Anthropology Commons^™

Reimagining Chinese Folk Toys In Contemporary Life Through Illustration And Toy Design, Huimin Huang

Theses - ALL

This research explores how traditional Chinese folk toys can be reinterpreted through contemporary illustration and toy design. The research subjects are cloth tigers, fish lanterns and clay dolls. These three respectively carry cultural meanings as protection, celebration and happiness. With the changes in modern lifestyles, these handmade toys have gradually withdrawn from daily life and are more often preserved as cultural heritages. This article focuses on how to bring these traditional cultural elements back into contemporary life through visual narrative and product design. This project takes the seven-year-old girl, named Nannan, as the core character. She is dressed in traditional …

Memetic Memory As Vital Conduits Of Troublemakers In Digital Culture, Alexander O. Smith, Jordan Loewen-Colón

School of Information Studies - Post-doc and Student Scholarship

Recent fears of data capitalism and colonialism often argue using implicit assumptions about cybernetic technology’s ability to automate data about culture. As such, the level of data granularity made possible by cybernetic engineering can be used to dominate society and culture. Here we unpack these implicit assumptions about the datafication of culture through memes, which both act as cultural data and cultural memory. Using Alexander Galloway’s critical method of protocological analysis and descriptions of media tactics, we respond to fears of cybernetic domination. Protocols – the source by which cybernetic technologies enable automated datafication – enables us to respond to …

Weaving Subjects At The Obraje De Chincheros: Indigenous Contributions To The Colonial Aesthetic, Maria Smith

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation highlights the contributions that colonial textile producers at the colonial textile mill, the Obraje de Chincheros (c. 1570-1820), influenced the colonial Peruvian aesthetic. Peruvian weavers were seen as superior weavers at the time of the Spanish invasion and obrajes were established to salvage this skill while they were simultaneously subjected to colonial control strategies. At the Obraje, rural indigenous and mestizo textile producers were disciplined into the colonial hierarchy via their labor and conversion to Catholicism. At the same time, the Obraje workforce, largely women and children, shaped the colonial aesthetic via their labor. It was their laborial …

Freyre’S Plantation Playground: The Changing Landscape Of The Sugar Plantation Monjope, Catherine Elizabeth Lavoy

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation investigates the changing landscape of the sugar plantation Monjope in Pernambuco, Brazil from the mid-seventeenth to the end of the twentieth century. I examine this plantation’s changing landscape as part of a number of larger social, economic and environmental forces; in particular the development of racially based labor. Established in the sixteenth century, Monjope was one of the many Brazilian sugar plantations that relied on African slavery for labor until the end of the nineteenth century. I argue the plantation’s built environment in conjunction with the larger plantation landscape was part of a global trend of controlling labor …

Startup Futures: Entrepreneurs, Investors And Imaginaries Of Care In Global India, Ipshita Ghosh

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines the emerging cultures of venture capital-driven, technology-infused startups in India and the multiple ways in which they shape the nation's entrepreneurship landscape. Based on findings drawn from 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork with Delhi's startups, I argue that entrepreneurship serves as a cultural and ideological formation that creates a new regime of values and reshapes our social, political, and civil life. In this sense, I suggest that previous studies on entrepreneurship which focus purely on its economic impacts (or lack thereof) tend to undervalue the long-lasting cultural transformations created through it. One of the primary ways in …

The Heartman: The Impact Of Its Evolution On The Barbadian Cultural Landscape, Kelsia Kellman

Theses - ALL

The Heartman: The Impact of its Evolution on the Barbadian Cultural Landscape, examines the impact of cultural evolution on the Barbadian cultural landscape, using the folkloric belief of the Heartman as the point of focus. This thesis seeks through the analysis of newspaper articles, novels, graphic novels, short stories, and informal interviews to provide the historical and cultural backgrounds of Barbados, and to provide insight into the evolution that has taken place within society and how it is reflected within the minds of the Barbadian populace. In other words, how has the evolution of the Heartman affected the ways in …

Table Of Contents (V. 34, 2022)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

Sharing Hearts: Buddhist Charity And Urbanization In Vietnam, Sara Ann Swenson

Dissertations - ALL

My dissertation analyzes how and why volunteers joined or established grassroots Buddhist charities in Ho Chi Minh City. I spoke with approximately 400 members of 25 charities, focusing on seven main groups that shared an overlapping network of volunteers. My research includes perspectives from demographic groups often excluded from positions of authority in institutionalized Buddhism and, in turn, Buddhist studies scholarship, such as low-income day laborers, elderly women, Buddhist nuns at peri-urban temples, and a lay community of queer "same-gender-loving" [đồng tính] men. Despite their marginalization from formal leadership in Vietnam's state-managed National Buddhist Sangha, volunteers claimed social and moral …

Seeding Sovereignty: Sensory Politics And Biodiversity In The Karen Diaspora, Terese Virginia Gagnon

