Anthropology Commons^™

The Transnational Political Involvement Of Nigerian Immigrants In New York City: Motivations, Means And Constraints, Leila Rodriguez Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Africans represent a small but rapidly growing immigrant population in the United States. Nigerians, who constitute the largest group, form a well-organized community with numerous ethnic, hometown and social associations. Through some of these organizations, many Nigerians have successfully intervened in the economic and social development and the political processes of their hometowns. Their political involvement in the U.S. is less. In this article I use quantitative and qualitative data to analyze the motivations that Nigerian immigrants have for political involvement in Nigeria or the U.S., the means that enable this participation, and the constraints to participating. Findings suggest the …

Michael Lucken, Anne Bayard-Sakai, Emmanuel Lozerand (Eds.), J.A.A. Stockwin (Trans.), Japan's Postwar. New York: Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies, 2011, Steven Pieragastini

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Beshara, Adel (Ed.). The Origins Of Syrian Nationhood: Histories, Pioneers And Identity. New York: Routledge, 2011., Pascal Abidor

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Who Are You Wearing? A Study Of Moroccan Fashion Discourse, Identity Performance, And Social Change, Leah Michalove

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Clothes and their consumption become almost invisible in their very ubiquity, yet fashion acts as a sort of optical litmus test for the mood of society. Clothing can express cultural norms, serve as shorthand for social grouping, and provide a kind of corpus of visual allusion; in short, clothes and how we wear them constitute a system of signification, a visual language as dynamic, complex, and arbitrary as any spoken communication. I set out to investigate the grammar and syntax of Moroccan fashion, to explore what the diversity of observed choices meant to the people who made them and how …

Community Assistance For Refugees And Gender Roles: What Could Make This C.A.R. Run Better?, Nathan E. Meyer

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Community Assistance for Refugees is a non-profit service organization in downtown Mankato, Minnesota. Secondary migration to southern Minnesota has increased the refugee population as well as the need for research assessing the needs and concerns of refugees. The purpose of this project was two-fold: first to analyze how C.A.R. is able to meet the needs of its clients and second, to investigate ways in which C.A.R. could improve its services. Traditionally female refugees are less educated and less mainstreamed into American society. This research was designed to help all clients, but special attention was paid to the specific needs of …

Reflections On The Conduct Of Research With Human Subjects Across Two Cultures, Kimberly Maas

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

This study examined the potential benefits, challenges, and barriers faced by university students and research colleagues who were involved in international partnerships for cross-cultural research projects between the USA and Russia. In scholarly investigations in the USA, research subjects must be informed of the precautions that will be taken to protect their safety and their privacy (Amdur & Bankfert, 2002). Particularly in Russia, there are no corresponding policies for working with human subjects that compare to the procedures followed by American university Institutional Review Boards. Furthermore, international partnerships have faced new challenges as a result of the restructuring of American …

Executive Control In Hispanic Children: Considering Linguistic And Sociocultural Factors, Miriam M. Martinez

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Executive control represents a collection of high-order cognitive processes that are associated with important child outcomes, including academic achievement and social competencies. Despite the burgeoning interest in examining the development of executive control, less is known about the development of these skills among ethnic minority children. Hispanic children are currently the largest ethnic minority group in the United States and their diverse sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds provide an excellent context to study the influence of linguistic and sociocultural factors on the development of child executive control. The purpose of the three complementary studies reported in this dissertation is to contribute …

Australia’S Boatpeople Policy: Regional Cooperation Or Passing The Buck?, Christopher C. White

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

The Australian government implemented a new policy in July 2013 in an attempt to more effectively address the recent spike in irregular migrants trying to reach its shores. In this paper, I examine the panic over migration in Australia concerning asylum seekers arriving by boat. The discussion is divided into two main themes. First, I look at how the Australian government is attempting to manage irregular immigration with a specific focus on the regional arrangement with Papua New Guinea. I argue that instead of mutually beneficial efforts at regional cooperation, the Australian government is merely shifting its responsibilities to a …

Intergenerational Conflicts In Iran: Myth Or Reallity?, Mohammad Hossein Panahi

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

One of the important social issues attracting the attention of social thinkers in post WWII era has been the issue of intergenerational conflict. Presented by scholars such as Karl Manheim and Margaret Mead, it was thought that in post WWII era intergenerational conflicts or gap rose to a degree that it made the communication and understanding between pre and post WWII generations very difficult. It was theorized that this unbridgeable gap between the two generations was due to grave and rapid social changes that occurred in that era, so that these two generations experienced and lived in two totally different …

Immigrants, Roma And Sinti Unveil The “National” In Italian Identity, Francesco Melfi

