Anthropology Commons^™

Valorisasi Wayang Kulit: Tambal Sulam Pengalaman Pengrajin Wayang Kulit Dan Liyan Di Desa Wisata Wayang Sidowarno, Yayuk Windarti

Antropologi Indonesia

The emergence of Sidowarno Wayang Tourism Village indicates a significant transformation in the traditional art of wayang kulit (shadow puppetry). Wayang artisans in Sidowarno offer wayang kulit as an educational process packaged within a tourism village. However, as they adapt to the needs of others, the values embedded in wayang kulit undergo changes. This article addresses several questions, including: how do the roles of wayang kulit artisans in Butuh Village, Sidowarno contribute to the development of the wayang tourism village? How does the presence of other actors shape and transform the values of wayang kulit? Furthermore, how does …

Mountain Communities During A Time Of War: A Case Study Of The Hutsul Region In The Carpathian Mountains Of Ukraine, Pavlo Rybaruk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the ethno-ecological technologies employed by the Hutsul people within the highland agrarian economy of the Carpathian Mountains. Over centuries, the Hutsuls have developed ethno-ecological technologies that maintain ecological integrity while supporting community livelihoods.

The study addresses three primary research questions: What are the most important ethno-ecological technologies of the Hutsul highland economy? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be applied to economic, agricultural, and tourism development in the Hutsul region? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be combined with contemporary approaches to encourage sustainable development in the region?

The research explores the devastating impact of the Russian …

“Festivity Without Feast”: Autonomy, Prosperity, Mutuality And Inequality In A Mentawai Village, Darmanto Darmanto

Antropologi Indonesia

Among the Mentawai, autonomy, prosperity, and mutuality are core values that foster their egalitarian ethos. In the last few decades, they have reconfigured these values in their quest for equality with outsiders who have consistently looked down upon them. The state encourages and facilitates their pursuit by establishing a centralised village, implementing development projects, and promoting engagement in commodity production. These processes direct productive work results towards household livelihoods, legitimising wealth accumulation and sidelining sharing practices. In seeking equality with outsiders, the realisation of autonomy and productivity increasingly leads to internal inequality, which is the antithesis of their egalitarian quest …

Atheist Values And The Religious Other: Negotiating Morality In Indonesia, Malaysia, And The Philippines, Timo Duile, Prince Kennex R. Aldama

Antropologi Indonesia

As being religious is often seen in religious societies as a precondition for having values, atheists often face prejudice as they are seen as people without values. However, as they conceptualize and construct their values with and against the religious other, they are part of society as an arena in which what counts as values is constantly negotiated. Drawing on David Graeber’s concept of society as an arena for the realization of value production, this article sheds light on the values of atheists in religious plural societies in Southeast Asia, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. It analyzes how atheism …

Accepting Film: A Study On Tradition, Values Change And Continuity In Tebuireng Pesantren, Jombang, Nurman Hakim

Antropologi Indonesia

The pesantren tradition contains values that become a guide for life and become a source for the actions of santri and kiai. The values in the pesantren tradition in the form of akhlak (morals), ibadah (worship) and barokah (blessings) become an anchor for kiai and santri in responding to films that are considered products of modernity emerging from the west. In the past the act of watching and making films was rejected and considered contrary to the pesantren tradition, but slowly now films are used by pesantren to preserve the tradition itself. This article explores how values in the …

Defending The Homeland: An Archaeoethnodemographic (Aed) Analysis Of Population Dynamics And Settlement Patterns In The Navajo Dinétah, Ad 1720–1745, Kurt Mantonya

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation presents an innovative archaeoethnodemographic (AED) analysis of Navajo population dynamics during the Middle Period (AD 1720−1745) of the Gobernador Phase in the Dinétah, the ancestral Navajo homeland in northwest New Mexico. During this critical quarter-century, intensified Ute and Comanche slave-raiding and Spanish military expeditions forced the Diné to abandon traditional dispersed settlement patterns in favor of defensive aggregation around fortified pueblitos—small masonry defensive structures built on boulder-tops and mesa-rims throughout the region.

