Anthropology Commons^™

My Body As A Journey Accessing Pre-Colonial Identity For Healing Intergenerational Transgender Shame, Jennifer Lagman

Art Therapy | Master's Theses

A graduate student in art therapy wrote this heuristic paper to explore shame's role as both a negative internal feeling and a cultural and social tool for evaluating and regulating behavior. As a transgender woman, she examines what it is like to be labeled as Filipino and deal with being transgender. Tiny advances have been made in the understanding of shame within the context of minority transgender self-research. Using art to expose those feelings associated with shame, balance them with affirmations, and ground them in native identity are key aspects of this process. Consequently, meeting one's shadow becomes a necessity …

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

The Benefits Of Art Therapy On Stress And Anxiety Of Oncology Patients During Treatment, Helen Shiepe

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Within the last ten years research on art therapy and its positive impact on oncology patients’ stress and anxiety during treatment has been minimal. Oncology patients whether they are children or adults when diagnosed experience similar reactions due to their diagnosis, treatment, and in some cases end of life care. The current question is whether or not art therapy does have a positive impact on decreasing the stress and anxiety with oncology patients while undergoing treatment. Deane, Fitch & Carmen (2000), discussed art therapy as a healing art that is “intended to integrate physical, emotional, and spiritual care by facilitating …

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 …

Estimating The Minimum Number Of Individuals (Mni) For Skeletal Collections With Consideration To The Introduction Of Procurement Bias, M. Elizabeth Dyess, T. Heil

2023 Symposium

Of the competing methods for the estimation of the number of individuals represented within a skeletal assemblage, variations of the calculation of MNI (Minimum Number of Individuals) are most often employed. This presentation provides the preliminary results of an exhaustive study designed to determine the minimum number of individuals represented within a collection of 1,065 skeletal elements and fragments, belonging to the Eastern Washington University Anthropology Program. Results produced by established methods of computation were reinterpreted to account for the introduction of Procurement Bias in the calculation of MNI.

In Quest Of A Shared Planet: Negotiating Climate From The Global South, Naveeda Khan

Literary Studies

Based on the author’s eight years of fieldwork with the United Nations-led Conference of Parties (COP), In Quest of a Shared Planet offers an illuminating first-person ethnographic perspective on climate change negotiations. Focusing on the Paris Agreement, anthropologist Naveeda Khan introduces readers to the only existing global approach to the problem of climate change, one that took nearly thirty years to be collectively agreed upon. She shares her detailed descriptions of COP21 to COP25 and growing understanding of the intricacies of the climate negotiation process, leading her to ask why countries of the Global South invested in this slow-moving process …

The Silent Grave: A Geophysical Investigation Of The Brush Arbor Cemetery In Starkville, Mississippi, Kathryn Cassidy Jean Rayburn

Theses and Dissertations

The Brush Arbor Cemetery is an early-to-late 19th century Black cemetery that was also the meeting place of one of the first Black church congregations in Starkville, Mississippi. The cemetery has suffered greatly from structural violence and degradation. Utilizing Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), this research has revealed important information about the Brush Arbor Cemetery. The results of the GPR survey suggest there are 54 potential unmarked burials in addition to 35 marked burials. The Viewshed analysis suggests that the likely meeting place of the church congregation is in complete view of the white Odd Fellows Cemetery directly across the street. …

Excavating The Strata Of (Some) Of Archaeology's Problems And Applying Feminist Solutions, Kristin M. Dew

Honors College Theses

Over the past thirty years, feminist scholars in archaeology have gained a foothold in the discipline. Conkey and Spector's “Archaeology and the Study of Gender” (1984) is often credited with being the turning point for the topic of gender in archaeology. Still, there is more ground to gain. I argue for a fully engendered archaeology by understanding that achieving this will be difficult due to the past and current sociopolitics of American archaeology. Historically, mainstream archaeology has viewed feminist epistemologies, like those on which gender archaeology is based, as simply a standpoint, creating a disconnect identifying their importance. Despite these …

Embodied Fatness In Boys: A Critical Phenomenological Study, Sean Leadem

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation was an exploratory study of experiences of fatness in boyhood using a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative method. The author conducted in-depth, open-ended interviews with participants who identify as men and for whom fatness or related body-difference was an issue in childhood or adolescence to gather data on the meanings of fatness for boys and the men they become. Data analysis was organized around the existential dimensions of embodiment, temporality, and relationality. Themes emerging from this analysis included a) the discovery of fatness as ambiguous meanings mediated by others, b) fatness as a problem in a horizon that does not …

This Is The Way: Christian Asceticism Alive In The Star Wars Universe, David Allen Osb

Obsculta

This article is a creative reflection on how the Desert Fathers, especially St. Antony, could be compared in a pastoral way to the Jedi Masters found in the Star Wars Film and Television Canon.

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 …

Toward A More Holistic Understanding Of Uranium-Related Views And Experiences Of Residents In The Four Corners Region Of The United States, Matthew J. Barnett

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on rural Four Corners Region (FCR) residents’ views about uranium production has focused mainly on predominately-White communities in the northern portion of the region. Meanwhile, residents in the southern part of the region, which includes the Navajo Nation and other tribal nations and communities, have dealt with the worst environmental and health effects of the uranium boom. Through a series of three studies in the southern part of the FCR, I explore the uranium-related views and experiences of racially diverse FCR residents.

