Digital Commons Network^™

A Bottle Half Empty: Bottled Water, Commodification, And Contestation, Daniel Jaffee, Soren Newman

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Bottled water has rapidly been transformed from an elite niche market into a ubiquitous consumer object. Yet the literature on drinking water privatization has largely neglected the growth of bottled water and its emergence as a global commodity. This article draws on Harvey’s analytic of accumulation by dispossession to explore how commodification unfolds differently across multiple forms of water. Based on ethnographic interviews with participants in two conflicts over spring water extraction in rural U.S. communities by the industry leader Nestlé, we make three arguments. First, contestation over bottled water commodification is refracted through competing framings regarding control over local …

Kony2012: The New Face Of Citizen Engagement, Nicole Audette

Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy

This paper breaks down the nongovernmental components of public diplomacy and examines the evolution of new public diplomacy. It discusses the rise of nonstate actors and the importance they play in changing international diplomatic engagements. It explores the rising prominence of both soft power and public relations on the global stage, highlighting the importance of strategic relationships and effective communications. The case study, used to exemplify the power of new public diplomacy, examines how Invisible Children’s KONY2012 campaign used public diplomacy to harness successfully the power of the American people to influence governmental foreign policy. The author shows that Invisible …

Pushing The Pictorial Turn: Mitchell, Benjamin, And Religion Online, John William Borchert

Religion - Theses

This thesis asserts a visual ontology as a way of understanding religious practice online. W.J.T Mitchell argues twenty-first century humanities are shifting away from text and towards an interest in the meaning of images. However, he denies digital images a place within this pictorial turn, judging them banal. Mitchell's theorization of new media is a postmodern rereading of Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". I argue that Mitchell's utilization of Benjamin's aura in his constructions of the human relationship to new media misinterprets the role of these technologies in relating the image to the …

The Lived Experience Of American Indian Teen Parents From A Northern Plains Tribe, Ann Marie Douglas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Although there is extensive research on the outcomes of teen mothers and their children, there is little research to date on how teen parents, especially American Indian teen parents, are functioning in their new role. This is alarming as the rate of births to American Indian teens is far greater than the same-aged Non-Hispanic White population. This study examined the lived experiences of teen parents currently living on a Northern Plains Indian Reservation. Seven participants were interviewed using a phenomenological method. Interviews were analyzed using NVivo and Giorgi’s method. The themes that emerged were traditional roles (child role, parent role, …

A Preliminary Analysis Of Saw Mark Degeneration In Bone Due To The Application Of Hydrated Calcium Oxide, Heidi Lynne Johnson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The use of calcium oxide (lime) in both agricultural and burial customs has been seen since the Iron Age. Due to this usage, the myth stating that the application of this chemical will expedite the complete destruction of human remains developed. This myth, in conjunction to historical and contemporary instances of its usage related to criminal activities has demonstrated a need to better understand the interactions of this chemical with bony tissue, particularly as it relates to saw cutmarks. Using pig elements as proxies for human remains, this research aims to systematically examine the degenerative effects resulting from the application …

Defining Postmortem Changes In Western Montana: A Longitudinal Study Of The Rate And Sequence Of Surface And Burial Decomposition, Tory Nicole Huey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Estimating time since death is difficult because of the multitude of factors that can alter postmortem change. Initial research conducted in western Montana indicates that decomposition does not follow the patterns found in other geographic locations. The purpose of this study is to better define how western Montana’s unique environmental factors affect the rate and pattern of decomposition of surface remains and buried remains. In May 2012 one mature pig (Sus scrofa) was placed on the surface and a second pig was buried. Throughout a nine-month period the following variables were monitored for the surface pig: rate and pattern of …

When Socrates Meets Confucius: Teaching Creative And Critical Thinking Across Cultures Through Multilevel Socratic Method, Erin Ryan

