Anthropology Commons^™

Conservation For Whom?: The Struggle For Indigenous Rights In Sagarmatha National Park, Jake Sivinski

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since its creation in 1976 Sagarmatha National Park has been the subject of a great deal of internal scrutiny by the regions indigenous Sherpa Inhabitants. Since their arrival in the Khumbu valley some four centuries ago, the Sherpa people have held a deep respect for their land and have practiced a highly organized and effective form of environmental stewardship which they refer to as Yul-Tim. At its core Yul-Tim relies on the authority of certain village members to make and enforce rules within the community: a practice that has been greatly undermined by creation of SNP. While SNP has had …

Rogers, Vicki Brown (Fa 823), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archive Project 823. This collection “Stagecoach Days: Stageline between Columbia and Campbellsville, K[entuck]y,” decribes the days when motor transportation was not an option. This project was put together by Vicki Brown Rogers for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Music In Poetry And Poetry In Music: Tumanian's Anush, Beata Asmik Navratil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The poem Anush by the Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanian (1869-1923) is rooted in traditional Armenian music. Tumanian's poem reflects a number of manifestations thereof: (1) It borrows in its style from Armenian lyrical songs (such as lalik and khagh), from the parerg style (the traditional dance-song), and from the voghb style (laments such as funeral laments, bayati, and tragic odes). (2) Ashug style of storytelling/singing as a main form of conveying the storyline and emotions of protagonists are present. (3) Dancing and music making during Armenian traditional rituals -- in particular, the Hambarsum celebration (Feast of Christ's Ascension), …

Social-Ecological Resilience In The Viking-Age To Early-Medieval Faroe Islands, Seth Brewington

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to evaluate the development and maintenance of social-ecological resilience during the settlement-period (ca. 9th through 11th centuries CE) in the Faroe Islands. In particular, the core objectives include the identification of the key social and natural variables involved, the examination of how these variables contributed to overall resilience, and the investigation of the initiation of the Faroese domestic economy.

This research focuses primarily on an analysis of the 9th through 13th century archaeofaunal assemblage from the site of Undir Junkarinsfløtti, located on the island of Sandoy. This analysis represents the first detailed study of the Faroese settlement-period …

Corum, Pamela (Fa 824), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archive Project 824. In the collection titled “The Oolite Rock Quarry,” the author discusses the quarry’s function, purpose, and importance to Meade County, Kentucky. This narrative was written by Pamela Corum for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Spurling, Teresa (Fa 822), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archive Project 822. This collection “The Railroad and the Growth of the Spurlington Community” focuses on the small hamlet, located in Taylor County, Kentucky, and the importance of the railroad to its development. The information was gathered by Western Kentucky University student Teresa Spurling for credit in a folk studies class.

Payne, Joyce (Fa 821), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archive Project 821. Collection titled “Tollgates between Lebanon and Campbellsville, 1895-1924” describes the method of building roads and collecting toll. This project was completed for a folklore class at Western Kentucky University. The information is based on stories provided by residents from Marion County and Taylor County, Kentucky.

York, Betty D. (Fa 820), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archive Project 820. This collection titled “Monticello-Burnside Stagecoach Route” includes a paper and field notes from interviews conducted with Wayne County, Kentucky, citizens who remember this stagecoachoperation. This project was completed for a folklore class at Western Kentucky University.

Ghost Stories (Fa 819), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archive Project 819. “Ghost Stories” is a collection of stories collected by fourteen students in a folklore class from Western Kentucky University. Some stories collected include personal experiences from the students and other stories that have been passed down through generations.

Adams, Josh (Fa 818), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archive Project 818. This collection “Architecture of Danville, Ky.” includes information about cabins, farm buildings and fences found in Boyle County, Kentucky. This narrative was written by Josh Adams at Western Kentucky University for credit in a folklore class.

Mcguffey, Pat (Fa 817), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archive Project 817. Folklore material, collected by Western Kentucky University student Pat McGuffey for credit in a folklore class, about a house in Allen County, Kentucky, that was believed to be haunted. In McGuffey's narrative family members who lived in the house share their paranormal encounters with ghosts and poltergeists.

Chapman, John (Fa 816), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 816. This collection “Mining and The Company Store,” describes essential phases of mining coal and the companies miners worked for in the Pennyroyal Region of Kentucky. The narrative is in an interview format and illustrated with photos; a small portion of the narrative features information about company stores. This information was collected by Western KentuckyUniversity student John Chapman, for credit in a folklore class.

Bugg, Becky (Fa 815), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 815. Paper titled “ Process of Milling: Case Studies,” prepared by Becky Bugg a folk studies student at Western Kentucky University. Bugg documents flour mills in Mercer County and Meade County, Kentucky.

