Other Anthropology Commons^™

From Sydney To Syracuse A Transcontinental Exploration Of Women’S Health In Karen Refugee Communities, Darcy Cherlin

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

From Sydney to Syracuse a Transcontinental Exploration of Women’s Health in Karen Refugee Communities. There are many impediments to refugee women’s access to health care and sexual and reproductive services in their countries of resettlement, including language difference, transportation, and absence of culturally appropriate support. Through focus groups and participatory observation this paper identifies some major challenges that Karen (an ethnic group from Burma) women face accessing health care in their respective cities of resettlement (Syracuse, New York or Sydney, Australia). It is through such documentation and analysis that policies and services can be improved and any harm they …

Craniometric Ancestry Proportions Among Groups Considered Hispanic: Genetic Biological Variation, Sex-Biased Asymmetry, And Forensic Applications, Meredith L. Tise

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Today, groups considered Hispanic in the United States consist of populations whose complex genetic structures reflect intermixed diverse groups of people who came in contact during Spanish colonization in Latin America. After coming in contact and wiping out most of the Native Americans who occupied North and Latin America, the Spanish also introduced West African individuals for labor to begin developing crops to be shipped back to Europe, resulting in the Trans-Atlantic African slave trade. These migration events and differential gene flow among males and females that occurred throughout Latin America have led to populations that have been genetically transformed …

Cultural Competency In The Medical Workplace: A Look At Outpatient Clinic Nurses At A Children's Hospital In New England, Evelyn S. Callahan

Honors Scholar Theses

This paper analyzes the current state of progress toward cultural competency in the medical workplace, specifically in the hospital setting. It compares the current writing on the topic to research done at a large New England children’s hospital. The nurses are all individuals who work in an out patient setting so they often see the same patients regularly for longer periods of time. This differs from the in-patient or floor nurses who only spend limited time with a constantly changing population of patients. The research involved one-on-one interviews and a focus group with nurses at the hospital. The focus group …

The Association Of The Nutrition Transition And The Development Of Eating Disorders, Amy Kelly

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Dark Avunculate: Shame, Animality, And Queer Development In Oscar Wilde’S “The Star-Child”, Rasmus R. Simonsen

Entertainment Collection

This article will outline the inequalities of the relationship between the Star-Child and his temporary master, known only as the Magician, in order to argue that Wilde’s fairy tale should be read as the formalization of a queer interval that traumatizes the Victorian norm of maturation. This is not to suggest that “Wilde’s Victorian readers [would] seem to have found [any]thing untoward about the fairy tales” (Duffy 328); nothing, at least, that hinted at the “homoromantic dimensions” which were to become so devastatingly central to his libel trial of 1895 (338). John-Charles Duffy has nevertheless shown that a complex interweaving …

“I Am A Vegetarian”: Reflections On A Way Of Being, Kenneth J. Shapiro

Human Health Collection

Employing a qualitative method adapted from phenomenological psychology, the paper presents a socio-psychological portrait of a vegetarian. Descriptives are a product of the author’s reflection on (dialogue with) empirical findings and published personal accounts, interviews, and case studies. The paper provides evidence for the hypothesis that vegetarianism is a way of being. This way of experiencing and living in the world is associated with particular forms of relationship to self, to other animals and nature, and to other people. The achievement of this way of being, particularly in the interpersonal sphere, comprises an initial, a transitional, and a crystallizing phase …

Welfare Of Non-Traditional Pets, Catherine A. Schuppli, David Fraser, H. J. Bacon

Wild and Exotic Animals as Pets Collection

The keeping of non-traditional or ‘exotic’ pets has been growing in popularity worldwide. In addition to the typical welfare challenges of keeping more traditional pet species like dogs and cats, ensuring the welfare of non-traditional pets is complicated by factors such as lack of knowledge, difficulties meeting requirements in the home and where and how animals are obtained. This paper uses examples of different species to highlight three major welfare concerns: ensuring that pets under our care i) function well biologically, ii) are free from negative psychological states and able to experience normal pleasures, and iii) lead reasonably natural lives. …

The Sharing Economy: Exploring The Intersection Of Collaborative Consumption And Capitalism, Ellyn E. Erving

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how the sharing economy in America combines Collaborative Consumption ideas and social values with capitalist business models to make a profit. I discuss definitions of terms associated with the sharing economy, economic anthropological theories and case studies, as well as company and consumer motivations in sharing economy companies.

