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Full-Text Articles in Anthropology

Variable Education Exposure And Cognitive Task Performance Among The Tsimane, Forager-Horticulturalists., Helen Elizabeth Davis Dec 2014

Variable Education Exposure And Cognitive Task Performance Among The Tsimane, Forager-Horticulturalists., Helen Elizabeth Davis

Anthropology ETDs

At present, we know very little about the transition from traditional learning skills to models of standardized learning, and how it can influence the way one understands and solves problems. This research will examine cognitive performance and the factors affecting variation across communities and between individuals as it changes with age. The objective of this dissertation is to measure cognitive performance among children between 8 and 18 years of age exposed to variable levels of formal schooling in order to investigate three main research questions: (1) Whether exposure to schooling and increased performance in school-based abilities, such as math and …


Afro-Colombians And The Encroachment Of Paramilitaries On The African Palm Oil Sector, Stacie Hecht Dec 2014

Afro-Colombians And The Encroachment Of Paramilitaries On The African Palm Oil Sector, Stacie Hecht

Anthropology ETDs

The African palm oil industry in Colombia has burgeoned in the last decade, with state-sanctioned promotions and new developmental productions for the expansion of these plantations seeking to provide economic stability for the country. In addition, with the passing of the Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Colombia in 2011, as well as deals with several European countries for the exportation of the product, comes an even greater demand than previously known for the industry. However, the continuation of this endeavor will lead to the devastation of the bio-diverse lands being used for economic gains. Furthermore, palm oil …


The Paradoxes Of Poverty: Urban Space And Ideologies Of Intervention In The "Compassionate" City Of San Francisco, Andrea Lopez Dec 2014

The Paradoxes Of Poverty: Urban Space And Ideologies Of Intervention In The "Compassionate" City Of San Francisco, Andrea Lopez

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation examines a subset of urban poor women who live at the nexus of poverty and housing instability and who are exposed to multiple forms of violence and intense bodily suffering. I conducted two years of ethnographic research with a cohort of unstably housed women who have long histories of illicit drug use and who cycle between multiple single room occupancy hotels in two San Francisco neighborhoods. In this dissertation, I take as my analytic object the examination of the key institutional sites (what I call the local geography of hypermarginality) and the strategies for intervention deployed by the …


"Ellos Son Mi Familia." Testing The Embodied Capital Theory In Dominican Populations In The Dominican Republic And In New York City, Elvira Pichardo Dec 2014

"Ellos Son Mi Familia." Testing The Embodied Capital Theory In Dominican Populations In The Dominican Republic And In New York City, Elvira Pichardo

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation explores the conditions under which Dominican women invest in their own embodied capital and the embodied capital of their offspring, focusing on the tradeoffs between quantity and quality and income and stability using two different labor market economies in the Dominican Republic and in New York City. The main goals of this dissertation include three specific aims: (1) to identify different political economies and their impact on the same cultural/ethnic group, (2) to understand how access to different educational and employment opportunities influences variation in reproductive timing, considering ways in which birth control and birth spacing might facilitate …


Women And Cultural Production: Fiestas, Families, And Foodways In San Rafael, New Mexico, Stephanie M. Sanchez May 2014

Women And Cultural Production: Fiestas, Families, And Foodways In San Rafael, New Mexico, Stephanie M. Sanchez

Anthropology ETDs

Historically, New Mexico scholars and folklorists have often omitted womens roles in Hispanic cultural production and heritage maintenance. However, women make significant contributions to the retention, transmission, and adaptation of traditional Hispanic practices. In this dissertation, I examine how particular Hispanic women, who I refer to as 'center women' (Brodkin Sacks 1988), from a small village named San Rafael, New Mexico mobilize their families and other community members in order to successfully perform traditional New Mexican events such as the annual fiesta in honor of the local patron saint, Las Posadas, a Christmas time novena, and Good Friday commemorations. These …


Maturing Temporal Bones As Non-Neural Sites For Transforming The Speech Signal During Language Development, Lisa Hogan May 2014

Maturing Temporal Bones As Non-Neural Sites For Transforming The Speech Signal During Language Development, Lisa Hogan

Anthropology ETDs

Developmental events in the temporal bones shift the pattern of a given speech sounds acoustic profile through the time children are mapping linguistic sound systems. Before age 5 years, frequency information in vowels is differentially accessible through the years children are acquiring the sound systems of their native language(s). To model the acoustic effects caused by developing temporal bones, data collected to elicit steady-state vowels from adult native speakers of English and Diné were modified to reflect the form of children's hearing sensitivities at different ages based on patterns established in the psychoacoustic literature. It was assumed, based on the …