Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Contraception, Abortion And Assisted Fertility Among Muslim Women A Look At Islamic Culture And Policy In Iran And Afghanistan, Hayley Jacobsen

What All Americans Should Know About Women in the Muslim World

Discourse on women's reproductive rights through the lens of Muslim culture. The use of contraception, assisted fertility and abortion, are analyzed in Iran and Afghanistan. The culture surrounding family planning is detailed through a woman’s community, family, religion and the laws that govern the society they live in, which all influence her decision making in these matters. This piece stands as a cultural analysis of women's agency specifically in Middle Eastern Muslim culture, as it stands as a part of a global women's rights movement.

Un Análisis Post-Colonial: La Encarnación De La Pérdida Histórica En La Manifestación De Depresión En Personas Mapuche En El Contexto Urbano, Haley Case

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta investigación buscaba evaluar las manifestaciones cualitativas y simbólicas de la depresión en la población Mapuche de la región de Santiago a través de la aplicación de teoría que aborda del sufrimiento social y la violencia estructural. Métodos etnográficos se fueron utilizados por la realización de observaciones y entrevistas semi-estructuradas con personas involucradas en la comunidad Mapuche y el sistema de salud biomédico en las comunas de La Pintana y Lampa en la Región Metropolitana. Según la cosmovisión Mapuche, la salud tiene base fundamental en la armonización del cuerpo, alma, espíritu y mente de un ser humano con su familia, …

Flip Cup: Problems Related To Alcohol Consumption In Modern China, Helen Lamm

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The habits and attitudes surrounding the consumption of alcohol, in any culture, are just another lens through which we can look to better understand social life. The hierarchical social systems in China, which dictate common behavior, are unique. Much work has been written on the topic of guanxiand face: the defining factors for China’s ubiquitous, self-affirming system of relationships. Drinking culture is perhaps more interesting to travel bloggers than academics, but I believe that China’s drinking culture is a direct practice in guanxi production. The darker side of China’s drinking culture is anexercise in preserving face.

The gap in …

Off The Lip Conference - Transdisciplinary Approaches To Cognitive Innovation. Conference Proceedings, Sue Denham, Michael Punt, Edith Doove, Martha Blassnigg, Raluca Briazu, Kathryn Francis, Agi Haynes, Guy Edmonds, Adam Benjamin, Matthew Emmett, Iris Garrelfs, Christopher B. Germann, Joanna Griffin, Diane Humphrey, Bryanna Lucyk, Christie Purchase, Rachel Sansone, Emily Baxter, Amy Ione, Frank Loesche, Abigail Jackson, Alexis Kirke, Eduardo Miranda, Luke Rendell, Simon Ingram, Yutaka Nakamura, Gi Taek Ryoo, Eugenia Stamboliev, Michael Straeubig, Chun-Wei Hsu, Pinar Oztop, Mihaela Taranu, Sundar Sarukkai, James Sweeting, Minami Hirayama

Off the Lip Conference - Transdisciplinary Approaches to Cognitive Innovation

The promise of cognitive innovation as a collaborative project in the sciences, arts and humanities is that we can approach creativity as a bootstrapping cognitive process in which the energies that shape the poem are necessarily indistinguishable from those that shape the poet. For the purposes of this conference the exploration of the idea of cognitive innovation concerns an understanding of creativity that is not exclusively concerned with conscious human thought and action but also as intrinsic to our cognitive development. As a consequence, we see the possibility for cognitive innovation to provide a theoretical and practical platform from which …

Forging Fresh Food Chains In The Americas, Lisa B. Markowitz

The Chautauqua Journal

No abstract provided.