The Evolutionary Fitness Of Personality Traits In A Small-Scale Subsistence Society, Michael Gurven, Christopher Von Rueden, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan, Daniel Eid Rodriguez

ESI Publications

"Personality, or “behavioral syndromes”, are relatively stable dispositional traits and behaviors that have now been identified in a myriad of social species (Gosling, 2001; Sih et al., 2004), and with clear consequences on fitness (Smith & Blumstein, 2008). The canalization of personality during development and relative stability thereafter, despite varying circumstances over the life course that might otherwise favor greater plasticity, is an important problem attracting much theoretical and empirical attention (Dall et al., 2004; Dingemanse et al., 2010). Further, personality is highly heritable, yet how heritable genetic variation in personality traits is maintained over generations remains another conundrum (Buss …

A Paradoxical Paradise: The Marquesas As A Degenerate And Regenerative Space In The Western Imagination, Christine A. Zenel

Scripps Senior Theses

The Western imagination has ascribed histories and identities of the Marquesas Islands throughout centuries of evolving discourses and representations as a paradoxical paradise, bolstering colonialist ideologies of social evolutionary theory. The islands have either been represented as backwards on a social scale to justify Western dominance, or have been represented as being in a state of authentic human nature out of colonial guilt and imperialist nostalgia. These representations reveal a paradox in which the Marquesas is ascribed in the Western imagination as a degenerate space, yet also as a space where the regeneration of human nature is made …

Supplementing Society: A Sociocultural Analysis Of Recreational Drug Use And Supplement Consumption Within The American Collegiate Environment, Kelli M. Bradley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the United States, reports within the last decade indicate college students are using dietary supplements at rates well above those reported for adult populations. Despite this prevalence, however, there continues to be a dearth of information examining behaviors related to this health phenomenon. This is problematic for many reasons, but especially because some research has found associations between use of these products and use of recreational drugs among this population.

Employing an integrated theoretical approach utilizing concepts from critical-interpretive medical anthropology (CIMA) and emerging adulthood, this research examined the ways in which supplement use related to sociocultural factors present …

Dynamical Structure Of A Traditional Amazonian Social Network, Paul L. Hooper, Simon Dedeo, Ann E. Caldwell Hooper, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Reciprocity is a vital feature of social networks, but relatively little is known about its temporal structure or the mechanisms underlying its persistence in real world behavior. In pursuit of these two questions, we study the stationary and dynamical signals of reciprocity in a network of manioc beer (Spanish: chicha; Tsimane’: shocdye’) drinking events in a Tsimane’ village in lowland Bolivia. At the stationary level, our analysis reveals that social exchange within the community is heterogeneously patterned according to kinship and spatial proximity. A positive relationship between the frequencies at which two families host each other, controlling for kinship and …

Hypobaric Chamber Test Of Pacific Spaceflight Pressure Garment Mark I At Copenhagen University Hospital, Cameron M. Smith

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Pacific Spaceflight's first proof-of concept pressure garment, the Mark I (model Gagarin), was worn by a test subject in a pressure chamber to test stable maintenance of blood oxygenation, body temperature and suit pressure. While breathing normal air at a simulated altitude of 4,000m (c.13,000ft) the test subject's blood oxygenation was 90%, a figure expected for an altitude of 2,590m (8,500ft). The test subject's blood oxygenation climbed back to normal (96%-95%) as the hypobaric chamber was repressurized to sea level figures. The garment successfully maintained the test subject in the first half of the Blood Oxygenation Disassociation Range of …

Review Of High Altitude Aviation Preoxygenation / Denitrogenization Procedures And Draft Pressure Schedule For Open-Cockpit Balloon Flight To 65,000 Feet, Cameron M. Smith

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Aviation Decompression Sickness (DCS) is a well-known and well documented phenomenon in which a spectrum of physiological and cognitive symptoms result from aircrew exposures to altitudes greater than roughly 10,000 feet, where atmospheric pressures and the partial pressure of oxygen are significantly lower than the mean pressures in which the human body has evolved. The main factors involved in the likelihood of DCS are (a) exposure altitude, (b) exposure time at altitude, (c) preoxygenation / denitrogenization duration and procedure and (d) exercise at the exposure altitude. Mitigation of DCS is largely achieved by (a) preoxygenation / denitrogenization before flight, (b) …

Ant 4930 Anthropology Of Childhood, Rebecca K. Zarger

Service-Learning Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Fashion Vs. Function In Cultural Evolution: The Case Of Dog Breed Popularity, Stefano Ghirlanda, Alberto Acerbi, Harold A. Herzog, James A. Serpell

Pets Collection

We investigate the relationship between characteristics of dog breeds and their popularity between years 1926 and 2005. We consider breed health, longevity, and behavioral qualities such as aggressiveness, trainability, and fearfulness. We show that a breed’s overall popularity, fluctuations in popularity, and rates of increase and decrease around popularity peaks show typically no correlation with these breed characteristics. One exception is the finding that more popular breeds tend to suffer from more inherited disorders. Our results support the hypothesis that dog breed popularity has been primarily determined by fashion rather than function.

