Digital Commons Network^™

Urbanism And North American Funerary Practices, Rebecca Marrall

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Urbanism is a way of life for those who reside in a densely inhabited area with a heterogeneous human population. The diversity of cultures, worldviews and practices found in urban areas combine in a form of cultural mixing. The urban amalgamation of cultures raises the question of how urban dwellers process their dead. Indeed, does urbanism influence regional death rituals and funerary practices? Other elements such as urban zoning laws, funerary technology or land scarcity add further dimensions to the original question. In short, do urban funerary practices and death rituals differ precisely because they are urban? My research examines …

Inciting Social Change Through Film: Using Marcus Banks’S Definition Of Ethnographic Film To Discuss The Films Of Participant Productions, Marie Loeb

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

This article examines films produced by Participant Productions: Murderball, Good Night, and Good Luck, North Country, Syriana, and An Inconvenient Truth, using the three aspects— "intention", "event", and "reaction" as outlined by Marcus Banks (1992) to define an ethnographic film.

Faculty Mentor: Janice Haaken

Towards A Tool For Measuring Student Role Mastery, Collin Fellows

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

The role of "college student" is an uncertain one for all freshmen, but some students come into the education system not sharing the common understanding of how to best enact that role. This study will look at new ways of measuring expertise in, and mastery of the role of college student. I will explore the possibility of using Cultural Consensus as a measuring rod of how well entering students understand this role. Finding such a tool can be of use both in predicting success and in developing specific interventions for those who might otherwise drop out of school.

Faculty Mentors: …

The Lents International Farmer’S Market: A Case And Comparative Study, Sarah Egan

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

The Lents neighborhood is a designated urban renewal area that has historically lacked access to ample grocery stores offering fresh produce. The Lents International Farmer’s Market enhances health and community by providing a community space to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. Examining the Lents International Farmer’s Market is an invaluable opportunity to learn more about consumer shopping behavior and market expectations. This study also seeks to identify vendor opportunities and barriers when establishing themselves as retailers at Lents International Farmer’s Market. From both a business and consumer perspective, it is crucial for the market’s survival to gain a sense what …

Front Matter Volume 4, 2010, Mcnair Scholars Program

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Front matter includes program background, Table of Contents, and a complete listing of 2010 Portland State McNair Scholars.

Shifting Identities In A Globalising Metro Manila, Patrick Belin

University Honors Theses

This paper investigates the Philippine capital of Metro Manila, how it has been redeveloping as a "global city" over the past decade, and how the urban population has been negotiating the remarkable changes to their spatial, economic and sociocultural environment. The investigation assumes that a shift is occurring in the way that Filipinos identify with their country, moving from a national to a more international focus. Examined here are Metro Manila's premier global city site, Bonifacio Global City (BGC), public symbols of a Filipino nationalism, and the significant impact of the Philippine business process outsourcing (BPO) industry within the country's …

Constructs Of Freedom And Identity: The Ethnogenesis Of The Jamaican Maroons And The Treaties Of 1739, Jessica Krug

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

This article is a study of the Maroons communities in eighteenth-century Jamaica. The Maroons did not end the institution of slavery, but they ended the condition of their own enslavement, and so made possible such actions as the successful revolt in Haiti, which, ultimately, collapsed racialized slavery in the New World. Understanding the ethnogenesis of the Jamaican Maroons provides an excellent opportunity for people to escape the narrow duality of victim-and-oppressor which most often shapes discussion of the history of slavery.

Faculty Mentor: John Ott

Another Visit To Red And Blue States, Jason Gary Damron

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

In this paper, I will be examining how the political right in the United States—those in the "red states"—have redefined political discourse to shift focus away from material concerns and onto issues of the “family”—actually a code name for arousing fears around topics of sexuality. Unfortunately, the left—those in the "blue states"—have been surprisingly complicit in this shift in focus, allowing so-called cultural (and especially sexual) issues to eclipse real, material concerns facing most U.S. citizenry.

