Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

12.04.2023 Orsp Newsletter, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

Week of December 4, 2023

12.11.2023 Orsp Newsletter, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

December 11, 2023 Newsletter

11.27.2023 Orsp Newsletter, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

November 27, 2023 edition of the ORSP newsletter

11.20.2023 Orsp Newsletter, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

ORSP Newsletter for the week of November 20, 2023.

The View From Ventress - 2022-23 Academic Year, University Of Mississippi, College Of Liberal Arts

Liberal Arts Newsletters

News from the College of Liberal Arts

11.13.2023, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

No abstract provided.

11.6.2023, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Introduction. The Public South: Engaging History, Abolition, Pedagogy, And Practice, Helen A. Regis, C. Mathews Samson

Southern Anthropologist

With this issue of Southern Anthropologist, we introduce several new features, which we hope will enliven conversations and expand the readership of the journal.

Standing Together Against Silencing: Anthropology As Inclusive Public History In The Anti-Crt Legislative Era, Ann E. Kingsolver, Elena Sesma

Southern Anthropologist

The authors – a high school student, undergraduate and graduate students, and Anthropology Department faculty members at the University of Kentucky – discuss ways that existing ethnographic, archival, and archaeological data can be explored with new analytical lenses to contribute to public history centering voices and perspectives that have been silenced and marginalized in dominant historical narratives. This is argued to be a vital pedagogical project in secondary and postsecondary educational as well as inclusive community discussions, given the current legislative environment across a number of states in the southeastern US that discourages the teaching and even availability of texts …

Doing Oral History As Public Anthropology, Helen A. Regis

Southern Anthropologist

Doing Oral History engages students as co-researchers in a community-engaged oral history project begun in 2011. Supported by a research partnership between a faculty member, a university oral history center, and a non-profit archive, the course engages learners in the exploration of a festival and its communities. Through oral histories with long-time festival workers, artists, staff, volunteers, and neighbors, we contribute to expanding the history of a festival and the social movements that have shaped it. We also consider the ways in which diverse festival workers come to feel a part of a community centering African American working-class folk, cultures, …

Human Trafficking Research: Developing Collaborative Partnerships With Local Agencies, Jaymelee Kim

Southern Anthropologist

This article considers an effort to develop meaningful research collaborations with non-governmental organizations and local agencies working on human trafficking. Scholarship discussing challenges and insights for “finding the field” and developing partnerships in the rural US is sparse. This research report briefly discusses considerations that should be taken into account when developing applied research projects with non-academic collaborators. Using Ohio-based human trafficking research as a case study, this piece discusses how cultural factors, misconceptions, confidentiality, and goals can be navigated to ultimately benefit the partner agencies and the populations they serve.

Putting Anthropological Critiques Into Practice, Amanda J. Reinke

Southern Anthropologist

How do we use anthropological critiques of institutions, practices, and processes to improve practices that address the needs of the public?Drawing on applied anthropological literature and from the author’s experience as a conflict management practitioner and academic, this essay discusses the relationship between critiques of practice and practicing anthropology. Rather than a diametrically opposed relationship (academic vs. practitioner or Ivory Tower vs. applied), I use my positionality as a researcher, academic, entrepreneur, and practitioner in conflict management to argue that engaging with theoretically informed critiques is necessary for practice improvements, and that practitioners are central to improving theory.

Blood Will Tell: Eugenics Education At A Twentieth-Century Southern University, Meg Langhorne, Alison Bell

Southern Anthropologist

During the 1920s and ‘30s, Washington and Lee University (W&L) biology students visited local families suspected of “degeneracy.” At the direction of their professor and with the support of social workers, physicians, and other authorities, students recorded generational histories as well as such variables as age, material conditions, educational level, employment, illnesses, and supposed proclivities toward promiscuity, alcoholism, illegitimacy, “idiocy,” and “feeblemindedness.” W&L Special Collections and Archives contains 25 of these eugenics term papers. Together they document ways that young White men – many from well-to-do southern families – learned or affirmed that their social position was a function of …

