Capstone Projects

Segregation’s Survival

Building on scholarly literature on the historical context of higher education and the foundations of Greek societies, this ethnography examines the ways in which these foundational underpinnings are alive in the attitudes of those members today and the separation of Black and other non-white cultural fraternities and sororities that exist at the University of Southern California (USC). To discover more about the socio-cultural effects of Greek Life at the USC, I interviewed thirty-five participants from ages eighteen to sixty. Racial segregation lives within Greek Life at USC, even though forms of discrimination are more discreet. The social hierarchies of the past cement the historical ideas of the superiority of the patriarchy and whiteness as foundations for the institutions created within them. This leads to aggression in the form of racism and sexual violence toward those deemed outside the accepted elite group as well as class discrimination based on the financial demands of being apart of an elite USC fraternity and sorority.

Bio: Dylan Julia Cooper is graduating from the University of Southern California with a double major in Theatre as well as Sociocultural Anthropology and Archaeology. Besides serving on the Executive Board of USC Hillel, she is mother to a senior cat, former foster mother of five kittens, and volunteer at the South LA Animal Shelter. She also works for The Representation Project, Connecting to Cure Crohn’s and Colitis and is on the Executive Board for Planned Parenthood USC Generation Action.

Empowering Rural Healthcare: Evaluating the Short and Long-Term Efforts of Global Medical Brigades on Healthcare Sustainability in the Nyanfreku Ekroful Community of Ghana, West Africa

This thesis evaluates the short and long-term efforts of Global Medical Brigades (GMB) on healthcare sustainability in Nyanfreku Ekroful, a rural community in Ghana, West Africa. Through mixed methods research including fieldwork, interviews, and WASH survey data, this study explores how GMB’s mobile clinics, health education programs, and community partnerships influence access to care and public health outcomes. It examines GMB’s approach in relation to broader critiques of short-term medical missions emphasizing its focus on cultural humility, community empowerment and ethical volunteerism. Findings indicate while GMB provides essential medical care and infrastructure support, long-term impact depends on continued collaboration with local stakeholders and investment in sustainable systems. This research contributes to global health and medical anthropology literature by highlighting how ethically designed and holistic interventions when centered on community needs and capacity building can serve as a catalyst for lasting change in underserved areas.

Bio: I am a senior majoring in anthropology, with a focus on medical anthropology, and minoring in natural sciences.  I am passionate about exploring the intersections of healthcare, culture, and global systems particularly how social, cultural, and structural factors influence access to care and health outcomes. My goal is to better understand health disparities and the broader implications of medicine on a global scale. In March 2024, I attended a medical brigade to Ghana, an experience that shaped the foundation of my thesis. I plan to pursue a career in medicine with a focus on culturally competent healthcare.

Created Community through the Café: Disruptors in Space Within Coffee Shops

Coffee shops have long been referred to as third places, most notably by Howard Shultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, but the company’s changing business model in recent years contradicts such claims. Based on an extended, six-month period that involved approximately thirty-seven hours of participant observations and interviews at two Starbucks locations and two small businesses, I note the sensory experiences of customers within each of these four locations and describe the physical spaces themselves that they occupy. I then contextualize and compare my findings with similar anthropological dialogue, specifically focusing on spatial analysis. Finally, based on the cumulation of my research and observations, I argue that people often disrupt the intended physical designs of Starbucks coffee shops in West Los Angeles by using the space without purchasing goods. However, in small business coffee shops, the ability to use the business space is contingent on being a customer, and the local ownership allows for greater enforcement of the rules than in a corporation. Within these differences, unique forms of community are molded that allow each space to be defined as a third place.

Bio: Kyle Hanus is a first-generation college student majoring in Anthropology at the University of Southern California and a 2023 Santa Monica College transfer. Kyle’s academic journey was rather unconventional, as he studied film at the Los Angeles Film School after graduating from high school. Between 2015 – 2020, he worked as a camera assistant on hundreds of productions in Los Angeles, ranging from feature films to music videos. As life progressed and he evolved as an individual, Kyle’s interests and values changed as well. Entering his mid-twenties as a husband, he wanted a change, one that would allow him the luxury of being at home more with the ones he loved. As somebody who felt alienated from academia, given the absence of it in his family, he felt immense pressure throughout every step of his collegiate experience to succeed. To his surprise, Kyle maintained a strong GPA throughout his time at both SMC and USC that led to him graduating with highest honors and honors, respectively. For his future, he aspires to start a career that can provide him with the joy and lifestyle that he values so much.

