Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“I Had Time To Do My Research, Had Time To Think And Educate Myself”: Using Information Work For Nonbinary And Genderfluid Identity Self-Recognition During Covid-19 Isolation, Amy L. Stone, Alexandra Gallin-Parisi

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

During the COVID-19 pandemic, nonbinary and genderfluid adults did information work to discover their gender identities as they explored information on social media, online, and in person. Due to cisnormative restrictions, this information was necessary to identify and validate their gender identity as authentic. During the pandemic, more nonbinary people were able to self-recognize their own gender because there was more time for reflection and more access to nonbinary narratives online, including representations of nonbinary life that defied White, thin, androgynous ideals. By analyzing interviews with 22 U.S. adults who came out as nonbinary during the pandemic, this qualitative study …

Cross-State Differences In The Processes Generating Black–White Disparities In Neonatal Mortality, Benjamin Sosnaud

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

The U.S. Black neonatal mortality rate is more than twice the White rate. This dramatic disparity can be decomposed into two components: (1) disparities due to differences in the distribution of birth weights, and (2) disparities due to differences in birth weight–specific mortality. I utilize this distinction to explore how the social context into which infants are born contributes to gaps in mortality between Black and White neonates. I analyze variation in Black–White differences in neonatal mortality across 33 states using 1995–2010 data. For each state, I calculate the contribution of differences in birth weight distribution versus differences in birth …

Becoming Msm: Sexual Minorities And Public Health Regimes In Vietnam, Alfred Montoya

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

This article explores the discursive and practical marking of male sexual minorities in Vietnam, as targets of a series of biopolitical regimes whose aim, ostensibly, was and is to secure the health and wellbeing of the population (from the French colonial period to the present), regimes which linked biology, technoscientific intervention and normative sexuality in the service of state power. Campaigns against sex workers, drug users, and briefly male sexual minorities, seriously exacerbated the marginalization and stigmatization of these groups, particularly with the emergence of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam in 1990. This article also considers how the contemporary apparatus constructed to …

Wearing Pink In Fairy Town: The Heterosexualization Of The Spanish Town Neighborhood And Carnival Parade In Baton Rouge, Amy L. Stone

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

The Spanish Town parade is currently the largest Carnival parade in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with hundreds of thousands of attendees dressed in pink costuming, cross-dressing, and wearing pink flamingo paraphernalia. This chapter traces the queer origins of the Spanish Town parade to the racially integrated bohemian gayborhood of Spanish Town in the 1980s. Using interviews, archival research, and participant observation, I argue that current LGBTQ residents of Baton Rouge, even those who have never lived in Spanish Town, claim a vicarious citizenship to the neighborhood and parade through an understanding of the queer origins of the parade in the 1980s …

Muslim Victimization In The Contemporary Us: Clarifying The Racialization Thesis, Sarah Beth Kaufman, Hanna Niner

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

This article draws on in-depth, qualitative interviews with Muslim and non-Muslim Americans in 2016 to specify how Muslim “racialization” is shaped by the racial politics of the United States (US). Anti-Muslim bias is not experienced by religious Muslims as a whole, but by people whose bodies are read to be affiliated with the Islamic religion—often erroneously—because of their perceived racial characteristics. Self-identified black, white, and Hispanic Muslims with no visible markers of their religion do not experience anti-Muslim harassment, while non-Muslim Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs who embody an imagined “Muslim look,” cope with fear and aggression from strangers on a …

Sa Climate Ready: A Pathway For Climate Action & Adaptation, Sa Climate Ready, Alfred Montoya

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

San Antonio is one of the fasted growing cities in the nation. Every day, we are working to plan for and accommodate the estimated one million additional residents that will arrive in San Antonio by 2040. In much the same way, it’s our collective responsibility to prepare for a future that is projected to have hotter temperatures, longer droughts and more intense rain events, as a result of our changing climate. That is why working with the City Council, one of my first acts as your Mayor was to sign the Paris Climate Agreement.

Throughout the SA Climate Ready process, …

The Criminalization Of Muslims In The United States, 2016, Sarah Beth Kaufman

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

The criminalization of Muslims—framing an Islamic religious identity as a problem to be solved using state crime control logic—is undeniably in process in the United States. Local, state, and federal statutes target Muslims for surveillance and exclusion, and media sources depict Muslims as synonymous with terrorism, as others have shown. This paper analyzes the public’s role in the criminalization of Islam, which I call “cr-Islamization.” Drawing on in-depth, qualitative interviews in a major Southwest city during the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, I detail how the majority of 144 politically, racially, and economically diverse interviewees talk about Muslims as …

The Force Of Absent Things: Hiv/Aids, Pepfar Vietnam, And The Afterlife Of Aid, Alfred Montoya