Abolition 101: Anthropological Praxis And Education For Liberation, Daniel A. Pizarro

Southern Anthropologist

Anthropological praxis has the potential to help build and sustain social justice movements by speaking truth to power, exposing structural violence, and questioning communities’ safety and well-being. Anthropologists who engage in praxis interrogate the root causes of oppression by critiquing the discipline’s pedagogies. The current structure of academic institutions encourages scholars to overlook the popular and political education necessary to ameliorate social suffering and advance human rights. This paper explores prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition, a liberatory praxis framework that socio-cultural anthropologists may adopt as active participants in the abolitionist struggle. This case study draws on community-based participatory action research …

Complete Issue, Journal Editors

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Pedagogy In Times Of Crisis, James Daria, Abigail Wightman, Shelly Yankovskyy, Amanda J. Reinke

Southern Anthropologist

Editors’ note: With this issue, we launch a new feature of the journal, drawing from a panel discussion or roundtable at SAS, which sparked important discussion for panelists and conference participants. This panel, which took place on April 9, 2022, in Raleigh, NC, was part of the 55th Annual Meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society with the theme “Public Interest and Professional Anthropology in the South.” The roundtable was organized and moderated by Amanda J. Reinke. The transcript was created by Helen Regis and the conversation was lightly edited by the authors, who also had an opportunity to include references …

10.30.2023, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

No abstract provided.

10.16.2023, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

No abstract provided.

10.9.2023, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

No abstract provided.

10.2.2023 Orsp Newsletter, Liz Williamson

ORSP Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Incrementalism Will Neither Defeat Russia Nor Deter China, Matthew Thomas Becker

Faculty and Student Publications

This Guest Editorial appeared in multiple venues:

1. Magnolia Tribune, 30 May 2023
2. Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 31 May 2023
3. Thomasville Times-Enterprise, 6 June 2023
4. Clarion-Ledger, 6 June 2023
5. Hattiesburg American, 6 June 2023
6. Vicksburg Post, 7 June 2023
7. Wyoming Tribune Eagle, 8 June 2023
8. Missoulian, 12 June 2023
9. Independent Record, 12 June 2023
10. Commercial Dispatch, 15 June 2023
11. Daily Progress, 18 June 2023
12. Oxford Eagle, 21 June 2023
13. Delaware State News, 27 June 2023

Sharing My Story Through Public Speaking: Young People And Mental Health, Alexandra Isabella Bush

Honors Theses

Recent years have shown a worsening mental health crisis in America. Between the high prevalence of mental illness, lack of treatment, high rates of suicide and overdoses, and increasing rates of substance use, the United States has an abundance of problems, all of which relate to mental health. One contributing factor is the insufficient education about mental health topics, also known as mental health literacy. Therefore, American citizens lack necessary knowledge, such as the signs and risk factors of mental illness, treatment options, and ways to improve mental health, to name a few. One impact of low mental health literacy …

Mental Health Among D1 Female College Athletes: Prevalance And Links To Athletic And Academic Performance, Mary Goebel

Honors Theses

Background. NCAA Division I female student-athletes are underrepresented in mental health research; existing research among female athletes tends to focus only on disordered eating and body appearance. This study aims to 1) describe the prevalence of mental health issues (i.e., anxiety, depression, and stress) among female Division I college athletes, and 2) assess the association between mental health issues and the student-athlete experience (i.e., athletic and academic performance).

