Digital Commons Network^™

Reimagining Recovery: Debt, Mutual Aid, And Disaster Governance In Puerto Rico, Sarah Molinari

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study analyzes the politics and lived experiences of debt and climate disaster recovery in Puerto Rico. It examines mutual aid and debt resistance in relation to governance techniques and overlapping crises marked by the U.S. territory’s bankruptcy, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria (2017), and culminating with popular mobilizations in the summer of 2019 that propelled the governor’s resignation. Tracing the ways that the post-hurricane social disaster and debt crisis are mutually constitutive, I investigate a case of women-led grassroots mutual aid organizing in the east-central municipality of Caguas, Puerto Rico and a political movement calling for a citizen audit …

Living In Permanent Transience: An Ethnography Of Contemporary Alexandria, Alexandra K. Schindler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a study of two distinct groups — Syrian refugees fleeing war and heading for Europe and young Egyptian artists and intellectuals living in post-revolution Alexandria, Egypt. Based on twenty months of ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews, this project shows how the experience of living in permanent transience is a condition of both groups struggling to make Alexandria feel like home. The recent influx of Syrian refugees into Alexandria has had a significant impact on this Mediterranean coastal city, as it has become both the scene of emergent social and economic relations, and a crucial …

A Technological Analysis Of Ancient Maya Shell Beads From Pacbitun, Belize, Kimberly A. Kiddoo

Symposium of Student Scholars

Ancient Maya had one of the most complex societies in the New World. Their society was driven by the production of goods, including items made from stone, bone and shell. to shell objects were made into various shapes including pendants, bracelets and beads, possibly used for jewelry or as currency. At Pacbitun, located in west central Belize, 1,000’s of shell items in the form of beads have been found in and around homes that date to the Middle Preclassic period. Beads as well as marine detritus and chert drills have been found together indicating they were produced on site. This …

Immigration And Food Security: Assessing Levels Of Food Security Among Cabo Verdean Immigrant Households And Their Use Of Public Food Assistance Programs, Alexandria Seigler

Symposium of Student Scholars

On February 24, 2020, the Department of Homeland Security implemented the new public charge rule, which impacts new immigrants to the United States. An immigration officer must decide whether the person applying for a green card or visa will become a “public charge,” meaning that they will likely become dependent on government benefits. This project is part of a Diplomacy Lab team of KSU faculty and students sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. We are researching the experiences of new Cabo Verdean immigrants to the United States. My specific research focuses on food security and the use of public …

An Archival Study Of The Walnut Grove Plantation And The Young Family, Jennifer Billingsley

Symposium of Student Scholars

An Archival Study of the Walnut Grove Plantation and the Young Family

By Jennifer Billingsley

The Walnut Grove Plantation is situated near the confluence of the Etowah River and Pettit Creek in Cartersville, an area rich with history. The history of Walnut Grove is far-reaching into the past, beginning in the 1800s with the arrival of the family of Robert Maxwell Young from Spartanburg, South Carolina. As a location for the Kennesaw State University Archaeology Field School taught by Dr. Terry Powis, some basic knowledge about the property and family has previously been compiled with a focus on the Civil …

A Look Into The History Of Racial Diversity In The Congregation Of The Cathedral Of Christ The King, Devlin Mcelrone

Symposium of Student Scholars

This paper aims to assess the history of the Cathedral of Christ the King, a Catholic church in the Buckhead area of Atlanta, in terms of diversity. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the diversity of the church congregation in terms of race, while also focusing to a lesser extent on socioeconomic background and age. The area the church is in is primarily composed of upper-middle-class white families and it was through this observation that I came upon this topic. To investigate this issue, the first method used was spot sampling and constant monitoring of the congregation …

Haves Versus Have Nots: Analyzing Swift Creek Ceramic Distribution Within The Middle Woodland Etowah River Valley, Isabella Rosinko, Morgan Bendzinski

