Digital Commons Network^™

Associations Between Masculine Norms And Health-Care Utilization In Highly Religious, Heterosexual Men, Josh R. Novak, Terry Peak, Julie A. Gast, Melinda Arnell

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to use focus groups to explore married men’s avoidance of health-care utilization. Five focus groups of 8 to 10 married, heterosexual, male participants (N = 44) were conducted and analyzed using grounded theory methods. Several important themes emerged connected to how masculine norms were associated with health-care utilization at several domains including at the organizational level (perceptions of doctors), interpersonal level (past family context and current family context), and individual level (illness severity, money concerns). These themes were all connected with the societal theme of masculine norms …

Briscoe, Richard Blake (Fa 1292), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Oral Histories

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1292. Student folk studies project titled “’The Music Will Preserve Itself’: The Lost River Strummers Dulcimer Club,” which includes the history of Southern Appalachian traditional music and the Lost River Strummers Dulcimer Club of Warren County, Kentucky. Sheet music for dulcimers is included.

Crabtree, Julie Anne, B. 1988 (Fa 1294), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1294. Project titled “Pride Before the Fall: The Tale of a Motorcycle Wreck and the Onset of Supernatural Senses in Out-of-Body/Near-Death Experiences,” which details the supernatural experience of Russell Lee Callahan of Glasgow, Barren County, Kentucky. The interview includes details of the accident, the core supernatural experience, and the resulting change toward religion. The interview is stored in the Sound Archives.

Sexual Dimorphism In Homo Erectus Inferred From 1.5 Ma Footprints Near Ileret, Kenya, Brian Villmoare, Kevin G. Hatala, William Jungers

Anthropology Faculty Research

Sexual dimorphism can be one of the most important indicators of social behavior in fossil species, but the effects of time averaging, geographic variation, and differential preservation can complicate attempts to determine this measure from preserved skeletal anatomy. Here we present an alternative, using footprints from near Ileret, Kenya, to assess the sexual dimorphism of presumptive African Homo erectus at 1.5 Ma. Footprint sites have several unique advantages not typically available to fossils: a single surface can sample a population over a very brief time (in this case likely not more than a single day), and the data are geographically …

Becoming Chacoan: The Archaeology Of The Aztec North Great House, Michelle I. Turner

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Between 900 and 1140 CE, people at Chaco Canyon and throughout its region built multistory monumental structures with hundreds of rooms, known as great houses. This dissertation reports on recent archaeological testing on one such great house, the Aztec North great house at Aztec Ruins National Monument.

I argue that Aztec North’s occupation represents an early, transitional period, as people previously not involved in the Chaco world made choices that increasingly brought them into Chaco’s orbit and changed their way of life forever. The structure represents a remarkable architectural experiment in large-scale adobe construction, one that likely was not terribly …

A Co/Autoethnography Of Peer Support And Phds: Being, Doing, And Sharing In Academia, Karen Mcphail-Bell, Michelle Louise Redman-Maclaren Dr

The Qualitative Report

As doctoral students, we were well aware of the social, cultural, and economic isolation experienced by many students working towards a PhD. In this paper, we provide an account of an informal peer support model that assisted us to successfully complete our PhDs. We used co/autoethnography to write into each other’s story, seeking to improve our research practice through creative reflection. Data included over 215 emails generated through our “weekly check-ins” during our PhDs, for a period of over 18 months. Following the iterative nature of co/autoethnography, we generated further data through collaborative analysis and reflexive, creative writing. Analysis involved …

“I Am Not My Illness!”: Navigating The Mental Healthcare System In New Orleans, Saira Mehmood

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the experiences of individuals diagnosed with chronic mental illnesses and how they navigated the mental healthcare system in New Orleans, Louisiana. To realize the main research objective, I analyzed how individuals with chronic mental illnesses perceive mental illness and stigma; the services individuals use to address their mental health needs and the barriers they face in this process; who individuals disclose their mental illness to and under what contexts; and how individuals diagnosed with mental illness and their caregivers understand and embody recovery. Situated between medical anthropology and urban anthropology, it examines the challenges individuals diagnosed with …

Locating Human Security In The City: The Case Of Rohingya Refugees In New Delhi, Ashvina Patel

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the subjective experience of human security by Rohingya urban refugees who fled to New Delhi, India, from Myanmar, in 2012. It uses bottom-up, top-down, and historical-to-present approaches to recognize the myriad factors that influence the path to security. The bottom-up approach frames the Rohingya present-day experience; the top-down approach delineates motivations embedded in the current India state and the international refugee regime; and the past-to-present approach explains the perspectives of each of these actors.

