Anthropology Commons^™

Mediating Gospel Singing: Audiovisual Recording And The Transformation Of Voice Among The Christian Lisu In Post-2000 Nujiang, China, Ying Diao

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The contemporary gospel singing of the Nujiang Lisu in China’s southwestern Yunnan province seems to have been predominated by new media technologies and recorded popular mutgguat ssat music. The prevalence of Christian audiovisual recordings reflects more than a shift in the materiality of Lisu religious practices. Moreover, it speaks to the transformative ways that the Christian Lisu have engaged with technologies for their gospel singing as a practice of religious mediation. New musical styles and expressive forms have been disseminated through recordings and further institutionalized in the worship service and other religious settings. Drawing on a material approach from the …

Paralinguistic Ramification Of Language Performance In Islamic Ritual, Michael Frishkopf

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Across time and space, Islamic ritual practices maintain certain fixed features while adapting to local environments, thereby developing a branching or ramified structure—though political, economic, ideological, or technological factors may cause certain local forms to globalize as well. Such ramification offers a means of interpreting the past as well as a window into religious meaning and the ritual process itself. How does such adaptation take place, what drives it, what is its social-spiritual meaning and impact, what can such a ramified variety across history and place tell us, and where does the essence of such ritual lie? In this paper …

Law, Culture, And The City: Urban Legal Anthropology, The Counterhegemonic Use Of Hegemonic Legal Tools, And The Management Of Intangible Cultural Heritage Spaces Within Toronto's Municipal Legal Frameworks, Sara Gwendolyn Ross

PhD Dissertations

The deep process of revision needed in managing Toronto and Canadas urban intangible cultural heritage not only affects redevelopment decisions and cultural policies at the municipal level, and cultural heritage legislation and regulations at the provincial level, but it also calls for the need to address issues at the federal level, such as correctly acknowledging what terms like heritage value mean when drawn from international cultural heritage legislation and the currently unratified status of the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage within Canada. Through the application of urban legal anthropology, as well as through a lens …

Who Is Cheddar Man And What Does He Teach Us?, Meredith Bennett

D.U.Quark

No abstract provided.

Ramsey, Bonita (Fa 1136), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1136. Student paper titled “Proverbs and Comparisons” in which Bonita Ramsey arranges proverbs alphabetically by keyword. Ramsey gathered her information from family members, friends at WKU’s Downing University Center and at a private dormitory, the College Inn, and from visitors at work.

Herndon, Bernice (Fa 1135), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1135. Student paper titled “Negro Spirituals” in which Bernice Herndon gathers together 21 hymns sung by congregants at several African American Baptist churches located in Bowling Green. Herndon also collected spirituals from family, friends, and neighbors.

Idrf Book Exchange: Mosquito Trails, Alex Nading, Chris Gratien, Aman Luthra, Alejandro Cerón

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

IDRF fellows discuss Alex Nading’s book Mosquito Trails: Ecology, Health, and the Politics of Entanglement, based on his International Dissertation Research Fellowship research on waste management and disease ecologies in urban Nicaragua.

Ethnolinguistic Convergence And Divergence Within Dyadic Communication, Anna E. Pitman

Honors College Research

This study investigated just one dependent variable within communication: ethnicity. Ethnicity often influences language. The study examined interethnic communication behaviors through the lens of the Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), as influenced by one of its offshoots, Ethnolinguistic Identity Theory (ELIT). Communication within CAT is given one of three labels—convergence, divergence, and maintenance. The study included four students at Harding University: two African American females, one Hispanic American female, and one Caucasian American female. The primary participant, an African American woman, had a recorded 20 minute conversation with each of the other three participants. Discussion questions provided were formulated to create …

The Paul Barker Ethnographic Research In Haiti, 1950s-1960s: Assessing The Usm Vodoucollection, Hannah Marcel

