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Articles 1 - 30 of 85
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Impacts Of Environment And Host Evolutionary Relationships On Lemur Microbiota, Rachel B. Burten
The Impacts Of Environment And Host Evolutionary Relationships On Lemur Microbiota, Rachel B. Burten
Doctoral Dissertations
Recent studies have shown that the mammal microbiome is modified by environmental conditions, and that reduced microbiome functionality is associated with host health issues. Microbiome data in wild and captive primate populations can therefore be used to assess their health as they encounter a variety of environments. Comparative studies of the microbiome can also inform disease ecology, conservation, and captive management strategies tailored to different primate species. Therefore, this study examines how the hair, oral, and gut microbiota of nine wild and captive lemur species are determined by host phylogenetic relationships and host environment. I found that host species identity …
Sociocultural And Familial Factors Associated With Symptom Experience At Midlife Among Women In Nagaland, India, Peteneinuo Rulu
Sociocultural And Familial Factors Associated With Symptom Experience At Midlife Among Women In Nagaland, India, Peteneinuo Rulu
Doctoral Dissertations
This cross-sectional study examines the sociocultural and familial factors that are associated with symptom experience at midlife among women in Nagaland. More specifically, the study examines the factors associated with symptoms at midlife, the relationship between symptoms at midlife, household stressors, ethnopolitical problems, and various measures of stress, and the buffering effects of social support against the negative effects of stress on symptoms at midlife. Data from 151 women aged 40-55 were collected from 4 regions in Nagaland, India. The most common symptoms reported during the past two weeks were headaches (72%), tiredness or lack of energy (67.5%), and hot …
The Abolition Of Care: An Engaged Ethnography Of The Progressive Jail Assemblage, Justin Helepololei
The Abolition Of Care: An Engaged Ethnography Of The Progressive Jail Assemblage, Justin Helepololei
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation draws on ethnographic research conducted with prison abolitionists and criminal justice reform activists in Western Massachusetts - a context in which the sheriffs who operate county jails see themselves as reformers. I use the concept of a “progressive jail assemblage” to analyze the varied actors and logics that sustain incarceration locally, focusing especially on the use of care discourses and practices. I consider how progressive jailing puts prison abolitionists in the position of being against some forms of care. At the same time, abolitionists have put forth competing notions of care, ones they see as building a world …
Making The Old City: Life Projects And State Heritage In Rhodes And Acre, Evan Taylor
Making The Old City: Life Projects And State Heritage In Rhodes And Acre, Evan Taylor
Doctoral Dissertations
The “old city,” a widely recognizable category of urban space, has long been a locus of development projects, state monitoring, and mass tourism, while also being home to resident communities. This dissertation explores the intersections of community life and state-driven heritage projects in the Old Town of Rhodes, in the Greek Dodecanese, and the Old City of Acre (‘Akka), a Palestinian community in northern Israel/Palestine. Both old cities are UNESCO World Heritage sites and subjects of intense state-supported tourism development. However, their resident populations and their built environments, which coalesced mainly under Crusader and Ottoman rule, challenge the authorized heritage …
Nahuatl Discourses And Political Speeches As Ways To Negotiate The Racial Monolingual Ideology Of The Mexican State In Hidalgo, Mexico, Vanessa Miranda Juárez
Nahuatl Discourses And Political Speeches As Ways To Negotiate The Racial Monolingual Ideology Of The Mexican State In Hidalgo, Mexico, Vanessa Miranda Juárez
Doctoral Dissertations
This research focuses on language use as a means of linguistic, cultural, and communal negotiations with political economic forces of assimilation and systematic racial discrimination. I specifically analyze how the use of Nahuatl and Spanish within a Nahua community in Mexico, San Isidro Atlapexco Hidalgo, signifies ideological and power relationships. I pay particular attention to the dynamics of interaction and communicative practices within assemblies—a key form of local governance. Here, I show that the collective force displayed in such spaces might be the engine to transgress, oppose, and challenge the highly racialized language ideology of the state that advocates Spanish …
Rules Of Recognition: Indigenous Encounters With Society And The State, Erica Kowsz
Rules Of Recognition: Indigenous Encounters With Society And The State, Erica Kowsz
Doctoral Dissertations
For Indigenous peoples, being recognized has come to mean not simply being known and acknowledged by one’s own relations but also being seen in the right way by the eye of authority. For decades, to gain access to the resources, rights, and legitimacy that state recognition confers, Indigenous political actors globally have navigated bureaucratic processes, from court proceedings to paperwork petitions. While the notion of Indigenous rights emerged at a global scale, they are specified in national jurisdictions. Indigenous people confront problems of their recognizability at all scales in their everyday lives and where they engage with state processes determining …