Symposium of Student Scholars

Swift Creek Culture refers to prehistoric Native American peoples of Florida and Georgia who produced a distinctive type of pottery, called Swift Creek Complicated Stamped, dating from 20 BC to AD 805. This Middle Woodland pottery type can be identified by curved geometric decorations stamped onto clay with a wooden paddle. Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery was widely traded across the Eastern Woodlands among high-status individuals and is therefore regarded as a prestige item. The preeminent Swift Creek site of the Etowah River Valley during the Middle Woodland is the Leake site. At the Leake site, there were three conical …

Kill Zones And Their Use During The American Civil War: An Archaeological Review Of The Battle Of Pickett’S Mill, Jeremy Wolfe

Symposium of Student Scholars

While not well known in the list of battles during the Atlanta Campaign late in the American Civil War, it is marked as an overwhelming Confederate victory in the face of looming defeat in the war itself. With the Union suffering nearly two thousand casualties, the tactics and strategies used by the Confederate army no doubt aided in their victory. During the battle, Union soldiers were drawn into a ravine where Confederate soldiers could easily fire down on them. The Union men followed the ravine up into a flat area where they were then fired on again with accurate rifle …

Student Loan Debt Impacts On Choosing A Field Of Study, Lance Mcgonigle

Symposium of Student Scholars

Student Loan Debt Impacts on Choosing a Field of Study

Abstract

Lance McGonigle – Email: [email protected]

Student loan debt has been steadily rising over the last handful of decades, and many students who take these loans have little to no knowledge about the financial challenges that these loans can bring. This research is aimed to understand how student loan debt impacts a students’ field of study choice during their time as a college student, or if this has any affect at all. In doing a qualitative, humanistic study; exploratory research was conducted using inductive reasoning along with the use of …

Pu Sapi Dan Lembu Agra: Kajian Antroponimi Berdasarkan Isi Prasasti Jawa Kuno (Abad Ke-9–16 M), Chacuk Tri Sasongko, Ninie Susanti

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Javanese literary works, especially the Panji tales, often feature human characters with animal names, such as Kuda Narawangsa, Kebo Kanigara, and Kidangwalangka. This naming phenomenon can also be found in old Javanese inscriptions. Recent studies generally concluded that such naming tradition occurred during the Kadiri-Majapahit era, and this was closely related to the banner of the army and the identity of makasirkasir. This study aims to reveal the motivation behind the naming tradition and the relationship between personal name, social status, and occupation of the person so named throughout the ancient Javanese era. This study uses Nyström’s onomastical approach, especially …

Access To Drinking Water And The Empowerment Of Women In The Southwest Coast Of Bangladesh: Intersections Of Gender, Class, And Space, Sunehra Subah

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

The low-lying southwest coast in Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable areas to the effects of climate change, with great water scarcity and high levels of arsenic and salinity. Women are the main accessors and users of water in this area due to their restriction to work in domestic spaces. Their gendered relationships to water in this area play a role in their empowerment and powerlessness. These relationships can be looked at through four examples of power: power over the body, power over mobility, power over decisions, and power over finances. It’s critical to consider the intersections of gender, …

Embodied Injustices: Covid-19, Race, And Epigenetics, Maria Encinosa

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

The co-occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic with the long-lasting effects of systemic racism has been devastating, and results in vast inequities in infection and mortality rates within communities of color. In this article, I analyze the potential for epigenetic research to operationalize the social science theory of embodiment, which describes how the social and material worlds manifest in our physical bodies. Epigenetic modifications can be triggered by environmental stressors, to which minority populations are more likely to be exposed. In turn, these stressors are linked to disorders that increase COVID-19 susceptibility. Thus, epigenetic modifications provide an avenue by which racialized …

Review Of Comparing Cultures And Religions In A Postmodern World, Januarius J. Asongu

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems For Archaeology Using Photogrammetry And Lidar In Southwestern United States, Imai Bates-Domingo, Alexandra Gates, Patrick Hunter, Blake Neal, Kyle Snowden, Destin Webster

