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Politics Of Controlling Birth: C-Section, Use Of Contraception And Obstetrics Violence In Bangladesh, Sadia Sharmin

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the increasing rate of cesarean birth in Bangladesh through the lens of the population control program. Based on three months of data collection, the study explores various politics of the government’s population control program, leading me to argue that cesarean birth is an implicit way of controlling overpopulation in Bangladesh since it limits women’s reproductive choices and thus contributes to population control. Using ethnographic vignettes, I discuss how my research findings point to the government’s disparate population control politics and how this has given rise to various forms of obstetric violence against women. The study also addresses …

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 …

Assessing Population Variation Using Heritable Nonmetric Traits: A Bronze Age Assemblage From Tell Abraq, United Arab Emirates, Katie Marie Taylor

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the use of heritable nonmetric traits as a means for assessing population variation and biological relatedness within an archaeological sample using the commingled human skeletal tomb assemblage from the Bronze Age site of Tell Abraq, United Arab Emirates (2100-2000 BCE). A total of 410 individuals representing all ages and both sexes were interred in the Umm an-Nar period tomb. An analysis of sixteen heritable nonmetric traits was conducted on the adult human skeletal remains for both cranial and postcranial elements. Of the eight elements analyzed, one element in particular displayed anomalies rarely described in archaeological contexts. Seven …

Comparative Investigations Of Population Health In Urban Military And Non-Military Communities Of Roman Britain, Marina Elizabeth Noble

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This research compiles and compares the biological health profiles of three urban populations at Venta Belgarum (Winchester), Londinium (London), and Eboracum (York) as a means for assessing health and status differences between military and non-military urban populations in Roman Britain. Data concerning a total of 1,334 individuals representing all ages and both sexes were analyzed between the three cemetery samples. Estimations of mean stature, rates of periosteal reaction, porotic hyperostosis, cribra orbitalia, linear enamel hypoplasias, and trauma are compared here in an effort to discuss relative health, status, and inequality within the wider populations of urban non-military communities (Venta …

Stepfather Investment And Reproductive Outcomes Among Us Couples, Daniela Gomez

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Although paternal investment in humans is highly variable, many males invest heavily in offspring. Biological fathers invest more in children than stepfathers, yet stepfathers do invest in their stepchildren, possibly to gain mating access to the mother. Stepfathers are also more likely to be abusive and antagonistic towards their stepchildren than biological fathers. Most previous research quantifies the investment of stepfathers in relation to biological fathers. However, no studies have explored how investment and relationship quality influences reproductive outcomes for stepfathers. I examine how stepfathers’ relationship quality with stepchildren associates with stepfathers’ reproductive success (number of biological children born to …

Local Ecological Knowledge Exchange Of Steelhead, Mikaela A. Weisenfluh

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Local ecological knowledge (LEK) has been researched in the past to examine how it can aid and support scientific ecological knowledge (SEK). SEK is often seen as the preferred and superior type of knowledge when dealing with environmental changes. However, both of these types of knowledge are not segregated within individuals but are dependent on age, experience with the fishery, experience with a scientific organization, and/or perception of changes in the environment based on lived experiences. Interactions between LEK and SEK users is valuable to the conservation that is needed to protect these fish species and is dependent on how …

The Influence Of Ecological Variables On Archaeological Site Density In The Owyhee Region, Southwest Idaho, Jennifer Cuthbertson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Vegetational resources are reported to have had multiple uses in indigenous groups who were present in the Great Basin area throughout the Archaic periods. Resource acquisition and position of resources is documented to have had impacts on settlement patterns, but the impact of the range of vegetational resources, specifically, is lacking thorough study in the northern Great Basin area. Due to fluctuating climates, modern development, and other factors both anthropogenic and otherwise, Archaic vegetation ranges may not be wholly visible in the same locations today; however, the environments surrounding sites may be determined by observing a variety of ecological variables, …

The Shortcomings Of Maize: Using Tipu To Assess Maize Consumption And Its Impact On Stature And Limb Proportions Among The Maya, Peter Mercier

Master's Theses

A reliance on maize among the ancient and modern Maya has been reasoned to cause short statures and short legs compared to overall height. The goal of this study was to test this proposition using a sample of contact period Maya from the site of Tipu in western Belize. Long bone length data from 100 individuals were compared to that from two other prehistoric maize agriculturalist societies: the Schild site in Illinois and Pecos Pueblo in New Mexico.

