Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Household Activities And Areas: A Reanalysis Of The John And Priscilla Alden First Home Site, Caroline Gardiner

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to further understanding of early colonial life within New England through an examination of the John and Priscilla Alden First Home site in Duxbury, MA, excavated in 1960 by Roland Robbins. It specifically focuses on the composition and spatial distribution of the ceramic assemblage to discuss household activities and the spaces in which they were performed. The findings of the ceramic analysis detail a collection composed primarily of utilitarian vessels that indicate multiple subsistence farming activities including dairying. The spatial study reveals the significant patterning of these artifacts. It is proposed that these denote specific activity areas …

Stasi Brainwashing In The Gdr 1957 - 1990, Jacob H. Solbrig, Jacob Hagen Solbrig

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the methods used by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), more commonly known as the Stasi, or East German secret police, for extraction of information from citizens of the German Democratic Republic for the purpose of espionage and covert operations inside East Germany, as it pertains to the deliberate brainwashing of East German citizens. As one of the most efficient intelligence agencies to ever exist, the Stasi’s main purpose was to monitor the population, gather intelligence, and collect or turn informants. They used brainwashing techniques to control the people of the GDR, keeping the populace paralyzed with fear …

Stay Woke, Langston A. Williams

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the pages of my thesis, I comprehensively analyze the processes, intentions, and production of my thesis film Stay Woke. My examination will exhaustively probe every stage of the film from development to preproduction to production to postproduction and beyond. Individual aspects of this process including writing, casting, locations, production design, cinematography, directing, budgeting, scheduling, and postproduction workflows will be detailed. As I make elaborations in each section, I will explain my learning experiences from each day’s new tasks, challenges, and lessons. All of these things will be framed with regards to the overall goal and themes of the …

Gendered Impacts Of Community-Based Conservation Initiatives In Kimana/Tikondo Group Ranch Outside Of Amboseli National Park, Megan Clemens

Master's Theses

Community-based conservation has become a common solution to addressing local communities needs and concerns when it comes to conservation initiatives associated with, or outside the boundaries of national parks. Community-based initiatives associated with Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya mark one of the first attempts to include local communities in conservation initiatives and management as well as establish systems of benefit sharing between conservation and local communities. However, a critique of community-based conservation initiatives points out they often assume community homogeneity. Assumption of community homogeneity leads to inequities in benefits sharing, exclusion of subgroups (women, ethnic minorities) or even exacerbate …

Southern Veils : The Sisters Of Loretto In Early National Kentucky., Hannah O'Daniel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the experiences of Roman Catholic women who joined the Sisters of Loretto, a community of women religious in rural Washington and Nelson Counties, Kentucky, between the 1790s and 1826. It argues that the Sisters of Loretto used faith to interpret and respond to unfolding events in the early nation. The women sought to combat moral slippage and restore providential favor in the face of local Catholic institutional instability, global Protestant evangelical movements, war and economic crisis, and a tuberculosis outbreak. The Lorettines faced financial, social, and cultural pressures—including an economic depression, a culture that celebrated family formation …

The Time To Love: Ideologies Of "Good" Parenting At A Family Service Organization In The Southeastern United States, Anna Davidson Abella

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to understand definitions of what it means to be a “good” parent as described by parents and child development specialists at a family service organization in the Southeastern United States. Previous research on social reproduction and concerted cultivation have opened up pathways to understanding how social and economic inequality manifest in family life and the social structures of which they are a part. This ethnographic study is an effort to contribute to an anthropology of parenting by unveiling the ways that definitions of “good” parenting in middle-class and wealthy communities reflect time-intensive, attachment-based ideologies …

The Time To Love: Ideologies Of "Good" Parenting At A Family Service Organization In The Southeastern United States, Anna Davidson Abella

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to understand definitions of what it means to be a “good” parent as described by parents and child development specialists at a family service organization in the Southeastern United States. Previous research on social reproduction and concerted cultivation have opened up pathways to understanding how social and economic inequality manifest in family life and the social structures of which they are a part. This ethnographic study is an effort to contribute to an anthropology of parenting by unveiling the ways that definitions of “good” parenting in middle-class and wealthy communities reflect time-intensive, attachment-based ideologies …

Producing "Fabulous": Commodification And Ethnicity In Hair Braiding Salons, Sylviane Ngandu-Kalenga Greensword

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Black women wearing fabulous braids are a striking feature of the Afro-diasporic cultural landscape. However, the braiders and salon owners who enable this aesthetic engineering are seldom acknowledged. This dissertation investigates the experience and role of Caribbean and West and Central African women in the hair braiding industry, a rapidly growing business in the U.S. I address the complexity of these women’s multiple social roles and the multiple consciousness (King, 1988) associated with their demographic characteristics (color, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and immigrant status). The commonalities between the braiders and their mostly African American customers contrast vividly with their perception of …