Scholarly Publications

This article presents a case study of adapting the Socratic Method, popularized in American law schools, to teach critical thinking skills underemphasized in Chinese universities and group competency skills underemphasized at U.S. institutions. As we propose it here, Multilevel Socratic teaching integrates various levels of individual, small group, and full class critical inquiry, offering distinct pedagogical benefits in Eastern and Western cultural contexts where they separately fall short. After exploring foundational cultural differences underlying the two educational approaches, the article reviews the goals, methods, successes, and challenges encountered in the development of an adapted “Multilevel Socratic” method, concluding with recommendations …

Donald Mcgavran And The City, Jeff K. Walters

Great Commission Research Journal

As the “father of the Church Growth Movement,” Donald A. McGavran’s impact on twentieth century missiology is undisputed. His teaching on missions in urban contexts holds great value for our rapidly urbanizing world, but those contributions have been studied very little. The purpose of this article is to survey McGavran’s urban missiology, especially as presented in his seminal work, Understanding Church Growth.

Fire On The Tongue: A Collection Of Poems, Nathan Adam White

Theses and Dissertations

The Influence of Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney My relationship with poetry has been complex. I once felt that poetry, my last friend and greatest hope, had betrayed me, had shut me out and left me very alone. My pen lacked the power that poetry had promised as the last refuge of those who wished to breathe deeply, speak intimately, and inspire intensely. Others had the power to move me, but I seemed incapable of moving others; my lines lacked clarity, my phrases caused confusion. In a mood of irritable desperation I wrote these lines:

You live in the world, …

Property: Human Right Or Commodity?, Sandra F. Joireman, Jason Brown

Political Science Faculty Publications

There is currently in international law an overstatement of the tie between property and identity. International conventions have folded property into a set of immutable human rights. There needs to be greater flexibility and nuance in this perspective. In this paper we identify two approaches to property rights: the first, which argues that property and identity are necessarily bundled together and considers property to be a human right; and the second which understands them as explicitly separate and views property as a commodity. Empirically, we observe a transition between these two competing ideas. We posit that this transition happens voluntarily, …

Political Culture Of Post-Soviet Economic Change: The Case Of Financial-Industrial Groups, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Beneath the seeming chaos and conflict of Russia's post-socialist experience were structured dynamics of contentious reconstruction of fields (collective relations of power and culture institutionalized as authority and definitions of "normal"). This essay argues that the Russian experience was driven in no small part by contention over remaking core meanings and authority of field relations, practices, and boundaries. Contention over field reconstruction emerged as three groups' interests and taken-for granted meanings of normality collided: those of Soviet-era managers, a new class of financial entrepreneurs and elites, and state elites and officials. Post-socialism has been a story of competing elite culture …

Credit/Skills Recovery Pilot Project: Documentation Report For The Boston Public Schools, Terry Grobe, Bedelia N. Richards, Cheryl Almeida

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In support of Boston Superintendent Carol Johnson’s Acceleration Agenda and call for “graduation for all,” the Boston Public Schools launched a pilot Credit/Skills Recovery Program in the summer of 2008. The pilot targeted a population of young people—18 years and older— who were one to four courses short of graduation and sought to help them gain needed credits to graduate and build career and college success skills. An analysis conducted by BPS with the Parthenon Group had identified this group—youth who are “old and close to graduation”—as being at high risk of dropping out of high school. To reach this …

Debt, Theft, Permaculture: Justice And Ecological Scale, Gerry Canavan

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Ethics And International Law: Integrating The Global Justice Project(S), Steven R. Ratner

Articles

Academic discourse on global justice is at an all-time high. Within ethics and international law, scholars are undertaking new inquiries into age-old questions of building a just world order. Ethics – political and moral philosophy – poses fundamental questions about responsibilities at the global level and produces a tightly reasoned set of frameworks regarding world order. International law, with its focus on legal norms and institutional arrangements, provides a path, as well as illuminates the obstacles, to implementing theories of the right or of the good. Yet despite the complementarity of these two projects, neither is drawing what it should …

Fresh Start: Inspiring Our Youth With Knowledge, Experience, Access To Farming, Local Foods, And Life Skills For Healthy And Sustainable Living, Evan Bell, Ross Damon, Dana Eardley, Jessica Siemen

