Moshoula Capous‐desylla
Biographic Data
| ID | 4270190 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Moshoula Capous‐desylla |
| GIVEN NAMES | Moshoula |
| FAMILY NAME | Capous‐desylla |
| SIGNATURE | DESYLLA M C |
| AFFILIATIONS | California State University, Northridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6610-553X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 55 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Applying the Embodied Pedagogy of Body Mapping Methodology in the Graduate Sociology Classroom as a Form of Individual and Collective Healing
Informed by arts-based, embodied pedagogies, this article highlights the ways in which body mapping methodology was used in a graduate-level arts-based research class in sociology. This course focused on applying various arts-based research approaches to teaching and learning, with an emphasis on how the arts in education can be used for individual and collective healing, specifically after the global trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article…
Trial by Fire
A Contemporary Introduction to Sociology
The influential authors significantly update their popular introductory text that invites students to reflect on their lives in the context of the combustible leap from modern to postmodern life. The authors show how culture is central to understanding many world problems as they challenge readers to confront the problems and possibilities of an era in which the futures of the physical and social environments seem uncertain. As culture rapidly ch…
Legalizing Street Vending in Los Angeles
Street vending was criminalized in the city of Los Angeles since the 1930s. The Los Angeles Street Vendor Campaign (LASVC) utilized several framing tactics over the last several years in order to mobilize participants to decriminalize and legalize the profession of street vending. This article applies frame alignment theory to illustrate how the LASVC reached its goals. This case study utilizes qualitative interviews of key players in the LASVC m…
Teaching Note—Strategies for Enhancing Writing Among First-Generation Social Work Students
Social workers engage in various types of writing in the educational setting and in diverse practice settings at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. What they write and how they write has a major impact on people’s lives. This teaching note highlights the importance of individualized writing support through a project that used peer writing mentors. Written from the perspectives of the instructor and two peer-writing mentors, we share our process …
We’re here, we’re queer, we’re framed
Informed by our personal stories of diaspora as first-generation Greek-Americans and as queer artists-activists, we intimately connect to social justice issues surrounding the intersections of migration and sexuality. In this article, we present various ethical tensions and dilemmas we encountered in a community-based, arts-informed research project with fourteen LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers living in Athens, Greece. In partnership with a g…
Navigating Ethical Issues in Photovoice
This article reflects on ethical issues that arose during the course of two different evaluation projects that used photovoice method to engage with marginalized populations. The evaluations serve as case studies for a critical discussion about potential barriers that researchers may face when employing photovoice method while trying to balance the principles of community-based participatory research with the requirements of Institutional Review …
At the Intersection of Covid-19 and Sex Work in the United States
The emergence of COVID-19 in the United States in early 2020 has severely disrupted the lives of most Americans, and people engaged in sex trade are no exception. People in sex work encounter multiple challenges when trying to access the services they need, particularly as they fear arrest, stigma, and pathology related to their work. These barriers have been amplified during the global COVID-19 pandemic, as sex trade workers may further lack acc…
Minding the maps
This study highlights the pathways of clients' social service usage through qualitative interviews and visual mapping methodology. Undergraduate students interviewed clients at diverse social service agencies in Los Angeles that include homeless shelters, child welfare organizations, domestic violence organizations, LGBTQIA youth‐oriented agencies, nonprofits serving older adults, schools, and organizations serving low‐income families. Students u…
Photovoice as a Multilevel Tool for Gender and Sexual Identity Exploration
Gender and sexual identity exploration (GSIE) consists of engaging in activities that allow an individual to discover their values, preferences, and boundaries related to gender and sexuality. Photovoice is a participatory research method that incorporates an intrapersonal, interpersonal, communal, and political approach to engaging with a given topic. The purpose of this article is to use existing research to illustrate how using photovoice meth…
Using Anticarceral Feminism to Illustrate the Impact of Criminalization on the Lives of Individuals in the Sex Trades
This research study is informed by anticarceral feminism to understand and highlight the experiences of violence and oppression that individuals in the sex trade experience as a result of police stings, raids, and incarceration. We present findings from 23 in-depth, qualitative interviews with men, women, and trans individuals who were arrested in the Los Angeles sex trade. More specifically, we explore experiences of violence that occurred inter…
Exploring the families of origin of LGBTQ former foster youth and their trajectories throughout care