Four hypotheses were tested: 1) Tipu would be the shortest, 2) Tipu would have the shortest femora relative to tibiae, 3) Tipu …

Analyzing The Consistency Of Scoring Porotic Hyperostosis From 3d Scans, Carson Rouse

Master's Theses

The use of 3D scans is becoming more and more common in the field of bioarchaeology. They alleviate the need to travel, allow for larger sample sizes, and can help preserve bones with pathologies on them which make them more fragile. Though there are major benefits with using 3D scanning of human remains, there is a lack of studies which examine whether or not traditional pathology scoring methods can be used to consistently gather the same data from these 3D scans. This project examines how consistently six researchers of varying experience levels scored porotic hyperostosis from 25 3D scans on …

Bibliometric Analysis Of Publications Discussing The Construction Females Heroism Worldwide (1958-2021), Cut Novita Srikandi

International Review of Humanities Studies

The number of gender studies related to female heroism varies, however to the best of our knowledge, no bibliometric studies have been conducted to examine research trend related to the construction of female heroism in history. Therefore, the aims of this research to investigate the trend of publication related to the female heroism by utilizing bibliometric analysis which become parameter to evaluate and visualize the worldwide publication focus on the development of gender studies. Herein, we identified 753 research articles in English from Scopus database which were published from 1958 – 2021. According to our findings, we highlighted that the …

Human-Centered Cybersecurity Research — Anthropological Findings From Two Longitudinal Studies, Anwesh Tuladhar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cybersecurity is a pressing issue. Researchers have proposed numerous security solutions over the years in order to combat security issues but it is still common to find known, well understood security issues in production environments. In this thesis, I seek to find the underlying reasons to why existing security solutions and best practices are not consistently applied and how to improve the utilization of secure best practices. To this end, I adopt the anthropological research method of long term participant observation and embed myself in real-world settings in order to understand the existence of security issues and the perception of …

Keeping Each Other Safe: Who Checks On Their Neighbors During Weather Extremes In Summer And Winter?, Lisa Reyes Mason, Christine C. Ekenga

Graduate School of Social Work: Faculty Scholarship

Objective:

Weather extremes are increasing with climate change and associated with higher morbidity and mortality. Promotion of social connections is an emerging area of research and practice for risk reduction during weather extremes. This study examines the practice of checking on neighbors during extreme summer heat and extreme winter weather. Objectives are to (1) describe the extent of neighbor checking during these extremes, and (2) examine factors associated with neighbor checking.

Methods:

We analyze survey data (n = 442) from a primarily low- and moderate- income study sample in a Southeastern U.S. city, using descriptive statistics and logistic regression.

Results: …

Quantifying Surplus And Sustainability In The Archaeological Record At The Carthaginian-Roman Urban Mound Of Zita, Tripolitania, Brett Kaufman, Hans Barnard, Ali Drine, Rayed Khedher, Alan Farahani, Sami Ben Tahar, Elyssa Jerray, Brian N. Damiata, Megan Daniels, Jessica Cerezo-Román, Thomas Fenn, Victoria Moses

Anthropology Faculty Research

Cultural ecological theory is applied to a spatially and temporally bounded archaeological data set to document long-term paleoeco-logical processes and associated sociopolitical behaviors. Volumetric excavations, treating the material culture of an archaeological matrix similar to an ecological core, can yield quantifiable frequencies of surplus goods that provide a multiproxy empirical lens into incremental changes in land use practices, natural resource consumption, and, in this case, likely overexploitation. Archaeological methods are employed to quantify cultural ecological processes of natural resource exploitation, industrial intensification, sustainability and scarcity, and settlement collapse during the colonial transition between Carthaginian and Roman North Africa. The data …

“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.

