Anthropology Commons^™

"Your Food Is Who You Are": Food Sovereignty Within A Native Urban Community Garden, Zoe Buhrmaster

University Honors Theses

This paper explores the concept of food sovereignty within the context of a community garden managed by the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) in Portland, based on interviews with key garden coordinators and community members. The garden, initiated in 2019, emphasizes the cultivation of First Foods and traditional medicinal plants, serving as a space for cultural revitalization and community health. Food sovereignty, as defined by interviewees, encompasses a relational approach to plants as relatives, community control over food systems, and access to healthy, ancestral foods. The garden's history highlights its development amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and its role …

#Getinked: An Anthropological Exploration Of Tattooing And Social Media, Delanee Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to address two inquiries regarding contemporary tattooing. The first goal is to explore how social media has changed the practice of tattooing while the second goal is to examine how tattoos are used to express or explore the differing facets of a person’s identity. Identity theory, social identity theory, semiotics, and the concepts of stigma and deviancy form the theoretical framework which allows one to understand the ways in which tattoos can provide insights into the various aspects of someone’s identity as well as how social media can influence members of the tattoo community. An online survey, …

"Can You Make Coffee Wrong, Anyway?": An Ethnographic Analysis Of The Culture Of Coffee In Lewisburg, Pa, Elizabeth Hoffman

Honors Theses

The rapid development of Lewisburg’s coffee scene demonstrates the social impacts and meanings of coffee. The “three waves” of coffee describe the growing importance of unique flavors and sourcing in order to best satisfy an increasingly sophisticated palate in coffee consumption. These allude to people’s preferences for different kinds of coffee and rely on how an individual’s taste guides them in their choices about what coffee to consume. Each wave emerged as a result of the coffee market’s increased attention towards quality: the first and earliest wave does not rely on origin or tasting profiles in order to sell, but …

Squaring The Circle: Talking About Accessibility At Discovery World, Ariel Butler

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, museums have made a concerted effort to consider accessibility and the needs of the broader community in their programming. This thesis analyzes how Discovery World, a science and technology museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, can better accommodate diverse learning styles and disabilities in their 2023 Summer Camp program through a case study of implementation. The thesis analyzes the impact of the plan to improve accessibility and inclusivity in the classroom for children in grades 1-8, focusing on how staff conceptualize the ideal setup and aims to provide valuable insights to enhance inclusivity and accessibility in informal educational settings. …

Agency In Learning And E-Learning Through The Lens Of Disability And Inclusivity., Marta Martin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the analysis of ethnographic, qualitative data collected from students and their stakeholders at the University of Louisville, this thesis examines the experiences of students with disabilities in spaces of higher education, particularly virtual learning spaces. This research has illuminated systemic gaps in disability resources and accessibility within the landscape of higher education, restricting the agency of students with disabilities and their stakeholders.

Ambigú Trashumante Barra De Café Ambulante Ambigú Trashumante Barra De Café Ambulante, Augusto Martin Rivero

Master's Projects and Capstones

Ambigú Trashumante Barra de Café Ambulante is an applied research project which took shape over the course of a calendar year from May 2022-2023. A six-person team evolved including the personified project itself, united as one communal entity in collaboration. The project entailed creation of a bicicargo, or cargo bike–useful art becoming a mobile coffee bar and literal vehicle embodying justice through coffee offered freely in México, as facilitated through decolonized ethnography and Mesoamerican Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR). The project’s theoretical framework centers on Bruguera’s (2012) arte útil conceptualization. Five core patterns emerged, including the right to thrive in …

Dungeons & Dragons: Fractals Of The Human Self, Katie Anderson

Honors Theses

Dungeons & Dragons at its core is roleplay based storytelling, which implies the idea that the game is a work of fiction. While the world of Iad and the Free States of Tarvan does not exist on planet earth, the experiences and emotions felt by the players and their characters within the world are very much real. Players use extensions of themselves, their characters, to interact with the world around them, forging relationships and new lines of fate and destiny. Characters are fractals of their out of game personas, attached to one’s base personality and expanding outwards. The development of …