Beyond Revolutionaries, Victims, And Heroic Mothers. Reproductive Politics In War And Peace In Colombia, Vanesa Giraldo Gartner
Beyond Revolutionaries, Victims, And Heroic Mothers. Reproductive Politics In War And Peace In Colombia, Vanesa Giraldo Gartner
Doctoral Dissertations
During the 2016 peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), reproductive policies in this guerrilla group became a site of contestation in producing new discourses about peace, gender, and nation. This dissertation addresses this controversy and explores the implications of reproductive politics in war and peace among ex-combatant women. The data for this project was collected through archival research and a multi-sited ethnography in Caquetá-Colombia. It discusses the role of contraception in the transformation of the FARC from a grassroots guerrilla movement to a revolutionary army and analyzes the multiple discourses produced about …
Alt-Education: Gender, Language, And Education Across The Right, Catherine Tebaldi
Alt-Education: Gender, Language, And Education Across The Right, Catherine Tebaldi
Doctoral Dissertations
I explore the ideologies of gender, language and education in conservative, Christian Nationalist, and White nationalist mothers groups. I draw on my own family history, as well as on two years of blended ethnographic research in online right wing communities and one year of fieldwork in New Orleans, Louisiana, to look at homeschooling, online schools, and public teachers’ social, linguistic, and educational practices -- what I call Alt-Education. Alt-education is of course a play on alt-right, and refers to the far-right ideology; but it also refers to an alternative to mainstream education, and to education through a broader range of …
Reclaiming The Future Through Small-Scale Agriculture: Autonomy And Sustainability In The Caribbean, Dana M. Conzo
Reclaiming The Future Through Small-Scale Agriculture: Autonomy And Sustainability In The Caribbean, Dana M. Conzo
Doctoral Dissertations
My dissertation, “Reclaiming the future through Small-Scale Agriculture: Autonomy and Sustainability in the Caribbean,” is a political-economic analysis of land politics, foodscapes and foodsheds, and small-scale agricultural activities in plantation economies on the Caribbean island of St Kitts. Using ethnographic and geographic methods, such as participant observation, interviews, social network analysis, and foodshed mapping, I investigate the cultural and economic niche of local farmers, documented and analyzed the island’s foodshed, and provide a historical and economic background of St Kitts to link historical processes to contemporary spatial organization and agricultural practices. I consider the complexities of food inequalities and food …
Digital Indigeneity: Digital Media's Uses For Identity Formation, Education, And Activism By Indigenous People In The Northeastern United States, Virginia A. Mclaurin
Digital Indigeneity: Digital Media's Uses For Identity Formation, Education, And Activism By Indigenous People In The Northeastern United States, Virginia A. Mclaurin
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation seeks to examine the types of digital media being produced in the Northeastern United States, its content, the goals and motivations of its creators, the processes underlying Indigenous digital media creation, and the desired and projected audiences of Indigenous digital artists and content creators. Resulting findings from this study illuminate long histories of Indigenous use of digital media tied to digital media's development in Indigenous lands. I argue that Native people have been producers and influencers in film and later, digital media, and have underwritten digital production due to its development on Indigenous lands. Through interviews and media …
The Boundaries Of Safety: The Sanctuary Movement In The Inland Empire, Cecilia I. Vasquez
The Boundaries Of Safety: The Sanctuary Movement In The Inland Empire, Cecilia I. Vasquez
Doctoral Dissertations
The Trump administration for many represented drastic ideological shift in American values, and for others he embodied a social threat to their lives. In response, many cities, counties, states, and schools proclaimed themselves Sanctuaries to protect their undocumented immigrant community members. The term evokes images of churches operating as a place of refuge with impenetrable walls. The declaration of Sanctuary provided an illusion of boundaries and a sense of safety. This dissertation interrogates the meanings of sanctuary and how the Inland Empire in Southern California, implemented and created sanctuary. By analyzing the California Values Act and working alongside organizers in …
Diversity And Evolution Of Human Eccrine Sweat Gland Density, Andrew W. Best
Diversity And Evolution Of Human Eccrine Sweat Gland Density, Andrew W. Best
Doctoral Dissertations
