Digital Commons Network^™

Healing A Generation; Implementation Of Higher Education Curricula For Venezuelan Journalism Students Living Under Structural Violence To Promote A Transition Into Democracy, José Luis Jiménez-Figarotti Prof.

The SUNY Journal of the Scholarship of Engagement: JoSE

Venezuela's sociopolitical landscape has deteriorated significantly over the past decade, culminating in a profound humanitarian crisis. This ethnography, conducted from 2015 to the present, explores the experiences of a study group comprising 2000 Venezuelan communication college students, aged 17 to 25, who navigate structural violence while striving for quality higher education. The research employed a multifaceted approach, encompassing interviews, focus groups, and observations. Additionally, this qualitative study examines the outcomes of implementing an interdisciplinary journalism curriculum grounded in human rights and media activism, complemented by online sessions and an environmental education component. This educational project aims to foster critical thinking …

Hallucinogenic Neoshamanism As Antimodernism: Development And Ethical Considerations, Ethan Thompson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Humans have been using hallucinogenic plants and fungi for thousands of years. Historically, people around the world have made use of these substances to aid in their spiritual development. Studies of the usage of hallucinogens in indigenous societies often use the term “shamanism” to characterize the associated system of belief and ritual practices. In popular understanding, shamanism is a religious system that features highly ritualized performances in which a practitioner (shaman) utilizes an altered state of consciousness to gain access to realms inhabited by spirits with the intent of recruiting their help to resolve a problem, cure a patient, correct …

“Trust Your Gut”: An Exploration Of The Decisions Of Vaccine Hesitant Mothers, Nina Lissarrague '22

Student Scholarship

This summer Professor Starr and I conducted research on vaccine hesitancy amongst mothers in Vermont with alternative lifestyles, a project that grew out of my personal history—growing up and attending a Waldorf school with many vaccine-hesitant families—and my academic interest in public health, especially regarding the recent global outbreak of COVID-19. Given the recent media attention to vaccines, especially the COVID-19 vaccine, I wanted to talk to mothers who I knew had been vaccine hesitant before the pandemic in order to better understand their views and learn of any changes in their beliefs. As my prior reading of vaccine hesitancy …

Contemporary Brazilian Catholicism And Healing Practices: Notes On Environmentalism And Medicalization, Juliano F. Almeida

Journal of Global Catholicism

Anthropological studies on Brazilian Catholicism traditionally focused on popular variants of this religious practice and their relationship with the official Catholicism. Encouraged by recent anthropological perspectives, which highlight the relevance of devoting researches not only on the margins, but also on the center of social practices, this paper analyzes contemporary practices of Brazilian Catholic friars and priests on health promotion. The analysis of their publications (books that include practices and tips on health and that became best sellers etc.), as well as interviews, allows us to perceive a process of environmentalization on the contemporary Brazilian Catholicism. This process seems to …

Reiki For Recovery: Incorporating Japanese Health Practices To Increase Contemporary Resiliency In American Health, Leif Peterson

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Japanese health practice of Reiki attempts to maximize the latent ability of the human system to heal itself. The Reiki system, established over a century ago, combines multiple Asian health traditions, experimenting with practices that maximize the natural processes of the body to perform its own repairs. Reiki encourages healthy behaviors that balance the mind and body, return the human system to a lowered stress level, and allow for an optimal recovery state for the patient. This paper illustrates how this Japanese health-affirming method can be integrated and utilized within existing health and medical practices. An area that is …

“Traditional Mexican Midwifery” Tourism Excludes Indigenous “Others” And Threatens Sustainability, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Drawn by the allure of “ancient cultures,” tourists inadvertently consume deauthenticated indigenous practices, including ethnomedical traditions such as midwifery. This is especially true in the case of “Traditional Mexican Midwifery” since stark differences exist between how midwifery practices unfold in indigenous contexts and how they are represented to global tourists. “Traditional Mexican Midwifery” tourism is a unique lens for examining some of the underlying, intersectional issues threatening “sustainability” in ethnomedical tourism. When nonindigenous individuals position themselves as representatives of “Traditional Mexican Midwifery” and indigenous midwives are excluded from profit chains, this type of tourism not only fails to meet the …

Hegemony Versus Pluralism: Ayurveda And The Movement For Global Mental Health, Murphy Halliburton

