Urban Herders: An Archaeological And Isotopic Investigation Into The Roles Of Mobility And Subsistence Specialization In An Iron Age Urban Center In Mali, Abigail Chipps Stone

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the relationship between mobility and urbanism in an Iron Age West African city. Isotopic and archaeological evidence reveal complex relationships among mobility, sedentism, and the livestock economy of Jenné-jeno, one of the earliest and best known urban systems in sub-Saharan Africa (occupied ca. 250 BC to AD 1400). Drawing on excavations at the ancient city of Jenné-jeno and those conducted at two neighboring sites (Tato à Sanouna and Thièl), and on serial, intra-tooth isotopic analysis (87Sr/86Sr, 13C, 18O) of cattle, sheep, and goat teeth, this analysis shows that multiple populations involved in animal husbandry, from seasonally mobile …

Swamp Surburbia And Rebellion Against A Culture Of Crime: The Birth Of Black Skateboarding In The Big Easy, Aubrey Edwards

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research addresses a significant gap in previous work on the formation of urban and suburban black skateboarding subcultures. By using data generated through oral histories, photographs, mapping, and literature review, this study explores why black youth initially began skateboarding in New Orleans in the mid-2000s. In contrast to the scholarly literature and local popular perception, this visual anthropological study aims to provide an alternative origin story of black skateboarding in Post-Katrina New Orleans, and to examine the continuing popularity of the sport within the young black community.

Reflections Of Globalization: A Case Study Of Informal Food Vendors In Southern Ghana, Arianna J. King

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the context of rapid urbanization, globalization, market liberalization, and growing flexibility of labor in the post-Fordist era, urban environments have seen economic opportunities and employment in the formal sector become increasingly less available to the vast majority of urban dwellers in both high-income and low-income countries. The intersectional forces of globalization, and neoliberalization have contributed to the ever-growing role of informal economic opportunities in providing the necessary income to fulfill household needs for individuals throughout the world and have also influenced social, cultural, and spatial organization of informal sector workers. Using a case study and ethnographic information from several …

Confirmation Of Prophecy By Proxy: Audience Anticipation And Reception Of The 2014 Movie Left Behind And Its Relevance To The Dispensational Premillennialist Worldview, Andrew R. Burns

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Media has the potential to legitimize or spread a belief system to the general public. The 2014 movie Left Behind is an example of a deliberate attempt at promoting the belief system referred to as dispensational premillennialism (DPM), or belief in the imminent rapture of Christians. Producers of Left Behind (2014) sought to promote DPM to the general public, hoping for a mass conversion. Online discussion and interviews were gathered and interpreted qualitatively. Content analysis of audience anticipation and reception show believers were as concerned with the conversion of the general public via this movie than the movie itself. Differences …

Here I Am And Here I’M Not: Queer Women’S Use Of Temporary Urban Spaces In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Vigdís María Hermannsdóttir

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis builds on previous work on the relationship between queer identities and urban space. Drawing from an analysis of two recurring New Orleans-based queer women’s events, I examine how lesbians and queer women not only use but also actively produce social spaces of their own through participation in events organized specifically for lesbians and queer women. Using qualitative methods, I examine the ephemeral and transient quality of lesbian and queer women’s social spaces in post-Katrina New Orleans and the processes through which such spaces come into being. I argue that lesbian and queer women’s production of ephemeral social spaces …

A Line In The Sand: Archaeological Evidence For The Interactions Of Settled Farmers And Mobile Pastoralists In The Late Bronze Age (1950 - 1500 Bc) Murghab Alluvial Fan, Turkmenistan, Lynne Marie Rouse

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the interactions of mobile pastoralist groups with sedentary farming communities in the Late Bronze Age period (1950 - 1500 BCE) in the Murghab alluvial fan of present-day Turkmenistan. Traditional archaeological and historical studies in Central Asia, focused as they are on urban contexts or centers of dense population, have colored interpretations of mobile-sedentary interaction in prehistory and helped reinforce a view that mobile and settled groups were always at odds with one another. The Late Bronze Age Murghab marks the period and locale of the first sustained interaction between distinct cultural communities of mobile pastoralists and …

Case Studies In Ancient Maya Human-Animal Relations: El Perú, La Corona, And Commensal Mammals, Diana Nicole Fridberg

