Fletcher Family Research Grants - Fall 2004

Pamela Ballinger, Associate Professor of Sociology
Italy’s Forgotten Refugees
· This project consists of a book manuscript in preparation entitled Italy’s Forgotten Refugees. The book explores the flight of ethnic Italians from Istria, a peninsula under Italian sovereignty until annexed by Yugoslavia after World War II. I situate this particular episode of population transfer in a wider picture of postwar refugee flows and refugee experiences. I am requesting funding to conduct additional research necessary for completing chapters seven and eight.

Kristen Ghodsee, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies
The Miniskirt or the Veil? Bulgarian Muslim Women Resisting Islamic Fundamentalism.
· My research examines postsocialist Muslim women resisting the importation of Wahabi (fundamentalist) Islam into Southeastern Europe. Through in-depth interviewing and participant-observation, I am examining women’s culture among ethnic Bulgarian Muslims (or Pomaks) living in the Western Rhodope Mountains near the Bulgarian/Greek border. Bulgaria’s Muslim community has historically professed a very moderate, almost secular, version of Islam. As the economic situation in the region deteriorated after the collapse of Bulgarian communism in 1989, however, proponents of a more fundamentalist version of the religion have secured international aid to build new mosques, provide job training and create schools throughout the region. Their conservative theology has met the strongest resistance from older Pomak women raised under communism to believe in the total equality of men and women. I am researching the specific shapes this resistance takes today, and whether or not this generation of postsocialist women is being successful in diluting the Wahabi Muslim influence in the region.

Laura Henry, Assistant Professor of Government
Global Commons and National Interests: The Politics of the Kyoto Protocol in Russia
· This project represents one piece of a planned multi-authored study of state responses to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), known as the Kyoto Treaty. The study will examine Russia’s response to Kyoto in light of existing explanations for treaty compliance found in the scholarly literature, including the role of economic self-interest, incentives and sanctions presented by international institutions, the salience of the international norm represented by the treaty, transnational mobilization on the issue in question, and domestic demand for compliance. The Russian case then will be used in a broader analysis of international collective action.

Anne Henshaw, Director of the Coastal Studies Center and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Moving through time: the construction of Inuit memory through film
· The goal of this project is to understand the historical and anthropological significance of the 1940s archival film taken by Donald MacMillan in the Canadian Arctic community of Pond Inlet. The project builds on previous photographic identification research I conducted in Pond Inlet with still images from the same period. The still photographs contained images of community members still alive and eager to share their knowledge of the people and places pictured in them. The proposed project will move this research to the next level by digitizing never-seen-before moving footage and taking it to the community in order to further explore the construction of Inuit memory and history during a period of profound social change. The project will be carried out in collaboration with the Peary MacMillan Arctic Museum.

Peter Lea, Associate Professor of Geology
Velocity Time-Series Measurements in Merrymeeting Bay
· Merrymeeting Bay is a freshwater tidal estuary formed at the confluence of the Kennebec and Androscoggin Rivers. Water follows complicated flow paths within the bay, reflecting the interaction of tides, river inputs, and wind forcing. Deciphering these paths is a prerequisite for understanding how this ecosystem functions both at present and during past episodes of environmental change. This proposal seeks equipment to deploy an acoustic-doppler current profiler on the floor of Merrymeeting Bay. The resulting time series of velocity variations, together with related time series from a network of dataloggers, will permit analysis of current patterns and their controls.

Michael Palopoli, Associate Professor of Biology
Effect of Mating System on Patterns of Molecular Evolution in the Nematode Genus Caenorhabditis
· Mating systems differ significantly between nematode species in the genus Caenorhabditis. Most of these species have separate males and females, whereas two species consist primarily of self-fertilizing hermaphrodites. To better understand the effect that a change in mating system has upon molecular evolution, we are studying two genes: (1) The spe-9 gene codes for a sperm transmembrane protein that is required for fertilization and appears to function in the specialized cell-cell interactions between sperm and egg. (2) The plg-1 gene is required for copulatory plug formation, and it is known to be polymorphic in natural populations of Caenorhabditis elegans.

Jennifer Scanlon, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies
Ruth Whitney, Glamour Magazine, and the Mainstreaming of U.S. Feminism
· This book project explores the rich and complex relationships among middle-class American women, second wave feminism, and the mass media through an examination of a mainstream women’s magazine, Glamour, and its longtime editor, Ruth Whitney. Whitney occupied an influential space in the seemingly incompatible worlds of feminism, business, and mass culture. And under Whitney’s leadership, Glamour occupied a significant niche as a highly successful mainstream women’s magazine that introduced, interpreted, and made friendly to many readers, second wave feminism. Through oral history, archival work, textual analysis of the magazine, and a close reading of published scholarship, my book project will broaden our understanding of women’s cultural history.