Anthropology Commons^™

Monitoring Shallow Controlled Graves Containing Small Cadavers Using Ground Penetrating Radar, Joanna Mae Fletcher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) can be a useful geophysical instrument in the search and detection of clandestine graves in a forensic context. Controlled research in the field of forensic archaeology has demonstrated the applicability of this technology and is vital for improving GPR search methods. The objectives of this research was to evaluate the applicability of GPR, using 250 MHz and 500 MHz antennae, to locate shallow graves containing small pig cadavers in various burial scenarios over a 12 month period. Data was collected on a controlled grid containing six graves at 0.5 m in depth: five graves containing pig carcasses …

The Origins Of Lactase Persistence And Ongoing Convergent Evolution, Beth A. Keller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As a primary factor in human evolution, natural selection is an important component of genetic research. Studies of lactase persistence suggest that positive selection has played a powerful role in the adaptation to a lifelong consumption of fresh milk. Using multiple research studies of lactase persistence and suspected corresponding single nucleotide genetic polymorphisms, this study combines data sources to determine whether evidence exists for natural selection of a specific cytosine-to-thymine genetic mutation located 13,910 base pairs (T-13910) upstream from the lactase gene. This polymorphism has potential to be a causal element for lactase persistence, and data suggest that natural selection …

"Brethren Upon The Same Level" : Membership And Class In Calumet's Masonic Lodge, Brandon Anthony Sexton

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan was a ethnic conglomerate of cultures and ideas, with people attracted to the area by the mineral wealth found along the Copper Range. The center of copper mining from the mid 1860s to 1968 was in the vicinity of Calumet Township, home to the world-famous Calumet and Hecla Mining Company. The township depended on the mines and the company’s president Agassiz’s strove to make the area a “model community,” that included groups such as the Free and Accepted Masons. Men from myriad backgrounds arrived in Calumet from the British Isles, Germany, Finland, Eastern and …

Preserving And Interpreting The Mining Company Office : Landscape, Space And Technological Change In The Management Of The Copper Industry, Renee M. Blackburn

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The purpose of this research is to examine the role of the mining company office in the management of the copper industry in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula between 1901 and 1946. Two of the largest and most influential companies were examined – the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company and the Quincy Mining Company. Both companies operated for more than forty years under general managers who were arguably the most influential people in the management of each company. James MacNaughton, general manager at Calumet and Hecla, worked from 1901 through 1941; Charles Lawton, general manager at Quincy Mining Company, worked from 1905 …

Colorful Dialogue: Talking Towards Civic Engagement, Kate Olson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Noticing a need in the Mankato, Minnesota area to link new immigrants and refugees with the greater Mankato community, the YWCA Mankato started the Walking in Two Worlds program. The Colorful Dialogue, a part of the Walking in Two Worlds program, is a monthly community forum where long-time residents and newcomers, including immigrants and refugees, meet to discuss topics important for community building. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the program as a form of civic engagement. Two main questions shape the research: (1) Is the YWCA program, Colorful Dialogue an effective method of civic engagement? (2) Is …

Documenting The Oral Narratives Of Transient Punks, Thomas Ross Heffernan

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The uninitiated do not realize the complexity of the punk rock sub-culture. Outsiders may find it hard to distinguish the subtle lines by which differentiation occurs within the so-called subculture. The "punk rock subculture" is a misnomer; it is not a salient community. The experience of being "punk" is fractal; what it means to be punk and what classifies one as punk is in constant redefinition and there are various different communities with varying ideologies and identities. The punk subculture has absorbed various epistemologies in its 40+ years of existence, modified them, and made them their own. Within this milieu …

Growing Up With Hiv: Disease Management Among Perinatally Infected Adolescents, Barbara J. Szelag

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children born with HIV in the 1980s and 1990s are surviving into adolescence and adulthood, due to the availability of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Growing up with a chronic and stigmatized disease presents considerable challenges as young people explore their sexuality, develop relationships, and take steps to become independent and productive adults. Adherence to HAART is an essential and life-long practice for the maintenance of health and longevity. For adolescents born with HIV, a daily medication schedule is one aspect of disease management that also includes medical visits, HIV status acceptance, bouts of illness, and disclosure of HIV status …

People In Between: The Value Of Life Stories In Exploring The Needs Of Colombian Asylum Seekers, Poonam R. Valliappan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The long, protracted civil war, spanning nearly fifty years, in the South American nation of Colombia has displaced almost four million civilians in as much time. Tens of thousands of refugees were resettled in Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela and other neighboring countries. Some, still threatened in their country of first asylum, and resettled to the United States (US) with their families, must learn to navigate the often complex systems of life and living in America. Resettlement programs that focus primarily on immediate needs such as employment and accommodations are aware of the growing need for more long&ndashterm assistance. However, while there …

