| dc.description.abstract | Anti-sexual-violence student activists have consistently influenced university policies, procedures, and trainings. They have highlighted institutional problems, offered comprehensive solutions, raised their voices and fists in the face of endemic apathy, and created powerful communities of support. As no one has yet investigated the experiences of anti-sexual-violence student activists in American universities, this thesis seeks to fill a gap in the existing literature by exploring the processes of becoming and being a student activist. Using a generic qualitative research design, I conducted twenty-four one-on-one, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews in 11 cities in the United States. The research ultimately revealed that students become anti-sexual-violence student activists through emotionally rich social encounters, which reinforce existing baseline moral emotions and generate emotional energy. In other words, while students already believe that rape, sexual abuse, and domestic violence are wrong and unethical, they do not become activists until either a moral shock or an opportunity for involvement mobilizes their reflex emotions. Once students begin participating in anti-sexual-violence organizations, trainings, or meetings, their identities as student activists develop and evolve. They become increasingly connected to the broader movement to end sexual violence, as well as to their campus communities. In effect, students are energized to become and embody anti-sexual-violence student activist identities because their ritual interactions with other activists, peers, and sexual violence survivors generate an enthusiasm for further action and concretize an active commitment to the cause. This research offers insights into processes of identity formation. All participants, for example, described how temporal and spatial circumstances dictated how they strategically negotiated their student activist identities. Similarly, several interviewees shifted away from their student activist identities after graduation, and dis-identified as activists because of emotional exhaustion and frustration – or burnout. As a result, this thesis can serve as an example of how to utilize an emotional typology to investigate identity formation. It is necessary that academics and activists alike continue to explore how and why certain individuals transform into student activists. Moreover, it is imperative that students discover their own activist identities in order to combat oppression and finally end sexual violence. | nor |