Homo Naledi, A New Species Of The Genus Homo From The Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa, Lee R. Berger, John Hawks, Darryl J. De Ruiter, Steven E. Churchill, Peter Schmid, Lucas K. Delezene, Tracy L. Kivell, Heather M. Garvin, Scott A. Williams, Jeremy M. Desilva, Matthew M. Skinner, Charles M. Musiba, Noel Cameron, Trenton W. Holliday, William Harcourt-Smith, Et Al.

Publications and Research

Homo naledi is a previously-unknown species of extinct hominin discovered within the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. This species is characterized by body mass and stature similar to small-bodied human populations but a small endocranial volume similar to australopiths. Cranial morphology of H. naledi is unique, but most similar to early Homo species including Homo erectus, Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis. While primitive, the dentition is generally small and simple in occlusal morphology. H. naledi has humanlike manipulatory adaptations of the hand and wrist. It also exhibits a humanlike foot and lower …

Barr, Edward B. (Fa 813), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 813. This collection “Hog Killing on the Farm”describes the slaughtering process on the Robert Hall farm in Crestwood, Oldham County, Kentucky. Narrative is in interview format and is illustrated with photographs. This information was collected by Western Kentucky University student Edward B. Barr for credit in a folklore class.

Prehistoric Drawings In Mammoth Cave, Logan Kistler

Kaleidoscope

During a recent Earthwatch Institute survey of archaeological remains in Mammoth Cave, a project was begun to find and record prehistoric images on the cave walls. I chose to analyze petroglyphs and pictographs on three panels in Main Cave. This article offers a hypothesis for the circumstances surrounding the rock art’s production: the geometric and anthropomorphic figures in Mammoth Cave are representative of a series of visual percepts experienced cross-culturally and caused by various conditions — including sensory deprivation, fatigue, and psychoactive drug use — acting on the ocular anatomy and nervous system. That is, the glyphs might be visual …

Wearing Memories: Clothing And The Global Lives Of Mourning In Swaziland, Casey Golomski

Anthropology

This article situates a cultural phenomenon of women’s memory work through clothing in Swaziland. It explores clothing as both action and object of everyday, personalized practice that constitutes psychosocial well-being and material proximities between the living and the dead, namely, in how clothing of the deceased is privately possessed and ritually manipulated by the bereaved. While human and spiritual self-other relations are produced through clothing and its material efficacy, current global ideologies of immaterial mortuary ritual associated with Pentecostalism have emerged as contraries to this local, intersubjective grief work. This article describes how such contrarian ideologies paper over existing global …

Inference Of Cultural Transmission Modes Based On Incomplete Information, Bryan Wilder, Anne Kandler

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

In this paper we explore the theoretical limits of the inference of cultural transmission modes based on sparse population-level data. We approach this problem by investigating whether different transmission modes produce different temporal dynamics of cultural change. In particular we explore whether the distributions of the average time a variant stays the most common variant in the population, denoted by t_max, conditioned on the considered transmission modes are sufficiently different to allow for inference of underlying transmission modes. We assume time series data detailing the frequencies of different variants of a cultural trait in a population at different …

Death, After-Death And The Human In The Internet Era: Remembering, Not Forgetting Professor Michael C. Kearl (1949-2015), Connor Graham, Alfred Montoya

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Today, humans have remains that are other than physical, generated within and supported by new information communications technologies (ICTs). As with human remains of the past, these are variously attended to or ignored. In this article, which serves as the introduction to this special issue, we examine the reality, meaning and use of enduring digital remains of humans. We are specifically interested in the evolving practices of remembering and forgetting associated with them. These previously posited considerations of ‘human remains’ and ‘what remains of the human’ are useful for exploring the relationship between the Internet, the body, remembering and forgetting. …

Producing Goods, Shaping People: The Materiality Of Crafting, Julia A. Hendon

Anthropology Faculty Publications

The study of craft production has a long and venerable history in archaeological research on ancient societies. In this chapter, I consider the crafting of useful and desired things from a materiality perspective by looking at the interactions between the craftpersons, the materials with which they work, and the ways that their end products are valued in society. I use two examples: working with fibers by the Maya of Mesoamerica and with metals by the Moche of Andean South America. These are two very different kinds of materials whose characteristics affect how one interacts with them. Crafting was a part …

Does Environmental Knowledge Inhibit Hominin Dispersal?, Colin D. Wren, Andre Costopoulos

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

We investigate the relationship between the dispersal potential of a hominin population, its local scale foraging strategies, and the characteristics of the resource environment using an agent-based modeling approach. Wren et al. (2014) demonstrated that natural selection can favour a relatively low capacity for assessing and predicting the quality of the resource environment, especially when the distribution of resources is highly clustered. This also suggested that the more knowledge foraging populations had about their environment, the less likely they were to abandon the landscape they know and disperse into novel territory. The present study gives agents new individual and social …

