Anthropology Commons^™

Giving A Voice To The Powerless: Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation As A Tool For Inclusive Development Through Microfinance, Evan T. Burke

Capstone Collection

The greatest experts on the situation of the marginalized peoples of the world are the marginalized communities themselves. This paper explores how participatory monitoring & evaluation can be a powerful tool for giving voices to marginalized communities, ensuring that the voices of beneficiaries and local stakeholders are heard and inform sustainable project design. It analyzes a participatory monitoring and evaluation methodology implemented for women’s credit cooperatives in Gujarat, India by the Human Development & Research Centre, and examines lessons to be learned to design evaluations facilitating inclusive development.

Strategies for the monitoring and evaluation of microfinance have evolved along with …

Reinventing The Role Of Children And Youth In Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, Amirah M. Alias

Capstone Collection

This paper underlines the roles of children and youth in post-conflict peacebuilding and the reinvention of their roles from participants of peacebuilding to active facilitators of post-conflict peacebuilding. The reinvention is based on the re-interpretation of the traditional roles of children and youth in post-conflict peacebuilding and the analysis of children and youth peacebuilding programs. The re-interpretation will suggest that children and youth take on a more active role, if not, a leadership role in peacebuilding programs conducted for children and youth. This paper will look at the historical and contextual information about Nigeria's inter-religious conflict and a youth peacebuilding …

Philosopher's Stone: The Faustian Geist Of Development, Salikyu Sangtam

Dissertations

The present study juxtaposes scientific rationality with polyphonic rationality in respect to societal development. This is done to illuminate how scientific rationality provides a narrow and truncated view of development. In order to explicate the exclusion of polyphonic rationalities/knowledges in favor of scientific rationality, several development scholarships are examined along with an episode of developmental scheme and two episodes of development programs. This is done to expound (note: ‘→’ = influences) how scientific rationality → scholarships → organizational/institutional schemes, such as the MDGs → actual applications of development schemes, such as transmigration and compulsory villagization. The present inquest, …

An Ethnography Of Taste: Craft Beer Culture In Hattiesburg, Yingkun Hou

Master's Theses

This thesis studies the craft beer culture in Hattiesburg in order to answer the research question: Is taste what draws people to this culture? Beyond conducting classic participant-observation, I deployed the method of sensory activated participant-observation in my fieldwork. In so doing, this research centers the perspective and the data collected on the senses, especially the taste of craft beer. The purpose of this research is to add to our knowledge of the anthropology of the senses and contribute to the literature on the anthropology of taste.

Kin Selection, Raymond Hames

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

When Hamilton (1964) published his theory of inclusive fitness it had no immediate impact in the social and behavioral sciences, even though ethnographers knew kinship to be a universally fundamental factor in human social organization, especially in egalitarian societies in which humans have spent nearly all their evolutionary history. In many ways, it was a theory that perhaps anthropologists should have devised: Anthropologists knew kinship fundamentally structured cooperation, identity, coalition formation, resource exchange, marriage, and group membership in traditional societies. It was not until 1974 with the publication of Wilson’s Sociobiology (1975) and especially Richard Alexander’s The Evolution of Social …

Breastfeeding With The Bronson Mothers’ Milk Bank, Marykate Bodnar

Masters Theses

Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo is home to one of only 15 certified breast milk banks in the United States. Women have shared breast milk for centuries through wet nurses, but this institutionalized and regulated version of sharing is distinct from previous forms. Breastfeeding has become a symbol of successful motherhood; donor milk adds a new dimension to this aspect of idealized motherhood. This study explores how the milk bank works: its organizational structure within a hospital, how donors are selected, and how recipients qualify for donor milk. It is grounded in Feminist and Medical Anthropology literature. Using semi-structured interviews …

In Search Of Flavour-Nutrient Learning: A Study Of The Samburu Pastoralists Of North-Central Kenya, Jeffrey M. Brunstrom, Peter J. Rogers, Kevin P. Myers, Jon D. Holtzman

Faculty Journal Articles

Much of our dietary behaviour is learned. In particular, one suggestion is that ‘flavour-nutrient learning’ (F-NL) influences both choice and intake of food. F-NL occurs when an association forms between the orosensory properties of a food and its postingestive effects. Unfortunately, this process has been difficult to evaluate because F-NL is rarely observed in controlled studies of adult humans. One possibility is that we are disposed to F-NL. However, learning is compromised by exposure to a complex Western diet that includes a wide range of energy-dense foods. To test this idea we explored evidence for F-NL in a sample of …

