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Mission And Editorial Policy

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

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Author Biographical Notes

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

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George C. Roberts Award Recipients

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

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Call For Papers: 97th Annual Conference Of The Indiana Academy Of The Social Sciences

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

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Submission Guidelines

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

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Statement From The Indiana Academy Of The Social Sciences And Board Of Directors

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

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Editor-In-Chief's Note, Surekha Rao

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

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The Courts Closest To The People: The Battle Between Populism And Democracy In The U.S. District Courts, Shruti Rana

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

The U.S. district courts have emerged as a critical site of contested terrain amid the chaos and controversies consuming American law and politics since the start of the second Trump administration. This article examines these frontline courts through the theoretical lens of populism, arguing that they have become a critical institutional flashpoint in the populist assault on constitutional democracy in the United States. As the courts closest to the people, the district courts occupy a unique structural position: They are the fact-finding courts, the most geographically dispersed and professionally diverse tier of the federal judiciary, and often the first institutional …

Editorial History

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

The Unsovereign Citizen: The Reconfiguration Of Rights And Belonging In Fascist Italy, Roberta Pergher

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

Modern political thought tends to associate citizenship with democracy, equality, and political participation. This article demonstrates that citizenship can be profoundly important also for authoritarian rule. In Fascist Italy, citizenship remained central to political life, not as a vehicle of democratic participation, to be sure, but as a category through which the regime redefined belonging, hierarchy, and sovereignty. Drawing on citizenship legislation, imperial ordinances, racial laws, police reports, and ministerial commentary between 1912 and 1943, this article shows how the dictatorship hollowed out liberal citizenship within the peninsula, stratified it across imperial territories, consolidated it across diasporic populations, and ultimately …

Reviewers And Referees

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

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Why Publish With Mssj?

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

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Super-Resolution Remote Sensing Datasets For Application To Caral–Supe Archeological Sites Employing Sar And Dems, Jungrack Kim, Ramesh P. Singh

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Publicly accessible spaceborne remote sensing datasets often lack the spatial resolution required to reliably distinguish archeological features from their surrounding geomorphological contexts. In this study, we assess the potential of super-resolution (SR) products derived from multiple public-domain remote sensing datasets for a systematic archeological survey in the Caral–Supe region. We focus on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and topographic datasets—including Sentinel-1, Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR), and Digital Elevation Models (DEMs)—because of their capacity to detect subtle surface expressions and shallow subsurface structures obscured by vegetation or sediment cover. Using state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms, …

Research Journal 2026: People And Places, José A. Rivera Ph.D

Faculty Publications

José Rivera narrates his life history from adolescence into college years, university teaching, research career, publications, and ends with post-retirement service as a giving back to community. For most of his term as an academic, his research focus was on community-based organizations that he terms “peoples’ institutions”: acequia associations and mutual help societies. For data, he conducted field work in New Mexico and the American Southwest as well as internationally, primarily in Mexico, Peru, Spain and the Philippines. While at these locations, he interviewed people, collected maps, researched archives, and took photographs as ethnographic evidence of people and places. His …

Conceptualising Sacred Grove Tourism For Future Research Models - A Research Note, Debasish Batabyal, Rupa Sinha Dr., Kareem M. Selem Dr.

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Sacred groves or woodlands are known in tourism settings, they require a long historical process, and their classification as a unique tourism element is expanded in academic literature. To explore the characteristic features of sacred grove tourism, this research note reviews existing studies of tourism. Moreover, this research note seeks to uncover interesting socio-religious, cultural, and conservation dimensions that could guide policy-making in nature-based tourism. A comprehensive review of the tourism literature was conducted to determine whether sacred groves were included as a tourism feature. This research analysed previous studies on nature-based, religious, and cultural heritage tourism to formulate a …

Airbnb And The End Of The Local, Nadia Beyersdorf

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how second-home ownership and self-catered tourism reshape community life in Tenby, Wales. While gentrification research often focuses on permanent displacement, less attention has been given to the movement of temporary residents that erodes local culture, social ties, and transforms everyday relationships in coastal towns.