Transformative Psychedelic Experiences At Music Events: Using Subjective Experience To Explore Chemosocial Assemblages Of Culture, Gabrielle R. Lehigh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clinical interest in psychedelic treatments in the United States started in the 1950s, but anti-drug policy and anti-social sentiments quickly thwarted future research. The last decade has renewed clinical interest in using psychedelics to treat a diversity of mental health ailments. While these studies provide essential protocols, treatments, and therapy models for patients, they are limited in understanding the role of the contextual elements that influence psychedelic experiences and outcomes. This project examines how people use psychedelic substances outside medical settings by studying transformative psychedelic experiences at music events. This inquiry into psychedelic use utilizes an integrated framework of chemoethnography …

Every Screen Is A Window And A Mirror: How Social Media Strengthens Ties Within The Lgbtq+ Community, Jourdan Sadir Pérez

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Thrift : A Respelling Of Home, Penelope B. Bernal

Senior Projects Spring 2023

The first commercial thrift stores were established in the late 19th and early 20th century. Labeled as ‘charity stores’, the first thrift stores were tied to philanthropic missions, creating a bond between charity and capitalism. However, thrift stores have expanded beyond philanthropy and have evolved into community spaces. Inspired by Audre Lorde’s A Respelling of my Name, the goal of this project is to provide the reader with an intimate view of thrifting through the conversation of three main topics : As Is, One-of-a-Kind, and Community.

Entangled Mangrove Roots: The Shrimp Industry, Ancestral Afro-Descendant People, And Community Resistance In Esmeraldas, Ecuador, O'Philia Le

Pitzer Senior Theses

Mangroves are one of the most important ecosystems because of the many services they provide on a local and global scale, but in contrast, are one of the most threatened by anthropogenic activities at a global level. Being sources of food for various kinds of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks, they are essential for the economy, culture, and livelihood of locals in Esmeraldas, Ecuador. This thesis takes an environmental justice approach in the discussion of the loss of mangroves in Esmeraldas, Ecuador. While toxic industries may not be apparent at first, environmental injustice prevails in adverse human health effects, environmental degradation, …

Forming The Kyrgyz Community Of Chicago: Identity, Organizations, And Institutions, Jonah Victor Sorby Roth

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This project is an anthropological examination of the Kyrgyz community living in Chicago. It involves a deep examination of who the Kyrgyz are as an ethnic group, how they have developed a shared identity, and how this identity forms the basis of their community in Chicago. It also includes an ethnographic examination of two formal organizations—a nonprofit and a restaurant—that are run by Kyrgyz people and serve the Kyrgyz population, and a similar examination of Kyrgyz-Chicagoans’ relationships to institutions. After analyzing the complex web of relations between community, organizations, and institutions, I argue that informal organizations and institutions are especially …

“And They Wrote It All Down As The Progress Of Man”: Relationships Between Environment, Extractive Industries, And Appalachian Agency, Emma V. Kelly

Masters Theses

The landscape of Central Appalachia has shaped and been shaped by its residents for thousands of years. The advent of industrialized extractive industries greatly shifted the nature and the extent of these processes, with capitalistic domination being asserted over the environment. While this shift towards industrialization was a widespread phenomenon, it undertook a unique trajectory within Appalachia, a region which occupies a distinct position within the national perspective. Although geographically established by the Appalachian Regional Commission, Appalachia is more than a politically defined set of counties: It is an incredibly diverse sociocultural region that exists on varying planes of marginalization …

Bird's Eye View: The Construction Of Identity And Community On Social Media Among Cirque Du Soleil Performers, Katrina L. Sandefer

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Although the circus has been around for hundreds of years, it is still a large part of the entertainment industry that draws substantial crowds and interest. Cirque du Soleil— a Québécois contemporary circus— attracts a lot of attention because of its aerial and acrobatic performances. Fans can experience the circus in person at a performance, but they can also interact online by watching performers on social media. TikTok— a social media platform where creators share videos up to three minutes in length— is a great place for Cirque du Soleil performers to gain a new audience and interact with their …