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

The Collection was obtained by Paul Barker, a faculty member of the Gorham State Teachers College, during the period of 1950-1960s (see Figures 1-4, 7). It is compiled of religious artifacts mostly relating to Haitian Vodou, with a few objects from Africa and the Dominican Republic. Haitian Vodouis heavily influenced by aspects of African religions that traveled to the Americas on the slave trade. It shares some characteristics with Louisiana Voodoo, Santeria, and other Afro-Caribbean religions who were also influenced by religions being introduced to the Americas by means of the slave trade. Each religion developed distinct characteristics shaped by …

Geochemistry Of Archaeological And Marine Environments In Southwest Maine, Heather L. Bushie

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

Two archaeological excavations for the University of Southern Maine collected sediment columns from select units for geological and chemical analysis. The Spiller Farms site is a Native American site located in Wells, Maine marking a transition period between the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs, 12,000 BP. The Malaga Island site was a historic mixed-race community at the north end of Casco Bay where sediment columns were obtained in near-shore and subtidal zones. The samples obtained from Malaga Island have been radiocarbon dated to 3800 +/- 30 BP at 23 meters below the low-tide line. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis is being conducted …

Curls, Kinks And Colonization: The Decolonization Of Afrodescendant Women’S Bodies In Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Allegra Wyatt

Award Winning Anthropology Papers

This paper documents the experiences of Afrodescendant women in the Dominican Republic who choose to wear their hair naturally curly, despite the norm to straighten it. I argue that Afrodescendant Dominican women are decolonizing racial and gendered discourses of the Afrodescendant body through their pursuit of beauty, blackness, health and self-definition. I draw on Ana Irma Rivera Lassén's allegory of the spiderweb to suggest that my informants are the spiders of their webs, weaving the discourses of the Afrodescendant female body into a web in which they are free to move in/through their multiple identities and find empowerment.

Informally Shaping A Child's Mind Around Genocide Within Rwandan Families, Cameron Voss

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

While policy and education are subject to change from research oriented projects, my research rather drives to understand and record how caregivers portrayed their own, others, and their country’s past to the next generation. The informal aspects of family structures, while highly influential, are difficult to navigate and track, and this research endeavors to unveil some of the hidden trends that are throughout Rwandan families with children born after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The generation that has matured in the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda have faced many challenges that few outside of …

Corruption, Right On!: Hidden Cameras, Cynical Satire, And Banal Intimacies Of Anti-Corruption, Smoki Musaraj

Sociology & Anthropology Open Access Publications

Since 2002, the satirical investigative television show Fiks Fare (“Right On!" or “Exactly”) has aired immediately after prime-time news at a leading national broadcasting network in Albania. Through sting operations and cynical satire, the show tells the raw story of everyday experiences of corruption in Albanian society-from daily interactions with low-level public administration officers to the backroom deals of high-level officials. Over the years, Fiks Fare has endured as an effective whistle-blower in a country notorious for a lack of prosecutions and convictions on corruption charges. In this article, I explore the effects of this unlikely anti-corruption agent by drawing …

Black In Beijing: How Transient Black Foreigners Create Community In China, Myhana M. Kerr

Anthropology Honors Projects

This ethnography describes how Black people adapt to life in China and how they deal with the various meanings imposed on their bodies by Chinese society. In five chapters, I describe why Black people move to China, how they form relationships and find communities, and how Black people interact with Chinese society. In China, one’s Blackness is salient because it is the defining attribute that sets people of African origin apart. Moreover, even though most Black expatriates are only in China for a temporary period, there are more Black people traveling to China overall, creating a critical mass to demonstrate …

Ua12/2/2 2018 Talisman: Grit, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

