Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

‘Doing’ Llama Face Stew: A Late Moche Culinary Assemblage As A Domestic Dedicatory Deposit, Guy S. Duke

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presented here is a meal from a simple cooking vessel, excavated from the Late Moche (AD 600–850) site of Wasi Huachuma on the north coast of Peru. This meal, cooked in a whole, plain vessel and spilled beneath the floor of a domestic structure, was unambiguously marked by a large stone embedded in the floor. It contained diverse plant and animal materials associated with the sea, the coastal plains, the highlands and the jungle. Via its contents and placement, this meal embodies the ways in which the domestic world of exchange and interaction was deeply entangled with the spiritual and …

Investigación Arqueológica: Sitio Buen Suceso, Comuna Dos Mangas, Provincia De Santa Elena. Informe Suplemental., Sarah M. Rowe, Guy S. Duke

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Supplemental report on radiocarbon dates from the 2017 excavation season at Bun Suceso, a Valdivia site located on the coast of Ecuador. Report submitted to the Region 5 Office of the Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural, Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Globalization Tropes In Films: A Focus On Crazy Rich Asians, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Deniz Atik

Marketing Faculty Publications and Presentations

Learning from and encouraged by the impacts of film film-based windows into globalization phenomena, in this issue of MGDR, we have focused on the film Crazy Rich Asians. In the popular press, the movie has been hailed as a major cultural point of departure for Hollywood as well as panned as just an Asian Asian-themed romantic comedy that celebrates the super-rich of Asia. The buzz around this movie does, however, indicate a slight bend in the curve of the geopolitics of the globalization discourse – and hence our decision to feature a number of academically insightful reviews of this movie …

Coming Of Age In The Rio Grande Valley: Race, Class, Gender, And Generations In Narco Culture, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Based on ethnographic observations in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, this article examines the multiple, overlapping, criss-crossing axes of inequality that both shape and fracture the experiences of individual borderland residents. Instead of focusing on the national border, this article analyzes intersecting axes of social inequality and uses ethnographic data to describe social borders that divide and separate those living in the borderlands. Using ethnographic data culled from 133 young adults in focus group settings, this article merges the theory of intersectionality with border studies scholarship in order to analyze how socio-economic stratification, gender inequality, histories of racial …

Como Usar A Nostalgia Em Teu Benefício: 10 Anos De Jornadas Portuguesas De Paleopatologia [How To Use Nostalgia For Your Benefit: 10 Years Of Portuguese Conference On Paleopathology], Francisco Curate, Sandra Assis, Cristina Cruz, Inês Leandro, Célia Lopes, Carina Marques, Vítor Matos, Inês Oliveira-Santos, Filipa Cortesão Silva

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Medical Mobility And Intersectionality Across The United States-Mexico Border [La Movilidad Médica Y La Interseccionalidad En La Frontera Entre Estados Unidos Y México], Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The objective of this article is to analyze how intersectional processes shape differing degrees of medical mobility (defined as facility of movement across national borders for the purposes of obtaining health care services or pharmaceuticals) across the U.S.-Mexico border for Spanish-speaking Hispanics and English-speaking Whites. Furthermore, this document explores how intersectional factors such as race, language, socioeconomic status, and citizenship shape medical mobility patterns. The research used ethnographic methods (in-depth interviews and participant observation) over a period of sixteen months (from May 2017 until September 2018) in Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The results of the …

Medical Migration As Access To Health Care In The Rio Grande Valley, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This qualitative research explains difficulties among migrants when accessing health care. Many individuals of Mexican origin either travel to more accessible health care in Mexico or arrange to have medical services and pharmaceuticals transported to them in the United States. The research is based in a majority Hispanic and Spanish-speaking county in the US which is characterized by a high degree of poverty and illness, especially diabetes (Melo 2017, Montoya 2011). This article provides an ethnographic approach to medical migration and describes the importance of medical migration for both Mexico and the United States. The article offers recommendations for public …

The Cavalry Of Christ: The Catholic Church And South Texas (1821-1882), Francisco Ortiz Jr.

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article reflects on the cavalry of Christ, Catholic Church and South Texas from 1821-1882. It mentions that Mexican Catholics upheld certain religious traditions such as family altars within the home in the light of the shortage of priests and places of worship. It also mentions about a petition that was presented to U.S. Bishops by a group of Catholics in 1837 and requested English speaking priests and help in confronting anti-Catholic sentiment that had become much more prominent.

