Anthropology Commons^™

Networks Of Users And Powers: Blackboard Software Roadmap As Cultural Practice, Diana Gellci

Wayne State University Dissertations

With the rapid growth of eLearning applications - the software providing for learning through the Internet - it has become commonplace to describe those technologies as both simple tools and user-friendly. These two vague yet suggestive terms make the operating of the technology appear as social value and any related issues as a user's problem. Interested neo-liberal groups take a step further when considering eLearning technologies as the solution for the problems faced in the field. STS studies recognize that technology fetishism is strategically employed to justify the latest developments of capitalism as technological and logical.

This doctoral study examines …

A Cultural Analysis Of Information Technology Offshore Outsourcing: An Exercise In Multi-Sited Ethnography Of Virtual Work, Tara Eaton

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study is an exploration of how ethnography and anthropological analysis can provide new understanding of transnational, multi-sited research phenomena. Research focused on the work activities of one American client organization and its Indian IT service provider situated in the global virtual field of Information Technology (IT) offshore outsourcing. The Principal Investigator adapted and applied an ethnographic approach for her fieldwork in order to understand the norms, beliefs, and values about work, as well as the relationship between cultural differences and virtual communication. Dissertation findings offer new insight for anthropological discussions of globalization as well as suggest further development of …

A Bioarchaeological Study Of A Prehistoric Michigan Population: Fraaer-Tyra Site (20sa9), Allison June Muhammad

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The Saginaw Valley Region has been the focus of Michigan archaeology for many decades. The Late Woodland period of the Saginaw Valley has been characterized as an area that prehistoric people abandoned as a permanent resident, but exploited seasonally during times of scarcity. Furthermore, the valley's resources were exploited by a diverse group of prehistoric peoples, both native to Michigan and those Mississippian `intruders' (Halsey 1976; Holman and Brashler 1999; Norder et al. 2003; Stothers 1999). Though previous studies of the Frazer-Tyra site (20SA9) have included ceramic and lithic analysis (Andrews 1995; Halsey 1976) and a study of mortuary …