An Investigation Into Human To Dog Attachment Systems And Their Influence On The Degree Of Aversion Used In Training, Shelly Volsche

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of my Master’s Thesis research is to determine if and what type of relationship exists between owner-to-dog attachment levels and the degree of aversion used in dog training. I also sought to determine if owner characteristics such as parental status, income, gender, and the like influenced the degree of aversion used. My primary hypothesis is that a negative correlation exists between attachment to one’s dog and aversion used in training. That is, as attachment scores increase, aversion scores decrease. In addition to testing this hypothesis, I collected data to determine if there are correlations between the following: gender …

The Culture Of Sustainability At Southern Miss, Amy J. Ball

Honors Theses

The sustainability movement has been studied in general before, but little research has been done on topic of the sustainability movement at universities. This study aims to contribute to the larger conversation on sustainability by looking at the ideas and motivations behind participation in the movement among students at the University of Southern Mississippi. This is done primarily through interviews performed by the researcher with a number of students in a club on campus dedicated to spreading knowledge of and participation in sustainable activities, known as the Sustainability Advocates. Background information about the sustainability movement on campus is provided by …

Canning Jars And Patterns Of Canning Behavior: A Study Of Households On The Hector Backbone, New York. 1850-1940, Jayne Ann Michaels

Masters Theses

Typically, late 19^th or early 20^th century domestic sites contain fragments of a common item: canning jars. Such is the case regarding 21 sites along the Hector Backbone in New York State. These sites, investigated by the Finger Lakes National Forest Farmstead Archaeology Project, produced a rich sample of over 250,000 artifacts and thousands related to canning.

The objective of this thesis is to explore the potential of these common artifacts to yield important information about these Backbone households. Specifically, my questions include: when did these households adopt canning and who were they?

The intentional decision to include …

Media Representation Of Islam And Muslims In Southern Appalachia, Saundra K. Reynolds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Southern Appalachian attitudes about the religion of Islam and Muslim adherents are influenced largely by mass media's representations. With more than 80% of Appalachia’s population following Protestant Christianity, exposure to Islam in daily life is limited. Media outlets offer the greatest exposure to information about the religion and its adherents. This thesis examined the region's media representation of Islam and Muslims to determine what images are most often portrayed. Research following a twoyear span of reporting in Southern Appalachia studied substance, word frequency, imagery, and editing used in articles that focused on Islam and Muslims. Through the use of content …

Effects Of Human Maternal Placentophagy On Maternal Postpartum Iron-Status, Laura Kathleen Gryder

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Recently, human maternal placenta ingestion, known as placentophagy, has emerged as a rare but growing practice among postpartum mothers in industrialized societies, and is currently found in both home birth and hospital birth settings. The practice is purported to result in certain health benefits for postpartum mothers, some of which could be related to the iron content in full-term placenta (e.g., increased energy and an improved and more rapid postpartum recovery, among others). The aim of this research project was to investigate the effect of encapsulated placentophagy on maternal postpartum iron status via a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study (n=28). …

Does Market Integration Buffer Risk, Erode Traditional Sharing Practices And Increase Inequality? A Test Among Bolivian Forager-Farmers, Michael Gurven, Adrian V. Jaeggi, Christopher Von Rueden, Paul L. Hooper, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Sharing and exchange are common practices for minimizing food insecurity in rural populations. The advent of markets and monetization in egalitarian indigenous populations presents an alternative means of managing risk, with the potential impact of eroding traditional networks. We test whether market involvement buffers several types of risk and reduces traditional sharing behavior among Tsimane Amerindians of the Bolivian Amazon. Results vary based on type of market integration and scale of analysis (household vs. village), consistent with the notion that local culture and ecology shape risk management strategies. Greater wealth and income were unassociated with the reliance on others for …

Our Master’S Legacy: Belief And Ritual In Mission De L’Esprit Saint, Dale Joseph Rose

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is a folkloristic examination of the religious beliefs and rituals associated with members of a religious movement known as Mission De L’Ésprit Saint. Mission De L’Ésprit Saint is a Quebecois religious denomination which believes that their founder was the physical incarnation of the Holy Spirit, and the movement strives to continue the teachings which were laid down during his lifetime. The major components of Mission theology and history, as well as an introductory consideration of their cosmology and worldview will be the major focus of this document, as well as a consideration of the role that Folklore has …

