Anthropology Commons^™

The Most Beautiful Of All: A Quantitative Approach To Fairy-Tale Femininity, Jeana Jorgensen

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Feminist folklorists have long asserted that women’s bodies are represented in fairy tales differently than men’s bodies, in normative and sexist ways. By using computational approaches to analyze a corpus of canonical fairy tales, I assess these claims and establish that women’s bodies are depicted in distinctive ways in fairy tales. This finding is important for scholars interested in fairy-tale studies, gender studies, and computational approaches to folklore studies.

"We Get Nothing" : An Ethnography Of Participatory Development And Gender Mainstreaming In A Water Project For The Bhil Of Central India, Indrakshi Tandon

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Through the close examination of a state-sponsored watershed project being implemented by Association for Integrated Social Development (AISD) in the district of Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, this dissertation project explores how current development approaches in water projects impact its intended targets, in this case the Bhil tribal community. A key aspect of this research is to analyze in detail how development narratives such as participatory or bottom-up approaches and gender mainstreaming often result in unintended consequences. With a focus on the gendered nature of participatory policies, I argue that popular development practices in India often lead to governing and managing target …

The Everyday Sacred : A Symbolic Analysis Of Contemporary Yucatec Maya Women's Daily Realities, Crystal Sheedy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As a collaborative effort between myself and the Maya women with whom I worked, who live in Xocén, this dissertation seeks to illuminate the sacred world of Maya women, as well as dismantle the insidious narrative that younger generations of Mayas are losing their culture. Instrumental to this process is the use of decolonial methods (Lawless 1993) and descriptive theoretical premises (Geertz 1973; Turner 1967, 1969) that allowed me to analyze Maya women’s discursive speech, referred to as both chismes and heridos in Spanish, which can be translated as gossip, as well as the speech genre of u t’àan nukuč …

“Your Picture Looks The Same As My Picture”: An Examination Of Passing In Transgender Communities, Alecia D. Anderson, Jay A. Irwin, Angela M. Brown, Chris L. Grala

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Transgender people remain one of the groups most susceptible to discrimination in the U.S. Previous studies have examined the discrimination and stress transgender people face, but few studies have examined trans identities using existing sociological theories of marginalized groups and identity formation. Using the theories of Dubois and Cooley, this study explores identity formation in conjunction with the phenomenon of passing among transgender people residing in Nebraska. Results suggest that while trans people do pass as a mechanism for subverting discrimination, there are other factors that influence an individual’s choice and strategy to pass or not. The current investigation lends …

(In)Difference To Survivors: The Anti-Violence Comics Project, Henry Solares

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Sexualized violence prevention at the university level can sometimes leave out the perspectives and needs of marginalized groups. Ethics should always serve to temper any endeavors to work with marginalized groups. Any endeavor into the field requires methods and frameworks that serve not only the needs of the researcher but also the knowledge builders involved. Postmodern ethnography articulates a need for contesting a positivist understanding of knowledge through use of alternative methods like novelized fiction, autobiography, documentary, and visual art. In conjunction, intersectional theory forces us to consider our place as researchers and the larger power dynamics within our culture. …

Leadership: A New Title, Ethan William Chandler Goffigon

Whittier Scholars Program

Through a method of digital storytelling and a modern day literature review, this project attempts to look at the notion of leadership and the effective versus non-effective personality and behavior traits associated with it. Through this evaluation of leadership, I will be utilizing my own experiences and reflecting on them to add an additional voice to each point addressed. Starting from when I was a child falling in love with superheroes to a young man who continues to learn from his every day life and his time in the past.

Gendered Recreational Fisheries Management And North American Natural Resource Policy, Erin Burkett

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation applies feminist theory to investigate women’s participation in wildlife-based recreation and how natural resource management organizations conduct stakeholder engagement in a North American context. Gendered social processes, including norms and expectations, as well as gendered cultures, can constrain women’s participation in recreation through social sanctions and disenfranchisement. Gender and leisure scholars have studied these dynamics in sport and leisure contexts, but how individuals negotiate these constraints is understudied in a wildlife-based recreation context. Social constructions of gender also contribute to imbalances of power within formal natural resource management organizations and influence how stakeholder engagement policies and programs are …

Local Strategies For Economic Survival In Touristically Volatile Times: An Indonesian Case Study Of Microvendors, Gendered Cultural Practices, And Resilience, Kathleen M. Adams

Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article utilizes a qualitative ethnographic approach to examine the economic survival strategies pursued by Indonesian souvenir artisans and handicraft microvendors in touristically turbulent times. Resilience-oriented approaches have offered promising frameworks for understanding regions', destinations', and communities' capacities to adjust and adapt to challenges: this article complements these broader approaches by offering a fine-grained analysis of individual strategies for finding creative solutions to the economic challenges thrust upon them. My approach melds a constructivist approach accentuating local peoples' creative responses with gender-aware and practice-oriented approaches. These findings draw from data collected over three decades of ethnographic research in the Toraja …

Introduction To The Special Issue: Alternative Imaginings, Mine Üçok Hughes, Rika Houston

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Imagining Intersectional Anti-Rape Messaging At An Organization In Cape Town, South Africa: Visible And Invisible Subjects, Maslen Bode Ward

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Less than one month ago, South Africa held the first ever Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide to assess the most effective ways to approach solving the country’s high rates of gender-based violence. My study aims to consider anti-rape messaging and advocacy under an intersectional framework, using one organization in Cape Town as a case study. I examine how anti-rape messaging in South Africa has failed to consider intersectional identities in their imagined conceptions of survivors and perpetrators. I explore the potential for intersectional anti-rape messaging and the role of race, class, gender, culture, and language in the distribution, audience, …

Anti-Queer Microaggressions Towards Queer Black Men, Camisha D. Fagan, Anna Smedley-López

McNair Poster Presentations

Microaggressions are reoccurring derogatory messages that degrade and/ or discredit one’s identity. While invisible and unknown to many, they remain visible and apparent to those impacted by them. The research questions for this project are: (1) What microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within larger society? (2) To contrast with larger society, what microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within Black communities? By conducting focus groups, I will examine the intersectional microaggressions that Queer Black males experience in their own community, as well as document microaggression that they experience in larger society. After conducting my focus groups, I will be …

Bushler Bay And Hood View, 40 Years On: Gender, Forests And Change In The Global North, Carol Jean Pierce Colfer

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

In 2017, Carol Colfer revisited the communities of Bushler Bay and Hood View on the Olympic Peninsula, where she had spent three years doing ethnographic research in the 1970s. The purposes were two-fold: to test several rapid rural appraisal techniques and, as emphasized here, to assess the changes that had taken place in the interim. The ultimate goal was to contribute to USFS efforts to collaborate more effectively with women and men in forest communities. Her findings suggest that changes occurred in three (or more) spheres: livelihoods, demography, and gender relations, each of which is discussed below for each time …

Geographic Variation In Sex Ratios Of The Us Immigrant Population: Identifying Sources Of Difference, Erin Trouth Hofmann, E. Miranda Reiter

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This paper describes geographic variation in the sex composition of the foreign-born population in the US since 1990, and uses Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to identify key sources of variation in regional sex ratios. We use data from the 1990 and 2000 US Censuses, and from the 2007–2011 American Community Survey, to create estimates of the size and characteristics of foreign-born populations at the level of Consistent Public-Use Microdata Areas. We find substantial local- and region-level variation in population sex ratios, with the highest sex ratios in the South and Midwest. This variation is partly explained by differences in the age- and …

Building Brand Kurdistan: Helly Luv, The Gender Of Nationhood, And The War On Terror, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

In the early 2000s, the Kurdistan Regional Government hired a US-based firm to begin a public relations campaign called “The Other Iraq.” Since that time, it has worked with a number of PR and lobbying firms to build a cultural, political, and financial apparatus that I refer to as Brand Kurdistan. This apparatus aims to prove to Western audiencesthat the Kurds are a liberal exception in an illiberal Middle East, and to build prospects of KRG’s eventual national independence. This article explores the connections between Brand Kurdistan and the gendering of Kurdish nationalism, focusing particularly on Kurdish pop diva Helly …

Gender And Religion In A Shifting Social Landscape: Anglo-Saxon Mortuary Practices, Ad 600-700, Caroline Palmer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and cross-correlates grave goods and human remains to determine whether there was an expression of the sexual division of labor during this period of social and religious change. I argue that gender roles changed as a result of adopting kingdoms and Christianity. Prior to this time period, Anglo-Saxons were primarily pagan and were buried with extensive burial goods. In addition to changes in religious and burial practices, during the Final Phase (600-700 AD) there appears to have been a division of labor that was not as dichotomous in the Migration Phase (450-600 …

Women Agricultural Landowners—Past Time To Put Them “On The Radar”, Peggy Petrzelka, Ann Sorensen, Jennifer Filipiak