Patterns Of Senescence In Human Cardiovascular Fitness: Vo2 Max In Subsistence And Industrialized Populations, Anne C. Pisor, Michael Gurven, Aaron D. Blackwell, Hillard Kaplan, Gandhi Yetish

ESI Publications

Objectives—This study explores whether cardiovascular fitness levels and senescent decline are similar in the Tsimane of Bolivia and Canadians, as well as other subsistence and industrialized populations. Among Tsimane, we examine whether morbidity predicts lower levels and faster decline of cardiovascular fitness, or whether their lifestyle (e.g., high physical activity) promotes high levels and slow decline. Alternatively, high activity levels and morbidity might counterbalance such that Tsimane fitness levels and decline are similar to those in industrialized populations.

Methods—Maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) was estimated using a step test heart rate method for 701 participants. We compared these estimates …

Age-Independent Increases In Male Salivary Testosterone During Horticultural Activity Among Tsimane Forager-Farmers, Benjamin C. Trumble, Daniel K. Cummings, Kathleen A. O'Connor, Darryl J. Holman, Eric A. Smith, Hillard Kaplan, Michael D. Gurven

ESI Publications

Testosterone plays an important role in mediating male reproductive trade-offs in many vertebrate species, augmenting muscle and influencing behavior necessary for male-male competition and mating-effort. Among humans, testosterone may also play a key role in facilitating male provisioning of offspring as muscular and neuromuscular performance are deeply influenced by acute changes in testosterone. This study examines acute changes in salivary testosterone among 63 Tsimane men ranging in age from 16–80 (mean 38.2) years during one-hour bouts of treechopping while clearing horticultural plots. The Tsimane forager-horticulturalists living in the Bolivian Amazon experience high energy expenditure associated with food production, have high …

Humanitarianism And The Anthropology Of Hunger, Kate Klein

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

While the early view of hunger as the product of a world population too large to sustain has largely been eliminated, and the mainstream international community has come to accept that food insecurity results from issues of distribution rather than an insufficient global food supply, the emphasis on biotechnology in agriculture, humanitarianism in international aid, and social justice in international human rights law in the contemporary era has contributed to other barriers that prevent hunger alleviation.

In this thesis, I argue that these previous contemporary developments have had the capacity to hide hunger. My analysis of technology and humanitarian aid …

Conceptualising The Impact Of Arousal And Affective State On Operant Conditioning, Melissa J. Starling, Nicholas Branson, Denis Cody, Paul D. Mcgreevy

Animal Training and Obedience Collection

Animal training relies heavily on an understanding of species-specific behaviour as it integrates with operant conditioning principles. Following on from recent studies showing that affective states and arousal levels may correlate with behavioural outcomes, we explore the contribution of both affective state and arousal in behavioural responses to operant conditioning. This paper provides a framework for assessing how affective state and arousal may influence the efficacy of operant training methods. It provides a series of three-dimensional conceptual graphs as exemplars to describing putative influences of both affective state and arousal on the likelihood of dogs and horses performing commonly desired …

Public Policy: Community Safety Through Breed Bans?, Deirdre S. Franklin

Animals and Public Policy Collection

The research performed provided several insights and outcomes that were anticipated in the research question. By analyzing the effects of breed specific legislation (BSL) and the statistics relative to dog bites, dog shelters and rescue groups, it became clear that the BSL does not work. This case study provides extensive proof to support this conclusion.

Household Task Delegation Among High-Fertility Forager-Horticulturalists Of Lowland Bolivia, Jonathan Stieglitz, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Paul L. Hooper

ESI Publications

Human kin cooperation is universal, leading researchers to label humans as “cooperative breeders.” Despite widespread interest in human cooperation, there has been no systematic study of how household economic decision making occurs. We document age and sex profiles of task delegation by parents to children ages 4–18 among Bolivian forager-horticulturalists. We test for sex differences in the probability of delegation and examine whether tasks are more likely delegated as household labor demand increases. We also test whether food acquisition tasks are more likely delegated to higher producers.We find mixed support for the prediction that girls are more likely delegated domestic …

Physical Activity And Modernization Among Bolivian Amerindians, Michael Gurven, Adrian V. Jaeggi, Hillard Kaplan, Daniel Cummings

ESI Publications

Background: Physical inactivity is a growing public health problem, and the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality. Conversely, indigenous populations living traditional lifestyles reportedly engage in vigorous daily activity that is protective against non-communicable diseases. Here we analyze physical activity patterns among the Tsimane, forager-horticulturalists of Amazonian Bolivia with minimal heart disease and diabetes. We assess age patterns of adult activity among men and women, test whether modernization affects activity levels, and examine whether nascent obesity is associated with reduced activity.

