Anthropology Commons^™

Rethinking Holocene Ecological Relationships Among Caribou, Muskoxen, And Human Hunters On Banks Island, Nwt, Canada: A Stable Isotope Approach, Jordon S. Munizzi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores the ecology of caribou (Rangifer tarandus spp.) and muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus), and its relevance to human hunters on Banks Island, NWT, Canada, over the last 4000 years, primarily through the isotopic analysis of modern and archaeological faunal remains.

First, we establish baseline carbon and nitrogen isotope relationships between modern vegetation and caribou and muskox bone collagen using Bayesian mixing models. The models indicate that dwarf shrub (Salix arctica) does not contribute significantly to bone collagen isotopic compositions in either species, while sedges and yellow lichen (Cetraria tilesii) do. These findings …

Hunting For (Dis)Connections In Northern Ontario: "Nature," Wild Meat, And Community In Hearst, Daphné Gagnon

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis follows a group of hunters in the town of Hearst in Northern Ontario, as they move through space—from the town, to the hunting ground, and back to the home. The analysis presented draws on research that took place over a six-month period during the summer and fall of 2016 and involved a combination of library research, participant observation, 28 interviews, and numerous informal conversations. The analysis presented explores how hunting in Hearst is linked to 1) a sense of place and community membership, 2) local knowledge of, and attachment to, the surrounding “natural” environment and the regional fauna, …

Engaging Past And Future On A Community Supported Agriculture Farm, Catherine Villar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The topic of this dissertation is Orchard Hill Farm, an organic, draft-horse powered Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm located on the outskirts of Sparta, Ontario. Here, a thoughtful and flexible approach to management that works with soil, non-human animals, and humans has resulted in a financially viable small-scale farm within a provincial and national context where the number of small farms has diminished rapidly in the last decade. This site provides a unique opportunity to study a successful case of what is termed alternative or “civic” agriculture. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted from August 2013 to August 2014, this study …

Shifting State Plans And The Politics Of Street Food Vending In Cuba, Lina Johnston

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines evolving private sector-state relations in Cuba in the realm of food commercialization through a case study of ambulatory street food vendors known in Cuban parlance as carretilleros. The street food vendor job category, authorized by the Cuban government in 2010, is one among a number of newly legal entrepreneurial activities that have been slowly expanding since 1993 when the Cuban government began to experiment with various market reforms. While the incremental legalization of private entrepreneurial activity (or self-employment) in Cuba signals important changes to Cuban employment modalities, street food vendors in particular also suggest a significant …

The Human First Metatarsal In Bioarchaeological Research: New Insights Into Human Variation And Bone Health Research From Kellis 2, Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt (50-450ce), Mathew A. Teeter

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Objectives: This research tests the efficacy of using the human first metatarsal (MT1) in bioarchaeological research, specifically to investigate human variation (nonmetric traits and sexual dimorphism) and skeletal health (Osteo-Volumetric Density and µCT analysis) in antiquity. To date, this bone has had limited applications in bioarchaeology.

Materials and Methods: This study used human remains from the Kellis 2 (K2) cemetery, located in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt (50-450CE). Specifically, 377 MT1s, representing 212 individuals were used to investigate human variation and osteo-volumetric density (OVD) in the K2 skeletal population. Additionally, skeletal health was further assessed in a female sub-sample (n=44) of …

”Not Just Based On Land”: A Study On The Ethnic Tibetan Community In Toronto, Diyin Deng

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Tibetan identity first emerged as “resistance” (Winland 2002; Scott 1990). The united pan-Tibetan identity did not originally resonate with the diverse group of ethnic minorities living on the Tibetan plateau until post-Chinese occupation. Then, all the groups saw the mutual benefit of adopting the united Tibetan identity against what they perceived as a greater threat to their culture and values. As such the initial Tibetan identity that is projected internationally was harnessed as a “weapon”(Bauman and Vecchi 2004:74) against homogenizing Chinese citizenship and was intimately intertwined with activism.

