Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Gender (7)
- Appalachia (5)
- Identity (3)
- Migration (3)
- Youth (3)
-
- Alaska (2)
- Anthropology of the State (2)
- Care (2)
- Diaspora (2)
- Ecuador (2)
- Informal economy (2)
- Labor (2)
- Medical Anthropology (2)
- Mexico (2)
- Mobility (2)
- Racialization (2)
- Reproductive Health (2)
- Sustainable development (2)
- The state (2)
- Transnationality (2)
- U.S. (2)
- Urban Space (2)
- Activist Archaeology (1)
- Adaptability (1)
- Alternative Agrifood Movement (1)
- Anthropology of Medical Pluralism (1)
- Anthropology of North America (1)
- Armenia (1)
- Baja California Sur (1)
- Bhutanese Refugees (1)
Articles 1 - 30 of 41
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
We Can Still Feed Ourselves: Food Sovereignty, Aid, Sickness, And Health In Eastern Kentucky, Annie Koempel
We Can Still Feed Ourselves: Food Sovereignty, Aid, Sickness, And Health In Eastern Kentucky, Annie Koempel
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Over forty percent of eastern Kentucky residents are classified as obese. From a biomedical perspective, obesity is linked to a range of chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure and is caused by particular lifestyle behaviors that lead to an increase in calorie consumption and decrease in calorie expenditure. However, these links – individual behavior leads to obesity which leads to chronic disease - do not take into account a wide range of personal, social, environmental, political, and economic conditions. In addition to the assumptions of what it means to become and be obese, Kentucky is regularly …
Development With Identity Or Commodities With Identity? Lenca Craftswomen, Honduras' Cultural Identity Politics, And Global Economies Of Culture, Ana Hasemann Lara
Development With Identity Or Commodities With Identity? Lenca Craftswomen, Honduras' Cultural Identity Politics, And Global Economies Of Culture, Ana Hasemann Lara
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Across Latin America ‘development with identity’ schemes are currently widely promoted by multilateral and aid organizations; schemes based on the commercialization of heritage, which increasingly focus on impoverished ethnic minorities. As part of this trend, the Honduran state’s discourse on cultural diversity reinforces the ‘heritage-making’ (patrimonialización) of cultural minorities, their identities, and livelihoods—particularly indígena women, under the auspices of multiculturalism. However, the on-the-ground reality for indigenous Lenca communities, specifically Lenca craftswomen, participating in such initiatives, remains with some of the highest indices of poverty and vulnerability in the country. Hence, the conditions under which ‘development with identity’ benefits local communities, …
Negotiating Islam: Debating Authority And Ethnoreligious Authenticity Among Iranian Americans In The U.S. South, Erfan Saidi Moqadam
Negotiating Islam: Debating Authority And Ethnoreligious Authenticity Among Iranian Americans In The U.S. South, Erfan Saidi Moqadam
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This dissertation examines the flexibility of Quranic exegesis in accommodating self-defined Muslims’ agency in the predominantly Christian society of the United States. This is a project to study Islam not from the perspective of an explicit ideology articulated by clerics, intellectuals, scholars and elites on scriptural texts, but rather one that focuses on Muslims’ readings of scripture and practices of Islam(s), reconstructed in their lived experiences. During fourteen months of ethnographic research in four cities in urban and rural areas in the U.S. South with Iranian Muslims, interlocutors were found to be engaged in a particular kind of relationship with …
Otavalan Women Weavers: Rethinking Gendered Labor And Crafts In Ecuador, Kaitlin Marie Zapel
Otavalan Women Weavers: Rethinking Gendered Labor And Crafts In Ecuador, Kaitlin Marie Zapel
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This research focuses on the gendered labor of craft production and distribution of Otavaleños, an indigenous group in the Imbabura Valley in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. Otavalans are often described as a society of weavers with strong gender divisions. Households typically function as units of production, with tasks ideally broken down along gender lines. Women are generally depicted as secondary workers who do not weave the textiles that make Otavalans famous; however, they are generally perceived as being responsible for selling these textiles in the market. This research argues that current gendered labor relations in Otavalan textile production can …
The Antithesis Of ‘Business As Usual’: Youth, Class, And Volunteer Organizations In Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Chelsea Cutright
The Antithesis Of ‘Business As Usual’: Youth, Class, And Volunteer Organizations In Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Chelsea Cutright
