University of Washington

GRADUATE STUDENTS RECOGNIZED FOR SCHOL ARSHIP ON BORDERL ANDS AND TRANSNATIONAL L ABOR Two University of Washington graduate students have recently been recognized for their outstanding scholarship on labor, class, and race across and along borders. Michael Aguirre and Roneva Keel, both PhD Candidates in the Department of History, each won a dissertation fellowship for the 2017-18 academic year. Aguirre will be a fellow with the Center for Engaged Scholarship, while Keel will be a Sawyer Seminar Dissertation Fellow with the Washington Institute for the Study of Inequality and Race. MICHAEL AGUIRRE STANDS AT THE CALEXICO-MEXICALI BORDER Michael Aguirre's dissertation, "The Wages of Borders: Political Economy and the Eastern California Borderlands Working Classes, 1964-1979," examines class formation and labor activism in Imperial County, California, and Mexicali, Baja California Norte, Mexico, after the termination of the guest worker bracero program. His innovative work, which draws on oral histories with borderlands residents as well as archival materials from both the United States and Mexico, has previously been supported by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, the Reuther Library, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford. By focusing on the lives and struggles of Imperial County farmworkers and Mexicali industrial workers, Aguirre's dissertation makes a significant contribution to our understanding of worker identities and organizing strategies in an increasingly complex borderlands space. Aguirre is also a selection committee member for the Dr. Clyde Snow Fund for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and has served on department and university diversity committees. RONEVA KEEL DOING RESEARCH IN NEGROS OCCIDENTAL IN THE PHILIPPINES Roneva Keel's scholarship explores the historical development of race and capitalism in the formation of U.S. empire. Her dissertation, "Mobilizing Empire: Race, Sugar, and U.S. Colonialism in the Pacific," studies the entwined stories of U.S. colonialism in Hawai'i, the Philippines, and the U.S. West. Emphasizing continuities between U.S. colonialism overseas and earlier continental expansion, Keel's work reveals the deep roots and the ongoing effects of American imperial ambitions within and well beyond the boundaries of the nation-state. The Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan and the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies have both supported her research. Keel is also the Digital Humanities Initiative program coordinator at the Simpson Center for the Humanities and received a 2017 Digital Humanities summer fellowship to develop a mapping project entitled "Mapping Northlake," which traces economic and cultural connections between Seattle and its local and global hinterlands. HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBAL HEALTH PARTNERSHIPS Two Department of History faculty members, Lynn Thomas and Adam Warren, have played a key role in organizing a new collaborative research effort across all three UW campuses. The project, Humanistic Perspectives on Global Health Partnerships, examines the inequities that often underlie many health partnerships. In November 2016, the effort, which seeks to draw from diverse disciplinary perspectives, held a kick-off meeting with 22 participants. A second meeting, in February 2017, focused on essays drafted by the participants with the ultimate aim of submitting the work to accessible, online forums. According to Thomas, "We aim to write essays that can reach wider audiences … Workshopping our essays at an early stage lets us put them in conversation, and publishing on a faster timeline than typical academic journals lets us contribute to ever-changing public debates." In July 2017, three essays by workshop participants were published on the website Africa is a Country (africasacountry.com). Thomas's piece, "Of Gag Rules and Global Partnerships," contextualized the Trump administration's recent executive order barring U.S. funding to international organizations that discuss abortion as a family-planning option within a much longer history of American global health efforts centered on reproduction and sexuality. In addition, scholars involved with the effort, including Warren, have submitted eleven essays to MAT (Medicine Anthropology Theory) for publication consideration. A history graduate student, Taylor Soja, has served as the project research assistant. PROFESSOR LYNN THOMAS PROFESSOR ADAM WARREN 8  U N I V E R S I T Y O F W A S H I N G T O N

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