Digital Commons Network^™

Studies In The History Of Anthropology In The United States, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

I will talk about a study I did on the first persons to do Ph.D.s in anthropology and how the project led to my leaving the anthropology profession and becoming a librarian. The project began in a biographical study of a little-known anthropologist that involved archival work. As a librarian who has left the profession of anthropology (not without trauma), I remain keenly interested in the history and bibliography of anthropology and view dissertation projects as crucial to understanding the biographies of scholars and trends in academic professions.

Beyond Ideals: Proslavery Reforms On A Nineteenth-Century Cotton Plantation, Kevin R. Fogle

Theses and Dissertations

The last four decades of the antebellum period witnessed the rise of a proslavery plantation reform movement aimed at preserving slavery in the face of increasing abolitionist pressure. Reformers promoted the image of ideal enslaved households operating as part of efficient modern plantations ruled by reason, benevolent management techniques, and scientific agriculture. Where implemented, reforms resulted in numerous changes to plantation life both around the home and in the fields. Slaves who bore the brunt of these changes struggled to resist plantation reforms or grudgingly accepted them depending on the impact upon established daily routines and any potential benefits bondsmen …

Framing Death: Politics, Meaning, And The Strategic Communication Of Organ Donation Messages In South Carolina, Jeremy T. Vanderknyff

Theses and Dissertations

This study applies framing theory within a critical-interpretive anthropological context to understand how organ procurement organizations (OPOs) design messages to promote organ donation registration and how cultural factors including notions of embodiment and structural inequalities influence audiences’ processing of those messages. The first part of the study employs content analysis to deductively identify OPO-produced message frames. The second part of the study uses focus groups across South Carolina to explore audience reactions to different message frames. Themes from donors and non-donors alike reflected a mistrust of the medical establishment, a keen awareness of structural inequality, and complex notions of embodiment …

Language, Culture And Spatial Cognition: Bringing Anthropology To The Table, Norbert Ross, Jeffrey T. Shenton, Werner Hertzog, Mike Kohut

Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication

Languages vary in their semantic partitioning of the world. This has led to speculation that language might shape basic cognitive processes. Spatial cognition has been an area of research in which linguistic relativity – the effect of language on thought – has both been proposed and rejected. Prior studies have been inconclusive, lacking experimental rigor or appropriate research design. Lacking detailed ethnographic knowledge as well as failing to pay attention to intralanguage variations, these studies often fall short of defining an appropriate concept of language, culture, and cognition. Our study constitutes the first research exploring (1) individuals speaking different languages …

"Last On The Warpath": The Spirit And Intent Of Action Anthropology, Joshua J. Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Led by anthropologist Sol Tax, action anthropologists endeavoured, between the 1940s and 1970s, to challenge the liberal imperialist and settler colonial paradigm of Post-WWII applied anthropology, the termination policy of the 1950s, and the neo-evolutionary theories, such as Julian Steward’s multilinear evolution, that bolstered racist-colonial myths of assimilation. Several projects of emphasis include The Fort Berthold Removal Project, The American Indian Chicago Centre, A mapping project called The North American Indians: 1950 Distribution of Descendants of the Aboriginal Population of Alaska, Canada and the United States, and the American Indian Chicago Conference . In addition to Sol Tax, …

Linguistic Relativity And Multilingualism, Nicholas M. Casorio

HIM 1990-2015

Over the last decade, linguistic relativity has seen a resurgence in research and discourse on thought, language, and culture. One particular facet of this research, multilingualism, has been relatively sparse in comparison to the wealth of research available focusing on individual languages and monolingual speakers. This study represents a preliminary investigation that enters this arena by focusing specifically on how speakers of English as a second language use English basic color terms in respect to monolingual speakers. This is done by using a modified methodology from the World Color Survey as a comparative model of a speaker’s division of colors. …

Language Standardization And Entextualization, Judith M.S. Pine

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Literate Lahu, speakers of a Tibeto-Burman language in the ethnically and linguistically diverse uplands of Southeast Asia and southwest China, inscribe their language in an ecology of literacies shaped by the imbrication of a number of ideologies. As members of the larger category of chao khao or mountain people, the Lahu belong to a group which is persistently labeled as Other. (Laungaramsri 2001: 43-4). Lahu are also a people-without-writing (Pine 1999), despite the fact that at least three writing systems exist for Lahu, with a fourth in somewhat limited use and at least one other system in development. The ideological …

Introduction: Foreign Films And Higher Education, Heba A.N. El Attar Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

No abstract provided.

