Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Curating A Nation: The Role Of Asia’S Twenty-First Century Museums In Constructing National Narratives, Lee Nelson

Pac Rim Posters

Museums of the modern world act to preserve and promote cultural heritage, science, and art. Within the continent of Asia, museums have been crucial foci for various nations’ cultural ministries. By analyzing the missions of specific museums with a critical lens, the objective of national identity and narrative building becomes exposed in the decisions of museums’ exhibits and curations. With having used ethnographic methods and scholarly research concerning national museums in the countries of Mongolia, Japan, China, Thailand, and India, I argue that museums serve as mediums of communication for higher political and cultural institutions to foster, construct, and manipulate …

(Re)Writing Home: Unimagining And Reimagining Haitian Identity In Diasporic Literature From The United States, Ashley Coyne

Summer Research

This study explores the responses of the members of the Haitian diaspora in the U.S. to the current historical moment. This historical moment in which the President of the United States would feel so inclined as to ask: “Why do we want people from Haiti here?” and “Why are we having all these people from sh*thole countries come here?” (Davis et al. 2018; Dawsey 2018). The same man who promised Haitians “I will be your champion,” has made the decision to force 59,000 members of the Haitian diaspora who currently hold Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to return to Haiti in …

An Ethnographic, Experimental Philosophical Inquiry Into Attitudes And Perceptions Toward Suicidality, Samantha Dawn Lilly

Summer Research

With the logical and analytical approaches of experimental philosophical inquiry and the qualitative methodologies of ethnography I was able to create an account of the ways that the initial moral assumption that “suicide is wrong” appears to be harmful, not only to the deceased, but to the survivors, and those who have previously attempted suicide. A possible normative solution to these harms would be to shift our current societal intuition that: "suicide is morally wrong" to understanding suicide as a social fact.

The International Folk Art Market: Cultural Commodification In The Global Marketplace, Kate Roscher

Summer Research

This research project focuses on the work of the International Folk Art Market (IFAM) which takes place annually in Santa Fe, New Mexico. IFAM emphasizes the importance of preserving folk art traditions, providing artists with opportunities for social innovation, and hosting a lively international event for Market attendees. The IFAM provides a unique vantage point from which to view historical forces which shape social and economic relations between individuals at the Market and, more broadly, between the Global North and the Global South. The goals of this research are to gain a better understanding of how cultures are commodified at …

Segmented Assimilation Concern Among Refugee Families, Tessa Samuels

Summer Research

My research project examined what public schools, day-camps, and childcare facilities can do to help newly-arrived refugee families in the socialization process. With my AHSS research project, my goal was to bridge the communication gap between school/childcare systems and refugee families. This project was mainly executed through the use of semi-structured interviews and participant observation.

What I quickly came to understand was that most families are not so concerned with the ongoings in classrooms or childcare facilities, and did not express fear of segmented assimilation or loss of culture and values — which I had anticipated would be the worry …

Environmental Decision-Making And Sense Of Place: Exploring The Effects Of Bears Ears' Shifting Status On Stakeholders' Personal Relationships To The Land, Ana Siegel

Summer Research

The aim of my summer research was to explore how sense of place is affected by environmental decision-making—whether that be on a local or federal level—examining Bears Ears, as a case study. Ever since the initial push—back in 2013—to designate Bears Ears as a National Monument, this landmark of the Four Corners Region represented a quarrel, familiar to the American Southwest: friction between those who wish to conserve Western landscapes for their sacred value, and those who would rather exploit those lands for their natural resource—and thus economic—potential. After years of advocacy and petitioning of the federal government, in 2016, …

Introduction To Special Section On Cannabis, Denise M. Glover

All Faculty Scholarship

Introduction to Special Section on Cannabis.