| Academic Year 2025 |
Yes |
Dammon Dean |
West Lafayette |
Influencing the Revolution: Social Media and Digital Fundraising between the United States and Burma/Myanmar |
Courtney Thomas Wittekind |
Anthropology; STS; International Studies |
The project, Influencing the Revolution: Social Media and Digital Fundraising between the United States and Burma/Myanmar seeks a part-time undergraduate Research Assistant (RA) for the 2025-2026 academic year. The RA will work closely with the Project Director, Professor Courtney Wittekind (Dept. of Anthropology), on developing and implementing this project. The RA will be responsible for reviewing, archiving, and organizing material shared on social media, specifically focusing on Facebook posts related to fundraising efforts in support of Myanmar's Spring Revolution, an anti-authoritarian movement that rejects Myanmar's 2021 coup and calls for the return of democratic rule. No prior experience with social media archiving or analysis is expected, but some training will be required. |
Specific responsibilities include:
- Completion of CITI course methodological training;
- Archiving of posts from ten target Facebook pages focused on online fundraising for Myanmar's Spring Revolution;
- Coding of archived posts from target Facebook pages according to established themes;
- Ongoing social media monitoring of target pages relevant to the study;
- Participation in online focus groups with members of target Facebook pages;
- Drafting of a monthly reflection about the material collected as a part of the project.
Weekly hours will vary throughout the course of the project and are negotiable based on student. The student will also have the opportunity to participate in presentations at major disciplinary conferences and contribute to scholarly publications as a named team member. |
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| Academic Year 2025 |
Yes |
Dammon Dean |
West Lafayette |
The Black Games Archive |
Samantha Blackmon |
English, Computer Science, Computer Graphics Technology (CGT) |
The Black Games Archive is a multimedia, public-facing database of games, digital resources, accessible scholarship, and designer interviews that are relevant to the intersections between Black culture and video games. The project will collect, archive, and display written posts, game clips, critical gaming sessions, and interviews. Additionally, the archive will include a robust indexed list of relevant games. |
Helping to maintain the existing database by adding and categorizing games (citation information and taxonomy), capturing footage that is representative of the gameplay, and helping to maintain an annotated bibliography. Updating and maintaining the website for the project. |
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| Academic Year 2025 |
Yes |
Dammon Dean |
West Lafayette |
Documenting Endangered Languages |
Elena E Benedicto |
Linguistics |
For the last 30 years, the field of linguistics has become aware and has invested in documenting those languages of the world that are at risk of disappearing, that is, of losing the last speakers. However, what is exactly the best way to proceed in these cases, and for whose benefit do we do documentation: for the sake of the linguistic community (science and academia) or for the sake of the speaking community? is it a choice of either/or, or do we have a way of articulating both needs? Approached such as Participatory Action Research or Community engaged research are some of the approaches that have been attempted, but the devil is in the details and, as embedded in the world of academia, students and researchers do not always keep in mind what the ultimate objective is. |
students will be trained on the mechanics of language documentation (obtaining and processing language data), as well as in the philosophical and ethical debates currently existing in the field. Students will embed themselves in some of the active projects in the IELLab currently working on the engaged documentation of an at-risk languages. |
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