Approaches To Teaching Latin American Culture Through Film: Children’S Plight In Poverty- And Violence-Ridden Countries, Delia V. Galvan Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Students at the beginning levels of foreign language study have many borders to cross and many challenges to negotiate. This paper reports the results of a preliminary study involving the use of full-length films to engender intercultural sensitivity and understanding among two groups of first-year students of Spanish. Both films depict hardships of children in Spanish-speaking countries—as a result of conscription or as a result of child labor. The paper discusses the contextualization of the films for the students, the students’ responses to questionnaires, portions of classroom discussion that indicate growth in the areas of focus, and implications of the …

Intercultural Communicative Competence: Literature Review, Lee F. Wilberschied Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) is a cluster of capabilities that will become even more essential, not only to negotiate borders of many dimensions as globalization proceeds, but also to enhance the ability to maneuver one’s way in a world that changes by the minute. The process of developing ICC prepares the learner to manage and appreciate border crossings on many levels. This brief review of the literature offers a summary of the components of ICC, how it is similar to and different from other competences, and recommendations on how to assess it. This overview may be helpful when considering the …

El Paseo By Harold Trompetero: Approaching Popular Film From Colombia In A North American Classroom, Matias Martinez Abeijon Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

This article explores the manner in which popular films from Colombia—

specifically comedies, such as the movie El paseo, directed by Harold Trompetero in 2010, which has been the highest grossing movie to date in the history of movies produced in Colombia–may be used in the classroom in the context of a World Language, Literature, and Culture department in the United States. It is the contention of this study that such a choice is far from common due to diverse issues, which include the limited access to international distribution of the majority of the so-called “national film” or, in …

Can Films Speak The Truth? Mathieu Kassovitz’S La Haine (1995) And Philippe Faucon’S La Désintégration (2011), Annie Jouan-Westlund Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

La Haine, (Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995) and La Désintégration (Dir. Philippe Faucon, 2011), set in France’s urban periphery, depict the struggle of second and third-generation immigrants growing up in the housing projects and their desire to live like ‘other’ French young people. The analysis offers a comparative study of the films’ reception with a community of viewers made of American students in a Contemporary French Culture course. Following the three paradigms of exclusion (social, racial, and cultural); gender representation; and aestheticism and realism, this study demonstrates that, within certain limits, these cinematic propositions, of similar prophetic nature but different …

Understanding Arab Culture Through Cinema, Abed El-Rahman Tayyara Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

The article examines the use of cinema as a tool for teaching about Arab culture and assesses the process in which learners acquire a higher level of intercultural communicative competence. The essay draws primarily on multilayered class activities and students’ responses to pre- and post- screening surveys related to eight Arab films. The article reveals that the evaluation of the learners’ intercultural competence and their familiarity with Arab culture in particular is a long process that filled with misunderstandings, gaps, inconsistencies, and contradictions on the part of the learners. To successfully conduct this type of teaching, the article also points …

Exploring Patterns Of Obsidian Conveyance In Baja California, Mexico, Lee M. Panich, Érika Moranchel Mondragón, Antonio Porcayo Michelini

Faculty Publications

The X-ray fluorescence analysis of obsidian artifacts from four study areas in Baja California, Mexico, suggests regional and local patterning in the geological sources used by indigenous hunter-gatherers during the late prehistoric and colonial periods. Obsidian artifacts were typically made from materials from the closest geological source, creating a distinct north-south pattern of obsidian distribution. In the northern region of Baja California, this pattern appears to correspond to ethnographically-documented language boundaries. However, within each study area, particular sites exhibit higher degrees of obsidian source diversity than others—a pattern that may suggest chronological or social variation in access to particular obsidian …

Mobility And Economy Of The Evenkis In Eastern Siberia, Karl Mertens

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Mobility is an aspect of human activity that is highly contextual but also in need of a framework for comparative analysis through time and space. This thesis examines Evenki mobility patterns and how these patterns relate to the economic practices of hunting, fishing, and reindeer herding, and utilizes a framework for considering mobility cross-culturally. The Evenkis are an indigenous minority living throughout central and eastern Siberia in the Russian Federation. In the fall and winter of 2011/2012, fieldwork among two groups of Evenkis documented patterns of resource use, foraging, and mobility. One group lives in a village and disperses to …

Islands In The Making: National Investment And The Cultural Imagination In Taiwan, Krista-Lee Meghan Malone

Theses and Dissertations

This ethnography looks closely at the Taiwanese company UrIsland, makers of Talking Island (TI) - an MMORPG to teach children English - in order to illuminate the increasingly important meeting point between technology, education, and games. At the level of national economic policy, companies like UrIsland have been at the focal point of the Taiwanese government’s hopes for their tech industry. With TI, UrIsland intended to create a revolution in ESL education. Despite compulsory ESL classes many Taiwanese struggle with English, and educational experts claim that the classes stress reading and writing too much, leaving many people’s listening and speaking …

Regional Perspective Of Recuay Mortuary Practices: A View From The Hinterlands, Callejón De Huaylas, Peru, Victor Manuel Ponte