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The ancient Maya of Mesoamerica inhabited a biodiverse landscape filled with animal taxa that provided both physical resources and rich ideological inspiration. To date, faunal studies among the Maya have been more limited than other types of archaeological investigations, leaving much still unknown about how human-animal relations varied across time and space. This study utilizes zooarchaeological, iconographic, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic data to illuminate the use of animals in Late Classic period (600-900 CE) ritual at the sites of La Corona and El Perú-Waka' (henceforth abbreviated as El Perú) in Petén, Guatemala, and to investigate the roles of commensal mammals in …

A Minority Within A Minority: A Kurdish Refugee In Portland, Oregon, Seth Thomas

Student Research Symposium

This paper is a narrative approach to the experience of Kurdish refugees in Portland, Oregon, focusing specifically on the experiences of Nihad Abdul Rahman, a 40 year old Kurdish refugee born and raised in Baghdad. Nihad arrived in Portland on January 18th, 2015, five years after beginning his refugee application process with the International Organization of Migration (personal communication, February 23, 2015). The qualitative nature of this paper is expressed through the indefinite article of the title: “A Kurdish Refugee.” Nihad receives refugee assistance from Lutheran Community Services Northwest (LCSN), a non-Profit NGO in Portland, Oregon that is one of …

Lambda Alpha Anthropology Honors Society (Lab): Bridging The Gap Between Coursework And Career, Adriana Stein, Stefanie Berganini

Student Research Symposium

Many anthropology majors gain an academic familiarity with the subject through coursework, but lack an understanding of how to utilize their anthropological skills outside of academia in future careers. To remedy this issue, the Lambda Alpha Beta Honor Society (LAB), a student-led anthropology organization at Portland State University, provides opportunities for participation in events that get students involved with our local community, such as non-profit organizations and local cultural institutions. Some of these organizations include the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), Clark Public Utilities, The Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge, Potluck in the Park, and Habitat for Humanity. As an …

A Walk Through Time At The Boats Archaeological Site In Dighton, Massachusetts, Grace Bello

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Land Rights Of The Khoi In South Africa, Chelsea Wilkins

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Upon discussions in classes at James Madison University, I became aware of the Khoi people. I became interested in their way of life, as well as the implications of globalization and industrialization worldwide. After researching the topic, I decided I wanted to not only write my thesis on this topic, but I wanted to travel to South Africa to learn more. I wanted to know how a refreshment station at the Cape for the Dutch East India Company transformed into a fight for land that ultimately led to the extreme disenfranchisement of the Khoi people and their way of life. …

Socioecological Processes In The Science Of Planetary Change, Cynthia Twyford Fowler, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

This presentation seeks to further understandings of human encounters with socioecological change and also of socioecological processes in the science of planetary change. In this presentation, I interpret the space-time involvements of two social groups. Using one filter, I do basic science by examining the ways Sumbanese construct the monsoonal landscapes which they communicate about, within which they move, and where they interact with other constituents of their environments. Using an alternate filter, I engage critical theory by deconstructing the ways scientists’ visualize changing landscapes with the aid of geospatial technologies. Whose purposes do geospatial scientists serve in documenting the …

Strong Selection For Behavioural Resilience In Australian Stock Working Dogs Identified By Selective Sweep Analysis, Elizabeth R. Arnott, Lincoln Peek, Jonathan B. Early, Annie Y. H. Pan, Bianca Haase, Tracy Chew, Paul D. Mcgreevy, Claire M. Wade

Sport and Working Animal Welfare Collection

Background: Working dog handlers and breeders have strong opinions on characteristics that are desirable in the breeds that they use to handle stock. Most of these characteristics are related to conformation or behaviour. This study explored whether the genetics underlying desirable working behaviour traits might be identified by selective sweep analysis; a method that identifies long regions of strong homozygosity combined with allelic divergence from a comparison group. For this analysis, we compared genomic haplotype architecture in two breeds derived from common founder stock but subjected to divergent selective pressures. The breeds studied were the Australian Kelpie, which is registered …

Blood From Blood And Earth From Earth: Examining Cultural Identity In Second And Third Generation Hispanic Americans, Caroline E. Culbreth

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

To what extent does a Mexican American identify with Mexico? With the U.S.? How are these identities formed? Through a series of semi-structured interviews with second- and third-generation descendants of migrants emigrating from seven Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, I explore what it means to be Hispanic American. I begin by examining the informants’ perceptions of boundaries between the broad Hispanic and American ethnic groups and their self-defined positions relative to those boundaries. Having established this position, I then analyze the impact of external conceptions of authenticity and access to “ethnic raw materials” in their construction of this ethnic identity. Findings …