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Youth in Tanzania make up the majority of the current growing population and therefore are increasingly a focus of local and international development concern, specifically as the rates of urban growth and unemployment are also increasing. This research builds upon existing anthropological literature, which largely addresses contemporary and urban African youths as “problems” in dire need of governmental intervention and international solutions. Through explorations of the ways in which Tanzanian youth are actively and creatively working to improve their own futures, utilizing their own agency to create opportunities, and solving their own problems in the absence of successful external intercessions, …
Challenging Narratives: Kurdish Young Adults In Istanbul And Chicago, Lydia Shanklin Roll
Challenging Narratives: Kurdish Young Adults In Istanbul And Chicago, Lydia Shanklin Roll
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
In this dissertation, I explore the interplay between youthful agency and state imposition. Specifically, drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Istanbul, Turkey and Chicago, Illinois, I investigate how young adults who have migrated within one state and to another are navigating the states and bureaucratic systems in which they live. My interlocutors hail from a state that is quintessentially twentieth century, by which I mean the state was established as a nation-state, promoted as existing for members of a particular ethno-linguistic identity, with a charismatic leader who inspired a cult of personality. This narrative of the state has …
"Roses Remind Me Of Aleppo": Ironic Home, Beckoning States, And Memories Of Syrian Armenian Women In Yerevan, Armenia, Anahid Matossian
"Roses Remind Me Of Aleppo": Ironic Home, Beckoning States, And Memories Of Syrian Armenian Women In Yerevan, Armenia, Anahid Matossian
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This project contributes to anthropologies of the state, (diasporic return) migration, belonging, home, and conflict, including genocide and war. It intervenes in the anthropology of home by focusing on both the social and physical aspects of home, its pain, joys, and ironies, and it speaks to the anthropology of genocide by showing how a population a century removed from a genocide uses it to interpret their experience. This dissertation also deals with state constructions of ideal citizen formation--one of obligation and devotion to the socially constructed ancestral homeland, where descendants who share an ethnic identity have a role to play …
"It's About More Than Just Animals": Environmental Politics Of Zoo-Adjacent Conservation(Ists) In The U.S., Dayton D. Starnes Ii
"It's About More Than Just Animals": Environmental Politics Of Zoo-Adjacent Conservation(Ists) In The U.S., Dayton D. Starnes Ii
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This research explores the influences of diverse environmental politics in shaping zoo-adjacent conservation activities in the United States. Based upon 13 months of multi-sited ethnographic research, conducted with conservation actors across six states, the researcher investigates and documents how conservation professionals—operating in contexts adjacent to zoological institutions—experience and respond to the socio-environmental implications associated with the cascading effects of global environmental change. In the face of current challenges and uncertain environmental futures—shaped by habitat alterations, ecological transitions, and species declines/extinctions—conservationists are undergoing their own processes of reassessment and reconfiguration of their underpinning philosophies and body of practices that inform their …
Producing Possibilities: Envisioning And Mediating Youth, Identities, And Futures In Central Appalachia, Tammy Lynn Clemons
Producing Possibilities: Envisioning And Mediating Youth, Identities, And Futures In Central Appalachia, Tammy Lynn Clemons
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This dissertation, based on anthropological research between 2015 and 2020, focuses on young people in different yet interconnected social contexts in Central Appalachia and how they envision, construct, and act upon possibilities for themselves and the region through multimodal cultural production processes like visual art, performance, and multisensory media. The research question focusing this project was: How do the social contexts of young Appalachians’ engagement in media consumption and production practices shape the possibilities they envision for themselves, others, and their region? I found that the specific contexts were less important than the interconnected mentoring conversations across sites and generations …
Who’S Doing The Dishes?: Reproductive Labor, Gender, And Middle-Class Subjectivities In Rabat, Morocco, Miriam Ruth Dike
Who’S Doing The Dishes?: Reproductive Labor, Gender, And Middle-Class Subjectivities In Rabat, Morocco, Miriam Ruth Dike