Peyote Veneration In Challenging Times: Issues Of Land And Access In South Texas, Servando Z. Hinojosa

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Members of the Native American Church in the United States need reliable supplies of peyote, an entheogenic plant that they can today only obtain from licensed peyote dealers in South Texas. These dealers have supplied church members with their sacrament since the early twentieth century. Their predecessors, meanwhile, harvested peyote for Native Americans since before the mid-nineteenth century. In recent decades, though, issues of land access and plant scarcity have made it more difficult to acquire peyote. Better handling of peyote habitat and better harvesting methods are needed to meet increasing demand for peyote.

Absence Of Evidence Or Evidence Of Absence? A Discussion On Paleoepidemiology Of Neoplasms With Contributions From Two Portuguese Human Skeletal Reference Collections (19th–20th Century), Carina Marques, Vítor Matos, Tiago Costa, Albert Zink, Eugénia Cunha

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Biological, sociocultural, demographic and environmental factors are major contributors to the contemporary burden of oncological diseases. Although cancer’s current epidemiological landscape is fairly well known, its past occurrence and history seem more obscure. In order to test the hypothesis that paleopathological diagnosis is an adequate measure of the prevalence of malignant neoplasms in human remains, 131 skeletons (78 females, 53 males, age-at-death range: 15–93 years) from Coimbra and Lisbon Identified Skeletal Collections, 19th/20th century (Portugal), were examined. The cause of death for all of the selected skeletons was a malignant neoplasm, as recorded in the collection’s documental files. Through the …

Absence Of Evidence Or Evidence Of Absence? A Discussion On Paleoepidemiology Of Neoplasms With Contributions From Two Portuguese Human Skeletal Reference Collections (19th–20th Century), Carina Marques, Vítor Matos, Tiago Costa, Albert Zink, Eugénia Cunha

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Biological, sociocultural, demographic and environmental factors are major contributors to the contemporary burden of oncological diseases. Although cancer’s current epidemiological landscape is fairly well known, its past occurrence and history seem more obscure. In order to test the hypothesis that paleopathological diagnosis is an adequate measure of the prevalence of malignant neoplasms in human remains, 131 skeletons (78 females, 53 males, age-at-death range: 15–93 years) from Coimbra and Lisbon Identified Skeletal Collections, 19th/20th century (Portugal), were examined. The cause of death for all of the selected skeletons was a malignant neoplasm, as recorded in the collection’s documental files. Through the …

How Natural Birth Became Inaccessible To The Poor, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

While Mexico’s upper class is discovering the wonders of natural birth, traditional Indigenous midwives are being actively discouraged from providing the same services to the lower classes.

Investigación Arqueológica: Sitio Buen Suceso, Comuna Dos Mangas, Provincia De Santa Elena. Informe Preliminar., Sarah M. Rowe, Guy S. Duke

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Preliminary report on the 2017 excavation season at Bun Suceso, a Valdivia site located on the coast of Ecuador. Report submitted to the Region 5 Office of the Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural, Guayaquil, Ecuador.

New Studies In Rio Grande Valley History, Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta, Thomas Daniel Knight

UTRGV & TSC Regional History Series

Spanglish, a poem / Mario Barrera -- Place identity formation in the Lower Rio Grande Valley: the identity of Brownsville / Elim Zavala -- The complexity of land custody in 19th century deep South Texas / Eugene Fernandez -- Not in Kansas anymore: selling midwesterners the 'Magic Valley' of South Texas / Craig H. Roell with Ruth May Euler Roell -- Alexander Headley, public servant or scoundrel? / Norman Rozeff -- Rebels at the Rio Grande: naval actions on the international border in 1863 / Walter E. Wilson -- Matamoros en la época de la constitución de 1917 / Rosaura …

La Memoria Contra La Jerarquía: Excavaciones En Buen Suceso, Sarah M. Rowe

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Diabetes Screening And Prevention In A High-Risk, Medically Isolated Border Community, Ann V. Millard, Margaret A. Graham, Nelda Mier, Jesus Moralez, Maria Perez-Patron, Brian Wickwire, Marlynn L. May, Marcia G. Ory

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction: A project in a Texas border community setting, Prevention Organized against Diabetes and Dialysis with Education and Resources (POD2ER), offered diabetes prevention information, screening, and medical referrals. The setting was a large, longstanding flea market that functions as a shopping mall for low-income people. The priority population included medically underserved urban and rural Mexican Americans. Components of the program addressed those with diabetes, prediabetes, and accompanying relatives and friends.