Faculty Mentors: Marcia Klotz and Cherry Muhanji

Raps Sheet, September 2013, Retirement Association Of Portland State

RAPS Sheet: Monthly Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Plant Management Systems Of British Columbia's First Peoples, Nancy J. Turner, Douglas Deur, Dana Lepofsky

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article provides an overview of the diverse plant resource management strategies of First Nations of British Columbia. Management practices range from relatively large-scale (geographically) and longterm activities – such as the use of fire to clear prairies and subalpine meadows – to very focused actions, such as the pruning of individual shrubs. We describe plant resource management practices and the diverse methods used to identify them, and focus on three case studies to augment this description. These case studies exemplify the range of plants and ecosystems that were managed as well as the combinations of strategies and outcomes encompassed …

Tracking Fish And Human Response To Abrupt Environmental Change At Tse-Whit-Zen: A Large Native American Village On The Olympic Peninsula, Washington State, Kathryn Anne Mohlenhoff

Dissertations and Theses

Evidence of large earthquakes occurring along the Pacific Northwest coast is reflected in coastal stratigraphy from Oregon to British Columbia, where there also exists an extensive archaeological record of Native American occupation. Tse-whit-zen, a large Native American village dating between 1824 and 54 cal B.P. located on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, was excavated with exceptionally fine stratigraphic control allowing for precise comparison of natural and cultural records. Here I report on the >10,000 fish remains from one 2x2 m excavation block; this assemblage spans one earthquake event, allowing study of changes in relative taxonomic abundance through time that …

The Politics Of Fertility: Population And Pronatalism In Ladakh, Jennifer Aengst

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In India’s northwestern region of Ladakh, the linkage between reproduction, politics, and fertility is both complicated and contested, evident in increasing population discourses and the re-emergence of a Buddhist pronatalist movement. This paper examines the impacts of population discourses and pronatalism on women’s reproductive decision-making, as well as on the delivery of healthcare throughout Ladakh. Population discourses currently circulating produce two reproductive subjects—the “hyper-fertile Muslim woman” and the “vulnerable Buddhist”—both of which have been central in revitalizing Buddhist pronatalism. Data collected through a hospital-based survey and interviews shows that fertility behavior is shaped by religious interpretations, political mobilization, and pressure …

First-Generation Latinos At Pacific Northwest University: Their Adjustment And Experience During Freshman Year, Marco Antonio Aguirre

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis details the lived experiences of ten first-generation Latino students at a large public university in the Pacific Northwest. Their experience and adjustment reveal that they relied on their friends and family, especially their parents for the male participants, for support and encouragement. The help these students received in the form of caring and social capital from faculty and staff during their freshman year ensured that they made a successful adjustment to college. Participants cite influential people and programs that motivated them to succeed and become comfortable in the college student role.

Contesting Sustainability: Bikes, Race, And Politics In Portlandia, Amy Lubitow, Thaddeus R. Miller

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite decade old calls for a "just sustainability," urban sustainability policy and practice remains oriented toward environmental outcomes and eco-lifestyle projects. Notions of equity, justice, and inclusion continue to be marginalized in favor of technological solutions, such as green buildings, that are visible, easy to implement, and help to promote economic development. By examining a controversy over a bikeway development project in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Portland, Oregon, this article explores how despite apolitical appeals to broadly shared values or visions of what a sustainable city ought to look like, sustainability projects can be—and perhaps should be—hotly contested. …

An Archaeology Of Capitalism: Exploring Ideology Through Ceramics From The Fort Vancouver And Village Sites, Dana Lynn Holschuh

Dissertations and Theses

The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), a mercantile venture that was founded by royal charter in 1670, conceived, constructed and ran Fort Vancouver as its economic center in the Pacific Northwest, a colonial outpost at the edge of the company's holdings in North America. Research into the history of the HBC revealed that the company was motivated by mercantile interests, and that Fort Vancouver operated under feudal land policies while steadily adopting a hierarchical structure.

