Digital Commons Network^™

Grossman, M. Artists Of The Possible. Governing Networks And American Policy Change Since 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014., Maximiliano E. Korstanje Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Antweiler, C. Our Common Denominator: Human Universals Revisited. New York And Oxford: Berghahn, 2016., Raymond Scupin

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Salamey, I. The Government And Politics Of Lebanon. New York: Routledge, 2015., Joshua Donovan

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Cornet, C. And Blumenfield, T. (Eds.). Doing Fieldwork In China… With Kids! Singapore: Nias Press, 2016, Emily Chao Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Learning To Survive Ecological Risks Among The Sidama Of Southwestern Ethiopia, Samuel J. Dira, Barry S. Hewlett

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

Sidama farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture and experience a highly variable natural environment. Recurrent drought, erratic rainfall, and crop and livestock loss are common in mid and lowland areas, but local people are not passive victims of the changing environment: they use accumulated knowledge and skills to respond to and buffer ecological changes. Based on freelists and in-depth interviews with 70 adults and 50 adolescents, this paper describes how the Sidama conceive of ecological risks, survive difficult times, and learn to be resilient. The results indicate that food shortage and drought are salient risk factors. While local people think the …

La Culpa La Tiene Derrida: La Praxis Deconstrucionista De Buitrago Y Sus Implicaciones En Mi Quehacer Archivístico, Marisol Ramos

UConn Library Presentations

En esta presentación discutiré como el antropólogo Carlos Buitrago, durante su periodo decontrucionista, influyó mi carrera académica en el campo de la archivística. En mi trabajo trazare el camino recorrido junto con Buitrago, primero como su ayudante de investigación en 1992 en un proyecto analizando los repartos vecinales del pueblo de Adjuntas (1824-1832), luego en 1993, trabajando juntos en el Archivo General de Puerto Rico donde me introdujo a los archivos de aguas de Guayama y el tema de los sistemas de riego en este pueblo durante el siglo XIX, y más tarde en 1999 cuando compartió conmigo sus transcripciones …

Performing El Rap El ʿArabi 2005-2015: Feeling Politics Amid Neoliberal Incursions In Ramallah, Amman, And Beirut, Rayya S. El Zein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is about politics in Arabic rap. Specifically, it is about affective dynamics and material negotiations during rap concerts in three cities in the Levant. I analyze Arab hip hop culture in the context of three different but related histories of cosmopolitan, middle class growth, and gentrification. Using an ethnomusicological framework rooted in participant observation and performance theory, I compare concert conditions, audience behavior, and accessibility of music production in Ramallah, Amman, and Beirut.

In Chapter One, I elaborate the discursive and theoretical frameworks that have pinned the political valences of Arab youth, Arab artists, and Arab rappers in …

War Of The Worlds: Music And Cosmological Battles In The Balinese Cremation Procession, Michael B. Bakan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Abstract

This article explores processional action as a form of cosmological intervention in Hindu-Balinese cremation processions, focusing on the multiple and intersecting functions of a particular type of Balinese instrumental music ensemble: the gamelan beleganjur. It explores the alternately “enlivening and protective aspects” (DeVale 1990, 62) that underlie the use of beleganjur music in the ngaben, or cremation ritual, showing how beleganjur’s sonic power and rhythmic drive serve to combat malevolent spirit beings, strengthen and inspire processional participants in their efforts to meet challenging ritual obligations, and grant courage to the souls of deceased individuals embarking on their …

How Do Children Become Workers? Making Sense Of Conflicting Accounts Of Cultural Transmission In Anthropology And Psychology, David F. Lancy, Christopher A.J. Little

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This article uses children’s work as a lens to examine methodological concerns in the study of cultural transmission and children’s learning of useful domestic and subsistence skills. We begin by providing a review of the relevant literature concerning cultural transmission in the context of the ethnographic record, as well as more recent studies originating largely from psychology. We then offer an ethnographic case study concerning Asabano (PNG [Papua New Guinea]) childhood to make an important methodological contribution in the interdisciplinary study of cultural transmission. The case study centers on the paradox that Asabano parents, in interviews, claim that their children …

