Anthropology Commons^™

Ecojustice, Religious Folklife And A Sound Ecology, Jeff Todd Titon

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Folk, traditional, and indigenous ecological knowledges have a significant role to play in ecojustice. A case study in the traditional ecological knowledge among one of the religious communities with whom I have spent several decades illustrates how they embody the main principle and three fields of an ecological rationality: the community of inter-related beings; the ways the beings participate in that community or place; and the relations of nature and the nonhuman world to humans and human nature. Ecological rationality stands in contrast to economic rationality, a branch of instrumental reason exemplified by what economists call rational choice theory. An …

Conch Calls Into The Anthropocene: Pututus As Instruments Of Human-Environmental Relations At Monumental ChavíN, Miriam A. Kolar

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Pututus, conch shell musical horns, are known in the Andes as annunciatory devices enabling their players to call across long distances. Beyond their iconic call, the sonic and gestural versatility possible in pututu performance constitutes dynamical evidence for prehistorical uses and site-specific cultural valuations of these multifaceted ritual instruments. Pututus appear in drawings created during the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Andes, and intact shell horns have been excavated from monumental architecture in Perú preceding the Inca by more than two millennia. At the late Andean Formative center at Chavín de Huántar, Perú, a well-preserved ceremonial complex active …

The Aesthetic Society And Its Gatekeepers, Aaron Francis Ward

Japanese Society and Culture

The current study draws on Saito’s (2007) application to western context of the Japanese practice of appreciating the aesthetic and ethical aspects of everyday objects, examined through the complexity of aesthetic evaluation. Bourdieu’s (1984a) moderating variable cultural capital is used to advance an understanding of perceptual and linguistic complexity in daily aesthetic consumption. By engaging participants in a quasi-experiment of multi-sensory trials of everyday products (lemon squeezers), an examination was made of how language use reveals embodied knowledge of daily consumption practice. As the participants’ volumes of cultural capital increased, there was a greater tendency to categorize the stimuli according …

The Role Of Financial Insecurity And Expectations On Perspectives Of Mental Health Services Among Refugees, Jacqueline M. Siven

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how perspectives of mental health among refugees are situated within the realities of the refugee resettlement system, a population for which information on this issue is quite limited. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation with Congolese refugees and non-Congolese refugee-serving professionals in a major Florida city, this dissertation examines how perceptions of mental health and mental health services among refugees were affected by financial insecurity and disparities in expectations. Local Congolese refugees expected the American Dream; they believed that once they arrived they would find prosperity through hard work. Instead they experienced frustration and distress because the …

Myositis Ossificans Traumatica With Associated Pseudarthroses In An Adult From Late Bronze Age Athens, Greece, Susan K. Smith, Maria A. Liston

Faculty Articles

This case study documents an unusual heterotopic ossification with associated pseudarthroses of the lumbar spine. We examined the partial skeletal remains of an adult from a Late Bronze Age (Mycenaean Late Helladic IIB-IIIA1 period, approximately1400–1375 BCE) chamber tomb from the Athenian Agora excavations in Greece. This individual had a large bony mass in the region of the intertransversarius muscle that spanned L3–L5 vertebrae and formed pseudarthroses at the superior and inferior ends. The differential diagnosis of the bony mass included dystrophic and neoplastic calcifications and myositis ossificans traumatica (MOT). MOT is a benign heterotopic bone growth typically found in skeletal …

The Public Reckoning: Anti-Debt Futures After #Rickyrenuncia, Sarah Molinari

Publications and Research

This essay argues that the summer 2019 mobilizations in Puerto Rico and the renewed demand for a debt audit help to imagine anti-debt futures that disrupt the terms and temporalities of public debt and indebted lives. The essay discusses one form of debt resistance-a comprehensive citizen debt audit-as central to deepen the process of public reckoning marked by #RickyRenuncia and to build upon the landscapes of protest and solidarity emerging in its wake.

Roots In Antiquity: A Comparative Study Of Two Cultures, Lara Younes Freajah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted with the goal to provide an in-depth analysis of the analogous qualities of two very distinct yet similar cultures: the Arab and Sarakatsan cultures, with a particular focus on personal matters that deal with family and kinship. Despite the difference in religions, both groups demonstrate a substantive set of similar traits especially in terms of the interactions, dynamics, and functionality of family relations in addition to the highly-esteemed values that dictate everyday conduct. As a first-generation Arab Muslim who immigrated to the United States, I use the culture in which I am entrenched as a basis …

Impacts Of Invasive Rats On Hawaiian Cave Resources, Francis G. Howarth, Fred D. Stone

