Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Claiming Equality: Puerto Rican Farmworkers In Western New York, Ismael Garcia-Colon

Publications and Research

n July of 1966, a group of Puerto Rican migrant workers protested against police brutality and discrimination in North Collins, a small farm community of western NewYork. Puerto Rican farmworkers made up a substantial part of the population, and had transformed the ethnic, racial, and gender landscape of the town. Local officials and residents produced and reproduced images of Puerto Ricans as inferior subjects within US racial and ethnic hierarchies. Those negative images of Puerto Ricans shaped the way in which local authorities elaborated policies of social control against these farmworkers in North Collins. At the same time, Puerto Rican …

A Transnational Conversation On French Colonialism, Immigration, Violence And Sovereignty, Miriam Ticktin, Ruth Marshall, Paolo Bacchetta

Publications and Research

This conversation was transcribed from a panel discussion that took place at The Scholar & Feminist Conference XXXII, “Fashioning Citizenship: Gender and Immigration,” held on March 24, 2007 at Barnard College.

Demographic, Economic, And Social Transformations In The South Bronx: Changes In The Nyc Community Districts Comprising Mott Haven, Port Morris, Melrose, Longwood, And Hunts Point, 1990 - 2005, Astrid Rodríguez

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report analyzes demographic and socioeconomic characteristics among the five largest Latino nationality groups during 1990-2005 in South Bronx, specifically the neighborhoods of Mott Haven, Port Morris, Melrose, Longwood, and Hunts Point.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Puerto Ricans are the largest Latino subgroup in the South Bronx, accounting for over half of the total population by 2005 although their …

Playing And Eating Democracy: The Case Of Puerto Rico's Land Distribution Program, 1940s-1960s, Ismael Garcia-Colon

Publications and Research

In the early 1940s, the colonial government of Puerto Rico with the consent of the U.S. federal government began to elaborate a land reform. Under Title V of the Land Law of 1941, the government established resettlement communities for landless families. One of their goals was to transform landless agricultural workers into an industrial and urban labor force by teaching them “democratic, industrial, and modern” habits. Government officials distributed land to landless families through lotteries, portraying the ceremonies as acts of democracy. Community education programs produced literature, films, and posters aimed at fostering development and political participation. The colonial state …

The Bloomberg Way: Development Politics, Urban Ideology, And Class Transformation In Contemporary New York City, Julian Brash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the links between a development project, a particular urban ideology, and processes of class transformation in contemporary New York City. The city's postindustrial transformation, especially since the 1970s fiscal crisis, has created a newly dominant corporate elite consisting of executives and high-level professionals. This ruling class alliance has begun to supersede the city's older, real estate-centered traditional growth coalition, as emblematized by the political rise of billionaire ex-CEO Michael Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg, along with other ex-corporate executives in his administration, implemented a private-sector inspired corporate, technocratic, and antipolitical approach to governance in general and urban and economic …

Mexicans In New York City, 1990 - 2005, Laird Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic aspects of the Mexican population of the New York City area from 1990-2005.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The Mexican-origin population of New York City was the city’s fastest-growing Latino national group between 1990 and 2005. From a population of 55,587 in 1990 Mexicans increased to 183,792 in 2000 and 227,842 in 2005.1 By …

Buscando Ambiente: Hegemony And Subaltern Tactics Of Survival In Puerto Rico’S Land Distribution Program, Ismael Garcia-Colon

Publications and Research

A land distribution program in the community of Parcelas Gándaras in Cidra, Puerto Rico, transformed the lives of formerly landless workers. Examination of the working conditions and social relations of workers before the program (1890s–1945) and their economic strategies, migration, and networks after becoming small landholders (1945–1960s) shows how they used their land to accommodate their practices of everyday life and their tactics of survival. Local ruling groups became hegemonic through the establishment of land distribution communities. The habitus of the new landholders expressed the ways in which they engaged in economic, social, and political activities shaped by the new …

Changes In Income Distribution Patterns, Wealth, And Poverty Among New York City’S Racial/Ethnic Groups Between 1999 And 2004, Laird Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic aspects of the Latino population of the New York City area between 1999 and 2004.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The most striking differential when household income patters are examined is that among Latino households there was almost no increase in median household income between 1999 and 2004. Among whites, African Americans, and Asians …

Taman Shamanism (Borneo), Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Hispanic Citizenship, Registration, And Voting Patterns In Comparative Perspective During The 2000 Presidential Elections, Laird Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines citizenship, registration, and voting patterns of Latinos during the 2000 presidential elections.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The participation rates among potential Hispanic voters who were citizens of the U.S. 18 years of age and older were the lowest of any of the major racial/ethnic groups in the nation during the 2000 presidential elections as well as …

Census 2000: The Latino Population And The Transformation Of Metropolitan New York, Laird Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic aspects of the Latino population of the New York City area according to the 2000 census.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: New York City’s Latino population increased from 23.7% of all New Yorkers in 1990 to 27% in 2000. If growth rates between 1990 and 2000 continue for the remainder of the decade, Latinos …

The State Goes Home: Local Hyper-Vigilance Of Children And The Global Retreat From Social Reproduction, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

