Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

The Double Bond Of Catholic Abolition: Christianity, Chattel Slavery, And Racial Capitalism, Elayne Oliphant

Journal of Global Catholicism

The reign of the first Pope to originate in the former colonies of the modern Euro-Christian empires calls us into awareness of the layers of interconnection between the Roman Catholic Church and the long “wake” (Sharpe 2016) of 1492. As anthropologists, I argue, our studies of Catholic practices must be informed by a detailed awareness of this history. I offer a broad historical view of how the Roman Catholic Church participated and, at times, led the way in initiating the trans-Atlantic system of Black chattel slavery and colonial expropriation in Euro-Christian Empires. As a scholar of Catholicism in France, I …

The Missionary And The Pea: An Anthropological Study Of The French Mep Economy, Michel Chambon

Journal of Global Catholicism

This paper discusses how the French missionaries of the Missions Etrangères de Paris (MEP) are linking humans and material objects to support their religious agenda. Revisiting the long history of this organization in Hong Kong and Thailand, but also its distinct recruitment and assignment policies, I highlight how these Catholic missionaries rely on their French cultural background to interconnect people and goods. While theological principles and political pragmatism shape their functioning, I argue that their economy is distinctively rooted in the French notion of terroir –the taste of place— an embodied relation to land that acts as a cultural mechanism …

A Queer Chinese Pilgrimage: Encountering Catholic Life In Manila, George Wu Bayuga

Journal of Global Catholicism

Starting in the late 1990s, Chinese Catholic priests, sisters, and seminarians began journeying to the Philippines to undergo religious and spiritual formation. This paper documents this journey and characterizes it as a kind of queer pilgrimage. Recognizing the queer theoretical parallels between minoritized populations under hegemony and Catholic life under socialism, this paper calls for attention to the queer work of imagining futures that emerges through processes of movement, encounter, and reflexivity across new political and social spaces. Specifically, this paper highlights how state-religious relations under socialism can differentially shape how Chinese Catholics think of themselves, faith formation, and how …

Culturally And Socially Responsive Teacher Professional Learning At The American Museum Of Natural History, Jessica Correa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project consists of a series of professional learning sessions to support teachers in their implementation of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CR-SE) using the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) as a resource and case study. Through the lens of Historically Responsive Literacy, the series also seeks to reestablish social science as a critical element of natural history for teachers. This series can help teachers see the museum as not only a place to explore life and physical science, but also a place to explore identity, social/emotional development, cultural studies and American History. The project includes resources and directions for …

What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?: Visualizing Extreme Wealth, William Mahoney Luckman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The word “billion” is a mathematical abstraction related to “big,” but it is difficult to understand the vast difference in value between one million and one billion; even harder to understand the vast difference in purchasing power between one billion dollars, and the average U.S. yearly income. Perhaps most difficult to conceive of is what that purchasing power and huge mass of capital translates to in terms of power. This project blends design, text, facts, and figures into an interactive narrative website that helps the user better understand their position in relation to extreme wealth: https://whatdoesonebilliondollarslooklike.website/

The site incorporates …

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

Ua12/2/83 Pi Kappa Phi, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Pi Kappa Phi fraternity.

Ua12/2/81 Omega Psi Phi, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

Ua12/2/85 Sigma Gamma Rho, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Sigma Gamma Rho sorority.

Ua12/2/86 Zeta Phi Beta, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Zeta Phi Beta sorority.

Ua12/2/84 Sigma Chi, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Sigma Phi Alpha fraternity and it's forerunner Sigma Chi.

Ua1c11/127 Stephen Flora Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs donated by WKU alumnus Stephen Flora, taken for class and College Heights Herald.

The Overture! Then Is Here-And-Now: Hindsight Is Twenty, Twenty?, Elena Kydd

Music Therapy Theses

My existence and presence as a Black woman and graduate scholar in music therapy have allowed me to share my experience of racial trauma and oppression in the hallways of GCSU’s music therapy program. Autoethnography is the method I use to write my thesis on the relationships between Blackness, pedagogy, and music therapy. Thus, I perform an evocative autoethnographic study that allows me to share my personal experience of racial trauma and oppression within the culture of music therapy and to critique the larger social structures of whiteness that disenfranchise and dominate me and other Black student music therapists (SMTs). …

Encuentros Y Variaciones Performáticas Entre El Larp Y El Cosplay. Algunas Claves Desde Las Teorías De Consumo (No)Narrativo, Laura I. Quiroz

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

Tanto el larp (live-action role-play) como el cosplay (representación corporal de personajes de la cultura popular mediática) son manifestaciones dentro del amplio espectro de fenómenos del performance, entendido éste tanto escenificación como conclusión o reactivación de una experiencia. Ambas prácticas también están ligadas a hacer presentes, a través de los juegos de apariencia y la simulación corporal, universos narrativos ya sea completos, fragmentados o recombinados. La ponencia propuesta busca explorar estas relaciones y variaciones entre el larp y el cosplay a partir de las teorías de consumo narrativo y de la base de datos propuestas por Eiji Otsuka (2010, 2017) …