Following the work of Marxist archaeologist Mark Leone whose work in Annapolis, Maryland explored the effects of capitalist ideology on archaeological assemblages of ceramics, this study …

The Best Things In Museums Are The Windows, Harrell Fletcher

The Best Things in Museums are the Windows

"As an Exploratorium Artist-in-Residence I created a project that involved traveling for four days with a group of participants from the end of the museum’s building across the Bay in a sail boat and then walking from Emeryville to the top of Mt Diablo. The trip covered about forty miles. In the group of participants were Exploratorium staff, scientists and members of the public. Each participant and various invited people along the way did presentations on topics related to the areas we were traveling through. Additional members of the public connected with the core group at more than a dozen …

Book Review Of, Cautionary Tales: Strategy Lessons From Struggling Colleges, Karen J. Haley

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article reviews the book "Cautionary Tales Strategy Lessons from Struggling Colleges," by Alice W. Brown.

Returning To Learn: Research And The Prodigal Student, Emily Ford, Meredith G. Farkas, Molly Blalock-Koral

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

Returning students - those with a significant lapse in time during their formal education - make up a large and growing percentage of the student population at Portland State University (PSU). Over 40% of PSU undergraduates are over 26 years of age and 21% of graduate students over 39. Given returning students’ experiences in the work force, motivations for learning, and the lapse of time since conducting academic research, returning students may approach research differently than traditional students. Despite the size of this student population at PSU and the growth of the returning student demographic in higher education, very little …

Queer! Narratives Of Gendered Sexuality: A Journey In Identity, Kym Bradley

Dissertations and Theses

My project looks at current conceptualizations of identity relating to gender and sexuality in order to understand how queer individuals enact gender as connected to their non-normative sexuality. I will use the notion of "desire" through Butler's (1990) notion of performativity as a part of iterability that reproduces an opposition between what is intended and how it is perceived. This approach creates space to problematize the status of identities that posits the conception of fluidity and dialectic as attached to notions of gendered sexualities - the understanding that sexuality interacts with gender and that these two notions are not compartmentalized. …

The Spatial Distribution Of Tobacco Pipe Fragments At The Hudson's Bay Company Fort Vancouver Village Site: Smoking As A Shared And Social Practice, Katie Ann Wynia

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis represents one of the first systematic, detailed spatial analyses of artifacts at the mid-19th century Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver Village site, and of clay tobacco pipe fragments in general. Historical documents emphasize the multi-cultural nature of the Village, but archaeologically there appears to be little evidence of ethnicity (Kardas 1971; Chance and Chance 1976; Thomas and Hibbs 1984:723). Following recent approaches to cultural interaction in which researchers examined the nuanced uses of material culture (Lightfoot et al 1998; Martindale 2009; Voss 2008); this study analyzed the spatial distribution of tobacco pipe fragments for behavioral information through a …

Disruptions In The Dream City: Unsettled Ideologies At The 1905 World's Fair In Portland, Oregon, Kat Cleland

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the experiences of fairgoers at the Lewis and Clark Centennial, American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair held in Portland, Oregon from June to October of 1905. Historians have framed world's fairs and international expositions as sites of legitimating narratives and restagings of empire and nationhood. This thesis focuses on women, Asian Americans, and Native Americans who interrupted and disrupted the performance and exhibition of U.S. imperialism in the specific case of Portland, Oregon. It considers who benefitted from or endured loss in the demonstrations of imperial culture at the Fair. Following the premises that metropolitan and colonial …

Lower Chinookan Disease And Demography, Robert T. Boyd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter, included in Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia, published by the University of Washington Press in 2013, explores disease and demography of the Lower Columbia River Chinookan peoples. In the first century of contact, the Lower Columbia Chinookans suffered more from the effects of introduced diseases and depopulation than almost any other Native peoples in the Northwest. Yet they survived, and their numbers are increasing. This chapter is a history of Lower Chinookan disease and population, from the aboriginal state, through the disruptive early contact years, up to the rebound and revitalization of the last century.

Environment And Archaeology Of The Lower Columbia, Elizabeth A. Sobel, Kenneth M. Ames, Robert J. Losey

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter, included in Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia, published by the University of Washington Press in 2013, explores the environment and archaeology of the Lower Columbia. The Columbia is the great river of the American West. The interplay of river, ocean, mountains, and climate produced a rich and productive but dynamic environment, and people have lived in and adjusted to this environment for at least 12,000 years. The Lower Columbia generally refers to the river's final 196-mile (315-kilometer) run from the western edge of the Columbia Plateau to the Pacific Ocean.