Life And Death Journeys: Medical Travel, Cancer, And Children In Argentina, Cecilia Vindrola Padros

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent studies on the Argentine public health system have demonstrated that the lack of medical resources in different parts of the country force pediatric oncology patients and their family members to travel to Buenos Aires in order to access care. This internal migration poses difficulties for these families as travel and resettlement are expensive, lead to the separation of family members, and interrupt the child's schooling. This dissertation was designed to document the everyday life experiences of traveling families in order to understand the barriers they faced while attempting to access medical treatment and the strategies they used to surmount …

Personal Narratives Of Women's Leadership And Community Activism In Cherkasy Oblast, Martha Kichorowska Kebalo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ukraine's women's movement is part of a complex social field characteristic of formerly Soviet countries, but it also emerges from its own specific political history. Post-Soviet period, (neo-) nationalism, feminism and (neo-) socialism are significant forces shaping women's collective behavior. Their activism resonates with the pre-Soviet liberation struggle while it is shaped also by practices from the recent Soviet past. It also is sensitive to external pressures, including the agendas of Western aid and the Ukrainian diaspora.

This study accepts the emergence of non-state women's organizations as indicative of an incipient movement and examines this field of social activism in …

Contributory Factors Of Extraneous New Bone Growth On The Endocranial Surfaces Of Human Infant And Sub-Adult Skeletal Remains, Mark Andrew Zahareas

Master's Theses

This study investigates the factors that may contribute to endocranial bone changes in human sub-adult skeletal remains in an effort to differentiate bone changes, or lesions, caused by pathological processes and those caused by growth and development. The contributory factors investigated included the presence of endocranial bone lesions, the age-at-death of the individual, the precise location of the bone change, the dynamic nature of the locations, and the presence (or absence) of postcranial and/or ectocranial indicators of pathology within the individual. The sample population used for this research was comprised of 129 individuals from 15 different Native American groups over …

Making Reproductive Health Meaningful: An Anthropological Study Of Planned Parenthood Personnel In Lexington, Ky, Hannah M. Wohltjen

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

This thesis focuses on how reproductive health is made meaningful in the context of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kentucky. Using ethnographic field methods, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the paper explores how staff members negotiate definitions of reproductive health as employees of Planned Parenthood health center. The analysis addresses reproductive health discourse among the clinic staff and how reproductive health is used as a site of intervention. It also explores the sociocultural processes and interactions the staff members engage in at the national and local levels and the role these play in shaping the conceptualization of reproductive health …

Ritual Effigies And Corporeality In Kaqchikel Maya Soul Healing, Servando Z. Hinojosa

Anthropology Faculty Publications

To treat some cases of soul-loss, Kaqchikel Mayas use ritual effigies of the sufferer. These effigies, called k’al k’u’x, are made by wrapping the sufferer’s clothing around a wooden armature. For the effigy to be a viable ritual surrogate, the ritualist must douse it with water, heat it, and strike it during a soul-calling ceremony. This handling instantiates corporeality in the effigy by kindling normative body states in it, states that must be stimulated in the sufferer’s own body for it to spiritually reintegrate. Such Maya ritual substitution practices are how Kaqchikels deploy ritual surrogation processes that hinge on …

Inalienable Possessions And Flyin' West: African American Women In The Pioneer West, Justin Hosbey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nicodemus, Kansas is one of the few remaining settlements founded by African American former slaves in the post-Civil War period of American history. Designated by the National Park Service as a National Historic Site in 1996, Nicodemus has secured its role as a place deemed important to the history of America. For this project, I worked as an intern for the Nicodemus Historical Society, under the direction of Angela Bates. This local heritage preservation agency manages archival and genealogical records important to Nicodemus descendants, and exhibits several of the community's cultural and material artifacts for the public. I was specifically …

Adolescence Is An Ocean: A Biocultural Investigation Of Youth Food Consumption In Tanzania, Elizabeth J. Danforth

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates adolescents' relationships with food and other community and household members' perceptions of youth and their food consumption to understand the multifactorial dynamic processes which create nutritional outcomes among urban and rural youth in central Tanzania. Youth are an important and demographically large population in developing countries. The identities created during this distinct stage of cultural production can be reflected in youths' food consumption and relationships with food. Nutrition likely affects how youth transition through a variety of states, including their growth and development stages, primary to secondary to higher education, child to parent, or unemployed to employed. …

More Than "Modern Day Slavery": Stakeholder Perspectives And Policy On Human Trafficking In Florida, Nathaniel Dickey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, Florida has acquired a reputation as fertile ground for human trafficking. On the heels of state and federal anti-human trafficking legislation, a host of organizations have risen to provide a range of services. In this thesis, I discuss findings from 26 interviews conducted with law enforcement, service providers, legal representatives and trafficked persons to contextualize the variability in the way anti-trafficking work is conceptualized by stakeholders across the state. Additionally, I explore how conflicting organizational policies on the local, state, and federal levels impact stakeholder collaboration and complicate trafficked persons' attempts to navigate already complex processes of …