Empty Metal Jacket: The Biopolitical Economy Of War And Medicine, Sandra Lee Trappen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Empty Metal Jacket: The Biopolitical Economy of War and Medicine undertakes study of how global conflict and violence shape the entire range of social production, from commodities and culture to social goods and social theory. The research presented in this work draws from cutting-edge theories in body and science studies, in addition to theories of affect and biopolitics to address how war became a problem solving paradigm in medicine. Combat casualties are shown to serve as a material nexus for medical knowledge production. Although the focus here is on medicine and medical innovation in particular, these developments are connected to …

Blurred Boundaries: Interpreters As Researchers In Cross-Cultural Settings, Jennifer S. Hensley

Journal of Interpretation

This is a study of ambiguities and tensions that occur within the role of the bilingual/bicultural researcher in an ethnographic study. This manuscript presents an analysis of three instances from two interviews in a study on the acculturation of deaf students in deaf kindergarten classrooms in Japan and the US. This is an auto-ethnographic analysis of conflicts found in fluctuating between multiple roles: research assistant, interpreter, cultural mediator, and sociolinguistic consultant. In these examples my bicultural knowledge allowed me to identify “hidden” meanings overlooked by other members of the research team. However, my interpreter role at times made it awkward …

Understanding How Intentionally Unplugging From Cell Phones Shapes Interpersonal Relationships And The Undergraduate College Experience, Jadelin P. Felipe

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of what motivated college students—the Unplugged Students—to intentionally use their cell phones less and how they understood the impact that unplugging had on their interpersonal relationships and college experience. Nine undergraduate college students from four private schools were interviewed in one-on-one semi- structured interviews. These students, considered non-users, provided a particularly useful perspective as these students made a conscious choice to counteract social norms and experienced both being plugged in and unplugged. Cell phones and the act of unplugging proved to make up a complex and more nuanced topic than …

Lactating In St. Louis: Attachments, Technologies, And Disparities, Sarah Sobonya

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation uses the concept of attachments to explicate women’s breastfeeding practices and beliefs in the racially and economically segregated St. Louis, Missouri region. My analysis examines the interplay among attachments at three levels: women’s intrapersonal attachments to specific concepts of self; their attachments to the values and priorities of social groups; and attachments they form in response to larger structural and ideological forces in society. I argue that racial and socioeconomic disparities are manifested through breastfeeding praxis, so that breastfeeding serves as a lens through which these oppressions and disparities can be more fully viewed. To illuminate this, I …

Knitting Rebellion: Elizabeth Zimmermann, Identity, And Craftsmanship In Post War America, Maureen Lilly Marsh

Open Access Dissertations

At mid 20th century, hand knitting in the United States was practiced as a minor and fading chore of the domestic economy, with decreasing pattern publications in national women’s magazines, and the demise of Vogue Knitting Book by the late nineteen-sixties. By 1990, it had rebounded into major new publications in periodicals and books, new and revived artisanship practices, gallery exhibitions and major international conferences and gatherings. A driving figure in this resurgence was the knitter, writer, teacher, designer, and publisher Elizabeth Zimmermann. With her initial publication in 1955 up to her retirement in 1989, Elizabeth’s philosophy of knitting stressed …

Teaching: Natural Or Cultural?, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In this chapter I argue that teaching, as we now understand the term, is historically and cross-culturally very rare. It appears to be unnecessary to transmit culture or to socialize children. Children are, on the other hand, primed by evolution to be avid observers, imitators, players and helpers—roles that reveal the profoundly autonomous and self-directed nature of culture acquisition (Lancy in press a). And yet, teaching is ubiquitous throughout the modern world—at least among the middle to upper class segment of the population. This ubiquity has led numerous scholars to argue for the universality and uniqueness of teaching as a …

D-Place: A Global Database Of Cultural, Linguistic And Environmental Diversity, Kathryn R. Kirby, Russell D. Gray, Simon J. Greenhill, Fiona M. Jordan, Stephanie Gomes-Ng, Hans-Jörg Bibiko, Damián E. Blasi, Carlos A. Botero, Claire Bowern, Carol R. Ember, Dan Leehr, Bobbi S. Low, Joe Mccarter, William Divale, Michael C. Gavin