Human eccrine density is highly derived. However, little is known about contemporary variation in this trait, what shapes it, and how it influences heat dissipation. This project explores 3 questions: 1) Is variation in functional eccrine density (FED) explained by childhood climate? 2) Is this variation patterned by geographic ancestry? 3) Is variation in FED associated with differences in heat dissipation capacity? We measured FED and sweat production in 6 body areas via pharmacological stimulation and impressions of sweating skin in 72 participants. Childhood climate variables were taken from the WorldClim database and geographic ancestry was estimated with 23andMe tests. …
Factors Influencing Primate Hair Microbiome Diversity, Catherine Kitrinos
Factors Influencing Primate Hair Microbiome Diversity, Catherine Kitrinos
Masters Theses
Primate hair is both a substrate upon which essential social interactions occur and an important host-pathogen interface. As commensal microbes provide important immune functions for their hosts, understanding the microbial diversity in primate hair could provide insight into primate immunity and disease transmission. While studies of human hair and skin microbiomes show differences in microbial communities across body regions, little is known about the nonhuman primate hair microbiome. In this study, we collected hair samples (n=159) from 8 body regions across 12 nonhuman primate species housed at 3 US institutions to examine 1) the diversity and composition of the primate …
Platforms And Power: Transnational Guatemala, Eric Sippert
Platforms And Power: Transnational Guatemala, Eric Sippert
Doctoral Dissertations
Moving beyond studies of social movements and NGOs, this dissertation examines how grassroots groups in Guatemala use transnational flows of goods, ideas, and people to create new organizational forms and types of political action. This case study of an organization of returned migrants, former combatants, and indigenous youth demonstrates how marginalized groups create platforms that facilitate connections between disparate actors across nation-state and identity borders. Drawing on field research in Guatemala’s Western Highlands, I explore how these platforms emerged, threats to them, their effects, and what they can teach us about political organizing in crisis. I begin by tracing the …
Above The Oxbow: The Construction Of Place On Mount Holyoke, Danielle R. Raad
Above The Oxbow: The Construction Of Place On Mount Holyoke, Danielle R. Raad
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation is a study of the orogenesis of Mount Holyoke, or the making of place on a mountain. It is an orogenic ethnography and a contemporary archaeological ethnography of place. Mount Holyoke is a mountain in Western Massachusetts that rises above the Connecticut River Valley. It is a prominent destination for tourists and locals alike to recreate outdoors in a state park, to observe the view of the valley below, and to visit the historic, nineteenth-century Summit House. I explore the nature and nuances of attachment to Mount Holyoke through time, by examining conceptions of place over two centuries. …
Real Fake Fighting: The Aesthetic Of Qualified Realism In Japanese Professional Wrestling, Clara Marino
Real Fake Fighting: The Aesthetic Of Qualified Realism In Japanese Professional Wrestling, Clara Marino
Masters Theses
Professional wrestling is a performance art in which the line between fact and fiction is often obscured. Much of the existing scholarship on the medium that examines its dynamics regard reality and artifice focuses on the role of the artificial, analyzing pro-wrestling as primarily a form of heightened spectacle akin to passion plays or soap opera. However, professional wrestling in Japan, particularly that found in the country's largest promotion, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, features many elements that resemble real sports much more closely than many American promotions. These elements include fighting styles, wrestler injury, characters that do not fit easily into …
Cyclones, Spectacles, And Citizenship: The Politicization Of Natural Disasters In The Us And Oman, Tyler Schuenemann
Cyclones, Spectacles, And Citizenship: The Politicization Of Natural Disasters In The Us And Oman, Tyler Schuenemann
Doctoral Dissertations
In the face of such complex, urgent threats of fires, floods, and increasingly powerful storms, many scholars warn that climate change puts us on the path to a technocratic, “rule of experts” for the sake of survival. Others warn that climate change will actually undermine the authority of governments, as they become increasingly unable to meet the basic needs of their citizens. In this dissertation, I draw from interviews, archival research, and ethnographic observations in the US and Oman to examine how power and historical context shape the way that these societies politicize natural disasters. These two countries have fundamental …
Liberation And Gravy: An Engaged Ethnography Of Queer And Trans Power In Georgia, Elias Capello
Liberation And Gravy: An Engaged Ethnography Of Queer And Trans Power In Georgia, Elias Capello
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation aims to better understand how self-identified trans activists in Atlanta, Georgia find and build community, by using queer and Black feminist community based methodologies such as participant observation, ethnographic interviews, participatory mapping, and auto-ethnography. In particular, I ask 1) How do trans people find and build community, safety, and understanding? 2) How do transgender activists create and enact place making that does not rely on policing and privatization? To create and maintain safety for wealthy communities in Atlanta, Georgia, systems of policing and privatization are increasing. Although developers, city council members, and legislators promote Atlanta, Georgia as a …