The study employs an AED framework that systematically integrates archaeological site analysis, ethnographic household organization data, historical documentation, and demographic modeling to reconstruct population dynamics during …

Fermentative Processes Of The Agricultural Food System In The Upper Rio Negro: Ethnographic Notes On Feminine Knowledge, Intention, And Agency In The Production Of Fermented Beverages, Lorena França

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article examines the fermentative processes at the core of the agricultural food system of the Upper Rio Negro, northwestern Amazon, highlighting women’s technical and social agency in the production of fermented beverages such as caxiri. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Baniwa and Tukano families between 2018 and 2019, the study explores how fermentation constitutes not merely a biochemical transformation of matter but a sociotechnical language through which women express intention, alliance, and distinction. The paper analyzes in detail two cases of caxiri preparation, showing how women’s manipulation of manioc, tubers, saliva, and utensils configures embodied knowledge transmitted …

November 25, 2025 Nagpra And Tribal Relations Committee Meeting Minutes, Bryan Morey

University NAGPRA and Tribal Relations Committee

November 25, 2025 minutes for the WKU NAGPRA and Tribal Relations Committee meeting. Meeting conducted via Zoom.

Museums In Public Libraries: An Ethnographic Case Study Of The Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library, Yadira Y. Quintero

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Access to information is a human right, and this thesis explores the benefits and challenges of integrating museums into public libraries by conducting an ethnographic case study of the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. The study's findings highlight the complexities of integration. The biggest benefit is the increased access to museum collections, information, and resources. However, challenges arise from the lack of cohesion within the museum and library disciplines, as well as strained community relations. Engaging the community is crucial for successful collaboration, emphasizing the importance of a bottom-up approach that allows for active participation. Integrating museums into public libraries …

At The Crossroads: Ryan Coogler’S Metaphysical Meditation On Blues Music’S Power Of Salvation And The Terror Of Racial Predation In “Sinners”, Terri Bowles

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

In Sinners (2025), written and directed by Ryan Coogler, intercultural histories of music, religion and oral tradition inform a modern and complex horror tale confronting the terror of Jim Crow in the post–World War I Mississippi Delta. The film, starring frequent Coogler collaborator and muse Michael B. Jordan as twin war veterans out to reestablish their lives as juke joint owners, coalesces themes of economic repression, racial voyeurism, and secular and religious entanglements with cinematic horror allegories of objectification, consumption and possession. This review explores the film’s tense and violent examination of these themes and the lived and imagined spaces …

An “Other” Tongue: Nadsat As Anti-Language In A Clockwork Orange, Ian Hugo

The Graduate Review

In this essay, I explore how “Nadsat” is used in Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange. “Nadsat” is a constructed language that suffuses English vernacular with words and phrases of Russian origin, and it can often prove a significant obstacle to reader comprehension of the overall narrative. However, apart from merely acting as a whim of experimentalism, I argue that Nadsat serves a functional purpose in the text, drawing on research from a variety of fields including literary studies, psychology, philosophy, and linguistics. I begin by showing how Nadsat excludes those who do not “speak” it or (in …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Chinese Women’S Rising Refusal Of The Family : The Problems, The Resistance, The Post-Family And Post-Capitalist Work Imaginaries, Peier Chen

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

A new generation of Chinese women is questioning the family by examining internal contradictions in parent-child relationships, particularly in how intimacy and care are enacted, while also challenging the legitimacy of the family institution that underpins gendered divisions of labor and hierarchies. Some of them are revealing the problems within the family and refusing patriarchal marriage and family as their daily act of resistance. Their resistance extends beyond the family, into their workplaces, where gender division and hierarchies are also at work. This emerging phenomenon presses us to theorize today’s family problems, especially concerning those related to women’s gendered oppression, …

Sosialisme Dalam Utopia Subak: Pergeseran Dan Krisis Nilai Kolektivitas Di Era Bali Modern, Lucia Yerinta Destishinta, Budhi Cahyo Priadiantoro

Multikultura

As a system of irrigation and traditional organization in Bali, Subak has functioned for centuries in collectively managing the equitable distribution of water resources. Its role as a socio-ecological institution is based on local values; it reflects the principles of collectivity and mutual cooperation, which align with the idea of socialism. However, agricultural modernization and the expansion of agrarian capitalism have caused a shift in collective work patterns within the Subak system. Based on this phenomenon, this article aims to examine these changes from a socialist perspective and their implications for the sustainability of the agricultural system in Bali. Using …