Refuge, Resistance and Resilience: Taco Stands in Los Angeles

Taco stands in Los Angeles represent more than just a convenient meal; they are a historical and cultural phenomenon shaped by immigration, economic struggles, and evolving social dynamics. This paper explores the resilience of taco stands as alternative foodways that resist class-based power structures and reflect broader socioeconomic forces. Tracing their significance through historical crises, including systemic racism, immigration policies, and economic downturns, the study examines how these stands have served as community pillars, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis not only reinforced their role as accessible, outdoor dining spaces but also fueled the rise of larger taco stand brands, shifting ownership dynamics from small vendors to larger restaurant-style chains. However, with the resurgence of anti-immigrant policies under a renewed Trump administration, this transformation faces new challenges. Using ethnographic research and food studies frameworks, this paper highlights taco stands as sites of cultural preservation, economic adaptation, and resistance amid shifting political landscapes.

Bio: My name is Benjamin Harris-Myers and I am a senior studying Data Science and Visual Anthropology at USC. As a native Angelino, this project reflects my own life experiences and memories growing up, and in a time of significant uncertainty around these communities and industries, I saw no better time to start focusing on the history and present-day implications of taco stands. In the future I am looking to get into the field of sports analytics, potentially in a researching, entertainment, or educational capacity.

The Phenomenology of Silence: The Little Chapel of Silence as a Counter-Space in Productivity Culture

This spatial ethnography examines silence as a facilitator of introspection and intersubjectivity within the Little Chapel of Silence on the University of Southern California’s campus. Built in 1935, the chapel is a 225-square-foot nondenominational space dedicated to silent reflection, meditation, and prayer. Within it, a journal serves as a repository for personal reflections, offering insight into visitors’ experiences within the space. Through phenomenological analysis and qualitative coding of 750 entries left by visitors in the journal, this research reveals how silence manifests in two primary dimensions: promoting introspection in a society eroding opportunities for unstructured thought, and establishing a silent intersubjectivity that creates an imagined community through shared experience rather than direct interaction. As what I call productivity culture transforms attention into a commodity and noise becomes the default condition, the chapel prevails as a site of resistance to norms of optimization and productivity.

Bio:  Audrey Joachim is graduating from USC with a double major in Anthropology and Linguistics. She is a Provost’s Research and Harman Academy Fellow and serves as the President of Undergraduate Students in Linguistics. Audrey is interested in the intersection of culture and language, especially with regard to human-computer interaction, user experience and large language models. She has worked as a researcher for the Library of Congress American Folklife Center and USC’s Language Dynamics Lab. Audrey began her research on the Little Chapel of Silence in 2023 and has since presented her work at the American Anthropological Association and the USC Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Answers in the Night Sky: Astrology, Disenchantment, and the Modern World

This thesis explores how the practice of astrology in Los Angeles pushes back against common conceptualizations of modernity. For the astro-inclined astrology is a supplementary tool used to make sense of the world when rational modalities of understanding are deemed insufficient. Throughout the paper, participant observation and ethnographic interviews are utilized to illustrate how this community of study does not see the non-rational as conflicting with the rational. For many, the rational is overemphasized at the expense of other ways of knowing, and being modern involves being open to both the rational and the non-rational.

Bio: Galilea Marquez was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and is currently a student at the University of Southern California. She is pursuing a B.A. in Anthropology, with minors in Environmental Studies, and Applied Analytics. She is currently on the path to complete a M.S. in Spatial Data Science. Her research interests lie in education, urbanity, and pop culture. Just in case you were curious, she is a Virgo.

Where are They Now? Chinese Tomboys in the US, (Fe)male Masculinity, and Recentering Home via Queer Migration

T/TB, as a socio-linguistic category that denotes masculine lesbians in the Chinese-speaking world, has long been criticized by community members and Western academics alike for being too heteronormative and reductive in comparison to the post-identity queer figure in Western gender/sexual discourses. Through the detailed life histories of four T/TBs who moved to the US for college, I problematize this East/West binary within queer geography and present a more nuanced framework to understanding queer migration and queer globalization. I argue that my interlocutors, while highly diverse in their subjectivities, all strategically evoke the US, as both a physical and discursive site, to reflect on the gendered memories of home and to enable radical re-imaginations of gender and sexual norms in the collective region of People’s Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Via the complex interplay between space and desires, the making of an authentic, Chinese, masculine Self that inhabits a non-normative gendered body is an unfinished process, in which the West is not the final destination, but a point for continuous transit.