Study America

Researchers can use small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), also known as drones, to make observations of historical sites, help interpret locations, and make new discoveries that may not be visible to the naked eye. A student team from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University gathered data for historical site documentation in New Mexico using the DJI Phantom 4 Pro V2, DJI Mavic Pro 2, DJI M210 and DJI M600, and senseFly eBee. Utilizing these drones, student analysts were able to take the data gathered and create georectified orthomosaic images and 3D virtual objects. At Tularosa Canyon, at a site known as the Creekside …

Lidar Predictive Modeling Of Pacific Northwest Mound Sites: A Study Of Willamette Valley Kalapuya Mounds, Oregon (Usa), Tia Rachelle Cody, Shelby Anderson

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Archaeologists need new methods to survey large areas and overcome environmental and archaeological barriers to site discovery in heavily forested regions. LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology is one possible solution to these challenges as LiDAR digitally clears away vegetation, facilitating large-scale remote sensing survey. The Calapooia Watershed, located in the southern Willamette Valley of Oregon, is an ideal area to utilize LiDAR. While valley lowlands are cleared for agriculture, riverine areas remain heavily wooded and are known to contain hundreds of low-lying earthwork features created by pre-colonial Kalapuyan people. To assess the potential application of LiDAR in this region, …

Investigating Ancient Maya Late Postclassic Period Households And The Associated Function Of The Buildings At Santa Rita Corozal, Belize, Melissa Badillo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Previous archaeological research conducted by the Corozal Postclassic Project (1979-1985) focused primarily on the Postclassic Period at the site of Santa Rita Corozal in northern Belize. Through that research, Santa Rita was demonstrated as an important Postclassic Maya city which likely served as the capital of the ancient Maya province of Chetumal. Given the major reorganization that occurred in the Maya Lowlands at the end of the Classic Period, the assessment of a Postclassic site would demonstrate what, if any changes in the organization of Postclassic Period sites, took place. An extensive analysis of the associated artifact assemblages of six …

Missing Power: Nostalgia And Disillusionment Among Southern California Water Engineers, Sayd Randle

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

California's sprawling network of aqueducts and dams is often cited as the embodiment of a high-modernist approach to resource management. But while once widely celebrated, in recent decades this infrastructural system and the institutions that manage it have been the subject of growing criticism and shrinking funding streams. Based on ethnographic research among employees at several California water agencies, this article explores the sense of nostalgia and diminished power experienced by the workers tasked with overseeing these networks. These emic perspectives are frequently articulated in the form of unfavorable comparisons to an imagined past, when the workers believe that their …

Spaces Of Time: An Archaeological Perspective On The Deborah Newman Homesite, Gary L. Ellis

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis serves as an archaeological perspective of a Nipmuc family and their land at Hassanamisco, combining documentary and archival research with archaeological, environmental, and conservational methods. Hassanamisco was the third Indigenous community in New England to accept the teachings of John Eliot during the mid-17th century. In 1727, seven Nipmuc families sold portions of their land in what is today Grafton, MA to 40 English families. Deborah Newman was the granddaughter of one of the original Nipmuc proprietors from this sale of ancestral Hassanamisco land, and through her grandfather’s claim she held rights to land and monetary compensation from …

“Unspoken Understanding”: The Evolution Of Chinese American Adoption Communities, Annie Abruzzo

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

While scholarly work on adoption, transnational adoption, and specifically international adoption from China has been robust, it has tended to focus on studying parents and parenting. This paper analyzes the resources used by both parents and children to discuss race, culture, and adoption, and seeks to understand the effects of these parenting strategies on Chinese American adoptees, who have begun to reach young adulthood in the last ten years. Examination of the recent growth of adoptee communities reveals that a shared and complex adoptee identity is a more powerful nexus than shared Chineseness.