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

This essay picks up a few threads in the ongoing debate on national identity in Italy. Immigration and the intertwining of cultures locally have stretched the contours of the nation state to a breaking point. As a result, the social self has become a sharply contested terrain between those who want to install a symbolic electronic fence around an imagined fatherland and those who want a more inclusive nation at home in a global world. After discussing the views of Amin Maalouf (2000), Alessandro Dal Lago (2009), Abdelmalek Sayad (1999) and Patrick Manning (2005) on national identity and migration in …

More Than A Tribesman: The New African Diasporan Identity, Stephen M. Magu

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Current global levels of immigration stand at about 300 million persons; of these, IFAD estimates that 30 million Africans are in the Diaspora. The contributions of diasporic Africans to their communities and to the cultural experiences of the United States are multimodal. To their domiciles, they contribute economically, empowering their families to become more active and less dependent on the state, while transmitting ideas about democracy and better government. At the same time, they contribute to their adopted homelands through social and cultural activities, cultural festivals and other indicators of cultural connectedness to their motherlands. The African diaspora of necessity …

Daily Border Crossings: Negotiations Of Gender, Body And Subjectivity In The Lives Of Women Workers In Urban Malls., Rachana Johri Dr., Krishna Menon Dr.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

The last two decades have seen the emergence of not just new markets but new market spaces that provide a visual experience of products and persons that closely approximates the field set up by the global media. Malls represent the concrete representations of unabashed celebration and acknowledgment of desire. Malls are one of the spaces that shape everyday lives suggesting the rightfulness of fulfilling sexual, cultural, social and gastronomic desires. One ‘category’ of persons presumably shaped by these spaces are those who work in them. Our concern is particularly with the negotiation of body and subjectivity as women travel daily, …

The Body As Politic: Education And The Performance Art Of Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Dana Cole

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Art has been used as a tool in many fields as a method to tap into different ways of knowing and learning. It promotes creativity and individual expression by encouraging innovation and by opening up possibilities to different ways of expressing and experiencing. My work looks at the performance art of Guillermo Gómez-Peña as a form of public pedagogy using a/r/tography, an arts-based methodology, to illuminate way art it can be used to enhance the learning experience. This article examine the in-between spaces created in Gómez-Peña’s work as epistemological borderzones underscoring how borders come together in heterogeneity, contradiction, and flux …

Table Of Contents

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Antonio Medina-Rivera, Lee F. Wilberschied Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

This introduction precedes the initial issue of the journal Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions.

Toward A Biocommunicable Cartography Of Health Decision-Making In The Amazon Basin Of Ecuador, James Cartwright

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This paper comprises a critical, ethnographic study of health communication in a rural community of Amazonian Ecuador. By synthesizing approaches from anthropology, discourse studies, and public health, the study explores how conversations influence health decisions, how communities understand health systems, and how macrostructural discourse changes the political economy of healthcare in Ecuador. My work draws on the recent theoretical development of ‘biocommunicability’ in anthropology as well as earlier sociological research on knowledge construction. Most importantly, this paper offers a critique of current interventions by NGOs in the region.

Basic Human Health And Sustainable Community Development: A Case Study Of A Community In Monte Plata, Dominican Republic, Rachelle H. Arnoux

Capstone Collection

One of my objectives in conducting this research is to enhance my skills in data collection while simultaneously improving my writing skills. More substantively, I wanted to explore how access to healthcare in a developing country like the Dominican Republic can contribute to sustainable development. As good health is fundamental and vital for all human beings, it is important in the context of this study to understand how the healthcare system in a particular country gives the population access to quality healthcare. Referring myself specifically to the situation at Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) Dominicana medical center in the Dominican Republic …

Mode, Method, And Medium: The Affordance Of Online Tutorials In The Writing Center, Erik V. Holtz

Honors Scholar Theses

While the body of literature regarding online tutorials in the writing center is growing, researchers seem hesitant to fully endorse, or even commend, online writing tutorials. This seems appropriate for work in communication theory and human-computer interaction; working across a medium may be different, but this could create new and interesting ways of tutoring. This research reports on a comparative analysis of online and in-person tutoring at three different universities, focusing on tutor self-perceptions and on affordances, a concept drawn from systems engineering, human-computer interaction and ecological psychology. Unstructured interviewing is used to create a set of preliminary affordances of …

Gettin' Weird Together: The Performance Of Identity And Community Through Cultural Artifacts Of Electronic Dance Music Culture, Andrew Matthew Wagner