Navigating Intersecting Identities, Self‐Representation, and Relationships
This qualitative research study highlights the lived experiences and voices of diverse trans sex workers who are living and working in Los Angeles, California. Informed by transgender theory, feminist intersectionality theory, and standpoint feminist theoretical approaches to research, this study uses life history case studies, qualitative interactive interviews, and a life timeline approach with six trans sex workers living and working in variou…
Collecting visual voices
Rodeos have been an integral part of American cowboy culture since the 1800s, however, it wasn’t until the 1970s when gay rodeos began to form and challenge some of the assumptions about ‘cowboys,’ ‘sexuality,’ and ‘masculinity.’ The purpose of this ethnographic study was to utilize participant-driven photo-elicitation (PDPE) method to understand how individuals who participate in gay rodeos experience their identities and the meanings they attri…
Using an Arts-Informed Eclectic Approach to Photovoice Data Analysis
Arts-informed approaches in qualitative research are gaining more recognition as being a critical research approach in the social sciences. Using arts in research is most commonly seen in the data collection process and in data representation, however, very little is written about how to use arts-informed approaches in data analysis. There are no 'how-to' guides and researchers who engage in photovoice research often implement traditional qualita…
Transgressing the Gendered Norms in Childhood
This qualitative study utilized case-study research methodology and ethnographic techniques to highlight the lived experiences of four prepubescent (female affirmed) transgender children and their families. This article presents the exploratory and descriptive findings from a micro perspective of the children, siblings, and their parents, as the prepubescent children transitioned gender and developed their gender identity over time. Through an in…
Photovoice as a Pedagogical Tool
This article explores a classroom project in which we used photovoice as a pedagogical tool to enhance personal and professional self-awareness among female, Muslim, social work students in an intercultural classroom setting located in the Arabian Gulf. We begin with an overview and discussion of arts-based approaches to education and then provide examples from the literature on the use of photovoice in the classroom. Next, we discuss the necessi…
Tensions, Challenges, and Lessons Learned
We present two arts-based research studies that implemented photovoice method with diverse individuals working in the sex industry. Although these photovoice projects took place in two different cities and at various points in time, their purpose was similar: to highlight the needs, aspirations, health concerns, and issues related to sex workers' personal lives and their communities to create awareness and social change. In this article, we locat…
Underlying Motives, Moral Agendas and Unlikely Partnerships
In response to the overwhelming amount of attention to human trafficking, the debates surrounding its definition, and its focus on the sex industry, the purpose of this study was to understand the motivations behind the formation of the Trafficking in Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) as a model, data was collected and analyzed in order to examine the coalition identities of key players and their position…
Navigating Intersecting Identities, Self‐Representation, and Relationships
This qualitative research study highlights the lived experiences and voices of diverse trans sex workers who are living and working in Los Angeles, California. Informed by transgender theory, feminist intersectionality theory, and standpoint feminist theoretical approaches to research, this study uses life history case studies, qualitative interactive interviews, and a life timeline approach with six trans sex workers living and working in variou…
Using an Arts-Informed Eclectic Approach to Photovoice Data Analysis
Arts-informed approaches in qualitative research are gaining more recognition as being a critical research approach in the social sciences. Using arts in research is most commonly seen in the data collection process and in data representation, however, very little is written about how to use arts-informed approaches in data analysis. There are no 'how-to' guides and researchers who engage in photovoice research often implement traditional qualita…
Tensions, Challenges, and Lessons Learned
We present two arts-based research studies that implemented photovoice method with diverse individuals working in the sex industry. Although these photovoice projects took place in two different cities and at various points in time, their purpose was similar: to highlight the needs, aspirations, health concerns, and issues related to sex workers' personal lives and their communities to create awareness and social change. In this article, we locat…
At the Intersection of Covid-19 and Sex Work in the United States
The emergence of COVID-19 in the United States in early 2020 has severely disrupted the lives of most Americans, and people engaged in sex trade are no exception. People in sex work encounter multiple challenges when trying to access the services they need, particularly as they fear arrest, stigma, and pathology related to their work. These barriers have been amplified during the global COVID-19 pandemic, as sex trade workers may further lack acc…
Navigating Ethical Issues in Photovoice
