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On The Death Of Orlando Villas Boas And The Legacy Of The Villas Boas Brothers, John Hemming

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

No abstract provided.

Gertrude Dole (1915−2001), Janet Chernela

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

No abstract provided.

A Pastiche Of Hope: Ethnography, Community, And Reconstructive Politics In The Performance Of Interview Texts, George Potter

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the past fifteen years, the performance of interviews has become a pronounced theatric form, ranging from Sam Woodhouse's Nuevo California to Leigh Fondakowski's I Think I Like Girls and even, some would argue, to the postmodem deconstructions of race and ethnography found in much of Culture Clash's work. Despite all of this, Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, and the Tectonic Theater's The Laramie Project remain the three interview-based plays that still receive the most attention, both through productions and academic discourse. Likewise, although not as widely discussed, Smith's newest interview-based work, House Arrest, provides …

A Comparison In Osteological Measurements Of Two Populations From East Tennessee, Corrine Vitek

Honors Theses

Forensic anthropology is the identification of skeletal remams in medicolegal death investigations. The foundation of forensic anthropology rests on "documented" skeletal collections, which provide a crucial repository of information from which experts can rely upon to make determinations about human skeletal remains. A "documented" skeletal collection is one in which the demographics (e.g., ancestry, sex, age, height) of each individual are supported by known facts about the decedent at the time of his/her death. A quantitative comparison between the Hamilton County Forensic Center's(HCFC) skeletal collection to the William M. Bass collection housed at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK) …

An Analysis Of Service-Learning And Applied Anthropology, Danielle Nordbrock

Honors Theses

People think of others in comparison to themselves, and what they know. Anthropologists study a wide variety of things, this includes all different societies: simple and complex, ancient and modern, and in different locales. The perspective of an anthropologist tends to take on a unique cross-cultural nature, with comparisons oftentimes being central to the research. When anthropologists become engaged in a project and begin their fieldwork they experience a unique sense of understanding from living in such close proximity to another culture.

Why Is Maize A Sacred Plant? Social History And Agrarian Change On Sumba, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

Why has maize, a plant with origins in the New World, become ritually important in an indigenous Southeast Asian religion? While environmental conditions and agricultural economics are key determinants of everyday resource management practices in insular Southeast Asia, it is necessary to consider ethnic identity, political economy, and social structure in order to understand the religious significance of natural resources in contemporary society. Linguistic, cosmological, and horticultural data are combined with an analysis of local perceptions of culture and environment. This information is used to explain the transformation of an introduced plant into an indigenous sacrament. Ethnographic data, including a …

2005-2006, Csusb

Anthropology Department newsletter

Inside this issue

• Alumni news p.3
• Jim's remarkable qualities p.4
• Faculty news p.6
• Archaeological field school p.9

Bossier Tribes, Caddo In North Louisiana's Pineywoods, Jon L. Gibson

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

Clarence Webb (1948) christened Bossier more than a half century ago. Its namesake was the northwestern Louisiana parish where several Bossier sites were located, but it could just as easily been named after Webster, Claiborne, Harrison, Columbia, or other political subdivisions in northwestern Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, or eastern Texas where its distinctive pottery was found. This is Caddo country, linguistically and ethnically. Bossier is the issue of Caddoan cultural tradition, a culmination of agents, practices, and histories that transpired in the Red River valley and adjoining Pineywoods hills between ca. A.D. 1300 and 1500.

Bossier is best known for its …

Archeological Investigations At Mission Espíritu Santo (41gd1), Goliad County, Texas, Kristi M. Ulrich, Antonia L. Figueroa, Jennifer L. Thompson, Anne A. Fox, Johanna M. Hunziker, Steve A. Tomka, Cynthia M. Muñoz

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

Excavations were carried out at Mission Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo de Zuñiga (41GD1) in November of 2004 and February of 2005 by the Center for Archaeological Research of The University of Texas at San Antonio under contract with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The work was conducted in advance of the planned construction of a French drain system. Shovel tests, 1-x-1-meter test units, and controlled backhoe trenches were used to explore areas that would be impacted by the proposed drainage system along the northern walls of the chapel and museum (granary) and across the center of the courtyard. …

Archeological Testing And Monitoring Of The Proposed Roma Visitor Complex, City Of Roma, Starr County, Texas, Barbara A. Meissner, Kristi Miller Ulrich, José E. Zapata, Steve A. Tomka

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

In February and March 2003, staff from the Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) of The University of Texas at San Antonio conducted archeological testing and monitoring within the boundaries of the National Historic Landmark District of Roma, Texas. This work was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the Programmatic Agreement of the Statewide Transportation Enhancement Program, Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Texas Antiquities Code. The archeological services were conducted under contract with Kell Muñoz Architects of San Antonio and in coordination with the City of Roma and the Pharr District of the Texas …

A Look At Biblical And Ancient Extra-Biblical Perspectives On Death, Randall W. Younker

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.