In the first paper of this dissertation, I used 53 interviews to explore how sociodemographic factors (e.g., …

A United, Not A Divider: Community, Identity, Performance & The Tomato Krewe Parading Group Of East Nashville's Tomato Art Festival, Allison Cate

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the “Tomato Krewe,” a social group that participates in the parade of East Nashville’s annual Tomato Art Festival. Drawing on participant-observation, interviews, and my own experiences as a member of the krewe and resident of East Nashville, I examine krewe members’ narratives about the festival, the material culture that they create for the parade, and the levels of performance that they engage in while parading. Central to my analysis is how krewe members understand the Tomato Art Festival as an expression of East Nashville identity.

The Woodcliff Experiment: Zooarchaeological Applications Using A Legacy And Cultural Resource Management (Crm) Faunal Collection., Matthew Zmijewski

Anthropology Department Theses and Dissertations

Legacy archaeological collections are often underutilized despite their valuable research utility. Archeologists might pass over these collections for research due to the age of recovery, along with the manner in which they were sampled and excavated. This thesis argues that significant archaeological research questions can be answered using these collections. To demonstrate their research potential, the author analyzes past subsistence behaviors and seasonality of occupations using the faunal remains from the Woodcliff site (25SD31). Woodcliff is a A.D. 1650-1750 Protohistoric Pawnee village located in eastern Nebraska. The faunal collection derived from excavations at the site constitute both a legacy and …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 26: Confessions Of A 'Wallace Enthusiast', Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

The author’s longstanding interest in the life and thought of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) is profiled in three ways, through: (1) a brief factual review of its history (2) a discussion of some problems with the way Wallace has been treated over the years, and (3) a consideration of the author’s personal experience with the paranormal, and how this has made him, if not always a full believer, more patient with divergent explanations of the type Wallace was famous for.

“Man, I Will Miss This Place”: An Ethnographic Account Of Place-Making On Dickson Street Through Men’S Bathroom Graffiti, Ethan S. Brown

Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Walking into a public bathroom, often we are faced with interesting, unique, and easily ignorable cases of residual humanity: bathroom graffiti. These writings, academically known as latrinalia, offer scholars a unique portrait of the people who form an immediate culture and community. By providing opportunities to produce individual and collective identities, local folklore, and contesting narratives of space, latrinalia allows authors to carve out personal or cultural place out of the impersonal materiality of space. Utilizing traditional methods of ethnographic fieldwork, latrinalia in the men’s bathrooms of three bars along the famed Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas is approached …

Fatty Females And Muscular Males: Investigating Human Sexual Dimorphism Across The Upper And Lower Skeleton, Brooklin Edwards

Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses

The sexual dimorphism profile of human body composition produces a unique pattern. Compared to other primates, humans have a mild size dimorphism; however, human males have a particularly muscular upper body and human females have a permanent fatty composition. These findings have resulted in varying interpretations related to sexual selection, mating systems, and male competition. Using humerus and femur measurements collected from 9 primate species, we investigated how the pronounced sexually dimorphic tissue composition of humans influences skeletal elements compared to the other primates. We hypothesized that over the course of human evolution, human females developed a body composition that …

The Scaling Method: Body Mass Reconstruction Of East African Hominins, Julianna Rose

Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis details a series of novel methods developed to estimate body masses of hominin fossils using 3-D point cloud registration software. All analyses were conducted through 3-D modeling software that supported the remote study of five fossil femora from East Africa. The fossil computer models were repeatedly aligned with anatomically modern human femora to determine their scaling relationship with the objective of using the scaling factor of the human references to estimate the body mass of the fossils, on the basis of the femoral head breadth. Body mass estimates obtained through this technique were compared to estimates using more …

Commodification Of Korean Culture In The West: Orientalism In The Era Of Modern Social Media, Samantha Giudice

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

South Korea, hereafter referred to as Korea, lies within the Korean Peninsula. It currently boasts a population of 53 million people residing within 38,724 square miles and a GDP of 1.811 trillion US dollars, making it the 13^th largest economy in the world. Since the Korean War to today Korea has turned into a major economic and cultural epicenter remaining at the center of technological advancements and pop culture production. While the exportation of this pop culture has allowed the economy grow at unprecedented rates, it has also led to less favorable interactions with Korean culture by people all …

The Process And Me: Creating A Film About Archaeology, Jack Woods '23

Honor Scholar Theses

The film I created is entitled “The Bomb: The 2022 Trasimeno Regional Archaeological Project.” It documents the research methods used to ethically excavate an archaeological site and presents Professor Rebecca Schindler and Pedar Foss’s research from Castiglione del Lago, Italy. The stakes of the project are as follows: I wanted to create an entertaining documentary about the process of ethically excavating an archaeological dig site through the 2022 Trasimeno Regional Archaeology Project (TRAP) in Castiglione del Lago, Italy. This thesis contains three parts: Analysis of Archaeology in the Media, where I analyze two TV shows about archaeology as the main …