This article reflects on ethical issues that arose during the course of two different evaluation projects that used photovoice method to engage with marginalized populations. The evaluations serve as case studies for a critical discussion about potential barriers that researchers may face when employing photovoice method while trying to balance the principles of community-based participatory research with the requirements of Institutional Review …
Using Anticarceral Feminism to Illustrate the Impact of Criminalization on the Lives of Individuals in the Sex Trades
This research study is informed by anticarceral feminism to understand and highlight the experiences of violence and oppression that individuals in the sex trade experience as a result of police stings, raids, and incarceration. We present findings from 23 in-depth, qualitative interviews with men, women, and trans individuals who were arrested in the Los Angeles sex trade. More specifically, we explore experiences of violence that occurred inter…
Exploring the families of origin of LGBTQ former foster youth and their trajectories throughout care
Photovoice as a Pedagogical Tool
This article explores a classroom project in which we used photovoice as a pedagogical tool to enhance personal and professional self-awareness among female, Muslim, social work students in an intercultural classroom setting located in the Arabian Gulf. We begin with an overview and discussion of arts-based approaches to education and then provide examples from the literature on the use of photovoice in the classroom. Next, we discuss the necessi…
Underlying Motives, Moral Agendas and Unlikely Partnerships
In response to the overwhelming amount of attention to human trafficking, the debates surrounding its definition, and its focus on the sex industry, the purpose of this study was to understand the motivations behind the formation of the Trafficking in Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) as a model, data was collected and analyzed in order to examine the coalition identities of key players and their position…
Legalizing Street Vending in Los Angeles
Street vending was criminalized in the city of Los Angeles since the 1930s. The Los Angeles Street Vendor Campaign (LASVC) utilized several framing tactics over the last several years in order to mobilize participants to decriminalize and legalize the profession of street vending. This article applies frame alignment theory to illustrate how the LASVC reached its goals. This case study utilizes qualitative interviews of key players in the LASVC m…
Underlying Motives, Moral Agendas and Unlikely Partnerships
In response to the overwhelming amount of attention to human trafficking, the debates surrounding its definition, and its focus on the sex industry, the purpose of this study was to understand the motivations behind the formation of the Trafficking in Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) as a model, data was collected and analyzed in order to examine the coalition identities of key players and their position…
Tensions, Challenges, and Lessons Learned
We present two arts-based research studies that implemented photovoice method with diverse individuals working in the sex industry. Although these photovoice projects took place in two different cities and at various points in time, their purpose was similar: to highlight the needs, aspirations, health concerns, and issues related to sex workers' personal lives and their communities to create awareness and social change. In this article, we locat…
Transgressing the Gendered Norms in Childhood
This qualitative study utilized case-study research methodology and ethnographic techniques to highlight the lived experiences of four prepubescent (female affirmed) transgender children and their families. This article presents the exploratory and descriptive findings from a micro perspective of the children, siblings, and their parents, as the prepubescent children transitioned gender and developed their gender identity over time. Through an in…
Photovoice as a Pedagogical Tool
This article explores a classroom project in which we used photovoice as a pedagogical tool to enhance personal and professional self-awareness among female, Muslim, social work students in an intercultural classroom setting located in the Arabian Gulf. We begin with an overview and discussion of arts-based approaches to education and then provide examples from the literature on the use of photovoice in the classroom. Next, we discuss the necessi…
Collecting visual voices
Rodeos have been an integral part of American cowboy culture since the 1800s, however, it wasn’t until the 1970s when gay rodeos began to form and challenge some of the assumptions about ‘cowboys,’ ‘sexuality,’ and ‘masculinity.’ The purpose of this ethnographic study was to utilize participant-driven photo-elicitation (PDPE) method to understand how individuals who participate in gay rodeos experience their identities and the meanings they attri…
Using an Arts-Informed Eclectic Approach to Photovoice Data Analysis
Arts-informed approaches in qualitative research are gaining more recognition as being a critical research approach in the social sciences. Using arts in research is most commonly seen in the data collection process and in data representation, however, very little is written about how to use arts-informed approaches in data analysis. There are no 'how-to' guides and researchers who engage in photovoice research often implement traditional qualita…
Photovoice as a Multilevel Tool for Gender and Sexual Identity Exploration
Gender and sexual identity exploration (GSIE) consists of engaging in activities that allow an individual to discover their values, preferences, and boundaries related to gender and sexuality. Photovoice is a participatory research method that incorporates an intrapersonal, interpersonal, communal, and political approach to engaging with a given topic. The purpose of this article is to use existing research to illustrate how using photovoice meth…