Quebec’S Uninhabitable Community: Identity And Community Among Anglo-Quebecer Out-Migrants, Evan A. Mardell

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

How do Anglo-Quebecers who have migrated to Ontario in the past 45 years perceive and negotiate their identity in relation to Quebec? Since 1971, 600 000 anglophones have left Quebec for other parts of Canada. This out-migration coincided with political tensions that influenced a complete economic and linguistic shift in power from English to French. The symbolic and literal reclamation of Quebec as a French province set the conditions for the partial erasure of the Quebec anglophone (Anglo-Quebecer) community and sense of identity. From a series of semi-structured interviews with anglophones who left Quebec within the past 45 years, I …

Opening The Fridge: An Exploration Of Mutual Aid And Community Care In Queens, New York, Caitlin Hamilton

Senior Projects Spring 2021

This project embarks on an exploration of Queens Mutual Aid Network, which was started in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 crisis. This group has provided food assistance, unemployment support, help procuring prescription medicine, and a digital space for community networking to the people of the extended Queens community. I also analyze the Corona community fridge and its implications for community care networks in the wake of overwhelming need. As part of my research, I spent time conversing with community activists about these efforts, and made food deliveries to the community fridges in my area. I then contextualize these …

Marked Membership: Anthropological Perspectives On North American Contemporary Tattooing, Rosalie A. Johnson

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Tattooing has persisted across time and space, often developing across ancient civilizations, even before cross-cultural contact. With the current oldest verified tattoos on the mummified body of Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old Tyrolean Iceman, up to current-day tattooing, a variety of uses and meanings have been ascribed to the practice. A majority of anthropological research has been dedicated towards indigenous tattooing traditions, external perceptions of marked individuals, and tattooing's deviant associations. Only a marginal amount of work has been geared towards the internal perceptions and cultural structuring of tattoos within modern societies, especially in the West. Frequently, a ‘tattoo community' is assumed …

Reimagining Bottom-Up Participatory Climate Change Adaptation In The Philippines, Emily Clark Nabong

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While climate change trends indicate the progression towards more widespread and severe impacts across the world, current consequences of society’s climate inaction are already being felt by many vulnerable populations. Low-lying and coastal areas are particularly at risk from climate-related hazards such as sea level rise and increased intensity storms. In order to protect residents, countries and regional governments have begun to plan and implement adaptation strategies to minimize the impact of future climate change related disasters.

This thesis explores the current status of bottom-up participatory climate change adaptation planning in the Philippines and offers new insights into making this …

More Than Music: The Lived Experiences Of Communities Developed Through Music Festivals, Madeline E. Rahme

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Music festivals offer individuals an escape from their daily routines to experience a temporary sense of freedom and develop a community. Since the 1950’s, the music festival industry has become more common in American culture from inaugural festivals such as Newport Folk Festival and Woodstock to the festivals today such as Bonnaroo, Coachella, and Lollapalooza. Using Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival as a single case study, I seek to explore the lived experiences of the community developed on the festival site that has identified themselves as Bonnaroovians. I used a collection of ethnographic research methods such as participant observation, interviews, …

Sustainable Paths, Cailin Flores Drew-Morin

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Folk Dance: An Occupation For Building Community, Wendy Price

Online Theses and Dissertations

This pilot ethnographic study describes the behaviors and values among the members of a central Appalachian folk-dancing community. The participants were four women, three adults and one teenager, each of whom were long-standing members of the community. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and participant observation, as the principal researcher had been a member of this community for 12 years at the time of the study. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, coded, and subjected to cross-case analysis. Codes informed categories, from which emerged two overarching themes regarding values held by this community: hospitality and human connection. Hospitality encompassed practices related to …

