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Here I Am And Here I’M Not: Queer Women’S Use Of Temporary Urban Spaces In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Vigdís María Hermannsdóttir

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis builds on previous work on the relationship between queer identities and urban space. Drawing from an analysis of two recurring New Orleans-based queer women’s events, I examine how lesbians and queer women not only use but also actively produce social spaces of their own through participation in events organized specifically for lesbians and queer women. Using qualitative methods, I examine the ephemeral and transient quality of lesbian and queer women’s social spaces in post-Katrina New Orleans and the processes through which such spaces come into being. I argue that lesbian and queer women’s production of ephemeral social spaces …

Swamp Surburbia And Rebellion Against A Culture Of Crime: The Birth Of Black Skateboarding In The Big Easy, Aubrey Edwards

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research addresses a significant gap in previous work on the formation of urban and suburban black skateboarding subcultures. By using data generated through oral histories, photographs, mapping, and literature review, this study explores why black youth initially began skateboarding in New Orleans in the mid-2000s. In contrast to the scholarly literature and local popular perception, this visual anthropological study aims to provide an alternative origin story of black skateboarding in Post-Katrina New Orleans, and to examine the continuing popularity of the sport within the young black community.

A Line In The Sand: Archaeological Evidence For The Interactions Of Settled Farmers And Mobile Pastoralists In The Late Bronze Age (1950 - 1500 Bc) Murghab Alluvial Fan, Turkmenistan, Lynne Marie Rouse

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the interactions of mobile pastoralist groups with sedentary farming communities in the Late Bronze Age period (1950 - 1500 BCE) in the Murghab alluvial fan of present-day Turkmenistan. Traditional archaeological and historical studies in Central Asia, focused as they are on urban contexts or centers of dense population, have colored interpretations of mobile-sedentary interaction in prehistory and helped reinforce a view that mobile and settled groups were always at odds with one another. The Late Bronze Age Murghab marks the period and locale of the first sustained interaction between distinct cultural communities of mobile pastoralists and …

Urban Herders: An Archaeological And Isotopic Investigation Into The Roles Of Mobility And Subsistence Specialization In An Iron Age Urban Center In Mali, Abigail Chipps Stone

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the relationship between mobility and urbanism in an Iron Age West African city. Isotopic and archaeological evidence reveal complex relationships among mobility, sedentism, and the livestock economy of Jenné-jeno, one of the earliest and best known urban systems in sub-Saharan Africa (occupied ca. 250 BC to AD 1400). Drawing on excavations at the ancient city of Jenné-jeno and those conducted at two neighboring sites (Tato à Sanouna and Thièl), and on serial, intra-tooth isotopic analysis (87Sr/86Sr, 13C, 18O) of cattle, sheep, and goat teeth, this analysis shows that multiple populations involved in animal husbandry, from seasonally mobile …

Case Studies In Ancient Maya Human-Animal Relations: El Perú, La Corona, And Commensal Mammals, Diana Nicole Fridberg

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The ancient Maya of Mesoamerica inhabited a biodiverse landscape filled with animal taxa that provided both physical resources and rich ideological inspiration. To date, faunal studies among the Maya have been more limited than other types of archaeological investigations, leaving much still unknown about how human-animal relations varied across time and space. This study utilizes zooarchaeological, iconographic, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic data to illuminate the use of animals in Late Classic period (600-900 CE) ritual at the sites of La Corona and El Perú-Waka' (henceforth abbreviated as El Perú) in Petén, Guatemala, and to investigate the roles of commensal mammals in …

Socioecological Processes In The Science Of Planetary Change, Cynthia Twyford Fowler, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

This presentation seeks to further understandings of human encounters with socioecological change and also of socioecological processes in the science of planetary change. In this presentation, I interpret the space-time involvements of two social groups. Using one filter, I do basic science by examining the ways Sumbanese construct the monsoonal landscapes which they communicate about, within which they move, and where they interact with other constituents of their environments. Using an alternate filter, I engage critical theory by deconstructing the ways scientists’ visualize changing landscapes with the aid of geospatial technologies. Whose purposes do geospatial scientists serve in documenting the …

Strong Selection For Behavioural Resilience In Australian Stock Working Dogs Identified By Selective Sweep Analysis, Elizabeth R. Arnott, Lincoln Peek, Jonathan B. Early, Annie Y. H. Pan, Bianca Haase, Tracy Chew, Paul D. Mcgreevy, Claire M. Wade

