life long struggle of coming to terms with self-identity. The process of creating art enables me to navigate the complexities of identity while examining the connection this has to our emotional behavior. I use the figure as a tool to explore the space between self-actualization and self-presentation. Dualities, their balance and imbalance, make up the majority of the questions I address in my work. The primary examples are self/other, emotional/corporeal, private/public, sameness/difference, and reality/performance. I'm interested in challenging societal conditioning which teaches to disguise homosexuality and emotional expression, and question how this conflict constructs our self-identity and self-worth. My emotive response to these issues is the driving force behind my work. This thesis is a visual journey through the obscurity of existence, a search for a sense of recognition within oneself

Critical Thinking Skills and Academic Maturity: Emerging Results from a Five-Year Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) Study

The QEP that was implemented in this study focused on enhancing students’ critical thinking skills. A pretest/ posttest approach was used to assess students’ critical thinking progress in freshman level core English and Math courses. An intervention was performed involving intensive instruction and assignments relating to a set of reasoning strategies such as: analytical, analogical, inductive, deductive, and comparative reasoning, among others. When students performed well on assignments by applying the reasoning strategies, it was assumed that critical thinking occurred. However, pre/ posttest results in these classes were often disappointing, and seemed at times to suggest that freshmen are not very good critical thinkers. Whereas, when another critical thinking national assessment,the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) Exam was given during the sophomore to junior year, students performed very well. Thus, the hypothesis that critical thinking skills may be impacted by academic maturity began to emerge

The Value of Strong Partnerships to Build a Successful Aviation Maintenance Career Pathway Program for Transitioning Military Service Members

The aerospace industry is competing with other industries for a qualified workforce, and many of those competing industries are investing heavily in creating workforce development pipelines. Boeing (2021) forecasts that 626,000 new aviation maintenance technicians will be needed over the next 20 years. If the aerospace industry is unable to recruit the skilled workforce they require, it could have a ripple effect felt globally. Career pathway programs are emerging as essential to inspiring and recruiting the next generation of aviation professionals. How can industry, academia and government work together to find more innovative ways to address the growing need for qualified aviation maintenance professionals? Annually an estimated 200,000 U.S. service members will leave the military. Through the Department of Defense (DoD) SkillBridge program, service members within 180 days of exiting the service are eligible to participate in approved programs. A number of companies have partnered with academia to create innovative training programs for transitioning service members. These industry-academia-government partnership models provide parallel pathways compared to the more traditional educational model of requiring degree completion prior to joining the civilian workforce. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University built a 9-week, full-time Aviation Maintenance SkillBridge program designed to train and place transitioning service members, veterans and military spouses into aviation maintenance and technician careers with reputable aerospace industry partners, such as AAR Corp. The program is delivered virtually and on six U.S. military installations. This presentation will outline the collective efforts needed to build a successful military transition program to support the aviation maintenance industry. Reference Boeing. (2021). Pilot & Technician Outlook 2021 - 2040. Retrieved 14 Dec 2021 from: https://www.boeing.com/commercial/market/pilot-technician-outlook

Writing knowledge, forging histories: metallurgical recipes, artisan-authors and institutional cultures in early modern London

This article explores a succession of goldsmiths’ recipe books or books of secrets, which emerged from the early modern Royal Mint and Goldsmiths’ Company. It argues that in their rich descriptions of metallurgical workshop practices, techniques and tools, these artisan-authors also narrated contested institutional histories and their own life experiences. For London’s assayers (who had responsibility to test the precious metal content of bullion, plate and coin), authorship functioned as a status-enhancing activity. Writing treatises was a means of articulating expertise and of rooting that skilled identity beyond the self, within a much longer trajectory of institutional production and regulation

Crafting Artisanal Identities in Early Modern London: The Spatial, Material and Social Practices of Guild Communities c.1560-1640

