Digital Commons Network^™

“Their Markers As They Go”: Modified Trees As Waypoints In The Dena’Ina Cultural Landscape, Alaska, Douglas Deur, Jamie Hebert

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Inland Dena’ina, an Athabaskan people of south-central Alaska, produce and value Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) in myriad ways. Ethnographic interviews and field visits conducted with Inland Dena’ina residents of the village of Nondalton, Alaska, reveal the centrality of CMTs in the creation and valuation of an Indigenous cultural landscape. CMTs serve as waypoints along trails, as Dena’ina people travel across vast distances to hunt wide-ranging caribou herds and fish salmon ascending rivers from Bristol Bay. CMTs also provide bark and sap used in Dena’ina material culture and medicines, leaving signature marks upon the spruce, birch, and other trees found …

Between “Us” And “Them”: Political Subjectivities In The Shadows Of The 2018 Brazilian Election, Charles H. Klein, Milena Mateuzi Carmo, Alessandra Tavares

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article examines political subjectivities, community engagements and voting practices among residents of São Paulo’s Zona Sul peripheries in the three years preceding Brazil’s 2018 presidential election. Building on a 398-person household survey, 46 in-depth interviews, and extensive participation observation over the course of a fouryear study, we argue that although most residents of our study communities across the political spectrum are disenchanted with institutional politics, many maintain political engagement through their everyday lives, including activism centered on intersectional identities and state-sponsored violence/genocide. Our discussion combines statistical analysis and auto-ethnographic inflected vignettes and is in dialogue with two common themes …

Walking Dena’Ina: A Cultural Landscape Report For The Telaquana Trail, Douglas Deur, Jamie Hebert, John Branson, Tricia Brown

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Telaquana Trail is an ancient pathway ascending from the shores of Qizhjeh Vena, Lake Clark, through tundra and timbered valleys, into a high-elevation expanse of rolling tundra and smaller interior lakes nearly 50 miles north of Lake Clark. The pathway is an ancestral corridor used by Native peoples since the beginning of remembered time. Though the archaeological record of the trail is still coming into focus, it lends us important clues about the trail and how it was used. For example, archaeological evidence at places like Twin Lakes and Snipe Lake suggests that ancestral Native communities occupied and traveled …

Curriculum Change 2020-2021, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

Interview With Barbara Tint, Barbara Tint, Patricia A. Schechter

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Barbara Tint was interviewed by Patricia Schechter on May 29, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are Alex Berg, Cleophas Chambliss, Oona Fisher Campbell, Jake Hutchins, Alex Ibarra, Lady J, Liza Schade, and Stephanie Vallance.

In this interview, Tint describes her path to academia through working as a counselor and with conflict resolution in a number of international settings. The discussion takes a theoretical turn when students inquired about the philosophical underpinnings of Tint's work.

Interview With Marvin Kaiser, Marvin Kaiser, Oona Fisher Campbell

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Marvin Kaiser was interviewed by Oona Fisher Campbell on May 15, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are Patricia Schechter and Cleophas Chambliss.

In this interview, Kaiser, who has a background in social work, discusses the structural obstacles in our society that create conflict and emphasizes the role that the university and higher education in general can play as a community public service.

The Geographies Of Intermediation: Labor Intermediaries, Labor Migration, And Cane Harvesting In Rural Western India, Pronoy Rai

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, I explain the role of labor intermediaries in the weaving of capital–labor relations in capitalist agro-business. I do so by focusing on migration infrastructure or the vertical network of labor intermediaries who facilitate labor recruitment from migrant home villages and migrant labor disciplining on cane fields in rural western India, where the laborers are brought seasonally to harvest sugarcane. I show how the role of labor intermediaries cannot be understood by containing them within the villainous stereotypes associated with brokers. Intermediaries are embedded within the labor geographies of commodity production where capital accumulation requires the downward transferring …

Repairing Historicity, Bennett Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper advances a fresh theorization of historicity. The word and concept of historicity has become so widespread and popular that they have ceased to have definite meaning and are used to stand for unsupported notions of the values inherent in human experience. This paper attempts to repair the concept by re-defining it as the temporal aspect of the interdependence of life; having history is to have a life intertwined with the lives of all others and with the universe. After separating out the looser uses, surveying some of the literature, and defining what needs to be done, the paper …