Making Identity: Law, Memory, And Race In Comparative Perspective, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In this essay, I would like to focus on identity formation with respect to one of these groups-the Xoco community-especially the relationship between law, identity, and race. I hope to bring to light, if only in a tentative and suggestive way, the broader significance of such an inquiry by narrating the story of the Xoco in dialogue with some discussions of similar issues in the United States. In particular, I will compare the successful struggle for recognition of the Xoco with similar struggles for recognition in the U.S. by the Lumbee and Mashpee Indians, who have not achieved full legal …

'Listen, Rama’S Wife!’: Maithil Women’S Perspectives And Practices In The Festival Of Sāmā-Cakevā, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

As a female-only festival in a significantly gender-segregated society, sāmā cakevā provides a window into Maithil women’s understandings of their society and the sacred, cultural subjectivities, moral frameworks, and projects of self-construction. The festival reminds us that to read male-female relations under patriarchal social formations as a dichotomy between the empowered and the disempowered ignores the porous boundaries between the two in which negotiations and tradeoffs create a symbiotic reliance. Specifically, the festival names two oppositional camps—the male world of law and the female world of relationships—and then creates a male character, the brother, who moves between the two, loyal …

Matchcoats: Cultural Conservatism And Change, Marshall Joseph Becker

Anthropology & Sociology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Co-Wife Conflict And Cooperation, William R. Jankowiak, Monika Sudakov, Benjamin C. Wilreker

Anthropology Faculty Research

Conventional wisdom holds that the polygynous family system is as sexually and emotionally satisfying as a monogamous one. Ethnographic accounts of 69 polygynous systems, however, provide compelling evidence that the majority of co-wives in a polygynous family prefer pragmatic co-operation with one another while maintaining a respectful distance. Moreover, there often is a deep-seated feeling of angst that arises over competing for access to their mutual husband. Co-wife conflict in the early years of marriage is pervasive, and often marked by outbursts of verbal or physical violence. Co-wife conflict may be mitigated by social institutions, such as sororal polygyny and …

Omaha Metals, Coinage, And Syntax: Outside Influence?, Rory Larson

Nebraska Anthropologist

A study of acculturation terms for metals and money in Omaha and some of the neighboring native languages related to it sheds light upon the historical circumstances in which these terms were coined

Theory Of Mind In Chimpanzees: A Rationalist Approach, Benjamin Grant Purzycki

Nebraska Anthropologist

The question of whether or not chimpanzees possess the ability to mentally represent others' mental states has been a popular question since Premack and Woodruff (1978) originally asked the question. It is well established that humans have a theory of mind (ToM), but extending this psychological faculty to our evolutionary cousins has created a massive amount of literature and research attempting to resolve this issue. Such a resolution is arguably not possible given the nature of the debate. An Either/Or approach to chimpanzee theory of mind both ignores the essential components of ToM as well as foreclosing on the possibility …

Shades Of Dispossession: Neoliberalism And The Social Production Of Credibility, In Machu Picchu, Peru, Pellegrino A. Luciano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation ethnographically examines the inconsistencies experienced by district residents in the historic and nature Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, over the Peruvian government's drive to implement neoliberal policies. Heritage conservation in the southern Peruvian Andes is increasingly shaped by current neoliberal policies. The people who live in the district of Machu Picchu live in a protected area that gives the state expropriating powers to claim the land as a public good. The central problem is that under neoliberalism, a public asset is used for private gain at the expense of residents. Inhabitants experience changing juridical relationships as a contradiction between …

The European Union, Immigration And Inequality: “Albanian” Labor In The Political Economy Of Rural Greece, Christopher M. Lawrence

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many early studies of globalization hypothesized a withering away of thee nation-state as a significant arena for the production of identity and social regulation. From this perspective the persistence of nationalism and resurgence of neo-racism in Europe have often been seen as a futile rear-guard defense by downwardly mobile classes or class fractions. More recent studies have suggested that rather than fading away, the nation and state have been undergoing a process of re-articulation. However, exactly how the nation and state are being re-articulated, and the implications of this process for our understanding of nationalism and national identity formation, are …

Trop De Soleil Tue L'Amour : Une Expression De L'Écriture Du Mal-Être De Mongo Beti, Rodolphine Sylvie Wamba

