Cities Major Tasneem Mabrouk (‘24) Announced as the 2024 Publicly Engaged Scholar

In 2019, Haverford’s Center for Peace and Global Citizenship introduced the Publicly-engaged Scholar Award to recognize senior theses that  advance community-engaged research supporting global citizenship, peace work, and/or social justice. 

Thursday evening, Haverford community members gathered in Lutnick library to celebrate this year's nominees. The work of this year’s cohort spans the college's disciplinary fields, from studies of Mass Incarceration in the PA area to a curriculum based analysis on racial discrimination in Computer Science product development. Nominated by peers, faculty, and mentors, the award invites a celebration of student exploration and critical civic engagement. The final group of 8 students each prepared short ‘Ignite talks’ on their thesis research to share with the audience of peers, faculty, and CPGC staff members and community partners. 

The Ignite presentations offer nominees who engaged in community-engaged learning processes over the course of their thesis research a chance to discuss a portion of their research with a wider audience. Nominees are selected who have developed research questions which integrate interpersonal partnership with broader networks working to advance justice.

Nominee Summer Williams wrote her thesis on bureaucratic response to the new wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation in public schools, and utilized the CPGCs community engaged learning fund (CELF) to organize one-on-one interviews with educators across Florida. Through this research she learned about the many ways in which educators are working to resist the legislation and provide support to LGBTQ students even amidst a rise in homophobic policy. 

In her work exploring the concept of ‘carceral time’, and emerging abolitionist networks, Emma Schwartz worked directly with a network of abolitionist activists and continued her long standing partnership with Philadelphia’s Human Rights Coalition, compiling a portion of her research into a Zine in partnership with incarcerated artist/activist Reggie West. 

After each presentation, the audience is asked to complete a brief survey providing feedback on the speaker's work. This survey is then considered by the CPGC Steering Committee as they make their final decision on the award recipient. Criteria for receipt of the award include the extent to which each presentation: 

• demonstrated engagement with a community affected by injustice and/or involvement with a community aiming to advance justice.
• demonstrated connection with applied scholarship, using the tools developed during time as a Haverford student to advance progress on questions of and action for justice.
• described work that advances understanding and action to address injustice.
• was strong (clear, compelling, well-integrated, enjoyable to learn from).

The 2024 PES Award Recipient, Tasneem Mabrouk, spent the year in conversation with Southeast Asian and Italian immigrant communities, developing a comparative analysis of the experiences of various ethnic enclaves. The cities major shared findings that Philadelphia is part of a larger trend of cities becoming more hostile places for new immigrants. Mabrouk discussed how urban immigrants are progressively losing their ability to create meaningful spaces for ethnic preservation, and this struggle has placed undue burden on newer Southeast Asian migrants among other groups, who came to the US fleeing political violence. In thinking about who gets to occupy urban spaces Mabrouk shared a foundational belief that, “The everyday experience of inhabiting the city entitles someone to a right to the city”. As she worked with community members to understand what specific challenges they faced in trying to foster cultural preservation, the resistance of bureaucrats to housing new spaces for community building- like ethnic markets comparable to the South 9th Street Italian market- stood out as a particular frustration. Mabrouk will present her findings to local community leaders across the Philly/Southeast Asian diaspora in hopes that they help promote more local infrastructure development to support these growing ethnic enclaves in the way the city has historically provided refuge for immigrants looking for new beginnings. 

Mabrouks’ work reflects a strong commitment to community-based academic work, and her findings highlight an often overlooked inequity in the city of Philadelphia. She joins an incredible group of award recipients and nominees, who all have proven pillars of the Haverford student network. 

See the full list of 2024 Nominees below; visit this article for a comprehensive list of nominees and recipients since 2019.

2024 Publicly-engaged Scholar Award Nominees & Thesis Statements 

• Juno Bartsch ‘24 (Computer Science/Education Major); “Breaking Down Barriers: Supporting Minoritized Learners in Undergraduate Computer Science Courses”

‘The technologies that power your everyday life are inherently biased. Anyone who has ever struggled with an automatic soap dispenser understands that they do not always function as intended. Similar light sensors are also used for measuring blood oxygen, sometimes with fatal consequences for BIPOC patients. Addressing issues of bias in technology requires diversity in the people creating it, such as engineers, programmers, and researchers. The Association for Computing Machinery found that from 2007-2015, only 18% of CS degrees went to minoritized students. My thesis addresses the structural inequities impeding their success at undergraduate institutions. In this work, I define “minoritized learners” as women, BIPOC, first-generation, low-income, disabled, and LGBTQ+ students. In this work, I have collaborated with minoritized students and collected feedback from a diverse group of introductory CS students at Haverford and Bryn Mawr. The results have been combined with an extensive literature review to generate a set of recommendations to improve introductory CS courses. The strategies I propose will prepare students with all levels of experience to feel confident entering the major and continue to support them into their careers. Ultimately, all students will benefit from an approach that assumes they are capable of success, bring unique perspectives, and offer essential contributions to the learning community. These changes will ensure the next generation of software engineers will be equipped to address issues of social justice, peace, and global citizenship.’