Publications and Research

Under the aegis of the World Health Organization, the Movement for Global Mental Health and an Indian Supreme Court ruling, biomedical psychiatric interventions have expanded in India augmenting biomedical hegemony in a place that is known for its variety of healing modalities. This is occurring despite the fact that studies by the WHO show a better outcome in India for people suffering schizophrenia and related diagnoses when compared to people in developed countries who have greater access to biomedical psychiatry. Practitioners of ayurvedic medicine in Kerala have been mounting a claim for a significant role in public mental health in …

Preparing Future Health Care Workers: An Assessment Of Undergraduate Student Integrative Pre-Health Education, Haley Bevza Brennan, Pamela Erickson

Undergraduate Papers

This paper analyzes the current state of, and demand for, integrative pre-health education in the undergraduate setting, specifically at the University of Connecticut. Students’ knowledge of, exposure to, and attitudes towards complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are assessed through a web-based survey and semi-structured interviews. This paper compares this research with surveys conducted in undergraduate, medical school, and medical professional settings to gauge current efforts to provide a more holistic approach to educating health care workers in subjects such as mind-body therapies, lifestyle contributors to health such as diet and exercise, culturally competent care, and therapeutic techniques outside of the …

The Genesis And Development Of Deathscapes In America -- A Story Of How Chicago And Louisville Cemeteries Demonstrate The Shifting Rationale Of Cemetery Placement During The 19th And 20th Centuries., Thomas D. Cleven

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today, most construction projects require a systematic site qualification based on a suitability analysis utilizing parameters such as slope, soil type, elevation, distance to open water, and distance to transportation. The proper siting determines the success of a project in terms of project stability and longevity. However, has this suitability analysis exist for one of the most significant phases of humanity – death. Historically dead bodies seem to have been placed without suitable qualification being many cemeteries have created environmental problems for the living. Hence, with which placement rationale has been used comes to mind. With a varied array of …

Intersections Between Health And Disability: A Case Study At Disha Centre, Jaipur, Rajasthan, Finnian Brokaw

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study investigated intersections between health and disability by asking the question: how do community perceptions of disability at Disha: A Resource Centre for the Disabled in Jaipur, India relate to health and quality of life for a person with multiple disabilities? This study utilized a case study methodology. The researcher took qualitative interviews from six respondents in the immediate educational and familial support network of a 27-year-old man with multiple disabilities. An interview based, qualitative methodology was important for investigating the complexity of perceptions of multiple disabilities and health as intersecting identities. The responses were analyzed and reflected upon …

A New Method Of Remote Healing Through Information Based Treatment, Sági, Mária

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Healing, in the form of remote healing, is one of the most exciting proofs of the working of the primordial field described by Ervin Laszlo. Although phenomena of "presentiment" and "faith healing" have been with us since earliest times, in each subsequent age, in every culture, and throughout the development of the world's belief systems, systematic attempts to understand these phenomena have been growing ever stronger. The paradigm of western science in the modern age tended to relegate remote healing to the realm of superstition or delusion, but this certainly does not characterize the complete history of science. Even in …

Social Learning Biases In The Use Of Complementary And Alternative Medicine, Marie Denell Letourneau

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, the use of complementary and alternative medicine (usually referred to as CAM) has increased dramatically over the last three decades. However, theoretically informed explanations about why people decide to use CAM therapies are lacking. The purpose of this study is to determine if there is enough statistical evidence to justify additional research on the relationship between social learning and the decision to use CAM. Working on the assumption that people make decisions based on information they have or can obtain, I applied the concept of learning bias in order to examine the ways in which people …

Allopathic Medicine’S Influence On Indigenous Peoples In The Kumaon Region Of India, Eliana M. Blum

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper focuses on the use of western medicine in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, India. The goal of this research is to understand which healing practices are preferable in rural villages. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 53 participants, including two spiritual healers, two doctors, and one pharmacist. Results indicate that allopathic medicine, otherwise known as modern medicine or western medicine, has become the go-to remedy for even the most remote people in India. Nearly all participants use allopathic medicine, but less than half of the participants experiment with other forms of healing, such as Ayurveda, homeopathy, meditation, and yoga. …

Hermeneutic Philosophies Of Social Science: Introduction, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Hermeneutics And Its Discontents In Philosophy Of Science: On Bruno Latour, The “Science Wars”, Mockery, And Immortal Models, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Themes discussed include a hermeneutic of hermeneutic philosophy of science, along with the hegemony of analytic style in university philosophy in the US and Europe as well as the rhetoric of power, highlighting the politics of mockery using the example of Alan Sokal’s hoax as this sought to exclude other voices in the academy, especially philosophy of science. In addition to reviewing Sokal’s attack on Bruno Latour, Latour’s own “biography” of an investigation is read as articulating a doubled hermeneutic reflection on modernity including both field ethnography and lab-ethnography. The further question of the viability of a hermeneutics of science …