Grandmotherhood In Ukraine: Behavioral Variation And Evolutionary Implications, Sofiya Shreyer
Grandmotherhood In Ukraine: Behavioral Variation And Evolutionary Implications, Sofiya Shreyer
Masters Theses
Grandmothers are known to increase the health and well-being of their grandchildren in many different populations. However, grandmothers may vary in their contributions based on their relatedness to their grandchildren. In some populations, maternal grandmothers decrease the risk of mortality and increase the health of their grandchildren more than paternal grandmothers. Grandmaternal influence also sometimes varies based on the gender of the grandchild. The behavioral mechanisms of grandmaternal investment are not well understood and have not been explored in the heavily intergenerational context of Eastern Europe. This study examines the behavioral variation of sixty-two Ukrainian grandmothers through interviews and a …
The People Who “Burn”: “Communication,” Unity, And Change In Belarusian Discourse On Public Creativity, Anton Dinerstein
The People Who “Burn”: “Communication,” Unity, And Change In Belarusian Discourse On Public Creativity, Anton Dinerstein
Doctoral Dissertations
The main intellectual problem I address in this study is how everyday communication activates the relationship between creativity, conflict, and change. More specifically, I look at how the communication of creativity becomes a process of transformation, innovation, and change and how people are propelled to create through everyday communication practices in the face of conflict and opposition. To approach this problem, I use the case of communication in modern-day Belarus to show how creativity becomes a vehicle for and a source of new social and cultural routines among the independent grassroots communities and initiatives in Minsk. On one level, I …
Kofifi/Covfefe: How The Costumes Of "Sophiatown" Bring 1950s South Africa To Western Massachusetts In 2020, Emma Hollows
Kofifi/Covfefe: How The Costumes Of "Sophiatown" Bring 1950s South Africa To Western Massachusetts In 2020, Emma Hollows
Masters Theses
This thesis paper reflects upon the costume design process taken by Emma Hollows to produce a realist production of the Junction Avenue Theatre Company’s musical Sophiatown at the Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts in May 2020. Sophiatown follows a household forcibly removed from their homes by the Native Resettlement Act of 1954 amid apartheid in South Africa. The paper discusses her attempts as a costume designer to strike a balance between replicating history and making artistic changes for theatre, while always striving to create believable characters.
De-Coding The Impact Of Evolved Changes In Gene Expression And Cellular Phenotype On Primate Evolution, Trisha Zintel
De-Coding The Impact Of Evolved Changes In Gene Expression And Cellular Phenotype On Primate Evolution, Trisha Zintel
Doctoral Dissertations
The goal of the dissertation work outlined here was to investigate the influence of proximal processes contributing to evolutionary differences in phenotypes among primate species. There are numerous previous comparative analyses of gene expression between primate brain regions. However, primate brain tissue samples are relatively rare, and my results have contributed to the pre-existing data on more well-studied primates (i.e. humans, chimpanzees, macaques, marmosets) as well as produced information on more rarely-studied primates (i.e. patas monkey, siamang, spider monkey). Additionally, the primary visual cortex has not previously been as extensively studied at the level of gene expression as other brain …
Cross-Cutting Narratives Of Opioid Use Disorder Among Pregnant Women And Mothers: Implications For Humanistic Care, Alice Fiddian-Green
Cross-Cutting Narratives Of Opioid Use Disorder Among Pregnant Women And Mothers: Implications For Humanistic Care, Alice Fiddian-Green
Doctoral Dissertations
Opioid-related fatalities in the U.S. have increased drastically. Pregnant women and mothers with opioid use disorders (OUD) are a rapidly growing and vulnerable population. Using a critical narrative approach, this dissertation examines how the syndemic of trauma, substance use, and mental health conditions influences opioid use and treatment trajectories among pregnant women and mothers across the lifecourse. The goal of this dissertation was to examine three discursive resources that shape the social construction of perinatal and maternal opioid use across all strata of social life: macro-level (news media), meso-level (scientific), and micro-level (individual) narratives. Informed by 18-months of ethnographic observation, …
Archery's Lasting Mark: A Biomechanical Analysis Of Archery, Tabitha Dorshorst
Archery's Lasting Mark: A Biomechanical Analysis Of Archery, Tabitha Dorshorst
Masters Theses
The physical demands of archery involve strenuous movements that place repetitive mechanical loads on the upper body. Given that bone remodels in response to mechanical loading (Ruff, 2008), it is reasonable to assume that repetitive bow and arrow use impacts upper limb bone morphology in predictable ways. The introduction and increased use of archery have been suggested to impact bilateral humeral asymmetry (Rhodes and Knüsel, 2005; Thomas, 2014). However, this claim is yet to be tested in vivo. This project aims to use kinematic and electromyographic approaches to validate claims inferring that, 1. archery places mechanical loading on the non-dominant …