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
The dissertation uses reproductive labor as a lens to examine how gendered and classed subjectivities are continuously created, performed, and subtly transformed within and outside of urban middle-class Moroccan households. Reproductive labor is broadly defined as unpaid and paid labor associated with caregiving and domestic roles including but not limited to cleaning, cooking, and child care. Subjectivities are the perspectives, feelings, beliefs, and desires of subjects within uneven relations of power. This research is based on seventeen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Rabat-Sale, Morocco including fifty-seven semi-structured interviews with married working- and middle-class Moroccans, as well as extensive participant observation …
Captivating State: Youthful Dreams And Uncertain Futures In Kurdistan, Diana Hatchett
Captivating State: Youthful Dreams And Uncertain Futures In Kurdistan, Diana Hatchett
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This dissertation examines how Kurdistani young people experience contests of values in a state shaped by sectarian political cultures during a time of trial and transition for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). The dissertation is based on approximately 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork (September 2015 - June 2017) spent among Kurdistani youth, broadly defined as 12 to 30 years old, in secondary schools and fitness centers. The ethnography presents interlocutors as co-theorists in conceptualizing the society and state in which they live, incorporating descriptive vignettes, transcripts of discussions, and lengthy interview quotes. Kurdistani interlocutors describe the push and pull …
Reimagining Care: Surviving And Thriving Among Lgbtq African Americans In Birmingham, Alabama, Stacie Lynn Hatfield
Reimagining Care: Surviving And Thriving Among Lgbtq African Americans In Birmingham, Alabama, Stacie Lynn Hatfield
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This dissertation draws on fieldwork with Black LGBTQ identifying individuals and communities in Birmingham, Alabama conducted from 2015-2019 as part of a project that reimagines theories of care. Informed by scholars of Black and feminist studies, I conceive of forms of care as negotiations of survival and tactics of thriving that are worked out in everyday practices and discourses among LGBTQ African Americans. I show how histories of racial inequality and centuries of resistance, surviving, and thriving among communities of African descent intersect with LGBTQ politics, space, and identity to create strategies and places of individual and community care. My …
We Died And Were Reborn: An Anthropological Study Of Health-Seeking Strategies For Mental And Emotional Distress In Post-War Eastern Sri Lanka, Daniel Ball
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Since the early 2000s, Sri Lanka has made major gains in decentralizing and expanding state-based mental healthcare access and services outside of Colombo. However, little evidence exists related to on-the-ground experiences of Sri Lankans who access these services, the quality and sustainability of services, and the effects services have on individual therapy management of mental and emotional distress. In addition to an extensive historical review of mental health service provision, this dissertation explores strategic health-seeking practices among Tamil-speaking communities in eastern Sri Lanka—an area ravaged by high rates of poverty, 26 years of civil war, and the 2004 tsunami catastrophe. …
Restructuring Work “The Chattanooga Way”: Urban Revitalization, Contingent Labor, And Trying To Get By In Tennessee, Mauri Systo
Restructuring Work “The Chattanooga Way”: Urban Revitalization, Contingent Labor, And Trying To Get By In Tennessee, Mauri Systo
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
In Chattanooga, TN, the construction of a fiber optic telecommunications network has led to a tech-based revitalization strategy, and the promotion of entrepreneurial and technical positions within the Downtown. This dissertation questions what revitalization, the “Chattanooga Way,” means to differently situated residents of Chattanooga, TN, and how those differences in interpretation are related to lived experiences of economic inequality. Powerful local discourses, like the Chattanooga Way policy model and its accompanying “origin myth” of Chattanooga’s development often conceal disparities between grass-roots, public, and private sector notions of economic revitalization. Through the projection of a tech-based economic future, Chattanooga has created …
Village-Temple Consciousness In Two Jaffna Tamil Villages In Post-War Sri Lanka, Pathmanesan Sanmugeswaran
Village-Temple Consciousness In Two Jaffna Tamil Villages In Post-War Sri Lanka, Pathmanesan Sanmugeswaran