• Zaida Boissiere ‘24 (Political Science Major);  “Imperial Footprints: Unraveling British colonial legacies in criminal justice in the US & Nigeria”

‘The topics of mass incarceration and racial discrimination have been well researched in the field of criminology, yet few scholars have conducted transnational inquiry documenting how British Imperialism has affected minorities both in the US and in Nigeria through its weaponization of the Criminal Justice system. This thesis explores how social justice movements should begin to work on decolonizing the criminal justice system to connect problems in the US to a global context. This work highlights the voices of African Americans, Native Americans, the Igbo community of Nigeria, and other native Nigerian communities to demonstrate how their interactions with British Imperialism have shaped our modern relationship with justice. By considering the structures of contemporary law, this thesis advances understanding of how British Colonialism and Imperialism were not just  historical events, but actively contribute to the instability of criminal justice systems and the production of the carceral state.’ 

• Sam Choi ‘24 (Philosophy Major); “Han: Remembrance, Identity, and Community through Loss”

‘This thesis explores the concept of han in Korean culture; a concept often translated as sorrow, regret, or grief. Han finds its historical roots within a Japanese colonial stereotype as a project of essentializing the Korean people as infantile, primitive, sorrowful people. This was done in hopes of justifying the annexation of the Korean peninsula as inevitable and virtuous. Imperial Japan attempted to wholly assimilate Korea, rewriting history, banning the Korean language, and removing Korean names. Faced with the utter loss of Koreanness, the Korean people latched onto the colonial stereotype as a final defense against assimilation and marker of Korean identity. In the modern day, han is still used in the context of dealing with traumas and injustices from the Japanese annexation of Korea, especially concerning the ongoing struggles of comfort women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army. As a Korean-American, writing this thesis not only allowed me to understand the pain and suffering of my ancestors but also to understand han as a current, political force within many Korean-American lives. In an active stance against de-ethnicization, han can be seen as disrupting the United States’ dominant narrative of Korea but also as a healing force amongst the diasporic community of Korean-Americans. This thesis is primarily concerned with advancing an understanding of han to people outside of Korean discourse. It also attempts to bridge the gap between han and other cultural notions of sorrow and injustice. Together, the analysis allows for a more global understanding of injustice and suffering but also a better way to navigate through historical grievances and possibly even a healing of those scars.’

• Trinity Kleckner ‘24 (Religion/Computer Science Major); “Intersectional Covering: Understanding normative behavioral demands and how they make space for resistance”

‘This thesis uses Black feminist ideas to develop a new and more illustrative account of the social phenomenon of covering, recognizing its role in reinforcing social hierarchies and power structures. The concept of covering originated with Erving Goffman in his book Stigma, published in 1963. Goffman describes that societies construct norms defining the ideal person, so deviations from these norms (stigmas) are seen as marks on a person's humanity and signs of inferiority. Thus, in order to be perceived best by society people try to minimize their stigmas– this is covering. Using the Combahee River Collective and McCalls work on what is now labeled intersectionality I develop an intersectional account of covering, considering how demands of society co-exist and conflict with one another making covering inherently impossible. I show that these demands create the illusion that with enough work anyone can be normative, supporting the myth of meritocracy. I also suggest that not-covering can be a form of resistance while serving as a visual reminder of the difference and diversity that exists within communities, moving a step closer to just and collectively free society, because in the words of Audre Lorde: “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”’

• Tasneem Mabrouk ‘24 (Cities Major); “Creating Community: Italian and Southeast Asian Placemaking in South Philadelphia” 

‘My thesis explores how the Italian and Southeast Asian communities in South Philadelphia utilized physical spaces to create a meaningful identity and sense of belonging for themselves in a new city. Given the significance of ethnic enclaves to immigrant communities, I wanted to explore what hindered immigrant placemaking efforts and how these issues could be remediated. My research synthesized scholarly work, field visits, and personal narratives from community members to gain insight into the histories and meanings engrained in ethnic enclaves in South Philadelphia, and to then identify the threats they were facing, such as gentrification and predatory development. By comparing the more established Italian Market to the newer Southeast Asian spaces that the community is still fighting to create, my research sheds light on how the city’s cultural and political landscape has shifted over the last century, further marginalizing its immigrant communities and making it more difficult for them to carve a place for themselves. My analysis prioritized the perspectives of residents by drawing on community-engaged research, insight from community forums, and narratives from interviews and news articles in order to ensure that the voices of those most affected by the injustice were amplified. Through these insights, I highlight the continued importance of physical space to urban immigrants, serving as a platform through which they can assert themselves as active citizens, find joy in community, and create sites that cater to their needs and reflect their identities. In my thesis and Peace, Justice, and Human Rights capstone project, I offer several methods by which to protect immigrants’ right to space in order to ensure their safety and comfort in their new homes.’ 

