Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Claiming The Right To The City: Towards The Production Of Space From Below, Mehmet Baris Kuymulu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the theoretical and political contradictions surrounding the notion of the right to the city. The right to the city concept has lately attracted a great deal of attention, both from academics who have long engaged with urban theory and politics, and from grassroots activists around the globe who have been fighting on the ground for an alternative just urbanism. In addition to urbanists and grassroots urban justice activists, the right to the city concept has also drawn considerable attention from the United Nations (UN) agencies such as UN-HABITAT and UNESCO, which have organized meetings and outlined policies …

Human Trafficking In Morocco: A Focus On Sub-Saharan Migrant Women, Ladarrien Gillette

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this study was to report on the situation of exploited and trafficked Sub-Saharan migrant women in Morocco. With the lack of legal framework to recognize or combat human trafficking my research focuses on the broader context of trafficking as a means to exploit mostly women in regards to sexual assault. Since the crime is not explicitly defined within Moroccan penal code there are no specific organizations dealing with survivors of trafficking but there are a few that indirectly address women migrants. The irregular situation of migrants in Morocco makes their involvement with being trafficked more complicated than …

Toward A Biocommunicable Cartography Of Health Decision-Making In The Amazon Basin Of Ecuador, James Cartwright

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This paper comprises a critical, ethnographic study of health communication in a rural community of Amazonian Ecuador. By synthesizing approaches from anthropology, discourse studies, and public health, the study explores how conversations influence health decisions, how communities understand health systems, and how macrostructural discourse changes the political economy of healthcare in Ecuador. My work draws on the recent theoretical development of ‘biocommunicability’ in anthropology as well as earlier sociological research on knowledge construction. Most importantly, this paper offers a critique of current interventions by NGOs in the region.

Owning Our Food System: Urban Community Gardening And Local Food Movements, Paige A. Edwards

Masters Theses

Food is a means of examining culture, including identity, autonomy and power. It creates relationships and memories between people via shared connections. Through food, I explore local food movements and urban community gardening.

We both ingest and produce garden-grown foods. This movement is often described as simple nostalgia. I suggest that it is a response against heavily processed foods within a system reliant on mass produced food. This desire for ownership pushes community gardens and other counter-hegemonic spaces forward in their goals of using social practice to challenge the established food industry and take control within their own lives.

Geography Of Development Of Eastern Europe, Kathryn E. Dyas

Social Sciences

The aim of this senior project is to evaluate the long-standing effects the geography of development has had on Eastern Europe since the 1900s onward. The analysis concentrates on Poland, Croatia, and Ukraine thoroughly examining the political, cultural, and geographic nature that has affected the history and development of these countries. The author outlines theories of development and how they are applicable to Eastern Europe’s continuing development. The focus of this paper is on the influence of socialism and communism, as well as the affect the European Union has had, and continues to have on Eastern Europe as a whole. …

Mapping And Analyzing Historical Sanborn Maps Of San Luis Obispo From 1905 And 1950, Troy A. Lawson

Social Sciences

This project was conducted to map, analyze, and determine historical changes in the city of San Luis Obispo, California. Sanborn maps from 1905 and 1950 were drawn showing streets, parcels, creeks, and buildings of the city. These publications had limited use because they were in a physical format without any geographic reference. Here, these maps were digitized into a GIS format to analyze building trends and identify cultural and historical buildings not on the City’s list of Historic and Culturally Contributing Buildings, as well as published online on the City of San Luis Obispo’s website and on ArcGIS Online. Additionally, …

Basic Human Health And Sustainable Community Development: A Case Study Of A Community In Monte Plata, Dominican Republic, Rachelle H. Arnoux

Capstone Collection

One of my objectives in conducting this research is to enhance my skills in data collection while simultaneously improving my writing skills. More substantively, I wanted to explore how access to healthcare in a developing country like the Dominican Republic can contribute to sustainable development. As good health is fundamental and vital for all human beings, it is important in the context of this study to understand how the healthcare system in a particular country gives the population access to quality healthcare. Referring myself specifically to the situation at Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) Dominicana medical center in the Dominican Republic …