Bio: Xinyan Mia Tong is a fourth-year student majoring in Cultural Anthropology and minoring in cinematic arts. She’s an artist-researcher who has done qualitative research across diverse settings such as in academia, museums, policy, non-profits, and UX. Her academic interests include queer and gender theories, social geography, visual anthropology, political economy, affect theory, and postcolonial studies. She believes in the transformative power of ethnography-informed and intimately embodied artistic pieces in heightened storytelling about social issues.

Denmark’s Social Democrats: Co-optation, Nationalism, Social Media, and Parliamentary Cooperation, the Holistic Method to Destroying the Populist Right in Europe”

This capstone dissects a viable route for left-wing European political parties to thwart  the rise of the far-right in Europe, largely through use of a proven mode employed by the Danish Social Democrats. This route prescribes co-opting and parliamentary cooperation in conjunction with the far-right on a singular issue (e.g., immigration). This method seeks to avoid political ostracization and immunity in the court of public opinion, which are major growth factors for far-right parties. However, to properly implement this prescription the left must be certain that the present zeitgeist suggests imminent rise of the far-right, because employing these methods can be seen as compromising liberal principles. This capstone prescribes using both polling data broken down by demographics (e.g., youth voting data in Germany and France) and historical examples of EU countries (e.g., far-right governments in Italy and Hungary) to formulate the optimal judgement and strategy.

Bio: Wylie Brimeyer is a Senior in the Global Studies major and an International Relations minor at USC. His chief interests include the volatile global political environment, with a focus on European politics. The Global Studies major and IR minor have allowed him to synthesize the two disciplines to view politics from a political anthropology lens, which he believes to be critical in both predicting and managing political tides.

TikTok’s Political Witches: How Spellcasting Powers Resistance

Christina Chkarboul’s capstone project, “TikTok’s Political Witches: How Spellcasting Powers Resistance,” looks at the way modern witches organize and act to influence political and social outcomes. It places the current leftist, environmentalist movement on TikTok’s witch community, WitchTok, in a long history of human attempts to influence the world using magic. Based on content analysis and ethnographic interviews with WitchTok content creators, the paper argues that the practice of magical activism bolsters a sense of self-efficacy in witches and their online followers, which can empower participation in non-magical political and environmental activism.

Bio: Christina is a senior majoring in global studies and Earth sciences with a minor in news media and society. She spent the bulk of her time at USC pursuing interdisciplinary academic interests spanning from climate activism to palaeontology and producing journalistic work. As her first step out of USC, Christina is moving back to her hometown in the Greater Toronto Area to report on local news.

Community Formation and Cultural Preservation in Cameroonian Immigrant Communities in the United States

My capstone project examines Cameroonian immigration through the lens of globalization and community, exploring how global forces and local networks shape migration experiences and identity formation. Drawing on qualitative interviews and external research, I argue that both transnational and local community ties play a crucial role in mediating the challenges and opportunities of immigration. This project highlights the importance of cultural continuity, adaptation, and social activism within Cameroonian immigrant communities.

Bio: Marie is a senior double majoring in Computer Science and Global Studies. My academic work bridges the technical and social sciences, with a particular interest in migration, identity, and the impacts of globalization. I plan to attend law school to further explore the intersections of policy, technology, and global justice.

Comparing Civic Life and Governance Structures in Co-op City and the José Pedro Varela Complex (Zone 3)

My project compares two large-scale cooperative housing projects in Uruguay and the United States in an effort to understand how governance structures and civic norms are shaped under distinct cultural contexts. While both countries have histories of cooperative housing movements, the successes and challenges of each context were influenced by specific political, social, and cultural factors. Tracing the developments of the José Pedro Varela complex (Montevideo) and Co-op City (New York City) allowed me to illustrate how governance strategies, social organization, and political norms were constructed and deconstructed in the two case studies. I argue that the two cooperatives reflect the power structures and democratic foundations of the societies they emerged from.

Bio:  Beatrix Heard is a fourth-year in Global Studies, concurrently pursuing her Master’s degree in Urban Planning at USC. Her experience growing up in Los Angeles prompted an interest in issues of housing, shelter, and community governance. Global Studies allowed her to build not only practical research and analytical skills in her undergraduate education, but a coherent understanding of social theory and conceptual anthropology. Currently, she interns at the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, where she is always thinking of ways to bring people-centered perspectives to the work.