“I Can See My Values In Places”: Relationships, Place, And Growing Old In Detroit Neighborhoods, Wendy Daniel Bartlo

Wayne State University Dissertations

The central focus of this dissertation is to examine the inextricable link between persons, their social worlds, and their environments. I do this through an ethnographic study of senior members of non-biologically based kinship groups with an affiliation to place. Critical to this examination is the city of Detroit itself, as members of these groups ultimately collectively identify as Detroiters through space and time. It is this collective identity, strengthened mostly through their defense of an outsider deemed unsuccessful city that renders Detroit a good place for the older person to maintain connections, participate socially and civically, and to organize …

Attitudes Of Mothers And Daughters Towards Menstrual Suppression, Jacqueline M. Devaney

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Recent biomedical advancements, cultural practices, and individual preferences have altered the ways in which biological process such as menstruation are perceived and managed. Increasingly, women are interested in suppressing menstruation to alleviate its negative symptoms, including bloating, menstrual cramps, fatigue, and irritability. This topic is especially relevant for adolescent girls, as mothers and daughters might have to negotiate attitudes towards daughters’ menstrual suppression. Therefore this study aims to examine how this topic is discussed and understood within the mother-daughter dyad. It is also important to consider how these attitudes are shaped by cultural background, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and religion. Through …

You Are What You (Can) Eat: Cultivating Resistance Through Food, Justice, And Gardens On The South Side Of Chicago, Ida B. Kassa

Pomona Senior Theses

Though food is widely recognized as a basic necessity for humanity, disparate access to it highlights whose bodies, environments, health, nutrition, and utter existence has mattered most in American society—and whose has mattered the least. Through interviews with residents of the South Side of Chicago about the alternative food pathway they’ve forged for themselves, we learn that food becomes much more than just sustenance. Interviewees describe our present day food system as undeniably rooted in a history of enslavement and exploitation of Black and Brown bodies; they regard food justice work by communities of color as an important source of …

Socioeconomic Factors Associated With Cataract-Related Blindness Treatment In Women In Rural Regions Of Andhra Pradesh, Kiranpreet Kaur 4198353

UROP Posters

Despite efforts of Vision 2020 in India, the Andhra Pradesh Eye Disease Study (APEDS) extrapolated, in 2000, approximately 18.7 million blind people in India and also, projected an increase to 31.6 million blind people by 2020. Within the state Andhra Pradesh itself, preventable corneal blindness increased to 1.84% from 1.5% in the late 1980s.

Numerous public health studies have been conducted to outline factors that cause and preclude treatment of avoidable corneal blindness in the India. Conclusively, the escalation of corneal blindness can be largely attributed to personal, social, and economic barriers in utilizing available eye-care services. However, due to …

Breastfeeding With The Bronson Mothers’ Milk Bank, Marykate Bodnar

Masters Theses

Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo is home to one of only 15 certified breast milk banks in the United States. Women have shared breast milk for centuries through wet nurses, but this institutionalized and regulated version of sharing is distinct from previous forms. Breastfeeding has become a symbol of successful motherhood; donor milk adds a new dimension to this aspect of idealized motherhood. This study explores how the milk bank works: its organizational structure within a hospital, how donors are selected, and how recipients qualify for donor milk. It is grounded in Feminist and Medical Anthropology literature. Using semi-structured interviews …

Health-Related Beliefs, Practices, And Experiences Of Migrant Dominicans In The Northeastern United States, Constance Sobon Sensor

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Purpose: This study aimed to discover and describe migrant Dominican cultural beliefs and practices related to health, the ways that migrant Dominicans take care of their health in their new environment, and their experience with professional health care in the Northeastern United States.

