Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

2022 Secretary General's Report, Elizabeth Brabec

ISCCL Scientific Symposia and Annual General Meetings // Symposiums scientifiques et assemblées générales annuelles de l'ISCCL // Simposios científicos yy las Asambleas Generales Anuales

2022 Annual Report and 2023 Work Plan

Fire Otherwise: Lifeways Enhancing Fire Management In A Changing World, Cynthia Twyford Fowler, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

NA

Fire Otherwise: Lifeways Enhancing Fire Management In A Changing World, Cynthia Twyford Fowler, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

Fire is a daunting human ecological challenge and a major subject in science and policy debates about global trends in land conversion, climate change, and human health. Persistent environmental orthodoxies reduce complex burning traditions to overly simplistic representations of environmental destruction, degradation, and loss while reinforcing existing social inequities involving smallholders. What would a more inclusive and pluralistic fire ecology look like? How and why might we embrace diverse anthropogenic fire regimes and broader understandings of the ways humans interact with fire? Fire otherwise is the support of proactive local and regional efforts to adapt amidst continually changing social and …

Myth, Power, And Justice: The Danger Of A Single Story, Christen H. Clougherty

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

If we hear only a single story about a group, we risk a critical misunderstanding. In this session, learn to critically analyze assumptions of single stories and dominant narratives about community partners. Engage in hands-on activities to explore this issue as it relates to race, poverty, and social justice. Leave with classroom activities to take back to your classroom.

Rhetoric And International Human Rights: The Case Of The Senegalese Talibés, Christopher Parisella

Senior Honors Projects

CHRISTOPHER PARISELLA

(Political Science, Writing & Rhetoric, French)

Rhetoric and International Human Rights: The Case of the Senegalese Talibés

Sponsor: Lynne Derbyshire (Communication Studies, Honors Program)

While in Senegal, I witnessed the hurdles faced by proponents of international human rights standards. Thousands of Muslim boys, called talibés, undertake their Koranic education in Senegal. Many are forced to beg in the streets by their educators, and abuse in the schools is common. Still, this education is considered a valuable part of the boys’ spiritual development. Despite the multitude of countries that have openly supported and ratified international human rights compacts, many …

Panel 9 The Importance Of Irrigation Systems In The Rural Landscape, Noah Anand Fernandes Ar, Nandini Priya Thatikonda, Amit Tandon, Jian Feng, Xueqing Yang, Yisi Liu

ISCCL Scientific Symposia and Annual General Meetings // Symposiums scientifiques et assemblées générales annuelles de l'ISCCL // Simposios científicos yy las Asambleas Generales Anuales

Water has become a vital element in studying heritages, since researchers has realized that heritages are not only about sites per se, but also include multiple elements that reflect human social and cultural development along historical evolution, and water is one of the most important sector to study. To study authenticity of water, it is necessary to take interactions between human and water into consideration, and notice different interactions would result in different discussion on further water management and preservation, for water systems have been changed and reformed by human to adapt to environment and sustain future generations.

In this …

Parkland Students And Fictive Kin Relationships, Aliana Galloza, Nadleen Judeh, Karla Rodriguez

Ethnographies of Parkland Student Life

This slide presentation is the result of an ethnography assignment for Anthropology 103. With the hypothesis that that friendships made in elementary and high school years are stronger than friendships made in community college, the group conducted interviews and surveys to test whether friendships with family-like bonds develop among students at Parkland College. Found that college age students are finding friendships in a variety of settings and are actively building close friendships as they continue their education.

Many Faiths, One Beginning: Universality In Norse, Maya, Greek And Celtic Faiths

Symposium of Student Scholars

Numerous religious faiths have pervaded the world for much of known human history, but these belief systems often have significant variation in their core tenets, especially with those that have no contact. Religions which are in close proximity to one another tend to have some degree of syncretism, such as having comparable deities, due to having some transmission of their cultures. One group of similar base beliefs is the Indo-Europeans, with its members having been studied for parallels before. To contend with these previous studies, this project will look at the beliefs of the Norse, Greek, and Celtic cultures, all …

The Anthropocene, Overview, Scott W. Schwartz

Open Educational Resources

This presentation offers an overview of the developing concept of The Anthropocene -- a term coined to describe our current geological epoch, in which human impact on the planet will leave a permanent trace.