Methods. This was a quantitative, cross-sectional study that used a self-administered online survey. The participants were NCAA Division I female student-athletes, mainly from the University of Mississippi. Demographics and sample characteristics were …

Grit Games: Do Incentives Play A Role?, Kaylee Markham

Honors Theses

Grit is a personality trait defined by persistence in reaching long-term goals despite difficulties (Duckworth, 2021). Angela Duckworth introduced the topic through her research and creation of the grit scale. The purpose of this research was to assess the grit levels of athletic groups at a southern university, using Duckworth’s scale. The hypothesis was that NCAA athletes would have higher grit levels because they have more incentives to gain by persevering through difficult times. The three groups surveyed were Club sports, Esports, and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports, which have a range of included benefits in their programs. These …

Sleep Duration Is Associated With Caudate Volume And Executive Function, Nicole Jones

Honors Theses

The ineligible role of the caudate nucleus in sleep has been implicated throughout multiple scientific studies. Previous literature has shown that greater caudate volume is associated with longer habitual sleep duration in older adults- ranging from 55 years of age and up. However, the association between sleep duration and caudate volume remains unknown in the younger population. In this study, we examined the caudate volume in youth to older adults (10 to 85 years old) with a greater sample size (N=464) to increase statistical power. The volumetric size of the caudate nucleus showed significantly positive association with habitual sleep duration, …

Historical Archaeology At The Chalmers Institute, Mississippi's First University, Antosia Briggs

Honors Theses

This study presents a basic description and analysis of the artifacts collected from the 2015 archaeological excavation conducted in Holly Springs, Mississippi at the Chalmers Institute site. The thesis includes history and background on Holly Springs as a city to orient the reader. This text also includes information regarding the program, Preserve Marshall County, as their work regarding the building and site ties directly into the ability of the student archaeologists being able to excavate in 2015 as well as the future of the building. This study analyzes the artifacts found based on the frameworks of the archaeology of institutional …

Hungry For Student Food Security: A Comparative Analysis Of University Food Pantry Policies, Anastasia Jones-Burdick

Honors Theses

This undergraduate research thesis aims to explore the relationship between public institutions of higher education and the operational policies of their university food pantries. The increasing rates of nontraditional students entering public universities correlate to an increasing population of students facing food insecurity, placing strain on institutional interventions, especially university food pantries (National Center for Education Statistics, 2015; Nazmi et al., 2019, p.2). This research conducted a qualitative comparative case analysis of university food pantry policies and semistructured interviews with pantry informants through a USDA-adapted evaluative framework to understand the evolution of public universities’ interventions (Barale et al., 2017). The …

Structural Integrity And Stability Of Dna In Ionic Liquid And Near-Infrared Indolizine Squaraine Dye, Ember Yeji Suh

Honors Theses

Luminol, the most common presumptive test for blood at a crime scene, has multiple issues, such as false positive results with chemical agents, no luminescence due to “active oxygen” cleaning agents on bloodstains, and inability to penetrate textile materials. A combination of indolizine squaraine dye and ionic liquid (IL), or Dye Enhanced Textile Emission for Crime Tracking (DETECT), have shown potential to address these issues. The purpose of this study was to assess the binding mechanism of CG (1:1) and SO₃SQ dye to HSA and how the mechanism can explain the W214 fluorescence quenching effect and to determine …

Associations Between Tiktok Use, Mental Health, And Body Image Among College Students, Alexz Carpenter

Honors Theses

Background. Social media use continues to increase globally, and there is a large field of research examining the relationships between social media use with anxiety, depression, and body image. College-aged students are particularly vulnerable to these associations because they are at a unique developmental point of their life. College-aged students also use social media more frequently than almost any other age group, which may put them at increased risk for negative mental health and body image outcomes related to their social media use. TikTok is a relatively new social media app that has exponentially risen in popularity, especially among younger …

Key Barriers To University-Enrolled Student Parents Enhanced By The Covid-19 Pandemic, Khadeejah Franklin, Alexa Saval

Honors Theses

Student parents, both undergraduate and graduate, already face the difficult task of balancing their studies and raising children. The COVID-19 pandemic enhanced already present issues student parents face, such as virtual-schooling, daycare costs and closings, staying home with sick children, and potentially not having a local support system, among others. Further, students who are performing laboratory research to fulfill their STEM educational requirements had their
research progress come to a halt when the country locked down. This study aims to identify the struggles student parents faced prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, what issues the pandemic exacerbated, and what new problems …