My research focuses on the formation of diasporic Tibetan identities within …

Exploring Community Formation And Coalescence At The Late 14th-Early 15th Century Tillsonburg Village Site, Rebecca Parry

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the Tillsonburg Village’s particularly large and dispersed community plan through an intra-site analysis of ceramic vessels and longhouse attributes, as these are considered useful indicators of social, organizational, and temporal processes. The archaeological site in Tillsonburg, Ontario dates to the late Middle Iroquoian Period (AD 1350-1420). Community coalescence involves the aggregation of previously separate social groups into one communal settlement. It is explored as the predominant conceptual approach to better understand the formation of the Tillsonburg Village’s community plan. However, other processes relating to the contemporaneity of village areas or houses are also considered. Spatial and statistical …

Virtual Archaeology, Virtual Longhouses And "Envisioning The Unseen" Within The Archaeological Record, William M. Carter

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We are of an era in which digital technology now enhances the method and practice of archaeology. In our rush to embrace these technological advances however, Virtual Archaeology has become a practice to visualize the archaeological record, yet it is still searching for its methodological and theoretical base. I submit that Virtual Archaeology is the digital making and interrogating of the archaeological unknown. By wayfaring means, through the synergy of the maker, digital tools and material, archaeologists make meaning of the archaeological record by engaging the known archaeological data with the crafting of new knowledge by multimodal reflection and the …

The Richness Of Food: A Zooarchaeological Analysis Of Huaca Santa Clara And Huaca Gallinazo, North Coast Of Peru, Arwen M. Johns

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is a zooarchaeological study examining the entangled nature of human-animal relations within processes of food production, preparation, and consumption at Huaca Santa Clara and Huaca Gallinazo in the Virú Valley, North Coast of Peru. It assesses how the consumption of animal products influenced social differentiation and identities during early state development in the Early Intermediate Period (200B.C.E – 800 C.E.). This thesis takes a social zooarchaeological approach and utilizes the framework of relational ontology to emphasize the social and symbolic roles of animals. Faunal remains suggest that individuals at Huaca Santa Clara had comparatively equal access to animal …

Tourism And State Violence In The Chittagong Hill Tracts Of Bangladesh, Hana S. Ahmed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The three districts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh have the highest military presence in Bangladesh. Following its emergence as an independent country in 1971, the military carried out a campaign of systematic repression of the Jumma indigenous people of the region. In this thesis, I focus on tourism and argue it is one of the ways by which ruling elites expropriate Jumma lands and circumvent indigenous land and cultural rights. The process is riddled with contradictions. On the one hand, violence against the Jumma has not ceased, and instead, the presence of the military has become normalized. …

Trees For The Primates: A Community-Based Assessment Of Crowned Lemur (Eulemur Coronatus) Habitat Preferences And Conservation In Northern Madagascar, Fernando Mario Mercado Malabet

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As a result of the continuous loss of forest habitats in Madagascar, forest fragments that exhibit a high degree of degradation and are strongly embedded on the livelihood needs of rural Malagasy people are increasingly being considered as the focus of conservation management operations. This new type of protected areas, based on the IUCN’s Category V management model for conservation action, promises a social-ecologically balanced method of environmental intervention that seeks to protect ecological communities while promoting sustainable socioeconomic systems. However, due to the poor ecological quality and immense level of anthropogenic influence in the type of forests that serves …

Language As Function Or Fashion? Multilingual Identity Formation Through Korean Language Learning, Hannah C. Cho

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research examines identity in relation to the Korean language learning experiences of non-Korean and ethnic Korean learners. Based on participant observation and interviews done in Toronto and an international online survey, I use a language-ideological perspective to look at why and how people choose to learn (or not learn) a particular language. Specifically, I analyze how nationalist, functionalist and cosmopolitan language ideologies position learners in various ways and in turn, affect their sense of ethnic, cultural and other forms of identity. I show how these ideologies are interrelated and have different effects on how the identities of non-Koreans and …

Entangled Resurgence: Investigating 'Reconciliation' And The Politics Of Language Revitalization In The Oneida Nation Of The Thames, Hannah E. Mcgregor