Gold Mining And Unequal Exchange In Western Amazonia: A Theoretical Photo Essay, Gordon L. Ulmer

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

I combine fieldwork photography and ethnographic documentation of gold mining in Madre de Dios, Peru, to examine the localized material, social, environmental, and health outcomes of the global gold boom. This 'theoretical photo essay’ examines how local and global forces coalesce around gold mining and influence peoples and environments in Western Amazonia. I use embodiment theory in anthropology, ecological economics, and theories of underdevelopment to understand local consequences of the global gold trade and to elucidate how opulence and the machinations of capital accumulation in economic centers of the world occur at the expense of human lives and environments in …

A Town Without A Market, Saakshi Joshi

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

The story is an attempt at experimental writing narrated through the perspective of the market of a drowned town. It is based on my on-going ethnographic doctoral research in the Garhwal region of the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, India. The construction of a hydro-electric dam in the region led to the complete submergence of a central town and thirty-five villages while seventy-four villages were partially submerged. Nearly one hundred thousand people were affected, leading to forced displacement and subsequent re-settlement across the state. The market remembers its life as it now sits at the bottom of the dam reservoir.

4 Poems, John F. Sherry Jr.

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

Life History Theory And School-Age Pregnancy: Review And Application, Anna Rozman

Honors Scholar Theses

The United States currently holds one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the developed world, but many Americans, including policy makers, view adolescent childbearing as a societal problem that stems from negligence, promiscuity, and poor decision making. This project seeks to frame the institution of school-age motherhood through the lens of Life History Theory, which posits that early reproduction is an adaptation in the face of harsh conditions and high extrinsic mortality rates. This assertion is supported by evidence that adolescent childbearing has been the norm for most of human history, and continues to be practiced in natural fertility …

Food As Symbol: Steps Toward A New Taiwanese-To-English Translation Of Nursery Rhymes, Jason Tsai

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of this study is to translate a cluster of three related nursery rhymes from the Taiwanese oral tradition for the immigrant community and a greater Western audience. The study will incorporate tools in American English poetics as well as anthropology to interpret the symbols that would make this genre accessible and meaningful .

This thesis will begin with a concise overview of Taiwanese as a language variant of Southern Min Chinese insofar as how these linguistic traits affect a credible translation .This report will outline relevant aspects of the language's oral tradition as well as the written systems …

Unsortable Wares: A Petrographic Analysis Of Addis Temper From The Fatherland Site (22ad501), Adams County, Mississippi, David Benjamin Abbott Jr.

Master's Theses

In the Lower Mississippi Valley from about 1200AD until European contact, two different ceramic tempers (and presumably cultures) existed side-by-side. Areas in which grog or clay tempering occurs are considered part of the Plaquemine Culture. Areas in which shell tempering predominates are considered part of the Mississippian Culture. Ceramic pastes that contain both shell and grog cause some classificatory confusion. This research examines the history of some of the confusion surrounding Addis ware/paste through its varying descriptions in the archaeological literature and attempts, through experiment and petrographic analysis, to give some insight into this paste recipe and its variability.

Traditional Cultural Properties And Casita Rincón Criollo, Virginia Denise Siegel

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

According to the 1990 bulletin issued by the National Park Service, traditional cultural properties (TCPs) derive their significance from cultural practices or beliefs of living communities. This thesis centers on a case study of the nomination of Casita Rincón Criollo to the National Register of Historic Places as a TCP. The nomination is a collaborative project of Place Matters in New York City and Western Kentucky University, initiated by the American Folklore Society Working Group in Folklore and Historic Preservation Policy. Casita Rincón Criollo has several issues that make nomination to the National Register tricky. Casitas are small “houses,” typically …

The Construction Of The Homeless Individual: Contrasting The Effects Of Social Policy On Public Perceptions Of The Homeless During Two Periods Of United States History, Megan T. O’Connor

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Evolutionary Origins Of Obesity Through The Endocrine-Physical Activity-Bone Axis, Maria G. Lapera

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

As the global obesity epidemic spreads, scientists struggle to understand the biological, cultural, and evolutionary bases for modern fatness. Understanding the contributions of the interaction between physical activity and the endocrine system to regulating metabolism could potentially help people who are overweight or obese in losing weight and illustrate one of the evolutionary pathways that encourages modern obesity. This study used an innovative approach that integrated a lifestyle physical activity and diet questionnaire coupled with endocrine analysis (leptin, osteocalcin) and anthropometric measures in order to create baseline measurements of fit individuals. The mean osteocalcin level was 4201.46 pg/mL and the …