Unusual Subjects: Finding Model Communities Among Marginalized Populations, Babette Faehmel Ph.D., Tiombe Farley, Vashti Ma'at

The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal

Unusual subjects:

Finding model communities among marginalized populations

This paper is inspired by the questions that we have asked ourselves since we first met at Schenectady County Community College. What is it, we wondered, that keeps so many of our fellow Americans seemingly wedded to a political economy that is sustainable only at great cost? Could we use our academic work to help spread awareness about people who dared to demand different lives? And might our studies suggest strategies to work for change?

We currently all pursue different projects, but we share a belief that one obstacle to progressive change …

Sharing Hearts: Buddhist Charity And Urbanization In Vietnam, Sara Ann Swenson

Dissertations - ALL

My dissertation analyzes how and why volunteers joined or established grassroots Buddhist charities in Ho Chi Minh City. I spoke with approximately 400 members of 25 charities, focusing on seven main groups that shared an overlapping network of volunteers. My research includes perspectives from demographic groups often excluded from positions of authority in institutionalized Buddhism and, in turn, Buddhist studies scholarship, such as low-income day laborers, elderly women, Buddhist nuns at peri-urban temples, and a lay community of queer "same-gender-loving" [đồng tính] men. Despite their marginalization from formal leadership in Vietnam's state-managed National Buddhist Sangha, volunteers claimed social and moral …

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 …

Determining Dietary Niche In Primates Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence, Theresa C. Schwartz

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

Diet is a critical component of the ecology of an animal. Many dietary reconstructions involve destruction of the sample. Portable X-Ray fluorescence (pXRF), however, is a non-destructive method of gathering elemental data. This is important for research in biological anthropology and diet reconstructions because it leaves a sample intact of which there might only be few specimens. There has been a gap in dietary reconstructions using non-destructive methods like pXRF which is portable, cheaper, and as accurate as destructive methods and should therefore be implemented into research of this nature. This research attempts to validate this method by determining dietary …

Assessing Latinx Colorism And Skin Tone Dating Preferences In Adults, Yessica M. Berumen Martinez

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

Colorism is favoring by individuals of lighter skin over darker skin. This differs from racism because racism is discrimination directed towards racial or ethnic minorities, while colorism typically refers to within-group prejudice. The purpose of this study is to find out whether and how Latinx individuals’ self-perceived skin color, family, and friends influence their dating skin color preference. 145 respondents ages 18 and over completed the In-group Colorism Scale by Harvey, Banks, and Tennial (2017) and answered additional questions on skin tone perceptions on dating, and parent and friend influences. There was no significant connection between self-perceived skin color and …

Unique Genomic Architecture In The Descendants Of The Beringian Migrant Population: Founder Effects, Natural Selection, And Adaptation, Sara D. Niedbalski

Anthropology ETDs

The last great migration of our species saw humans traverse the Bering landmass from Siberia into the American continents in what has proven to be one of the most profound evolutionary events in modern human history. During the Last Glacial Maximum, a small band of Siberians entered the Beringian corridor, where they persisted, isolated from gene flow, for several thousand years before expansion into the Americas. The particular ecological features of the Beringian environment, coupled with an extended period of isolation at small population size, would have provided evolutionary opportunity for novel genetic variation to arise as both rare standing …

Exploring Ch’Timi’S History, Structure, And Decline: A Field Study Chez Les Ch’Tis, Felix Balak

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

This research investigated the history of the Ch’timi language and some of the differences between it and Standard French, as well as its decline and what, if anything, is being done to stop it. Ch’timi is a part of the Picard language group, spoken primarily in the north of France, and parts of Belgium. It is an endangered language, and few people still speak it to this day. This field research aims to determine how speakers of the language see it, whether they think it should be preserved, and whether anything is being done to keep it active. To answer …