Background: People living in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) face challenges of high rates of type 2 diabetes, lack of knowledge about prevention, and inadequate access to medical care. …

Supplementary Studies In Rio Grande Valley History, Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta, Thomas Daniel Knight

UTRGV & TSC Regional History Series

Corrupted, a poem / Tom Emrick -- Primal Matamoros : ancient refuge among the Estuaries of the Rio Bravo / Craig H. Roell -- U.S.-Mexico relations during the establishment of the American Consulate in Matamoros : 1826-1842 / Melisa C. Galvan -- Captain King’s Cotton : the Civil War blockade-running adventures of Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy / Walter E. Wilson -- The sad saga of John V. Singer / Norman Rozeff -- Ulster and the Texas-Mexico Border : John McAllen and his family / Thomas Daniel Knight -- Joseph Kleiber and his letter press book / Anthony K. Knopp …

Seth Holmes, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers In The United States (Berkeley, Ca: University Of California Press, 2013), Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, Seth Holmes uses ethnographic detail to explain how social processes naturalize structural violence in the U.S./Mexico migrant labor system. In essence, the book serves as an “ethnographic witness” to how racism and the neoliberal global economy undergird the everyday suffering of Mexican migrants. Holmes’ book is the result of five years of ethnographic research among the Triqui people of Oaxaca, Mexico. During this time, Holmes lived with Triqui indigenous families in the mountains of Oaxaca, accompanied migrants during their illegal border crossing through the Arizona desert, and was jailed with his informants. In the United …

Racial I(Nter)Dentification: The Racialization Of Maternal Health Through The Oportunidades Program And In Government Clinics In México, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using an ethnographic approach, this article examines the role of racialization in health-disease-care processes specifically within the realm of maternal health. It considers the experiences of health care administrators and providers, indigenous midwives and mothers, and recipients of conditional cash transfers through the Oportunidades program in Mexico. By detailing the delivery of trainings of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) [Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social ] for indigenous midwives and Oportunidades workshops to indigenous stipend recipients, the article critiques the deployment of “interculturality” in ways that inadvertently re-inscribe inequality. The concept of racial i(nter)dentification is offered as a way of …

Lipan Apache Tribe Of Texas: Ethnic And Racial Identity, Ashley S. Leal

Theses and Dissertations

The findings presented in this study are based on a series of semi-structured interviews, focused on racial, ethnic and cultural identity, with 20 registered members of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. Analysis of the interviews show that while members are spread across the country the basic cultural identity still remains the same: they are all cultural and tribal ambassadors to future generations and the world around them. Results indicate that interviewed members share the same aspirations of becoming federally recognized by the United States government, not for any type of benefits but to be seen as real Indians through …

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 …

Extra Studies In Rio Grande Valley History, Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta, Thomas Daniel Knight

UTRGV & TSC Regional History Series

Vaqueros del Valle, a poem / Manuel Medrano -- Matamoros and the Tejanos of Victoria and Goliad in the Texas Revolution: conflicting loyalties and ‘Assiduous Collaborators’ / Craig H. Roell -- Antonio Canales Rosillo / James Mills -- The origins of Salome Balli McAllen / Thomas Daniel Knight -- Sally Skull: the legend / Sondra Shands -- The Kawahata Family comes to the Valley / Randall Sakai – The Battle of Reynosa / Jesus Ramos -- Los días siguientes a la toma de Matamoros por los Constitucionalistas / Andres Cuellar -- H-E-B: an American and Valley success story / Norman …

Hacia La Justicia Sociocomunicativa: Trabajo De Campo Multi-Situado, Teoría Transnacional E Hiper-Auto-Reflexividad, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

En este escrito, reconozco que las narrativas del padecer se despliegan dentro de ámbitos discursivos y ofrezco varios métodos para avanzar hacia la justicia sociocomunicativa. Primero, sugiero llevar a cabo el trabajo de campo “multi-situado” y que este método etnográfico sea respaldado por teoría multisituada. Enfatizo la importancia de la hiper-autoreflexividad al intentar disminuir las inequidades estructurales que puedan influir al antropólogo en su obtención de narrativas del padecer y su interpretación semiótica de ellas. Analizo unas narrativas breves que surgieron de mi trabajo de campo sobre el parto humanizado en México para demostrar cómo el biopoder condiciona lo que …

Mapping Indigenous Self-Determination In Highland Guatemala, Patricia A. Mcanany, Sarah M. Rowe, Israel Quic Cholotio, Evelyn Caniz Menchu, Jose Mendoza Quic