International Journal of Speleology

Although there are no published studies and limited data documenting damage by rodents in Hawaiian caves, our incidental observations during more than 40 years of surveying caves indicate that introduced rodents, especially the roof rat, Rattus rattus, pose significant threats to vulnerable cave resources. Caves, with their nearly constant and predictable physical environment often house important natural and cultural features including biological, paleontological, geological, climatic, mineralogical, cultural, and archaeological resources. All four invasive rodents in Hawai‘i commonly nest in cave entrances and rock shelters, but only the roof rat (Rattus rattus) habitually enters caves and utilizes areas …

Threats To Destroy Cultural Heritage Harm Us All, Michael A. Di Giovine

Anthropology & Sociology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Internal, External And Extended Microbiomes Of Hominins, Robert R. Dunn, Katherine R. Amato, Elizabeth A. Archie, Mimi Arandjelovic, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Lauren M. Nichols

Anthropology Faculty Research

The social structure of primates has recently been shown to influence the composition of their microbiomes. What is less clear is how primate microbiomes might in turn influence their social behavior, either in general or with particular reference to hominins. Here we use a comparative approach to understand how microbiomes of hominins have, or might have, changed since the last common ancestor (LCA) of chimpanzees and humans, roughly six million years ago. We focus on microbiomes associated with social evolution, namely those hosted or influenced by stomachs, intestines, armpits, and food fermentation. In doing so, we highlight the potential influence …

Arranged Marriages: An Inappropriate Fabrication, Karika Sethi, Michael D. Reiter

Mako: NSU Undergraduate Student Journal

This paper explores what an inappropriate relationship is and the taxonomy scale used to evaluate different relationships, specifically, arranged marriages. Arranged marriage is a topic that is considered taboo depending on global location. It is more prevalent in Eastern nations such as India, China, Oriental countries, and the Middle East. However, Western influence plays a significant role on what is and is not acceptable, as societal norms differ from place to place. What is defined as normal by culture is what helps to define if a relationship is or is not viewed as inappropriate. This paper is designed to explore …

Exploring Sexual Dimorphism Of The Modern Human Talus Through Geometric Morphometric Methods, Rita Sorrentino, Maria Giovanna Belcastro, Carla Figus, Nicholas B. Stephens, Kevin Turley, William Harcourt-Smith, Timothy M. Ryan, Stefano Benazzi

Publications and Research

Sex determination is a pivotal step in forensic and bioarchaeological fields.Generally,scholars focus on metric or qualitative morphological features,but in the last few years several contributions have applied geometric-morphometric (GM) techniques to overcome limitations of traditional approaches. In this study,we explore sexual dimorphism in modern human tali from three early 20th century populations (Sassari and Bologna, Italy; NewYork, USA) at intra- and interspecific population levels using geometric morphometric (GM) methods.Statistical analyses were performed using shape,form,and size variables.Our results do not show significant differences in shape between males and females, either considering the pooled sample or the individual populations. Differences in talar …

Children’S Voices About ‘Return’ Migration From The United States To Mexico: The 0.5 Generation, Víctor Zúñiga, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Since 2004, our research has focused precisely in those minors who ‘returned’ from the United States to Mexico. Our interest has been to know the social, geographical, educational, and symbolic trajectories of those migrant children and adolescents who are part of the contemporary move of returnees. Based on the children’s narratives (all collected before US November 2016 federal election), we now have a multifaceted response to the question: How and why are young Mexican migrants returning from the United States to Mexico? Some of these returnees were born in Mexico and arrived to the United States when they were young. …

Socio-Psychological Impacts Of Hydraulic Fracturing On Community Health And Well-Being, Mehmet Soyer, Kylen Kaminski, Sebahattin Ziyanak

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

At the core of the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) debate is the level of perceived risk involved with extractive industries, such as the release of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, increased population growth, and truck traffic. However, industry supporters of fracking acclaim the benefits of oil and gas drilling, such as energy independence and economic gains. In this study, we examine the perceived impacts of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on community health and well-being based on interviews with anti-fracking activists in Denton, Texas who were active in the “anti-fracking” community organization, Frack Free Denton (FFD). Emergent from the interviews, we discuss the socio-psychological …

Nature And The Spirit: Ritual, Environment, And The Subak In Bali, Hao Huang

EnviroLab Asia

No abstract provided.