Lower Columbia Chinookan Ceremonialism, Robert T. Boyd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter, included in Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia, published by the University of Washington Press in 2013, explores Lower Columbia Chinookan Ceremonialism.

Traditional Chinookan ceremonies or religious rituals were particularly vulnerable to the rapid changes that came with Euro-American contact. Change and loss occurred after the epidemics of the 1830s removed many specialists and broke apart the critical mass of people needed for group performances; and in the early 1840s, when missionaries at the surviving settlements at Willamette Falls, The Cascades, and the mouth of the Columbia discouraged traditional life rites. After such experiences, the details on …

Mapping Human-Environment Connections On The Olympic Peninsula: An Atlas Of Landscape Values, Rebecca J. Mclain, Lee Cerveny, Diane Besser, David Banis, Alexa Todd, Stephanie Rohdy, Corinna Kimball-Brown

Occasional Papers in Geography

Occasional Papers in Geography Publication No. 7

The advent of computerized mapping has land managers’ ability to map the biophysical services provided by forested ecosystems. However, mapping the cultural services of those systems is more challenging. Human ecology mapping (HEM), which provides spatially-explicit depictions of the complex connections between humans and their environment, is an approach that can be used to improve understandings of the cultural services associated with landscapes. This atlas provides an overview of what HEM is and draws on experiences with a pilot project on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington to illustrate what HEM data looks …

Aboriginal Fisheries Of The Lower Columbia River, Virginia L. Butler, Michael A. Martin

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter, included in Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia, published by the University of Washington Press in 2013, explores the aboriginal fisheries of the Lower Columbia River. The authors reviewed ethnohistorical accounts and studies of archaeological sites to create a complex picture of Columbia River fisheries that challenges the prevailing view among anthropologists that salmon was the primary and predominant fishery among Chinookan peoples. The authors show that 19th century Native fishers targeted virtually all native fish species in the Lower Columbia River, and employed a wide range of strategies and tactics to acquire and process fish.

Houses And Households, Kenneth M. Ames, Elizabeth A. Sobel

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter, included in Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia, published by the University of Washington Press in 2013, explores Lower Columbia Chinookan houses and households.

Households are central to understanding what anthropologists and others term complex societies-that is, societies that feature social stratification, high population densities, monumental architecture, and an emphasis on wealth. Most premodern complex societies practiced agriculture, which enabled the high levels of food production that most researchers thought were needed to support complexity. Northwest Coast peoples, however, including those along the Lower Columbia and a few other known human populations, had complex societies based on …

Lower Columbia River Art, Tony A. Johnson, Adam Mcisaac, Kenneth M. Ames, Robert T. Boyd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter, included in Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia, published by the University of Washington Press in 2013, explores river art of the Lower Columbia River. The authors concentrate on artwork that was created between Astoria, Oregon, and The Cascades, about 130 miles upriver.

Use Of Gender Aschematicity In The Reassessment Of Gender Concepts, Ashley A. Ward

University Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to reevaluate the binary constructs of sex and gender; and the biological and social influence these constructs have on males, females, and non-normative individuals. Throughout this examination, biological, specifically chromosomal and anatomical, differences between sexes will help foster a definition of sex. Psychological theories will then be examined, calculating the psychological and social factors surrounding gender. A reevaluation of gender constructs will shed light on previously held misconceptions about gender and help lay groundwork for non-normative gender acceptance in the future. Furthermore, the thesis will delve into gender aschematicity and potential benefits of gender …

The Linguistics Of Sentiment Analysis, Laurel Hart

University Honors Theses

Computational linguistics is a field that was founded by linguists, but more recently is the domain of more computer scientists than linguists. Use of data driven and machine learning methods for computational linguistics applications is now more common than handwritten linguistic rules. In order for a linguist to enter the field, it is essential that he or she be familiar with methods and techniques from computer science. The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to serve as a linguist's introduction to concepts from outside of linguistics that are used in computational linguistics. The second purpose is to …