Opening Up The Echo Chamber: Teaching Cultural Competence In Contentious Times, Charles H. Klein

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, political discussion and social life are increasingly concentrating in face-to-face and online echo chambers composed of individuals with similar world views. This segmentation of civil society has stymied in-depth and respectful communication across ideological difference and in the process contributed to the divisiveness that characterizes political discourse across the globe. In this article, I examine how anthropological learning and teaching can help open up these echo chambers and promote cultural empathy and cross-ideological communication. My discussion focuses on three methodologies I use in my undergraduate-level Culture, Health and Healing course – weekly critical analyses on contemporary health …

Cause For Question: Risk And Postmodern Panic In The Vaccine Safety Debate, Marygrace Trifilio

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the thoughts and feelings of non-vaccinating parents in America and argues that contemporary vaccine refusal results from overwhelming information saturation in the Internet age. Non-vaccinating parents express distrust of competing scientific research and call for a return to a more natural, toxin-free lifestyle.

Commodifying Indigeneity: How The Humanization Of Birth Reinforces Racialized Inequality In Mexico, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article examines the humanized birth movement in Mexico and analyzes how the remaking of tradition—the return to traditional birthing arts (home birth, midwife‐assisted birth, natural birth)—inadvertently reinscribes racial hierarchies. The great irony of the humanized birth movement lies in parents’ perspective of themselves as critics of late capitalism. All the while, their very rejection of consumerism bolsters ongoing commodification of indigenous culture and collapses indigeneity, nature, and tradition onto one another. While the movement is quickly spreading across Mexico, indigenous women and their traditional midwives are largely excluded from the emerging humanized birth community. Through ethnographic examples, the article …

Antoniyar Kōvil: Hindu-Catholic Identity At The St. Anthony Shrine In St. Mary’S Co-Cathedral, Chennai, Pj Johnston

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article combines ethnographic description of the practices of Hindu and Christian visitors of the St. Antony Shrine in Chennai with the observation that this material cannot be understood using the standard world religions paradigm that essentializes Christianity as exclusivistic. Drawing upon the visual and material culture of the shrine in light of premodern and Vatican II templates for inculturation and the negotiation of religious difference, the article highlights overlap between Tamil Hinduism and the Tamil Popular Catholicism of the site to argue that the beliefs and practices documented should inform descriptive and normative accounts of Catholic Christianity. Because Tamil …

Sonic Substances And Silent Sounds: An Auditory Anthropology Of Ritual Songs, Bernd Brabec De Mori

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Health-Related Beliefs, Practices, And Experiences Of Migrant Dominicans In The Northeastern United States, Constance Sobon Sensor

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Purpose: This study aimed to discover and describe migrant Dominican cultural beliefs and practices related to health, the ways that migrant Dominicans take care of their health in their new environment, and their experience with professional health care in the Northeastern United States.

Design: This descriptive qualitative study was guided by Leininger’s Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality and four-phase analysis method. The health-related beliefs, practices and experiences of a convenience sample of 15 self-identified adult Dominicans living in the United States for six months or more were explored in three focus groups, assisted by trained culturally appropriate interpreters. …

Kentucky Mineral Spring Resorts : An Archaeological Reconnaissance Of Medical Trends And Land Use., Sara Marian Deurell

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

This project is an archaeological reconnaissance survey of 12 historic mineral spring resorts of Kentucky. The objective of this research is to assess the archaeological potential of these sites, and to provide an archaeological perspective on 19th and early 20th century Kentucky health care in relation to the use of opiates, as well as the evolution of land use in relation to preservation of features and artifacts associated with the resort hotel era. Compared to the number of sites in the state (71), very little archaeological investigation of mineral spring resorts has been conducted. The importance of these sites to …

Exploring The Intersection Between Folk And Conventional Medicine In Albany, Kentucky, Chloe J. Brown

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Approximately 60% of patients surveyed (in Albany, KY) practice folk medicine, which suggests that a significant segment of the population may practice folk medicine. Patients typically use folk medical treatments concurrently with conventional medical treatments; while the interaction of these treatments is generally innocuous or positive, folk medical treatments can sometimes be harmful, lead to negative interactions with other drugs prescribed by a conventional medical professional. Since folk medicine and conventional medicine frequently interact, it is important for medical professionals to be aware of and address folk medical practices in a conventional medical environment. In order to better address folk …