Power, Proximity, And Physiology: Does Income Inequality And Racial Composition Amplify The Impacts Of Air Pollution On Life Expectancy In The United States?, Andrew K. Jorgenson, Terrence D. Hill, Brett Clark, Ryan P. Thombs, Peter Ore, Kelly S. Balistreri, Jennifer E. Givens

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This study advances research at the intersection of environmental degradation, social stratification, and population health in the United States. Expanding the theoretical principles of power, proximity, and physiology, we hypothesize that the harmful effect of fine particulate matter on life expectancy is greater in states with higher levels of income inequality and larger black populations. To test our hypothesis, we use two-way fixed effects regression analysis to estimate the effect of a three-way interaction between fine particulate matter, income share of the top ten percent, and the percent of the population that is black on state-level average life expectancy for …

Aggregates, Formational Emergence, And The Focus On Practice In Stone Artifact Archaeology, Zeljko Rezek, Simon J. Holdaway, Deborah I. Olszewski, Sam C. Lin, Matthew J. Douglass, Shannon P. Mcpherron, Radu Iovita, David R. Braun, Dennis Sandgathe

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The stone artifact record has been one of the major grounds for investigating our evolution. With the predominant focus on their morphological attributes and technological aspects of manufacture, stone artifacts and their assemblages have been analyzed as explicit measures of past behaviors, adaptations, and population histories. This analytical focus on technological andmorphological appearance is one of the characteristics of the conventional approach for constructing inferences from this record. An equally persistent routine involves ascribing the emerged patterns and variability within the archaeological deposits directly to long-term central tendencies in human actions and cultural transmission. Here we re-evaluate this conventional approach. …

A Model-Based Approach To The Tempo Of “Collapse”: The Case Of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Robert J. Dinapoli, Timothy M. Reith, Carl P. Lipo, Terry L. Hunt

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) presents a quintessential case where the tempo of investment in monumentality is central to debates regarding societal collapse, with the common narrative positing that statue platform (ahu) construction ceased sometime around AD 1600 following an ecological, cultural, and demographic catastrophe. This narrative remains especially popular in fields outside archaeology that treat collapse as historical fact and use Rapa Nui as a model for collapse more generally. Resolving the tempo of “collapse” events, however, is often fraught with ambiguity given a lack of formal modeling, uncritical use of radiocarbon estimates, and inattention to information embedded in …

Supplemental Material For: A Model-Based Approach To The Tempo Of “Collapse”: The Case Of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Robert J. Dinapoli, Timothy M. Reith, Carl P. Lipo, Terry L. Hunt

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) presents a quintessential case where the tempo of investment in monumentality is central to debates regarding societal collapse, with the common narrative positing that statue platform (ahu) construction ceased sometime around AD 1600 following an ecological, cultural, and demographic catastrophe. This narrative remains especially popular in fields outside archaeology that treat collapse as historical fact and use Rapa Nui as a model for collapse more generally. Resolving the tempo of “collapse” events, however, is often fraught with ambiguity given a lack of formal modeling, uncritical use of radiocarbon estimates, and inattention to information embedded in …

Making Space For Mothering: Collaboration As Feminist Practice, Julie Searcy, Angela N. Castañeda

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Our collaborative practice spans nearly a decade working together on data collection, writing, presentations, and publications as we’ve explored the intimate care that doulas provide to women in labor. In this essay, we use intimate labor as both a practice and a theoretical frame to think of collaboration as a feminist project that recognizes the expertise gathered from mothering and makes space for it in academia. Eileen Boris and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas (2010, 7) define intimate labor as “work that involves embodied and affective interactions in the service of social reproduction,” and suggest that it requires “bodily or emotional closeness, …

Community, Natural Resources, And Sustainability: Overview Of An Interdisciplinary And International Literature, Hua Qin, Martha Bass, Jessica Ulrich-Schad, David Matarrita-Casante, Christine Sanders, Barituka Bekee

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Special Issue Community, Natural Resources, and Sustainability seeks to engage in an interdisciplinary and international dialogue on the interrelationships of society, natural resources, and sustainability at the community level. In addition to introducing the twelve research articles published in this collection, we provide an overview of the existing literature on community and natural resource management, mainly through a review of previous reviews and a bibliometric analysis. While this literature is dominated by studies on various aspects of community-based natural resource management, the present Special Issue showcases multiple thematic areas of research that collectively contribute to a more complete understanding …

Child Helpers: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This essay was greatly inspired by a 15" film titled Tiny Katerina, which shows glimpses of Katerina from two- to four-and-a-half years of age. She lives with her parents and older brother in Northwestern Siberia in the taiga. The Khanty-speaking people live by foraging (berries, for example), fishing and herding reindeer; they are semi-nomadic. In their camp and the vicinity, there is no evidence of electricity or any other public service. These people are very much “off the grid.” From the first, as a wobbly toddler, Katerina is shown being helpful. She carries (and drops and picks up) firewood …

The Rise And Fall Of A Parallel-Walled Structure: Assessing The Site Sequence At Pachamta, Teresa Raczek, Prabodh Shirvalkar, Esha Prasad, Lalit Pandey