"Beautifully Awful": A Feminist Ethnography Of Women Veterans' Experiences With Transition From Military Service, Kiersten H. Downs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As issues of gender inequality in the military are addressed, women will continue to fill jobs traditionally occupied by men, and ultimately take on a greater percentage of leadership responsibility. For these reasons, women will remain the fastest growing population within our active duty forces. An increased need for research, advocacy, and resources for programs and services designed specifically for women veterans is necessary in order to prepare for an upsurge in the numbers of women who will be seeking services in the years to come. This research utilized a feminist ethnographic approach for data collection and analysis. Data was …

Leftist Militant Songs And War Of Position In Lebanon (1975-1977), Mohamad J. Hodeib

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This essay looks at the emergence of a generation of leftist militant songwriters against the backdrop of a revolutionary moment that influenced political and cultural landscapes in Beirut during the 1970s. After the Arab military defeat against Israel in 1967, the conjuncture of the Lebanese and Palestinian revolutionary movements in Lebanon fostered a revolutionary moment that manifested itself on different levels, including art and cultural expression. I look at the development of leftist militant songs, a genre, attitude, and approach to song production and performance that came to be at the intersection of radical theatre, poetry, and music. Productions by …

Affective Afterlives: An Ethnography Of Activism Between Movements, Manissa Maharawal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This ethnographic project starts at the end of Occupy Wall Street in New York City and ends at the beginning of Black Lives Matter in Oakland, CA. In between these two movements it looks at a variety of political projects that focused on issues of housing and anti-gentrification in New York City and San Francisco. Throughout I favor a view of social movements that understands the messy trajectories of activism. This methodological privileging of what activists are doing, and the places and spaces in which they ground their work seeks to de-center bounded social movements in the study of politics …

Identity Behind Glass: The Second Gore Place Greenhouse, Sean P. Romo

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the second greenhouse at Gore Place, a historic country estate in Waltham, Massachusetts. Gore Place was owned by and named for Christopher and Rebecca Gore, members of the 18th- and 19th-century political and economic elite in New England. The greenhouse was constructed in 1806, and excavation at the site took place in 2004, 2008, and 2012. The latter two projects were data recovery excavations, which exposed portions of the greenhouse’s foundations and interior, as well as several features in the yard surrounding the building. Historic greenhouses were prestigious structures, financially accessible only to institutions, governments, and the …

Imagining The Unimagined Metropolis: Privilege, Liminality, And Peripheral Communities In The Contemporary Urban Situation, Colton R. Sherman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Various works of psychogeographic literature explore privileged and non-privileged communities and spaces through narrative and character development. Novels of this sort—specifically those by China Miéville, Neil Gaiman, and J.G. Ballard—feature narratives where their respective protagonists undergo a liminal metamorphosis and transform from a monotonous, albeit privileged urbanite into a free-associating inhabitant of the urban periphery: the unimagined, non-privileged space of urban detritus. By engaging with these authors’ novels alongside the works of the Situationists, Walter Benjamin, Rob Nixon and others, the goal of this thesis is to explore how the dominant urban epistemologies are subverted—whether or not they should be …

Who Are The Apistoi? Symbolic Boundaries And Anthropological Language In 2 Cor 6:14-7:1, Nii Addo Kobina Abrahams

MSU Graduate Theses

Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s “Qumran and the Interpolated Paragraph in 2 Cor 6:14-7:1,” originally published in 1961, argued that 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 was an interpolation from an undiscovered Qumran text. Fitzmyer’s thesis was the prevailing scholarly opinion for over a decade, and while several counter-arguments have convincingly challenged Fitzmyer’s theory, scholars are still hard-pressed to explain how the passage fits into its context. Not only does 6:14-7:1 seem to lack any organic connection to the verses immediately prior or following, but it also contains unique vocabulary and what seems to be uncharacteristic use of standard Pauline terms. However, all of these …

Americans’ Willingness To Communicate With Mexican Immigrants: Effects Of Ethnocentrism And Immigration Status, Stephanie Leanne Harris

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

Prompted by the 2016 United States (US) Presidential election, the topic of Mexican immigration has come to figure prominently in contemporary societal discourse. This study explores the willingness of US citizens to communicate with Mexicans as a function of US citizens’ ethnocentrism and Mexicans’ immigration documentation status. Specifically, this study measured ethnocentrism (Neuliep & McCroskey, 1997) and general willingness to communicate (McCroskey, 1992) of US citizens and then considered the relationship of these variables to their willingness to communicate with documented and undocumented Mexican immigrants. The study also explored the potential role that various lifespan variables, such as early communication …

