Anthropology Commons^™

"Sir, I Cannot Entertain You": Tour Guides As Agents Of Truth And Transformation At The Whitney Plantation, Sarah Latham

LSU Master's Theses

According to the Louisiana office of tourism, one out of every nine workers in Louisiana relies on the state’s tourism industry for their wages, of which plantation tourism is a growing part (2016). This research examines the experiences of tour guides at the Whitney Plantation. How do tourists’ expectations and concepts of heritage affect the way tour guides do their jobs? What are tour guides’ experiences of being objectified by visitors? How are tour guides’ experiences shaped by race and racialized expectation? Specifically, I examined tour guides at The Whitney Plantation Museum in Wallace, Louisiana. This project drew on participant-observation …

A Retrospective Analysis And Method Validation Of Postmortem Interval Estimation In Louisiana, Sophia Reck

LSU Master's Theses

Forensic anthropologists are often called upon to assess the postmortem interval (PMI; i.e. time since death) of remains in varying states of decomposition and skeletonization. These assessments rely on familiarity with general taphonomic sequences and processes, in addition to experience with how these processes present in local environments and conditions. Assessment using such qualitative methods is a subjective process. Therefore, some researchers have developed formulae whose purpose is to estimate PMI in an objective format. In these instances, the resultant PMI estimation formulae were developed using local data and therefore have the potential for local applicability. Additionally, for some regions, …

Lidar Predictive Modeling Of Kalapuya Mound Sites In The Calapooia Watershed, Oregon, Tia Rachelle Cody

Dissertations and Theses

Archaeologists grapple with the problematic nature of archaeological discovery. Certain types of sites are difficult to see even in the best environmental conditions (e.g., low-density lithic scatters) and performing traditional archaeological survey is challenging in some environments, such as the dense temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest. Archaeologists need another method of survey to assess large areas and overcome environmental and archaeological barriers to site discovery in regions like the Pacific Northwest. LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology, a method for digitally clearing away swaths of vegetation and surveying the landscape, is one possible solution to some of these …

Estimating Sex Using The Human Mandibular Canine, Brittney Blevins

LSU Master's Theses

Sexual dimorphism can be quantified in human mandibular canines; therefore, these teeth can be used to estimate sex of skeletonized individuals. This study complements and expands previous research by comparing mesiodistal diameter (MD), buccolingual diameter (BL), and crown area of human mandibular canines. Measurements were taken from a sample of skeletal individuals from the Terry Collection (n=677), the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology Skeletal Collection (n=86), and a random sample of dental casts from the James K. Economides Orthodontic Case File (JKE, n=624), for a total study sample of 741 males and 677 females. Both left and right canines were measured, …

Using Entheseal Length To Infer Locomotor Type, Antonio R. Otero

LSU Master's Theses

An enthesis is a marking (tuberosity or impression) on bone where a muscle or tendon attaches and it can be influenced by age, sex, physical activity, and muscle size. This study ascertains whether entheses, long bones, and their respective ratios can be used as an indicator for mode of locomotion in four primate species: Ateles geoffroyi (Geoffroy’s spider monkey), Colobus guereza (mantled guereza), Hylobates lar (lar gibbon), and Macaca mulatta (rhesus monkey). Seven entheses on four long bones were chosen based on importance of the muscle in relation to specific locomotor types, use in other studies, and …

Monumental Discourse: Elite And Grassroots Disputes Over White Supremacist Monuments In New Orleans, Jude Bumgardner

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis explores elite and grassroots discourse concerning disputes over monument removal in New Orleans, Louisiana. By means of participant observation, narrative ethnography, and critical discourse analysis, I ground this study of political and academic arguments about Confederate monuments in the context of grassroots concerns regarding white supremacist symbols to inquire about how these divergent discourses relate to inequality in New Orleans. Ultimately, I argue that what is most at stake in each case studied here is speakers’ control over the “public mind” via their control over dominant narratives (van Dijk 1993a, 44-45). In order to preserve their power, each …

Van Dijk, Poell, And De Wall, The Platform Society: Public Values In A Connective World (2018), Batuhan Keskin

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Virtual Avatars: Trans Experiences Of Ideal Selves Through Gaming, Kai Baldwin

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This article aims to explore the experiences transgender gamers have with avatars. Building on a foundation of identity construction theories from both media studies and queer studies, this study theorizes that these gamers will use their virtual world avatars to experiment with gender performance and ideal selves. These theories of identity construction are explored and examined through digital ethnography, by using the participant observation method, in which trans gamers are interviewed about their experiences with avatar creation and use. Based on the evidence gathered from those interviews, this study concludes that trans gamers in general tend to create avatars who …

The Unfree Space Of Play: Emergence And Control In The Videogame And The Platform, Logan Brown

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This article attempts to understand the economic and informatic ramifications of the convergence between increasingly connective games and massive online platforms by considering recent trends in both that center around designing for emergence. Scholarship on emergence as a property of games overwhelmingly treats emergent design as a liberating force that privileges player agency in a virtual space. Yet, as games fuse with surrounding platform ecosystems like Steam, Facebook, and Google, those emergent behaviors are subject to vast systems of inscription that analyze user behavior in order to reshape the free space of emergence and extract greater social and financial capital. …

[Cntrl] + [Alt] + [Esc] ? Virtual Platforms As Spaces Of Control And Contestation, Aras Ozgun

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Shuffett, Carolyn (Fa 1271), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1271. Student folk studies project titled “Green County Tales,” which includes titles of local folk legends and songs in Green County, Kentucky. Descriptions may include title of the legend or song, lyrics, informant’s name and address.

