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Vibrations Of Maroons And Marronage In Caribbean History And Archaelogy, E. Kofi Agorsah

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

A discussion of the phenomenon of "resistance" as an important element in the shaping of the History of the New World, and the geographical distribution of Maroon resistance groups in the Caribbean and adjoining areas, introduces this paper. It is contended that historical and ethnographic evidence fail to adequately present the true picture of Maroon culture, considered as a only most important element that brings others together in a coherent way. Using evidence from Jamaica, it is illustrated that filling in the existing gap in our knowledge about Maroons and marronage as well as identification of cultural continuities and discontinuities, …

Redefining Maroon Heritage In The New World Studies, E. Kofi Agorsah

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Evidence from recent archaeological studies appear to suggest a redefinition of the heritage of runaway slave communities, referred to by the name Maroons and other terms. Now properly defined as the pioneer freedom fighters, it is also becoming clear that their heritage is a single constant strand in that of the New World. Contrary to previous views and descriptions which appear to indicate that these communities derived only from African slave escapees, historical and archaeological evidence from the Caribbean, and the Americas now reveal that the heritage of Maroon communities stemmed from the united force forged by between native American …

Performance Appraisal In Organizational Cultural Context, Unoda C. Moyo

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the relationship between an organization's culture and its performance appraisal (PA) system and process. The initial phase of this study involved examining an organization's culture and the properties of its performance appraisal system from organizational archival information. Information derived from this phase of the study was later utilized to formulate interview questions, guide the search for the organizational culture survey instrument, and to construct the performance appraisal perceptions measuring instrument. This latter instrument is a quantitative measure that was later employed in testing the primary hypothesis that stated the performance appraisal process had a positive effect on …

Spiritual Health: Association For The Advancement Of Health Education Instructors' Attitudes, Practices And Training, Susanne Meyer Christopher

Dissertations and Theses

Health education uses a holistic, multi-dimensional perspective (Hoyman, 1961; Donatelle, 1991; Hales, 1992). In recent years an emergent issue in health education is concern for disproportionate representation among the human dimensions--emotional, social, physical, intellectual, spiritual. Discussion occurs over the apparent underrepresentation of spiritual health in health education materials (Chandler & Kolander, 1990). While the professional literature contains articles discussing the under-representation of spiritual health (Jose & Taylor, 1986; Bensley, 1991), no empirical studies are available to assess the current status of spiritual health in health education materials or the spiritual health attitudes of health educators. This study provides empirical data …

The Decision And Rationale Which Led To Construction On High-Risk Land After The 1964 Alaska Earthquake: Analysis Of Risk-Based Cultural Dissociation, Sheila Ann Selkregg

Dissertations and Theses

Many lives and much property are lost in disasters when individuals and communities choose to ignore information which could mitigate the potential disaster. This case study examines community and individual decision processes and rationale which led to construction of a high-occupancy high-rise courthouse on land designated as high risk after the 1964 Alaska earthquake. The study reviews policy and decision making, psychology, and risk management literature to explore the psychological mechanisms and processes of hazard mitigation decisions.

It questions why individuals and communities choose not to mitigate when they have the information which makes risk mitigation possible. The hypothesis theorizes …

1994 Commencement Program, A. Gary Ames

Commencement Archives 1990-99

The program for the Portland State University Spring Commencement ceremony on June 11, 1994.

A. Gary Ames, communications executive and Portland State alumnus, received an honorary degree and delivered the commencement address.

"I Don't Speak My Own Language": Ethnicity Among The Malayalees Of Singapore, David L. Moore

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is an ethnographic examination of the significance of Malayalee ethnicity in Singapore. Ethnic identity is important in the daily lives of Singaporeans, due in part to the government-directed public focus in Singapore on the ideal of multiculturalism through which it is asserted that to be Singaporean, one must be, in the main, Chinese, Malay, or Indian. But other identities, such as Malayalee, a subset of the larger category "Indian", have not decreased in importance. They, in fact, remain important in identifying what kind of Chinese, Malay, or Indian a person is, as Chinese, Malay, or Indian identifies what …

Technological Organization And Sedentism: Expedient Core Reduction, Stockpiling, And Tool Curation At The Meier Site (35co5), Stephen Coursault Hamilton

Dissertations and Theses

The Meier site fine-grained lithic assemblage was used to test the hypothesis that a sedentary group will rely heavily on expedient lithic technologies because they stockpile raw material at the residence. At Meier, expedient core reduction provided blanks for a significant number of curated and expedient tools. I propose that sedentism (stockpiling) minimizes energy investments in raw material procurement and blank production while maintaining the ability to efficiently make both curated and expedient tools. Investment in curation is limited to a few tool classes with specialized functions, not transportable design variables.

