Oystering along Long Island has a long and complex history. For thousands of years, oyster beds grew in abundance in the bays and estuaries of the East End, but with European colonization came unsustainable harvesting practices that led to complete collapse of the oyster beds and the surrounding ecosystem. Now, at the start of a new century, the possibility for oyster-rich bays may be found not in re-establishment of the natural ecosystem, but through the practices of small oyster mariculture farms placed in areas deliberately set aside for shellfish industries. This thesis examines the possibilities for the re-emergence of the oyster industry, as conceptions of a public commons and the public trust come into conflict with historical fishing industries and the growing transformation of Long Island into a tourist enclave for the wealthy. Against these forces, a loose network of small oyster aquaculture operations have banded together seeking to re-establish oysters both as an economic and ecological activity within the bay.

Buenos Aires is home to many Bolivian immigrants, so much that they statistically have become a key member of the city's citizenry. This thesis entails the social and cultural mechanisms that prevent Bolivians from having a social representation in the identity of public spaces within the downtown area. This persists through cultural hierarchy that permits a process of the rejection and acceptance of certain practices and spatial manipulations.

Over one weekend at the beginning of October 2019, Eliud Kipchoge's sub-two-hour marathon in the INEOS 1:59 Challenge and Brigid Kosgei's world-record-breaking Chicago Marathon win reset the clock in terms of what was believed to be humanly possible in the marathon. Both Kipchoge and Kosgei's feats were accomplished thanks to the help of Nike's carbon plate shoes, as well as developments in training, pacing, and a myriad of other factors that play into athletic performance. Earlier versions of the shoes they wore first had the potential to change performance outcomes in 2016, at the US Olympic Marathon Trials in Los Angeles. Networks of people had engaged in a discourse about the shoes beginning in 2016, but these debates exploded in late 2019. Throughout this period, academic and anecdotal evidence more or less proved that Nike's carbon plate shoes conferred a very real performance advantage to the majority of athletes wearing them. Three general camps of thought emerged in these discussions: that the shoes were ruining the sport; that the shoes were impressive and not inherently damaging, but that they were introduced to the sport in a way that enhanced inequalities; and that the shoes were awesome and were helping to move the sport forward.
Because of the proven advantage some runners experience while wearing the carbon-fiber plate Pebax-foam shoes, the running community has been forced to grapple with how to regulate "fairness" with respect to new technologies and how to manage the tension between innovation and tradition. Debates about the shoes' use are especially contentious among elite runners but have been relevant for runners at every level; the shoes reflect broader human concerns about the boundary between what is "natural" or "artificial," as well as challenge our communal understandings about technology's place in sport and human performance.

For nearly half a century, the American government funded the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male." As the name suggests, this experiment abused black men from Alabama and required medical professionals to withhold care from the test subjects. The "Tuskegee Study" is credited with increasing medical mistrust among members of the black community. Specifically, black men, particularly those similar to the original test subjects, experienced a decline in health following the 1972 "Tuskegee Study" disclosures. In this thesis, the health of black infants is viewed through the lens of the "Tuskegee Study" revelations. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a difference-in-differences methodology demonstrates that the disclosures did not negatively impact the health of black infants. Furthermore, data from the General Social Survey indicates that potential southern black mothers did not experience meaningfully high levels of medical mistrust following the revelations.