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

This article examines emerging strategies employed by nongovernmental organizations working in HIV/AIDS prevention and control in Vietnam that have been put to work in the recent past in the context of precipitous declines in US funding for such work through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). These strategies foreground specific personalities in an instrumentalization of experience, expert knowledges, and identity in a delicate balance between projecting strength and indicating urgent need. These strategies are played out in the realm of social media, facilitated through information communications technologies (ICTs) that are quickly restructuring forms of sociality and the tradecraft …

Death In Life And Life In Death: Forms And Fates Of The Human, Connor Graham, Alfred Montoya

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

This chapter traces the origins, meanings and characteristics of “the human” in recent time – its forms. The chapter contends that, instead of being immutable, “the human” has taken different forms, been ascribed different meanings, and exhibited different characteristics over time. Our approach to “the human” contributes to this volume on digital existence, which confronts existential questions centered on being and technology, with historical and anthropological awareness. We aim to show, through Foucault’s (1971 ) insistence upon the forms of subjectivity as opposed to its substance, how understandings of “the human” are subject to change and transformation. Exploring these diverse …

Networked Human, Network’S Human: Humans In Networks Inter-Asia, E. Kerr, Connor Graham, Alfred Montoya

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

This special issue explores the conceptions of the human that emerge out of the form and the design of information and communications technologies (ICTs). Geographically, our focus compares two countries with a relatively high level of ICT penetration—South Korea and Singapore—and two countries with a relatively low level—India and Vietnam. In each country we see how different forms of the human emerge, in part out of the ways in which technological infrastructure develop and intertwine with social order. In this introduction we reflect on the long genealogy of “human” and “humanity” and the more recent history of ICTs in Asia.

Mourners In The Court: Victims In Death Penalty Trials, Through The Lens Of Performance, Sarah Beth Kaufman

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

This article presents findings from ethnographic research in death penalty trials around the United States, focusing on the role of victims and their supporters. Victim impact testimony (VIT) in death penalty sentencing has received intense legal scrutiny during the past thirty years. The ruling jurisprudence allows VIT with the explanation that it deserves parity with testimony about the defendant's background. Drawing on observations and interviews with participants in 15 death penalty trials, I demonstrate that this framing confuses the central role of victim supporters in the courtroom. Victim supporters function as mourners, which grants them a socially elevated position in …

The Impact Of Anti-Gay Politics On The Lgbtq Movement, Amy L. Stone

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Since the late 1970s, the Religious Right has mobilized to oppose the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) movement in the United States. Sociologists have studied the relationship between these two movements as a classic movement-countermovement dynamic, in which the strategies, actions, and framing of one movement impact the other. I analyze the way Religious Right reactive and proactive opposition to gay rights has affected the LGBTQ movement. First, I provide an overview of the literature on the negative impacts of the Religious Right, including the diversion of movement goals, transformation of frames, and marginalization of queer politics. Second, …

Death, After-Death And The Human In The Internet Era: Remembering, Not Forgetting Professor Michael C. Kearl (1949-2015), Connor Graham, Alfred Montoya

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Today, humans have remains that are other than physical, generated within and supported by new information communications technologies (ICTs). As with human remains of the past, these are variously attended to or ignored. In this article, which serves as the introduction to this special issue, we examine the reality, meaning and use of enduring digital remains of humans. We are specifically interested in the evolving practices of remembering and forgetting associated with them. These previously posited considerations of ‘human remains’ and ‘what remains of the human’ are useful for exploring the relationship between the Internet, the body, remembering and forgetting. …

Digital Relics Of The Saints Of Affliction: Hiv/Aids, Digital Images And The Neoliberalisation Of Health Humanitarianism In Contemporary Vietnam, Alfred Montoya

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Neoliberal logics and calculations have been incorporated into strategies for global health management as rational, technical, scientific guarantors of the integrity and dignity of The Human. NGOs demonstrate, accrue and trade in virtue to gain support, funding and prestige. They field site-visit teams which conduct audits of local partners, review programme data and collect images and narratives of and from the recipients of aid. These images and narratives are used to assess the performance of their local partners and win new donations and volunteers in their home countries. These powerful images and harrowing stories appear in NGO media, establishing the …

Un Canto En Movimiento: "No Nos Moverán" En Estados Unidos, España Y Chile En Los Siglos Xix Y Xx, David Spener

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Resumen: En este trabajo se presentan los resultados de un estudio que examina la historia de la canción “No nos moverán” y su canto en diversos contextos culturales y sociopolíticos durante el transcurso de dos siglos. Esta canción tiene su origen en las prácticas religiosas de los esclavos africanos en Estados Unidos del siglo XIX. En el siglo XX fue adoptada como himno por los movimientos sindicales y de derechos civiles estadounidenses. Posteriormente llegó a España, donde cumplió un papel en la resistencia al régimen franquista, antes de ser cantada en Chile para defender el proyecto socialista de Salvador Allende. …