Ritual Economy And Craft Production In Small-Scale Societies: Evidence From Microwear Analysis Of Hopewell Bladelets, Logan Miller

Faculty Publications – Sociology and Anthropology

Ritual economy provides a powerful framework for examining aspects of the organization of craft production, especially in the absence of a strong, centralized political economy. This paper outlines the basic tenants of ritual economy and describes how this framework can expand the understanding of the organization of production in small scale societies. I apply these concepts in a case study based largely on microwear analysis of Hopewell bladelets from the Fort Ancient earthworks in southwest Ohio. Microwear analysis from many different localities excavated within and near the earthworks demonstrates that craft production was an important activity conducted using bladelets. Each …

Digital Relics Of The Saints Of Affliction: Hiv/Aids, Digital Images And The Neoliberalisation Of Health Humanitarianism In Contemporary Vietnam, Alfred Montoya

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Neoliberal logics and calculations have been incorporated into strategies for global health management as rational, technical, scientific guarantors of the integrity and dignity of The Human. NGOs demonstrate, accrue and trade in virtue to gain support, funding and prestige. They field site-visit teams which conduct audits of local partners, review programme data and collect images and narratives of and from the recipients of aid. These images and narratives are used to assess the performance of their local partners and win new donations and volunteers in their home countries. These powerful images and harrowing stories appear in NGO media, establishing the …

'May God Cure You': Contemporary Egyptian Therapeutic Landscapes Between Qur'anic Healing And Psychiatry, Ana Maria Vinea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Based on 19 months of fieldwork research in Cairo, this dissertation investigates the constitution and the practice of a therapeutic technique known as Qur'anic healing (al-'ilāj bi-l-qur'ān). In contemporary Egypt, as throughout the Middle East, the past decades have witnessed the increased visibility and popularity of this revivalist, Salafi-based therapy of jinn exorcism and counter-sorcery that is rooted in centuries-old Islamic practices of healing, all the while developing them into new configurations. During the same period, heated public debates stirred by the emergence of Qur'anic healing have occurred, debates in which psychiatrists have played a prominent role.

By …

Late Quaternary Speleogenesis And Landscape Evolution In A Tropical Carbonate Island: Pango La Kuumbi (Kuumbi Cave), Zanzibar, Nikos Kourampas, Ceri Shipton, William Mills, Ruth Tibesasa, Henrietta Horton, Mark Horton, Mary Prendergast, Alison Crowther, Katerina Douka, Patrick Faulkner, Llorenç Picornell, Nicole Boivin

International Journal of Speleology

Kuumbi Cave is one of a group of caves that underlie a flight of marine terraces in Pleistocene limestone in eastern Zanzibar (Indian Ocean). Drawing on the findings of geoarchaeological field survey and archaeological excavation, we discuss the formation and evolution of Kuumbi Cave and its wider littoral landscape. In the later part of the Quaternary (last ca. 250,000 years?), speleogenesis and terrace formation were driven by the interplay between glacioeustatic sea level change and crustal uplift at rates of ca. 0.10-0.20 mm/yr. Two units of backreef/reef limestone were deposited during ‘optimal’ (highest) highstands, tentatively correlated with MIS 7 and …

After-Action Report Of Humane Society International's Emergency Response To The April 2015 Earthquake In Nepal, Nepal Earthquake Disaster Operations Team

HSI AFTER ACTION REPORTS

This report describes the timeline and extent of HSI response efforts, evaluates and assesses community (animal and human) health and medical response actions, and identifies issues and challenges faced by HSI responders during the days following the earthquake until their withdrawal, with the goal of providing HSI with practical recommendations to address those challenges.

Tacit Cultural Knowledge: An Instrumental Qualitative Case Study Of Mixed Methods Research In South Africa, Debra Rena Miller

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Notwithstanding the dramatic expansion of mixed methods research, research methodologies, methods, and findings are culturally situated. Problematically, studies conducted outside the global north often embrace canonical methodologies aimed at understanding concepts more explicit than tacit. Learning about the needs of researchers and participants in South Africa may bring to light taken-for-granted assumptions in Anglo-American orientations of mixed methods. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore aspects of tacit cultural knowledge that contextualize mixed methods research in South Africa.

In-person interviews among South African professors as well as a corpus of books, sections, journal articles, and theses informed the …

Editor's Introduction, Jr. Aguilar

Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints

No abstract provided.

Transportation And Sanitation Drivers Of Land Use/Land Cover Change: Loss Of The Jamaica Bay Wetlands, Margaret Joy Cytryn

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an analysis (1830-2014) of the historical events of land use/land cover change in the Jamaica Bay estuary, identification of the agents of change, and a perspective on the potential drivers of transportation and sanitation in land use/land cover change.

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 …