Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Managing Fires And Ecosystems Indigenous Fire Ecologies Session_Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Wildland Fires Workshop, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables For A Planet In Crisis By Amitav Ghosh, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

Amitav Ghosh, a celebrated author of fiction and nonfiction, earned a doctorate in social anthropology from Oxford. In this iteration of his nonfiction oeuvre, Ghosh’s mapping of the historical entanglement of human rights abuses and environmental exploitation is framed upon the pillars of postcolonialism and posthumanism. Many of the processes he writes about in his acclaimed book The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis overlap with the interests of Human Ecology readers. Chapters 4 “Terraforming,” 5 “We Shall be Gone Shortly,” and 6 “Bonds of Earth” may feel familiar to students of environmental histories and aficionados of Alfred …

Bura Ura, Kendu Waiyo (Rain Falls, Water Rises): The Tyranny Of Water Insecurity And An Agenda For Abolition In Kodi (Sumba Island, Indonesia), Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the dynamic links between transformations in freshwater ecosystems and social changes in the Kodi region of Sumba (Indonesia). Insights into the politics surrounding changing hydrosocial systems are generated by using a feminist anthropology approach together with critical development studies and intersectionality theory. In aligning with fellow feminists whose advocacy sometimes takes the form of scholarship, I lay out a five-prong strategy for collecting empirical evidence from persons who are vulnerable when hydrological systems change and offer eight principles for future development interventions. The argument related to the five-prong toolkit is that by conducting intensive, extensive, opportunistic, and …

Real-Time Mapping With Global Positioning Systems Devices In A Mixed Methods Toolkit For Studying Social And Environmental Change, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

To explore the process through which people develop knowledge about socioecological change, this article describes a mixed-methods toolkit containing a technique for making maps in real time while moving through landscapes. The quantitative component of the toolkit is grounded in ethnobiologists’ embeddedness in place-based communities and harnesses the power of global positioning systems (GPS). As GPS-wielding ethnobiologists engage in participatory mapping by moving through landscapes with their research collaborators, we can use handheld devices and simultaneously communicate with satellites in outer space to produce maps in real time. Within the existing, large inventory of ethnobiological methods, using handheld GPS devices …

Colonial Prehistories Of Indigenous North America, Mark A. Mattes

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most common inquiries received by Filson Historical Society librarians concerns the myth of Prince Madoc and the Welsh Indians. Of the myth’s many versions, the one most familiar to Ohio Valley History readers goes like this: Madoc, a Welsh prince escaping an internecine conflict over political rule at home, supposedly sailed to North America in the twelfth century. His force either landed at the Falls of the Ohio or made it there after landing further south and being driven north by hostile locals, possibly Cherokee people. Madoc and his contingent intermixed with Indigenous populations, whose fair-haired, blue-eyed, …

Results Of A Second Season Of Paleolithic Survey In The Agig Area: The Red Sea Region Of The Sudan, Amanuel Beyin, Abubakr Abdelrahman Adam, Ahmed Alhaj O. Balela, Boshra Abdella Adem

Faculty Scholarship

One of the contentious issues in paleoanthropology today concerns the geographic route/routes through which hominins (early humans) left Africa. The Nile corridor and the Strait of Bab al-Mandab (the southern Red Sea) are commonly cited as the likely routes by which hominins dispersed out of East Africa (Van Peer 1998; Derricourt 2005; Beyin 2006). However, the extent to which hominin movements remained confned to these regions is unclear. The western periphery of the Red Sea (WPRS) occupies a critical geographic location to be considered as an ideal region to assess the role of coastal habitats in hominin survival, and the …

'Smarks': Kynical Engagement And Coalitional Fandom Of Professional Wrestling, Andrew Zolides

Faculty Scholarship

Conflict in professional wrestling is not limited to the performers in the ring, as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and other promotions have toxic fan practices borne out of their varied engagements with the wrestling texts. Conflicting reactions to performers and storylines speak to a larger divide within the professional wrestling community exemplified by ‘smarks’: industry-savvy fans whose knowledge of backstage dealings impacts their perceptions of the product. In analyzing smarks, I employ Peter Sloterdijk’s conception of kynicism, distinguished from cynicism by an attitude of cheekiness that enables the user to subvert hegemonic idealism through a particular performance. In his words …

The Role Of Mobile Genetic Elements In The Spread Of Antimicrobial-Resistant Escherichia Coli From Chickens To Humans In Small-Scale Production Poultry Operations In Rural Ecuador, Kara A. Moser, Lixin Zhang, Ian Spicknall, Nikolay P. Braykov, Karen Levy, Carl F. Marrs, Betsy Foxman, Gabriel Trueba, William Cevallos, Jason Goldstick, James Trostle, Joseph N.S. Eisenberg

