Digital Commons Network^™

From The Margins To The Center: Queer And Trans Teachers Of Color In K-12 Public School, Esteban Cabrera-Duran , '18

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Interviews with nine self-identified queer and trans teachers of color (QTToC) address how teachers both work within and resist the reproductive function of schools. Findings suggest that QTToC enter the profession with a set of values and conunitments. The pedagogies of these teachers can have a trans formative effect on the academic outcomes of students and prepare them to be critical of ideologies and systems of oppression. To fulfill this role and conunitment, teachers must have the support of the school context and culture. This thesis adds to the growing body of literature on QTToC and presents a more optimistic …

Church And State In Rwanda: Catholic Missiology And The 1994 Genocide Against The Tutsi, Marcus Timothy Haworth

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, over one million Tutsis were killed by the government of Rwanda and Hutu extremists. In this study, I address two questions: (1) did the Church, as an institution, offer a convincing counter-narrative to the dominant ideology of racialized ethnic identities of twentieth century European colonialism in the present-day nation-state of Rwanda? If it did not, why not? And, (2) what role, if any, did the Church, as an institution, play, in promoting a “social imagination” that valued religious identity, or truths, over the dominant European colonial ideology, and later the nationalistic narrative of …

Binding Ideologies: An Investigation Of Language Attitudes And Ideologies In The Moroccan Publishing And Book Sector, Ashley Coyne

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The interaction between author and reader is not as simple nor as direct as may at times be assumed. There are “gatekeepers” and middle men who mediate the transmission of ideas from writer to reader; these institutions and their ideologies determine the final product that will (or will not) be presented to readers. In Morocco, this author-reader interaction is further complicated by the language ideologies which pervade the realm of Moroccan literature. As Moroccan publishers and booksellers are the “gatekeepers” who arguably engage the most in language politics, this study examines their role in facilitating or inhibiting the Moroccan author-reader …

Classroom Cannibal: A Guide On How To Teach Ojibwe Spirituality Using The Windigo And Film, Brady Desanti

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper is intended as a pedagogical guide on how to teach elements of Ojibwe religious and philosophical beliefs using the windigo and its depictions in the films Wendigo and Ravenous. The windigo complex is exceedingly complex and remains an enduring component to the cultures of Ojibwe and several other Algonquian-speaking communities in the United States and Canada. While the windigo enjoys exposure in a variety of popular entertainment sources, film remains one of the most useful methods to incorporate in the classroom to help students comprehend how an anthropophagus “monster” directly relates to Ojibwe ideas of personal balance, …

Deinstitutionalization Of Bulgarian Orphanages: Examining Caregiver Discourses On The Changing Reforms, Sophia Page

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The housing of orphaned children in institutions has been common practice in Bulgaria. The post-communist era ushered in reforms to the orphan care system, under the guidance of the state and the international community. This has shifted care for orphaned children from institutions to alternative care in family-type settings, under a process referred to as deinstitutionalization. These reforms are believed to benefit a child’s development and well-being. New questions arise surrounding the role of the caregiver in implementing these reforms in their care practice, chiefly how caregivers strive to integrate the children into society while facing the persisting limitations of …

Posthumanism: Anthropological Insights By Alan Smart And Josephine Smart, David Shaw

The Goose

Review of Alan Smart and Josephine Smart’s Posthumanism: Anthropological Insights.

Race, Sexuality, And Masculinity On The Down Low, Stephen Kochenash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a so-called post-racial America, a new gay identity has flourished and come into the limelight. However, in recent years, researchers have concluded that not all men who have sex with other men (MSM) self-identify as gay, most noticeably a large population of Black men. It is possible that a tainted history of Black enslavement in this country that is inextricably linked with ideas of space, surveillance, subversion, and survival inform a Black male’s self-identification as being “on the down low” (DL). This begs the question: What does mainstream society view as gay-ness and how is the DL constructed …

From 'Wonderful Americans' To The Ahca: Contrasting Trump's Nomination Acceptance Address And His Administration's Actions On Glbtq Health, Leland G. Spencer, Molly Malany Sayre

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Donald Trump's 2016 Nomination Acceptance Address at the Republican National Convention explicitly mentioned GLBTQ people as Trump promised to “protect our LGBTQ citizens” and called GLBTQ people “wonderful Americans.” However, since Trump's inauguration, he has appointed anti-GLBTQ leaders, proposed cuts to HIV research, and offered his support for a ban on transgender recruits to the military. This article begins with a close reading of Trump's speech, showing how Trump expresses ostensible support for GLBTQ Americans, only to capitalize on the deaths of queer and trans people of color at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando mere weeks before the convention by …

