# Dispatches: Undergraduate Researchers in the Field *Every spring, a select group of Harvard College students receive travel grants from Weatherhead to support their thesis field research on topics related to international affairs. The Center has encouraged these Undergraduate Associates to take advantage of its research community by connecting with graduate students, faculty, postdocs, and visiting scholars. Four Undergraduate Associates write of their experiences last summer:* ## Samy Almshref ![Headshot of Samy Almshref.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/2025-12/dispatches-almshref_0.png) **Departments of Philosophy and of Economics. Research interests: Political epistemology; intellectual history; institutional formation; and political economy of education.** ![A mural depicts soldiers aiming rifles at civilians holding red roses inside an outline of Syria, with green, white, and black colors in the background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-12/roses-vs-bullets-cropped-50-50-card.png?itok=Z3qbLgDH) Image from cover: “Roses vs Bullets” mural in Idlib, Syria, refers to the beginning of the Syrian Revolution in 2011, when protesters would hold up roses to signal to the soldiers that they were peaceful. Credit: Abu Malek Al-Shami (courtesy of Samy Almshref)I spent the summer in Syria doing thesis research. I went in wanting to study how people experience their own politicism. On the ground, the focus shifted. Given the Syrian government’s nascent state after the fall of the Assad regime, institutions thinned, and how people pictured and handled them in their absence came into view. During the first weeks, I sat in on trainings run by humanitarian organizations, international NGOs, and the UN. Too often they used translated slide decks, heavy with borrowed terms and light on local sense. The problem wasn’t only misguided answers. It was misguiding questions. So I set myself a simpler task: spend the summer searching for good questions, questions that people wished to ask each other. Through personal stories, I listened for what people counted as political at all, what was worth risking in political discourse, and what, if anything, was beyond political expression. In Homs, we dragged nearly seventy chairs into a school courtyard and set them up in a circle. On a Wednesday evening, people from across the city gathered around one basic question: “What is the purpose of a parliament?” With no parliament in place, no one had a blueprint to defend. Imagination moved without guardrails; the answers were more exact and humane than what most theory admits. I kept convening and joining conversations wherever I could. After many conversations, it was clear that even imported definitions were often an imposition. Across 135 interviews, I let every conversation define itself, presenting only three questions: “Who are you?” “What is Syria?” and “What is justice?” From there, each conversation decided its own path. One exchange about belonging stays with me. I asked about *intimā*—affiliation—and the word slid off. I reframed: “Where do you begin shortening your prayers—at what point do you feel you’ve left home?” There the question of belonging dissolved out of abstraction. People traced home not on maps but along checkpoints and neighbors, by risk and by relief. New questions kept precipitating where stories touched and where they pulled apart. ![A woman in black hijab hangs a photo of her martyred son on a memorial wall filled with photos.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-12/Dispatches-UmWaleed-memorial.JPG?itok=IpsLJwVZ) Um Waleed at a protest in Rukn El-Deen, putting up a photo of her martyred son. Credit: Samy AlmshrefIn Damascus’s marginalized municipality, Rukn Al-Deen, I met Um Waleed, protesting with framed photos of her two sons, martyred in 2013. “We are forgotten now because they say we did not take part in the revolution,” she told me. I asked whether she felt she had. Rukn Al-Deen never faced the sieges of Darayya or Al-Ghouta, yet she and other women gathered to sew battle vests for the rebels in both places. I also met Bilal, an artist who entered Darayya during the siege and stayed to paint murals on its shattered walls—“so people can look at something other than destruction— something uplifting, something eye-catching,” he says. Encounters like these unsettle the tidy narratives that later harden into “the history” of a people. If we track power only through front lines and foreign ministries, locality disappears—and with it Um-Waleed and Bilal. Power also resides in patient, unremarkable labor, in the determination of those fighting battles long deemed “bigger than them,” painting murals on walls that are bound to collapse. There is a politics to the camera, the sewing machine, the school desk, the paintbrush—forms of action that do not fit the grammar of the gun but help decide what a community remembers about itself and who counts as part of it. Political accounts that ignore these 18 forms of work do not merely omit a “human dimension”; they misrecognize how and where political life is lived. Now, as I write my thesis, I’m pushing the inquiry upstream, looking at why individuals exhibit regularity at the institutional level. The summer showed me what individual imagination does in institutional absence; the thesis asks what happens when procedures, offices, and files try to contain it. Between a circle of chairs in a courtyard and a civil servant’s desk lies the ordinary ground where politics is made—sometimes by design, often by improvisation, always by people. --- ## Thomas Tait ![Headshot of Thomas Tait.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/2025-12/dispatches-tait.png) **Department of Government. Research interests: American foreign policy; political psychology; bureaucratic politics and decision making; advisor influence; and Latin American politics.