Theses and Dissertations

The growing popularity of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) on nearly every continent has given rise to the transition of EDM music from underground raves to large scale, multiple-day music festivals. Attendance at EDM events, whether at concerts or festivals, is primarily dominated by today's youth generation. The number of youth attending these events continues to grow as elements of EDM are being mixed into other mainstream music genres. This increase in the popularity of EDM has been an area of research interest in the past decades for a variety of disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, marketing, and tourism. The present …

Sanders, Richard And Yang Chen (Eds.) China's Post-Reform Economy: Achieving Harmony, Sustaining Growth. New York: Routledge, 2012., Thomas Boutonnet Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Victoria Lyon Bestor, Theodore C. Bestor With Akiko Yamagata (Eds.). Routledge Handbook Of Japanese Culture And Society. London And New York: Routledge, 2011., Cedarbough T. Saeji

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

“States Of Emergency”: Armed Youths And Mediations Of Islam In Northern Nigeria, Conerly Casey Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

On November 14, 2013, the U.S. Department of State labeled Boko Haram and a splinter group, Ansaru, operating in northern Nigeria, “foreign terrorist organizations” with links to al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). This designation is debatable, since the groups are diffuse, with tendencies to split or engage other armed groups into violent actions, primarily focused on Nigerian national and state politics and the implementation of shari’a criminal codes. This essay offers two analytic perspectives on “states of emergency” in Nigeria and the affective, violent forms of “justice” that armed young men employed during the 2000 implementation of shari’a criminal …

Assessing The Need For Graduate Global Education Programs In The United States, Krishna Bista Ed.D., Amaney Saleh Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Global education plays an increasingly important role in enriching students’ learning experiences in US institutions of higher education. Students are connected to the world through global culture, economics, politics, technology and immigration. This paper examines the perceptions of 305 graduate students and alumni concerning the need for global education programs in the United States. Participants shared their views of the importance of global education in understanding today’s economy, culture, and environment, while addressing our future needs and challenges. There were no significant statistical differences between the perceptions of graduate students and alumni or between those of international and American students …

The Power Of Uncertainty: The Neoliberal Quest For Profit In Spain, Ismael Vaccaro Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Using as a case study the consequences of the recent generalized economic crisis in Spain and Europe (2008-14), I propose to analyze the role of uncertainty as a key and recurrent ingredient needed by market economies to generate high levels of profitability at the cost of extremely high levels of social inequality. The present article examines the relationships between crises and uncertainty as socially constructed realities that have been instrumental in the political reshaping of entire societies. The “crisis” narrative has succeeded in explaining extreme levels of profit generation as economic “failure” and, consequently, in legitimating further profit by dismantling …

South Africa In The Brics: Soft Power Balancing And Instrumentalization, Hany Besada, Evren Tok Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

This paper investigates South Africa’s participation in the BRICS formation and the implications of its inclusion for the country, the continent, and global governance. It argues that by joining the BRICS grouping, South Africa is reinforcing neoliberalism in Africa, with markets being liberalized across the continent, trade and investment becoming the focus, and social and environmental protection remaining a distant concern. Meanwhile, other countries, particularly China and Russia, are instrumentalizing the forum to get what they want out of African countries without formalizing the grouping’s policies and effecting change to global institutions at the global level, as was initially promised. …

India And South Asian Security Issues: Problems Aplenty, Solutions Hazy, Prospects Unsettling, Raviprasad Narayanan

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review on:

• David Brewster. India as an Asia Pacific Power. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. Marcus Franke. War and Nationalism in South Asia: The Indian State and the Nagas. New York: Routledge, 2011.
• D. Suba Chandran and P.R. Chari (Eds.). Armed Conflicts in South Asia 2011: The Promise and Threat of Transformation. New Delhi: Routledge, 2012.

Under Scrutiny: Youth In Contemporary Japan, Natalie Kohout

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review on:

• Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen. Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan: Soka Gakkai Youth and Komeito. New York: Routledge, 2012.
• Roger Goodman, Yuki Imoto, and Tuukka Toivonen (Eds.). A Sociology of Japanese Youth and Religion: From Returnees to NEETs. New York: Routledge, 2012.

Madeleine Reeves (Ed). Movement, Power And Place In Central Asia And Beyond: Contested Trajectories. London: Routledge, 2012., Feruza Aripova

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

David Hansen, Radical Rhetoric-Moderate Behaviour: Perceptions Of Islam, Shari‘A, And The Radical Dimension In Urban Pakistan. Tapir Academic Press Trondheim, 2012., Muhammad Junaid Nadvi Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Schubert, Gunter And Jens Damm Eds. Taiwanese Identity In The Twenty-First Century: Domestic, Regional And Global Perspectives, Abingdon: Routledge. 2011., Allen Chun Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.