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 has initiated numerous conversations about Canada’s renewed relationship with Indigenous peoples, and elicited questions about what it means to ‘reconcile’. I use ethnographic methods to examine these issues in the context of language revitalization, at the nexus of government policy, university-community partnerships, and the experiences of individual language learners within the Oneida Nation of the Thames. This thesis re-evaluates the relationship between Indigenous language revitalization and the political process of reconciliation through the framework of Indigenous resurgence, an emerging theory and practice that seeks to regenerate Indigenous communities through self-recognition. …

Imagining The Unimagined Metropolis: Privilege, Liminality, And Peripheral Communities In The Contemporary Urban Situation, Colton R. Sherman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Various works of psychogeographic literature explore privileged and non-privileged communities and spaces through narrative and character development. Novels of this sort—specifically those by China Miéville, Neil Gaiman, and J.G. Ballard—feature narratives where their respective protagonists undergo a liminal metamorphosis and transform from a monotonous, albeit privileged urbanite into a free-associating inhabitant of the urban periphery: the unimagined, non-privileged space of urban detritus. By engaging with these authors’ novels alongside the works of the Situationists, Walter Benjamin, Rob Nixon and others, the goal of this thesis is to explore how the dominant urban epistemologies are subverted—whether or not they should be …

No Justice Without Narratives:Transition, Justice And The Khmer Rouge Trials, Tallyn Gray Dr

Transitional Justice Review

The article addresses the relationship between the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the supposed constituents of that transitional justice institution. The article sets out to offer a sociological methodology that TJ mechanism could contemplate in the process of enabling victims/witnesses to narrate justice and transition in their own terms and using Cambodia as a case study. It offers a theoretical and methodological approach to be reflected upon by transitional justice scholars and practitioners, which may enable a more victim-centered attitude in practical interactions with atrocity survivors ( not a cure-all policy solution ). My own research …

If Pits Could Talk: An Analysis Of Features From The Figura Site (Aghk-52), Kelly Gostick

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the features and spatial patterning of features across the Figura site (AgHk-52), a Late Woodland, Younge Phase Western Basin site, dating to the 13^th century AD. The features from this site were analyzed to gain insight into these unique contexts and how they can, in turn, advance our understanding of life at the Figura site. Given the clean and ordered settlement pattern of the site, the spatial relationships of features to other settlement patterns – such as residential and non-residential areas, inside and outside the palisade – could be analyzed. The site was divided into defined …

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 …

Alt-Right, Alt-Facts, Alt-America: An Investigation Into Public Amnesia And Political Exploitation In Trump's America, Rebecca Meharchand

2017 Undergraduate Awards

The concept of the ‘truth’ is always something of a contested phenomenon, however, recently it appears as if the current American Presidential Administration shows more disregard for the idea of ‘truth’ in comparison to other democratic, Western countries. Examining specifically the way in which the Canadian mosque shooting that took place in January 2017 was taken up by American politicians and news media, this paper examines the way in which members of President Trump’s administration (such as Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway) take advantage of both collective trauma and public amnesia in order to further their own political goals. This …

Sexual Health Education: A Comparison Between Denmark And The United States, Rachel Goldstein

2017 Undergraduate Awards

There are vast differences in sexual health education internationally. This paper examines peer-reviewed articles, international reports, and government mandated sexual health curricula to compare the current sexual health education in two countries, Denmark and the United States. Sexual health education has been slowly incorporated into the education system since the early 1900s but at different levels of comprehension and thoroughness. Denmark currently has one of the most comprehensive sexual health educations in the world, which includes information on safe sex, prevention against sexually transmitted infections, gender and sexuality, and diversity. Sexual health education in the United States differs significantly from …

Of Epidemic Proportions: Discovering The Historical Roots And Future Remedies Of Indigenous Suicide In Canada, Rebecca Meharchand