Low Perceived Control Over Health Is Associated With Lower Treatment Uptake In A High Mortality Population Of Bolivian Forager-Farmers, Sarah Alami, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Indigenous people worldwide suffer from higher rates of morbidity and mortality than neighboring populations. In addition to having limited access to public health infrastructure, indigenous people may also have priorities and health perceptions that deter them from seeking adequate modern healthcare. Here we propose that living in a harsh and unpredictable environment reduces motivation to pursue deliberate, costly action to improve health outcomes. We assess whether variation in Health Locus of Control (HLC), a psychological construct designed to capture self-efficacy with respect to health, explains variation in treatment uptake behavior among Tsimane Amerindians (N=690; age range: 40–89 years; 55.8% female; …

Analysis Of Endocrine Response To Perceived Difference In Cross-Cultural Interactions, Carole Woolford-Hunt, Marlene Murray, Tevni Grajales Guerra, Kristina Beenken-Johnson

Faculty Publications

We live in a world where awareness of ethnic and cultural diversity is an ever increasing reality. Business and education turn to the social sciences to inform them about how to manage and optimize cross-cultural interactions. Although much research has been done on the impact of cross-cultural interactions on a wide range of variables, one less researched area is the endocrine response to cross-cultural interactions. In this study we set out to investigate the endocrine response to cross cultural interactions and the impact of these interactions on perceived differences. To do so we measured the pre and post levels of …

From Invisibility To Liminality: The Imposition Of Identity Among Non-Federally Recognized Tribes Within The Federal Acknowledgment Process, Christopher M. Drake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the imposition of a “liminal” identity among non-federally recognized American Indian tribes pursuing federal recognition through the Federal Acknowledgment Process. By requiring a tribe to simultaneously appear as both intelligible/similar to and distinctive/different from American society, the “liminal” identity fails to be maintained, barring a tribe’s recognition.

Insider Movements Among Muslims: Reflections On Their History, Identity, And Theology, Richard Doss

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"The enormity of the task still facing Christian missions is almost incomprehensible. Nearly 4.1 billion people are still in need of the gospel (Johnstone 2014:65). In some ways, the task of reaching the unreached is most difficult among Muslims. With nearly 1.3 billion adherents, Islam represents a significant challenge to the spread of the gospel. Or does it? Given the complex nature of the relationship between Christianity and Islam, could it be that the inability of Christian missionaries to shed the social, cultural, and political trappings of the West and Christendom have limited the effectiveness of the gospel? Might the …

Rural Sense: Value, Heritage, And Sensory Landscapes: Developing A Design-Oriented Approach To Mapping For Healthier Landscapes, Judith Van Der Elst, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Landscape design needs a novel value system centred on human experience of the landscape rather than simply on economic value. Design-oriented research allows us to shift the focus from mechanistic paradigms towards new sense-making approaches that value both the sensual and the cognitive in human experience. To move in this direction, we investigate cultural and natural aspects of sensory experience in rural landscapes, arguing that: (1) rural (non-urban) regions offer diverse sensory experiences for optimising human health; and (2) spatial interconnectedness between rural and urban areas means that healthy rural regions are critical for urban development. Our key argument is …

Data Recovery Excavations At Site 41hr751, Woodforest Road, Harris County, Texas, Nicola Hubbard, Linda Wootan Ellis, William Mcclure, Lee Nordt, Laurie Zimmerman

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

41HR751 is located in southeastern Harris County, at the confluence of Greens Bayou and an unnamed tributary, both of which are part of the larger Buffalo Bayou/San Jacinto drainage system. 41HR751 was identified during a cultural resource survey of a 65-acre tract of land north of Interstate 10 that was undertaken for the Maxey Road Venture as mandated under United States Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, Permit Application 18735(02). The site falls along the proposed route for the extension of Woodforest Road between Maxey Road on the east, and Normandy Road on the west, and thus was recommended for …

Intensive Cultural Resources Survey For The Proposed Buena Vista Road Improvements, Ben Fullerton, Kristin Morgan