Prevalence Of Sexual Harassment And Assault In Uri Stem Graduate Students, Ivy Burns, Holly Dunsworth

Senior Honors Projects

There are many barriers for women in STEM careers (science, technology, engineering, and math); one, often untalked about, barrier is the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault. In the summer of 2014 the paper “Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): Trainees Report Harassment and Assault” by Clancy, et. al. was released and shed light on an issue facing many young women and men in science. According to the SAFE survey, a shocking amount of sexual harassment and assault was experienced by the, primarily female, researchers and very few knew how to report an incidence of assault. With this project I …

Sowing Seeds Of Opportunity: The Convergence Of Agriculture And Acculturation For Refugees In Atlanta, Cameron Owens Dunlap

Symposium of Student Scholars

In 2015, there were 60 million people displaced by conflict and persecution. With refugees and asylees arriving en masse in foreign receiving countries, it is critical that host nations utilize methods of resettlement and integration that are both beneficial and sensitive to the needs of these vulnerable populations. This study documents an innovative win-win approach to community integration that benefits both hosts and refugees alike. Qualitative data was collected through more than 10 sessions of participant observation on community farms and more than 7 semi-structured interviews with program management and refugees to answer the question, what opportunities for these refugee …

Nature Connection: Theory, Evidence And Practice, Matt V. Bukowski

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

This presentation explores scholarly work at the intersection of mental health and the natural world in a variety of disciplines. My intent is to provide an overview of theoretical perspectives, research-based evidence, and clinical practices that support the idea that experiencing the natural world can improve human mental health outcomes.

Diversity And Tolerance: Acceptance Of Non-Christian Religious Faiths On A University Campus, Michele Kumar

Symposium of Student Scholars

Michele Kumar - Email: mkumar1@students.kennesaw.edu

Diversity and Tolerance: Acceptance of Non-Christian Religious Faiths on a University Campus

The purpose of this research was to explore the diversity of non-Christian belifs on a university campus to better understand the acceptance and tolerance of these religious affiliations and belief systems. In doing humanistic, exploratory research using both deductive and inductive methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviewing, this study asked, how do the students of non-Christian faiths or belief systems at a southeastern comprehensive university feel about the level of acceptance and tolerance toward their beliefs on campus? Organizations such as the …

Cultural Conversations With Brazilian And Dominican Transnationals: Implications For Health And Wellbeing, Cristina Brinkerhoff, Carlos Eduardo Siqueira, Rosalyn Negrón, Amanda Reich, Linda Sprague Martinez

C. Eduardo Siqueira

This poster summarizes the results of several cultural conversations with Brazilian and Dominican immigrants in Massachusetts, held during 2014.

Oral History Curation In An Academic Library, Barbara Lewis, Mary Beth Isaacson, Kimberly Nordon, Alexandra Curran

Barbara Lewis

This four-person roundtable will discuss the different methods and applications that are currently being used by the University of South Florida’s (USF) Oral History Program to curate, present, and promote oral histories. This program, which is based out of the USF Tampa Library, has explored several different delivery models, both traditional and nontraditional. We will examine the digital platforms used by the oral history program, Omeka, LibGuides, and an internally developed media player, and their accessibility and usability for research and teaching. These two platforms provide different structural and organizational models, thus allowing for different levels of curation. In 2009, …

Adopted Citizens Denied Access To Their Birth Certificates: A Little-Known Civil Rights Issue, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

American citizens who were adopted are denied the right to access their own original birth certificates (OBC) in most U.S. states, a right available to all other non-adopted citizens. State regulations denying unrestricted access to one’s own birth certificate that apply only to a segment of the population create a lifelong inequality and violate the civil rights of adopted persons. Outdated state regulations that maintain this discrimination need to be repealed.