Utatlán: The Constituted Community Of The K'Iche' Maya Of Q'Umarkaj ‐ By Backcock, Thomas F. [Review Of The Book Utatlán: The Constituted Community Of The K'Iche' Maya Of Q'Umarkaj, By T. F. Babcock], Jennifer P. Mathews

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

This volume is the culmination of fieldwork that was carried out in the 1970s at Greater Utatlán, made up of several communities surrounding the ceremonial centre of Q'umarkaj and the famed home of the Popol Wuj. Although he completed his dissertation in 1980, Babcock freely admits that life got in the way of publishing at the time, and I commend him for returning to it three decades later. This temporal distance offers the advantage of being able to review the initial work within the context of later research and to incorporate the wisdom attained since the initial writing of …

The Life Giving Stone: Ethnoarchaeology Of Maya Metates ‐ By Searcy, Michael T [Review Of The Book The Life-Giving Stone: Ethnoarchaeology Of Maya Metates, By M. T. Searcy], Jennifer P. Mathews

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

This volume attempts to get at the interpretations of the archaeological record from the back-end by studying the modern Maya metate life cycle, including procurement, production, acquisition, use and discard. The author spent two years in Guatemala conducting ethnographic research with metate producers and users in three Maya communities. It is through this rich research that he greatly expands our understanding of metates by providing background of their complexity through several avenues. For example, he documents contemporary gifting traditions, noting that families still give metates as wedding gifts to couples, even as their use decreases with the presence of electric …

Houses In A Landscape: Memory And Everyday Life Mesoamerica ‐ By Hendon, Julia A. [Review Of The Book Houses In A Landscape: Memory And Everyday Life In Mesoamerica, By J. A. Hendon], Jennifer P. Mathews

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

A review of the book Houses in a Landscape: Memory and Everyday Life in Mesoamerica in which the author uses the material remains found in and around ancient Maya domestic spaces in three settlements in Honduras, Hendon to examine aspects of everyday life.

Cenotes As Conceptual Boundary Markers At The Ancient Maya Site Of T’Isil, Quintana Roo, México, Scott L. Fedick, Jennifer P. Mathews, K. Sorensen

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Ancient Maya communities, from small village sites to urban centers, have long posed problems to archaeologists in attempting to define the boundaries or limits of settlement. These ancient communities tend to be relatively dispersed, with settlement densities dropping toward the periphery, but lacking any clear boundary. At a limited number of sites, the Maya constructed walled enclosures or earthworks, which scholars have generally interpreted as defensive projects, often hastily built to protect the central districts of larger administrative centers during times of warfare (e.g., Demarest et al. 1997; Inomata 1997; Kurjack and Andrews 1976; Puleston and Callender 1967; Webster 2000; …

El Proyecto Costa Escondida: Arqueología Y Compromiso Comunitario A Lo Largo De La Costa Norte De Quintana Roo, México / The Costa Escondida Project: Archaeology And Community Engagement Along Quintana Roo's North Coast, Mexico, Jeffrey B. Glover, Dominique Rissolo, Jennifer P. Mathews, C. A. Furman

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

El Proyecto Costa Escondida iniciado en 2006 se diseñó para investigar las culturas marítimas previas y posteriores al contacto español, así como para estudiar el paisaje del norte de Quintana Roo, Península de Yucatán, México. Este proyecto no promueve una agenda de desarrollo “tradicional”, sino que se inserta en la crítica del desarrollo para ampliar los límites del compromiso comunitario a través del aprendizaje social. Al encontrarse lejos de los principales sitios turísticos de la costa del Caribe, el área cuenta con una industria de turismo en expansión asociada a la Isla Holbox. En este artículo se discuten las experiencias …

Citizenship And Punishment: Situating Death Penalty Jury Sentencing, Sarah Beth Kaufman

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Although capital punishment in the United States is subject to much social scientific scrutiny, there has been little ethnographic study of death penalty trials. This is not only an empirical lacuna, but also a theoretically and politically important one: by failing to take capital trials as primary objects of inquiry, the practices of lawyers, witnesses, judges, and others are viewed as products of, rather than implicated in, the institution of criminal justice. Based on an ethnography of fifteen death penalty sentencing trials across the United States during 2007, 2008, and 2009, this article seeks to understand the role of juries …

A Pre-Columbian World Edited By Jeffery Quilter And Mary Miller [Review Of The Book A Pre-Columbian World, By J. Quilter & M. Miller, Ed.], Jennifer P. Mathews

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Review of the well-crafted, 11-chapter Pre-Columbian World examining “the Americas” through the research of scholars working in North, Central, and South America.