Biology Faculty Research

From the foods we eat and the houses we construct, to our religious practices and political organization, to who we can marry and the types of games we teach our children, the diversity of cultural practices in the world is astounding. Yet, our ability to visualize and understand this diversity is limited by the ways it has been documented and shared: on a culture-by-culture basis, in locally-told stories or difficult-to-access repositories. In this paper we introduce D-PLACE, the Database of Places, Language, Culture, and Environment. This expandable and open-access database (accessible at https://d-place.org) brings together a dispersed corpus of …

The Existential Territories Of Global Childhoods: Resingularizing Subjectivity Through Ecologies, Laura Trafí-Prats

Occasional Paper Series

Draws upon photography to discuss the construction of childhood within the ecological spaces of globalization.

New Studies Of Children’S Work, Acquisition Of Critical Skills, And Contribution To The Domestic Economy, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In spite of the fact that the very earliest ethnographers who paid any attention to children took note of the “precocity” displayed by children in both learning the household (e.g., caring for a younger sibling) and subsistence (harvesting and processing grain), tasks characteristic of the societies under investigation, the first synthesis and cross-cultural compilation of this large body of descriptive material is quite recent. This first, introductory, article in this collection reviews those efforts to systematize the study of children’s work and leads the reader through a catalog of the major conclusions or generalizations that have emerged from this analysis. …

Understanding School And Interethnic Relations Of Mexican Immigrant Youth In A Post-Industrial Community, Roberto Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a dearth of literature on how immigrant groups understand minority groups in the United States, in particular, African-Americans. Increased technology and more rapid global movement in the 21st Century challenges 20th explanations of assimilation (Chicago School) and necessitates more research focused on how immigrant groups and racialized minorities interact to negotiate new worlds. This ethnographic research was conducted over thirteen months during 2012 and 2013 in a post-industrial neighborhood in the northeast that had been the site of 11 purported anti-bias attacks against Mexican immigrants during the summer of 2010. Research questions focused on: 1) Mexican immigrant youth …

Transnational Ties Within Azorean Multigenerational Kinship Groups: Multi-Connectedness And Icts, Ana Gherghel, Josiane Le Gall

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This article analyzes the influence of ICTs use on transnational connections and on their perpetuation over time within multigenerational kinship groups dispersed in several countries. Evidence from a multi-sited ethnographic research dedicated to migration from the Azores archipelago (Portugal) to the province of Quebec (Canada) provides information about factors explaining transnational practice over several decades. Our data indicate an overall intensification of transnational contacts due to increasing accessibility of new technologies. However, this process takes place in a family environment characterized by multi-connectedness, a capacity to maintain multiple active ties with siblings living in various countries and using multiple modalities. …

Speaking In Tongues: Language And National Belonging In Globalizing Europe, Uli Linke

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

In contemporary Europe, the problematic concept of the nation has been recuperated to fasten subjects to political space. Under the impact of globalization, marked by increasing rates of human mobility and concurrent security concerns, European Union states have begun to push for cohesive measures to reclaim their national sovereignty. Revised immigration laws and refugee policies are publicly supported, presumably to keep the nation safe. At the same time, European countries advocate for openness and permeable borders to attract foreign capital investment. In the national interior, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments have come to coexist with the outward dissemination of promotional images …

Landfill Communities Within The Land Of Eternal Spring, Blanca Vaneza Guzmán

ENV 434 Environmental Justice

This paper examines the placement and impact of landfills within Guatemala City, Guatemala. By examining the municipal cite and its accessibility to policy taken on towards proper waste management, the recurring theme of lack of information will be obvious. It specifically looks at the lack of information provided and describes the landfill communities by looking at the minimal scholarship and media attention offered. This paper will also interrelate the importance of all beings, living and non-living with its surroundings and highlight ideas of ecological thinking. An emphasis on environmental racism will be stressed, particularly with the enormous impact it has …

Lullaby For The Burning Ear: How Intersectional Feminism Can Help Decolonize The Latino Consciousness, Donovan E. Hernandez Garcia

