Digital Commons Network^™

The Donkey Trail: A Difficult New Migrant Pathway To The U.S. Border, Andrew M. Gardner, Deeipendra Giri

All Faculty Scholarship

In this article, we convey a migration synopsis -- a summary of a single migrant's experience and journey from India to the United States. While comprising only a single example, it illuminates some of the significant challenged that migrants encounter on these new and circuitous pathways into the United States. We offer this somewhat raw form of "ethnographic data" simply as a singular reference point for public conversations about the changing nature of transnational migration and global mobility.

Mexican Money Laundering In The United States: Analysis And Proposals For Reform, Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Charles Lewis, William R. Yaworsky

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article explains some of the mechanisms through which corruption by high-level Mexican politicians and other organized crime members is facilitated in the United States through money laundering operations. The analysis is based on information contained in court records related to key money laundering cases, as well as in news articles and reports from law enforcement agencies. These materials highlight the interrelationships among U.S. drug use, cartel activities in Mexico, human rights abuses, Mexican political corruption, and money laundering in the United States. This work demonstrates the pervasive use of legitimate businesses and fronts in the United States as a …

Metabolomics-Based Analysis Of Miniature Flask Contents Identifies Tobacco Mixture Use Among The Ancient Maya, Mario Zimmermann, Korey J. Brownstein, Luis Pantoja Díaz, Iliana Ancona Aragón, Scott R. Hutson, Barry Kidder, Shannon Tushingham, David R. Gang

Anthropology Faculty Publications

A particular type of miniature ceramic vessel locally known as “veneneras” is occasionally found during archaeological excavations in the Maya Area. To date, only one study of a collection of such containers successfully identified organic residues through coupled chromatography–mass spectrometry methods. That study identified traces of nicotine likely associated with tobacco. Here we present a more complete picture by analyzing a suite of possible complementary ingredients in tobacco mixtures across a collection of 14 miniature vessels. The collection includes four different vessel forms and allows for the comparison of specimens which had previously formed part of museum exhibitions with recently …

What Educators In Mexico And In The United States Need To Know And Acknowledge To Attend To The Educational Needs Of Transnational Students, Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This chapter from the edited volume "The Students We Share" explains to both US and Mexican audiences that a persistent number and proportion of K-12 students continue to circulate between both countries and thus that it is a challenge for both countries' education systems—including teacher preparation, curriculum, assessment, etc.—to see how students' knowledge and experience from the other system is both salient to their new schooling in a new country and valuable for how it will contribute to their future means for negotiating adulthood.

Operating At The Edge Of Il/Legality: Systemic Corruption In Mexican Health Care, Rosalynn A. Vega, A. Paulo Maya

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Through a series of ethnographic vignettes, this article examines how providers contribute to corruption in Mexican health care, how providers are themselves subjected to logics of corruption, and the relationship between patients’ and providers’ vulnerability within contexts of resource scarcity. Doctors, faced with insecure salaries due to nonpayment of wages by the government, collude with hospital staff to sell state drugs on the black market. Meanwhile, vulnerable patients are used as teaching opportunities for private school students—with horrifying, and fatal, effects. Palancas (“favors” granted by colleagues and higher-ups to individuals with less authority) and exclusive treatment of recomendados (patients given …

Reflecting On Pasuc Heritage Initiatives Through Time, Positionality, And Place, Scott R. Hutson, Céline Lamb, Daniel Vallejo-Cáliz, Jacob Welch

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This paper reports on heritage initiatives associated with a 12-year-long archaeology project in Yucatan, Mexico. Our work has involved both surprises and setbacks and in the spirit of adding to the repository of useful knowledge, we present these in a frank and transparent manner. Our findings are significant for a number of reasons. First, we show that the possibilities available to a heritage project facilitated by archaeologists depend not just on the form and focus of other stakeholders, but on the gender, sexuality, and class position of the archaeologists. Second, we provide a ground-level view of what approaches work well …

“Traditional Mexican Midwifery” Tourism Excludes Indigenous “Others” And Threatens Sustainability, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Drawn by the allure of “ancient cultures,” tourists inadvertently consume deauthenticated indigenous practices, including ethnomedical traditions such as midwifery. This is especially true in the case of “Traditional Mexican Midwifery” since stark differences exist between how midwifery practices unfold in indigenous contexts and how they are represented to global tourists. “Traditional Mexican Midwifery” tourism is a unique lens for examining some of the underlying, intersectional issues threatening “sustainability” in ethnomedical tourism. When nonindigenous individuals position themselves as representatives of “Traditional Mexican Midwifery” and indigenous midwives are excluded from profit chains, this type of tourism not only fails to meet the …

Converging Space And Producing Place: Social Inequalities And Birth Across Mexico, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