Smallpox In The Pacific Northwest: The First Epidemics, Robert T. Boyd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article examines the first epidemics of small pox in the Pacific Northwest.

Pacific Northwest Measles Epidemic Of 1847-1848, Robert T. Boyd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Most students of Pacific Northwest history are familiar with the 1847-48 measles epidemic because of its association with the killing of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman by Cayuse Indians, on November 29, 1847, at a missionary site some four miles west of present-day Walla Walla, Washington. It is also generally known that, prior to the violence, the epidemic had ravaged the Cayuse who then lived near the Whitmans' Waiilatpu Mission. And, finally, it has been widely thought that the disease was brought to the region by American migrants traveling over the Oregon Trail. This relatively well-known story about what has come …

Culture And Consensus: The Use Of Mathematical Models To Examine A Culture Of Sports In The Portland Metropolitan Area, Phillip M. Crawford

Dissertations and Theses

The question of what constitutes a culture has often been answered in one phrase: shared knowledge. Recent developments in both the theory and mathematics of examining this shared cultural knowledge allow researchers to produce mathematical models of informants' knowledge and perceptions of the culture they belong to. Many studies in cognitive anthropology have utilized these theoretical and mathematical tools: the present research sought to integrate a research design (based on the theory and mathematics mentioned above) with a relatively new cultural domain: the culture of sports.

Three main question pertaining to cultural knowledge were addressed in this research:

1. Did an …

Review Of "Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People In Shanghai 1850-1980" By Emily Honig, Sharon A. Carstens

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Book review of "Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai 1850-1980" by Emily Honig, published by Yale University Press, New Haven, 1992.

The Spatial Distribution Of Ground Stone Tools As A Marker Of Status Differentials In A Chinookan Plank House On The Lower Columbia River, John William Wolf

Dissertations and Theses

Social status was an integral part of the social structure of Northwest Coast societies. The presence of ranked social structures and household space based on rank is reported in the ethnographic literature. Archaeologists have long searched for independent and verifiable means to infer social structure from archaeological deposits. Burial goods have been used to identify status differences. Do other items of material culture also reflect such differences?

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether or not the distribution of certain tools recovered from a Chinookan plank house on the lower Columbia River paralleled the household residence location that …

Persistence Influences On The Minority Student Attending A Predominantly White Postsecondary Urban Institution: The Student Perspective, Annmarie O'Brien

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation is an examination of influences that have contributed to the retention of a group of minority students attending a predominately white postsecondary institution. The focus of the study is on the students' perspectives and the meaning and personal interpretation students draw from influences that impinge upon them and from their interactions with the college experience. From a sociological perspective this view and emphasis on meaning is described as the sociology of everyday life. The component of the sociology of everyday life which directed the methodology is symbolic interactionism. The data collection instrument was a focused interview. Variables from …

Ethnic Identity Changes Among Hong Kong Chinese Americans, Pui-Lam Lo

Dissertations and Theses

During the last ten years, the number of Hong Kong Chinese migrating to the U.S. has increased. These new immigrants, with knowledge and life experiences shaped by the urban metropolis of Hong Kong, have begun to influence different aspects of Chinese communities in U.S. cities. A study of this group of Hong Kong Chinese provides a better understanding of how they have adapted to their new environment and how they have come to recognize themselves as Hong Kong Chinese Americans. In reviewing the available literature, very few studies have dealt with the identity changes of this group of people. Hence, …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet November 1993, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The November 1993 Monthly packet includes the November agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held October 1993.

This Looks Like An Old Point: Time And Projectile Points In The Tualatin Valley, Oregon, Linda Lani Freidenburg

Dissertations and Theses

Little is known about the time depth of human occupation in the Tualatin Valley. Archaeological investigations have produced no absolute dates for the few sites tested. Projectile points collected from the Ibach and Heynderickx farms in the Tualatin Valley show similarities to early point styles from sites in the Pacific Northwest dating from 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. To determine how old the Ibach and Heynderickx sites are, the undated collections of 107 Ibach points and 119 Heynderickx points are compared to two established chronological projectile point sequences, which had been constructed using the relative dating technique of frequency seriation. …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet June 1993, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The June 1993 Monthly packet includes the June agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held May 1993.

Nanny Town Excavations: Rewriting Jamaica's History?, E. Kofi Agorsah

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The main objectives of the study of maroon communities are: to obtain archaeological data that can be used for the interpretation of the socio-cultural patterns of the behavior of the Maroons; to determine the factors that contribute to the location and character of Maroon settlements; and to obtain material for dating and providing a chronological framework for the origins and development of maroon heritage in Jamaica The overall objective is to identify the character and mechanism of the functional adaptation of Maroon societies in Jamaica over time.