One urban refugee settlement was chosen as a primary field site to examine the challenges and varied everyday experiences of the city for …

Pottery And Practice In The Late To Terminal Classic Maya Lowands: Case Studies From Uxbenká And Baking Pot, Belize, Jillian Michelle Jordan

Anthropology ETDs

This study examines interaction networks among non-elite potters at Uxbenká and Baking Pot, Belize during the Late to Terminal Classic Period (AD 600-900). Approaches to non-elite communities often assume that spatially distinct architectural groups are synonymous with social groups. While residential proximity surely influences interaction, social relations extend beyond neighbors so equating proximity with interaction simplifies the complex everyday lives of the Maya. Framed within a communities of practice theoretical framework, the goals of this study are threefold: (1) to understand pottery production practice among non-elite potters, (2) to identify communities of practice and (3) to evaluate community interaction through …

Examining Human Behavior And Tool Use Through Experimental Replications And A Technological Analysis Of Ground Stone In The Lower Columbia, Kelley Prince Martinez

Dissertations and Theses

While ground stone tools represent diverse activities, the technology is analyzed at a coarse level in the Pacific Northwest. Conducting more detailed analyses of ground stone assemblages can inform on regional Indigenous raw material knowledge, resource use, and tool manufacturing and maintenance practices.

In this thesis I addressed questions regarding ground stone technology, including manufacturing time investments, tool recycling, and how ground stone tools were used through the application of experimental tool replication, use studies, and in depth analyses. I replicated tools that are common in the region, including a banded and notched net weight, a maul, two bowls, and …

Supernatural Pilgrims: A Journey To A New Apostolic Reformation Congregation In The Ozarks, Samuel Wayne Gingerich

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Birthed out of the revival events of the 1990s, the New Apostolic Reformation is known for its charismatic leaders and provocative theology. As an emerging third wave Pentecostal movement, the New Apostolic Reformation is redefining the edifices of American Pentecostalism. While academics and journalists are currently focused on exposing the influence of some of its leaders such as C. Peter Wagner, Bill Johnson, Randy Clark, and Heidi Baker, there is little scholarship regarding the congregations and communities of believers who find themselves a part of this dynamic movement. This thesis takes a step towards understanding the larger story of the …

Chang (Beer): A Social Marker, Ritual Tool, And Multivalent Symbol In Tibetan Buddhism, Kayla J. Jenkins

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In this thesis, I analyze the use of beer (Tib. chang) in Tibetan tantric Buddhism and emphasize its importance for studying themes of purity and pollution, meaning, and power in this context. In doing so, I argue that beer functions as a social marker and influences gender dynamics in Tibet. Beer also functions as a religious ritual tool for transactions of power. Lastly, beer is present as a multivalent symbol in Tibetan tantric songs and stories, useful as both a negative and positive metaphor for qualities or states of mind. As something that informs social, religious, and literary worlds within …

How Internalized And Externalized Behaviors In Adolescents Impact Academic Achievement In Faith-Based Institutions, Subira Brown, Chioma Tait, Jade Callahan, Deyana Cox

Adventist Human-Subject Researchers Association

The purpose of this literature review is to address how internalized and externalized behaviors in adolescents impact academic achievement in faith-based institutions. This research intends to bring awareness to the prevalence of mental health concerns faced by adolescents, as well as the need for mental health services in the education system. This research will also identify the relationship between internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and academic achievement. Based on the findings, the next steps will be to evaluate the deficits within the Adventist school system and begin developing programs and resources necessary to support the mental health needs of children and …

Sinning Men, Sinful Places: Spatial Politics Of Moral Transgressions In The Franco-German Borderland, Oguz Alyanak

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Where do Muslim Turkish men who live in Strasbourg go after work? What are the kinds of places they socialize? Is it home? Is it the mosque? Or is it elsewhere, like coffeehouses, or wherever the car takes them in Strasbourg, and beyond, such as nightclubs, drinking alleys, bistro-casinos and brothels in Kehl and other neighboring German cities? And if it is the latter, and it rarely should be, as the imams would warn the pupils attending religious conversation circles, and the Friday sermons, how do these men justify their presence in these spaces? How do they reflect on their …

The Ontogeny Of Complex Tool Use Among Chimpanzees Of The Goualougo Triangle, Republic Of Congo, Stephanie L. Musgrave