“El Negro Sin La Oreja”: A Dialectical Approach To The Blackness In Dominican Identity, Kevin E. Nicholes

Institute for the Humanities Theses

This master’s thesis examines ideologies of whiteness through the erasure and denial of blackness in the Dominican Republic and explores the manner in which racial identity has been reinforced and contested. A dialectical approach is utilized to analyze the discourse around the history of the Dominican Republic and a textual analysis is also employed to assist in supporting the findings. The rationale for this study is to access how whiteness became synonymous with Dominicanness and to resuscitate the blackness of Dominican identity which has been relegated to the classification of the “other”. Therefore, drawing conclusions as to how Dominicans

negotiate …

Over The Ropes: Boundary Play In Professional Wrestling, Ethan Ingram

Theses and Dissertations

Within the anthropology of performance, scholars have traditionally considered theater, spectacle, sport, and ritual performances in terms of the discrete boundaries of space and time that separate these events from daily life and in terms of the disparate roles that demarcate performers from audience members. Professional wrestling, a popular performance genre in the American Midwest, exhibits features that challenge these boundaries through the collaborative construction of the event by performers and audience members. Audience interaction is an essential part of wrestling performances, characterized by routine and contextually understood behaviors that performers can process as evaluative feedback. Moreover, during wrestling matches, …

I Was Taught To Yell Fire, Marina Gutierrez

Honors Theses

From a very young age my mother always told me to yell, “Fire,” if I was ever in a situation where I needed help from a potential attacker, but I never understood why I couldn’t just yell, “Help.” Her reasoning was that many people will run towards a fire to help put it out or save potential victims, but when someone yells for help others will shy away because they don’t want to get involved. I would just nod and promise to yell fire not really understanding the underlying meaning she had just explained to me.

It wasn’t until I …

Beyond Vulnerability: Refugee Women’S Leadership In Jordan, Widad Hassan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While both men and women are affected by conflicts and humanitarian crises, 80 percent of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons are women and children, indicating that women experience conflict and war differently. The emphasis on women’s vulnerability during conflicts and humanitarian crises leads to their exclusion from leadership roles and decision-making on humanitarian programs and issues that impact them. Though women experience numerous socio-cultural barriers to exercising leadership in humanitarian settings, they have taken on important roles in emergency response and in refugee camps. This paper traces the progress of UN and humanitarian agencies recognition and development of …

Is There A Secular Tradition? On Treason, Government, And Truth, Ali M. Uğurlu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Because the secular is so much part of our modern life, it is not easy to grasp it directly,” writes Talal Asad, in the introduction to his Formations of the Secular. This thesis attempts to obliquely engage with secular power through a concept that has been at the center of much contention in our political present: treason. Taking the failed coup of July 16and the ensuing purge against the Gülen movement in Turkey as its points of departure, it seeks to broach some of the constitutive and operative logics of the modern nation-state. Inquiring into the State’s perennial presupposition …

Smoking As A Form Of Persistence In A Christian Nipmuc Community, Jessica Ann Rymer

Graduate Masters Theses

The goal of this thesis is to determine the role that smoking played in the gatherings taking place at the Sarah Burnee/Sarah Boston farmstead and what its presence meant for the Nipmuc who gathered there. Previous work has firmly established that the farmstead functioned as a site of communal feasting for the Hassanamesco Nipmuc using ceramic and faunal evidence, and Heather Law in her 2008 thesis suggested that the site may have operated as an “informal tavern” based on her analysis of the glass assemblage. In all of these studies clay tobacco pipe fragments were utilized for stem bore diameter …

Seeing The Forest And The Trees: Tracing Fuel Use And Landscape Change On The Eastern Pequot Reservation 1740-1850, Kalila Herring

Graduate Masters Theses

Gathering fuel wood was a regular chore for most people throughout time and certainly was a part of life for people living in 18th- and 19th-century Connecticut. During this period, the landscape was being altered due to rapidly expanding agriculture and, by circa 1850, would be at the peak of deforestation. During this period, the Eastern Pequot, a Native American nation in North Stonington, were living on their reservation (established in 1683) in a colonial environment and dealing with timber theft, a reduced land base, overseer control, and the overall environmental changes occurring in Connecticut. This thesis examines the charred …

Is Restorative Justice Doing Enough To Address The Power Imbalances Caused By Systems Of Privilege And Oppression, Matthew Furnell

Capstone Collection

Restorative justice is an ever growing philosophy which is causing a paradigm shift in the way society understands and responds to crime, punishment and victimization. The State of Vermont has become a pioneer and an example of how to implement restorative practices into the official criminal justice system, developing an alternative process to traditional punitive approaches. However, it is now more important than ever to ensure that there is not a false sense of success or a level of complacency in the further development of restorative practices. It is time to critically analyse the current restorative process and explore the …