Cultural Interaction And Biological Distance Among Postclassic Mexican Populations, Corey Steven Ragsdale

Anthropology ETDs

Human population structure is influenced by cultural and biological interactions. Little is known regarding to what extent cultural interactions effect biological processes such as migration and genetic exchange among prehistoric populations. In this study, I draw upon archaeological and ethnohistoric research to investigate the interaction of biology and culture among Postclassic period (AD 900-1519) Mexican populations. The central question for this project is: how did processes of economic exchange and political expansion affect genetic exchange among Postclassic period Mexican populations? To address this question, various biological distance analyses derived from dental morphological traits were employed to investigate inter- and intra-regional …

Explanations For Morphological Variability In Projectile Points: A Case Study From The Late Paleoindian Cody Complex, Cheryl K. Fogle-Hatch

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation examines morphological variability (differences in qualitative attributes and metric dimensions) that is observed when comparing assemblages of projectile points. My archaeological case study is an evaluation of cultural historical types' of projectile points that have been assigned variously to the Alberta, Cody, or Firstview Complexes of the early Holocene from approximately 10,000 B.P. to 8,200 B.P. This analysis includes both quantitative and qualitative observations of 361 complete and fragmentary projectile points from 13 archaeological sites located in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. My analyses showed that qualitative attributes and metric dimensions of projectile points vary more through …

New Deal Navajo Linguistics And Language Documentation, Char Lane Peery

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation explores how with the New Deal, the US government committed itself to the construction of a Navajo ethnonation or a democratic polity that could interface with the US federal government. For my research methodology I used archival research and examined the papers of linguist Robert Young, a linguist and BIA employee who throughout his decades of work with the Navajo Tribe compiled some of the most extensive documentary material on the Navajo language, as well as his published works. I examined documents including correspondence between linguists Robert W Young and J.P. Harrington, dictionaries and other linguistic materials for …

Migrant Remittances, Population Ageing And Intergenerational Family Obligations In Sri Lanka, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

As Sri Lanka’s population ages, its migrant women face a difficult choice: should they work abroad to remit money to provision their families, or should they stay at home to look after elderly kin? Although numerous studies have explored migration’s effects on children, fewer works focus on issues of elder care. This essay presents contextualizing information on transnational migration from Sri Lanka and the rapid ageing that is transforming the country’s population structure from a pyramid with many youth and few elders into a column. Using qualitative ethnographic data gathered from a labour-sending village in southern Sri Lanka, this anthropological …

Sexual And Gender Based Violence (Sgbv) In Post- Conflict Northern Uganda, Emily Thomesen

Senior Honors Projects

There is a sweet odor of earth and mangos as the sun rises over the fields of rice and pineapples. The silence of the morning is broken by the rising voices of women congregating together to worship as their little children dance to the music of their mothers’ voices. In the center of the African safari a refugee has been established for these mothers struggling under the weight of war and poverty. They learn the skills they need to provide food for their families, and counseled through the trauma of their pasts. Seven years ago this land was site of …

The Theology And Agency Of Love As The Substance Of Kingian Non-Violent Philosophy And Activism., Matthew Quainoo

Senior Honors Projects

The theology of Love focuses on King’s understanding of God as love:

A Research Abstract (Project Summary)

Problem: Almost 50 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., controversy continues to swirl around the motivational forces that inspired the nonviolence approach employed by King in his fight for equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. Some scholars argue that Kings was inspired by such advocates of nonviolence such as Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha Shakyamuni. Others believe that Dr. King’s philosophy of nonviolence was an expression of the Christian theology of God …

From Rural Street Theater To Big City Extravaganza: The Meaning Of The Manaus Boi-Bumbá In An Urbanizing Brazil, Margaret Kathleen Watson

Anthropology ETDs

This is an ethnographic study of the boi-bumbá festival of Manaus, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas. I examine this traditional Brazilian folkloric performance as it is being reworked to express a modern, global identity for urban Amazonians. Long seen as a key site to understand racial relations in Brazil, the boi-bumbá festival tells the story of the death and resurrection of a ranchers beloved bull. The earliest recorded versions of the Brazilian bull festival portray the economic and social relations on an 18th century colonial cattle ranch in the country's northeast. When the festival came to be performed …