In an early scene in The Terminator, the Cyborgian Arnold Schwarzenegger walks into an L.A. gun shop and asks to see the wares. The shopkeeper lays out Uzis, submachine guns, rocket launchers, and other sophisticated means of overkill, nervously understating, "Any one of these will suit you for home defense purposes." The situation is likewise in the growing child protection industry. In keeping with the shopkeeper's sly comment, these businesses feast on an all-pervasive culture of fear, while creating a mockery, alibi, and distraction out of what they are really about - to remake the home as a citadel through …

The Nature Of Nature: South Floridian Children And Their "Environmental Experience", Kristina Baines

Publications and Research

To investigate how schoolchildren in south Florida think about their natural environment, children were observed participating in several school-organized environmental field trips. Their attitudes about, interactions with and knowledge concerning various aspects of their natural environment were observed. This study explores how these children interpret natural phenomena using their cultural tools and focuses on the interpretation of commonly-observed responses to nature. Responses discussed include: the blurring of lines between the natural and non-natural, separation and binary thinking, and fear and aggression. Reference is made throughout the study to various theoretical frameworks, including cultural-ecological perspectives, ideas from structural anthropology and other …

The Use Of Plot Surveys For The Study Of Ethnobotanical Knowledge: A Brunei Dusun Example, Jay H. Bernstein, Roy Ellen, Bantong Bin Antaran

Publications and Research

This paper describes a technique for using plot surveys to measure individual informants' ethnobotanical knowledge of forests, as applied to the Dusun community of Merimbun in Brunei. Two knowledgeable but non-literate Dusun informants enumerated marked plots of both recent and old secondary growth mixed dipterocarp forest near the village. They were able to provide names (other than life-forms or the most general basic and intermediate categories) for 86-97% of species growing in the plots. Between 152 and 170 plant names were elicited by the surveys. In all cases, about 88% of the names were at the basic naming level and …

The Deculturation Of The Brunei Dusun, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Three Film Reviews, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Reviews of Advertising Missionaries, directed by Chris Hilton and Gauthier Flauder; Chastie (Paradise), a film by Sergey Dvortsevoy; and Wilbert: Street Kid in Nicaragua, a video by Bent Erik Kroyer.

Devil, Not-Quite-White, Rootless Cosmopolitan: Tsuris In Latin America, The Bronx, And The Ussr, Marc Edelman

Publications and Research

This autobiographical essay reflects on experiences with antisemitism in New York City, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Soviet Union. It analyzes this material in relation to ethnographers' emotional life and subjectivity and the larger historical and political contexts of fieldwork.

Higher-Order Categories In Brunei Dusun Ethnobotany: The Folk-Classification Of Rainforest Plants, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Licuala Palms In Brunei Dusun Ethnobotany, Jay H. Bernstein, Roy F. Ellen

Publications and Research

Several species of Licuala occur in the Merimbun area of Tutong district, Brunei Darussalam. One kind of Licuala, called benjiru by the local Dusun population, is often collected for sale as a vegetable. While Licuala is not generally considered an important economic plant, overharvesting in the Merimbun area suggests that conservation measures may be needed to protect it from local extinction. Besides benjiru, other kinds of Licuala recognized by the Dusun are called silad and ukang. The three kinds of Licuala do not have one overall name in the Dusun language, but constitute a covert category at the "intermediate" ethnobotanical …

Poisons And Antidotes Among The Taman Of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Among the Taman of kabupaten Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan, certain oils are used to cast and counteract spells. Antidotes are said to be made from the same substance as poisons, and thus a given antidote implies ownership of the poison, and this is one reason people are furtive in using, exchanging, and discussing this aspect of folk-medicine. Magical oils are generally obtained outside Taman society, and are used most often to cure illnesses presumed to have been contracted outside the society. These oils contain essences, and so can be reproduced by adding oil. However, specific knowledge is needed to use …

The Shaman's Destiny: Symptoms, Affliction, And The Re-Interpretation Of Illness Among The Taman, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Representing African Music, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

Of all the currents of change that have swept the humanities during the last half-century, the most far-reaching revolve around language. Philosophy, history, and literary criticism, among other language-based disciplines, have developed what is often presented as a largely unprecedented self-consciousness about representation. The message to scholars in nonlanguage-based disciplines is clear: to be taken seriously, one can no longer view language as a transparent window to an objective reality but must confront the foundational political and ideological baggage of the medium itself, as well as its constant slippage in the hands of the producer.

The Infusion Of Teachers From Eastern Indonesia Into West Kalimantan, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Music In The Funeral Traditions Of The Akpafu, V. Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

"Nna lo senu kuwe, fie oresire somoloo?" ("Who laid a mat for him, so that he slept so deeply?") With this rhetorical question, the Akpafu of Southeastern Ghana initiate a period of public mourning occasioned by the death of one of their number.1 The philosophic significance of death in Akpafu culture is twofold. First, it marks the completion of the earthly cycle of existence, birth-circumcision-puberty-marriage-death. Second, it opens the door to a higher, spiritual realm in which the deceased, as an ancestor, takes his place alongside the lesser gods and the Supreme Being in the higher reaches of the hierarchy …

The Perils Of Laura Watson Benedict: A Forgotten Pioneer In Anthropology, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.