Bachelor Thesis
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
My senior honors thesis, "Dissonant Justice: How Boston Men Mediate Anti-abortion Ideology", was inspired by the near-daily anti-abortion demonstrations that take place outside of Boston Planned Parenthood, just on the edge of BU's campus. I interviewed Pro-Life men using qualitative research methods and narrative analysis to examine how demonstrators use silence, redirection, and qualification to manage the presentation of their anti-abortion ideologies and activist work. By eliciting points of tension, dissonance, and negotiation in their opinions on religion, neighboring social movements, and sexual and reproductive activities and moral frameworks, I identify the ways in which the male anti-abortion activists’ personal identity and self-actualization aspirations shape their ideologies and claims to power as activists. The project culminated in a sixty page thesis that was successfully defended to the BU Anthropology department in May of 2022.