** My senior thesis seeks to understand how psychology, information structures, and advisor competition shape US presidential administration responses to failure in foreign policy. I examine this idea through four case studies: the Bay of Pigs invasion during the Kennedy administration, the Cambodian incursion during the Nixon administration, the Iranian hostage crisis during the Carter administration, and the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration. Each of these failures are unique in their root causes, fundamental problems, and public reaction, and as such, administration responses vary in interesting ways. To begin finding an answer to this question, I planned a three-week trip across the United States to find internal documents that could help paint a picture of the international dynamics that shape policy responses to foreign policy failures. This question was motivated from my upbringing as a Marine brat, where I witnessed first-hand the implications of decision making in foreign policy. ![The exterior of the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum on a sunny day with a blue sky in the background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-12/Dispatches-Nixon-library.jpeg?itok=48pNwyAM) Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, CA. Credit: Thomas Tait My trip began at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta, Georgia, where I spent three days scanning documents and having fascinating conversations with an archivist named Keith Shuler, who retired shortly after my visit. Keith and I spent many hours discussing his career, life in Georgia, and his best food recommendations for Atlanta. He told me about his time in the Army after college and some of his highlights from decades at the library. His food recommendations did not disappoint—most notably his suggestion that I take advantage of a reduced price cafeteria lunch at the library on Wednesdays, which was surprisingly good. From Atlanta, I went to Simi Valley, California, where I visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The facility is on top of a small mountain that overlooks the stunning southern California landscape, which made some picnic lunches on the back patio of the library absolutely incredible. At the library, I met an individual who worked for the Reagan administration who provided some insights into the decision-making and information-sharing structures of the administration. Because of his visit, we were able to hold a handwritten draft of President Reagan’s first inaugural address. Before my final stop in Yorba Linda, I visited my old hometown, Camp Pendleton. I drove by landmarks of my childhood that shaped my identity today: the park where my Mom led a running club where I learned the value of community and the base gate where a Marine inspired my desire to live a life of positivity and energy. It was a grounding experience to see how much I have grown since living the consequences of American foreign policy as a Marine brat. After my brief sojourn to Camp Pendleton, I drove to Yorba Linda, California, where, in addition to the extensive document review, I learned a great deal about the legal battle to get the documents to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. While the location was relatively unassuming relative to the gorgeous scenery of the Carter and Reagan stops, the museum itself was fantastic. The team of researchers was extraordinarily helpful and wonderful company while I poured over documents. Across the three sites, I reviewed over 25,000 pages of documents from hundreds of boxes, scanning and collecting over 8,000 pages. I worked with archivists at the libraries to find digitally available documents that have been crucial to expanding the pool of information available to my thesis. This trip is best summarized by one conversation I had with Keith. On my last day in Atlanta, Keith asked where I was going next. After going through the extensive list of destinations and plans, Keith succinctly said: “sounds like you’re going to learn a lot.” --- ## Tesia Thomas ![Headshot of Tesia Thomas.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/2025-12/dispatches-thomas.png) **Department of Economics. Research interests: Postcolonial identity formation; ethnoreligious dynamics; conflict and peace building; comparative politics; and South Asian diaspora.** ![A dimly lit temple interior with large seated and standing Buddha statues, ornate carvings, painted ceiling, and flowers placed on a black altar.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-12/Dispatches-Buddhist-Temple.jpg?itok=34hE9E40) Golden Temple of Dambulla in Sri Lanka. Credit: Tesia ThomasThis summer, I traveled to Kandy (Sri Lanka), Calicut (India), and Kew (England) to conduct both interviews and archival research, investigating the roots of ethnoreligious conflict in South Asia. A comparative case study, my thesis explores how the British colonial regime institutionalized identity divisions, either along religious or caste-based lines, to advance its administrative goals. I aim to explore why intergroup relations between ethnoreligious groups—as a result of varied politicization of identity during British colonial rule—remain politicized in Kandy, Sri Lanka, but are relatively harmonious in Calicut, India. In Kandy, I met with historians, legal experts, political scientists, and leaders of major peacebuilding NGOs to understand how colonial legacies continue to shape Sri Lanka’s politics and social dynamics. From historians who have extensively studied British colonial rule in Sri Lanka, I learned of tangible examples of colonial powers disproportionately favoring the minority religious population with educational access. Legal experts, consequently, explained how the post-independence constitutions aimed to reverse these