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

While women own 25% of the acres rented out for farming, little has been done in terms of federal policy that focuses on these women. In this policy analysis, we detail how (1) lack of data on these women landowners and (2) the invisibility of these women to federal natural resource and agricultural agency staff contribute to women nonoperating landowners (WNOLs) not being on the federal policy radar. We discuss how the persistence of these factors continues to marginalize WNOLs in federal agricultural policy, despite the mandate of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) agencies to be serving underserved populations such …

Race, Sexuality, And Masculinity On The Down Low, Stephen Kochenash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a so-called post-racial America, a new gay identity has flourished and come into the limelight. However, in recent years, researchers have concluded that not all men who have sex with other men (MSM) self-identify as gay, most noticeably a large population of Black men. It is possible that a tainted history of Black enslavement in this country that is inextricably linked with ideas of space, surveillance, subversion, and survival inform a Black male’s self-identification as being “on the down low” (DL). This begs the question: What does mainstream society view as gay-ness and how is the DL constructed …

Grieving Behaviors During Parental Bereavement In Western Societies, Victor A. Luna

Theses and Dissertations

This paper will examine the grieving behaviors of parents who have lost a child. More specifically, it will discuss how grieving behaviors that are deemed appropriate depend on one’s gender, and how societal norms discourage behaviors that are deemed inappropriate. The focus will be on industrialized Western societies.

Gender Bias In Higher Education: A Case Study Of Rollins College, Zoe Mitchell

Honors Program Theses

This thesis uses ethnographic methods to examine gendered experiences of faculty on college campuses, using Rollins College as a case study. Specifically, I consider how gendered biases, norms, and identities influence the development of one’s career and one’s experiences working in academia and higher education. I examine if experiences of male and female faculty vary, and to what these differences in experience can be attributed. Through my research, I argue that though academia is a often considered a liberal environment, there are nevertheless serious problems relating to gender inequity that plague the experience of faculty members, and the denial of …

Jenyffer Nascimento’S Epic Poetry Of Black Female Empowerment Jenyffer Nascimento: A Poesia Épica De Empoderamento Da Mulher Negra, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

This article presents results of auto-ethnography, literary analysis, and fieldwork research to answer an underlying, perhaps unresolved, concern, relevant to this dossier: how can we produce an ethical dialogue as transnational Black Feminists, among Black Brazilian women, and North American Black women, in an ethical manner, while realizing that one may (not ever) be a part of the “carnival without you in it.” Fertile Earth/ Terra Fertil tells a long overdue epic story to an audience within the poetry: Black women, family members, other times a Black man, Brazil, white women, or “you,” undefined. Joy to pain to chaos, sensuality, …

Unending Mazes: Gendered Inequalities, Drug Use, And State Interventions In Rural Appalachia, Lesly-Marie Buer

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

Prescription opioids are associated with rising rates of overdose deaths and hepatitis C and HIV infection in the US, including in rural Central Appalachia. Yet there is a dearth of published ethnographic research examining rural opioid use. The aim of this dissertation is to document the gendered inequalities that situate women’s encounters with substance abuse treatment as well as additional state interventions targeted at women who use drugs. These results are based on ethnographic fieldwork completed from 2013 to 2016 and centered around one county seat in rural Central Appalachia. Data are ascertained through semi-structured interviews with women who have …

“Well, Don’T Walk Around Naked... Unless You’Re A Girl”: Gender, Sexuality, And Risk In Jamtronica Festival Subcultural Scenes, Kaitlyne A. Motl

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

The purpose of this study was to explore emerging issues surrounding gendered fear, threat, and violence perpetration at music festivals – particularly events that feature a synthesis of jam band and electronic dance music acts – a genre termed jamtronica by its fans. Though gendered violence perpetration and prevention have been widely studied within other party-oriented settings (i.e., sexual violence perpetration on college campuses), very little research exists to address how wider disparities of gender and sexuality permeate a community whose members frequently claim the scene’s immunity from external inequalities.