Using Anticarceral Feminism to Illustrate the Impact of Criminalization on the Lives of Individuals in the Sex Trades
This research study is informed by anticarceral feminism to understand and highlight the experiences of violence and oppression that individuals in the sex trade experience as a result of police stings, raids, and incarceration. We present findings from 23 in-depth, qualitative interviews with men, women, and trans individuals who were arrested in the Los Angeles sex trade. More specifically, we explore experiences of violence that occurred inter…
Exploring the families of origin of LGBTQ former foster youth and their trajectories throughout care
Navigating Intersecting Identities, Self‐Representation, and Relationships
This qualitative research study highlights the lived experiences and voices of diverse trans sex workers who are living and working in Los Angeles, California. Informed by transgender theory, feminist intersectionality theory, and standpoint feminist theoretical approaches to research, this study uses life history case studies, qualitative interactive interviews, and a life timeline approach with six trans sex workers living and working in variou…
Teaching Note—Strategies for Enhancing Writing Among First-Generation Social Work Students
Social workers engage in various types of writing in the educational setting and in diverse practice settings at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. What they write and how they write has a major impact on people’s lives. This teaching note highlights the importance of individualized writing support through a project that used peer writing mentors. Written from the perspectives of the instructor and two peer-writing mentors, we share our process …
We’re here, we’re queer, we’re framed
Informed by our personal stories of diaspora as first-generation Greek-Americans and as queer artists-activists, we intimately connect to social justice issues surrounding the intersections of migration and sexuality. In this article, we present various ethical tensions and dilemmas we encountered in a community-based, arts-informed research project with fourteen LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers living in Athens, Greece. In partnership with a g…
Navigating Ethical Issues in Photovoice
This article reflects on ethical issues that arose during the course of two different evaluation projects that used photovoice method to engage with marginalized populations. The evaluations serve as case studies for a critical discussion about potential barriers that researchers may face when employing photovoice method while trying to balance the principles of community-based participatory research with the requirements of Institutional Review …
At the Intersection of Covid-19 and Sex Work in the United States
The emergence of COVID-19 in the United States in early 2020 has severely disrupted the lives of most Americans, and people engaged in sex trade are no exception. People in sex work encounter multiple challenges when trying to access the services they need, particularly as they fear arrest, stigma, and pathology related to their work. These barriers have been amplified during the global COVID-19 pandemic, as sex trade workers may further lack acc…
Minding the maps
This study highlights the pathways of clients' social service usage through qualitative interviews and visual mapping methodology. Undergraduate students interviewed clients at diverse social service agencies in Los Angeles that include homeless shelters, child welfare organizations, domestic violence organizations, LGBTQIA youth‐oriented agencies, nonprofits serving older adults, schools, and organizations serving low‐income families. Students u…
Legalizing Street Vending in Los Angeles
Street vending was criminalized in the city of Los Angeles since the 1930s. The Los Angeles Street Vendor Campaign (LASVC) utilized several framing tactics over the last several years in order to mobilize participants to decriminalize and legalize the profession of street vending. This article applies frame alignment theory to illustrate how the LASVC reached its goals. This case study utilizes qualitative interviews of key players in the LASVC m…
A Contemporary Introduction to Sociology
The influential authors significantly update their popular introductory text that invites students to reflect on their lives in the context of the combustible leap from modern to postmodern life. The authors show how culture is central to understanding many world problems as they challenge readers to confront the problems and possibilities of an era in which the futures of the physical and social environments seem uncertain. As culture rapidly ch…
Trial by Fire
Applying the Embodied Pedagogy of Body Mapping Methodology in the Graduate Sociology Classroom as a Form of Individual and Collective Healing
Informed by arts-based, embodied pedagogies, this article highlights the ways in which body mapping methodology was used in a graduate-level arts-based research class in sociology. This course focused on applying various arts-based research approaches to teaching and learning, with an emphasis on how the arts in education can be used for individual and collective healing, specifically after the global trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article…
Sociology (17 works) · Political science (12 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Participatory Visual Research Methods (9 works) · Law (6 works) · Photovoice (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Qualitative research (6 works) · Social science (6 works)