Use Of A Behavioral Health Framework To Assess Perceptions Of Hurricane Evacuation Support Services In New Orleans, Louisiana, Aubry Kyle

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents research conducted during the hurricane seasons of 2017 and 2018 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The research’s purpose was to assess citizen perceptions of evacuation support services offered during mandatory evacuation events. A prospective quantitative survey and qualitative, open-ended, semi-structured interview assessed perceptions. Both research methods were designed and assessed using the constructs of the Health Belief Model, a public health model created to assess perceived barriers, benefits, risks, severity, self-efficacy, and cues to action regarding health programming. Quantitative research yielded 211 surveys, representing opinions of New Orleans residents within 1-km Euclidian distance of an evacuation pick-up marker. …

The Child Ethnographer In The Field: Examples From English, Spanish, And French Caribbean Literature, Emily Ann O'Dell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation I consider the child to be an ethnographer in works of fiction and autofiction from the Caribbean islands. Through their liminality as culturally and developmentally betwixt or between, their cultural malleability, their linguistic fluidity, and their curiosity, the child becomes a "native" ethnographer who is capable of translating the culture (both linguistically and culturally) for the reader in order to establish understandings of Caribbean cultures. This is accomplished through the creation of hybridized or creolized texts that have many of the same characteristics as postmodern ethnographies.

In the English Caribbean Xuela provides an ethnographic perspective of Dominican …

Games And Social Organization Among Korean Students, Jordan Jones

Undergraduate Honors Theses

South Korean culture has always negotiated between hierarchy and egalitarianism, and never more so than in the last seventy years after regaining independence. This thesis examines how a class of first grade students navigate between these two seeming opposites through an analysis of the games they played and how they played them. The competition between the students provides insight into how the games between both friends and non-friends create peer groups of shared interests and values in the class. The varied influences of different games are examined, and two specific cases of games creating organizational change are analyzed. This analysis …

Parker, Sandra (Fa 1269), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1269. Student paper titled “Dormitory Stories” in which Sandra Parker collects variants and subtypes of a popular urban legend regarding a student’s death on Western Kentucky University’s campus. Parker provides a brief historic background on the tale and addresses common motifs present in a majority of the narratives. Parker gathered stories from two other WKU students.

Williams, Pat (Fa 1270), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1270. Student paper titled “Jump Rope Rhymes” in which Pat Williams gathers together an assortment of grade-school rhymes and chants. Williams collected material from friends and family members, and the paper includes a brief biography of each informant.

“What I Hadn’T Realized Is How Difficult It Is, You Know?”: Examining The Protective Factors And Barriers To Breastfeeding In The Uk, Cheyenne R. Wagi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The international recommendation for breastfeeding is that a baby should be exclusively breastfed for six months. Breastfeeding should be continued for up to two years and beyond with complementary foods (WHO, 2016). The United Kingdom exhibits some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world (HSCIC, 2012). The percentage of mothers who breastfed in the United Kingdom falls below 34% at six months, with only 1% of mothers breastfeeding exclusively at this point (HSCIC, 2012:31). This study sought to examine the protective factors and barriers for breastfeeding in the UK. Mums (n=28), their partners (n=6), and facilitators at breastfeeding support …

Dailey, Jan (Fa 1268), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1268. Student paper titled “The Dorm Death: An Analysis of a Tale” in which Jan Dailey collects variants and subtypes of a popular urban legend regarding a student’s death on WKU’s campus. Dailey provides a brief historic background on the tale and addresses common motifs present in a majority of the narratives. Dailey gathered stories from multiple students living on WKU’s campus.

George, John R. (Fa 1267), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1267. Student paper titled “Buried Alive” in which John George collects variants of a popular urban legend regarding a young woman who was buried alive with a valuable piece of jewelry, most often alarge diamond ring. George gathered stories from residents who lived in several counties throughout Kentucky.

Off-The-Grid In An On-Grid Nation: Household Energy Choices, Intra-Community Effects, And Attitudes In A Rural Neighborhood In Utah, Eileen Smith-Cavros, Arianna Sunyak

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

This research is an investigation of the perceived positive and negative aspects of off grid living in a middle to upper-class neighborhood in rural Utah in which no public utility grid was available for connection. Off-grid living is defined as unconnected to a public utility power grid, water, or sewer system. In the researched community, all individuals lived off-grid on minimum twenty-acre lots of land with single-household dwellings. We used surveys with closed and open-ended questions to qualitatively explore the local social effects (from individual attitudes to group identity to household economics to conservation attitudes) off-grid living had on individuals …

Consumer Choice And Beads In Fugitive Slave Villages In Nineteenth-Century Kenya, Lydia Wilson Marshall

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty publications

This study analyzes the consumption of European glass beads at two fugitive slave villages in nineteenth-century Kenya, Koromio and Makoroboi. The consumer choices of Koromio and Makoroboi residents reveal a strategic and symbolic material language. Specifically, the inter-household distribution of European glass beads reflects considerable variation in the performance of female identity. This distribution suggests varying norms of feminine adornment. Some of these norms likely originated in runaways’ natal communities; others may have developed during enslavement. The variability in adornment practices additionally points to women’s improvisation amid shifting gender relations in these nascent fugitive slave communities.