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation traces the sensory and political dimensions of Karen refugees' co-movements with their seeds, plants, and agricultural practices in exile. It also tentatively explores understandings of sovereignty beyond the frame of the Westphalian nation-state through engagements with seed and food sovereignty in three locations that complicate understandings of territorial sovereignty. In this dissertation I explore what I call "agricultural forgetting" and how it occurs for Karen refugees in the context of the camp. Agricultural forgetting, I suggest, is the process by which linkages between people and plants are broken generationally. Such forgetting occurs in especially sudden and forceful ways …

Why Is The Culture Surrounding Electronic Music So Attractive, Joseph Monopoli

Theses - ALL

Electronic Dance Music, also known as EDM, is a musical genre that has recently dominated the current music landscape and industry. However, there is a lack of understanding behind this beloved genre in terms of its culture and the fans that idolize it. In fact, this new culture that EDM fans have created, coined by them as "Rave Culture", is understudied. This research project is designed to take an exploratory approach into answering questions about this newfound culture and what makes this culture that surrounds Electronic Dance Music, so attractive. Because of this newly established culture, research surrounding this topic …

Why Is The Culture Surrounding Electronic Music So Attractive, Joseph Monopoli

Theses - ALL

Electronic Dance Music, also known as EDM, is a musical genre that has recently dominated the current music landscape and industry. However, there is a lack of understanding behind this beloved genre in terms of its culture and the fans that idolize it. In fact, this new culture that EDM fans have created, coined by them as “Rave Culture”, is understudied. This research project is designed to take an exploratory approach into answering questions about this newfound culture and what makes this culture that surrounds Electronic Dance Music, so attractive. Because of this newly established culture, research surrounding this topic …

Front Matter

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents (V. 33, 2021)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

From Qualitative To Quantitative: Tracking Global Routes And Markets Of Venetian Glass Beads During The 18th Century, Pierre Niccolò Sofia

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

The Venetian glass bead industry has its roots in the Late Middle Ages. The development of Atlantic trade and, particularly, the slave trade from the second half of the 17th century increased the demand for glass beads. The 18th century would be the heyday of this industry, when Venetian beads attained a significant global diffusion. While scholars have long known the global exports of beads from Venice, this paper contributes new quantitative data on their precise routes and markets in the 18th century, toward the Orient and toward the Atlantic. Using beads as a case study, this paper shows how …

Book Reviews And End Matter

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

The Art of Recycled Glass Beads, by Philippe J. Kradolfer and Nomoda E. Djaba, reviewed by Floor Kaspers.

The Chemistry Of Nueva Cadiz And Associated Beads: Technology And Provenience, Brad Loewen, Laure Dussubieux

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Dating to about 1500-1560, Nueva Cadiz beads are the earliest glass beads found in the Americas, and many questions regarding their technology and provenience surround them. Analysis of 10 beads from the namesake Nueva Cádiz site in Venezuela and 33 beads collected from an unknown site or sites near Tiahuanaco, Bolivia, provide chemical compositions of their turquoise, dark blue, white, red, and colorless glasses. We analyze the sand, flux, and colorants that went into their fabrication. The two collections show a common beadmaking tradition and provenience, except for three beads made of high-lime low-alkali (HLLA) glass. Colorants and opacifiers are …

Nueva Cadiz Beads In The Americas: A Preliminary Compositional Comparison, Heather Walder, Alicia Hawkins, Brad Loewen, Laure Dussubieux, Joseph A. Petrus

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Nueva Cadiz and associated beads are among the earliest categories of European glass beads found in the Americas. Named after the site in Venezuela where they were first identified, these tubular, square-sectioned beads occur in regions of 16th-century Spanish colonial trade. A similar style occurs around Lake Ontario in northeastern North America in areas of 17th-century Dutch and French colonial trade. We compare the chemical composition of beads from South America and Ontario, Canada, to explore their provenience and technology. Differences in key trace elements (Hf, Zr, Nd) strongly indicate separate sand origins for the two bead groups. Comparison with …

Beads: Journal Of The Society Of Bead Researchers - Volume 33 (Complete)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

A Beaded Hair Comb Of The Early Ming Dynasty, Valerie Hector

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

This article describes an unprovenanced artifact: a 700-year-old beaded hair comb probably entombed with a woman who died between 1405 and 1446 during China’s early Ming dynasty. It is intended to establish basic facts and stimulate further research. The comb may be the first intact example of mainland Chinese beadwork to undergo radiocarbon dating as well as laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analysis. The lead-potash (Pb-K) composition of the comb’s glass coil beads resembles that of coil beads recovered from jar burials of the 15th-17th centuries in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains. Thus, the comb links glass coil beads ostensibly made …

Insight Into The 17th-Century Bead Industry Of Middelburg, The Netherlands, Hans Van Der Storm, Karlis Karklins