A Mixed Methods Analysis Of Corpus Data From Reddit Discussions Of "Gay Voice", Sara Elizabeth Mulliner

Dissertations and Theses

In the last decade, there have been a number of public discussions about "gay voice" and "sounding gay." These two phrases often serve as a shorthand for the belief that a listener can determine the sexuality of a speaker based on phonetic qualities found in a speaker's vocal output. However, these expressions are more accurately described as "catch-all" terms for speech that may contain features associated with non-gender conforming stances and personae. Notions about gender and sexuality could be intertwined in complicated ways in this language ideology. Investigating popular discussions of gay-sounding voices could provide information on what people are …

"An Idolatry Of Sound" : Nature, The Natural, And The Castrato's Body In The Eighteenth Century, Caitlin Elizabeth Pala

Dissertations and Theses

The castrati--Italian men castrated before puberty in order to retain their high singing voice--were Europe's first superstars, reaching the height of their popularity in the first few decades of the eighteenth century. While only a tiny percentage of the European population, the castrati embodied many of the significant medical and philosophical questions of the Enlightenment that aimed to understand humanity: human emotion, physiology, sexuality, and culture. As a part of the ongoing debate over what was "natural," the castrati hold an interesting place. At the broadest level, the very existence of the castrati asked what it was to be a …

Bone Mineral Density Of The Common Bottlenose Dolphin, Tursiops Truncatus: A Proposed Model For Monitoring Osteological And Ecosystem Health, James Wright Burrus Powell

Dissertations and Theses

Bone mineral density (BMD) in the pectoral flipper of the common bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, was examined to address the need to define a comprehensive target site for clinical osteodensitometric assessment and to establish ranges of observed bone density values for this species. Radii were analyzed using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), the accepted standard in human medical studies. Multiple loci within the radius were identified and assessed for their correlation to BMD of the entire bone. Radii BMD were also examined for differences based on sex, age, total body length, handedness, geographical affinity, and nutritional status at time …

Student Voice In A Participatory Design Process Focused On Developing Equity-Based Stem Teaching Practices, Frank Heimerdinger

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study with second grade students in a mid-sized city in the Northwest was to examine an equity-based STEM teaching practice and design process that builds on student's voice in the context of an elementary school. Teaching practice innovations were designed using a participatory process drawing on student voice and experience, culturally responsive pedagogy, STEM content, and teaching practices. The students collaborated with the teacher to design and enact equity-based STEM teaching practice innovations and gave necessary and appropriate feedback regarding its efficacy in creating equitable and empowering learning experiences from their own perspective. A specific goal …

How Urban Land Use Contributes To Inequitable Health Outcomes: An Interdisciplinary Review & Analysis, Bliss Storm Croton

University Honors Theses

Using existing literature as a basis for initial review, this paper seeks to explore the relationship between urban land use and socioeconomic status as both pertain to the prevalence of psychological health diagnoses among neighborhood residents. The purpose of this analysis is to investigate the combined literature from multiple areas of research in order to gain a more holistic, up-to-date scope of knowledge regarding how discriminatory neighborhood land use may result in poorer psychological health outcomes for urban populations. By utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, some of the locally relevant, long-term impacts of uneven development and environmental injustice are examined based …

The Many Wives Of General August V. Kautz: Colonization In The Pacific Northwest, 1853-1895, Nicole Ann Kindle

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is about the colonization of the West, with an emphasis on the Pacific Northwest from 1853 to 1895. It analyzes the historical processes occurring as America expanded westward through the lens of the Kautz family. August Kautz and his wives tell the story of colonization through unique and vastly different ways. This thesis argues that a microanalysis of the Kautz family history tells a greater story of colonization, one rife with complicated layers influenced by race, class, and societal expectations that shaped individual roles within colonization.

August Kautz was a lieutenant when he first arrived in the Pacific …

The Impact Of Integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge In Summer Camps On Middle School Students' Understanding Of The Nature Of Science, SapoóQ'Is WiíIt'es Ciarra Solina Greene

Dissertations and Theses

The Nature of Science (NOS) and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) have commonalities in the knowledge bases: they are both ways of explaining the natural world; founded on a set of practices and the historical accumulation of knowledge; and part of the education is learning practices and developing knowledge of the concepts that are foundational to the disciplines. Throughout the United States, schools are attempting to strengthen students' understanding of NOS through various approaches, although few have adopted the integration of TEK into curriculum. This research assesses two summer camps for middle school students that are science focused, one with TEK …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet October 2019, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The October 2019 Monthly packet includes the October agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held June 3, 2019.