Sport and Working Animal Welfare Collection

Background: Working dog handlers and breeders have strong opinions on characteristics that are desirable in the breeds that they use to handle stock. Most of these characteristics are related to conformation or behaviour. This study explored whether the genetics underlying desirable working behaviour traits might be identified by selective sweep analysis; a method that identifies long regions of strong homozygosity combined with allelic divergence from a comparison group. For this analysis, we compared genomic haplotype architecture in two breeds derived from common founder stock but subjected to divergent selective pressures. The breeds studied were the Australian Kelpie, which is registered …

Gold Mining And Unequal Exchange In Western Amazonia: A Theoretical Photo Essay, Gordon L. Ulmer

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

I combine fieldwork photography and ethnographic documentation of gold mining in Madre de Dios, Peru, to examine the localized material, social, environmental, and health outcomes of the global gold boom. This 'theoretical photo essay’ examines how local and global forces coalesce around gold mining and influence peoples and environments in Western Amazonia. I use embodiment theory in anthropology, ecological economics, and theories of underdevelopment to understand local consequences of the global gold trade and to elucidate how opulence and the machinations of capital accumulation in economic centers of the world occur at the expense of human lives and environments in …

Provisions Of Labor : Prehistoric Evidence For Economic Behavior At Ghost Ranch, New Mexico., David Alan Hoefer 1959-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Excavations at Ghost Ranch of two hunter-gatherer rock shelters, GR-2 and GR-145, offer new opportunities for assessing prehistoric land-use in the Piedra Lumbre Basin of northcentral New Mexico. Intersite analysis of these remains provides new data for understanding subsistence organization during the Southwestern Archaic and Formative periods. Faunal and floral assemblages from the two sites, located five km apart and overlapping chronologically, suggest divergent patterns of resource collection, processing, and use by groups taking up temporary residence in a seasonal round. I argue that economic agency provides the best explanation for the sites’ differentiated remains. Furthermore, I propose that, based …

Cultural Interaction And Biological Distance Among Postclassic Mexican Populations, Corey Steven Ragsdale

Anthropology ETDs

Human population structure is influenced by cultural and biological interactions. Little is known regarding to what extent cultural interactions effect biological processes such as migration and genetic exchange among prehistoric populations. In this study, I draw upon archaeological and ethnohistoric research to investigate the interaction of biology and culture among Postclassic period (AD 900-1519) Mexican populations. The central question for this project is: how did processes of economic exchange and political expansion affect genetic exchange among Postclassic period Mexican populations? To address this question, various biological distance analyses derived from dental morphological traits were employed to investigate inter- and intra-regional …

The Construction Of The Homeless Individual: Contrasting The Effects Of Social Policy On Public Perceptions Of The Homeless During Two Periods Of United States History, Megan T. O’Connor

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

From Rural Street Theater To Big City Extravaganza: The Meaning Of The Manaus Boi-Bumbá In An Urbanizing Brazil, Margaret Kathleen Watson

Anthropology ETDs

This is an ethnographic study of the boi-bumbá festival of Manaus, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas. I examine this traditional Brazilian folkloric performance as it is being reworked to express a modern, global identity for urban Amazonians. Long seen as a key site to understand racial relations in Brazil, the boi-bumbá festival tells the story of the death and resurrection of a ranchers beloved bull. The earliest recorded versions of the Brazilian bull festival portray the economic and social relations on an 18th century colonial cattle ranch in the country's northeast. When the festival came to be performed …

Aerial Thermography In Archaeological Prospection: Applications & Processing, Autumn Chrysantha Cool

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Aerial thermography is one of the least utilized archaeological prospection methods, yet it has great potential for detecting anthropogenic anomalies. Thermal infrared radiation is absorbed and reemitted at varying rates by all objects on and within the ground depending upon their density, composition, and moisture content. If an area containing archaeological features is recorded at the moment when their thermal signatures most strongly contrast with that of the surrounding matrix, they can be visually identified in thermal images.