"A New Way Of Doing Politics": The Movement Against Cafta In Costa Rica, Jeremy Rayner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In October of 2007, Costa Ricans voted in a referendum to ratify a Free Trade Agreement with the United States (DR-CAFTA, or CAFTA). The first referendum in their nation's history--and the first referendum ever held on a Free Trade Agreement--marked the culmination of a cycle of contention over liberalization that transformed practices and expectations of politics in a country often considered an exemplar of representative democracy. In this dissertation I provide an account of the opposition to CAFTA (the NO), based on two years of ethnographic research with the Patriotic Committees (Comites Patrioticos), the decentralized, grassroots network at the heart …

We Work, We Eat Together: Anti-Authoritarian Mutual Aid Politics In New York City, 2004-2013, David Spataro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

New York City's neoliberal restructuring has fundamentally transformed the city's labor market and privatized many important aspects of a once robust municipal welfare system. In this research I examine one radical response to these changes: anti-authoritarian mutual aid groups that blend Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture with direct action politics. These are projects where activists attempt to build strong communities of resistance by organizing collective forms of social reproduction. I find that these projects are a threat to neoliberal urbanization because they reorganize reproduction beyond the household scale while simultaneously criticizing the social relations of capitalism as the root of household insecurity. …

Transnational Marriage: Modern Imaginings, Relational Realignments, And Persistent Inequalities, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

In the context of shifting cultural anchors as well as unstable global economic conditions, new practices of intimacy and sexuality may become tactics in an individual’s negotiation of conflicting desires and potentials. This article offers reflection on the interface between global forces, powerful transcultural narratives, and state policies, on the one hand, and local, even individual, constructions and tactics in regard to sexuality, marriage, migration, and work, on the other. The article focuses on the life trajectory of Gudiya, an ambitious young Hindu woman who started out life with little social capital and few economic resources in a dusty corner …

Sustainability Policy’S Inherent Dilemmas – Exemplified Via Critical Examination Of The Las Vegas Metropolitan Sustainability Campaign, Kathryn A. Zimmerman

All Master's Theses

In response to a dual problem of critical water scarcity and rapid population growth, leaders of metropolitan Las Vegas implemented a region-wide, internationally marketed sustainability campaign. Preliminary studies found that, while sustainability policy attains its rhetorical goals, solutions initiated not only perpetuate but also purposefully expand the original dual problem to justify continuous water resource acquisitions. To examine this sustainability conundrum constructed by leadership—problem-perpetuation rather than problem-resolution—a critical examination in resource management asked two basic questions: what is being sustained and by what means? Via this inquiry, specific processes by which leaders perpetuate problems can be identified; and, so-informed, new …

Self-Reliance Beyond Neoliberalism: Rethinking Autonomy At The Edges Of Empire, Karen Hébert, Diana Mincyte

Publications and Research

Across scholarly and popular accounts, self-reliance is often interpreted as either the embodiment of individual entrepreneurialism, as celebrated by neoliberal designs, or the basis for communitarian localism, increasingly imagined as central to environmental and social sustainability. In both cases, self-reliance is framed as an antidote to the failures of larger state institutions or market economies. This paper offers a different framework for understanding self-reliance by linking insights drawn from agrarian studies to current debates on alternative economies. Through an examination of the social worlds of semisubsistence producers in peripheral zones in the Global North, we show how everyday forms of …

The Imperative Of Conserving California's Foothill Oak Woodlands, Lauren Phillips

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Westernization On The Fijian Birth Model, Sophia Heick

Social Sciences

Over the past 200 years a dramatic shift in the method of birth has occurred in the world and especially in the United States. Birth has been transformed from a common event overseen by a local midwife, a process that was common and largely mysterious as it lacked any scientific understanding, to an infrequent event overwhelmingly overseen by obstetricians and scientifically dissected in attempts to maximize health outcomes. Although many countries have gone through a transition similar to this, this specific transition is unique to the culture of the United States. With the impact that US Western culture is having …

Mapping Human-Environment Connections On The Olympic Peninsula: An Atlas Of Landscape Values, Rebecca J. Mclain, Lee Cerveny, Diane Besser, David Banis, Alexa Todd, Stephanie Rohdy, Corinna Kimball-Brown

Occasional Papers in Geography

Occasional Papers in Geography Publication No. 7

The advent of computerized mapping has land managers’ ability to map the biophysical services provided by forested ecosystems. However, mapping the cultural services of those systems is more challenging. Human ecology mapping (HEM), which provides spatially-explicit depictions of the complex connections between humans and their environment, is an approach that can be used to improve understandings of the cultural services associated with landscapes. This atlas provides an overview of what HEM is and draws on experiences with a pilot project on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington to illustrate what HEM data looks …

Agricultural Production And Stability Of Settlement Systems In Upper Mesopotamia During The Early Bronze Age (Third Millennium Bce), Tuna Kalayci

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the relationship between rainfall variation and rain-fed agricultural production in Upper Mesopotamia with a specific focus on Early Bronze Age urban settlements. In return, the variation in production is used to explore stability of urban settlement systems. The organization of the flow of agricultural goods is the key to sustaining the total settlement system.