2018 Talisman yearbook.

• Gibson, Helen. Grit
• Zambrano, Max. Cash Cows – Chaney’s Dairy Barn
• Holt, Delaney. A Quarry Story – White Stone Quarry, Caden Quarry
• McKee, Rylee. Beautiful Grit – BellaMoxi, Dance
• Voorhees, Jessica. Digging Deep – Jean-Luc Houle, Anthropology
• Lucas, Kaley. Black Mountain
• Edwards, Aly. Roots of Stigma – McKenna Vierstra, Jordan Frodge, Max Williams, Robin Farrell
• Eastham, Lillie. Grab ‘Em by the Ballot – Time’s Up Movement
• McCarthy, Hannah. Flesh Memories
• Barritt, Brooklyn. Making a Place at the Table – Dungeons & Dragons
• Gary, Summer. For Adoption: Unwanted Mutt
• Waters, Adrianna. For the Love of Creation – Art …

Foregrounding The Role Of The Consumer In Social Entrepreneurship, April M. Wyatt

Capstone Collection

The research purpose of this study initiates the need for describing the role consumers have in social entrepreneurship. Current research remains primarily dedicated to the leadership and organizational structures of entities operating as a social enterprise – while overlooking the role of consumers. This style of entrepreneurship requires specific attention on the social aspect of consumers and beneficiaries in order to create and implement ethics in this growing field. This research examines the current role of the participants in the social-mission driven organizations they support; data collection indicates that, at the present, most consumers support organizations without engaging in direct …

Immigration In Japan: History, Attitudes, And Effects, Jacqueline Witwicki

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

An Adventure Concerning Identity: The Use Of Folklore And The Folkloresque In Murakami’S Hitsuji Wo Meguru Bōken (A Wild Sheep Chase) To Construct A Post-Colonial Identity, Jessica Alice Krawec

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines the use of folklore and the folkloresque in Haruki Murakami’s novel Hitsuji wo meguru bōken, or, as it is translated by Alfred Birnbaum, A Wild Sheep Chase. Murakami blends together Japanese and Western folklore to present a Japan that has been colonized by a post-national, global capitalistic force. At the same time, Murakami presents a strategy to resist this colonizing force by placing agency onto the individual and suggesting that it is still possible to craft a meaningful identity within the Japanese/Western blended, globalized society in which these individuals now exist.

Alongside examining the use of folklore …

On Being Trans: Narrative, Identity, Performance, And Community, Chloe Jo Brown

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis focuses on various topics related to transgender identity and culture. Through a combination of ethnographic and secondary research, I studied transgender coming out narratives, trans media representation, transgender performance and identity, and conceptualizations of group and chosen family in a community of trans students, the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group.

The three chapters of my thesis address some of the traditional milestones of a trans person’s acculturation: coming out, constructing one’s newly discovered trans identity, and finding community. Chapter 1 explores coming out as transgender, and the way in in which coming out is valued and discussed …

Farm To Liberation: Towards Feminist Food Justice, Elisabeth Spector

Honors Theses

Women are one of the many vulnerable populations experiencing the detrimental effects of human-induced climate change, and our current system of food production is one of the largest contributors to this global problem. Not only do modern methods of food production contribute significantly to climate change, but they devalue women’s knowledge and strip away their opportunities. A number of communities and individuals have begun to work against this system and work towards food justice through small-scale farming and growing their own food. Through the use of ecofeminist scholarship and original interviews, this project examines the problems within our current food …

L’Agitation Du Quotidien: Une Conversation Sur La Réflexion Ⓐnarchiste Face Au Sexisme Dans La Langue, Mariel Mercedes Acosta Matos, Ernesto Cuba

Publications and Research

Ernesto Cuba interviewe Mariel Acosta au sujet des résultats de son mémoire de master, qui traite des propositions de morphèmes de genre inclusif dans des publications anarchistes de langue espagnole, parmi lesquelles le @, le x et d’autres innovations orthographiques cherchant à contrecarrer le biais androcentré de la langue.

Ernesto Cuba interviews Mariel Acosta about the findings in her master’s thesis, which investigates inclusive gender morphemes in Spanish-language anarchist publications, among which is the use of @, x and other orthographic innovations that seek to challenge the androcentric bias of language.