Assessing The Influence Of Career-Linked Experiential Opportunities On The F-1 Undergraduate Student Enrollment Decision-Making Process, Harrison Fuerst

Capstone Collection

International mobility efforts in the United States have garnered increased attention and funding in recent years, with such government-led initiatives as Generation Study Abroad and 100,000 Strong driving up inbound and outbound student numbers. Recent inbound mobility reports from the Institute of International Education show double-digit percentage increases in international student enrollment. Other countries also experiencing an influx of international students continue to research these trends to shape their own education strategies. Research conducted by the International Education Association of Australia points specifically to hands-on professional experience and enhanced employability as key factors important to Australia’s international student population. As …

A Coffee-Scented Space: Historical, Cultural, And Social Impacts Of The Japanese Kissaten, Claire A. Williamson

Student Work

A 2016-2017 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Claire Williamson (Jonathan Edwards College '17) for her essay submitted to the East Asian Studies Program, “A Coffee-Scented Space: Historical, Cultural, and Social Impacts of the Japanese Kissaten.” (William Kelly, Professor of Anthropology and Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies, advisor.)

Japan has a long and well-documented history as a tea culture, from everyday practices to the refined aesthetics of the tea ceremony and its associated arts. Yet modern Japan is also a highly developed culture of coffee, and this is the topic that Claire Williamson …

Cat Metamorfosis: Becoming Animal And The Freedom Of Non-Identity, Hannah Becker

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

A large number of modern and contemporary female artists have employed the state of becoming to either free themselves of or challenge the social norms that come with being a woman. Kara Walker frees the Mammy of her expectation by combining her with a sphinx in her monumental sugar sculpture, A Subtlety. The Guerilla Girls have an impenetrable and unidentifiable voice when they speak from behind gorilla masks. Lucy Gunning’s The Horse Impressionists depicts women mimicking the behavior of horses to lose their human consciousness, and more specifically, female identity. Looking beyond the art world and into recent consumerist …

Rapping Back: Counter-Narratives From Auckland, New Zealand, Mariel Lopez Rogers

Master's Theses

Across the Pacific in Auckland, New Zealand two rap groups, Homebrew and @Peace, are contributing to a theoretically rich and socially conscious Hip Hop scene. Their music critically questions commercialism and conformity in a culture shaped by a history of colonialism. This makes their message starkly opposed to the normative values of New Zealand. The musicians of Homebrew and @Peace, a mix of Polynesian and Pakeha (people of European descent), employ methods of decolonization theory through the use of storytelling and focus on indigenous values. In a country that has adopted the neoliberal beliefs that competition drives human relations, and …

Rules Of The House: Strategy, Tactic, And Violence In One World By Night, World Of Darkness, Live-Action Role-Play Games, Laya Liebeseller

Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis focuses on governance of institutionalized play in three World of Darkness live-action role-play (larp) games (ethnographic field work conducted between May and August of 2016), whose players have willingly allowed the international organization of One World by Night – an organization made up of their peers – to unify them in such a way as to create connection, community, and shared story across the world. I analyze four locii within these games (the book, the organization, the storyteller, and the player) using Michel de Certeau’s, The Practice of Everyday Life, translated by Steven Rendall, specifically focusing on …

The Old Deery Inn & Museum: An Ethnographic Case Study, Rebecca J. Proffitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses qualitative ethnographic research methods to present a case study that explores the multiplicity of meanings and representations that are attached to the Old Deery Inn & Museum in Blountville, Tennessee. Within the community, the Inn functions as a center for cultural memory, with the physical structure itself acting as an artifact that holds community identity. This community narrative contrasts with the official narrative used by tourism entities that markets the Inn as a part of the Appalachian region, situating the Inn within a complex and intricately constructed identity of place that is shaped by lived experiences as …

The Plight Of Undocumented Female Migrants: Identifying Structural Factors That Contribute To The Proliferation Of Sex Trafficking And The Failings Of International Law, Hannah K. Valles

Arts and Sciences Dean's Office Undergraduate Honors Theses

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the conditions at two specific border zones, the United States-Mexico border and the Mexico-Guatemalan border, that render undocumented female migrants vulnerable to abduction or recruitment into sexual exploitation. In addition to exploring the factors that expose women to trafficking networks, the study scrutinizes the legal failings of the international law-making community with regards to the safeguarding of women whose socio-economic conditions and environment of perpetual violence prompt their extralegal international movement. The paper provides an overview of the social, economic, and historical factors that underpin the flourishing of sex trafficking operations in …