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The classical and dissident African writer Mongo Beti perpetually uses the theme of man’s quest for freedom in everything he does. In fact, the philosophy of “Rubénism” is found in each of his works. Given that man must survive in the “ocean of shit” he lives in, the writer, using a popular language, freely chooses to add some humour to everyday life. Thus, the text we studied appeared as a genuine thriller, complete with comedy and tragedy, which presents a deviation from more formal writing. This is the main idea of this analysis, which consists of showing Trop de soleil …

Property As Legal Knowledge: Means And Ends, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article takes anthropologists’ renewed interest in property theory as an opportunity to consider legal theory-making as an ethnographic subject in its own right. My focus is on one particular construct – the instrument, or relation of means to ends, that animates both legal and anthropological theories about property. An analysis of the workings of this construct leads to the conclusion that rather than critique the ends of legal knowledge, the anthropology of property should devote itself to articulating its own means.

Prickly Pear Cactus And Pastoralism In Southwest Madagascar, Jeffrey C. Kaufmann

Faculty Publications

Madagascar's Mahafale cattle raisers have adopted several species of the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) into their subsistence patterns. Their use of Opuntia has had the economic effects of both sedentary and transhumant intensification. It lengthens the stay of pastoralists at their villages and structures the timing of their seasonal migration to distant pastures.

Informe Preliminar Del Trabajo, 2004, John H. Walker

ProSIGAB Documents

No abstract provided.

The Guaraní Under Spanish Rule In The Río De La Plata, Bret Gustafson

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

Book review of The Guaraní Under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata. Barbara Ganson. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. xii + 290pp., maps, illustrations, appendices, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-8047-3602-2.

History, Ethnography, And Politics In Amazonia: Implications Of Diachronic And Synchronic Variability In Marubo Politics, Javier Ruedas

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

The idea that indigenous Amazonian societies have been and are essentially egalitarian has been criticized in recent years. This essay critiques frameworks for the study of power in lowland South America by examining diachronic and synchronic variation in Marubo political organization.  First, I analyze change over time in Marubo politics and how it relates to population fluctuations linked to contact situations.  Based on this analysis, I argue that the small, atomized villages that twentieth-century anthropologists perceived as typifying indigenous Amazonia were products of the historical processes of political organization. Next, I show that leaders of different Marubo villages range from …

Darrell A. Posey (1947-2001), Warren M. Hern

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

No abstract provided.

Perspectival Anthropology And The Method Of Controlled Equivocation, Eduardo Viveiros De Castro

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

This article argues that doing anthropology means comparing anthropologies. Comparison is not just our primary analytic tool, it is also our raw material and our ultimate grounding, since what we compare are always and necessarily, in one form or other, comparisons. If, as Marilyn Strathern suggests, culture consists in the way people draw analogies between different domains of their worlds, then every culture is a multidimensional process of comparison. Likewise, if anthropology studies culture through culture, then, following Roy Wagner, whatever operations characterize our investigations must also be general properties of culture. Intracultural relations, or internal comparisons, and intercultural relations, …

Who Are "The Japanese"?: Negotiation Of Identity Among Nikkei In Brazil, Chihiro Nagasue

Masters Theses

When Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil in the beginning of the 20th century, they recognized, for the first time, that they were "Japanese" and different from other ethnic people since it was rare for them to meet ethnically foreign people in Japan. In the ethnically and linguistically foreign country of Brazil, the Nikkei have had to constantly redefine their identity by resisting and accommodating dominant pressures and ideologies such as the Brazilian assimilation policies before and during the Second World War as well as the essentialist ideology of Nihonjinron (what it means to be Japanese). As a result of globalization, …

Power, Positionality, And Conceptions Of Stewardship And Ownership In The Cleanup Of Nomans Land Island, Massachusetts, Michael Greenberg

Honors Theses

One of the most pressing issues facing Indigenous groups today, especially in the intimate New Engl'and communilties of the northeastern United States, is their ongoing struggle to reclaim and preserve sovereignty on land they once cultivated as stewards but now live on under the encroachment of larger States. In recent years, the United States government has sought to deal with issues of Native American sovereignty through granting federal recognition to tribes, thus creating a relationship of "nation-to-nation status" between a tribal government and the national government. This relationship generates a complex power structure on global, national, regional, and tribal levels, …

Cultural Standing In Expression Of Opinion, Claudia Strauss

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

This article explores an underappreciated pragmatic constraint on the expression of opinions: When expressing an opinion on a topic that has been previously discussed, a speaker should correctly indicate the cultural standing of that view in the relevant opinion community. This Bakhtinian approach to discourse analysis is contrasted with conversation analysis, politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987), and analysis of epistemic modality. Finally, indicators of four points on the cultural standing continuum (highly controversial, debatable, common opinion, and taken for granted) are illustrated with examples from American English usage.