Lexicography In West Africa: Preparing A Bilingual Kisi-English Dictionary, George Tucker Childs

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents some of the issues involved in preparing a bilingual dictionary for Kisi, an underdocumented language spoken in West Africa. Because the language possesses little in the way of literacy materials, fundamental issues as to orthography, word division, etc., had to be considered. In addition, no grammar of the language (or its closest congeners) was available and thus basic grammatical analysis had to be performed simultaneously. I briefly consider some of these problems, discussing the use of the lexical data base programs known as LEXWARE. I then focus on the specific problems raised by the expressive word class …

Towards Comprehensive Migration Modeling: A Meta-Analytic Approach, Wamukota Francis Wambalaba

Dissertations and Theses

In view of theoretical proliferations in migration studies, there is a need for a more comprehensive approach to migration modeling. A central problem identified in this study was the multitude of potential variables for migration research and the lack of established procedures for selecting among them. Several studies on migration have attempted to answer cornmon migration questions, but with differing variables and therefore divergent conclusions. There is thus a strong potential for misinterpretation by researchers and policy makers. Partial theories of migration have been developed rather than a unified one. This study offers an objective process through which variables may …

Archaeological Considerations On Social Dynamics And Spatial Pattern Development Of Traditional Settlements, E. Kofi Agorsah

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

One fascinating aspect of archaeological analysis is the explanation of the frequency with which material manifestations of man's behaviour are bonded together. The complexity of the interconnections and associations makes it even more challenging and exciting. Areal variations of the relationships between cultural phenomena are so numerous that archaeologists have, over the centuries, looked for regularities or patterning among distributions of these material manifestations. It is not the patterns that are recognised nor the fact that their distribution varies from place to place that is of greatest interest. Rather it is the past behaviour of the society concerned that is …

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: The Pacific Northwest is ripe for a major quake in the not-so-distant future; layoffs and job cutbacks will persist in the new administration, but this may not be the best way for companies to go; does the Metropolitan Service District represent a loss of local control or a boon for delivery of regional services?; a PSU alumna has helped organize diaries from the Oregon Trail as a volunteer for the Oregon Historical Society; and more.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet December 1992, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The December 1992 Monthly packet includes the December agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held November 1992.

1992 Commencement Program, Alcena Boozer

Commencement Archives 1990-99

The program for the Portland State University Spring Commencement ceremony on June 6, 1992.

Alcena Boozer, M.S., principal of Jefferson High School in Portland, delivered the commencement address.

Monsters Of Antithesis, Melody Leming-Wilson

Anthós Journal (1990-1996)

This paper traces and interrogates the multiple theories of matriarchy that have arisen in recent years and then turns to the Greek myths to show how matriarchies functioned in this literature. The theories of matriarchy often stem from the pre-Hellenic stories of matriarchy shown in Greek myths. In addition, these theories often suggest that the colonizing force of Indo-Europeans changed these myths into patriarchical ones. The Amazonian women can be seen to upset the patriarchal myth in important and interesting ways which suggest a matriarchal underpinning to their society. The question of whether a historical matriarchy actually existed is shown …

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: Retirement for many senior adults means more time for travel, leisure—and study; Professor Jon Mandaville was an international news source as archaeologists in Oman uncovered the fabled city of Ubar; in the face of budget cuts, will state and local services—the nail and shoes—support long-term planning goals for Oregon—the horse and rider?; growing up in Ethiopia has given alumna Jan Kurtz a unique perspective as director of the American Advertising Museum; and more.

Objectivity In The Interpretation Of The Archaeology Of Ghana, E. Kofi Agorsah

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

One of the desires of the majority of archaeologists is to obtain from their analyses an objective knowledge of the societies they study. However, the mere desire to obtain objectivity does not ensure its attainment especially where biases cannot be controlled. Added to this difficulty of obtaining objectivity is that not only is the subject matter of archaeology vast and varied, but also archaeologists disagree on directions of study and interpretations, and in many cases very few scholars attempt to put themselves at a standpoint from which to measure the inadequacies and unevenness of their interpretations. Fundamental to interpretations in …

Human Services Training In Tribal Colleges, Richard H. Dana, Rodger Hornby

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

Tribal colleges are providing interdisciplinary education and professional training for human services occupations at the undergraduate level. These programs also promote cultural competence as a result of required courses in tribal languages, history, culture and law. The Sinte Gelska University program is described as an example of the role of tribal college education in emphasizing cultural identity using a culture-specific instructional style and teaching method. These programs in tribal colleges will augment the availability of competent service to native Americans.

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: The university is grappling with some tough questions as it initiates a new diversity course requirement; students are learning more than music from Oregon Symphony trumpeter and faculty member Fred Sautter; the School of Education is making vast changes in the way it teaches teachers; a single mother of three is back in school with help from a new scholarship; and more.