Keeping The Magic: Fursona Identity And Performance In The Furry Fandom, Jakob W. Maase

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The furry subculture (also known as the anthropomorphic fandom) creates identity through anthropomorphism and therianthropy. Anthropomorphism is the giving of human traits to the non-human. Therianthropy is the giving of animal traits to the human. Through play and creating art, these individuals of the furry subculture take on an anthropomorphic identity (what furries call a fursona) while bridging local and global groups through communication technologies. For this folklore project I conducted ethnographic field works interviews with the Bowling Green, Kentucky fur group. I also build off of the interviews project with an online furry role-play group as well as a …

Identity-Based Conflict And The Role Of Print Media In The Pahadi Community Of Contemporary Nepal, Sunil Kumar Pokhrel

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

Despite the formal abolishment of the discriminative caste system in Nepal in 1963, caste still influences social, economic, and political sectors of Hindu society. Indicators and existing research suggest that caste-based discrimination remains one of the major sources of unrest in a Hindu majority nation such as Nepal. Questions remain, however, about the media‘s role in caste-based identity conflict. This dissertation seeks to answer the question: How do various print media outlets (i.e., public vs. private) depict Pahadi identity-based conflicts in contemporary Nepal? In this study, I employed focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with Nepalese opinion leaders. Further, I …

The Temporary Permanence Of Syrian Refugees In Jordan, Charles Edward Davidson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the 2011 Syrian Civil War, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to neighboring Jordan. The government of Jordan received them and along with NGOs from around the world, provided for some of their most basic needs including food, education and healthcare. In the summer of 2014 I travelled to Amman and Mafraq, Jordan in order to learn more about the work being done among the Syrians by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). What I found was a variety of short-term aid projects designed by the NGOs to meet the various needs of the refugees. I learned of no …

Architectures For A Future South: Posthumanism And Ruin In The Novels Of Cormac Mccarthy, Joshua Ryan Jackson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reads the novels of Cormac McCarthy as posthuman southern literature to explain why fiction from the South after World War II could no longer convey a sense of place during postmodernity: that is, because the region's culture and economy were transitioning from predominantly humanistic thinking (i.e., believing that humans [and especially southern humans] are supreme beings) to predominantly posthumanistic thinking (i.e., believing that humans are not as supreme as they think they are). It argues that we can trace this ideological change over time via structural shifts in the South’s architectural record, which we see in the ruins …

Occupy Judaism: Religion, Digital Media, And The Public Sphere, Ayala Fader, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article provides an analysis of Occupy Judaism, an explicitly religious expression of Jewish protest, which occurred simultaneously with Occupy Wall Street, the direct-democracy movement of 2011. Occupy Judaism, like Occupy Wall Street, took place both in physical spaces of protest in New York City and digitally, through mobilizing and circulating debate. The article focuses on the words and actions of Daniel Sieradski, the public face and one of the key founders of Occupy Judaism, supplemented by the experiences of others in Occupy Judaism, Occupy Wall Street, and Occupy Faith (a Protestant clergy-led initiative). We investigate what qualified as religion …

The Role Of Diversity On Team Effectiveness In A Multinational And Multicultural Military Environment, Mustafa Utoglu

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The trend of deploying multinational coalition or alliance forces to respond to emerging threats in the past two decades has become a conventional approach. Beyond the advantages presented by coalitions and alliances, the literature suggests that multinational forces have raised a new set of challenges in achieving their mission: managing the demographic, functional, and cultural diversity introduced by the individuals from various nations that compose the coalition/alliance.

A large number of researchers have considered diversity a "double-edged sword" as they discovered that diversity could pose risks, as well as benefits, to teamwork. Although extensive research effort has been dedicated to …

Changing Climates, Fading Cultures: A Study Of Place Annihilation As A Result Of Climate Change, Brooks A. Bolsinger

Honors Projects

Abstract

Research has established the phenomenon of cultural annihilation: the notion that the members of cultures can perceive a sense of loss when the geography upon which their culture is built undergoes a dramatic destructive change. This review examines prevailing literature to uncover existing and expected ways that climate change will impact cultures, specifically damaging the shared history that is infused into the geographic traits that make up a culture’s homeland. It examines three case studies - Native American tribes in Alaska, the island nation of the Maldives, and the country of the Netherlands – to highlight vulnerabilities that these …