Papernest Media: A Collaborative Multimedia Research Project, Susie V. Mabry

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Papernest Media is a collaborative multimedia research project that contextualizes the history and contemporary status of insect commodities as traditional food, tourist fare, and natural dye in Oaxaca, Mexico. Our interdisciplinary team of Anne E. Pfister, PhD in Applied Medical Anthropology, Alex Kledzik, BA in Sociology and Susie Mabry, UNF International Studies, came together in 2024 to produce a short film accompanying the exploratory phase of a larger ethnographic investigation. In July 2024, we traveled to Oaxaca during a peak season and the annual Guelaguetza festival to investigate the touted sustainability of edible insects in a region known for its …

October 28, 2025 Nagpra And Tribal Relations Committee Meeting Minutes, Bryan Morey

University NAGPRA and Tribal Relations Committee

October 28, 2025 minutes for the WKU NAGPRA and Tribal Relations Committee meeting. Meeting conducted via Zoom.

If We Tear It Down, We Might Build You A New One: The Troublesome Use Of Eminent Domain And Urban Neighborhood Swimming Pools, Steven N. Waller Ph.D., James H. Bemiller

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Public swimming pools are a vital part of America’s recreation and sport culture since the early 1900’s. Municipal swimming pools were initially built to provide recreation and hygiene to urban communities, regardless of race or class. However, a complex history of segregation, civil unrest, suburbanization, and funding challenges has resulted in a significant decline in public pools, depriving many communities of vital recreational spaces. In many communities, options for sustaining the operation of swimming pools have resulted in pool closures. Unfortunately, once swimming pools close, especially those in aging neighborhoods in central city areas, they are seldom resurrected. They quickly …

From The Heaviest, Dirtiest Depths To The Washy Ambient Clouds: Guitar Timbre In/As Schismogenesis In North American Christianity, Joshua K. Busman, Nathan Myrick

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This essay argues that within the socio-cultural context of North American Christianity, the timbral qualities of electric guitar, with its long lineage as a site of cultural values conflict and identity negotiation, serves a theological function in the emerging and cohering sonority of digital worship. Using as comparative case studies the timbral qualities of delay and ambience as promoted and sold by Worship Tutorials as representing normative sonic values for these Christians, on the one hand, and the dialectic and schismatic deployment of distortion by the band My Epic on the other, we suggest that these timbral qualities become important …

Contributors

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Contributors to Volume 4.

From A Shtetl House To An Urban Apartment: The Soviet Jewish Home Negotiated, Transformed, And Reimagined, Anna Kushkova

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

This essay argues that despite the powerful forces of assimilation, official campaigns against Jewish religion/languages, and grassroots/state antisemitism, the “Jewish home” did not disappear, as is sometimes assumed, but continued to present a site of Jewish ethnic production and transmission, creativity, and resistance during the Soviet regime. In the Soviet Union, especially in the postwar period, Jewish ethnic culture was forced to leave the public sphere, where it became unwelcome and even dangerous, and withdrew into the less visible space of domestic interiors. The degree of Jewish public presence varied geographically: the situation was generally better in the Baltic Republics, …

Hiding From Kohanim: Covering Hands, Faces, And Children With A Tallit During The Priestly Blessing, Zvi Ron

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

When the priestly blessing is performed as part of prayer services in both Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities, many of the members of the congregation can be seen covering themselves with their tallit, and also covering their children. The practice evolved from the Talmudic reference of not looking at Kohanim while they recite this blessing in the Temple, because of the Divine Presence resting on their hands and the belief that looking at it would damage a person’s vision. Later authorities expanded this to blessings outside the Temple as well, leading to the practice of Kohanim covering themselves and their outstretched …

“Holy Trash” And The Tears Of The Deceased: The Emotional Role Of Genizot For The Jewish Communities Of Central Europe, Nathanael Riemer

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Since the 1980s, more than seventy genizot (Heb., repositories) have been rediscovered in former synagogues of Central Europe. A genizah is a room in or near a synagogue where damaged, discarded, or heretical texts and sacred relics are stored. This essay examines where, when, and why genizot developed in Central Europe. It also analyzes the emotional significance of the genizot for their respective communities. Historical and literary sources show that genizot were placed in the synagogue attics of Jewish metropolises from the seventeenth century at the latest and were usually not ritually buried. Smaller communities in rural regions adopted this …

Contributors

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Contributors to Volume 3.