Interrogating Households In Anticipation Of Disasters: The Feminization Of Preparedness, Chika Watanabe, Celie Hanson

Critical Disaster Studies

It is now a maxim among scholars and policy-makers alike that disaster preparedness needs to involve community-based approaches in order to be effective. These include preparedness strategies in the household. But how do disaster preparedness policies and public discourses define “the household” in the first place? In this article, we explore how particular gendered notions of the household are reproduced in disaster preparedness policies and activities in Japan and the UK. Drawing on historical and cross-cultural analyses, we suggest that household preparedness efforts place the burden of labor on people coded as women—a phenomenon we call “the feminization of preparedness.” …

Police Officers’ Perspectives On The Death Of George Floyd By Minneapolis Police Officers: A Descriptive Study, Janet Henderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On May 25, 2020, four Minneapolis police officers reported to the location where an African American man had been accused of trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill in a convenience store. After being taken outside of the store, the man, George Floyd, was eventually placed in the back of a police patrol car, after he was handcuffed. Saying he was claustrophobic and resisting arrest, Mr. Floyd was removed from the patrol car, and placed on the ground on his stomach. One of the patrol officers, the most senior officer present, and a field training officer, placed his knee on …

Fantasy Escapism: Using Role-Playing Games To Explore Mental Health And Gender Identity, Aidan Cipolla

English Summer Fellows

This project analyzes how escapism through the use of role-playing games can be used as a coping mechanism for those struggling with a variety of topics, including gender dysphoria and mental health issues. The project takes an ethnographic approach to data gathering, consisting of interviews with a small group of Dungeons and Dragons / video game players, and personal anecdotes regarding the author’s experience with escapism.

People And Power: Person-First Language Usage And The Criminal Justice System, Casey E. Orr

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

Language is power. Word choice and terminology, especially those referring to people, are expressions of societal norms and institutional power. Dehumanizing crime-first terms and labels are abundant and common in criminal justice contexts despite being protested by system-involved individuals and activists. Instead, many advocate for person-first terms wherein identifying language emphasizes an individual’s humanity. With a peace-focused anthropological framework, this paper presents the case for person-first language in criminal justice contexts. It is evident that adopting first-person language usage regarding the criminal justice system is necessary after analyzing and considering the multiple sources, such as the voices of those who …

The Reluctant Feminist: Angela Merkel’S Cautious Leadership, Ls Gaiek, Marlyn Garcia

The Scholarship Without Borders Journal

Abstract: What does it mean to be a modern feminist global leader today? Global leadership research is growing, but less research focuses on female leaders, even though the 21st century thus far contains a significant rise of female leaders. Angela Merkel’s infamously historic reticence and aversion, concerning speaking about feminism, irrevocably dissolves in an interview in January of 2019. This interview offers a glimpse into Angela Merkel’s cageyness, and provides an intimate insight into her circumspect perspective concerning feminism. This article aims to explore barriers and challenges to Angela Merkel’s rise as a global leader, how crisis forged and …

The Sociolinguistics Of Code-Switching In Hong Kong’S Digital Landscape: A Mixed-Methods Exploration Of Cantonese-English Alternation Patterns On Whatsapp, Wilkinson Daniel Wong Gonzales, Yuen Man Tsang

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

This paper examines the prevalence of Cantonese-English code-mixing in Hong Kong through an under-researched digital medium. Prior research on this code-alternation practice has often been limited to exploring either the social or linguistic constraints of code-switching in spoken or written communication. Our study takes a holistic approach to analyzing code-switching in a hybrid medium that exhibits features of both spoken and written discourse. We specifically analyze the code-switching patterns of 24 undergraduates from a Hong Kong university on WhatsApp and examine how both social and linguistic factors potentially constrain these patterns. Utilizing a self-compiled sociolinguistic corpus as well as survey …

To Open A Clearing: Cultivating Spaces Of Endurance In The Upper Amazon, Brunno De Melo Meirelles Douat

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

To effectively challenge the policies of extraction implemented by late liberal regimes, the Waorani communities from Upper Amazon have devised spatial strategies to defend their traditional territory. By re-examining the concept of the contact zone and unfolding settler and Indigenous literature, spatialities, and worldviews, this thesis suggests the concept of forest Clearings as a means to explore spatial forms of endurance.