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This dissertation investigates how community rebuilding is occurring in a gravely damaged, post-conflict society. Specifically, it looks at how people in two villages in Tamil, Hindu, Jaffna, Sri Lanka, are using their ‘sense of place’ and ‘place-making practices’ or what I call here their ‘village-temple consciousness’ or village consciousness, to maintain and rebuild their communities after war to make them, once again, places in which they feel a comfortable sense of belonging. This is a comparative study because Inuvil and Naguleswaram were affected differently by the Sri Lankan civil war. That is, while Inuvil, was physically damaged and socially disrupted …
Beyond Extractivism And Governmentality: The Postneoliberal State, Development, And The Circulation Of Oil Rents Among Indigenous Peoples In The Ecuadorian Amazon, Karla Monserrath Encalada-Falconí
Beyond Extractivism And Governmentality: The Postneoliberal State, Development, And The Circulation Of Oil Rents Among Indigenous Peoples In The Ecuadorian Amazon, Karla Monserrath Encalada-Falconí
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This dissertation explores the experiences of an indigenous community from the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon during the implementation of extractivism, development, and redistributive projects. Drawing on twenty months of ethnographic fieldwork in the community of Playas del Cuyabeno and in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, I question the common assumption that indigenous peoples radically reject extractivism and state-imposed modernizing agendas. In contrast, this study shows how indigenous peoples negotiate resource extraction in their territories and navigate the partial failures of postneoliberal redistribution and the contradictory agendas of economic development projects—specifically the aim of the postneoliberal Ecuadorian government’s project to redistribute rents …
Finding The Singing Spruce: Craft Labor, Global Forests, And Musical Instrument Makers In Appalachia, Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth
Finding The Singing Spruce: Craft Labor, Global Forests, And Musical Instrument Makers In Appalachia, Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Musical instrument makers in the state of West Virginia in the United States pursue “singing,” lively instruments that capture ideals of musical tone and “re-enchant” their work and lives through relationships with craft materials and the forest landscape. Suitable tonewoods that grow in the region, such as red spruce (Picea rubens), intersect with makers’ desires to craft instruments in the style of famed makers such as the C.F. Martin Company and the Gibson Company as well as provide instruments imbued with a sense of place. While the demand for and symbolic import of instruments made with local wood …
Flexible Liminality Among The Tibetan Diaspora: Tibetan Exiles Adjusting Cultural Practices In Dharamsala, India And The United States, Sneha Thapa
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
In this dissertation, I investigate the characteristics and quality of liminality among the Tibetan exile community in Dharamsala, India, and the United States. I argue that the quality of their liminality defines this exile community’s ability to maneuver and voice their influence to geo-political community of states that surround them, all while within their liminal condition. The Tibetan exile people live as stateless foreigners in India but have a better standard of living and better opportunities to acquire transnational resources than their surrounding host community. In the U.S., Tibetan diaspora people live as asylum-seekers and naturalized Tibetan-Americans but have established …
Experiencing Displacement And Statelessness: Forced Migrants In Anse-À-Pitres, Haiti, Daniel Joseph
Experiencing Displacement And Statelessness: Forced Migrants In Anse-À-Pitres, Haiti, Daniel Joseph
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
In 2013, the Dominican state ruled to uphold a 2010 constitutional amendment that stripped thousands of Dominicans of Haitian origin of their citizenship and forced them to leave the country during summer 2015. About 2,200 of these people became displaced in Anse-à-Pitres, where most took up residence in temporary camps. I use the term forced migrants or displaced persons interchangeably to refer to these people. Many endure challenges in meeting their daily survival needs in Haiti, a country with extreme poverty, considerable political instability, and still in the process of rebuilding itself from the devastating earthquake of 2010. Drawing on …
Making Experts: An Ethnographic Study Of “Makers” In Fablabs In Japan, Vaughn M. Krebs
Making Experts: An Ethnographic Study Of “Makers” In Fablabs In Japan, Vaughn M. Krebs
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