Theses and Dissertations

Archaeological investigations of burial chambers in the north-central highlands of Peru constitute the corpus of this thesis. Most of the stone structures correspond chronologically and culturally to the Recuay Tradition, a time span of 100 to 800 CE. The study area is located in the Cordillera Negra of the Callejón de Huaylas basin (Ancash Department). CRM projects developed in the impact zone of the Pierina mine have contributed valuable information on the mortuary practices of a Recuay agro-pastoral community. This thesis relied on grave goods inventories, osteological analysis, and types of stone architecture in the burial chamber. Data from this …

Burial Chronological Sequencing Of The Colonial Maya Cemetery At Tipu, Belize Using Fluoride Ion Analysis, Nicole Musselwhite

Master's Theses

This thesis ascertains the sequence of burials using fluoride ion electrode analysis at the colonial cemetery at Tipu, Belize in order to explore demographic and other cultural effects associated with European contact. The cemetery at Tipu in west central Belize, dating from within the first century of Spanish contact, has provided one of the largest and best preserved Maya skeletal series, with over 500 burials recovered. While this series has undergone vast amounts of analysis, there has yet been an analysis conducted to view how patterns changed over time. This is of interest given the rapid culture change associated with …

You Are What You Eat: Gastronomy And Geography Of Southern Spain, Katherine F. Perry

Honors Theses

Using empirical and numeric data, this study explores the use of food as a proxy to understand the cultural-historical geography of southern Spain. After spending three months in Granada, Spain, I compiled the most commonly used thirty-five ingredients from a selection of Spanish cookbooks and contextualized them within the broader history of Spain. The elements of traditional Andalucían cooking fit into three primary chapters of Iberian history: Roman occupation, the Moorish invasion beginning in the 8^th century, and the Columbian exchange, or the exchange of goods that took place between the Americas and Old World following European discovery of …

Racial Experience As An Alternative Operationalization Of Race, Jada Benn Torres, Gabriel A. Torres Colón

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

The study of human variation is central to both social and biomedical sciences; however, despite agreeing that variation is integral to the human experience, social and biomedical scientists diverge in how variation is theorized and operationalized. Race becomes especially problematic because it is a cultural concept that contains implicit and explicit understandings of how collective bodies differ. In this paper, we propose an operationalization of race that is attentive to both racial experience and human biological diversity—placing them within the same ontological sphere. Furthermore, we argue that this approach can more effectively advance antiracist pedagogy and politics.

We argue that …

Speech And Gesture In Classroom Interaction: A Case Study Of Angola And Portugal, Kerwin A. Livingstone

Kerwin A. Livingstone

Utatlán: The Constituted Community Of The K’Iche’ Maya Of Q’Umarkaj [Review], Jennifer P. Mathews

Jennifer P Mathews

This volume is the culmination of fieldwork that was carried out in the 1970s at Greater Utatlán, made up of several communities surrounding the ceremonial centre of Q'umarkaj and the famed home of the Popol Wuj. Although he completed his dissertation in 1980, Babcock freely admits that life got in the way of publishing at the time, and I commend him for returning to it three decades later. This temporal distance offers the advantage of being able to review the initial work within the context of later research and to incorporate the wisdom attained since the initial writing of the …

Substances And Persons: On The Culinary Space Of The People Of The Centre, Juan Alvaro Echeverri

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Healing In The Hospital: The Caring Sensorium And The Containment Of Yanomami Bodies, Johanna Gonçalves Martin

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Finding The Taste Of Knowledge: The Orphan In Indigenous Epistemologies, Giovanna Micarelli

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Ukuo And Täbotü Between The Piaroa Of The Matavén Rainforest In The Colombian Orinoquia, Nelsa De La Hoz

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

The Skin As A Surface Of Composition: The Use Of Animal Body Parts And Plants In Various Practices Of The Panamanian Emberá, Hiroshi Kondo

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Hãwäg And B’Atìb: The Balance Between Health And Disease Among The Hupd’ÄH In The Upper Rio Negro Region, Brazil, Renato Athias

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Social Networks, Exchange And Kids’ Food In Children’S Peer Culture, Stephanie Tillman Melton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates children’s peer culture, social networks and the role that kids’ food plays in peer exchanges during middle childhood. During this stage children develop social competencies as they join peer groups with other children and become socialized into children’s peer culture. In order to immerse myself within children’s culture, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork at two afterschool programs providing care for elementary school children. I investigated friendships, social networks and exchanges among third through fifth grade children at the programs. The study included participant observation and participatory group interviews with a sample of the children at both sites. The …

One Island, One People, One Nation: Early Latin Evidence For This Motif In Ireland, Thomas O’Loughlin

The ITB Journal

That the island of Ireland is the home of the Irish, and consequently that ‘the nation’ and the territory of the island mutually define one another, has been one of the central assumptions of Irish nationalism. Just as an island is a single discrete entity -- the very icon for something well marked off from other things by ‘clear blue water’ -- so the people on it have been assumed to be a distinct group. More than just a collection of individuals or families, they have been assumed to form a ‘nation’ with a separate identity and destiny from their …