I combine ethnographic research of the professional midwifery model in Mexico with concepts gleaned from an interdisciplinary literature in order to illustrate how different types of spaces converge in the process of place-making. From October 2010 to November 2013, I conducted twenty-eight months of research, interviewing employees of government bureaus and public health programs, observing how the professional midwifery model unfolds in distinct contexts, performing interviews and participant-observation with casa midwifery students/alumni, and “shadowing” professional midwives and obstetricians as they engage with pregnant women in a hospital setting. Drawing from ethnographic examples, this article points to five different types of …

Geochemical Data From Angamuco, Michoacán, Mexico, Anna S. Cohen, Daniel E. Pierce

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Included here are geochemical concentrations (ppm) of ceramic artifacts and clay samples from the archaeological site of Angamuco, Mexico. Additional data include maps and photographs of the ceramic samples. Concentrations were measured via Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis and are available here asAppendix B. These data complement the discussions and interpretations in “Geochemical Analysis and Spatial Trends of Ceramics and Clay from Angamuco, Michoacán”[1].

Where Should My Child Go To School? Parent And Child Considerations In Binational Families, Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga, Juan Sánchez García

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Using examples encountered from our multi-year study of students encountered in Mexican schools with prior experience in US schools, we look at transnationally-tied families’ decision-making regarding where to send their children to school and ask whether parents should ‘parent from afar’. We don’t pose that as a question about ideals— what would be best if parents had economic security and unambiguous legal residential status— but rather as a more pragmatic one. Given some parents’ and children’s limited agency in real- world circumstances, what is their best path forward?

Aerial Imaging Using Uavs (Drones) In Chihuahua And Nayarit, Mexico, To Map And Archive Archaeological Sites, Michael T. Searcy, Scott Ure, Michael Mathiowetz, Haylie Ferguson, Jaclyn Eckersley, Mauricio Garduno Ambriz, Jose Carlos Beltran Medina, Jorge Morales Monroy

Faculty Publications

In 2017, we used UAVs (drones) to record eight archaeological sites from the air. As this type of technology becomes more refined, we have found that it is especially useful in carrying out three specific tasks: contour mapping, archiving site conditions, and identifying architecture. This paper reports our findings resulting from aerial images captured while flying archaeological sites in Nayarit and Chihuahua, Mexico.

The Paleoepidemiology Of Enterobius Vermicularis (Nemata: Oxyuridae) Among The Loma San Gabriel At La Cueva De Los Muertos Chiquitos (600–800 Ce), Rio Zape Valley, Durango, Mexico, Johnica J. Morrow, Karl Reinhard

Karl Reinhard Publications

One hundred coprolites excavated from La Cueva de los Muertos Chiquitos (600–800 CE) in the Rio Zape Valley of present-day Durango, Mexico, were examined for the presence of helminth eggs utilizing standard archaeoparasitological techniques. Eggs of the human pinworm (Enterobius vermicularis) were recovered from 34 of the 100 coprolites examined. Eggs of parasites were photographed and measured before egg concentration values were calculated for each positive sample. Egg concentration values demonstrated an overdispersed pattern of distribution among the samples (66% uninfected, 25% less than 100 eggs/g, 8% between 100 and 500 eggs/g, and 1% more than 500 eggs/g). …

Trump, Immigration, And Children: Disrupted Schooling, Disrupted Lives, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Many of us work with immigrant communities and are witnessing firsthand the fear, frustration, and heartache caused by Trump’s immigration policies. Yet despite our years of work with, and study of, immigrant communities, there are times when our academic expertise is not enough. What follows is a reflection by CAE member Ted Hamann on just such a situation he faced this spring when asked for help in assisting two US-born students that were about to accompany their soon-to-be deported parents to Mexico.

Violence Against Central American Unaccompanied Minors: From Home To United States Border, Katherine A. Owens

Senior Honors Projects

In the past four years, there has been a significant increase in apprehensions of unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras at the Southwest Border of the United States: an estimated 207,000 since 2013. This paper researches the sexual and physical abuse the minors (aged 5 to 17) are subjected to while in their home country, on their journey north and upon arrival at the United States border. Data was collected through a literature review of federal investigations of human trafficking in Central America, Mexico, and Texas, along with federal publications on border apprehensions and unaccompanied minors. United Nations …

Connections Beyond Chunchucmil, Traci Ardren, Scott R. Hutson, David R. Hixson, Justin Lowry

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Architectural Group Typology And Excavation Sampling Within Chunchucmil, Scott R. Hutson, Aline Magnoni, Bruce H. Dahlin

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction: The Long Road To Maya Markets, Scott R. Hutson

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Marketing Within Chunchucmil, Scott R. Hutson, Richard E. Terry, Bruce H. Dahlin

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Chunchucmil’S Urban Population, Scott R. Hutson, Aline Magnoni, Traci Ardren, Chelsea Blackmore, Travis W. Stanton

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Map Of Chunchucmil, Scott R. Hutson, Aline Magnoni

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Conclusions, Scott R. Hutson