Seeding Sovereignty: Sensory Politics And Biodiversity In The Karen Diaspora, Terese Virginia Gagnon

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation traces the sensory and political dimensions of Karen refugees' co-movements with their seeds, plants, and agricultural practices in exile. It also tentatively explores understandings of sovereignty beyond the frame of the Westphalian nation-state through engagements with seed and food sovereignty in three locations that complicate understandings of territorial sovereignty. In this dissertation I explore what I call "agricultural forgetting" and how it occurs for Karen refugees in the context of the camp. Agricultural forgetting, I suggest, is the process by which linkages between people and plants are broken generationally. Such forgetting occurs in especially sudden and forceful ways …

A Crack In The Looking-Glass Self: Hearing And Socialization, Grace Keyes

The Qualitative Report

A significant problem of classic theories of socialization, such as Cooley’s looking-glass self, is that such theories fail to consider biological factors such as hearing in the process of socialization. To address this problem, I raised a two-pronged question: how does deafness affect social interactions upon which much of socialization is dependent and can the experiences of one person’s lifelong socialization help uncover limitations of a classic theory of socialization? The key study participant in this instrumental case study is an individual with moderately severe hearing loss and whose lifelong experiences were collected primarily through ethnographic field techniques. Findings from …

Evolution Of Initiation Rites During The Austronesian Dispersal, R. Alexander Bentley, William R. Moritz, Damian J. Ruck, Michael J. O'Brien

History Faculty Publications (Archived)

As adaptive systems, kinship and its accompanying rules have co-evolved with elements of complex societies, including wealth inheritance, subsistence, and power relations. Here we consider an aspect of kinship evolution in the Austronesian dispersal that began from about 5500 BP in Taiwan, reaching Melanesia about 3200 BP, and dispersing into Micronesia by 1500 BP. Previous, foundational work has used phylogenetic comparative methods and ethnolinguistic information to infer matrilocal residence in proto-Austronesian societies. Here we apply Bayesian phylogenetic analyses to a data set on Austronesian societies that combines existing data on marital residence systems with a new set of ethnographic data, …

Environmental Perception In Colombia's Páramo Protected Areas, Juliana Delgado

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the gap between farmers' environmental perceptions in Téquita, a small village in Colombia, and the definition of protected areas has led to a conflict for the use of natural resources. I examine if the protected area's policies have dealt with the social and ecological issues in the páramos and recognized the social construction of the landscape, farmers' identities, and their interpretations about work and land. The case study focuses on Güina High Mountain in the Guantiva-La Rusia páramo complex, which recently the Colombian government declared as a protected area. In light of anthropologist Tim Ingold's meaning of …

Deep Learning Reveals Extent Of Archaic Native American Shell-Ring Building Practices, Dylan Davis, Gino Capsari, Carl P. Lipo, Matthew Sanger

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

In the mid-Holocene (5000 - 3000 cal B.P.), Native American groups constructed shell rings, a type of circular midden, in coastal areas of the American Southeast. These deposits provide important insights into Native American socioeconomic organization but are also quite rare: only about 50 such rings have been documented to date. Recent work using automated LiDAR analysis demonstrates that many more shell rings likely exist than are currently recorded in state archaeological databases. Here, we use deep learning, a form of machine intelligence, to detect shell ring deposits and identify their geographic range in LiDAR data from South Carolina. We …

Early Humans And Changing Landscapes In The Knysna Region Of The Southern Cape, Naomi Cleghorn, Sara Wurz

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Publications - Archive

Although little has been published on the deep-time archaeological record of Knysna area, recent research, early surveys, and local resident knowledge of sites and finds leave little doubt that people have made Knysna home for a very long time. From the hand-axe using human ancestors of more than 300 000 years ago (or more) Knysna has attracted people to the shores of its estuary, river, and coastline. A rich diversity of edible plants, animals, fresh water, and marine resources made it an ideal place for humans reliant on wild resources. Stone tools, the most enduring ‘visiting cards’ of the ancients, …