Methods and Findings: A factorial method based on a large sample of behavioral observations was employed …

Shared Responsibility In A Multispecies Playground, Marcus Baynes-Rock

Between the Species

While conducting research on urbanised hyenas in Harar, Ethiopia, I was approached by a young hyena named Willi. In contrast to other hyenas, who tolerated my presence but otherwise had little interest in me, Willi insisted on some kind of engagement. Through biting, chase play, combing, following and standing by one other, Willi and I went beyond our species limitations and created an improvised intersubjectivity based on a will to understand. However, our friendship led to some harmful consequences for which I felt responsible. This led me to question the ethics of engagement with non-humans: if unforeseen harms can result …

Culturally Responsive Methodologies At Work In Education Settings, Mere Berryman, Suzanne Soohoo, Ann Nevin, Te Arani Barrett, Therese Ford, Debora Joy Nodelman, Norma Valenzuela, Anna Wilson

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe culturally responsive methodology as a way to develop researchers. The aim is to illuminate the dimensions of culturally responsive methodology such as cultural and epistemological pluralism, deconstruction of Western colonial traditions of research, and primacy of relationships within culturally responsive dialogic encounters. An overarching question is: “How can we maintain the original integrity of both participants and researchers and their respective cultures and co-construct at the same time something new?”

Design/methodology/approach – Five case study narratives are described in order for readers to understand the range and types of studies …

Animals As Lifechangers And Lifesavers: Pets In The Redemption Narratives Of Homeless People, Leslie Irvine

Human and Animal Bonding Collection

This paper examines personal narratives in which homeless and formerly homeless people construct their companion animals as having changed or saved their lives. The analysis considers selfhood a narrative accomplishment, the strategic outcome rather than the source of the stories people tell. These particular stories employ the theme of redemption, in which tellers describe overcoming adversity to face a better future, with animals playing key roles. The analysis reveals the narrative elements through which animals become vehicles for redemption. As dependent others, animals encourage a sense of responsibility. As the providers of unconditional love, they reward the fulfillment of responsibility. …

Are Apes’ Responses To Pointing Gestures Intentional?, Olivia Sultanescu, Kristin Andrews

Sentience Collection

This paper examines the meaningfulness of pointing in great apes. We appeal to Hannah Ginsborg’s conception of primitive normativity, which provides an adequate criterion for establishing whether a response is meaningful, and we attempt to make room for a conception according to which there is no fundamental difference between the responses of human infants and those of other great apes to pointing gestures. This conception is an alternative to Tomasello’s view that pointing gestures and reactions to them reveal a fundamental difference between humans and other apes.

Community-Based Approaches To Mental Health And Conflict Resolution In Post-Conflict Libya, Amanda Lubit

Anthropology Theses

Post-conflict Libya faces the challenges of establishing a national health system that is capable of addressing mental health needs for a population traumatized by decades of repression and a recent war. In order to recover, traumatized populations require feelings of safety, calm, empowerment, connectedness, and hope. To help achieve this outcome, programs must focus on medical and social aspects at both the individual and community level.

As part of an internship experience, I worked with Dr. Omar Reda, a Libyan psychiatrist at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) who helps communities, organizations and mental health professionals throughout Libya to address …

How Universal Is The Big Five? Testing The Five-Factor Model Of Personality Variation Among Forager-Farmers In The Bolivian Amazon, Michael Gurven, Christopher Von Rueden, Maxim Massenkoff, Hillard Kaplan, Marino Lero Vie

ESI Publications

The five-factor model (FFM) of personality variation has been replicated across a range of human societies, suggesting the FFM is a human universal. However, most studies of the FFM have been restricted to literate, urban populations, which are uncharacteristic of the majority of human evolutionary history. We present the first test of the FFM in a largely illiterate, indigenous society. Tsimane forager–horticulturalist men and women of Bolivia (n = 632) completed a translation of the 44-item Big Five Inventory (Benet-Martínez & John, 1998), a widely used metric of the FFM. We failed to find robust support for the FFM, based …

Reclaiming “Anthropology: The Forgotten Behavioral Science In Management History” – Commentaries, Fred Luthans, Ivana Milosevic, Beth A. Bechky, Edgar H. Schein, Susan Wright, Davydd J. Greenwood

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Purpose – This collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, “Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history”, aims to reflect on the treatment of the history of anthropological work in organizational studies presented in the original article.

Design/methodology/approach – The essays are invited and peer-reviewed contributions from scholars in organizational studies and anthropology.

Findings – The scholars invited to comment on the original article have seen its value, and their contributions ground its content in contemporary issues and debates.

Originality/value – The original article was deemed “original” for its time (1987), …