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Various factors are hypothesized to have contributed to the flourishing of technology during human evolution, including high-fidelity social learning, a propensity for prosocial helping, and sex differences in foraging tool use. In this research, we examined the role of these factors on the development of complex tool-using skills among wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo. These apes exhibit among the most complex tool behaviors of any nonhuman animal, including the flexible use of multiple tool types and the manufacture of tools from specific raw materials, according to a particular design. Specifically, we drew upon …

Marriage, The Market, And Gendered (In)Securities In Kibera, Kenya, Elizabeth Ashley Wilson

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Based on more than two years of anthropological fieldwork, 157 household surveys, and 40 in-depth interviews, my dissertation research examines a conjugal form in Kenya known as “come-we-stay” marriage, or long-term intimate cohabitation that is often not seen as legitimate neither by the law nor kinship networks. Whereas various opinion leaders, from clergy to feminist organizations, have hailed come-we-stay as an affront to moral decency and women’s rights (respectively), women and men with whom I have conducted research in Nairobi’s Kibera slum emphasize the complexity of the issue and highlight the social, economic, and intimate challenges and benefits of their …

Mchugh, Walter (Fa 1297), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Oral Histories

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1297. Project titled “Weather Sayings and Ghost Stories,” which includes weather sayings and ghosts stories collected from WKU students and a faculty member in Warren County, Kentucky by WKU folk studies student Walter McHugh. Sheets may include saying, story, and informant name and location.

Bell, William Langston "Will," B. 1992 (Fa 1296), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1296. Student folk studies project titled “Games in the Minton Residence Hall of Western Kentucky University,” which includes games collected from Honors College students at the university. Interviews may include game descriptions and rules, and informant name and location. The digital files are stored in the Sound Archives.

Orangutan Infant Behavior: A Critical Component For Primate Conservation, Mia Sarkisian

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Orangutans, Pongo sp., are one of the four genera of the great apes (Pongo, Gorilla, Pan, and Homo). Orangutans are often differentiated from the other apes for their bright red fur. However, there are many factors which separate them from the other Great Apes. They are the only Asian great ape, residing in Indonesia and Malaysia, on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Orangutans are semi-solitary, arboreal brachiators, meaning that they live primarily alone and travel via swinging through trees (Thorpe and Crompton 2006). This allows them to cover a vast area in search for food. Adult …

Cultural Models Of Raça: The Calculus Of Brazilian Racial Identity Revisited, Henri J. François Dengah Ii, Jason A. Gilmore, Marcus Brasileiro, Anna S. Cohen, Elizabeth Bingham Thomas, Jenni Budge Blackburn, Mckayle Law, Jae Swainston, Richard Thomas

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Nearly 50 years ago, Marvin Harris published a seminal paper that examined how Brazilians create taxonomic categories of racial identity. In the intervening decades, new cognitive theories and analytical approaches have enabled researchers to investigate cultural domains with increased sophistication and nuance. In this paper, we revisit, replicate, and extend Harris’s research by utilizing modern cognitive anthropological approaches such as multidimensional scaling and cultural consensus analysis. Utilizing the same facial portraits as in the original study, we ask a contemporary sample of 34 Brazilians to identify and sort these images by racial identity. We then compare Harris’s original data, reanalyzed …

A Biocultural Examination Of Health Risk Among New Mexicans Of Spanish-Speaking Descent, Carmen Veronica Mosley

Anthropology ETDs

Individuals of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish (HLS) origin suffer disproportionately from higher poverty rates, less education, less access to health care, and greater risk factors for and prevalence of chronic diseases compared to their White counterparts. How health disparities emerge over the life course remains unclear. Allostatic load (AL) provides an approach in health research that utilizes a life course perspective and multi-system view of cumulative physiological, or health risk. AL is used to identify sociodemographic and biological factors that contribute to racial differences in health risk. However, AL is not widely used to explore causes of poorer health outcomes …

Microdamage As A Bone Quality Component: Practical Guidelines For The Two‐Dimensional Analysis Of Linear Microcracks In Human Cortical Bone, Victoria M. Dominguez, Amanda M. Agnew

Publications and Research

Microdamage is a component of bone quality believed to play an integral role in bone health. However, comparability between existing studies is fraught with issues due to highly variable methods of sample preparation and poorly defined quantification criteria. To address these issues, this article has two aims. First, detailed methods for preparation and analysis of linear microcracks in human ribs, specifically addressing troubleshooting issues cited in previous studies, are laid out. Second, new, partially validated criteria are proposed in an effort to reduce subjective differences in microcrack counts and measures, ensuring more comparable results between studies. Revised definitions based on …