2017 Undergraduate Awards

In early 2016, two Canadian Indigenous communities, Attawapiskat and Cross Lake, reported a state of emergency as suicide rates skyrocketed. These occurrences, while tragic, have opened a nuanced conversation regarding Indigenous mental health and the insidious nature of intergenerational trauma – trauma that was inflicted on Indigenous communities by the Canadian settler colonial state through the residential school system. This paper examines both the historical roots of such trauma, while considering practices of resurgence that may help these communities begin to heal in a way that is in accordance with the culture and community that they are situated within. Ultimately, …

Girl Talk: Interactive-Educational Intervention Targeting The Health Of Preteens, Duha Abid Al Hadi

2017 Undergraduate Awards

Girl Talk is an initiative that targets preteen girls as a preventative method to reduce some of the stress and confusion that characterizes this developmental stage. It aims to provide young girls with a safe and friendly environment to express their concerns and discuss different aspects of development. It does so through integrating a variety of interactive tools to transfer knowledge and convey messages about healthy living to shape their learning experience and thus, gain a better understanding of the health topics discussed. This paper examines the importance of proper education on over-all health and body perceptions for preteens.

The Trouble With Choice: The Roles Of Construction, Authenticity, And Appropriation In Neoliberal Models Of Transgender Identity, Levi Hord

2017 Undergraduate Awards

This paper provides a meditative theorization of the recent proliferation of non-binary transgender identities. Drawing on seminal texts from queer theory, trans theory, and work on subjectivity and essentialism, this paper explores the nuanced networks that allow the doctrines of constructionism and essentialism to move throughout queer cultural spheres. It examines how discourses of essentialism and constructionism come to be attached to bodies and narratives, and what effect this has on how and what identities can be claimed publicly. The tensions that arise from this question are used to explore the concept of “choice” in identity formation, and what implications …

Universal Design For Belonging: Living And Working With Diverse Personal Names, Karen E. Pennesi

Anthropology Publications

There is great diversity in the names and naming practices of Canada’s population due to the multiple languages and cultures from which names and name-givers originate. While this diversity means that everyone encounters unfamiliar names, institutional agents who work with the public are continually challenged when attempting to determine a name’s correct pronunciation, spelling, structure and gender. Drawing from over a hundred interviews in London (Ontario) and Montréal (Québec), as well as other published accounts, I outline strategies used by institutional agents to manage name diversity within the constraints of their work tasks. I explain how concern with saving face …

Speech Equality: A Gendered Analysis Of Children’S Television Shows, Rikki N. Bergen

Anthropology Presentations

Childhood is an exciting time and kids are just learning who they are and who they are expected to be. The role television plays in their understanding of gender, racial, cultural, economic and social identity cannot be denied and it is therefore important for scholars to examine the types of ideas that are being presented. The gendered attitudes portrayed both explicitly and implicitly in children’s television shows can have a negative effect on childhood development and a child’s perceptions of self and the world around them.

The Drive Of Queer Exceptionalism: Transgender Authenticity As Queer Aesthetic, Levi Hord

2017 Undergraduate Awards

The recent proliferation of non-binary identities that do not include any physical, social, or presentational transition constitutes a majorly contested shift which has not yet been addressed in transgender scholarship. In this paper, I explore possible social and cultural factors that may contribute to a turn towards transgender from within existing queer communities. Drawing on both queer and transgender theoretical frameworks, I situate my claims in an analysis of neoliberal subjectivity and queer exceptionalism. Considering examples from digital platforms, I will argue that combining the assumption of transgender authenticity and the individualism of queer neoliberal exceptionalism works not only to …

Road(S) To Recovery: Restorative Justice And Discourses Of Reconciliation In Domestic Violence Cases, Alessia Mastrorillo

2017 Undergraduate Awards

Restorative justice is a criminal justice system that emphasizes offender rehabilitation and a repairing of the community as a whole, largely through victim-offender reconciliation. Restorative justice policies claim to both emphasize the victims role in the justice process and to hold offenders accountable for their actions. Despite its supposed benefits, feminist scholars struggle with the role of forgiveness in restorative justice practices and its impacts on the victim and often question the overall effectiveness of restorative justice policies as a whole. In this essay, I offer a critique of the restorative justice practices from a feminist perspective. I intend to …