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Central Federal Lands Highway Division (CFLHD) is proposing to improve Buena Vista Road, a two-lane, paved roadway accessing the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Cameron County, Texas. While the project is located within the Laguna Atascosa NWR, the roadway falls under the jurisdiction of Cameron County. The proposed project includes pavement reconstruction and widening by pulverizing and overlaying Buena Vista Road along a 2.7-mile (4.35 kilometer [km]) segment from the intersection of General Brant Road to the north entrance of the Laguna Atascosa NWR (Figure 1-1). The improvements will also include the installation …

The Global Dance Network: Reykjaví­K, Iceland, Takes On New Moves, Emily Creek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is an exploration of the contemporary dance community in Reykjaví­­k, Iceland. The research questions guiding this thesis were founded in a desire to understand how the dance community in Reykjaví­k creates its own agency and meaning within the city of Reykjaví­­k, as well as how the dance community in Reykjaví­k takes imported dance knowledge, localizes it and creates local meaning. With this goal of understanding the ways the community navigates the wider global dance network from its location as a northern island, I utilize concepts from the anthropology of globalization as well as dance anthropology. I specifically employ …

Through The Yoruba Lens: A Postcolonial Discourse Of Female Circumcision, Jennifer Quichocho

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the Western media attention and the critique of female circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa, few studies consider the local populations' traditions, values, and ideologies. Through the Yoruba Lens: A Postcolonial Discourse of Female Circumcision investigates female circumcision practices from a philosophical, Yoruba traditionalist perspective. African philosophy and religion provides an ideological foundation and helps reveal the postcolonial and feminist theoretical framework that continues the academic debate. Framed by LeCompte and Schensul's notion that "ethnography emphasized discovery; it does not assume answers" (2010: 33), my research draws from literature reviews, quantitative data, and interviews. I will present and investigate three hypotheses …

Mitochondrial Dna Analysis Of Mazahua And Otomi Indigenous Populations From Estado De Mexico Suggests A Distant Common Ancestry, Angelica GonzáLez-Oliver, Ernesto Garfias-Morales, D G. Smith, Mirsha Quinto-Sánchez

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

The indigenous Mazahua and Otomi have inhabited the same localities in Estado de Mexico since pre-Columbian times. Their languages, Mazahua and Otomi, belong to the Otomanguean linguistic family, and, while they share cultural traditions and a regional history that suggest close genetic relationships and common ancestry, the historical records concerning their origin are confusing. To understand the biological relationships between Mazahua and Otomi we analyzed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genetic variation. We identified the mtDNA haplogroups by restriction fragment length polymorphism typing and sequenced the hypervariable region I of the mtDNA control region in 141 Mazahua and 100 Otomi. These …

Linguistic Imperialism In Post-Colonial Ghana: Access To Written News Media In The Local Languages, Rikki N. Bergen

Anthropology Presentations

No abstract provided.

Ua68/14 Fsa Newsletter, Wku Folk Studies & Anthropology

WKU Administration Documents

Newsletter created by and about the WKU Folk Studies & Anthropology department.

Historical Observations And Identifications Of Plants And Animals In The Vicinity Of Engineer Cantonment In 1819-1820, Hugh H. Genoways, Brett C. Ratcliffe, Carl R. Falk, John R. Bozell

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Historical observations and identifications of plants and animals in the vicinity of Engineer Cantonment in 1819–1820 (James 1822) are shown below in Roman and Roman italic print. Specimens identified through phytoarcheological and zooarcheological analysis of materials and believed to be reasonably associated or contemporaneous with the Long Expedition use of the site (AU4) are shown in boldface. Species present in both the historical and archeological data are marked by an asterisk (*). References used in this compilation include Benedict (1996), Brewer (1970 [1840]), Conant and Collins (1991), Ducey (2000), Evans (1997), Falk et al. (this volume), Genoways et al. (2008), …

Vision, Voice, And Cinematic Presence, Constantine V. Nakassis, Amanda Weidman

Anthropology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Anxieties around the appearance and audition of the female body and voice in Tamil cinema reveal a semiotic ideology of the image that does not fit neatly within the idea of cinema as representation. Instead, this ideology takes filmic images to be acts that performatively presence the actresses and singers who animate them, in other words morally charged acts for which such animators are held accountable. Drawing on linguistic anthropology and film theory, this article explores vision-image and sound-image as distinct modes of performative presence, noting the division of semiotic labor between them as well as their interaction and interdependence. …

Conscious Identity Performance, Leslie P. Culver

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Where Should My Child Go To School? Parent And Child Considerations In Binational Families, Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga, Juan Sánchez García

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Using examples encountered from our multi-year study of students encountered in Mexican schools with prior experience in US schools, we look at transnationally-tied families’ decision-making regarding where to send their children to school and ask whether parents should ‘parent from afar’. We don’t pose that as a question about ideals— what would be best if parents had economic security and unambiguous legal residential status— but rather as a more pragmatic one. Given some parents’ and children’s limited agency in real- world circumstances, what is their best path forward?

