Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Document Productivity Cycle (Study Case Of Samudera Raksa Ship Museum), Ciwuk Musiana Yudhawasthi, Lydia Christiani

Proceedings from the Document Academy

The study aims to discuss document productivity in the case of the Samudera Raksa Ship Museum. To answer this, the researchers made a productivity document study based on (1) Blasius Sudarsono's axiom, which states that "In the beginning, it was the human will to express what he thought and/or felt;" (2) Sudarsono's thoughts regarding documents as processes and products; (3) Lund’s concept of document creation; (4) Sabine Roux's thoughts on the rhizome concept in the document productivity process; and (5) the concept of museum communication by Yudhawasthi. Based on these theoretical frameworks, an analysis of the document productivity in the …

Simply Butter (One Pat At A Time), Maddie Mcsweeney

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Simply Butter (one pat at a time) is an investigation of food and intimacy through sculpture, installation, performance, printmaking, and recordkeeping. In this series of Happenings, I explore themes of love, loss, and empathy while dealing with emotions related to grief and mental health issues. I look to cultural phenomena and art history figures who are concerned with similar sentiments to make conceptual connections and inform my choices when creating this project. Drawn to silliness and the absurd, I use the rudimentary yet familiar form of a stick of butter to act as a monolithic stand-in for the emotionally, mentally, …

"I’M Mixing Comic Book Canon And Mcu Canon To Suit My Own Needs": Information Sharing As Community Building In A Fandom In Flux, Alison Harding

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Utilizing the rapidly changing landscape of the Marvel fandom on fanfiction archive Archive of Our Own (AO3) as a research site, this paper presents the findings of a combined autoethnography and digital ethnography of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier community. The work explores the ways in which a fandom community builds itself through information sharing. While the study garnered many findings, this paper primarily focuses on how tags are vital to crafting community identity, while also creating barriers to entry within the Falcon and the Winter Soldier fandom.

The results show that while the broader Marvel fandom can be …

In 1967: An Ethnography Of The Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Old Order Mennonites, John Caughey

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

This study is an overview of the culture of the Pennsylvania Old Order Mennonites of the Groffdale Conference. It is based on the six months of anthropological field work I carried out in Lancaster County in the spring and summer of 1967. Oriented by ethnographic emphasis on the world view, conceptual system, key concepts, and basic practices that characterized the community during that period, it explores Old Order Mennonite religion, farming, family, community, and relations with outsiders. Based on conversations and interviews with a variety of Old Order Mennonite farmers, particularly intensive interviews with one key participant and his family, …

Be Our Guest Or Welcome Foolish Mortals? Disney’S Invitation To Play And The Delusion/Illusion Of Hyperreal, Immersive Documents, L.P. Coladangelo

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This paper playfully appropriates the metaphor of delusional states to frame a discussion of hyperreal documents present in Disney theme parks and resorts. A brief overview of the literature on delusion in individuals transitions into the collective formation of positive illusions to introduce the concept of play. The conceptual framework of play culture, or ludics, is presented to understand cultural production and meaning, which is further described in relation to theme park design and the negotiation of theme park experiences. This discussion is situated in document theory to explicate the intentionality of theme park designers and the indexicality of park …

Exploring Post-Traumatic Growth From Citizen Narratives Of Refugees From The 1947 Partition Of British India, Keshav J. Dhir, Kathryn J. Azevedo

Psychology from the Margins

Background: There is paucity of ethnographic survivor analysis of the 1947 Partition of British India. Methods: This qualitative study leverages post-traumatic growth (PTG) theory to explore the impact of mass migration trauma in childhood. Ten refugee narratives were collected by citizen historians. Interviews were translated, transcribed, and analyzed. Results: Elements of post-traumatic growth were revealed in all 5 domains for nine out of ten survivors. Discussion: Survivors’ appreciation of life often manifested in passion for a discipline or hobby. The importance of meaningful interpersonal relationships was observed and extended to acquaintances from other religious groups. Increased personal strength was revealed …

Attitudes Toward Transgenic Corn Usage Among Amish & Conservative Mennonite Farmers In Ohio, Scot Long

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Mass adoption and planting of genetically modified corn are part of the larger industrialized agricultural production system in the United States. Amish and conservative Mennonite farmers in the Holmes County settlement region offer an alternative production system often characterized by lower usage of chemical inputs, greater implementation of crop rotation, and significantly higher usage of hybrid versus GMO field corn. Moreover, the rationale among Amish/Mennonite farmers toward adoption of GMO (based on “convenience”) or rejection of GMO (based on “too many unknowns”) stems both from cultural diffusion of neighboring farms as well as variable need for nonfarm income. This article …