privileges, disenfranchising the minority population and entrenching ethnoreligious division in the new nation’s legal framework. Political scientists and leaders of peacebuilding NGOs further revealed how current intergroup dynamics, following the civil war in Sri Lanka, remain fraught; minority communities continue to face disparities in wealth, education, and broader opportunities compared to the majority population. In Calicut, my conversations with scholars and community leaders revealed how British colonial governance in India emphasized caste hierarchies more than religious divisions. Colonial policies reinforced the dominance of upper-caste Hindus and also fostered alliances with economically influential Muslim traders. This coalition between high-caste Hindus and wealthy Muslims produced a foundation for interreligious cooperation, which, unlike in Sri Lanka, has persisted into the postcolonial era. Calicut’s social harmony is deeply visible, as I observed in my ethnographic research as well; perhaps most potently, I was struck by how seamlessly daily life crossed religious boundaries in Calicut—children ran freely from Hindu to Muslim to Christian homes, mothers exchanged sweets and food, and families all gathered on their verandas late into the night to talk to one another, regardless of faith. ![A young woman stands beside an elephant in a muddy area surrounded by trees, touching its trunk and smiling.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-12/Dispatches-elephant.jpg?itok=PAc_QI-i) Tesia Thomas visits and bathes rescued elephants at a Sri Lankan sanctuary. Courtesy of Tesia ThomasAt the National Archives in Kew, I examined British administrative records, census reports, and correspondence that revealed how colonial officials deliberately classified and managed populations along religious or caste lines. In the Sri Lankan context, I found documentation of policies that privileged minority religious communities, laying the groundwork for later resentment. In the case of Calicut, archival records highlighted how colonial authorities relied on caste distinctions to structure governance, often aligning with upper-caste Hindus and influential Muslim merchants to secure economic and political stability. These documents underscored how identity was not simply observed but actively constructed and politicized by the colonial regimes. Altogether, my fieldwork in Kandy and Calicut, coupled with my archival research in Kew, has certainly helped illuminate how British colonial rule instrumentalized very divergent legacies of identity in specific regions of Sri Lanka and India. By utilizing religion as the primary marker of division in Sri Lanka, the colonial state entrenched cleavages that remain deeply politicized today. In contrast, in Calicut, colonial reliance on caste hierarchies created coalitions that fostered interreligious cooperation, a legacy still visible in Calicut’s harmonious inter-group relations. With my thesis, I aim to make a deliberate contribution to the existing literature on how colonial rule continues to reverberate long after independence, shaping ethnoreligious dynamics in pluralistic, diverse societies. --- ## Kawsar Yasin ![Headshot of Kawsar Yasin.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/2025-12/dispatches-yasin.png) **Departments of History and of Anthropology. Research interests: Uyghur studies; anticolonial nationalism; cultural memory and trauma; diaspora and migration; exile and displacement; Middle East and central Asia; transnationalism; and decolonial feminism.** In the city of Istanbul, the *athan*, or the call to prayer, echoes from mosques scattered in every direction. Towering minarets and busy bazaars run along the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. Also within the city’s bustling streets exist entire communities of Uyghurs—a predominantly Muslim, Turkic ethnic group—working to rebuild their world in exile. ![A smiling woman stands in front of a blue wooden building with signs in Turkish, English, and Chinese referencing oppression of Muslims in East Turkestan.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-12/Dispatches-opener-blue-building.jpeg?itok=eEsjT-pV) Kawsar Yasin in front of a house in Isa Yusuf Alptekin Park, Istanbul. Courtesy of Kawsar YasinSince the Chinese invasion of East Türkistan in 1949, thousands of Uyghurs have flocked to Türkiye via migration networks that pass through Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Today, it is the site of the largest population of Uyghurs outside of Central Asia. This past summer, I spent a few weeks traversing the neighborhoods of Sefaköy, Zeytinburnu, Başakşehir, and Çapa, following the rhythms of Uyghur life to conduct research for my senior thesis project. I ended up in the tea circles of mothers who fled the Chinese state’s repression, the storefronts of booksellers who reproduce banned Uyghur texts, and in deep conversations with youth imagining a world where they can reunite with their imprisoned or missing relatives in their homeland. I began my thesis research broadly looking at twentieth-century Uyghur resistance and diasporic organizing, but soon I recognized a massive gap in scholarship regarding the role of Uyghur women in anticolonial resistance. As I spoke to Uyghur women about their contrasting experiences in Chinese-occupied East Türkistan and in Türkiye, their oral histories detailed hidden resistance networks that planned religious gatherings and distributed mutual aid amid state crackdowns from China in the 1990s. It was from this political involvement that forced these women to flee to Istanbul. Safe in Türkiye, women transformed the exiled community by forming women's and children’s organizations such as schools, religious groups, and orphanages. In these spaces, Uyghur women continue to keep histories of resistance alive. The Nuzugum Culture and Family Organization—named after an Uyghur heroine—disperses aid to families and cares for orphans. I connected with the female teaching staff of the school over Turkish breakfast and I even played recess games with schoolchildren. ![Shelves display colorful, patterned textiles and folded blankets with intricate designs. A patterned rug lies on a table in front of the shelves.