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

During the first half of the 17th century, several beadmaking establishments operated in the city of Middelburg in the southwestern corner of the Netherlands. Bead wasters recovered from several find sites in the old part of the city reveal the diversity of the product line which featured beads decorated with straight and spiral stripes. Several chevron types were also produced. There are similarities with wasters found at contemporary beadmaking sites in Amsterdam, indicating that both production centers made similar bead varieties. Few of the bead varieties represented have correlatives in the areas of North America that were under Dutch control, …

Beadmaking During The 17th And 18th Centuries In Eu County, Normandy, Guillaume Klaës

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

This paper reconstructs the history of a family of French beadmakers in Eu County, Normandy, from 1687 to 1747, as well as the context of their migration from the urban beadmaking center of Rouen. While Normandy had produced windowpane and bottles since the Middle Ages, artisans who made “crystal” soda glass – the glass of beads – were newcomers from Italy and Languedoc. They founded glassworks in Paris and Rouen in the late 16th century. Conflicts with Rouen artisans and merchants led the Mediterranean glassworkers to migrate to Eu County in 1634, where their crystal factories spun off a rural …

Glass Beadmaking And Enamel Lampwork In Paris, 1547-1610: Archival And Archaeological Data, Élise Vanriest

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

This article presents beadmaking in Paris during the second half of the 16th century as seen through period documents and artifacts. Parisian archives document beadmaking by artisans called patenôtriers who made a wide range of glass buttons and jewelry, including beads. Records of the patenôtriers’ guild provide an idea of the number of artisans engaged in this activity, while notarial contracts and estate inventories reveal individual careers and the material dimension of beadmaking in Paris. Patenôtriers obtained their materials – soda glass and enamel supplied as tubes, rods, or ingots – from glassmakers in rural France, Altare in Italy, and …

A Chemical Comparison Of Black Glass Seed Beads From North America And Europe, Danielle L. Dadiego

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Analysis of the elemental composition of glass has gained traction over the past few decades. The growing interest and utilization of non-destructive and micro-destructive analytical techniques has allowed for a more in-depth understanding of glass production, distribution, and consumption. The analysis of glass trade beads in particular has led to the development of a chronological sequencing for non-diagnostic seed beads opacified with metal oxides as well as ore sourcing for cobalt-blue and red beads. There is deficient research on 18th-century glass bead composition, including black manganese-colored beads. This article explores the elemental composition of 162 black seed beads from three …

The Trade Beads Of Fort Rivière Tremblante, A North West Company Post On The Upper Assiniboine, Saskatchewan, Karlis Karklins

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

The archaeological investigation of Fort Rivière Tremblante, a North West Company post that operated from 1791 to 1798 in what is now southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada, yielded 20,119 glass beads representing 63 varieties, as well as seven wampum. While the bulk of the collection is composed of drawn seed beads, it also contains an exceptional variety of fancy wound beads. A comparison with bead assemblages recovered from other contemporary fur trade sites in western Canada reveals that both the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company carried much the same bead inventory in the region around the turn of the …

Research Coherence A Framework For Successful Student Research, Emily K. Hart, Christopher M. Annear

Librarian Publications

When researching and writing scholarly papers for semester-long projects, undergraduate students face challenges, such as research anxiety, overestimation of research skills, poor time management, difficulty choosing appropriate sources, and lack of integration between research stages and final product. Student survey results and paper analyses show incoherence in the student research process. This article develops a coherence framework to address problems students face throughout the research and writing process. This framework joins literature on coherence techniques and effective pedagogies including guided research, peer modeling, checkpoints, and reflection. The article presents pedagogical recommendations for establishing coherence in student research and writing projects.

Table Of Contents (V. 32, 2020)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

Endometriosis: The Psychosocial And Emotional Lived Experience Of College-Aged Women, Brianna Graffia

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Endometriosis is a condition thought to affect as many as one in ten women. It is most commonly associated with infertility, intense abdominal pain, which may affect a woman’s ability to work and maintain social relationships; and pain during sex, which may prevent or challenge her in maintaining a sexually active relationship. On top of the ways in which women’s daily lives are affected by this condition, the women who experience endometriosis are also subject to having their symptoms dismissed by their doctors as either “catastrophizing” or psychosomatic

This two-part project explores the real-life experiences of women who suffer from …

The Evolution Of The Indigenous Diet, Taylor Garlow

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

At some point, we learn about Indigenous culture in history class. We learn about produce such as the Three Sisters, the hunting of protein sources, and the gathering of nuts and berries that create the staples of the traditional Indigenous diet. If their traditional diet was so fresh, wholesome, and nutritious, how come there are several health disparities compared to other ethnicities? Over time, the Native Americans have seen rates of health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease increase to a greater extent than the general population.

Through research with academic and government resources and site-visits, this Capstone …