E-Grocery Home Delivery Impacts On Food Distribution, Access And Equity: A Portland Case Study, Miguel Figliozzi, Katherine Keeling

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The adoption of e-grocery home delivery (HD) has the potential to change social norms of acquiring household foods and sundries. This case study of Portland, OR reviews the new elements of distribution, inclusion, exclusion, and value created by the service of four major e-grocery businesses: Shipt, Instacart, Amazon Prime Now, and Walmart. These e-grocers are reviewed in terms of service areas, pricing, and inventory choice, as these are key factors on consumer experience. New distribution services are not confided or distributed around traditional industrial or wholesale land use areas. Coverage is extensive, in the Portland metropolitan statistical area, 94% of …

When God Put Daylight On Earth We Had One Voice': Kwakwaka'wakw Perspectives On Sustainability And The Rights Of Nature, Douglas Deur, Kim Recalma-Clutesi, Adam Dick

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this chapter the authors ask: How are the 'Rights of Nature' truly manifested in an indigenous context? We contend that one especially illuminating example can be found in the teaching of the Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl) people of coastal British Columbia. The Kwakwaka'wakw are among the most studied indigenous people in Americas, and are thus a key reference point, providing a rich tradition that is widely known and accessible through accounts of past anthropologists and a handful of living experts.

The authors of this article all speak from deep groundings in Kwakwaka'wakw tradition.

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: Winners of the PSU Cleantech Challenge; Oregon’s vote-by-mail system as a national model; the BUILD EXITO program creates the next generation of health researchers; PSU’s Black Studies program turns 50; retired professor Laureen Nussbaum elevates Anne Frank’s literary prowess and her own story of survival; regional teacher of the year, Mercedes Muñoz; and more.

Disability At The Intersections, Dara Shifrer, Angela Frederick

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Complete and accurate understandings of stratification depend on more regular consideration of disability. To build sociologists’ recognition of disability as a socially constructed axis of stratification, we first demonstrate the construction of the disability category through classic legitimating processes: moral attributions, biological attributions, separation, and dichotomization. Expanding understandings of basic processes of stratification, we then document the centrality of disability in the social construction of class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and age. Finally, we show various ways disability functions as an axis of stratification in intersection with other key axes of stratification.

The Tangle Of Institutional Care And Control At A Shelter For Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth, Liat Tzvia Mayer

Dissertations and Theses

My cultural anthropology master's thesis focuses on the workings of Inanna House, an emergency shelter/residential program for commercially sexually exploited (CSEC) youth in Portland, Oregon. In the summer of 2017, I did participant observation and interviewed youth and direct care staff members at the CSEC shelter I had been working at for 2 years. I begin by situating ideas about domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) within larger historical, legal, economic, and political contexts. I consider concepts of childhood, race, class, gender, and sexuality on the story of DMST in the United States.

Next, I explore the ways humans and institutions …

Do Corporate Owned Adaptive Learning Platforms Perpetuate Banking Style Learning? Integrating Technology For Activism Into Transformational Sustainability Education, Tina M. Garner

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

We live in a world that tends to be controlled by corporations. The public school system should be wary of the problems that corporate control has on education. Even though public schools should not have corporate influence, the fact remains that they do, and this perpetuates Freire's banking style learning. Through time, the corporate influence in education was through educational materials such as book sales. Since the decline of the use of books and the growth of the use of technologies, corporations have followed suit through the sales of Adaptive Learning Platforms. Through leveraging the technology which students enjoy using, …

Other-Initiated Other-Repair: Repair Organization While Playing A Place-Based Augmented-Reality Game, Adam C. Okoye