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-12/Dispatches-textiles.jpg?itok=kSTZ_6mY) Handmade mattresses sold at the Uyghur bazaar in Istanbul operated by Uyghur women. Credit: Kawsar YasinAnother site I often visited was a female-operated Uyghur bazaar in the heart of Sefaköy. When I entered, I was welcomed by familiar scents of dried fruits and herbs sourced from Central Asia. Women also sold traditional handmade bedding stitched by locals, colorful *etles* dresses, and jewelry from East Türkistan. Each of their stalls exist from the legacies of the Silk Road, filled to the brim with textiles and goods from across Central Asia and the Middle East. The work of Uyghurs in exile builds on historic networks of mobility that connect the Islamic world. Hajj networks that spanned across Damascus, Istanbul, Mecca, and Medina were utilized by Uyghurs to smuggle religious texts back into Chinese-occupied East Türkistan, subverting the state’s tight control of Islamic rituals and religious expression. I also found that Uyghur-owned bookstores and libraries in Istanbul work to duplicate Uyghur texts that have been banned and burned in East Türkistan. The owners are building bases of public memory and cultural preservation within bookshelves. To study the Uyghurs today is to confront erasure. Researching the Uyghurs of East Türkistan is impossible for many scholars due to heightened repression and censorship by the Chinese government. Therefore, the diaspora is one of the only ways to study the Uyghur people. Through the lens of transnationalism, it is significant to understand how an exiled group of people are continuing to live scattered across the world. In my work, I hope to honor the footsteps of Uyghur women who keep the caravan of memory moving—from Kashgar to Istanbul, from loss to endurance, and from exile to possibility. --- ## More from this issue [### Fall 2025, Volume 40 Number 1 ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025) ![Fall 2025 Centerpiece thumbnail showing illustration of soldiers pointing guns at men holding roses, alongside a duotone graphic "W" with the words "Centerpiece" and the issue information.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/Cover-16x9-social-and-thumbnail.png?itok=Lc8SNERC) [### Message from the Executive Director ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/executive-director) ![Headshot of Erin Goodman alongside text that says "Fall 2025 Message from the Executive Director" and her name against a gray background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/cpfall25-message.png?itok=ypgmpBoO) [### Of Note ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/of_note) ![Aerial view of CGIS buildings and green.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/cpfall25-ofnote_0.png?itok=w_tsZhQB) [### New Books ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/newbooks) ![Collage of about a dozen book covers overlapping set against a beige background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/cpfall25-newbooks.png?itok=uTNH8bI6) [### The Crisis of Pax Americana with Walter Russell Mead ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/feature_manshel) ![Walter Russell Mead and Erez Manela are seated in wingback chairs in conversation.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/11.12.25%20WCFIA%20Manshel%20Lecture_%20040.jpg?itok=e7HTe_kP) [### Student Programs ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/prog_student) ![Collage of six PhD student headshots in circular frames set against a red background.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/cpfall25-prog-students.png?itok=EBsXZSt_) [### Research Cluster on Global Climate Policy ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/prog_climate) ![Four people in business attire are seated in a panel discussion on stage, with one man gesturing while speaking and the others listening attentively.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/Program-climate-cluster.jpg?itok=UttGUWdy) [### Research Cluster on LGBTQI+ Human Rights ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/prog_lgbtqi) ![Three men sit at a table with microphones in front of a projected map of Europe, at a Weatherhead Center for International Affairs event at Harvard University.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/Program-LGBTQI-cluster-opener.JPG?itok=fJYdzPUZ) [### Fellowship News ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/fellowship-news) ![An older man sits at a table signing papers with a pen, while a woman sits next to him smiling. Both are indoors at a desk.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/FellowshipNews-Moulay-signing.jpg?itok=AQQMchMp) [### In Memoriam: George Hoguet ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/in_memoriam_hoguet) ![The words "In Memoriam George Hoguet 1947–2025" are written on a green duotone background. ](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/cpfall25-inmemoriam.png?itok=dFwwLPP1) [### Fall 2025 Photo Gallery ](/publications/centerpiece/fall2025/photo_gallery) ![Two women standing indoors, smiling at the camera; one wears a black blazer and orange top, the other wears a red and white striped shirt, with a framed map on the wall behind them.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8891/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/cpfall25-events.png?itok=H4ATAK5C) See also:- [ Centerpiece: Fall 2025 ](/newsletter-issues/centerpiece-fall-2025)