Department of Sociology Graduate Projects
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Item Modern Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking in North America: A Comprehensive Review of the Patterns, Themes, and Research Gaps within the Existing Literature(2021-04) Dick, ChloeThe sexual exploitation of minors in North America has become an increasingly prevalent and complicated issue in recent years. Evidence indicates that upwards of 200,000 minors are at risk each year in the United States alone (Durisin and van der Meulen 2020; United States Department of Justice 2013). The pervasiveness of domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) has motivated researchers, activists, and law enforcement to delve into the causes and patterns of DMST (Countryman-Roswurm and Bolin 2014). Research surrounding DMST has traditionally focused on specific assumptions stereotyping both victims and traffickers. This has been found to often emphasize false patterns in DMST research and overlook nontraditional affected populations. This paper focuses on DMST in North America, seeking out patterns and observations largely overshadowed by the assumptions made within existing DMST research. In doing so, this paper includes five focal sections to underscore and build upon the existing literature: defining DMST; illustrating and analyzing theories of DMST; defining the known players and locale of DMST; outlining notable challenges with defining modern DMST; and highlighting the areas of DMST research that require more significant distinction and attention. This paper establishes distinctive gaps in the existing literature and utilizes the available research to emphasize the areas in which significant misinformation, ignorance, or misunderstanding is prevalent, as well as outlining conclusive and significant aspects of DMST knowledge.Item Framing, Claiming and Blaming: The Social Construction of Collective Memory and Victimhood in Contemporary North American Holocaust Narratives(2011-06-28) Swartz, TamarNorth American Holocaust narratives have undergone a number of temporal phases in collective representation, shifting from an initial widespread silence, to the current state of mass Americanization. The processes of how the Holocaust is recast, retold and socially reconstructed over time are examined in this essay. While many disciplines have attempted to study the Holocaust from a variety of theoretical perspectives, this essay is located at the intersection of two divergent areas of study. The combined studies of collective memory and victimology are applied to contemporary Holocaust narratives, in order to show how certain narratives gain primacy over others. Also illustrated is the manner in which particular groups lay claim to these narratives. Finally, conclusions relating to the purposes served by the domination of Holocaust narratives within the North American cultural context are highlighted, and future work is described.Item The New Local Governance of Immigration in Canada: Regulation and Responsibility(2011-05-10T21:09:06Z) Pero, RebeccaIn 2010, the Government of Canada significantly cut settlement service funding that helps immigrants integrate into Canadian communities. Concurrently, within the last three years, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration have funded forty-five Local Immigration Partnerships across the Province of Ontario. Local Immigration Partnerships serve to coordinate efforts and capture capacity within communities to attract and retain new immigrants; however, these Partnerships do not deliver services to immigrants living in the host community. While community-based endeavours to develop sustainable environments for immigrants to live, work and play in are valuable, this particular shift in responsibility from government to community groups and individuals cannot go unnoticed. It is this new local governance of immigration in Canada that will be the focus of this Master’s essay.