Faculty Scholarship

© The Author(s) 2018. Small-scale production poultry operations are increasingly common worldwide. To investigate how these operations influence antimicrobial resistance and mobile genetic elements (MGEs), Escherichia coli isolates were sampled from small-scale production birds (raised in confined spaces with antibiotics in feed), household birds (no movement constraints; fed on scraps), and humans associated with these birds in rural Ecuador (2010-2012). Isolates were screened for genes associated with MGEs as well as phenotypic resistance to 12 antibiotics. Isolates from small-scale production birds had significantly elevated odds of resistance to 7 antibiotics and presence of MGE genes compared with household birds (adjusted …

Conscious Identity Performance, Leslie P. Culver

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Initiating Research On Igniting Fires In The Blue Ridge Mountains During The Autumn 2016 Conflagration, Cynthia Twyford Fowler, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

An unprecedented moment in the fire ecology of the Blue Ridge Mountains occurred in Autumn 2016 when severe drought, frequent anthropogenic ignitions, and seasonality in disturbed deciduous forests fueled widespread burning. As the wildfires burned, wildland firefighters from around the U.S. temporarily moved into the region to assist local land managers. As wildfire risks increased and air quality decreased, local residents became increasingly interested in fire ecology. The community shifted continuously as wildfires were extinguished, wildland firefighters returned home, and local residents disengaged. In conducting research during the conflagration, obtaining consent from community members varied depending on whether or not …

The Role Of Traditional Knowledge About And Management Of Seaworms (Polychaeta) In Making Austronesian Worlds, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

This paper discusses how Kodi make their worlds cognitively as well as experientially, and how these worlds relate to sustainability and wellbeing. Kodi construct their cognitive worlds as well as their biophysical landscapes whilst interacting with many other species. This presentation focuses on human-polychaete interactions in order to illustrate world making processes. Seaworm traditions have deep historical roots in Austronesian societies and continue to be crucial for the wellbeing of contemporary communities. World-making processes are evident in what Kodi people say about seaworms and how they move through space relative to seaworms. While Kodi construct time they simultaneously construct space …

I Get Height With A Little Help From My Friends: Herd Protection From Sanitation On Child Growth In Rural Ecuador [Post-Print], James Fuller, Eduardo Villamor, William Cevallos, James A. Trostle, Joseph Eisenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Infectious disease interventions, such as vaccines and bed nets, have the potential to provide herd protection to non-recipients. Similarly, improved sanitation in one household may provide community-wide benefits if it reduces contamination in the shared environment. Sanitation at the household level is an important predictor of child growth, but less is known about the effect of sanitation coverage in the community.

Methods: From 2008 to 2013, we took repeated anthropometric measurements on 1314 children under 5 years of age in 24 rural Ecuadorian villages. Using mixed effects regression, we estimated the association between sanitation coverage in surrounding households and …

Lakeside View: Sociocultural Responses To Changing Water Levels Of Lake Turkana, Kenya, David K. Wright, Steven L. Forman, Purity Kiura, Christopher Bloszies, Amanuel Beyin

Faculty Scholarship

Throughout the Holocene, Lake Turkana has been subject to drastic changes in lake levels and the subsistence strategies people employ to survive in this hot and arid region. In this paper, we reconstruct the position of the lake during the Holocene within a paleoclimatic context. Atmospheric forcing mechanisms are discussed in order to contextualize the broader landscape changes occurring in eastern Africa over the last 12,000 years. The Holocene is divided into five primary phases according to changes in the strand-plain evolution, paleoclimate, and human subsistence strategies practiced within the basin. Early Holocene fishing settlements occurred adjacent to high and …

Socioecological Processes In The Science Of Planetary Change, Cynthia Twyford Fowler, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

This presentation seeks to further understandings of human encounters with socioecological change and also of socioecological processes in the science of planetary change. In this presentation, I interpret the space-time involvements of two social groups. Using one filter, I do basic science by examining the ways Sumbanese construct the monsoonal landscapes which they communicate about, within which they move, and where they interact with other constituents of their environments. Using an alternate filter, I engage critical theory by deconstructing the ways scientists’ visualize changing landscapes with the aid of geospatial technologies. Whose purposes do geospatial scientists serve in documenting the …

Human Origins, Dispersal And Associated Environments: An African Perspective, Amanuel Beyin

