Anthropology Commons^™

Dancing Mi Cultura: The Production Of Ethnic And National Identity In Midwestern Mexican-Americans Through The Performance Of Ballet Méxicano Folklórico, Katrina J. Frank

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies how Mexican Americans living in the northwest suburbs of Chicago produce connections to their Mexican heritage and culture through the performance of ballet Mexicano folklórico. Through ethnographic interviews of current and former folklórico dancers, as well as participant observation of adult folklórico dance practices, I contextualize the experiences of the interviewees using the anthropological theories of habitus, continuous and discontinuous selves, double-consciousness, liminality, and collective effervescence, as well as the works of Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Frantz Fanon, with the discussion of folklórico as an art, and the concept of institutional use of dance as …

The Caretaking Of Eve Online: Institutional Ethics And Enactments At Ccp Games, Joshua William Rivers

Theses and Dissertations

This ethnography examines the Icelandic video game developer CCP Games, the makers of EVE Online—a massively-multiplayer online game (MMO) that takes place in a star cluster far, far away. Through my exploration of CCP Games as an institution over the span of fourteen months, I highlight how corporations are culturally-situated, enacted entities. Simultaneously, I demonstrate that these culturally-located actors who serve as the architects of our digital infrastructures undertake such efforts from their situated vantage points, thereby embedding particular ethical commitments into the digital landscapes they craft and within which we live our social lives. Created with the intent to …

Incipient Games: Restoring The Past Through Play In Historical Reenactment, Luke Konkol

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an ethnography of an historical reenactment group which stewards a living history village portraying the nineteenth-century “Wisconsin frontier.” It analyzes productions from improvisations, to scripted vignettes, to a “whodunit” mystery game. Across their practice, reenactors are met with a host of challenges including ‘authenticity,’ balancing constructionism and objectivism, visitor engagement, educating the public, and the bleeding together of period techniques and modern thinking. Such challenges push against the boundaries of analyzing the project of reenactment (or larger social life) as theatre. Given terms like “play-acting” and “role-playing” in the space of reenactment, this thesis examines this phenomenon …

Rules Of The House: Strategy, Tactic, And Violence In One World By Night, World Of Darkness, Live-Action Role-Play Games, Laya Liebeseller

Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis focuses on governance of institutionalized play in three World of Darkness live-action role-play (larp) games (ethnographic field work conducted between May and August of 2016), whose players have willingly allowed the international organization of One World by Night – an organization made up of their peers – to unify them in such a way as to create connection, community, and shared story across the world. I analyze four locii within these games (the book, the organization, the storyteller, and the player) using Michel de Certeau’s, The Practice of Everyday Life, translated by Steven Rendall, specifically focusing on …

Redefining News In The Face Of Economic Crises: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Transition To A Watchdog Journal, Aras Coskuntuncel

Theses and Dissertations

In the early 21st century, daily newspapers across the United States struggled with how to respond to economic and technological challenges. This thesis studies one newspaper's response to those challenges. Using ethnographic methods, it explores the Milwaukee (Wis.) Journal Sentinel's transition to a watchdog-centric journal. The thesis suggests that the newspaper responded to economic and technological challenges by redefining news. However, that redefinition brought with it unforeseen problems both in the practice of journalism and the product that journalists produced. The redefinition increased tensions between watchdog and beat reporters, and between older, more experienced journalists and more tech-savvy, younger journalists. …

"The Ruins And Us Go Together": The Neoliberal Challenge To Archaeological Heritage And Patrimony In Mexico, Daniel Dean Kreutzer

Theses and Dissertations

When it comes to the pursuit of archaeology, what would archaeologists like to do, what are they required to do, and what do they end up doing? These questions are at the heart of this dissertation, which studies how archaeologists from the United States who work in Mexico negotiate the web of relationships in which they find themselves. Foucault's concept of governmentality allows us to learn more about how power flows within and between these relationships and shows the tensions that exist when these relationships are unequal. As outsiders, foreign archaeologists need to become more informed about local culture, including …

"Democracy" In A Virtual World: Eve Online's Council Of Stellar Management And The Power Of Influence, Jessica Ireland

Theses and Dissertations

Interest in virtual worlds has grown within academia and popular culture. Virtual worlds are persistent, technologically-mediated, social spaces. Academic literature focuses on issues such as identity, sociality, economics, and governance. However studies of governance focus on internal or external modes of control; less attention has been paid to institutions of governance that operate within both the virtual and real worlds.

In EVE Online, the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) represents a joint venture between developers and users to shape the direction of EVE's virtual society. As a group of elected representatives, the CSM represents societal interests to the game's developer, …