An Evolving Experiment In Community Engagement: The Philippine Co-Curation Partnership At The Field Museum, Sarah E. Carlson

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last decade, Field Museum staff have worked to build enduring partnerships with local Filipinx-American community members. These partnerships engage participants in the stewardship of the collection, reinterpreting entangled object meanings and connecting the Museum’s collection to the lived experiences of modern communities. Through collaborative digitization efforts and events the Philippine Co-Curation partnership works to confront a colonial past while offering a gathering space for local Filipinx-Americans. As an emerging approach to collections management, it aims to embody the ideals of modern museology, bringing both partners and staff into uncertain territory and inspiring important questions about how collaborative relationships …

The Global Dance Network: Reykjaví­K, Iceland, Takes On New Moves, Emily Creek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is an exploration of the contemporary dance community in Reykjaví­­k, Iceland. The research questions guiding this thesis were founded in a desire to understand how the dance community in Reykjaví­k creates its own agency and meaning within the city of Reykjaví­­k, as well as how the dance community in Reykjaví­k takes imported dance knowledge, localizes it and creates local meaning. With this goal of understanding the ways the community navigates the wider global dance network from its location as a northern island, I utilize concepts from the anthropology of globalization as well as dance anthropology. I specifically employ …

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 …

Food And Negotiation Of Identity Among The Russian Immigrant Community Of Brighton Beach, Elena Starkova

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the construction of ethnic identity among Russian immigrants in New York, by examining how it has been negotiated and articulated through foods, including traditional and non-native foods as a vehicle for their shifting identities and for reaffirming their position and participation in mainstream American society.

Creating And Sustaining Community: An Analysis Of Lgbtq Community In London, Ontario, Geoff S. Bardwell

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

There has been an increase in literature over the last decade on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ) communities. However, aside from health-related studies, little has been published pertaining to LGBTQ communities in London, Ontario. This dissertation seeks to answer the following research questions: what are the constitutive elements that make up London’s LGBTQ communities? What forms of community-making prove to be viable and effective in a smaller urban setting? Does the practice of aesthetics/artistic performance lead to socio-political change among members of London’s LGBTQ communities? This is a multidisciplinary research project that utilizes archival, theoretical, and ethnographic-informed qualitative research …

The Typology Of Community: A Case Study Analysis Of Three Intentional Communities, Caleb Kalinowski

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Typological schemes like those produced by Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies have been used to classify human groups in an evolutionary spectrum ranging from the simple to the complex. Though the typological approach was foundational to further development of the western social sciences it is seldom used to examine what might be termed "simple" societies in the modern day. This study aims to apply the contributions of the two theorists listed above to the concept of the modern intentional community. Although these communities comprise an eclectic and diverse social phenomenon, their characteristic small populations and other features make them intriguing …

From Cow Pasture To Cul-De-Sac: The Intersection Of Rural Values, Memory, And Nostalgia Amidst Suburban Development In The American South, Emily F. Ramsey

Theses and Dissertations

How do residents of a once small farming community react to rapid suburbanization? By examining rhetoric on growth, progress, and rurality, this thesis argues a complex landscape forms where longtime residents weave among pragmatism, disaffection, and nostalgia, with efforts to preserve memories of the past for themselves and future generations.

Community Gardens In Knoxville: Insight Into Challenges Facing Community Garden Initiatives, Angelia D Rateike

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Community Identity, Rebecca F. Aronhalt

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Community Identity: Abstract

El propósito de esta investigación fue identificar la identidad de la comunidad latina alrededor del vecindario de ¨North Hill¨ en Akron, Ohio, según los ciudadanos latinos que viven allí. Tiene valor describir esta comunidad porque es un componente de la comunidad entero de Akron que es menos visible. Entendiendo cómo ellos se ven a si mismos me ayudó, como estudiante de español en la Universidad de Akron, a entender mejor la tela compleja de la ciudad. Para conseguir esta información, hice entrevistas en español con seis adultos latinos que viven en North Hill. Utilicé un método narrativo …