Clearings emerge within the Amazon in sites where encounters between divergent worldviews embody otherwise modes of existence. Through a series of fieldwork reflections, these Clearings are perceived as spaces where ontological negotiations are more likely to occur, strategies of …

Book Review: Under The Weather: Reimagining Mobility In The Climate Crisis., Raymond Murphy

Critical Disaster Studies

Under the Weather: Reimagining Mobility in the Climate Crisis is an insightful, important book that reports on a fine-grained investigation Sodero made of the consequences and response to the disasters resulting from Hurricane Juan in Nova Scotia in 2003 and Hurricane Igor in Newfoundland in 2010, with comparisons to Hurricane Sandy in New York, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, the 1998 ice storm in northeastern North America and the Icelandic ash cloud. One original feature is the focus on mobility, how indispensable it is in modern societies, how it is disrupted by extreme weather, and …

Only 2000 Psi Of Bottom-Time Air: A Case Study Of Diveheart Participant Social Capital, Kirk J. Williams

Student Capstone Projects

Social capital development for many, but not all, is a relatively organic process, and as social creatures, people work together to reach collective goals. The defined interactions related to the practices of societal norms, taboos, and broad cultural acceptance are constructs of communal decisions lending deep credence to the value of any number of the social capital definitions. However, opportunities are not always readily available to individuals living with disabilities, so they can and do get left out to varied degrees. With unsurprising results, previous research relied on comparing survey data from individuals with and without disabilities to identify possible …

The Gardens Nearby: A Narrative Podcast Exploring Soil Contamination And Community Gardening In Burlington, Vt, April Mcilwaine

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

The city of Burlington, Vermont (Burlington) is home to the Burlington Area Community Gardens (BACG), a program of the Burlington Parks and Recreation Department. This program has a 50-year legacy in the Burlington community and today comprises 14 garden sites that serve over 1,400 people. Within the framework of food sovereignty, community gardens are valuable, multi-functional spaces that positively benefit residents and neighborhoods alike. However, planting gardens in reclaimed urban spaces may come with food safety concerns. Like other cities that have an industrial heritage, some of Burlington’s urban areas may have soils with high levels of toxic heavy metals …

Mandala: On The Logos Of Place, Michael Schwartz

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Suddenly, during the night, one awakens while dreaming – aware that this is a dream. The “rules” of action, reaction, and of form itself are not that of the waking state – one might leap in the air and fly, transform one’s body into any number of forms, reach up in the sky and grab the sun and clouds, pulling them to the side, bringing forth a canopy of moon and stars. The entire scene, in the lucid dream, has a heightened sense of radiance and joy, vitality and freedom.

Imagine this sense of lucid dreaming is occurring right here …

Remembering The Future: Wild Time And The Cosmic Imagination, Arabella Thaïs

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Entropy – the Second Law of Thermodynamics – is generally held to prove “time’s arrow”: that time is linear and unidirectional, and that the universe is following this trajectory. This paper presents a preliminary exposition into a new, integral ontology of time in which time is hyper-dimensional, non-linear and flows in both directions. This is supported through trans-disciplinary praxis at the intersection of aesthetics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory. The metaphysical implications of reverse causality are investigated, and confer a teleological universe that is coherent with the paradigm of an intelligent, self-realising cosmos in which beauty is a fundamental …

Path To Utopia, Leila Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

The way to survive in the Anthropocene and transform the world is to end capitalism. Humanity must stop commodifying everything and reifying its value for consumption for the sake of power and survival. The way to do this is through love. This is an inquiry into methods and processes for confronting and transforming the planetary destruction caused by capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism among other phenomena. This paper challenges the idea that it is unrealistic to believe that love can change the world. It posits that loving is caring and caring is the way humanity will shift consciousness so that capitalism …

The Role Of Story In The Creation And Life Of Man, Leah Ginion

Senior Honors Theses

Story was created by God as a vehicle for the revelation and glorification of Himself. Man, made in the image of God, was created as an innate storyteller. The world was created through story, and story is how it progresses and is sustained. As such, story is the foundation of all culture and the most natural and effective method of human communication. Research points to all of man’s stories being derivatives of the Great Story: the metanarrative of Scripture. Exploring man’s relationship with story reveals his place within the metanarrative and ultimately provides evidence for the existence and active presence …

Cross-Cultural Managerial Behavior – A Comparative Study Between The Republic Of Korea And The United States Of America, Colson Richter

Senior Honors Theses

Among the many trade partners the United States engages with, the Republic of Korea is the nation’s seventh largest trading partner – exchanging over $154.9 Billion in 2020 (USTR, 2021). Despite this strong economic relationship between these two nations, the cultural distance that these societies have is one of the largest within anthropological academia (Hofstede, 2017). This reality creates the need for a solid framework of a management-focused, cultural understanding between these two countries.

In this study, academic literature will be collected and reviewed to lend insight into particular areas of culture that an American and Korean perspective would be …

Belas For The Prevention Of Child Marriage Among Sasak Community, West Lombok, Reni Kartikawati, Ni Nyoman Sri Natih, Sari Damar Ratri

Masyarakat, Jurnal Sosiologi

This paper aims to evaluate the compatibility of the belas mechanism, which separates prospective brides still considered children (merariq kodeq), in West Lombok Regency with the provisions of Child Protection Law No. 35/2014. While prior research in various countries has primarily focused on interventions and child marriage prevention programs, this study takes a different approach by examining the intricate relationship between children (those under 18 years of age) and the broader social system. To comprehensively explore this relationship, our team adopts Bronfenbrenner's socio-ecological model, which encompasses various stages of a child's life. This model considers individual biology, interactions …