Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

From Antipolitics To Post-Neoliberalism: A Conversation With James Ferguson, Nils Gilman, Miriam Ticktin, James Ferguson

Publications and Research

Humanity co-editors Nils Gilman and Miriam Ticktin spoke with James Ferguson on May 31, 2013, at Stanford University.

"We Are Refugees In Our Own Homeland": Land Dispossession And Resettlement Challenges In Post-Conflict Teso, Uganda, Matt Kandel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is based off of fieldwork that I conducted in post-conflict Teso region in northeastern Uganda from 2012-2013. It focuses primarily on land dispossession and challenges to resettlement. Conflicts over land intensified in the early 1990s, coinciding with the early stages of resettlement in southern Teso after a period of regional civil war and large-scale cattle rustling. In contrast to the large-scale "land grabs" in Sub-Saharan African that have occurred since the 2007-08 global commodities crisis, land expropriations occur mainly on a small-scale in Teso. I argue that there are a number of drivers to land dispossession in the …

Place Connections: A Study Of The Dynamics And Planning Process Of Remigration In Trinidadians And Tobagonians, Lystra Huggins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this dissertation is to study migration and remigration of Trinidadians and Tobagonians as it relates to the meaning, experiences, and attachment these individuals have with the different places they have lived. The research questions focus specifically on remigrants who have the choice to return to Trinidad and Tobago or not after long-term residence abroad and why they make the decision to return. Interviews and surveys were used to understand the roles of place identity, place attachment, and place dependence in choosing whether or not to remigrate to Trinidad and Tobago. Participants were asked about their understanding of …

What Was Squatting, And What Comes Next?: The Mystery Of Property In New York City, 1984-2014, Amy Starecheski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Framing property as a socio-historical process and squatters as situated actors within that process, this dissertation seeks to understand how a relatively stable and hegemonic property regime, such as private property in the United States, works and changes. Squatting is an ideal lens for understanding the complex transformation of private property, as it leads us to the times and places where the political and moral economies of property are actively contested and renegotiated. Squatters who make successful claims on property draw our attention to disjunctures between the moral economy and the legal system of property. Squatters had a complex and …

Saudi Aramco And The Politics Of Cultural Heritage, Anahid Hanounik Huth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Culture Heritage in recent decades has become a catch word within world discourse. It is increasingly receiving generous attention in both money and time form private and public sectors on preservation policy. The application of so-called preservation and restoration projects, the alleged care for Cultural Heritage, has become a motive and battle cry of UNESCO, World Bank, private companies, banks, NGOs, European Council, and Western governments' foreign policy. This leads us to ask what is behind this increasing attention, and whether we should see it as Christina Luke 2013 suggested in her article--is Heritage increasingly being seen as a soft …

Bass In Your Face: A Case-Study Exploration Of Networked Culture, Samantha Phyllis Kretmar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Using dubstep DJ Bassnectar as a case-study example, this thesis explores the impact of social networks and mobile connectivity. As evidenced by Bassnectar's digitally based approach to experiencing, distributing, and consuming music, these developments have contributed to the shift to a new model I describe as Networked Culture.

Figure 1 is a video highlighting the Bassnectar concert experience. Figure 2 is an audio clip illustrating the "drop" in dubstep. Figure 3 is another audio clip demonstrating the dubstep sound. Figure 4 is an image of an Ableton Live sound library. Figure 5 is an image of Ableton Live's functionality. Figure …

Wild Nyc: Building Biodiversity In Fresh Kills And City Parks, Melissa Zavala

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an anthropological field study of the work of urban ecological maintenance being conducted in New York City through the analysis of the reclamation and biotic restoration of the Fresh Kills landfill, located in the borough of Staten Island. This landfill was once the largest urban dump in the United States. Its 2,200 acres of trash buried in four mounds have polluted an area historically noted for its natural beauty as a collection of marshes and woodlands bordering the Kill Van Kull, a tidal strait that flows into the New York Harbor. The current plan for park and …