Faculty Articles

In this article, we investigate the chronology of a large parallel-walled mudbrick structure at the site of Pachamta in Rajasthan, India. Pachamta is larger than the contemporaneous Harappan site of Kalibangan and part of a society collectively known as the Ahar Culture. Recent excavations at Pachamta provided an opportunity to elaborate on the available dates for this society and to investigate the chronology of an enigmatic parallel-walled structure. The chronology and function of such prominent structures remains murky, although scholars have suggested that these buildings served as public storage because they resemble the granary at Harappa. Through excavation, our team …

Nutritional Strategy And Social Environment In Redtail Monkeys (Cercopithecus Ascanius), Margaret Bryer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An animal’s nutritional strategy involves the complex interplay between its dynamic physiology and its environment, an environment that includes a landscape of foods that vary in nutritional composition as well as a social environment of other feeding individuals. Social behavior—cooperative or competitive, with conspecifics or with other sympatric species—influences individual feeding behavior. Investigation of social feeding by estimating individual intake of multiple nutritional components, sometimes referred to as “social nutrition,” can give insight into how social variables may lead to shifts in nutritional niche.

In this study, I examined the effects of temporal shifts in diet, reproductive status and conspecific …

The Phylogenetic Relationships Of Middle-Late Miocene Apes: Implications For Early Human Evolution, Kelsey D. Pugh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The living great apes, humans, and their fossil relatives (family Hominidae) are among the most intensively studied mammalian groups, yet many aspects of their shared evolutionary history are not well understood. Phylogenetic relationships of fossil great apes are poorly resolved and the positions of many fossil taxa relative to crown ape clades are debated. Moreover, the relationships of Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, and Ardipithecus to hominins are disputed, with some authors suggesting that alternative positions within Hominidae are more likely. Analyzing the position of these taxa within the broader context of the Miocene ape fossil record is thus necessary to …

The Afterlives Of Government Documents: Information Labor, Archival Power, And The Visibility Of U.S. Human Rights Violations In The “War On Terror”, Rachel Daniell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is about access to information.

It examines the different ways that access to U.S. government records related to the “War on Terror” is generated through the intersection of law, bureaucratic policy and procedure norms, and the everyday work of archivists and transparency advocates. I argue that, both through their labor pushing for access to government records via complex records searches, Freedom of Information Act requests, and legal action, and also through their labor layering those records with new forms of metadata in public digital circulation platforms, these individuals, in the context of their organizations, generate new forms of …

Closing The Achievement Gap: Analysis Of A Reading Academic Intervention In Conjunction With Integrated Social Services., Alejandra E. Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

Educators, legislators, and social activists have long debated the most efficient way to address the high needs of students in Title I middle schools that stem from persistent inequalities in education due to generational poverty and racism. Social activists have proposed integrated social services as a means to remove barriers that prevent students from learning. Providing integrated social services in conjunction with academic reading interventions should efficiently aid in closing the achievement gap that exists from the inequalities in education. This study examines the effectiveness of implementing the Middle School Quality Initiative, a reading and literacy program, in conjunction with …

2020 Mlk Keynote Address: Michelle Alexander Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Michelle Alexander, Rosanne Somerson, Matthew Shenoda

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

2020 MLK Series Keynote Michelle Alexander brings audiences profoundly necessary and meaningful insights on the practice of mass incarceration that plagues the US justice system, as well as eye-opening conversation on how we can end racial caste in America. Lecture Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 5:30pm, RISD Auditorium, 17 Canal Walk, Providence, RI.

In her acclaimed bestseller The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Alexander peels back the curtain on systemic racism in the US prison system in a work that the New York Review of Books describes as "striking in the intelligence of her …

The United States Love Affair With Maize: A National Security Issue?, Jared Kelly

Gettysburg Social Sciences Review

Maize is the most widely grown crop in the United States. The crop has a variety of applications being used for food, fuel, and in some industries. Maize is heavily integrated into the fabric of billions of lives across the world. The United States has encouraged the growth of a massive maize monoculture through the usage of government subsidies. However, this presents issues for the United States since it has created a large monoculture that is threatened by natural disasters, pest infestation, and bioterrorism attacks. Additionally, the cheap nature of the monoculture has additional externalities. Examples include decimated maize production …

Size Matters: The Values Behind Basque Food, Font And Semiotics, Kerri Lesh

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

Text production indexes a set of values as semiotics are utilized to market gastronomic products. These values are referenced through the language used, various font styles and sizes, and the food being promoted. The Basque Country has become a “Culinary nation,” world-renowned for its unique culture and gastronomy. This paper looks at how semiotics are used to create value in marketing locally-made wine and cider. A ubiquitously seen Basque font is used for both cider and wine to reference traditional components of Basque culture, while font size on Rioja Alavesa wine labels stresses the distinction between neighboring regions. The use …