Storage Organization And Analysis Of Artifacts, Rebecca Glatz

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

I worked with the Institute for Human Science and Culture at the Drs. Nicholas & Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology and Department of Anthropology at the University of Akron to help create an inventory of the collections that are being stored in the storage of the Cummings Center. After I finished the general inventory, I selected a collection of interest to do further research on an item level. The collection was processed and photographed and this paper is a report of what I learned about the collection and a guide of how to process a collection for …

Analysis Of Artifacts And Storage Organization: Clinton Lock 2, Hannah Curtis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For this project, we are hoping to address the potential problems and help refine future work between the storage in the Cummings Center and the Anthropology Department. Some of the research questions that we have are: What is in the Cummings Center from the Anthropology Department? What type of techniques is the most beneficial in storing archaeological material? How are the items stored in the Cummings Center? Is this method of storage going to protect or damage the artifact? Do we still need to keep this material, returned to its original owner, or can it be deaccessioned? We plan to …

Performing Amish Agrarianism: Negotiating Tradition In The Maintenance Of Pennsylvania Dairy Farms, Nicole Welk-Joerger

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Amish people have a reputation for being ecologically and environmentally conscientious. As numerous scholars in Amish and Plain Anabaptist studies have demonstrated, Amish views of the environment are diverse and ultimately anchored in the understanding that God made nature for human use. In these cases, Amish views of the environment could be described as much more anchored in traditional philosophical notions of “agrarianism” than “environmentalism.” In this article, I explore how some Amish approach agrarianism with a turn from more traditional farm life toward necessary economic engagement with multi-faceted operations and diversification. Based on intensive ethnographic research and participant observation, …

A Lot On My Plate: Family Dishware Serving Up A History Of Global Commercialization, Grace Thanasiu

Student Projects from the Archives

The “Hearthside” shaped plate was created by the Homer Laughlin China Company sometime between 1963 and 1973. My family owns such a plate, and ours originally belonged to a set of plates that was “purchased” by my grandmother, Mary Ruhlin, with books and books full of redemption stamps. Redemption stamps were literal stamps that stores distributed to customers, who could later redeem them for cash or merchandise at affiliated redemption centers that partnered with grocery stores and businesses; redemption stamps functioned as a precursor to the modern loyalty card! The need for a reputable pottery company like Homer Laughlin to …

Ecological Repentance, Emmanuel Salem

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In an age ripe with discovery and analysis regarding anthropogenic pollution and the resultant climate change, a causal ideological explanation is naturally sought. This paper seeks to delve deep into the Christian religion and its relationship to the current climate crisis, as well as discuss whether or not predictions and speculative assertions professed in the famous essay by Lynn White, Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis, hold up when surveyed with a more critical and thorough evaluative lens. This conversation is undertaken under three core considerations: biblical cosmology, what has happened in the world of Christian bioethics since White’s time, …

Symposium Review Of The Lives Of Amish Women—Karen Johnson-Weiner, Gracia Miller, Sheila Petre, Vlatka Škender

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Who should respond to a cultural anthropologist’s monograph about Amish women? In developing a symposium for Karen Johnson-Weiner’s The Lives of Amish Women, the author’s own text provided an answer. Inasmuch as Johnson-Weiner frequently quotes the voices of Amish women, how about an Amish woman offering an unmediated voice? And inasmuch as Johnson-Weiner quotes many plain Anabaptist women authors, how about one of the writers whom she discusses, an opportunity for the spoken about to speak back? And, finally, inasmuch as Johnson-Weiner’s disciplinary home is cultural anthropology, what about a cultural anthropologist who is experienced in Amish research?

And …

Ishi, Briet's Antelope, And The Documentality Of Human Documents, Martin I. Nord

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Ishi, the “last wild Indian in North America,” was “discovered” in 1911 and spent the last years of his life living in an anthropology museum. There he was studied by anthropologists and viewed by the public as a living exhibit. In this paper, I take some initial steps in arguing that Ishi, the person, became a document to most people. The similarities between Ishi and Suzanne Briet’s hypothetical antelope, newly discovered and placed in a zoo, are eerie. Ishi, like the antelope, is brought into public knowledge as both an initial document and a wide variety of secondary documents derived …

The Dragonslayer: Folktale Classification, Memetics, And Cataloguing, Alex Mayhew

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Tales of great heroes overcoming great monsters have been a part of storytelling since time immemorial. Some of these tales follow recurring patterns, and one such pattern is that of ‘The Dragonslayer.’ From tales of Tristan and Iseult and Saint George and the Dragon, to the confrontation with the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit, ‘The Dragonslayer’ has been an enduring example of a recurring pattern in storytelling.