Reconciling Growth With History: Student Engagement And Research On The Southside Of San Antonio, John Donahue, Christine Drennon

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

In September 2004, the San Antonio Express News reported that the Southside Independent School District (SISD) was growing faster than any other school district in San Antonio. The opening of a new Toyota manufacturing plant, the possibility of a new Texas A&M University campus, and the difficulties of further development on the north side of the city have culminated in new opportunities for urban growth on the south side of the city. While population growth is anticipated, the school districts there must prepare well in advance for the new students. Who are they? Where do they live? Where do their …

Hfhsa San Antonio: Taking Stock To Move Ahead, John Donahue, Christine Drennon

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Habitat for Humanity San Antonio (HFHSA) has a long history and well-recognized role in San Antonio. This evaluation research report offers data and recommendations that might assist HFHSA to look back on its 27 year history, reflect on its accomplishments, note changes in its institutional efforts and glean insights that might assist in improving current operations and planning for the future.

Models Of Cosmic Order: Physical Expression Of Sacred Space Among The Ancient Maya, Jennifer P. Mathews, J. F. Garber

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

The archaeological record, as well as written texts, oral traditions, and iconographic representations, express the Maya perception of cosmic order, including the concepts of quadripartite division and layered cosmos. The ritual act of portioning and layering created spatial order and was used to organize everything from the heavens to the layout of altars. These acts were also metaphors for world creation, world order, and establishing the center as a position of power and authority. This article examines the articulations of these concepts from the level of caches to the level of regions from the past and present in an attempt …

Megalithic Architecture At The Site Of Victoria, Quintana Roo, Jennifer P. Mathews

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Megalithische Architektur in der archäologischen Stätte Victoria in Quintana Roo, Mexiko. Das "Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project" der University of California, Riverside und der Trinity University, San Antonio erforscht seit 1993 die archäologischen Stätten in der Region von Tumben-Naranjal im nördlichen Quintana Roo. Im Jahr 1997 wurde der zuvor nicht bekannte Fundort Victoria im Munizip von Leona Vicario dokumentiert und vermessen. Neben einer kolonialzeitlichen Kirche ließen sich verschiedene Strukturen nachweisen, deren Architektur im megalithischen Stil ausgeführt ist. Die megalithische Bauweise ist charakteristisch für die Zeit der späten Präklassik und frühen Klassik auf der Halbinsel Yukatan.

Arquitectura megalítica en el sitio …

Radiocarbon Dating Of Architectural Mortar: A Case Study In The Maya Region, Quintana Roo, Mexico, Jennifer P. Mathews

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

The use of radiocarbon dating to analyze mortar and charcoal inclusions within mortar or plaster is a useful way to date the construction of architecture, particularly when options for other chronometric methods are limited. In the Yalahau region of northern Quintana Roo, Mexico, members of the Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project have faced challenges in dating buildings made of large blocks of stone in the Megalithic architectural style. The Megalithic style poses serious problems for any analysis, as excavating into structures with stones weighing several tons can be dangerous, expensive, and time consuming. Additionally, there are no associated sculptures, texts …

Wetland Manipulation In The Yalahau Region Of The Northern Maya Lowlands, Scott L. Fedick, Bethany A. Morrison, B. J. Andersen, S. Boucher, J. C. Acosta, Jennifer P. Mathews

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Manipulation of wetlands for agricultural purposes by the ancient Maya of southern Mexico and Central America has been a subject of much research and debate since the 1970s. Evidence for wetland cultivation systems, in the form of drained or channelized fields, and raised planting platforms, has been restricted primarily to the southern Maya Lowlands. New research in the Yalahau region of Quintana Roo, Mexico, has recorded evidence for wetland manipulation in the far northern lowlands, in the form of rock alignments that apparently functioned to control water movement and soil accumulation in seasonally inundated areas. Nearby ancient settlements date primarily …

Religion And Healing The Mind/Body/Self, Meredith B. Mcguire

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

In order to understand the linkage between religion and healing, we must go well beyond the theme of body regulation. Although religion does involve body regulation and control, and although these functions are reflected in healing practices, there are many other ways by which religion is linked with human bodies. We will arrive at a far richer appreciation of this linkage if we start with a broad sociology of the human body, its illnesses and healing, and ask the expanded question: How is religion involved in these complex processes?

The Box Ni Group Of Naranjal, And Early Architecture Of The Maya Lowlands, Jennifer P. Mathews

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

The distinctive Early Classic megalithic style of the northern Maya Lowlands did not exist in isolation, but rather shared a number of features with monumental architecture of the central Petén. One particularly striking example is the triadic platform grouping, found at Naranjal as well as Uaxactún and other early sites of the northern and southern lowlands. The temporal and geographic distribution of Maya triadic platform groupings are reviewed in conjunction with such shared architectural features as rounded corners. These comparisons support the early dating ofmegalithic architecture and help define the special characteristics of this northern lowland style.