• Emma Schwartz ‘24 (Anthropology/Comparative Literature Major);  “Resisting Carceral Time and the Emergence of Abolitionist Temporalities through Inside/Outside Prison Organizing in Pennsylvania” Methods in Activist Ethnography 

‘This thesis examines how time is weaponized by capitalist, colonial, and carceral power structures and how currently and formerly incarcerated abolitionists and their allies seek to redeem time through organizing, both in the here and now and through building a new world (dis)order. This topic emerged from conversations and organizing work with people who have spent multiple decades incarcerated, which led to questioning what it means to sentence people based on lengths of time given that the meaning of these years can be so untranslatable. This question of time and its translatability is considered through ethnographic work with Human Rights Coalition (HRC) members and literary analysis of texts by Assata Shakur and Manuel Zapata Olivella. This ethnographic research emerges through longstanding relationships with the HRC and its networks and includes research methods of interview, participant observation, and autoethnography. These methods are rooted in practices of care and relationship building which has strengthened shared strategic efforts in the fight towards abolishing prisons (and therefore seizing the time that prisons take away from people and claiming it as our own). Throughout the research process, project collaborators and HRC community members have expressed their interest in reading the final product, which will be shared further through collaboration with Reggie West (an incarcerated artist) to make the thesis into a zine available to people on the inside.’

• Riley Sobel ‘24 (Political Science/Psychology); “Addressing the Plight for Justice: A Comparative Evaluation of Trial Mechanisms and their contribution to Transitional Justice Efforts in Post-Conflict Rwanda”

‘This thesis evaluates the efficacy of international legal accountability mechanisms, referred to as trials, at achieving their stated transitional justice aims of aiding in the establishment of a chronological and contextual account of harms committed, preventing recidivism, (re)establishing the rule of law through the creation of capacity and legal standard, and providing justice for victims at three realms – the international, the domestic, and the local or grassroots. Using Rwanda as a case study, the thesis considers the role of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Rwandan Domestic conventional courts, and the gacaca courts both individually and in cohesion with one another. With a growing rise in both international anti-impunity movements and restorative justice, the inquiry considers how these two, somewhat competing ideas could be employed together, whether through complementarity or in a prospective hybrid mechanism; ideally bringing about a more adequate form of international post-conflict justice. The research is primarily qualitative and process tracing-derived, with particular attention given to victim-survivors of the Rwandan civil war and genocide, as well as those who participated within each of the mechanisms. It bridges theory and scholarship from the fields of law, international peace-making, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and political science. From this research, it is clear that within the seeking of justice for victims, victim involvement, culture, and tradition are necessary in shaping an accountability mechanism. Dissemination may occur multiple ways, but the research has already informed conversations about restorative justice both within the Haverford community and more broadly in off-campus work with Let’s Circle Up.’

• Summer Williams ‘24 (Political Science); “Beyond the Curriculum: Bureaucratic Resistance Toward Anti-LGBTQ+ Education Policy”

‘Focusing on educators’ behaviors in response to anti-LGBTQ+ school policies, this thesis considers the question, ‘How do bureaucrats react to policy changes within their organization when they disagree?’ With the guidance of existing theories that attempt to explain the behaviors of bureaucrats, the inquiry investigates teachers' behaviors in relation to the collection of policies known as “Don’t Say Gay.” Excluding discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation is harmful for the mental health and safety of LGBTQ+ students. Typically, teachers have a considerable amount of discretion as street-level bureaucrats, but how is this discretion affected when facing oppressive policies that some may disagree with? Eight, in-depth interviews with teachers inform this investigation: six of them from Florida, one from Kentucky, and one from Central Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The opportunity to talk to teachers about their experiences has provided insight on the ways they use their voices to advocate for social justice and inclusivity in public schools. Some teachers are heavily involved in speaking out against issues like “deadnaming” and book bannings at school board meetings. Others may completely disregard the policies in their classrooms even at the expense of their job security, because the safety and wellbeing of their students are more important to them. The research sheds light on the power of inclusivity, and the bravery shown by public school teachers wanting to confront harmful policies with deep rooted political agendas.’