Candidate: Megan C. Mullins

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Sociology

Title: Remembering the Mendiola March: Understanding the Role of Experience and Accounts in the Construction of History

Committee: Dr. Paula Brush, Chair
Dr. Doug Davidson
Dr. Victoria Ross
Dr. Donald Cooney

Date: Thursday, November 4, 2004 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
2520 Sangren Hall

Abstract: This research project investigated the relationship between personal experiences of events and public descriptions of events. Using qualitative interview and content analysis research, the researcher developed a case study around the portrayal of a 1987 march and demonstration for land reform in the Philippines. Specifically, this research included a discourse analysis of published, public accounts as they appeared in a national newspaper and the personal interviewee accounts of the event as remembered by U.S. witnesses and their associates who had traveled to the Philippines as part of their ecumenically-based work on hunger and other social justice issues. The theoretical contributions of critical symbolic interaction, ruling relations, and discursive practices of power frame the analysis of these accounts. A comparison of these accounts revealed certain consistencies and contradictions in definitions and descriptions of the event and the issues surrounding its occurrence.

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