Shots, Everybody? : British Anti-Smallpox Vaccination And The Development Of Multifaceted Anti-Vaccine Rhetoric On Internet Parenting Forums, Marta B. Bean

Scripps Senior Theses

Vaccination is an important public health measure that can help reduce disease at the population level. Substantial evidence exists that vaccines are safe and effective at reducing the incidence of diseases like pertussis, measles and cervical cancer. However, on Internet parenting forums, parents discuss whether or not vaccination is the right choice for their children. In this thesis, I highlight the historical context of the anti-vaccine movement in mid 19^th century to early 20^th century Victorian Britain in the era of compulsory smallpox vaccination. Vaccination in this time was a very different and more overtly dangerous process, and …

The Archaeology Of 19th-Century Health And Hygiene At The Sullivan Street Site, New York City, Jean E. Howson

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The households represented by archaeological remains at the Sullivan Street site in Greenwich Village are used to explore issues related to health care in 19th-century New York City. Backyard features and domestic artifact assemblages are discussed in the context of institutional development and specific changes in medical practice. Consumer choices are seen as responses to differential access to sanitation, medical care, and information. Social class had a significant effect on both the infrastructure and material culture of health and hygiene for these households.

To Live Means To Suffer: Exploring The Identity Of Chronic Pain Conditions, Gabriela Harris

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

This paper examines the necessary identity reconstruction for chronic pain patients through the use of illness narratives. The biographical interruption of a chronic illness, partnered with the patients’ inability to discuss embodiment and pain wholly (because language failures to capture the essence of pain and suffering) creates a devastating chasm between the world of the healthy and the world of the sick. Psychosomatic pain, and illnesses without diagnosis, are all the more divisive conditions, because these factors rob the patient further, disallowing them from constructing even an illness identity. Utilizing published patient interviews, sociological and anthropological texts, as well as …

"Treating The Whole Person:" An Ethnographic Study Of An Integrative Medicine Pain Clinic, Lindsey Ann Martin

Wayne State University Dissertations

Although chronic pain has been increasingly recognized as a critical health issue in the U.S., solely biomedical approaches to pain management are often less effective than comprehensive ones in addressing this condition (Crowley-Matoka, et al. 2009; Good 1994; Greenhalgh 2001; Institute of Medicine 2011; Kleinman 1988; National Center for Health Statistics-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2006). This ethnographic study describes in-depth how a Detroit metropolitan area multidisciplinary pain clinic specifically applies an integrative medicine (IM) approach to the treatment and management of chronic pain. The aims of this study included: 1) identifying the history of this IM clinic and …

Borders And Barriers: Perspectives On Aging And Alternative Medicine Among Transnational North Indian Immigrants, Kanan B. Mehta

Anthropology Theses

This study explores the practice of alternative medicine among a group of senior, transnational Indian immigrants. I analyze how cross-cultural ideologies influence aging and immigrant experiences in healthcare. I explore the ways in which transnational networks nurture social relations and aid in acquiring healthcare resources. This study also examines the developments that alternative medicine underwent during the colonial rule and how those developments affected the trajectory of biomedicine. I focus on the practice of alternative medicine as a significant contributor to immigrant health. Finally, I argue that we need to strive for a symbiosis between alternative medicine and Western biomedicine …

The Adoption Of Shamanic Healing Into The Biomedical Health Care System In The United States, Lori L. Thayer

Open Access Dissertations

Following cultural anthropological inquiry, this dissertation examines the adoption of shamanic healing techniques into Western medicine and the resultant hybrid modality of health care fostered by two disparate healing traditions. As the U.S. populace increasingly turns to alternative forms of healing in conjunction with, or in lieu of, conventional Western medicine, shamanic healing has been added to the list of recognized non-conventional therapies. Shamanism, once prevalent throughout most of the world in various cultural forms, is purported to be the oldest healing modality, dating back to the Upper Paleolithic in Siberia. Historical excoriation and extermination from religious and political dogma …

Natural Medicine: Personal Responsibility And Self-Empowerment, Kimber Lopez

Pomona Senior Theses

Although most “alternative” medical practices have existed far longer than conventional healthcare, modern allopathic continues to be the dominant system of medicine used in the United States. Herbal medicine is one of the oldest healing practices known to humankind and continues to be practiced today despite the numerous challenges modern society poses. As Julie Stone and Joan Mathews illuminate in Complimentary Medicine and the Law, “Plant-based remedies have been the principal source of medicines in healing traditions around the world and, as the World health Organization is at pains to remind us, 80 percent of the world’s population still depends …