Postnatal Dental Mineralization: A Comparative Analysis Of Dental Development Among Contemporary Populations Of The Southeastern United States, Meryle Akeara Dotson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Due to the strong genetic component of dental development, research has shown that mineralization patterns of the human dentition are relatively buffered against environmental influences that normally affect bone growth and development. It is because of this resistance to environmental factors and the continuous growth of the permanent dentition throughout childhood and adolescence that the evaluation of dental development patterns has become the preferred method of age estimation in living and deceased children.

Researchers (Harris and Mckee 1990; Tompkins 1996; Blankenship et al. 2007; Kasper et al. 2009) have suggested that the timing of dental development varies by …

Realizing Virtuality: Tracing The Contours Of Digital Culture, Nicholas Andrew Riggs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

People connect digitally through social media, fusing their relationships with meaning in a non-space of relational potential--a translucent and fluctuating enclave where the self becomes elastic. This thesis explores how I have formed bonds in virtual space through ritual interaction. Looking at the ways I learned to use technology through the progression of a close personal relationship, I suggest that social media use is a performance of identity--a virtuality that exposes how people negotiate the digital enclosure of contemporary society. My story is one of digital nativity and reclaiming love through virtual performance. I show how these performances have had …

The Life-Giving Stone: Ethnoarchaeology Of Maya Metates, Michael T. Searcy

Faculty Publications

Descendants of the ancient civilizations of southern Mexico and Central America are one of the greatest sources of information of Maya life. today the modern Maya live and work in the rural villages and towns spread out over this vast region. Many Maya communities continue to thrive culturally, while others, due to colonialism and civil war, have lost many of their traditions and customs. But even those groups ravaged by the strains of globalization ad the industrial revolution have retained some thread of cultural patrimony that ties them to their prehistoric ancestors. This is manifest in many different forms of …

[Introduction To] Power, Culture, And Economic Change In Russia: To The Undiscovered Country Of Post-Socialism, 1988-2008, Jeffrey K. Hass

Bookshelf

Utilising cutting-edge theory and unique data, this book examines the role of power, culture, and practice in Russia’s story of post-socialist economic change, and provides a framework for addressing general economic change.

No other book places power and culture as centrally as this, and in doing so it provides new insights not only into how Russia came to its present state under Putin, but also how economies operate and change generally. In particular, the importance of remaking authority and culture -- creating and contesting new categories and narratives of meaning -- is shown as central to Russia’s story, and to …

Global Transformations, Local Activism: “New” Unionism’S Engagement With Economic And Health Care Transformation In Urban Central Appalachia, Rebecca Adkins Fletcher

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

It has long been argued that the organization of the U.S. health care system is shaped by the struggles between capital and labor, and this relationship is of increasing significance today. Transformations from an industrial to a service economy, rising insurance costs, neoliberal social policies, and decreased labor union power have increased the number of Americans with reduced access to health care, especially for service workers and women. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of how workers in two leading unions in the “new” unionism movement, the Retail, Wholesale, and Distribution Service Union (RWDSU) and the United Steelworkers (USW) in …

Disjuncture Among Classic Period Cultural Landscapes In The Tuxtla Mountains, Southern Veracruz, Mexico, Wesley Durrell Stoner

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Teotihuacan was the most influential city in the Classic Mesoamerican worldsystem. Like other influential cities in the ancient world, however, Teotihuacan did not homogenously affect the various cultural landscapes that thrived in Mesoamerica during the Classic period (300-900 CE). Even where strong central Mexican influences appear outside the Basin of Mexico, the nature, extent, and strength of these influences are discontinuous over time and space. Every place within the Classic Mesoamerican landscape has a unique Teotihuacan story. In the Tuxtla Mountains of southern Veracruz, Mexico, Matacapan, located in the Catemaco Valley, drew heavily upon ideas and symbols fostered at Teotihuacan, …

Going On Otor: Disaster, Mobility, And The Political Ecology Of Vulnerability In Uguumur, Mongolia, Daniel J. Murphy

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Post-socialist states have increasingly adopted rural governance and resource management policies framed around the concepts of decentralization, devolution, and de-concentration in which formerly central state powers are transferred to lower, more local levels of governance. In more recent incarnations, these policies have become inspired by neo-liberal discourses of minimal government, self-rule, and personal responsibility. Increasingly, the social science literature has argued that such forms of neo-liberal governance lead to a variety of unforeseen and diverse consequences. This dissertation attempts to understand the impact of these political transformations on household vulnerability in the context of hazardous events called zud. I …