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The challenges of building research partnerships around community mapping are critically reviewed in reference to the politics of heritage and identity among Indigenous Maya communities in highland Guatemala. This paper discusses how the goals and interests of archaeologists meshed with those of indigenous mappers in five communities that chose to participate in the mapping program. Based on responses to a survey about the mapping project, participants report joining in order to enhance self-determination, gain cartographic literacy, and improve life opportunities. Community authority over the project and a broad base of participation (including young and old, male and female) proved essential …

Environmental Justice And Community-Based Participatory Research In Texas Borderland Colonias, Adelita G. Cantu, Margaret A. Graham, Ann V. Millard, Isidore Flores, Meaghan K. Mugleston, Iris Y. Reyes, Ester C. Carbajal

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective

An innovative academic-community partnership studied daily decisions in communities of mostly Spanish-speaking, low-income residents of colonias in Hidalgo County, TX, about risk of exposure to fish contaminated by PCBs at an Environment Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site.

Design and Sample

The team used focus group interviews with colonia residents and content analysis to assess knowledge of risk related to the Superfund site, the Donna Reservoir and Canal System.

Results

(1) many lacked knowledge of the Superfund site contamination; (2) a few participants fished at the lake, knew people who did so, and consumed the catch, but most participants feared …

Yet More Studies In Rio Grande Valley History, Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta, Thomas Daniel Knight

UTRGV & TSC Regional History Series

Frontera, a poem / Elvira Ardalani -- Strasbourg, Alsace, and Brownsville, Texas : ideal sister cities / Milo Kearney -- La concepción de la identidad fronteriza en Jovita Gonzalez y Adela Sloss de Vento / Laura Garza -- Cuando se fundo Matamoros? / Andres F. Cuellar -- The formation and early development of the Llano Grande / Maria Vallejo -- Doño Rosa Maria Hinojosa de Balli and her family : a lower Rio Grande Valley family in an Atlantic perspective / Thomas Daniel Knight -- Clarksville : a forgotten community on the Rio Grande / Jim Mills -- The last …

Re-Visiting The Field: Collaborative Archaeology As Paradigm Shift, Patricia A. Mcanany, Sarah M. Rowe

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The emphasis of the JFA on field methods resonates strongly with current disciplinary interest in multivocality and participatory research. In this new epistemology of inclusiveness, communities play an active role in the production of archaeological knowledge as well as in the conservation of cultural heritage. From the perspective of archaeologists trained in the U.S. who conduct research in Latin America, we historicize changes in the triadic relationship among archaeologists, contemporary communities, and things of the past. This examination focuses on the evolving social context of archaeological practice. The social milieu within which archaeology is conducted is explored further by reference …

Neoliberalism, Interrupted. Edited By Mark Goodale And Nancy Postero. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. Pp. 317, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Neoliberalism, Interrupted presents Latin America as a global laboratory for new forms of governance, economic structures, and social mobilization. The volume’s title signals a repeated theme throughout the chapters: in Latin America, neoliberalism is simultaneously being challenged and naturalized. At present, Latin America is a site of social, political, and economic experimentation on the one hand and intractable structural vulnerability, violent resistance, and retrenchment on the other. New forms of contestation render other potential ideologies for radical social change unthinkable.

Multiple Osteochondromas In A 16th–19th Century Individual From Setúbal (Portugal), Nathalie Antunes-Ferreira, Eugénia Cunha, Carina Marques

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

An archaeological survey at the church of Nossa Senhora da Anunciada (Setúbal, Portugal) uncovered the remains of 92 individuals. Historical and archaeological data suggest that the inhumations occurred between 1531 and 1839. The present work reports the pathological features of a mature male individual exhibiting multiple osseous bony projections and bone deformity, mainly affecting the metaphyseal and adjacent diaphyseal regions of the long bones. The macroscopic and the radiological analyses of the lesions suggest multiple osteochondromas as the most probable diagnosis. This is the first archaeological case of this disease known on the Portuguese territory and in southern Europe.

Snow Monkeys In South Texas, A Thirty Year Study Of Behavioral Adaptation, Lou E. Griffin

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A thirty year study of a transplanted species of primate, Macaca fuscata, Japanese snow monkey, documents the environmental influences on an intact troop relocated from Arashiyama, Japan to south Texas. These influences include novel disease, toxins, and predation. The effects of the environment on the social structure, hierarchy, and population of the primates are presented. The study begins in 1972 and is completed in 2002.