In recent decades, scholars have begun to substantially reassess the economic and political significance of the craft guilds of sixteenth and seventeenth century London. Revisionist work by economic historians (Epstein and Prak, 2008), has convincingly overturned the notion that guilds were unanimously restrictive of commercial growth, opposed to innovative practices and exploitative of their members. Several political and social studies (Rappaport, 1989; Archer, 1991; Gadd and Wallis, 2002) have demonstrated the dynamic and philanthropic nature of these corporate bodies, which provided avenues for occupational mobility and charitable support; ensuring that London remained stable despite the extraordinary demographic, financial and social pressures of the final decades of the sixteenth century. The longstanding interpretation of ‘guild decline’ in the early modern era has thus been widely problematized and shown to be anachronistic. This thesis proposes a new methodology for examining the craft guilds of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century London, and suggests that the established scholarship has overlooked the significance of artisanal knowledge, skills and identities in the construction of meaningful communities of workshop practitioners, small-scale merchants, and the regulators of the crafts and trades. In this study, the built environments and material artefacts associated with London guilds are considered as active cultural and social agents (Appadurai; Kopytoff, 1986) which both reflected, and in turn reinforced identity formation, and the ritual and political boundaries of communal life. The changing structure of livery halls, their internal configurations and external designs, and the material furnishings and collections gifted, displayed and utilised within these institutional homes, are shown to be essential means through which guildsmen established competing claims for civic authority and professional artisanal accomplishment. Using textual, visual and material evidence from a range of London craft guilds - primarily, but not exclusively, the Goldsmiths’, Armourers’, Carpenters’ and Pewterers’ Companies - this work examines the physical and epistemological place of artisanal cultures, c.1560-1640. It considers the collaborative processes through which workmanship was evaluated by master craftsmen on early modern building sites, and the political and social value of such artisanal skills, techniques and knowledge within their associated livery halls. It is demonstrated that through the donation of visual and material artefacts to company buildings, and their subsequent use in the convivial, political and religious rites of the guilds, craftsmen were able to shape their reputations and post-mortem legacies. Their material gifts and bequests reveal that guild halls were simultaneously sites of memorisation (Archer, 2001), sociability, craft regulation and artisanal innovation. Within communities of living guildsmen, freemen wished to be remembered as affluent civic philanthropists, guardians of illustrious histories and, crucially, as masters of their respective artisanal practices. The changing spatial and material environments of guild halls are shown to be social products of complex organisations, which honoured both commensality and hierarchy; fraternal values and political and epistemological distinctions. The rebuilding projects of the London livery halls are considered in juxtaposition to the strained spatial and political relationships between guild halls and city workshops, and contemporary efforts to uphold the authority of liverymen to inspect artisanal standards and material quality within the wider urban environment

Does preoperative axillary staging lead to overtreatment of women with screen detected breast cancer?

Aim To determine the impact of pre-operative axillary ultrasound staging in a screen detected breast cancer population Materials and Method Ultrasound and needle biopsy staging results alongside reference standard sentinel lymph node biopsy and axillary lymph node dissection were retrospectively extracted from the unit's computer records between 01/04/2008 and 31/03/2015. Axillary staging was compared with final pathology and treatment. Results Of the 215,661 screening examinations performed, 780 invasive cancers were diagnosed which had pre-operative axillary staging data, of which 162 (20.7%) were node positive. 36 (4.6%) had a heavy nodal burden (3 or more nodes). 90 (11.5%) had an abnormal axillary ultrasound and axillary biopsy of which 54 were positive for cancer (33.3% of the node positive cases) and triaged to axillary lymph node dissection avoiding a sentinel lymph node biopsy. Of these 22 (40.7%) had neoadjuvant treatment, and 32 (59.3%) proceeded directly to axillary lymph node dissection. The sensitivity of axillary ultrasound and biopsy to detect women with aheavy nodal burden (3 or more nodes) was 41.7% (15 of 36). However, 17 (53%) of the 32 women with a positive axillary biopsy had a low burden of axillary disease (≤2 positive nodes) at axillary lymph node dissection, the mean number of nodes obtained was 14.6. Conclusion Significant numbers of women are being potentially overtreated or denied entry into Positive Sentinel Node: adjuvant therapy only vs adjuvant therapy and clearance or axillary radiotherapy (POSNOC) because of routine pre-operative axillary staging

Catholicism and Feminism: A Chilean Paradox

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and women in Chile, as well as how this relationship might be influenced by the authoritarian regime under Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1990. Chile is known as one of the most Catholic and conservative countries in Latin America, and is considered a “late female mobilization state” that has just recently legalized divorce and has not legalized abortion. The Church played a pivotal role in the defeat of the dictatorship and continues to influence the country’s society, culture, and politics. Even as women have entered the public sphere in the past few decades, intense machismo (or sexism) is still strongly at play and has led to a number of femicides that have sparked women’s movements across the nation. The study utilizes empirical research conducted in Valparaíso, Chile, and builds an ethnographic analysis to answer the research question: What relationship, if any, exists between the modern Catholic Church and female mobilization today in Chile, and how has the Church’s relationship with Pinochet’s regime influenced that potential relationship? The paper suggest ways in which the Catholic Church can speak to, aid, and empower women in Chile fighting against femicide and other gender equality issues. The relationships between these three variables, the Church, women, and dictatorship, may be indicative of the country’s future for the Catholic Church, women, and democracy