Design: This descriptive qualitative study was guided by Leininger’s Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality and four-phase analysis method. The health-related beliefs, practices and experiences of a convenience sample of 15 self-identified adult Dominicans living in the United States for six months or more were explored in three focus groups, assisted by trained culturally appropriate interpreters. …

Gold Mining And Unequal Exchange In Western Amazonia: A Theoretical Photo Essay, Gordon L. Ulmer

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

I combine fieldwork photography and ethnographic documentation of gold mining in Madre de Dios, Peru, to examine the localized material, social, environmental, and health outcomes of the global gold boom. This 'theoretical photo essay’ examines how local and global forces coalesce around gold mining and influence peoples and environments in Western Amazonia. I use embodiment theory in anthropology, ecological economics, and theories of underdevelopment to understand local consequences of the global gold trade and to elucidate how opulence and the machinations of capital accumulation in economic centers of the world occur at the expense of human lives and environments in …

The Paleoepidemiology Of Malaria In The Ancient Near East, Nicole Elizabeth Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The end of the Late Bronze Age in the Near East (1300 - 1200 BCE) saw the widespread collapse of several large cultural centers, the reasons for which are a subject of continued debate. Evidence from events leading up to this cultural collapse suggest epidemic disease may have factored into the eventual downfall of these early civilizations. Recent DNA analysis from Egyptian mummies who lived during the period leading up to the Late Bronze Age collapse identified malaria in several elite individuals, suggesting the widespread prevalence of this infectious disease in Egypt. However, the exact prevalence, antiquity, and dynamics of …

Comparing Antibiotic Self-Medication In Two Socio-Economic Groups In Guatemala City: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study, Brooke M. Ramay, Paola Lambour, Alejandro Cerón

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

Background

Self-medication with antibiotics may result in antimicrobial resistance and its high prevalence is of particular concern in Low to Middle Income Countries (LMIC) like Guatemala. A better understanding of self-medication with antibiotics may represent an opportunity to develop interventions guiding the rational use of antibiotics. We aimed to compare the magnitude of antibiotic self-medication and the characteristics of those who self-medicate in two pharmacies serving disparate socio-economic communities in Guatemala City.

Methods

We conducted a descriptive, cross-sectional study in one Suburban pharmacy and one City Center pharmacy in Guatemala City. We used a questionnaire to gather information about frequency …

The Girl With The Peanut Necklace: Experiences Of Infertility And In Vitro Fertilization In China, Ruoxi Yu

Student Work

A 2014-2015 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Ruoxi Yu (Berkeley College '15) for her essay submitted to the Department of Anthropology, “The Girl with the Peanut Necklace: Experiences of Infertility and in vitro Fertilization in China.” (Marcia Inhorn, William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology, advisor; Susan Brownell, Professor of Anthropology at USML, secondary reader.)

Ruoxi Yu’s essay, “The Girl with the Peanut Necklace: Experiences of Infertility and in vitro Fertilization in China,” situates original research within the history of the one-child birth control policy and the tension between the …

Muslim Women And United States Healthcare: Challenges To Access And Navigation, Dayna M. Seeger

What All Americans Should Know About Women in the Muslim World

This paper offers an analysis of the interactions of Muslim women in the US healthcare system in order to unpack challenges and propose potential accommodations. Islam may inform values or considerations in the context of other cultural factors or present Muslim women with specific challenges in seeking healthcare based on Islamic teachings or social constructs. This paper examines these factors by elaborating on an overview of Muslim interpretations of healthcare using religious authorities, text from the Qur’an, and social norms. It then delves into challenges faced by Muslim women in the US healthcare system and the implications of those challenges …

El Rol Del Parto Mapuche En El Mundo De La Medicina Moderna / The Role Of Mapuche Birth In A World Of Modern Medicine, Nita Chai

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Research Question: Is there existing demand for Mapuche birth practices and what are the barriers to incorporating them in the Chilean healthcare system? Objective: Analyze the current role of Mapuche birth practicesby determining what is the demand from the Mapuche for their use, describing the quality of communication between Mapuche women andmodern professionals, and identifying the perspectives of modern professionals on Mapuche birth practices. Background: Childbirth is an integral process for the human race. For many indigenous communities, the arrival of a new life holds cultural significance that is recognized through ceremonies during or after childbirth. Chile has implemented health …

'Makin' It Out': The Cost Of Dropping Out Of High School On The Health Status Of Afro-American Women In Urban Slums, Sesa E. Bakenra-Tikande