Datums And Benchmarks From Sylvester Manor Umass Boston Archaeological Work, Shelter Island, Ny, John M. Steinberg, John Schoenfelder, Chiara M. Torrini, Joseph E. Kinney, Stephen A. Mrozowski, David B. Landon

Data and Datasets

Datums from Sylvester Manor Archaeological work (2019-2026).  Includes zipped shapefile of points and complementary csv, that includes the site areas for each datum.

Gis Is A Tool, Not The Story: The Journey Towards An Ethnographically Informed Gis Analysis Of Frenchman Coulee, Eastern Washington, Joseph T. Gambino

All Master's Theses

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have seen increased use in ethnographic and archaeological studies over the last several decades. Though revolutionary in their ability to predict and document sites of archaeological or cultural significance, they remain limited in their capacity to communicate the full extent of potential values certain geographies offer to both cultural specialists and their communities. These limitations are amplified when attempting to represent how the landscape is experienced within GIS’s statistical framework. In this manuscript I present different approaches to GIS modeling that attempt to identify some of the advantages Frenchman Coulee could have offered to the Indigenous …

Drag’S Impact On Drag Lives, José L. Oropeza Iii

Anthós

Drag’s Impact On Drag Lives

In light of recent political developments where Drag and Trans identities are being punished, why do people still participate in Drag? If there are repercussion to face for being a Drag Queen, then surely it must affect their lives for the better for them to continue the practice.

Through an autoethnographic approach to researching the Portland, OR Drag community, I collected transcripts of conversations with local Queens, took notes of community interactions, and put myself in Drag for the first time as a Queer man to better understand the Drag community and why they Drag. …

Geospatial Investigations Of Big Buckhead Cemetery, Millen, Ga, Audrey E. Popard

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Geospatial investigations of burials are increasingly recognized as the most efficient and ethical means of determining grave locations in forensic and bioarchaeological research. A methodology of multi-tiered geospatial investigation has been applied to the Big Buckhead Baptist Church cemetery in Millen, GA. Using the systematic layering of geospatial technologies, the present study seeks to identify ground surface anomalies, with the objective of delineating known and potential unknown burial locations. It is hypothesized that the layered use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), will allow for the most efficient and accurate demarcation …

Governing By Fragments: Soviet Ruins And The Architecture Of Unaccountability In Kazakhstan, Robert A. Kopack, Magdalena E. Stawkoski

Faculty Publications

This article examines two case studies in Kazakhstan with research into how Soviet institutional legacies underwrite extractive economies that render toxic costs invisible in post-Soviet setting. Through ethnographic work in Stepnogorsk (uranium processing) and the Semipalatinsk Test Site (nuclear weapons testing), we extend Gabrielle Hecht’s residual governance framework to demonstrate how inherited bureaucratic compartmentalization now serves market rather than state interests. We introduce the concept of functional nonreform to describe how distributed actors maintain Soviet-era boundaries that prevent accountability: Agencies monitor but don’t enforce, health authorities lack jurisdiction over contaminated sites, and environmental agencies measure radiation but cannot restrict land …

Below The Rows, Beyond The Roots: An Art Exhibition Depicting Agriculture Across The Globe, Maggie Enoch

Honors Theses and Capstones

In Below the Rows, Beyond the Roots, artist Maggie Enoch creates multimedia works inspired by her exposure to diverse agricultural systems and perspectives while studying geography and sustainable agriculture/food systems around the world. By integrating complex histories with the contemporary realities of farming, Maggie paints vivid pictures of the power of food in this five-piece exhibition.

Marooned: A Western Frontier Dismal Swamp Narrative, Professor Meya E. Hargett

The Scholarship Without Borders Journal

Marooned: A Western Frontier Dismal Swamp Narrative centers the erased figure of Samuel Mars, a lost Black station master whose movements through the Great Dismal Swamp have been excluded from dominant Underground Railroad cartographies. Here, the term “Marooned” refers not to abandonment, but to the maroon geographies of Black and Indigenous resistance encoded in land, lineage, and fugitive infrastructure.