Tigers, Coyotes And Cats: Precariousness And Masculinity Among Mexican Migrant Workers In Canada, Tanya Basok, Eloy Rivas

Western Migration Conference Series

Bio:

Tanya Basok is a Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology, and the Director of the Centre for Studies in Social Justice, University of Windsor. She specializes in migration studies from a social justice perspective. Over a span of 25 years, she has studied Salvadorean refugees in Costa Rica, Soviet Jewish immigrants in Canada, the Canadian refugee policy, Mexican seasonal workers in Canada, and migrant rights activism in Canada, USA, Latin America and the Caribbean. The author of Tortillas and Tomatoes (McGill-Queen’s Press), she has also published in such journals as International Migration, …

Defining Ethics In Domestic And Global Adoption Practice, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Adoption practitioners and agencies all speak about ethics. However, without definition, the term is as subjective meaningless as "nice." This presentation points out the lack of definition or agreement of what constitutes ethical adoption practice and offers some concrete guidelines to be initiated to protect all parties.

Adoption Fees: Ethical Considerations For All Parties In Adoption, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

A great deal is said about ethics in adoption. However, the term remains vague, undefined, and subjective with suggested, but no firm or enforced guidelines enacted to police the adoption industry and protect the families and individuals whose lives they irrevocably change. This presentation focuses on the inequities of adoption fees particularly in terms of providing legal counsel to the mothers relinquishing.

"Open Records" Versus "Equal Access": Reframing Our Issues, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Adoption reform activists have for decades used the phrase "open records". Riben argues that "Equal Access" rightly reframes the argument as one of equality rather than a special request.

Who Deserves To Be A Mother: The Impact Of Class, Age And Powerlessness,, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Worldwide, poverty far exceeds abuse, neglect or abandonment as adoption moves children from economically at-risk mothers to adopters of higher socio-economic status. Domestically, American mothers (and those in other industrialized countries) have historically lost children to protect their parents from the shame and stigma of out-of-wedlock, “unwed” pregnancy. It is socially created criteria such as age, marital and financial status, which change over time and place - not fitness - that determine who is considered "deserving" to be a mother and who is made to feel inadequate, selfish and undeserving of their own child. These criteria create pressure on marginalized, …

Adoption Loss, Pain, Irresolvable And Universal Grief, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Adoption loss is a limbo loss with no ritual or closure, that has been recognized as being irresolvable, creating increased risk of secondary infertility and post traumatic stress disorder. The pain is felt regardless of where the mother lives, how much she chose the decision and felt it was best. The grief, pain and anger do not lessen over time.

Altered States Of Embodiment: Spirit Possession In Ethnographic And Feature Films, Kevin Taylor Anderson

Kevin Taylor Anderson

Possession and other forms of altered states of embodiment are represented in both feature and ethnographic films, yet result in divergent illustrations. Ethnographic films dealing with possession (a la Rouch, Deren, Adair, Asch) suggest that it is a therapeutic phenomenon, often framed as a means of resistance to dominant socio-political forces. Yet, in feature films the possessed body is rendered as a passive recipient of diabolical forces. In the former case, possession signals empowerment, in the latter disempowerment. In addition to its portrayal as a form of resistance, religious supplicants in such ethnographic films as Rouch’s Les Maitre Fous and …

Altered States Of Embodiment: Spirit Possession In Ethnographic And Feature Films, Kevin Taylor Anderson

Adjunct Faculty Author Gallery

Possession and other forms of altered states of embodiment are represented in both feature and ethnographic films, yet result in divergent illustrations. Ethnographic films dealing with possession (a la Rouch, Deren, Adair, Asch) suggest that it is a therapeutic phenomenon, often framed as a means of resistance to dominant socio-political forces. Yet, in feature films the possessed body is rendered as a passive recipient of diabolical forces. In the former case, possession signals empowerment, in the latter disempowerment. In addition to its portrayal as a form of resistance, religious supplicants in such ethnographic films as Rouch’s Les Maitre Fous and …

Alternatives Routes To Permanency: Is Adoption Always The Best Option, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

A presentation that asks if current adoption practices are optimally in the best interests of children and families they serve and offers family preserving options such as permanent legal guardianship or simple adoption in which the child rceeives the care he or she needs but doe snot involuntarily give up all ties to his or her family, genetics, and heredity.

The Harlem Renaissance: “Masterful Improvisation”, Gerald R. Natal

Gerald R Natal

A brief outline of the cultural forces that merged to form one of the most important movements in African-American history