Disaster Risk In The Lake Nyos Area, Cameroon: Effects Of The Gas Hazard And Socially Produced Vulnerability, Mary Witucki

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts depend on comprehensive risk assessments that consider potential hazard events and social vulnerability. The Lake Nyos Disaster (LND) caused the deaths of about 1,700 people, forced another 4,000 people from their homes, and left survivors more vulnerable to future hazards. There is considerable research on the gas hazard and some work on local vulnerability; however studies rarely consider both aspects of disaster risk (DR). This study addresses both the hazard and vulnerability and uses several qualitative and quantitative methods which have never been applied to LND survivor vulnerability or gas hazard. Interviews, participant observation, …

Using Virtual Reality And Photogrammetry To Enrich 3d Object Identity, Cole Juckette, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Hector Eluid Guerra Aldana, Norman Martinez

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The creation of digital 3D models for cultural heritage is commonplace. With the advent of efficient and cost effective technologies archaeologists are making a plethora of digital assets. This paper evaluates the identity of 3D digital assets and explores how to enhance or expand that identity by integrating photogrammetric models into VR. We propose that when a digital object acquires spatial context from its virtual surroundings, it gains an identity in relation to that virtual space, the same way that embedding the object with metadata gives it a specific identity through its relationship to other information. We explore this concept …

Development Of A Gis Database Of Incomplete Forensic Anthropology Cases In Southeastern Michigan, Casey Butler

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

With many forensic anthropology cases of human skeletal remains, the skeletons may be incomplete for a variety of reasons, such as: animal scavenging, acid bone diagenesis, fluvial transport, among other factors. There are many studies that address these taphonomic factors; however, prior research fails to examine different methods in tracking incomplete forensic anthropology cases. This study investigates different geographic information system (GIS) methods applied to the forensic sciences to determine the best software to track forensic anthropology cases using a spatial mapping system to record and track 15 incomplete cases from Southeastern Michigan. The final ArcGIS tool developed here notes …

What The Walls Say: Finding Meaning And Value In Tel Aviv’S Street Art, Rachel R. Bird

Honors Theses

This thesis explores street art in Tel Aviv, Israel through anthropological concepts of value. By defining street art as an interstitial practice—one that exists between permeable, socially defined boundaries and is characterized differently by different power structures—I attempt to define some of the different regimes of value that apply to street art. Using the emerging market of “street art tours” as a fieldwork site, I look at how street art is presented and re-presented to both tourists and locals. By situating my research in a historical and geographic context, I hope to understand the ways different value schema, from economic …

Respect The Land - It’S Like Part Of Us: A Traditional Use Study Of Inland Dena’Ina Ties To The Chulitna River & Sixmile Lake Basins, Lake Clark National Park And Preserve, Douglas Deur, Karen Evanoff, Jamie Hebert

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

For countless generations, Lake Clark has been home to the inland Dena’ina people. This unique and vast fresh-water lake complex sits at the intersection of sprawling tundra, taiga, and jagged cordillera, dotted with villages. Here, village life has been sustained by herds of caribou, shorelines populated by moose and beaver, vast runs of salmon ascending from Bristol Bay, and other natural assets. But the area’s uniqueness extends beyond its abundant natural resources. Also unique is the National Park Service (NPS) unit that has occupied the region known as Lake Clark National Park and Preserve (LACL) in recent decades.

The study …

Aspiration, Attainment, And Assimilation : A Critical Ethnography Of Newcomer Youth In An American High School, Aaron Leo

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As immigrants and refugees constitute an increasingly large proportion of public school students across the United States, much scholarly attention has focused on the variables which promote and hamper academic success of these students. Specifically, the high aspirations and optimistic attitudes towards schooling and the effects of assimilation pressures have been identified as two important features contributing to the academic performance of newcomers.