What Will You Do Here? Dignified Work And The Politics Of Mobility In Serbia, Dana N. Johnson
What Will You Do Here? Dignified Work And The Politics Of Mobility In Serbia, Dana N. Johnson
Doctoral Dissertations
Serbia is said to have one of the highest rates of brain drain in the world. For the generation glossed as the “children of the 1990s,” stances toward mobility and migration have shifted along with geopolitics. Following nearly two decades of wartime entrapment, in 2009 the conditions of possibility for mobility fundamentally changed for Serbian citizens. Of both symbolic and material consequence, the country’s return to respectable geopolitical standing also marked a shift toward more nuanced stancetaking in relation to mobility and migration. Namely, by the time of my research, the expectations of youth—not only of “normal mobility” but of …
The Political Work Of Memory In Collaborative Caribbean Archaeology, Elena Sesma
The Political Work Of Memory In Collaborative Caribbean Archaeology, Elena Sesma
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation is the product of a community-based research project that sought to understand how descendants of the 19th century Millars Plantation on the southern end of Eleuthera, Bahamas continue to use and reinterpret the landscape that they have called home for over a century and a half. In 1871, the last owner of the Millars Plantation left the estate in her will to the descendants of her former slaves and servants. That descendant community still upholds their right to this land today, although in recent years, a Bahamian developer has attempted to gain title to the acreage through the …
When Healing And High-Stakes Meet: Restorative Justice In An Era Of Racial Neoliberalism, Dani O'Brien
When Healing And High-Stakes Meet: Restorative Justice In An Era Of Racial Neoliberalism, Dani O'Brien
Doctoral Dissertations
Based on a 3-year ethnography, this dissertation documents the story of Presente, an explicitly critical youth-led restorative justice group attempting to dismantle the school-prison nexus and create a more youth-centered culture at their high-reform high school. This dissertation addresses the questions: How does serving as a restorative justice peer leader impact students? What challenges and opportunities arise as the school tries to transition to more restorative practices? And how do the values central to restorative justice come up against, challenge, and get challenged by neoliberal education reform?
Recollections: Memory, Materiality, And Meritocracy At The Dr. James Still Historic Office And Homestead, Marc Lorenc
Recollections: Memory, Materiality, And Meritocracy At The Dr. James Still Historic Office And Homestead, Marc Lorenc
Doctoral Dissertations
The dissertation explores how memory, materiality, and meritocracy articulate together to create a meritocratic subjectivity at the Dr. James Still Historic Office and Homestead. This subjectivity frames how we experience and promote the history of Dr. James Still through an authorized heritage discourse (AHD) (Smith 2006) that promotes and re-ingrains American meritocracy, specifically the “bootstrap myth”, as a “common sense”. Using a combination of archaeological excavations, documentary analysis, and ethnography conducted under the Dr. James Still Community Archaeology Project (DJSCAP), I explore how cultural artifacts shape and influence our subjectivities at the site and more broadly in everyday interactions with …
Production And Power At Idalion, Cyprus In The First Millennium Bce, Rebecca Bartusewich
Production And Power At Idalion, Cyprus In The First Millennium Bce, Rebecca Bartusewich
Doctoral Dissertations
In archaeology, the analysis of ordinary things does not often lead to assessments of power. Political systems are difficult to trace materially because today they seem separate from our lives, but yet are involved in most everything we do. In this case study of first millennium BCE Idalion, Cyprus, I have found that the producers of undecorated, or utilitarian, pottery are impacted by political behavior and social relationships, which both impact their economic stability. When discussing the political economy, archaeologists describe elites as the controllers of wealth including the consumption and sometimes production of high value goods. However, I argue …
Modeling The Local Political Economy Of Adulis: 1000 Bce-700 Ace, Daniel Habtemichael
Modeling The Local Political Economy Of Adulis: 1000 Bce-700 Ace, Daniel Habtemichael
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation models the local political economy of Adulis, during Africa’s Classical Age (1000 BCE-700 ACE), by evaluating the materiality of Adulis (built forms and artifacts). Thirty-nine built forms are 3D modeled, and their energetics values (labor and time) are inferred to estimate the social power and wealth that was necessary for the construction of such a built-forms. Two political economy models are used to critically evaluate the energetics data from the built-forms combined to another set of data of essential artifacts from the site. The traditional political economy perspective holds that Adulis is a periphery, a port in an …