The vulnerability of a settlement system increases due to the increased demand for more output from agricultural lands. This demand is the key for the success of urbanization project. However, without estimating how many foodstuffs were available at the end of a production …

A New Commons: Considering Community-Based Co-Management For Sustainable Fisheries, Charlotte L. Dohrn

Pomona Senior Theses

Commercial fisheries on the West Coast are traditionally managed under large-scale management and conservation plans implemented by state and federal agencies. This scale of management can present obstacles for fishing communities. This thesis examines emerging cases of attempts to define and implement sustainable management of commercial fisheries under a community-based co-management model. In Port Orford, Sitka, San Diego and Santa Barbara, preliminary community-based co-management models are enabling fishing communities to pursue social sustainability through preserving access, participating in local science, and direct marketing for fish products. These communities are actively reshaping traditional models of conceptualizing and managing common-pool resources like …

Fruitful Communities: Evaluating The History And Impacts Of Treepeople’S Fruit Tree Program, Kayla B. Imhoff

Pitzer Senior Theses

TreePeople is a Los Angeles based non-profit organization that uses environmental education, initiatives, and programs to engage with the greater community to work towards the goal of a sustainable future for Los Angeles. The Fruit Tree Program is one of TreePeople’s longest running programs of 29 years, which distributes free bare-root fruit trees to economically disadvantaged communities as a source of fresh fruit and the other environmental benefits that trees offer. This paper is a comprehensive report detailing the history of the program and the impacts it has had on communities across Los Angeles County. Looking at three communities in …

Global Futures And Government Towns: Phosphates And The Production Of Western Sahara As A Space Of Contention, Mark Drury

Publications and Research

The study of natural resources lends itself to theorizing the politics of nature and the politics of time. The space of Western Sahara, where both remain highly contested, provides an opportunity to consider the ramifications of resources in political conflict at different historical moments. Drawing from environmental histories of North Africa and the Sahara, as well as the anthropology of time, the author focuses on two historical moments. The first, from 1945 to 1972, concerns the discovery of phosphate deposits during the Spanish colonial period and the implications of this discovery for political authority in the Sahara more broadly. The …

Gagner La Vie: Examining Return Preparedness And Resource Mobilization Among Moroccan Immigrants To France Who Return To Live Permanently In Agadir, Morocco, Karolina Michelle Dos Santos

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

If Moroccan immigrants are so in tune to their home culture and home happenings, under what conditions do they stay in France facing the problems of unemployment and homelessness? This study focuses on the return migration of Moroccans from the Sousse region; specifically Agadir and the surrounding Tiznit areas, who left Morocco during the decade of 1960 and who have permanently returned to live in Morocco. The study was conducted by using the snowball sampling technique to conduct semi-structured interviews of Moroccan return migrants in AitMelloul, a neighborhood of Agadir. My findings suggest that the return migrants from the Sousse …

An Environmental And Historical Study Of The Nipomo Mesa Region, Jason C. Carr

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

The Caves Of Barbuda’S Eastern Coast: Long Term Occupation, Ethnohistory And Ritual, Sophia Perdikaris, Sandrine Grouard, George Hambrecht, Megan Hicks, Anjana Mebane-Cruz, Reaksha Persaud

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Barbuda is the sister island to Antigua, located in the Lesser Antilles, West Indies. This island belongs to the Miocene arch of the Lesser Antilles, along with Grande Terre of Guadeloupe, Marie Galante, and Anguilla. Barbuda, notwithstanding its small size and low elevation, has an exceptionally rich past. Recent investigations by a Brooklyn College, City University of New York led team, has discovered evidence of human activity in and around these caves from the Archaic Period down to the present day. The range of activity at these caves begins with scatters of Archaic lithics, through artifacts and faunal material possibly …

Claiming Space, Redefining Politics: Urban Protest And Grassroots Power In Bolivia, Carwil Bjork-James