Faculty Scholarship

Africa’s position as the cradle of humanity is widely accepted, supported by rich fossil and archaeological discoveries from different parts of the continent. Drawing on the Out-of-Africa theory of human origins, this article provides a condensed narrative of the major milestones in human evolution and associated environmental settings. The underlying hypothesis is that changes in global climate played an important role in fueling early modern human origins and dispersals within and outside of Africa. As one will discover in this article, the history of humanity is a tale of small events that merged together into major milestones over a long …

Framing A “Wicked” Debate: Subsistence, Nutrition, And Indigenous Rights Versus Deforestation, Air Pollution, And Climate Change, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

This presentation considers anthropogenic environmental change as a wicked problem in which multiple, divergent understandings of complex systems and changing conditions coexist. The stakes are high with this wicked problem for the whole Earth and all of humanity. Stakes are especially high in the tropical agropastoral communities whose resource management systems are the subject of much consternation and, at the same time, whose systems are incompletely known.

Heterogeneous Immunological Landscapes And Medieval Plague : An Invitation To A New Dialogue Between Historians And Immunologists., Fabian Crespo, Matthew B. Lawrenz

Faculty Scholarship

Efforts to understand the differential mortality caused by plague must account for many factors, including human immune responses. In this essay we are particularly interested in those people who were exposed to the Yersinia pestis pathogen during the Black Death, but who had differing fates—survival or death—that could depend on which individuals (once infected) were able to mount an appropriate immune response as a result of biological, environmental, and social factors. The proposed model suggests that historians of the medieval world could make a significant contribution to the study of human health, and especially the role of human immunology in …

Proxy Citizenship And Transnational Advocacy: Colombian Activists From Putumayo To Washington, Dc, Winifred Tate

Faculty Scholarship

Proxy citizenship is the mechanism through which certain rights of citizenship—the ability to make claims for redress to a state—are conferred on activists through relationships with NGOs. Focusing on advocacy from within the policy process, U.S. and Colombian NGOs channeled political legitimacy and rights of access to Colombians, whose claims emerge from the experience of governance as articulated through testimony. This process, and its roots within the shared history of the Putumayo region of Colombia and Washington, DC, reveals emerging practices of citizenship claims and transnational political participation.

Faculty In The Mist: Ethnographic Study Of Faculty Research Practices, Marilyn R. Pukkila, Ellen L. Freeman

Faculty Scholarship

A report on ethnographic research on college faculty research and teaching methods, with their use of information resources, library services, technology, and academic IT support.

Human Rights Law And Military Aid Delivery: A Case Study Of The Leahy Law, Winifred Tate

Faculty Scholarship

Explicitly prohibiting US military counternarcotics assistance to foreign military units facing credible allegations of abuses, Leahy Law creation and implementation illuminates the epistemological challenges of knowledge production about violence in the policy process. First passed in 1997, the law emerged from strategic alliances between elite NGO advocates, grassroots activists and critically located Congressional aides in response to the perceived inability of Congress to act on human rights information. I explore the resulting transformation of aid delivery: rather than suspend aid when no “clean” units could be found, US officials convinced their Colombian allies to create new units consisting of vetted …

Recent Archaeological Survey And Excavation Around The Greater Kalokol Area, West Side Of Lake Turkana: Preliminary Findings, Amanuel Beyin

Faculty Scholarship

After the long period of arid conditions in the terminal Pleistocene, the global climate turned to wet and humid at the onset of the Holocene Interglacial ~10 ka BP (Gasse 2000; Hassan 1997). Under the wet and intermittently dry conditions of the early Holocene (10-6 ka BP), lakeshores, seashores and rivers became attractive for human exploitation in many parts of the world (Erlandson 2001). In Africa, sites associated with aquatic intensification have been reported in the Sahelian-Saharan belt, dating roughly from 9500-5000 years BP (Holl 2005). The Turkana Basin in northern Kenya became a mega-lake in the early Holocene, with …

Upper Pleistocene Human Dispersals Out Of Africa: A Review Of The Current State Of The Debate, Amanuel Beyin

Faculty Scholarship

Although there is a general consensus on African origin of early modern humans, there is disagreement about how and when they dispersed to Eurasia. This paper reviews genetic and Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic archaeological literature from northeast Africa, Arabia, and the Levant to assess the timing and geographic backgrounds of Upper Pleistocene human colonization of Eurasia. At the center of the discussion lies the question of whether eastern Africa alone was the source of Upper Pleistocene human dispersals into Eurasia or were there other loci of human expansions outside of Africa? The reviewed literature hints at two modes of early …

Performing Pisgah: Endurance Mountain Bikers Generating The National Forest, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

In Western North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest, the extraordinary performances of endurance athletes imbue public lands with multivocality and sculpt spaces into idealized natures. Endurance mountain bikers generate Pisgah as a meaningful place grounded to specific spaces and particular identities as they perform challenging rides on difficult terrain.