The Medicalization Of Sleeplessness: Results Of U.S. Office Visit Outcomes, 2008–2015, Mairead Eastin Moloney, Gabriele Circiurkaite, Robyn Lewis Brown

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Previous analysis of U.S. physician office visits (1993–2007) indicated that the medicalization of sleeplessness was on the rise and had potentially negative implications for population health. Our study asks if the medicalization of sleeplessness at the level of patient-physician interaction has persisted over time. Using the most recent years available (2008–2015) of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey we calculated nationally representative estimates for four sleeplessness-related outcomes of physician office visits: sleeplessness complaint, insomnia diagnosis, and prescription of benzodiazepine and non-benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotics (NBSH). To test for the significance of the linear trajectory, we ran a series of bivariate linear models. …

Traversing Mass Tragedies: Material Religion Between The 9/11 And Newtown Memorials, Kate Deconinck

Journal of Global Catholicism

In keeping with recent anthropologists and scholars of religion who are re-imagining the phenomenon of pilgrimage as including more than just journeys to traditional “religious” sites, this article focuses on visitation to multiple sites of remembrance associated with mass tragedies. At the same time, my interest lies not only in the human actors who move between different memory sites, but also in the things that journey alongside or independent of them. In this article, I trace the movement of one particular object—an angel statue—that was initially created to memorialize individuals killed in the September 11 attacks and was later gifted …

Substituting Stories: Narrative Arcs And Pilgrimage Material Culture Between Lourdes And Csíksomlyó, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

In this essay, I propose that substitution is one way subjects situate themselves in relation to European Catholics’ growing interest in multiple pilgrimages. I elaborate this claim through a case study of one Transylvanian Hungarian Catholic woman, Emilia, who substituted a story about a Transylvanian Hungarian shrine, Our Lady of Csíksomlyó, for a story about the Lourdes pilgrimage in France. I set also Emilia’s experience within a social context of memory production in the World Family of Radio Mária, a global Catholic media network that promotes devotional remembering. Emilia’s story about Our Lady of Csíksomlyó had revealed the strain of …

In Pursuit Of Healing And Memories: Cross-Border Ukrainian Pilgrimage To A Polish Shrine, Iuliia Buyskykh

Journal of Global Catholicism

I present an analysis of Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Orthodox pilgrimages to Kalwaria Pacławska in south-east Poland near the Polish-Ukrainian border. Before World War II, there were two pilgrimage sites in Kalwaria Pacławska, one Roman Catholic and the other Greek Catholic. Today, Ukrainian pilgrimage is quite a diverse phenomenon, consisting of people of both Ukrainian and Polish origin, and the three Christian denominations. The approach to pilgrimage as a palimpsest can broaden the research perspective of mobile religiosities and reconsider the interactions between religious motivations, sacred sites, memories, experiences, and storytelling through space and time. In my research case, …

"This Is A Glimpse Of Paradise": Encountering Lourdes Through Serial And Multisited Pilgrimage, Michael Agnew

Journal of Global Catholicism

Based on fieldwork conducted with pilgrims traveling from England to the Marian apparition shrine of Lourdes, this article will focus on the experience of serial pilgrims, those who have made the journey to Lourdes repeatedly for several years. Serial pilgrimages to Lourdes are often a family affair, spanning multiple generations, and become compulsive for those who undertake them. Yet the stories of several Lourdes pilgrims reveal that they do not feel this compulsive need to go to Lourdes alone. Many frequently navigate the European circuit of Marian pilgrimage shrines, including Walsingham in England, Knock in Ireland, Fatima in Portugal, and …

Editors' Introduction, Marc Roscoe Loustau, Kate Deconinck

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

On The Productivity Of Pilgrimage Palimpsests: Traces And Translocations In An Expanding Field, Simon Coleman

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Explaining Variation And Change Among Late Pleistocene And Early Holocene Microblade-Based Societies In Northeastern Asia, Meng Zhang

Anthropology ETDs

This project aims to provide a culture-ecological explanation of variation and change among microblade-based societies in Northeastern Asia during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene between c. 30,000 - 6,000 years ago. Assuming that paleoenvironmental changes stimulated cultural changes due to available food resources and that local environment conditioned cultural variation, the development of microblade-based societies can be divided into four phases (c.30-22 kya, 22-15 kya, 15-10 kya, 10-c.1 kya uncal. BP) in four regions (north continental, south continental, north insular, and south insular).

The study’s macroecological approach based on Constructing Frames of Reference (Binford 2001) is applied to elucidate …