In this three-year multi-sited ethnography, I incorporate participant observations, group …

Very Long Engagements: The Persistent Authority Of Bridewealth In A Post-Apartheid South African Community, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

This article examines the persistent authority of the customary practice for forming recognized marriages in many South African communities, centered on bridewealth and called “lobola.” Marriage rates have sharply fallen in South Africa, and many South Africans blame this on the difficulty of completing lobola amid intense economic strife. Using in-depth qualitative research from a village in KwaZulu-Natal, where lobola demands are the country’s highest and marriage rates its lowest, I argue that lobola’s authority survives because lay actors, and especially women, have innovated new repertoires of lobola behavior that allow them to pursue emerging needs and desires for marriage …

Gender, Sexuality, And Categories Of Risk: Physician Views Of Cervical Cancer In Bangalore, India, Emily G. Capilouto

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

India has one of the highest rates of cervical cancer morbidity and mortality globally. Despite this, there are no national or state-wide screening efforts for cervical cancer and its prevention in India. In an effort to understand the magnitude of cervical cancer in Bangalore, India, this research draws upon data collected in hospital contexts over a month-long period to explore the ways in which physician attitudes contribute to understandings of cervical cancer and its prevention in the growing urban context of Bangalore.

Persuasive Kinship: Human–Plant Relations In Southwest Amazonia, Fabiana Maizza

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

Based on my ethnographic research with the Jarawara people, an indigenous society in the Southwest Amazonia, the article explores the idea of thinking kinship as persuasion. Among the Jarawara, children can have more than one father, which is well known in Americanist literature, but there would exist as well an original practice what we could call "multi-maternity". I also observe that the Jarawara can have diverse parental relations - some of their children are human, while others are plants. This occurs in a system of raising (nayana) in which children and plants are raised by a father and/or a mother …

Gendered Impacts Of Community-Based Conservation Initiatives In Kimana/Tikondo Group Ranch Outside Of Amboseli National Park, Megan Clemens

Master's Theses

Community-based conservation has become a common solution to addressing local communities needs and concerns when it comes to conservation initiatives associated with, or outside the boundaries of national parks. Community-based initiatives associated with Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya mark one of the first attempts to include local communities in conservation initiatives and management as well as establish systems of benefit sharing between conservation and local communities. However, a critique of community-based conservation initiatives points out they often assume community homogeneity. Assumption of community homogeneity leads to inequities in benefits sharing, exclusion of subgroups (women, ethnic minorities) or even exacerbate …

Gendered Impacts Of Global Economic Shocks: Findings From Households In Melanesia, Jaclyn Donahue, Kathleen Eccles, Simon Feeny, Lachlan Mcdonald, Alberto Posso

Pacific Studies

This paper examines the gendered impacts of multiple severe global economic shocks in two Melanesian countries: Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. It focuses on the sharp food and fuel price hikes in 2007 and 2008 and the subsequent Global Financial Crisis, which quickly turned into a broader economic crisis. Using gender-disaggregated data, it examines the impacts on women across three economic spheres: financial, productive, and reproductive. Findings indicate that that a disproportionate burden of the adjustment to these shocks was borne by women. Without gender-disaggregation and a focus on gender norms, policies risk being at best incomplete and at worst harmful …

Southern Veils : The Sisters Of Loretto In Early National Kentucky., Hannah O'Daniel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the experiences of Roman Catholic women who joined the Sisters of Loretto, a community of women religious in rural Washington and Nelson Counties, Kentucky, between the 1790s and 1826. It argues that the Sisters of Loretto used faith to interpret and respond to unfolding events in the early nation. The women sought to combat moral slippage and restore providential favor in the face of local Catholic institutional instability, global Protestant evangelical movements, war and economic crisis, and a tuberculosis outbreak. The Lorettines faced financial, social, and cultural pressures—including an economic depression, a culture that celebrated family formation …

"Beautifully Awful": A Feminist Ethnography Of Women Veterans' Experiences With Transition From Military Service, Kiersten H. Downs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As issues of gender inequality in the military are addressed, women will continue to fill jobs traditionally occupied by men, and ultimately take on a greater percentage of leadership responsibility. For these reasons, women will remain the fastest growing population within our active duty forces. An increased need for research, advocacy, and resources for programs and services designed specifically for women veterans is necessary in order to prepare for an upsurge in the numbers of women who will be seeking services in the years to come. This research utilized a feminist ethnographic approach for data collection and analysis. Data was …

The End Of Aids: Gender, Race And Class Politics In New York's Campaign To End The Epidemic, Lauren Suchman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since its official discovery in 1981, the story of HIV/AIDS has been a story of inequality. Not only has the virus spread more easily among those marginalized due to their gender, race, or class, but AIDS activism itself has tended to elevate the voices and needs of the more powerful over those with less privilege. While we might point to 1981, when the CDC issued its first official report on HIV, as the official “beginning” of HIV/AIDS, where and how does the story end? This dissertation examines one attempt to bring the story to a close: New York State’s “Ending …