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Building on research on repair (Schegloff et. al. 1977) and repair among groups with varying levels of language proficiency (Brower et. al., 2004; Hosoda 2000, 2001, 2006; Kuhilla 2005; Theodórsdóttir 2018), this paper investigates how small groups organize other-initiated other-repair while playing an augmented reality (AR) game. Typical other-initiated other-repair organization follows a six-step trajectory which includes pauses to allow for self-initiation and self-repair (Schegloff et. al. 1977). The ability for participants to have the opportunity to perform self-initiated self-repair or other-initiated self-repair is important, because other-initiated other-repair is inherently face threatening (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Svennevig, 2008). My data …

"I Don't Want To Be Ashamed, I Want To Learn About My History": Racial Isolation In Portland’S White Schools, Rae R. Stevenson

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Students of color in predominantly white school systems face significant challenges in their path to positive racial identity development due to racial isolation. Their journeys through the education system are impacted by a lack of same-race peers and educators, and the challenges they face are amplified by neighborhoods that are equally devoid of same-race community members. This paper explores the experiences of self-identified members of the African diaspora in predominantly white schools in Portland, Oregon. Their stories were collected through semi-structured qualitative interviews. Analysis is informed by critical, feminist and constructivist perspectives, and utilizes a narrative approach. The experiences shared …

How Does Wasta Bolster Regimes? The Case Of Tunisia, Issrar Chamekh

Dissertations and Theses

This paper aims to highlight the impact of democratization on wasta by examining the everyday performance of wasta, or the use of connections and informal networks to acquire services. Despite its widespread use, I find that it is understudied as an explanatory variable in the literature on democratization and authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa, with Tunisia as a case study. In this paper, I argue that wasta can potentially have a consolidating effect on regimes. I examine the ways that wasta is encoded in everyday language. Using literature from Pragmatics, specifically Goffman's dramaturgical model, I find that …

Tragic Ways Of Killing A Lesbian: A Synchronic Analysis, Taylor D. Watt

University Honors Theses

Following an increase in queer characters over the last few decades, representation of the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, etc.) community on television has become a particularly rich field of inquiry for interdisciplinary scholars. One area of interest, the death of contemporary lesbian characters, remains fairly underdeveloped. This thesis attempts to identify structural patterns in the deaths of lesbian characters by subjecting their narrative arcs to structural analysis, specifically a method of linguistic analysis developed by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. I identify structural patterns in the deaths of 6 lesbian characters which took place between the years …

Seasonal Masculinities: Seasonal Labor Migration And Masculinities In Rural Western India, Pronoy Rai

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this research article, I study seasonal labor migration in rural western India to understand gender negotiations in the course of labor migration. Based on qualitative research conducted in six villages in rural Maharashtra state in Western India during the early Kharif cropping season in 2014 and during Kharif and Rabi cropping seasons in 2015–16, I examine gendered labor in migrant home communities and at various rural and urban employment destinations, the relationship of labor to the social construction of masculinities, and gender negotiations across space. I show that in their home communities, the politics of resistance of returnee laborers …

Toxic Chemical Governance Failure In The United States: Key Lessons And Paths Forward, Ariana M. Chiapella, Zbigniew Grabowski, Mary Ann Rozance, Ashlie D. Denton, Manar A. Alattar, Elise F. Granek

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over 40 years of regulations in the United States have failed to protect human and environmental health. We contend that these failures result from the flawed governance over the continued production, use, and disposal of toxic chemicals. To address this failure, we need to identify the broader social, political, and technological processes producing, knowing, and regulating toxic chemicals, collectively referred to as toxic chemical governance. To do so, we create a conceptual framework covering five key domains of governance: knowledge production, policy design, monitoring and enforcement, evaluation, and adjudication. Within each domain, social actors of varying power negotiate what constitutes …

Raps Sheet, Summer 2019, Retirement Association Of Portland State

RAPS Sheet: Monthly Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Barriers To Community Gardening In Portland, Or, Jullian Michael Schrup

University Honors Theses

This paper analyzes structural, social and cultural barriers to community gardening in Portland, Oregon. Both the majority of Portland's demographics and the majority of its community gardeners are white, with much of the minority populations being progressively gentrified and displaced outside of the urban center. Exasperating this displacement is Portland's uneven investment in sustainable and green infrastructure in a process currently being studied as eco-gentrification. In tandem with the eco-gentrification literature, there is growing evidence that urban agriculture and community gardens disproportionately benefit white middle-class individuals through exclusionary spaces that omit minority participation. Portland's community garden participation of black and …