Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Historical And Cross-Cultural Perspectives On Parkinson's Disease, Lee Xenakis Blonder

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder, affecting up to 10 million people worldwide according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Epidemiological and genetic studies show a preponderance of idiopathic cases and a subset linked to genetic polymorphisms of a familial nature. Traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda recognized and treated the illness that Western Medicine terms PD millennia ago, and descriptions of Parkinson’s symptomatology by Europeans date back 2000 years to the ancient Greek physician Galen. However, the Western nosological classification now referred to in English as “Parkinson’s disease” and the description of symptoms that define it, are accredited to …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 …

Creating Identity: How Steve Biko Cultural Institute’S Black Consciousness And Citizenship Influences Student Identity Formation In Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Sheryl Felecia Means

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

The research presented in “Creating Identity” investigates Black identity formation within the Steve Biko Cultural Institute (Biko) in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, a pre-vestibular – or college entrance exam preparation course – for Afro-Brazilian high school and aspiring college students. The curriculum, Cidadania e Consciência Negra (Black Consciousness and Citizenship; abbreviated CCN) serves as a vital pillar to the institutional approach to Black identity. In a Eurocentric society like Brazil and a world where Black identity is largely discriminated against including in educational spaces, Biko represents a movement to combat the exclusion of Afro-descendant youth from university, improve self-esteem and perceptions …

“Well, Don’T Walk Around Naked... Unless You’Re A Girl”: Gender, Sexuality, And Risk In Jamtronica Festival Subcultural Scenes, Kaitlyne A. Motl

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

The purpose of this study was to explore emerging issues surrounding gendered fear, threat, and violence perpetration at music festivals – particularly events that feature a synthesis of jam band and electronic dance music acts – a genre termed jamtronica by its fans. Though gendered violence perpetration and prevention have been widely studied within other party-oriented settings (i.e., sexual violence perpetration on college campuses), very little research exists to address how wider disparities of gender and sexuality permeate a community whose members frequently claim the scene’s immunity from external inequalities.

In this three-year multi-sited ethnography, I incorporate participant observations, group …