Guided by Diasporic Maroon Memory Theory, Lineage as Method, and the Maroon Geographies Framework, this research reconstructs Mars’s trajectory through oral testimony, spatial patterning, and ancestral land memory. Rather than casting the Dismal Swamp merely as a site of refuge, this …

Book Review: Ecologies Of Inequity. How Disaster Response Reconstitutes Race And Class Inequality, Abel Traslaviña-Arias

Critical Disaster Studies

In Ecologies of Inequity: How Disaster Response Reconstitutes Race and Class Inequality, Sancha Doxilly Medwinter gathered diverse stories about how various migrant communities had to overcome not only disaster but also the overlapping networks established by those who were supposed to support them in 2012 in New York City. Medwinter portrays this contested post-disaster landscape through a thorough data recording of 120 individuals affiliated with various groups: racialized migrants or locals, tenants or property owners, local or external helpers, and those from wealthy or impoverished backgrounds. Ecologies of Inequity refer to the spatialized networks of organizational and interpersonal relations …

A Big Data Approach To Mitigating The Maup In Measuring Excess Commuting, Cehong Luo, Yujie Hu, Fahui Wang

Faculty Publications

Excess commuting, defined as the inefficiency resulting from spatial mismatches between residential and employment locations, poses significant challenges for urban planning and transportation systems. This study uses big data from individual vehicle trips collected in Tampa, Florida, to quantify excess commuting more accurately than traditional zonal approaches. Through the application of Linear Programming (LP) and Integer Linear Programming (ILP) models, this research measures minimum and actual commuting patterns across different spatial scales—census tract, block group, and individual trip levels. The findings reveal a clear scale effect associated with the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP), as smaller spatial units consistently yield …

Rapid Decline And Mortality Of A Pleistocene-Aged Forest Now Submerged In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Usa, Grant L. Harley, Kristine L. Delong, Marcus Lofverstrom, Carl Andy Reese, Ellen V. Bergan, Samuel J. Bentley, Kehui Xu, Kelli Moran, Karen E. King, Alicia Caporaso

Faculty Publications

The Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plains of the southern United States are characterized by a wide continental shelf that was subaerially exposed for ca. 80,000 years during glacial-interval marine regressions and transgressions. Given their present submergence, little is known about the vegetation dynamics, particularly at annual time scales, of these formerly terrestrial sites due to erosional processes associated with marine transgressions. Here, we present an annually resolved and well-replicated 489-year tree-ring chronology from macrobotanical specimens—anatomically identified as Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich.—collected in situ from a recently exposed submerged forest in 18 m water depth in the northern Gulf of Mexico. …

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 …

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 …

Ädeeja: Origem Dos Alimentos Cultivados E Práticas Alimentares Ye’Kwana, Viviane Cajusuanaima Rocha (Povo Ye’Kwana)

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

O artigo explora a ligação entre a cosmologia do povo Ye’kwana e suas práticas alimentares tradicionais, com base no conceito central de ädeeja, que representa os alimentos cultivados. Esse termo abrange mais do que a ideia de comida — ele carrega uma dimensão cosmológica e relacional, conectando humanos, espíritos, plantas e o território. Está ligado a uma rede de relações entre humanos, espíritos vegetais e saberes ancestrais. Representa a comida como elo com o cosmos, reforçando a interdependência entre os seres. Minha análise mostra que, para os Ye’kwana, alimentar-se é um ato cósmico, enraizado em narrativas, cantos e relações …

Prosperando Con Otros: Paisajes Multiespecie Y Producción De Alimentos En El Caribe Colombiano, América Larraín

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

Este artículo es resultado de un proyecto de investigación asociado a la producción de alimentos en una comunidad arhuaca en las tierras bajas de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Se describen algunas experiencias de la implementación del proyecto, destacando los aspectos relacionados con la articulación entre las técnicas derivadas de la agroacuicultura integrada y la cosmovisión arhuaca. Con este artículo, se espera contribuir a la reflexión sobre cómo las cosmologías indígenas se materializan en prácticas concretas, que en este caso específico podrían pensarse en el marco de lo que se ha llamado el Buen Vivir.