Welker, Susan (Fa 1264), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1264. Student folk studies project titled “Research on the Hazel Daniel Collection of Folksongs,” which includes song titles of traditional folk ballads from the Hazel Daniel Folksong Collection. Descriptions may include title of the ballad, classification, alphabetical list, chronological list, and where published with page number.

2019 Iggad Conference Program, Charles Joyner Institute For Gullah And African Diaspora Studies

IGGAD Conference Programs

Program of the 2019 IGGAD Conference: Tracing the African Diaspora: Places of Suffering, Resilience, and Reinvention.

Wilson, Debbe Jean (Fa 1263), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1263. Student folk studies project titled “Songs of Hazel Daniel,” which includes song titles of traditional folk ballads from the Hazel Daniel Folksong Collection. Descriptions may include title of the ballad, where published, ballad number, and page number. This is a continuation of the student project FA 1262 done by Peggy Louise Bradley.

Muslim Victimization In The Contemporary Us: Clarifying The Racialization Thesis, Sarah Beth Kaufman, Hanna Niner

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

This article draws on in-depth, qualitative interviews with Muslim and non-Muslim Americans in 2016 to specify how Muslim “racialization” is shaped by the racial politics of the United States (US). Anti-Muslim bias is not experienced by religious Muslims as a whole, but by people whose bodies are read to be affiliated with the Islamic religion—often erroneously—because of their perceived racial characteristics. Self-identified black, white, and Hispanic Muslims with no visible markers of their religion do not experience anti-Muslim harassment, while non-Muslim Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs who embody an imagined “Muslim look,” cope with fear and aggression from strangers on a …

Watkins, Ronald (Fa 1266), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1266. Student paper titled “An Historic-Geographic Study of the ‘Face in the Wall’” in which Ronald Watkins attempts to locate the exact origins of a popular folktale. Ronald examines fifty variants of the same narrative and outlines traits found in each tale. The paper includes summaries of archetypes, characters, settings, and facial features of the apparition. Watkins gathered his stories from a volume title Indiana Folklore written by Ronald Baker in 1969.

Drake, Marilyn (Fa 1265), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1265. Student paper titled “A Historic-Geographic Study of Tale Type 990” in which Marilyn Drake attempts to locate the origins of a folktale about a woman buried with a ring on her finger. The paper examines subtypes, variants, and archetypes of the tale and includes motifs present in each narrative. Drake collected her folktales from informants in south central Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and England.

Transfer-Printed Gastroliths: Fowl-Ingested Artifacts And Identity At Fort Vancouver's Village, Emily C. Taber, Douglas C. Wilson, Robert Cromwell, Katie A. Wynia, Alice Knowles

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Transfer-printed ceramics and other objects ingested by fowl provide unique data on the household production associated with a fur-trade center in the Pacific Northwest. Gastroliths are an indicator of the use of avifauna at archaeological sites, specifically those of the order Galliformes. The presence of ceramic and glass gastroliths at house sites within Fort Vancouver's village provides evidence for the keeping and consumption of domestic fowl, including chickens and turkeys. The presence and concentration of these artifacts, combined with documentary and other evidence, provide clues about household economies in a culturally diverse colonial setting. While ethnic backgrounds of the villagers …

Prevalence Of Anaemia And Associated Factors Among Oraon Females Of North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India, Tanaya Kundu Chowdhury, Subrata K. Roy

Journal Articles

Low haemoglobin level or anaemia is a health problem worldwide especially in developing countries like India. Anaemia is generally higher among indigenous groups compared to general population globally and females are specifically more prone to anaemia. However, studies are inadequate on indigenous groups of India. The aims of the study are to determine the prevalence of anaemia among the female Oraons of North 24 Parganas and to study the association between anaemia and concomitants like socio-demographic and food habit variables. Data have been collected on demographic, socio-economic and food habit variables using well-tested questionnaire from 309 Oraon females living in …

Building Wooden Houses: The Political Economy Of Plankhouse Construction On The Southern Northwest Coast Of North America, Kenneth M. Ames, Emily E. Shepard

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Household archaeology focuses on what households do. Building and repairing houses is a household task that receives less explicit attention than do other tasks. Through the lens of political economy, we examine how three southern Northwest Coast households organized and orchestrated a complex labor task: building and maintaining their houses, by developing estimates of labor and raw material costs. We then use this analysis to show how house building and maintenance bears on issues of collective action, monumentality, anthropogenic landscapes, the development of concepts of property on the Northwest Coast, and of household continuity across episodes of cultural change. The …