Paramilitary Forces In Colombia, Winifred Tate

Faculty Scholarship

How can we understand the transformation of Colombian paramilitary groups during the past two decades? Intimately connected to drug trafficking, paramilitary groups have infiltrated political institutions and enjoyed significant political support even as they have used extreme brutality. Since the early 1990s, paramilitaries have grown exponentially in strength, creating a national coordinating body and carrying out military offensives. These developments brought territorial expansion throughout Colombia and a peak in political violence, typified by massacres from 1997 to 2003. After negotiations with government officials, more than thirty-two thousand troops passed through demobilization programs verified by the Organization of American States; much …

Males Diarreicos En La Costa Ecuatoriana: Cambios Socioambientales Y Concepciones De Salud (Diarrheal Illnesses On The Ecuadorian Coast: Socio-Environmental Changes And Health Beliefs), James A. Trostle, Jeanneth Alexander Yépez-Montufar, Betty Corozo-Angulo, Marylin Rodríguez

Faculty Scholarship

The authors present an ethnoepidemiological study of diarrheal illnesses in 21 communities on the northern coast of Ecuador, where numerous social and environmental changes have taken place since 2001 due to a new highway. As communities realize that nature itself is changing, changes occur in their interpretations of health and disease, which the authors present through a taxonomic classification of diarrheal illnesses. Given the high incidence of diarrheal diseases, alternative concepts have emerged (as compared to those of biomedicine) in relation to causes, symptoms, and treatments. The non-biomedical and biomedical systems overlap, with mixtures of coexistence and resistance. Recognizing this …

U.S. Human Rights Activism And Plan Colombia, Winifred L. Tate

Faculty Scholarship

Non-governmental organizations claim to play a central role in defining U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the field of human rights. Here, I will examine the role of human rights and humanitarian groups in the debates over U.S. foreign policy towards Colombia, focusing on the design and subsequent additional appropriations for Plan Colombia, a multi-billion dollar aid package beginning in 2000. I argue that NGOs were able to build on the legacy of prior human rights activism focusing on Latin America, but failed to achieve significant grassroots mobilization around this issue. I examine the structural issues limiting such mobilization, as well …

From Greed To Grievance: The Shifting Political Profile Of The Colombian Paramilitaries, Winifred Tate

Faculty Scholarship

On June 28, 2004, indicted drug trafficker and paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, wearing a fashionable Italian suit and tie, addressed the Colombian Congress from the podium. "The judgment of history will recognize the goodness and nobility of our cause," he told the assembled legislators and press. The day before, Mancuso, along with two other paramilitary leaders, had traveled in an official air force plane from the small northern Colombia hamlet where paramilitary leaders had assembled to begin talks with the Colombian government. After almost a decade of fighting outside the law, Mancuso was now addressing the heart of the state, …

Research For Change Versus Research As Change: Lessons From A Mujerista Participatory Research Team, Andrea Dyrness

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, I aim to further the discussion of engaged research in anthropology and education by examining the unique changes promoted by participatory research in contrast to policy-oriented activist research models. Drawing on my work with Latina immigrant mothers in a school reform movement, I argue for a Latina feminist view of participatory research that illuminates and builds on Latina women's capacities for social critique and transformative resistance.

Disturbing Constructions Of Tropical Savannas And The People Who Burn Them, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

The transition from equilibrium to non-equilibrium models of ecosystems in the biological sciences during the past several decades parallels an evolution in the ways that anthropologists understand culture. Reconceptualizations of ecosystem processes (e.g., disturbance) and units (e.g., landscapes) are apparent in fire science where they have influenced a conversion from the belief that fire is a destructive artificial force to the belief that fire is a controllable natural element. What adjustments have fire scientists made in their understandings of people who ignite fires? Even though fire science literature is voluminous, the sociocultural and biophysical relationships surrounding fire are insufficiently understood. …

X-Ray Fluorescence And Neutron Activation Analysis Of Obsidian From The Red Sea Coast Of Eritrea, Michael D. Glascock, Amanuel Beyin, Magen E. Coleman

Faculty Scholarship

The strategic location of Eritrea along the Red Sea coast and the Horn of Africa makes it an important place to study human prehistory over a long span of time. However, recurrent political instability and the environmental adversity in the region have hindered comprehensive archaeological investigation. Paleolithic research in Eritrea began after the country obtained independence from Ethiopia in 1991. Geological survey in the Abdur area, along the Gulf of Zula coast (Figure 1), identified Paleolithic artifacts embedded in reef limestone dating to ~ 125 Ka BP (Walter et al., 2000). Based on this evidence, human coastal adaptation during the …