Senior Theses

People exist with their own religions, cultures, and practices, which illustrate the ingenuity of humanity. Yet, because of major events that altered the fate of the Americas, a certain societal structure was created to maintain power. Due to colonization, the prolonged exposure to numerous cultures, and the continuation of oppressive systems, people have been forced to band together based on similar characteristics, be it race, gender, or sexual orientation, creating divisions within society. It is because of such colonial mentality, subliminal and apparent, political and cultural movements, such as Feminism and intersectionality, have been created to combat the harmful effects …

The Western Diet's Negative Impact On The Health Of The Pacific Islands., Jessica Ruikka

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

In an already challenging environment, the Western diet has introduced noncommunicable diseases (NCD) such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease to the Pacific Islands (PIC). Without modern medicine, many of these regions, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia are ill equipped to handle the long-term effects of these noncommunicable diseases. A high percentage of the Pacific Island population is obese and overweight; and the Islands are struggling to combat the epidemic. Many programs and proposals have been implemented, such as changes in trade policy, local activism, and government modifications, but there has been no evidence of a decline in noncommunicable diseases. There …

"We The People": An Anthropological Analysis Of Property Rights Discourse And Practice, Enoila Afolayan

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

While the everyday rhetoric around property rights tends to focus on land and land rights, I assert that beneath that rhetoric is the set of ideas about what it means to be a person by normative American standards. I look to anthropology to specify what these standards are, as well as review the discipline's other contributions to the concept of property rights. Following Bill Maurer (2003), I will suggest that property is an interesting topic for anthropology to study because of the duality of the concept: it is both ideology and jurisprudence.This dual role of property rights produces social categories …

What Do Men Want? Re-Examining Whether Men Benefit From Higher Fertility Than Is Optimal For Women, Cristina Moya, Kristin Snopkowski, Rebecca Sear

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Several empirical observations suggest that when women have more autonomy over their reproductive decisions, fertility is lower. Some evolutionary theorists have interpreted this as evidence for sexual conflicts of interest, arguing that higher fertility is more adaptive for men than women. We suggest the assumptions underlying these arguments are problematic: assuming that women suffer higher costs of reproduction than men neglects the (different) costs of reproduction for men; the assumption that men can repartner is often false. We use simple models to illustrate that 1) men or women can prefer longer interbirth intervals (IBIs), 2) if men can only partner …

Monetizing State Services To The Poor: Intentional Analysis Of Three Latin-American Conditional Cash Transfer Programs, Andrés Dapuez Ph.D., Sabrina Gavigan, Talita Eger

Journal of International and Global Studies

Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) have been described as fundamental to the “post-neo-liberal” turn in Latin America. Through an analysis of the stated and unstated goals of three CCT development programs in Latin America, Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades, begun in 1997; Brazil’s Programa Bolsa Familia (PBF), started in 2003; and Argentina’s Asignacion Universal por Hijo (AUH), started in 2009, this paper suggests that CCTs portend the continuation of longestablished economic monetarist policies in the region, providing poor families with meager amounts of money, barely sufficient for their subsistence. Despite the fact that progressive populisms in Brazil and Argentina have imbued cash transfers with …

Contesting The Political Economy Of Higher Education: Educating The Good Citizen, Alberto Nicotra, Fay Patel Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

In national and international sectors, citizenship is constantly contested, negotiated, and reinvented across geographical boundaries. Higher education institutions around the world have focused on embedding graduate outcomes that characterize the ideal global citizen across the curriculum. International mobility programs promote international staff and student exchanges as a strategy to develop global citizenship. This paper presents a critical review of the notion of global citizenship through the narrative of a doctoral graduate who made his journey as a good citizen within an international mobility context. A research network-based framework is proposed for the higher education sector to assess the impact of …

Israeli, R. From Arab Spring To Islamic Winter. New Brunswick And London: Transaction Publishers, 2013., Joseph Alagha Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Vila, Pablo (Ed.) Music And Youth Culture In Latin America: Identity Construction Processes From New York To Buenos Aires. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014., Maximiliano E. Korstanje Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.