Vol. 41 No. 1/2 (2018): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US$40.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, and …

Variation In Wealth And Educational Drivers Of Fertility Decline Across 45 Countries, Heidi Colleran, Kristin Snopkowski

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Fertility decline in human populations is an inherent evolutionary puzzle with major demographic, socio-cultural and evolutionary consequences. The individual level predictors of fertility decline are numerous, but the way these effects vary by country and how they are causally mediated by other factors has received relatively little attention. Here we take a multilevel approach to compare similarities and differences in the primary predictors of contemporary fertility declines—wealth and education—across 45 countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data collected from 2003 to 2015. We use multilevel models …

Anthropology 101: Introduction To Anthropology Indirect Assessment Spring 2018, Isabel Scarborough Ph.D.

Anthropology Courses

This post course survey for Anthropology 101 collects data on students' familiarity with other cultures before and after taking the course.

Anthropology 103 Cultural Anthropology Article Analysis And Discussion Activity Spring 2018, Lauren Anaya

Anthropology Courses

This analysis and discussion activity uses the article, "Who Has Time for Cejf? Post-Socialist Migration and Slow Coffee in Neoliberal Chicago" by Ana Croegaert (American Anthropologist. 2011;113(3):463-77).

Anthropology 103 Introduction To Cultural Anthropology Syllabus Spring 2018, Lauren Anaya

Anthropology Courses

No abstract provided.

Anthropology 101: Introduction To Anthropology Class Activity On Global Inequalities Spring 2018, Isabel Scarborough Ph.D.

Anthropology Courses

This group discussion class activity for Anthropology 101 focuses on the topics of nation building, ethnocentrism, naturalizing discourses, and cultural relativism. In addition to the course text, the activity uses: Howard, Kevin, ‘National Identity, Moral Panic and East European Folk Devils’, in Globalization, Migration and Social Transformation: Ireland in Europe and the World, ed. by Bryan Fanning and Ronald Munck (Farnham, UK and Burlington, USA: Ashgate, 2011), pp.169-181. The film clip mentioned in the assignment is from Russia on Four Wheels, Part 2 (2014), BBC, available for Films on Demand subscribers.

Anthropology 101: Introduction To Anthropology Syllabus Spring 2018, Isabel Scarborough Ph.D.

Anthropology Courses

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Two Ṭuruq: An Exploration Of Sufism In Morocco Through The Qādiriyya Budshishiyya And Tijāniyya, May Hu

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this ISP is to explore the relationship between the esoteric dimensions of Islam in Morocco, as expressed through two examples ṭuruq: the Qādiriyya Budshishiyya and Tijāniyya in Morocco to explore power dynamics of Sufi ṭuruq in Morocco. The Qādiriyya Budshishiyya and Tijāniyya serve as apt case studies as two of the most prominent Sufi ṭuruq in Morocco. They also have interesting implications as the Qādiriyya Budshishiyya has in recent years seen an increase in clout and influence in Morocco as Ahmad Tawfiq, the Moroccan Minister for Habus and Islamic Affairs has affiliations with the ṭarīqah and …

Shiwilu, Pilar Valenzuela

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Articles and Research

"Shiwilu, also known as Jebero (ISO jeb), is a critically endangered Kawapanan language spoken in the District of Jeberos, in northeastern Peru. Kawapanan languages exhibit a “mixed” areal profile, in that they combine structural properties typical of Western Amazonian languages with features specifically associated to the Central Andean families Quechuan and Aymaran (Valenzuela 2015). On June 23, 2016, Shiwilu became the first Peruvian language to be declared National Cultural Heritage (Resolución Viceministerial N° 073-2016-VMPCIC-MC). The present text was delivered orally in 2013 by one of the youngest native speakers, Mr. Fidel Lomas Chota, who was 59 years old at the …