Research conducted in the 1960s and 1970s established a few basic rules for conducting thermal survey, but the expense associated with the …

Bodies In Motion: A Bioarchaeological Analysis Of Migration And Identity In Bronze Age Cyprus, Anna Jean Osterholtz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The analysis of human remains from the Bronze Age on Cyprus offers insights into underlying issues of social change and identity formation. Data collected from human remains from six sites throughout the southern half of Cyprus dating to the PreBA through the ProBA (2400--1100 BC) provide insight into social cohesion and group identity during this time of constant social change. Human remains were used to provide demographic data (such as number of individuals interred together, age at death and sex), health profiles (such as incidence of childhood stress, pathologies, and trauma), and robusiticty. Specifically, these data were gathered to provide …

Discovering Rock Features With Geophysical Exploration And Archaeological Testing At The Mississippian Pile Mound Site, Upper Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee, Jeremy G. Menzer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Pile Mound survey includes magnetometry paired with targeted ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electromagnetic induction (EMI) surveys of the mound and testing of associated features over the ca. 6.5 ha site. The GPR survey discovered six rock features (five large rock features within the mound and one marking the outside of the mound). Knowledge of mounds in the Upper Cumberland Plateau (UCP) is lacking—the closest other studied sites are at the Corbin Site, Croley-Evans, Bell Site, and Beasley Mounds, approximately 75 – 100 km away. However, the most similar mound construction is found at Corbin and Cherokee sites, some 175 …

Spatial Patterns Of Rural And Exurban Residential Settlement And Agricultural Trends In The Intermountain West, Saleh Ahmed

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Population growth is often linked to negative impacts on agriculture. However, the effects of residential development likely depends on the spatial pattern of development, such as whether housing is clustered or dispersed, and whether it is located near or away from important farmland. For several decades, rural and urban planners have advocated policies to encourage consolidated forms of development as one strategy to protect agriculture and preserve open space. To date, relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the actual effects of different spatial patterns of residential settlement on agricultural. This study aims to fill that gap with a …

Watercraft, People, And Animals: Setting The Stage For The Neolithic Colonization Of The Mediterranean Islands Of Cyprus And Crete, Katelyn Dibenedetto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

One of the most significant developments in human history was the “Neolithic Revolution,” which first began around 11,000 years ago in mainland Southwest Asia. It resulted in not only the economic reorientation from hunting and foraging to herding and farming based on domesticate resources, but also significant changes in human technology, demography, society, political organization, ideology and human relationships to the environment. In order to understand this momentous process, however, it is important to understand the events that set it in motion. This is particularly the case when dealing with oceanic Mediterranean islands, specifically Cyprus and Crete, where there is …

Resistance, Acquiescence Or Incorporation? An Introduction To Land Grabbing And Political Reactions ‘From Below’, Marc Edelman, Ruth Hall, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Ian Scoones, Ben White, Wendy Wolford

Publications and Research

Political reactions ‘from below’ to global land grabbing have been vastly more varied and complex than is usually assumed. This essay introduces a collection of ground- breaking studies that discuss responses that range from various types of organized and everyday resistance to demands for incorporation or for better terms of incorporation into land deals. Initiatives ‘from below’ in response to land deals have involved local and transnational alliances and the use of legal and extra-legal methods, and have brought victories and defeats. The relevance of political reactions to land grabbing is discussed in light of theories of social movements and …

Bone Deterioration Due To Domesticated Rodent Scavenging, Logan N. Howard

Symposium of Student Scholars

This project examines the deterioration of bone caused by rat scavenging. Additionally, it will focus on what types of bones rats prefer when scavenging remains. The expected outcome is that the rodents will prefer the antler, with concentrated scavenging on the diaphysis due to the marrow withim the core.

The purpose for this project is to compare the markings left upon bones from rat gnawing. Knowing the effects of rat markings on remains are important when differentiating between traumatic damages and postmortem scavenging. Rat gnawing on human bones sometimes causes breakage associated with skeletal trauma, so distinguishing between the two …

The Revolution Of Fitness: A Contemporary Analysis Of How Technology And Personal Training Influences Consumer Behavior In Two Atlanta, Georgia Fitness Centers, Krista L. Cross

Symposium of Student Scholars

The Revolution of Fitness: A Contemporary Analysis of How Technological and Personal Training Influences Consumer Behavior in Two Atlanta, Georgia Fitness Centers

Krista Cross (Kennesaw State University)

"Krista Cross"

Today, fitness gyms and private health clubs are globally recognized as multi-billion-dollar establishments. This study explores the development of the modern gym and fitness culture, particularly the emergence of fitness trends such as personal training and technology. This paper aims to understand how and why training in the gym has become so important for people. A comparative case study approach was used to consider personal training and technological influences, which are …