Different knowledge organization systems seek to arrange and connect texts and their recurring patterns in different ways. Folklorists look for recurring motifs and some wiki editors look for common tropes in …

Flesh, Freundschaft, And Fellowship: Towards A Holistic Model Of The Amish Kinship System, Vlatka Škender

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Kinship as a social anthropological category, with its three fundamentals – affinity, descent, and siblingship – denotes an orderly system of social relationships past, present, and future, through which a social system is composed and reproduced. What rules, if any, regulate marriage alliance among the Amish? Why are both affinal and consanguineal relationships structurally subordinated to that of fictive kinship? Building on and reexamining the extant anthropological discourse concerning the Amish kinship organization, a comparative-diachronic analysis of courtship, marriage, descent, inheritance, and residential patterns in a holistic and alliance-focused social system is provided. The article contributes an analysis of social-cosmological …

Hoover Mennonites In Belize: A History Of Expansion In The Shadow Of Separation, Carel Roessingh, Daniëlle Bovenberg

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

We examine the migration history of the Old Order Hoover Mennonites located in the small, multi-ethnic country of Belize. The Hoover Mennonites live in the settlements of Upper Barton Creek, Springfield, Birdwalk, and Roseville. Characterized as one of Belize’s more conservative churches, the Hoover Church is also Belize’s most geographically dispersed Mennonite community. This paper brings together historical and present-day sources to account for and chart this dispersion. To describe what brought together this group between 1958 and 1984 and what drove their subsequent migration across Belize, we examine the religious and legal circumstances of the founding of their settlements. …

The Functionalist Problem In Kraybill’S Riddle Of Amish Culture, Michael Billig, Elam Zook

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Much of contemporary Amish scholarship manifests an implicit functionalist paradigm that harkens back to mid-20th-century social science. This perspective tends toward optimistic, even “Panglossian,” explanation of traits, in which everything that the Amish do or believe has a use, purpose, or reason; i.e., a function. The vagaries of history and the ebb and flow of power may be acknowledged, but they are relegated to minor explanatory factors. This essay provides a close reading of Donald Kraybill’s popular The Riddle of Amish Culture. It demonstrates the functionalist premises behind many of the explanations offered in Riddle, despite the …

The Dynamics Of Boundaries: Obedience And Transgression Among Bolivian Old Colony Mennonites, Anna Sofia Hedberg

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Boundaries keep people apart just as they keep people together. Boundaries are social constructs made by man in order to maintain the natural order of things. The aim of this article is to elaborate on the social construct of boundaries and particularly acknowledge their dynamic character. Social and cultural boundaries are passable, changeable, and negotiable. Nonetheless, boundaries are fundamental to many peoples’ existence and survival as ethnic and cultural communities and must therefore be acknowledged as essential human needs. By focusing on the members of a conservative Christian community—Old Colony Mennonites in Bolivia—as they carry out practices in relation to …

No Sunday Business': Navigating Religious Rules And Business Opportunities In The Shipyard Mennonite Settlement, Belize, Carel Roessing, Daniëlle Bovenberg

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Within the Old Colony Mennonite settlements of Belize, the relationship between religious and economic practices entails a constant navigation of the acceptable, where threats of worldliness come from technology and from contact with outsiders. This paper takes as its focus the business of a butcher in Shipyard settlement, whose daily work testifies to a navigation of both of these potential threats. This entrepreneur uses technologies of energy, transportation, and communication—operated in part by an outside worker—to extend the radius of his meat business. The tense environment of Shipyard’s religious diversity frames our discussion of these observations, leading us to reconsider …

Advances In Hutterian Scholarship, William L. Smith

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Review of: Janzen, Rod, and Max Stanton. 2010. The Hutterites in North America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Review of: Katz, Yossi, and John Lehr. 2014[2012] Inside the Ark: The Hutterites in Canada and the United States [2nd ed.]. Regina, SK: University of Regina Press.

Janzen, a historian, and Stanton, an anthropologist, spent twenty-five years visiting Hutterite colonies in the United States and Canada, witnessing firsthand the changes to Hutterite life. The authors provide readers with an exceptional historical-social-cultural analysis of the everyday lives of Hutterites. The Hutterites are a communal group and an intentional community who share …

Living On The Edge: Old Colony Mennonites And Digital Technology Usage, Kira Turner

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Mainstream society’s perceptions of traditional Mennonites tend towards viewing them as technologically deficient. Yet, cell phones, computers, and tablets are increasingly prevalent within this population. Challenging stereotypes, this article considers digital technology usage by Old Colony Mennonites (OCM) in Southwestern Ontario (SWO). Rooted in the Anabaptist tradition, a lengthy history of migration led the OCM to settle in Mexico. Yet, due to economic circumstances, many continue to travel to and from SWO, resulting in a transformation; from maintaining an isolated lifestyle to one that includes some form of mainstream society. This shift includes digital technology usage, specifically texting, social media, …