LIB 322: Wicked Problems of Sustainability

During the Fall 2013 semester, we – a group of undergraduate students in LIB322: “Wicked Problems of Sustainability” – were challenged to ameliorate the ‘wicked problem’ of school lunches served in the Grand Valley State University’s magnet charter schools. We were faced with children’s unhealthy choices and school budgetary restrictions, a road involving extensive research and seemingly continuous problem solving. We discussed the issue-at-hand with several stakeholders who are involved with children, nutrition, school lunch programs as well as local garden/farming programs. After consolidating our core values, reviewing thorough research, and integrating informative input from our stakeholders, we formulized the …

The Conservation Status Of The World’S Reptiles, Tony Gamble

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Effective and targeted conservation action requires detailed information about species, their distribution, systematics and ecology as well as the distribution of threat processes which affect them. Knowledge of reptilian diversity remains surprisingly disparate, and innovative means of gaining rapid insight into the status of reptiles are needed in order to highlight urgent conservation cases and inform environmental policy with appropriate biodiversity information in a timely manner. We present the first ever global analysis of extinction risk in reptiles, based on a random representative sample of 1500 species (16% of all currently known species). To our knowledge, our results provide the …

Habermas, Same-Sex Marriage And The Problem Of Religion In Public Life, Darren R. Walhof

Peer Reviewed Articles

This article addresses the debate over religion in the public sphere by analysing the conception of ‘religion’ in the recent work of Habermas, who claims to mediate the divide between those who defend public appeals to religion without restriction and those who place limits on such appeals. I argue that Habermas’ translation requirement and his restriction on religious reasons in the institutional public sphere rest on a conception of religion as essentially apolitical in its origin. This conception, I argue, remains embedded in a standard secularization framework, despite Habermas’ claim to offer a new account of secularization. This approach betrays …

The Archaeology Of Archaeology: 2012 Excavations At Alkali Ridge Site 13, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

Alkali Ridge Site 13 is one of the largest, and most extensively excavated Pueblo I villages in the Northern Southwest. It also is one of the earliest Pueblo I villages, dating to the late A.D. 700s. The site was first excavated in 1932 and 1933 by J.O. Brew of Harvard University, who dug all or part of 118 storage rooms, 11 pit houses, and 25 surface habitation rooms belonging to the early Pueblo I component. In 2012, the first excavations at the site since Brew’s work focused on reexcavation of several storage rooms previously excavated in 1932, screening of backdirt …

“You Will See My Family Became So American”: Immigration, Racial Visibility, And Specular Citizenship, Sherally Munshi

Studio for Law and Culture

This paper explores the vexed relationship between legal form and personhood that arises in the context of Indian immigration and naturalization in the early twentieth century. In 1932, Dinshah P. Ghadiali received notice that the government was seeking to cancel his citizenship on grounds of “racial ineligibility.” In his self-published writing about the trial, Ghadiali wondered whether he been singled out for persecution by professional rivals. In fact, he had been caught in a larger campaign to denaturalize citizens of Indian origin after the Supreme Court, in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), determined that “Hindus” were racially ineligible …

Interrupting The Professional Schism That Allows Less Successful Educational Practices With Ells To Persist, Edmund T. Hamann, Jenelle Reeves

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Different worldviews, different histories of induction into teaching, presumed differences in responsibilities, and different emphases in pre-service and in-service preparation have all long contributed to enduring schisms that keep general education (or mainstream) teachers and English language support faculty from coordinating and finding common cause in their efforts. This division has been at the cost of impeding many English language learners’ (ELLs) academic success. So, given that ELLs consecutively or concurrently negotiate these too-often separate schooling subworlds, it is imperative to overcome historical divisions and to conceptualize all teachers as needing (a) to be willing to see ELLs as part …

Annual Report Ay 2012-13, Center For Innovative Pedagogy

Annual Reports and Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways Of Teaching And Learning And Difficult Dialogues In Higher Education, Larry Merculieff, Libby Roderick