“Makers” around the world cohere in a digital and physical network of technology hobbyists. “Makers" are open-source hardware enthusiasts who use machines like 3D printers and laser cutters - manufacturing tools that have only recently become accessible to laypeople - to make things. “Makers" share a vision for a world where everyone would be able to make almost anything, supplanting top-down economic systems and channels of production. This ethnographic research examines a subset of the “maker” community: “makers” in “FabLabs” in Japan. These “FabLabs” are small workshops that house the machines that “makers” need and make them open to the …
Gender, Sexuality, And Categories Of Risk: Physician Views Of Cervical Cancer In Bangalore, India, Emily G. Capilouto
Gender, Sexuality, And Categories Of Risk: Physician Views Of Cervical Cancer In Bangalore, India, Emily G. Capilouto
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
India has one of the highest rates of cervical cancer morbidity and mortality globally. Despite this, there are no national or state-wide screening efforts for cervical cancer and its prevention in India. In an effort to understand the magnitude of cervical cancer in Bangalore, India, this research draws upon data collected in hospital contexts over a month-long period to explore the ways in which physician attitudes contribute to understandings of cervical cancer and its prevention in the growing urban context of Bangalore.
Racism, Resistance, Resilience: Chronically Ill African American Women’S Experiences Navigating A Changing Healthcare System, Elizabeth New
Racism, Resistance, Resilience: Chronically Ill African American Women’S Experiences Navigating A Changing Healthcare System, Elizabeth New
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This medical anthropology dissertation is an intersectional study of the illness experiences of African-American women living with the chronic autoimmune syndrome systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), commonly known as lupus. Research was conducted in Memphis, Tennessee from 2013 to 2015, with the aim of examining the healthcare resources available to working poor and working class women using public sector healthcare programs to meet their primary care needs. This project focuses on resources available through Tennessee’s privatized public sector healthcare system, TennCare, during the first phases of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). A critical medical anthropological analysis is used …
Unending Mazes: Gendered Inequalities, Drug Use, And State Interventions In Rural Appalachia, Lesly-Marie Buer
Unending Mazes: Gendered Inequalities, Drug Use, And State Interventions In Rural Appalachia, Lesly-Marie Buer
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Prescription opioids are associated with rising rates of overdose deaths and hepatitis C and HIV infection in the US, including in rural Central Appalachia. Yet there is a dearth of published ethnographic research examining rural opioid use. The aim of this dissertation is to document the gendered inequalities that situate women’s encounters with substance abuse treatment as well as additional state interventions targeted at women who use drugs. These results are based on ethnographic fieldwork completed from 2013 to 2016 and centered around one county seat in rural Central Appalachia. Data are ascertained through semi-structured interviews with women who have …
Stories Of Strength: Chicago Latin@S' Navigation Of Health, Well-Being, And Chronic Disease, Lilian L. Milanés
Stories Of Strength: Chicago Latin@S' Navigation Of Health, Well-Being, And Chronic Disease, Lilian L. Milanés
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Health inequalities take many forms related to race, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnic, language and many other axes throughout communities around the world. Type two diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol are examples of conditions (among many others) that disproportionately affect Latino@s in the U.S.. The research of this dissertation is based on fieldwork conducted throughout several predominantly Latin@ neighborhoods in Chicago, IL. This dissertation examines how Latin@s in Chicago navigate health and well-being, and how they engage in agentive strategies in the face of chronic disease. I recorded individual life histories and semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participant observation …
Precarity In Paradise: Tourism, Migration, And The Broader Causes Of Instability In Roatán, Honduras, Heather Jan Sawyer
Precarity In Paradise: Tourism, Migration, And The Broader Causes Of Instability In Roatán, Honduras, Heather Jan Sawyer
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Since the 1990s, the population on the Honduran island of Roatán has grown from around 20,000 (mostly English-speaking Islanders) to roughly 100,000 residents (at least half of which are native Spanish-speaking Ladinos from the Honduran mainland) (Bay Islands Voice 2014b). This population growth has occurred alongside increasing forms of economic and environmental precarity that have fueled widespread instability on the island. While ethnic tensions between Ladinos and Islanders have existed since colonial times, conflict between the groups reached a crescendo in 2014 after the murder of a cruise ship employee in Roatán by a Ladino migrant. This sparked a …