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the role of space-claiming protests by primarily left grassroots social movements in Bolivia's current political transformation. Space claiming includes mass protests that physically control or symbolically claim urban space through occupations of plazas and roads, sit-ins, blockades, and other measures. As a theoretical construct, space claiming brings together tactics of collective action and meanings of public spaces, and looks at the consequences of their interaction. This dissertation is based on ethnographic engagement and oral interviews with protest participants and their state interlocutors during twelve months of fieldwork and archival research. By using detailed ethnographic evidence--of social life …

Review Of White Man's Water: The Politics Of Sobriety In A Native American Community. By Erica Prussing, Paul Spicer

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Epidemiological evidence consistently emphasizes the challenges American Indian tribes of the Great Plains confront through excess alcohol consumption. Until Erica Prussing's recent book, however, we have lacked a detailed analysis of the social and cultural context in which these challenges unfold. With a focus on women's experiences across two generations, White Man s Water provides us with a careful description of the social and cultural world of contemporary Northern Cheyennes, coupled with an understanding of how individual experiences within the milieu vary, especially as a function of history.

White Man's Water is a truly significant book: the first book-length ethnographic …

Review Of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter And The Politics Of Sight. By Timothy Pachirat., Donald D. Stull

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In June 2004, political scientist Timothy Pachirat went to work on the killfloor of an unnamed beef slaughterhouse in Omaha, Nebraska. He started out as a "liver hanger" in the cooler. There carcasses hang before being sent to the fabrication floor where "hundreds of handheld knives and saws reinvent chilled half-carcasses as steaks, rounds, and roasts that are then boxed and shipped to distributors and retailers around the world." For four days he worked in the chutes, driving cattle to the knocking box to be stunned, as required by the Humane Slaughter Act, before being turned into meat. Then for …

Northern Lights: Fourth World Nations And The Geopolitical Dance In The Arctic, Heidi G. Bruce

Capstone Collection

Over the past decade, the Arctic region has received increased attention from climate scientists, politicians, and transnational corporations. Human-induced climate change is causing glaciers to recede, resulting in new northern sea passages that are highly sought after by businesses and governments alike. Deeply affected by this increased northern exposure are Arctic Fourth World nations – politically and culturally distinct nations encapsulated by states – that have lived in the Arctic for millennia. This paper examines the impacts that expanded northern sea routes are having on Arctic Fourth World nations and the conflict mitigation approaches being used in the region. Research …

Deep Play, Urban Space, Adolescent Place: A Multi-Sited Study Of The Effects Of Settings On Adolescent Risk/Reward Behavior, Benjamin A. Shirtcliff

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The extant literature on the play behavior of youth normalizes adolescent behavior in public space as transgressional, resistant, and in need of social control. The dissertation counters this trend by looking to see if physical qualities, peer effects, and neighborhood context of settings play a deeper role in youth behavior. The study documented urban context, peer effects, physical features, and play behavior across 21 urban settings in New Orleans. Unobtrusive observations employed a highly innovative technique based on YouTube videos and analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Coded observations of risk-taking and prosocial behavior demonstrated some stability in behavior amongst adolescents—“youth” …

Navigation And Accessibility For Persons With Disabilities: An Anthropological Study Using Gis On The University Of Arkansas Campus, Deborah Jean Raiees-Dana

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The University of Arkansas was founded in 1871 on the top of a hill overlooking the Ozark Mountains, resulting in a campus that has steep slopes and numerous historical buildings that were not designed with ADA regulations in mind. This makes getting around campus especially difficult for students with limited mobility, and no campus maps exist that include handicapped accessibility features to help navigate the terrain and limited parking options. This study examines this issue using a holistic approach that explores cultural and technological factors to produce a map of the Historic Core District of campus.

Geographical Information Systems enable …

Anderson, Linda Allen (Fa 77), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 77. “Stone Masons and Their Craft in the Bluegrass Area of Kentucky,” interpretive paper and interviews executed for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University in 1986. Collection includes photographs of stone cutting and stonework in the Bluegrass region.

Morse, Rebecca D. (Fa 67), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 67. Thesis: “Tinsley Bottom Tennessee: An Historical Reconstruction Utilizing Oral Narrative Traditions” by Rebecca D. Morse in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts, Department of Folk and Intercultural Studies at Western Kentucky University.