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Racial I(Nter)Dentification: The Racialization Of Maternal Health Through The Oportunidades Program And In Government Clinics In México, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using an ethnographic approach, this article examines the role of racialization in health-disease-care processes specifically within the realm of maternal health. It considers the experiences of health care administrators and providers, indigenous midwives and mothers, and recipients of conditional cash transfers through the Oportunidades program in Mexico. By detailing the delivery of trainings of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) [Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social ] for indigenous midwives and Oportunidades workshops to indigenous stipend recipients, the article critiques the deployment of “interculturality” in ways that inadvertently re-inscribe inequality. The concept of racial i(nter)dentification is offered as a way of …

New Matriarchs: Louisville, Kentucky Ii (Fa 1001), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Digital audio interviews, transcripts of the same, photographs and digital photo files, and corollary material related to a project conducted by Laura Fleming Ospital titled "New Matriarchs: Louisville II" in 2014-2015. It details the lives of women from Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Mexico,and Uzbekistan. The digital interviews are stored in the WKU Sound Archives and the digital images are stored in The WKU Photo Archives.

Commodifying Indigeneity: How The Humanization Of Birth Reinforces Racialized Inequality In Mexico, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article examines the humanized birth movement in Mexico and analyzes how the remaking of tradition—the return to traditional birthing arts (home birth, midwife‐assisted birth, natural birth)—inadvertently reinscribes racial hierarchies. The great irony of the humanized birth movement lies in parents’ perspective of themselves as critics of late capitalism. All the while, their very rejection of consumerism bolsters ongoing commodification of indigenous culture and collapses indigeneity, nature, and tradition onto one another. While the movement is quickly spreading across Mexico, indigenous women and their traditional midwives are largely excluded from the emerging humanized birth community. Through ethnographic examples, the article …

Islands Within An Almost Island: History, Myth, And Aislamiento In Baja California, Mexico, Ryan B. Anderson

Faculty Publications

This paper examines the persistent histories and lasting effects of the Baja California peninsula's status as an "almost island." The peninsula is almost an island in so many ways. Its reputation as an island-like entity has also ben strengthened by a longstanding myth that it was, in fact, an actual island. In many senses it was an island - isolated, remote, difficult to envision, understand, and control. Geography and climate played a vital role in all of this, but so, too, did human imagination. The author uses the concept of shima, along with discussions about the dual meanings of the …

Hacia La Justicia Sociocomunicativa: Trabajo De Campo Multi-Situado, Teoría Transnacional E Hiper-Auto-Reflexividad, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

En este escrito, reconozco que las narrativas del padecer se despliegan dentro de ámbitos discursivos y ofrezco varios métodos para avanzar hacia la justicia sociocomunicativa. Primero, sugiero llevar a cabo el trabajo de campo “multi-situado” y que este método etnográfico sea respaldado por teoría multisituada. Enfatizo la importancia de la hiper-autoreflexividad al intentar disminuir las inequidades estructurales que puedan influir al antropólogo en su obtención de narrativas del padecer y su interpretación semiótica de ellas. Analizo unas narrativas breves que surgieron de mi trabajo de campo sobre el parto humanizado en México para demostrar cómo el biopoder condiciona lo que …

Mexican Christmas, Gala Campos Oaxaca

Student Work

"Since we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, we usually bring a candle and light it in church to represent the light that the Lord brings with Him."

Posting about a traditional Christmas celebration in Mexico from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/a-mexican-christmas/

The Archaeology Of Disjuncture: Classic Period Disruption And Cultural Divergence In The Tuxtla Mountains Of Mexico, Wesley D. Stoner, Christopher A. Pool

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Reconstructing human interaction systems has been a major objective of archaeological research, but we have typically examined the topic in a conceptually limited manner. Most studies have—intentionally or unintentionally—focused on how trade, communication, conquest, and migration foster cultural similarities over long distances. It has largely been a positivistic endeavor that exclusively features groups linked through a single network but glosses over how alternative networks intersect with the former through common nodes. Models of long-distance interaction have largely ignored variation in how external influences are negotiated across space within the receiving region. We adapt Arjun Appadurai’s concept of disjuncture to conceptualize …

Care And The Self: Theorizing The Significance Of Food In Rural Yucatan, Lauren Wynne

Anthropology and Sociology Faculty Publications

In this essay, the author describes her dissertation fieldwork, focusing on human relationships with food, in rural Yucatan, Mexico.

Sustainability, Ideology, And The Politics Of Development In Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico, Ryan B. Anderson

Faculty Publications

Based upon twelve months of anthropological fieldwork in Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico, this article uses political ecology and theoretical work on ideology to examine how local residents use the concept of sustainability to advocate for alternative visions of development. Conceptually, the idea of sustainability has a long, often conflicted history. As political ecologists have pointed out, sustainability can be everything from a tool of dominance and pacification to a strident defense of environment, place, and local rights. Between 2010 and 2012, the residents of Cabo Pulmo waged a campaign against a large-scale tourism development that was perceived as …