“We’Re Being Left To Blight”: Green Urban Development And Racialized Space In Kansas City, Chhaya Kolavalli
“We’Re Being Left To Blight”: Green Urban Development And Racialized Space In Kansas City, Chhaya Kolavalli
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
In this dissertation, I explore ‘green’ urban development and urban agriculture projects from the perspective of residents of an African American majority neighborhood in Kansas City—who reside in an area referred to as a ‘blighted food desert’ by local policy makers. In Kansas City, extensive city government support exists for urban agricultural projects, which are touted not just as a solution to poverty associated issues such food insecurity and obesity, but also as a remedy for ‘blight,’ violence and crime, and vacant urban land. Specific narratives of Kansas City’s past are used to prop up and legitimate these future visions …
Binational Farming Families Of Southern Appalachia And The Mexican Bajio, Mary Elizabeth W. Schmid
Binational Farming Families Of Southern Appalachia And The Mexican Bajio, Mary Elizabeth W. Schmid
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Over the last four decades, farming families throughout North America experienced significant transitions due, in part, to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. This multi-sited dissertation investigates the ways in which a network of binational (Mexican-American) families organize their small- to mid-scale farming enterprises, engage in global networks as food producers, and contribute to rural economies in the southeastern U.S. and the Mexican Bajío. To mitigate difficult transitions that came with the globalizing of agri-food markets, members of this extended family group created collaborative, kin-based arrangements to produce, distribute, and market fresh-market fruits and vegetables in the …
Beyond The Coal Divide: The Cultural Politics Of Natural Resource Extraction In Central Appalachia, Julie A. Shepherd-Powell
Beyond The Coal Divide: The Cultural Politics Of Natural Resource Extraction In Central Appalachia, Julie A. Shepherd-Powell
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
During the last several years far southwest Virginia, like elsewhere in the central Appalachian region, has faced a decline in all coal mining activity and a subsequent loss of coal mining jobs, meaning that local economies are suffering and the unemployment line is long. In addition, this area continues to face environmental pollution from surface coal mines that are still in operation or have not been reclaimed. Drawing upon anthropological literature on natural resource extraction and economic and environmental inequality, this dissertation highlights the lives of members of a local grassroots environmental organization, as well as other local residents, in …
Healthy Aging In The North: Sociocultural Influences On Diet And Physical Activity Among Older Adults In Anchorage, Alaska, Britteny M. Howell
Healthy Aging In The North: Sociocultural Influences On Diet And Physical Activity Among Older Adults In Anchorage, Alaska, Britteny M. Howell
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
Increasing rates of overweight, obesity, and related cardiovascular diseases among older adults in the United States present unique public health challenges. Cross-cultural research has shown marked variation in health across the world’s elder populations because aging is a biological process rooted in sociocultural context. The sociocultural environment contributes to complex negotiations of food and physical activity patterns for older adults. It is well established in the literature that urban residents report low levels of physical activity and have easy access to fast food outlets, which tend to be concentrated in lower-income neighborhoods. I utilize a biocultural framework, integrating nutritional anthropology …
Reproducing Childbirth: Negotiated Maternal Health Practices In Rural Yucatan, Veronica Miranda
Reproducing Childbirth: Negotiated Maternal Health Practices In Rural Yucatan, Veronica Miranda
Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology
This ethnographically informed dissertation focuses on the ways rural Yucatec Maya women, midwives and state health care workers participate in the production of childbirth and maternal health care practices. It further addresses how state health programs influence the relationships and interactions between these groups. Although childbirth practices in Yucatan have always been characterized by contestation, negotiation and change, their intensity and speed have significantly increased over the last decade. Drastic changes in the maternal health of rural indigenous communities in Mexico and throughout the world are directly connected to intensified state interventions that favor biomedicine over traditional health systems. In …