Latinas Converting To Islam In New York: Habitus’ Influence In Modern Identity Formation, Amalia Alonzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper explores the topic of religious conversion in relation to Pierre Bourdieu's theory of habitus, with a focus on Catholic Latina converts to Sunni Islam. Bourdieu suggests that these types of religious choices are not choices at all, but predetermined by an individual's history, culture, and setting. That is, an individual already has dispositions that are taken for granted. While this study's participants report that Islam is a new religion for them and not a continuation of their Catholic faith (as habitus would suggest,) this study shows that these converts retain dispositions that are consistent with their previous religious …

Dominican Gaga Music And Dance: The Remaking Of A Spiritual Performance In The City Of New York, Marimer Berberena

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study analyzed the Haitian-Dominican spiritual and cultural expression of Gaga in New York City through the group Gaga Pa'l Pueblo (GPP). Text analysis, participant observation, and qualitative analysis of interviews with twelve participants in this activity were used to conduct this study. I demonstrate the existence of a transnational intergenerational and interethnic sociocultural interaction that is simultaneously public and private, ritualistic and entertaining, secular and spiritual. I argue that it is not a matter of putting Gaga in a spiritual-secular dichotomy, but rather about understanding that even if GPP is not a true reflection of what Gaga is in …

The Music And Multiple Identities Of Kurdish Alevis From Turkey In Germany, Ozan Aksoy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the experiences of Kurdish Alevis, currently living in Germany, who trace their background to locations within the boundaries of the Republic of Turkey. I argue that music has been a particularly important mode through which Kurdish Alevis in Germany have articulated collective histories and have fashioned narratives of belonging and multiple and sometimes contradictory identities. The subjects of my research are immigrants and refugees who are ethnically Kurdish and whose religion is Alevi, an Anatolian religion whose relations to both Sunni and Shi'a Islam are historically controversial. They speak Turkish along with Kurdish, in most cases are …

"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. …

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 …

Trends In Poverty Rates Among Latinos In New York City And The United States, 1990 - 2011, Justine Calcagno

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors regarding Latinos in New York City and the United States between 1990 and 2011 – particularly poverty rates.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The analyzed data indicate that the poverty rate among the national population over the last two decades increased. However, there were nuanced and complex trends within both New York City …

Trends In Median Household Income Among New York City Latinos In Comparative Perspective, 1990 - 2011, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines trends in median household incomes among New York City’s Latino population between 1990 and 2011, and considers these in comparative perspective with the City’s other major race/ethnic groups as well as with Latinos across the United States.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Between 1990 and 2011 median household incomes among the City’s entire population fell by -4.7%. …

The Rates Of Overweight And Obesity Across Racial/Ethnic Group: Focus On Latinos And Latino Subgroups, Sou Hyung Jang

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors of racial/ethnic groups in the United States – particularly the obesity rate of Latinos.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Americans on average are increasingly becoming more overweight and the problems associated with higher levels of obesity are growing. In the U.S. the Latino population has higher rates of overweight and obesity compared to …

Demographic, Economic And Social Transformations In The Mexican-Origin Population Of The New York City Metropolitan Area, 1990 - 2010, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines demographic and socioeconomic factors concerning the Mexican population of New York City Metro Area between 1990 and 2010.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The demographic structure of the region’s Mexican community (over 600,000 in 2010) was in large part determined by the arrival of over 250,000 foreign-born Mexicans between 1990 and 2010. These migrants were generally working …

Latinos In New York City: K-12 Public Schools, 1990-2009, Haiwen Chu

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors of racial/ethnic groups in New York City between 1990 and 2009 – particularly Latino educational attainment in public school.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Several trends emerge about the school-aged population overall in terms of absolute numbers and relative proportions. The school-aged Latino and non-Hispanic Black populations increased greatly between 1990 and 2000, …

The Mexican-Origin Population In Metropolitan Statistical Areas Across The United States, 1990-2010, Haiwen Chu

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors of racial/ethnic groups in the United States between 1990 and 20010 – particularly the Mexican origin population.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: This section focuses on the growth of the Mexican population in different Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). The top three MSAs in terms of total Mexican population in 2010 were Los Angeles, …

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 …

Good Men Grow Corn: Embodied Ecological Heritage And Health In A Mopan Maya Community, Kristina Baines

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Sharing And Sustaining Maya Environmental Heritage In Southern Belize, Rebecca K. Zarger, Kristina Baines