Influence Of Changes In Political Barriers And Of Geographic Distance On Kinship Inferred From Surnames And Migration Data In Olivenza (Spain) And Surrounding Portuguese Areas, J. Román-Busto

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

The existing relationship between human populations is a function of their migratory and genetic exchange which will be inversely proportional to the distance separating them. The effect of geographic distance on population structure may be estimated by means of isonymic methods which use information on the surnames present in a territory as an approximation to the distribution of allele frequencies. The objective of this study is to analyse whether the modification in 1801 of the political border in an area surrounding the town of Olivenza, which experienced a change of sovereignty from Portugal to Spain, has had noticeable influence on …

Sibyl 2015, Otterbein University

Otterbein University Yearbooks

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Warning Signs Of Genocide: An Anthropological Perspective, Christopher Powell Ph.D.

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Native Subordination Through The Franciscan Institutions During The Sixteenth Century, David M. Perez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My thesis, building on over two centuries of scholarly research on colonialism and evangelism in Mexico, seeks to heighten the visibility of the Franciscan order in New Spain. I intend to clearly establish how the Virgin de Guadalupe’s influence on native conversions was mediated through, and controlled by, the Franciscan institutional systems between 1523 and 1572.

Many scholars have argued that the most influential factor in converting the Nahua populations was the apparition of the Virgin de Guadalupe, in 1533. These scholars have argued that at the time of her appearance the conversion of the country had been incomplete, but …

Race And Inequality In Cuban Tourism During The 21st Century, Arah M. Parker

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

As the largest island in the Caribbean, Cuba boasts beautiful scenery, as well as a rich and diverse culture. Yet, throughout Cuban history, the beauty of this famous socialist nation has been marred by social inequalities, primarily affecting class, gender, and race. In the Cuban tourism sector in particular, the three aforementioned components have been prevalent since the island’s inception of tourism in the early 20^th Century. With the recent political changes marked by the attempt to restore relations with the United States, this thesis will critically analyze the theories of Black Marxism, Intersectionality, and World Systems Analysis (WSA), …

Organizations Of Women: Towards An Equal Future In Palestine, Beatrice S. Longshore-Cook

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The development and struggle for nationalism in Palestine, as seen through an historical lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, demonstrates the complexity of gendered spaces and narratives inherent in any conflict. Women’s roles have often been confined to specific, gendered spaces within their society. However, through the utilization of these roles, women are circumnavigating the gendered spaces of their society in order to effectively alter the political and social systems of Palestine. Through a discussion of two specific women’s organizations – the Jerusalem Center for Women (JCW) and the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) – this work will …

Depression As Sickness Behavior? A Test Of The Host Defense Hypothesis In A High Pathogen Population, Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Melissa Emery Thompson, Aaron D. Blackwell, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Sadness is an emotion universally recognized across cultures, suggesting it plays an important functional role in regulating human behavior. Numerous adaptive explanations of persistent sadness interfering with daily functioning (hereafter “depression”) have been proposed, but most do not explain frequent bidirectional associations between depression and greater immune activation. Here we test several predictions of the host defense hypothesis, which posits that depression is part of a broader coordinated evolved response to infection or tissue injury (i.e. “sickness behavior”) that promotes energy conservation and reallocation to facilitate immune activation. In a high pathogen population of lean and relatively egalitarian Bolivian foragerhorticulturalists, …

Community Identity In "The Granada Pioneer", Jessica P. S. Gebhard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My research examines how the writers of the Granada Pioneer, a newspaper published in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II, used the editorial column of that publication to shape the community identity of that camp. The newspaper was published by Japanese America internees living in that camp, but their readership was composed of Japanese American internees and also non-interned non-Japanese Americans. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, I found that the internee writers were using the editorial column to shape a community habitus within the internment camp while at the same time attempting to reshape the imagined community …

Genocide's Aftermath: Neostalinism In Contemporary Crimea, Greta Uehling

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The Crimean Tatars’ genocide is one of the clearest, and yet least studied of twentieth-century genocides. This article explores that genocide’s aftermath, beginning with the Crimean Tatars’ attempts to reinscribe their presence in their historic homeland following the 1944 deportation. The ongoing contestations over the past are examined here as a historical habitus informing attitudes and behavior in the present. Drawing on unparalleled interview data with the Russian-speaking population in Crimea, I explore the durability and ontological resonance of constructions of Tatars as traitors both past and present. Ethnographic insight into the local understandings that feed exclusion, discrimination, and hatred …