“Have I Asked The Name Of That Fish?”: Synagogue Humor In Contemporary Hungary, Richard Papp

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Jews who remained in Hungary after the Shoah almost completely abandoned their religious life because of the communist regime’s politics of assimilation. After the regime change in 1989, synagogue attendance rose and a renewed interest in ethnic-religious traditions was evident among Hungarian Jews. However, not knowing the ethnic traditions, they were unable to follow the religious commandments. Ethnographic observation in a synagogue in Budapest shows that ensuing communal tensions were eased by humor. Humor also became a marker of identity in the synagogue, by which even those who did not fully follow religious norms identified themselves as “imperfect but religious …

Theorizing Rabbinic Folklore: The Miraculous Sleep Of The Holy Man, Gal Sela

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

The miraculous sleep (ATU 766) is a well-known, recurring tale-type observed in Abrahamic folktales since the Second Temple period. This study compares variants of ATU 766 on three levels of analysis: as a popular tale in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writings from late antiquity and early medieval times; as a Jewish rendition; and as a multiple tale-type in rabbinic literature. The analysis engages with Dan Ben-Amos’s critical work concerning the use of syntactic methods in folklore studies to analyze Midrash and Aggadah. The essay offers a new theoretical perspective on rabbinic folklore using the notions of tale-type, ecotype, …

Editorial: Jewish Cultural Scholarship And Scholars—And Their Institutions—Under Duress, Simon J. Bronner, Amy K. Milligan, Tsafi Sebba-Elran

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

The editors of Jewish Folklore and Ethnology (JFE) express concern about intimidation and estrangement of Israeli and Jewish professors in the international academic community after the surprise attack by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The editors point out that these types of hurtful antisemitic incidents against Israeli and Jewish academics preceded the attack, and they call on their colleagues and administrators to voice their outrage at the harassment, boycotts, and violence against Israeli and Jewish academics in addition to the suppression of Jewish studies, and their adverse effects on scholarship as well as Jewish students and their …

The Reciprocity Of Misfortune: The Little Tradition Of Disasters In The Philippines, Greg Bankoff, Bianca Angelien Aban Claveria, David Lozada Iii, Camille L. Silva

History Department Faculty Publications

Just as there is a great and little tradition in religion and civilization, there is a great and little tradition in disaster. This article explores the origins of community resilience in rural areas of the Philippines based on local reciprocity and cooperation and how ­ these customary practices form the basis of national disaster risk-­reduction policies. The endless strug­gle to feed and shelter a family and contend with repeated hazards, whether natu­ral or human-­induced, promotes collective action. There is a need to cooperate with neighbors, a web of dyadic and community relationships born out of necessity that constitutes a “reciprocity …

Communities Of Practice: Aging, Emergency Management, And Churches In Rural Clackamas County, Oregon, Lukas Robert Aberle

Dissertations and Theses

As the population of the United States ages, questions arise of how to best care for older adults in daily life and emergency situations. This research looks at the daily activities of churches to see how they affect everyday and emergency care practices. As a collaboration with Clackamas County government, I researched the relationship between churches and care through participant observation and interviews during the summer of 2024 to understand congregations’ support for older members, the role of church congregations in emergency management, and the implications of the decline in religious participation alongside aging in the United States. I found …

Zero Textbook Low Cost Syllabus For English 2100 (Writing 1), Anne Grevenitis

Open Educational Resources

In English 2100, our focus will be on autoethnography as a genre of writing. To write an autoethnography is to examine the value of the personal and use traditional modes of research to flesh out the narrative of the self. Through diverse research methods (interviews and site observation) and a multiple-step writing process (journaling, drafting and peer reviewing), your autoethnography should make a substantive contribution, have aesthetic merit, have reflexivity, make an impact, and express a reality.

Woman, Motherhood, And Home: Grappling With Gendered Dwelling, Pamela Joy M. Capistrano

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

Though ostensibly gender neutral, the word “home” carries with it the baggage of gender, particularly womanhood and motherhood. In English, for instance, “homemaking” is synonymous with “housewifery;” in Filipino, the mother is described as ilaw ng tahanan (“light of the home”). Housing, as well, has a similar neutral connotation; yet, when we consider the impact of urban housing crises, women are disproportionately affected. In this paper, I want to grapple with the broader implications of the gendered baggage of the idea of “home,” its impact on individuals, on how we conceive of houses, homes, and dwellings, and ultimately its impact …