Publications and Research

This paper documents an approach to sharing and sustaining Maya environmental and cultural heritage through the development of a primary school curriculum and associated activities in order to bring cultural knowledge and practices to formal school settings. Methods include long-term ethnographic research on environmental knowledge and practices in two Maya communities in Toledo; participatory workshops with educators; iterative consultations with district educators, community leaders, and families; and community for a focus on discussions of how and whether such information could be integrated into formal schooling. Curricula and content for workbooks, radio shows, and field guides are comprised of both generalized …

Soldiers Of Science--Agents Of Culture: American Archaeologists In The Office Of Strategic Services (Oss), Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

"Scientificity" and appeals to political independence are invaluable tools when institutions such as the American School of Classical Studies at Athens attempt to maintain professional autonomy. Nonetheless, the cooperation of scientists and scholars with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), among them archaeologists affiliated with the American School, suggests a constitutive affinity between political and cultural leadership. This relationship is here mapped in historical terms, while, at the same time, sociological categorizations of knowledge and its employment are used in order to situate archaeologists in their broader social and political context and to evaluate their work not merely as agents …

Conjuring The Close From Afar A Border-Crossing Tale Of Vieques’ Activism And Obama-Empire, Víctor M. Torres-Vélez, Sarah Molinari, Katharine Lawrence

Publications and Research

After more than 60 years of military occupation, 30 of these under violent military practices, a social movement forced the U.S. Navy from the island of Vieques. This victory would not have been possible without the highly effective organization of civil disobedience carried out on the island. But the sum total of the actions that eventually forced out the U.S. Navy, neither happened exclusively within the boundaries of Vieques, nor was carried out by Viequense residents alone. In this article we want to suggest that this amazing victory—a testament of people’s will in the face of globalization—is also a border- …

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 …

Out On The Land: Income, Subsistence Activities, And Food Sharing Networks In Nain, Labrador, Kirk Dombrowski, Emily Channell, Bilal Khan, Joshua Moses, Evan Misshula

Publications and Research

In recent Inuit ethnography, a major concern has been how and to what extent contemporary Inuit participate in and depend on subsistence activities, particularly in the context of increasing wage employment and growing participation in the cash economy. This paper provides an analysis of these activities in the predominately Inuit community of Nain, Labrador. Using social network data and demographic information collected between January and June 2010, we examine the interconnections between subsistence activities—obtaining “country food” through activities such as hunting, fishing, and collecting—with access to the means of obtaining subsistence resources (such as snow mobiles, cabins, and boats), employment …

How Do Latino Groups Fare In A Changing Economy? Occupation In Latino Groups In The Greater New York City Area, 1980-2009, Stephen Ruszczyk

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors of racial/ethnic groups in New York City between 1980 and 2009 – particularly the Latino population.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Trends from 1990 continued in 2000, with numbers of Puerto Ricans in production dropping to only 14% of that group. More than a fifth of Puerto Ricans worked in management and professional …

The Latino Population Of New York City, 1990—2010, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines demographic and socioeconomic factors concerning the Latino population of New York City between 1990 and 2010.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The City’s Latino population continued its steady increase from 1.7 million people and 24% of the total population in 1990 to nearly 2.4 million and 29% of all New Yorkers in 2010. Within the Latino population …

Shamanic Knowledge: The Challenge To Information Science, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Shamanism, a form of healing involving soul travel and trance found in many traditional societies the world over, has been studied by anthropologists and scholars of religious studies. Shamanic traditions are characterized by specialized, restricted, and esoteric knowledge domains that are encoded and communicated through condensed and mystified symbols and reproduced in ceremonies. Shamanic knowledge is acquired through direct experience of the numinous, usually in the process of overcoming personal affliction. Information science so far has been silent on shamanic knowledge. This is understandable given the latter discipline's focus on formal documentary information systems and advanced information technologies. But in …

Ecuadorians In The United States, 1980—2008, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines demographic and socioeconomic factors concerning Ecuadorians in the United States between 1990 and 2008.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The Ecuadorian population of the U.S. increased dramatically between 1980 and 2008 from about 70,000 to over 550,000 people. Migration increased in each decade and there is no reason to believe that migration from Ecuador will decrease in …