Diversity And Tolerance: Acceptance Of Non-Christian Religious Faiths On A University Campus, Michele Kumar

Symposium of Student Scholars

Michele Kumar - Email: [email protected]

Diversity and Tolerance: Acceptance of Non-Christian Religious Faiths on a University Campus

The purpose of this research was to explore the diversity of non-Christian belifs on a university campus to better understand the acceptance and tolerance of these religious affiliations and belief systems. In doing humanistic, exploratory research using both deductive and inductive methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviewing, this study asked, how do the students of non-Christian faiths or belief systems at a southeastern comprehensive university feel about the level of acceptance and tolerance toward their beliefs on campus? Organizations such as the …

Examination Of Blunt Force Skeletal Injuries As A Result Of Falls From Heights, Michele Kumar

Symposium of Student Scholars

Michele Kumar - Email: [email protected]

Title: Examination of Blunt Force Skeletal Injuries as a Result of Falls from Heights

Damage to the skeleton can be extensive with falls from heights. Using measurements such as the height of the fall, the weight of the individual to calculate acceleration due to gravity, velocity of the launch speed, and the take-off distance in cases of homicide or suicide, certain occurrences can be predicted (Cross 2006:93). The position of the body, in conjunction with the surface and angle of impact can identify skeletal trauma in cases where the manner of death is unknown. Although …

Positional Relationship Of The Fibula Relative To The Tibia In Collegiate Athletes, Kat Lane

Symposium of Student Scholars

The research being conducted for a Practicum in Anthropology is related to the cross-sectional geometric properties of the tibia and fibula. Wolff’s Law states that form follows function, or that when stresses are placed on bone, the bone will remodel through either absorption or deposition in order to maintain optimal strain levels. The majority of research in cross-sectional bone geometry has been on the femur, and that which has been examining the lower leg usually focused on only the tibia. The tibia has managed to escape the focus of research due to the assumption of its lack of importance due …

Variable Models For Organization Of Earthworking Communities In Upper Purus, Southwestern Amazonia: Archaeological And Ethnographic Perspectives, Sanna Saunaluoma, Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

An Emerging Alliance Of Ranchers And Farmers In The Brazilian Amazon, Ryan Thomas Adams

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Musical Body Of The Universe: Unity And Multiplicity In The Spiritualized Cosmos Of The Hohodene, Robin M. Wright

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Teaching About Race In Introductory Anthropology Courses: An Ethnographic Study, Jennifer Gilroy Hunsecker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

American anthropology has focused on issues related to race from the start of the discipline. From past work designed to categorize humans into phenotype-based categories to current work to undo those categorizations, many anthropologists consider race to be one of the most important topics for students to learn. In this dissertation, I use in-depth ethnographic case studies consisting of interviews, observations, and focus groups, to learn about the way in which anthropologists at four institutions of higher education teach the topic to students in their introductory, four-field general anthropology class. I found that anthropologists are committed to sharing anthropological perspectives …

To Veil Or Not To Veil: A Loaded Question, Lisa R. Rivoli

What All Americans Should Know About Women in the Muslim World

What all Americans should know about women in the Muslim world is that Muslim women are increasingly prohibited through legal measures to choose for themselves whether or not to veil, which reduces their agency and perpetuates the harmful idea that all Muslim women need saving.This paper takes a look at political and legislative interventions on veiling in several countries.

Muslim Women Political Leaders And Electoral Participation In Muslim-Majority Countries, Abby M. Rolland

What All Americans Should Know About Women in the Muslim World

This paper focuses on Muslim women political leaders and their agency in the modern world. While some Muslim women have a difficult time participating politically, others actively act in policy and government. Culture, identity, location, and political parties are some of the factors leading to different levels of participation from Muslim women in various countries.

Whom Do You Trust? Doubt And Conspiracy Theories In The 2009 Influenza Pandemic, Shawn C. Smallman Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

The 2009 pandemic of H1N1 influenza led people around the globe to create narratives about the epidemic defined by the question of trust; these narratives ranged from true conspiracy theories to simply accounts in which mistrust and betrayal formed a motif. In particular, most of these narratives reflected a fear of capitalism and globalization, although in specific regions, other issues—such as religion—played a more central role. These stories were not unique to the H1N1 pandemic but rather have appeared with every contemporary outbreak of infectious disease. This paper will examine conspiracy theories and moral panics related to the H1N1 pandemic …