CMC Senior Theses

“We carry our histories in our bodies, how could we not?” – Nancy Krieger

In the United States and abroad, socioeconomic status (income, education, and occupation) greatly impacts health outcomes for a given population. There is a strong and consistent socioeconomic gradient within health outcomes which has been documented as far back as in Ancient Egypt and China (Krieger, Willains, & Moss, 1997; Liberatos, Link, & Kelsey, 1988) The general trend shows that individuals with higher socioeconomic status generally enjoy lower rates of morbidity (disease) and disability, which can ultimately lead to higher mortality rates (House et al. (1992) and …

Pathogenic Policy: Health-Related Consequences Of Immigrant Policing In Atlanta, Ga, Nolan Sean Kline

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Multilayered immigration enforcement regimes comprising state and federal statutes and local police practices demand research on their social and health-related consequences. This dissertation explores the multiple impacts of immigrant policing: sets of laws and police activities that make undocumented immigrants more visible to authorities and increase their risk of deportation. Examining immigrant policing through a multi-sited framework and drawing from principles of engaged anthropology, findings from this dissertation suggest how immigrant policing impacts undocumented immigrants' overall wellbeing, health providers' professional practice, and reveals troubles with safety net medical care. Interviews and participant observation experiences suggest how immigrant policing perpetuates a …

Book Review: Stigma, Discrimination, And Living With Hiv/Aids: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, Joyce Addo-Atuah, William Lundmark

Touro University Libraries Publications and Research

The authors present a review of the book Stigma, Discrimination, and Living with HIV/AIDS: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.

The Journey Of A Digital Story: A Healing Performance Of Mino-Bimaadiziwin: The Good Life, Carmella M. Rodriguez

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Indigenous peoples have always shared collective truths and knowledge through oral storytelling. Just as we were born, stories are born too, through our sacred “living breath.” We live in a time where stories travel far, beyond our imaginable dreams, and can have an influence on anyone who hears them. In the present-day, we have an opportunity to combine personal stories with digital technology in order to share one of our greatest gifts with each other--our experience and wisdom. For eight years, Brenda K. Manuelito and I have been traveling across Indian Country helping our Indigenous relatives create nDigiStories for Native …

Situating Contraceptive Practices And Public Health Strategy In The Bronx: Perspectives From Female Youth, Healthcare Workers, And Reproductive Health Leaders, Hannah Louise Helmy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, concerns about adolescent childbearing and its perceived corollaries – negative health outcomes for mother and child, the disintegration of the nuclear family, and “over-dependence” on public resources – began to circulate widely in policy spheres and popular media in the 1970’s, resulting in a proliferation of policies, programs, and services designed to address its prevention. Although national birth rates among adolescents are currently at their lowest since peaking in the early 1990’s, this decline masks persistent and significant disparities between groups of young people by race, ethnicity, geography, and poverty level. The concomitant existence of social …

Southern Chivalry: Perception Of Health & Environmental Justice In A Small Southern Neighborhood, Brian S. Brijbag

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes heath risk and how it is communicated to, and understood within, a predominantly African American neighborhood in central Florida. Residents accuse the county department of public works of purposeful contamination and discrimination over a period of 30 years. I raise the questions of how risk is perceived and what roles race or class may play. I also developed a model for risk communication that includes all stakeholders. Finally, I expand the conversation of health disparities to include issues of widening gaps in perceptions of health.