Racializing Discourses: An Exploration Of Moreno Subject Formation In Oaxaca, Mexico, Juan Salvador Sepulveda-Figuereo

Dissertations and Theses

Processes of Black racialization in Mestizo Latin America open a space to expose how subjectivities emerge and change while in tension with broader national ideas and transnational discourses. Morenos, typically dark skin individuals of African descent, inhabit the boundaries of mestizaje, Mexico's national racial ideology which emphasizes indigenous and Spanish ancestry. As a result, regional narratives subject morenos to racialization processes that align with the historical erasure of people of African descent, effectively excluding morenos from the nation. Nevertheless, morenos incorporate themselves into the regional and national narratives through various mechanisms and (re)formulations of established discourses.

I propose a …

Mapping Complex Land Use Histories And Urban Renewal Using Ground Penetrating Radar: A Case Study From Fort Stanwix, Tyler Stumpf, Daniel P. Bigman, Dominic J. Day

Anthropology Graduate Research

Fort Stanwix National Monument, located in Rome, NY, is a historic park with a complex use history dating back to the early Colonial period and through the urban expansion and recent economic revitalization of the City of Rome. The goal of this study was to conduct a GPR investigation over an area approximately 1 acre in size to identify buried historic features (particularly buildings) so park management can preserve these resources and develop appropriate educational programming and management plans. The GPR recorded reflection events consistent with our expectations of historic structures. Differences in size, shape, orientation, and depth suggest that …

(Post-) Pandemic Tourism Resiliency: Southeast Asian Lives And Livelihoods In Limbo, Kathleen M. Adams, Jaeyeon Choe, Mary Mostafanezhad, Giang Thi Phi

Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

While tourism scholars have sought to problematize the unevenly distributed impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we know much less about how resilience is cultivated among tourism practitioners and communities whose lives and livelihoods are have been placed in limbo. Drawing on literature at the intersection of critical tourism studies and resilience theory as well as interviews with local tourism practitioners and academics, four historically situated and place-based trends in Southeast Asia that are reshaping tourism in the region are outlined: livelihood diversification, ecosystem regeneration, cultural revitalization, and domestic tourism development. These trends highlight how the political economy of tourism in …

Ancient Pottery Making At Cerro San Isidro, Nepeña Valley, Peru, Kaitlyn M. Lowrance

LSU Master's Theses

Located in the Nepeña Valley of north-central Peru, Cerro San Isidro was first documented in the 1930s when the valley was initially surveyed. While numerous sites along the valley, particularly those located in the lower valley, have been extensively researched since this initial survey, members of the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica Cerro San Isidro (PIACSI) conducted the first formal excavations in 2019. My thesis project analyzes the ceramic artifacts – in particular pottery fragments – from that field season in order to evaluate continuity and change in morphological and technical styles from the Early Horizon through the Late Intermediate Periods …

The ‘Wickedness’ Of Governing Land Subsidence: Policy Perspectives From Urban Southeast Asia, Rapti Siriwardane-De Zoysa, Tilo Schöne, Johannes Herbeck, Julia Illigner, Mahmud Haghighi, Hendricus Simarmata, Emma E. Porio, Alessio Rovere, Anna-Katharina Hornidge

Sociology & Anthropology Department Faculty Publications

Drawing on Jakarta, Metro Manila and Singapore as case studies, we explore the paradox of slow political action in addressing subsiding land, particularly along high-density urban coastlines with empirical insights from coastal geography, geodesy analysis, geology, and urban planning. In framing land subsidence as a classic ‘wicked’ policy problem, and also as a hybrid geological and anthropogenic phenomenon that is unevenly experienced across urban contexts, the paper uses a three-step analysis. First, satellite-derived InSAR maps are integrated with Sentinel-1A data in order to reveal the socio-temporal variability of subsidence rates which in turn pose challenges in uniformly applying regulatory action. …