We investigate different forms of non-selfish behavior in a laboratory setting, in particular when individual decision making is motivated by moral concerns. Firstly we study the effect of second order beliefs in a donation environment, an effect commonly known as guilt aversion. Results show strong evidence in favor of guilt aversion and some puzzling observations around the preference for revealing expectations. Secondly, we study the effect of previous actions on individual behavior, in the phenomenon called upstream reciprocity. We are able to show that upstream reciprocity supplements trust: a previous positive social interaction makes a subject as prosocial as if they exhibit trust in strangers. Results also exhibit negative upstream reciprocity: reciprocating and unkind act to an unsuspecting third party. Lastly, we propose an experimental intervention to study the effects of morality in the determination of social structure. The experimental design focuses on a modified surplus division game which includes a steward figure who must perform the distribution of the surplus. The goal is to explore the differentiated social arrangements emerging from the pre-existing moral variability in a sample of college students in the United States.
My dissertation is a study of (anti-)displacement organizing and genealogies in North East Los Angeles (NELA). It is based on my time with an anti-displacement grassroots collective known as the Northeast Los Angeles Alliance (NELAA). Started in 2014, NELAA was our response to the post-recession resurgence of the housing market, its exacerbation/ exploitation of the affordable housing crisis in Los Angeles, and its preying on low-income and immigrant tenants. Like NELAA, my project takes on the displacement-driven speculative financial formulas of the real estate industry/ private property regime (derivatives of a necro-speculative social calculus) through an engagement/ examination of the political economies of belonging and the libidinal economies of housing. All in all, my research is a study of Latinx/ Chicanx geographies through the lens of race and property, tenure and belonging. I apply a relational analysis that understands Latinx/ Chicanx geographies through its exchanges/ entanglements with Indigenous and Black geographies. In it I argue that Latinx spaces/ neighborhoods are themselves constructed and defended through de-indigenizing and anti-black logics of inhabitance, a politics of belonging that stems foundationally from the postcolonial politics of being. My methods include critical ethnography, oral history, and participatory direct-action research. I also conduct textual analyses of protest/ movement ephemera, local historiographies, murals, early 20th century booster literature, court transcripts, and legal documents. In terms of scale, my research is mainly focused on a specific neighborhood in NELA (Highland Park), but broadens out to include the area (NELA), city (Los Angeles), state (California), region (US Southwest), and nation (federal housing regulations).
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