This was examined by looking at the following:

1. The lack of …

Creating Space For An Indigenous Approach To Digital Storytelling: "Living Breath" Of Survivance Within An Anishinaabe Community In Northern Michigan, Brenda K. Manuelito

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

As Indigenous peoples, we have a responsibility to our global community to share our collective truths and experiences, but we also deserve the respect to not be objectified, essentialized, and reified. Today, we are in a period of continual Native resurgence as many of us (re)member our prayers, songs, languages, histories, teachings, everyday stories and our deepest wisdom and understanding as Indigenous peoples--we are all “living breath” and we are “all related.” For eight years, Carmella Rodriguez and I have been nDigiStorytelling across the United States and have co-created over 1,200 digital stories with over 80 tribes for Native survivance, …

The Center For Total Health: Healthcare Reform In Cook County, Illinois, James Leon Miles

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 requires hospital systems in the United States to shift the culture of patient care from a focus on sick-care to a focus on prevention and wellness care. Little is known about how hospital systems will make this culture shift while retaining quality patient care. The purpose of this case study of a pioneering hospital-based PPACA-compliant initiative was to answer the research question of how Wallace's revitalization movement theory (RMT) "a rapid culture change model"could serve as a transferable evaluation framework for PPACA prevention and wellness care compliance in hospital-based programs. …

Chinese Nursing Students' Culture-Related Learning Styles And Behaviours: A Discussion Paper, Carol C. Wang, Kenneth M. Greenwood

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Globalisation requires that nursing education focuses on culturally competent care. International students studying in Australia present a valuable resource for cultural learning, yet internationalisation presents opportunities and challenges for both lecturers and students. This paper explores Chinese nursing students, the single largest group of international students in Australia, their communication behaviour, patterns and learning styles at Australian universities from cultural and psychosocial perspectives. Our aim is to provide insight for educators in Western countries to better understand this particular ethnic group and help Chinese nursing students overcome learning difficulties and develop their potential learning capabilities. We further recommend coping strategies …

Generational Inversions: 'Working' For Social Reproduction Amid Hiv In Swaziland, Casey Golomski

Anthropology

How do people envision social reproduction when regular modes of generational succession and continuity are disrupted in the context of HIV/AIDS? How and where can scholars identify local ideas for restoring intergenerational practices of obligation and dependency that produce mutuality rather than conflict across age groups? Expanding from studies of HIV/AIDS and religion in Africa, this article pushes for an analytic engagement with ritual as a space and mode of action to both situate local concerns about and practices for restoring dynamics of social reproduction. It describes how the enduring HIV/AIDS epidemic in Swaziland contoured age patterns of mortality where …

Structural Processes And Local Meaning: Explanatory Models, Political Economy, And Chagas Disease In Tropical Bolivia, Colin James Forsyth

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project describes and analyzes explanatory models of Chagas disease among people in a highly endemic area of eastern Bolivia, and examines the role that cultural and structural factors play in shaping explanatory models of this disease. Dressler (2001) characterizes medical anthropology as divided between two poles; the constructivist, which focuses on the "meaning and significance that events have for people," and the structuralist, which emphasizes the relationships between the components of a given society. This project endeavors to synthesize structuralist and constructivist perspectives by understanding the interaction between structural processes and explanatory models of Chagas disease.

The research took …

Not On My Street: Exploration Of Culture, Meaning And Perceptions Of Hiv Risk Among Middle Class African American Women, Corliss D. Heath

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Black women remain at a higher risk for HIV infection than women of any other ethnic group. Of all new infections reported among U.S. women in 2010, 64% occurred in African Americans compared to 18% Whites and 15% Hispanic/Latina women (CDC 2013a; CDC 2014b). While the literature on HIV risk among African American women is extensive, it mostly focuses on low income, low education subgroups of women or those involved in high risk behaviors such as drug use. Very little has been done to understand the risk for HIV among college educated, middle class women who do not fit into …

At Risk For Ptsd: The Public Health Implications Of Trauma, Madeline Peyton

Master's Projects and Capstones

The fieldwork experience is the summation of six semesters of graduate level public health training. At commencement, students are to be proficient in basic data analysis and epidemiological principles, in how environmental risks impact health, and demonstrate strong program planning, evaluation and leadership skills. Throughout, students are encouraged to focus their academic work on an area of public health that interest them and on a problem that they hope to impact in their professional work. I continued in an area I began as an undergraduate student of medical anthropology and explored the systems that interact to influence mental health of …