A Pilot Study Comparing The Penetration Properties Of Bilobed And Trilobed Bronze Arrowhead Points Modeled From Neo-Assyrian Finds From Ziyaret Tepe, Turkey, Damon Mullen

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The aim of this project is to help understand how and why cultures implement technology. This paper specifically focuses on testing and analyzing how morphological variation in arrowhead shape affects performance attributes. As a model of variation, we have chosen to concentrate on two different types of bronze arrowhead based on Neo-Assyrian finds, bilobed and trilobed, to see if they, by virtue of morphology only, have differing penetration capabilities.

Late Assyrian Plain Simple Ware: A Ceramic Analysis, Tasha Hunter

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The focus of this project will be to firmly establish, characterize, and define the range of traits that describe the most common fabric type of the pottery found at Ziyaret Tepe, which was called by the excavators and ceramic experts Plain Simple Ware (code designation LA01). To characterize and describe the range of traits of Plain Simple Ware from Ziyaret Tepe, ceramic analysis, specifically, a method called ceramic petrography was employed in this study of thirty samples of pottery. The results include confirmation that the clay used to produce the pottery had mineral deposits consistent with the geomorphology of the …

Quantifying Cortical And Cancellous Bone Volume: A Computed Tomography Approach, Hannah Rutkowski

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Human identification primarily uses long bones of the body such as femora and tibiae which have a high cortical bone amount, these are thought to contain the highest amount of DNA. However, current research shows this is not the case, cancellous bone could contain more DNA in the porous spaces than dense cortical bone. This study aims to measure the variation in the amount of cortical and cancellous bone taken from sampling sites of seven individuals from ten different skeletal elements: femur, tibia, middle rib, calcaneus, first cuneiform, patella, third metacarpal, third metatarsal, first distal phalanx, and cervical vertebra. This …

Schneider Park Demographic Analysis, Patricia Arnett

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For this project I will be completing a demographic analysis of Schneider Park by using death records from both parts of Glendale cemetery (the Regular cemetery and the Potter’s Field). From the analysis of this project I am hoping to gain a better understanding of the differences in the health status as determined by either death certificates or death records of those interred at the different cemeteries. From this I have five predictions that will be tested using the two-way ANOVA and the Chi-Square analysis. These predictions include: causes of death and cemeteries are not independent from one another; a …

From Womb To Tomb: Learning To Live With Documents, Frederick W. Guyette

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Official records are ubiquitous in American life. Even before a birth certificate is issued for a child, medical professionals create an ultrasound image. The family regards that image as sublime, but the doctor scutinizes it in a different way. When a child is older, the birth certificate is what the school wants to see. Later in life, many other documents will be generated: a driver's license and car insurance, employment and tax records, financial documents associated with buying a home, passports for travel, and then a last will and testament, followed by a death certificate. Coping with documents throughout the …

Editorial, Tim Gorichanaz

Proceedings from the Document Academy

In response to the changing landscape of academic publishing, this special issue called for poetic engagements with questions of scholarly interest. In putting together this issue, we sought to showcase without evisceration the complex roles that documents play in human life.

Documentation, Information And The Animal Connection, Geir Grenersen

Proceedings from the Document Academy

The article elaborates on the informational relationship between nature, animals and humans. In traditional societies, nature and animals are rich sources of information and documentation, as seen in Sámi reindeer husbandry. Today, research on animal behaviour has shown that animals are capable of sophisticated communication with humans. In the field of documentation and information studies, Marcia Bates has made a significant contribution to this perspective. The article presents some of her concepts, and discusses their potential use in empirical research on documentation in the Sámi society.

A Neo-Documentalist Lens For Exploring The Premises Of Disciplinary Knowledge Making, Lisa Börjesson, Nicolo Dell'unto, Isto Huvila, Carolina Larsson, Daniel Löwenborg, Bodil Petersson, Per Stenborg

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This article applies a neo-documentalist approach to explore disciplinary documentation and document practices, assumed to condition disciplinary knowledge-making. The aim is to show how conceptions and materialities of what counts as documentation and documents are intertwined with changing and persisting disciplinary and sub-disciplinary practices of producing information and knowledge, of knowing, and informing. A collective, multivocal autoethnographic method is used to obtain vignettes from five areas of activity in or related to archaeology. The ongoing digitization of archaeological investigation and documentation methods, and of archaeological materials, is used as a shared departure point in the vignettes, explaining how digitization influences …