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 …

Black And White Health Disparities: Racial Bias In American Healthcare, Yasmeen Almomani

Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections

This paper explores the historical implications of race in American society that have led to implicit racism in the healthcare system. Racial bias in healthcare against Black people is a factor in the health disparities between Black and white people in America, such as the gap in life expectancy, infant death, and maternal mortality. Black people are more likely to report racial discrimination from healthcare providers, which is a reason for the decreased quality of care received. The past justifications of slavery, the Tuskegee syphilis study, and the medical experimentations on Black women are horrifying but were considered acceptable in …

Transformative Health Care: Integrating The Perspectives And Lived Experiences Of Transgender And Gender Diverse Patients Into Health Care Education And Delivery, Shammarie Raquel Mathis

Dissertations and Theses

Prior research studies have found transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) patients at increased risk for poor physical and mental health as a result of disparities in health care access and treatment. Research has shown that perioperative patient education can improve patient outcomes, as well as promote increased knowledge, preparedness, and recovery post-surgery. For TGNC patients, gender affirming perioperative education classes are especially important for prospective patients as they not only provide comprehensive information about perioperative topics but also serve as a mechanism to promote personal empowerment through knowledge acquisition. The Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) Transgender Health Program (THP) …

Sociodemographic Inequities In Nurturing Care For Early Childhood Development Across Brazilian Municipalities, Gabriela Buccini, Stefanie Eugênia Dos Anjos Coelho Kubo, Jéssica Pedroso, Juracy Bertoldo, Alberto Sironi, Marcos Ennes Barreto, Rafael Perez-Escamilla, Sonia Isoyama Venancio, Muriel Bauermann Gubert

Social and Behavioral Health Faculty Research

Providing an enabling nurturing care environment for early childhood development (ECD) that cuts across the five domains of the Nurturing Care Framework (i.e., good health, adequate nutrition, opportunities for early learning, security and safety and responsive caregiving) has become a global priority. Brazil is home to approximately 18.5 million children under 5 years of age, of which 13% are at risk of poor development due to socio-economic inequalities. We explored whether the Early Childhood Friendly Municipal Index (IMAPI) can detect inequities in nurturing care ECD environments across the 5570 Brazilian municipalities. We examined the validity of the IMAPI scores and …

Q’Iij Metaphysics: Vico’S Theologia Indorum And The Gods, Ancestors, And Idols Of The 16th Century K’Ichee’ Mayas, Phillip Salazar

Latin American Studies ETDs

Domingo de Vico completed the Theologia Indorum, a K’iche’ Christian manuscript, in Guatemala in 1554. In the manuscript, Vico distinguishes between the idols, ancestors, and gods of the K’iche’s. This paper shows that Vico believed the idols to be inanimate objects, ancestors to be the older generations that have passed away, and gods to be demons. This paper then develops a theory of animist ontology for the K’iche’s. Using that ontological theory, this paper argues that, for the K’iche’s, their idols and gods were indistinguishable and that their ancestors were still alive, present, and active among them.

The Remains Of The Fray: Nascent Colonialism And Heterogeneous Hybridity, Charles R. Cobb, James B. Legg, Steven D. Smith, Chester B. Depratter, Brad R. Lieb, Edmond A. Boudreaux

Faculty and Student Publications

Investigations at the Native American site complex of Stark Farms in Mississippi, USA, have yielded numerous examples of metal artifacts of European origin. Our study suggests that they derive from contact between the AD 1540-1541 winter encampment of the Spanish Hernando de Soto expedition and the local Indigenous polity. The artifacts display a wide range of modifications, uses, and depositional contexts congruent with hybrid practices. We argue that the early colonial setting of Stark Farms requires a different perspective on cultural mixing than is often applied in studies of European colonialism. This is highlighted by the strongly improvisational nature of …