Mississippi Period Occupational And Political History Of The Middle Savannah River Valley, Keith Stephenson

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Research focusing on the political economy of Mississippian mound centers in the middle Savannah River valley has prompted a reevaluation of current interpretations regarding societal complexity. I conclude the clearest expression of classic Mississippian riverine-adaptation is evident at centers immediately below the Fall Line with their political ties to chiefdom centers in the Piedmont, and especially Etowah. By contrast, those centers on the interior Coastal Plain were politically autonomous with minimal signatures in social ranking. The scale of appropriated labor and resulting level of surplus production, necessitated by upland settlement on the Aiken Plateau, fostered social contradictions making communally-oriented and …

Nationalism And Its Expression In Cuba’S Art Music: The Use Of Folklore In Mario Abril’S “Fantasia (Introduction And Pachanga)” For Clarinet And Piano, Nikolasa Tejero

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

In the centuries since the colonization of the New World, the people of Cuba created a strong musical tradition. Initially, their music mirrored the European composition canons of structural, melodic and harmonic order. The eventual confluence of its distinct cultural elements (i.e. the European, African, and, to a lesser extent, Amerindian) led to the emergence of a new, distinctly Cuban musical tradition.

The wars for independence that began in the United States and Europe in the eighteenth century created a surge towards political and cultural autonomy that swept across the Latin American colonies, generating a wave of nationalism during the …

Political Economy Of Exotic Trade On The Mississippian Frontier: A Case Study Of A Fourteenth Century Chiefdom In Southwestern Virginia, Maureen Elizabeth Siewert Meyers

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Although the Mississippian culture area has been studied for decades, the frontier of the Mississippian region is less understood. Various Mississippian frontiers appear to have been important for the obtainment of trade goods which were important symbols of chiefly power. Studying these frontiers will allow archaeologists to better understand the emergence and maintenance of power within Southeastern chiefdoms. This dissertation explores one frontier site, Carter Robinson (44LE10) in southwestern Virginia, and its role in Southern Appalachian chiefdom power through its control of trade at the border. This research identifies ceramic and non-utilitarian markers of trade and identifies changes at the …

Production, Exchange And Social Interaction In The Green River Region Of Western Kentucky: A Multiscalar Approach To The Analysis Of Two Shell Midden Sites, Christopher R. Moore

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

The Green River region of western Kentucky has been a focus of Archaic period research since 1915. Currently, the region is playing an important role in discussions of Archaic hunter-gatherer cultural complexity. Unfortunately, many of the larger Green River sites contain several archaeological components ranging from the Early to Late Archaic periods. Understanding culture change requires that these multiple components somehow be sorted and addressed individually.

Detailed re-analyses of Works Progress Administration (WPA) era artifact collections from two archaeological sites in the Green River region – the Baker (15Mu12) and Chiggerville (15Oh1) shell middens – indicate that these sites are …

Strategic Flexibility: Household Ecologies Of Ful’Be In Tanout, Niger, Karen Marie Greenough

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

(Agro)pastoralism in Sahelian Niger, as elsewhere, operates through household enterprises. Katsinen-ko’en (Fulбe) households, interconnected within kin and community networks, utilize a range of flexible strategies to manage a variety of ecological and economic risks. This dissertation argues that (agro)pastoralist households and communities maintain or improve viability in risky environments first by employing various mobility patterns, among other strategies, and relying on the tightly knit interdependence between household and herd. Secondly, households that most successfully sustain a cooperative integrity (i.e. partnerships between husband and wife, or wives, and parents and children) to negotiate decisions and strategies best withstand adversities such as …

Choque Cultural In Higher Education: The Lived Experiences Of Two Transnational Doctoral Students On The U.S. Mexico Border, Lyn Mckinley

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the experience of transnational students in higher education in a U.S. public university. The setting for the study is the U.S.-Mexico border between Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. While numerous studies examine the experience of transnational K-12 populations in U.S. schools, there is limited research on students in advanced levels of higher education in this context.

The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth perspective of the experiences of two transnational doctoral students enrolled at the doctoral level at a U.S. university on the U.S.-Mexico border. The …

Pacto Por La Cultura: The Power And Possibility Of Cultural Activism In Ciudad Juárez, Kerry Doyle

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This paper is a qualitative study of Movimiento Pacto por la Cultura , a group of cultural activists that operate in the hyper-violent reality of 21st century Ciudad Juárez. This work looks at Pacto as a case study to explore the possibilities of culture as a tool of activism in a particular time and place, exploring in the ways in which economic development policies, deficiencies in infrastructure, and rising violence both effect and can be affected by cultural processes. Through analysis of the group's original documents and qualitative interviews with organizational members, the paper documents both the successes of the …