Books

It was the end of spring semester here in Anchorage, Alaska. The snow was gone in all but the shadiest of places, but the trees were not yet in leaf, and a brown dust blew lightly over the still winter-flattened earth. It was a season of endings and beginnings. Finals were over, grades turned in, robes donned, commencement hats flung. Summer was on its way. Just before the faculty went off contract and scattered to the mid-May winds, we held the last meeting of our Ford Foundation-sponsored Difficult Dialogues project. We’d been working together for the past two years on …

Evangelicals And Catholics Together On Law: Some Personal And Jewish Reflections, Michael J. Broyde

Faculty Articles

At its core this is both my religious and practi­cal problem with the Evangelicals and Catholics Together on Law statement. I sense that according to the Jewish tradition the theology and practice of secular law and justice ought to not be a religious one at all. In the eyes of the Jewish tradition, one should not seek from the secular government a law that maximizes Godliness, never mind observance of God's law. We do not look to secular law to reflect our religious morals-we look to secular law to provide us with life, liberty and the freedom to pursue our …

Does Fertility Status Influence Impulsivity And Risk Taking In Human Females? Adaptive Influences On Intertemporal Choice And Risky Decision Making, Farnaz Kaighobadi,, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Informed by the research on adaptive decision making in other animal species, this study investigated human females’ intertemporal and risky choices across the ovulatory cycle. We tested the hypothesis that at peak fertility, women who are exposed to environments that signal availability of higher quality mates (by viewing images of attractive males), become more impulsive and risk-seeking in economic decision tasks. To test this, we collected intertemporal and risky choice measures before and after exposure to images of either attractive males or neutral landscapes both at peak and low fertility conditions. The results showed an interaction between women’s fertility status …

Transnational Private Regulatory Governance: Ambiguities Of Public Authority And Private Power , Peer Zumbansen

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Virulence Factors Of Helicobacter Pylori Infection And Human Migration, Yuka Kutsumi

Technical Library

Helicobacter pylori is a ubiquitous bacterium found in the human stomach. Its infection is linked to various gastroduodenal diseases including peptic ulcer and gastric cancer. Despite the fact that H.pylori is present in more than 50% of the global population, only approximately 20% of infected individuals develop severe diseases.

One of the unique applications of H.pylori study is that it can be used as a tool for tracing human migrations since humans coevolved with their microbiomes.

In this project, the diversity of bacteria and host in the H.pylori-human model was examined. Multilocus sequences from 7 housepeeking genes in 131 H.pylori …

Classroom Intercultural Competence In Teacher Education Students, Interns, And Alumni, Christine K. Holland

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the impact of a student teaching internship upon the classroom intercultural competence (CIC) of teacher education students and alumni. Phase I employed quantitative methodology to compare the intercultural competence as measured by Ross, Thornson, McDonald, and Arrastia’s (2009) Cross Cultural Competence Inventory (3CI) for three groups. The 3CI is a 63-item survey that uses corresponding questions to assess intercultural competence. Survey items are scored with a 6-point, strongly agree-to-strongly disagree Likert scale (Thornson, 2010). The three groups included teacher education students enrolled in a field observation course, students enrolled in …

The Dynamics Of Ethnic Identity In Iranian Azerbaijan, Fereydoun Safizadeh

Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice

Today out of the seventy million population of Iran nearly twenty-five million are Turkish speakers. At least two thirds of this population lives in the provinces of East-West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, and the rest in and around the cities of Zanjan, Qazvin, Karaj and Tehran. Generally, the people in these areas refer to themselves as Turks, and they are Shia’ Muslims. This paper explores from an anthropological and ethnographic perspective the relationship of Azeri-Turkish speaking and Persian-speaking Iranians in the present and everyday spheres of social life. The objective is for a fine grained examination of this minority-majority encounter and what …

About The Contributors, Journal Staff

Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice

No abstract provided.

Health Check: Analyzing Trends In West Michigan 2013, Grand Valley State University

Health Check: Analyzing Trends in West Michigan

No abstract provided.