Navigating the Difficult Heritage of Greek Life at the University of Southern California

This project is a case analysis, investigating the persistence and reproduction of problematic habitus within long standing institutional organizations, focusing specifically on Greek life at the University of Southern California (USC). Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus and Sharon Macdonald’s concept of difficult heritage, the study explores how cultural meaning is constructed, negotiated, and sometimes disavowed by individuals who voluntarily associate with institutions bearing known histories of exclusion, elitism, and harm. Additionally, it examines how elements of difficult heritage, such as sorority rankings, are actively discussed, digitally circulated, and kept alive, continuing to influence behavior, values, and ideologies even as their legitimacy is publicly questioned. Finally, the paper explores how chapter leaders attempt to reframe or reform their chapter identities, navigating between preserving tradition and responding to contemporary calls for accountability and cultural change.

Bio: Ivana Karastoeva is a senior at the University of Southern California, where she is completing a Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies alongside a Master’s in Public Administration. Her academic journey has been shaped by a multidisciplinary approach to understanding organizational dynamics and fostering collaboration across diverse individuals and stakeholder groups, guided by the core principles of cultural anthropology. Ivana’s research interests focus on scalable observation and analysis, spanning both individual and collective experiences, with particular attention to how meaning is constructed in the evolving contexts of globalization and advancing media technologies. She is a Semi-Finalist for the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Turkey and hopes to pursue this opportunity following graduation.

The Tongzhi Times: Representations of Non-normative Gender and Sexual Identities in Taiwanese Literature

My project analyzes the self-representation of Taiwanese queer authors in their literary works. I compare a selection of novels and short stories to one another to map the defining characteristics of the genre and identity. Through these representations I observe the uniquely Taiwanese characteristics and stories of the local queer community as they position themselves in conversation with the broader, global queer community. Through my focus on the authors themselves, I witness the self-determined development of a Taiwanese specific queer. The Taiwanese queer literature genre thus is a lens through which the formation of community and collective identity can be observed among those with non-normative gender and sexual identities in Taiwan.

Bio: Estrella Lopez is a senior majoring in Global Studies and graduating in Fall 2025. During her time at USC, she has maintained a focus on cultural anthropology as well as gender and sexuality studies. She continues to utilize these lenses in her personal research and movement through the world. Estrella has completed three internships at non-profit organizations focusing on supporting a pan-Indigenous global community. After graduating, she hopes to spend time abroad, furthering her connection to the global community and pursuing personal passions.

Policing Fear Itself: How Surveillance Manufactures (In)Security in South Central

This paper explores the affective and spatial impacts of state surveillance on public life in South Central Los Angeles, drawing from personal experience, ethnographic research, and theoretical analysis. Beginning with an anecdote about being surveilled during student protests, I examine how surveillance operates as a punitive mechanism that reshapes behavior, reinforces social hierarchies, and erodes trust in public space.  Theoretical frameworks, including Haggerty and Ericson’s surveillant assemblages and Foucault’s disciplinary power, contextualize surveillance as a networked system of control that merges visible policing (helicopters, cameras, patrols) with invisible data extraction (biometrics, predictive policing). In Los Angeles, this system is intensified by urban design that prioritizes privatization, car dependency, and segregation, leaving public spaces hollowed of organic social interaction and saturated with state monitoring. Ethnographic interviews with South Central residents reveal how surveillance shapes their movements, perceptions of safety, and sense of belonging, with racialized and class disparities determining who is targeted. USC’s private surveillance apparatus—cameras, armed police (DPS), and checkpoints—exemplifies the collaboration between state and corporate power, extending punitive control into the neighborhood. Meanwhile, historical narratives of South Central as a “pathologized” space justify heightened policing, reinforcing territorial stigmatization (Wacquant) and alienating residents from public life. Theis paper centers the lived, affective consequences of surveillance: how the constant presence of cameras, helicopters, and police reshapes movement, sociality, and even the most mundane interactions with urban space. Rather than fostering security, surveillance cultivates distrust, fractures community, and reinforces the marginalization of those already deemed out of place in the city.

Bio: Rachel is a senior majoring in Global Studies and minoring in Modern Art Markets and Ethics. Across her classes, most of her research is related to institutions of power—academic, cultural, political—and forms of resistance or alternative existence; this is driven in part by her involvement with political organizing in areas including, but not limited to, labor, police abolition, anti-imperialism, and the like. Beyond that, she also loves biking, laughing, making sculptures, cats, eating ice cream, touching plants and dirt, laying in the sun, and thinking about connections between things. She tries her best to guide everything she does around her hope for a world where collective liberation is realized, communities thrive in interdependence with the natural world, and systems of oppression are replaced by structures of care and joy.