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Articles 1 - 30 of 49

Full-Text Articles in Social and Cultural Anthropology

Bound To Status: A Comparative Study Of Public And Private College Libraries, Lilianna Fujita May 2026

Bound To Status: A Comparative Study Of Public And Private College Libraries, Lilianna Fujita

Anthropology

This ethnographic study compares student culture and behavior at two upstate New York universities — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), a private STEM-focused institution, and the University at Albany (UAlbany), a public research university. Through two rounds of participant observation conducted in each school's library and three semi-structured student interviews, the author examines how institutional type, admissions selectivity, campus environment, and resource allocation shape student social dynamics, gender experiences, and overall well-being. The author argues that differences in student behavior reflect not only individual student dispositions but broader institutional decisions about who is admitted and what social infrastructure is supported.


New Game Start: Playing With Power, Community And Change In Video Gaming Culture, Jonathan D. Muller Jan 2026

New Game Start: Playing With Power, Community And Change In Video Gaming Culture, Jonathan D. Muller

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Video gaming culture has long been a site associated with norms and values of whiteness, masculinity, and neoliberalism, with games, players, and developers all reinforcing these. Recently though, gaming culture has been directly involved with social movements and forms of resistance that are contrary to these norms and values. The typical gamer is no longer a white man, and gaming culture is now acknowledged to include race and gender dynamics that are close to that of the broader population. These communal shifts have both challenged and reinforced existing power structures. This research addresses these shifts and struggles by analyzing how …


Symbols Of Sovereignty And How They Speak To Us: Reading Contemporary Wampum Artwork In New York State Museums, Marie Peterson Jan 2025

Symbols Of Sovereignty And How They Speak To Us: Reading Contemporary Wampum Artwork In New York State Museums, Marie Peterson

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Contemporary Haudenosaunee artworks in exhibit spaces across New York State are bringing cultural information and counter-historical narratives to the public that they might not encounter otherwise. Artwork that includes wampum depictions or materials has heuristic qualities that can engage viewers with Haudenosaunee ways of knowing and relating. Wampum heuristics and Haudenosaunee scholarship are employed to interrogate how wampum materials were collected, categorized, and researched by the New York State Museum during the salvage anthropology era. The narratives embedded in wampum artworks are traced from this salvage era history, throughout the century between the salvage era that began at the end …


Reproductive Justice: People Matter! History Matters! Places Matter!, Jazmin L. High Jan 2025

Reproductive Justice: People Matter! History Matters! Places Matter!, Jazmin L. High

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Research has established that racial disparities in contraceptive use exist in the United States with African American women being more likely than white women to report using a contraceptive method associated with lower efficacy or no contraception at all. Several factors have been suggested to explain low uptake of highly effective forms of contraception and disparities including cost, systemic racism, negative attitudes, and cultural mistrust stemming from the history of medical racism. However, the lived experiences of rural African American Southern women are underrepresented in contraceptive research. Utilizing mixed methods, this study explores the contraceptive experiences of 14 rural African …


Y’All Means All: Pro-Choice Abortion Activism In West Texas Post-Dobbs, Hannah S. Noblewolf Jan 2025

Y’All Means All: Pro-Choice Abortion Activism In West Texas Post-Dobbs, Hannah S. Noblewolf

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In the spring of 2021, a six-week abortion ban passed by popular vote in the city of Westerburg, Texas. It had a civil enforcement mechanism, allowing someone to collect a reward of $2,000 if they successfully sued someone they reported for “aiding and abetting” abortion. The ban, called the Westerburg Sanctuary City ordinance, was referred to as “bounty hunting.” When the ban passed it became the template for the state-level Texas Heartbeat Act, which provides a greater financial reward for a successful civil suit, with a minimum of $10,000 plus legal fees. In the face of this ban, pro-choice activists …


The Shifting Suns: A New Understanding Of The Five Suns Story Of The Mexica Empire And 16th Century Colonial Mexico, Heungtae Yang Jan 2024

The Shifting Suns: A New Understanding Of The Five Suns Story Of The Mexica Empire And 16th Century Colonial Mexico, Heungtae Yang

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In this dissertation, I study the Mexica creation story commonly known as the Five Suns Story (Abbreviation: FSS) to explain the coexistence of multiple texts of FSS, the evolution of FSS from 1400 to 1600, and its multiple functions in multiple cultural spheres of the Mexica society. In contrast to previous studies up to the 1990s, whose main goals were to cite the Five Suns Story as part of a larger research topics, reconstruct a pure pre-Columbian version of the story, and analyze specific aspects of its symbolism, I conduct an intensive study of the FSS that brings together multiple …


Caregiving Automatons: Gender, Care, And Disability In Poland, Michalina Grzelka Jan 2023

Caregiving Automatons: Gender, Care, And Disability In Poland, Michalina Grzelka

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The last few years in Poland have seen the increasing visibility of disabled people and family caregivers who demand the introduction of public policies more responsive to their needs. Such development suggests a shift from deeply rooted gendered ideas about caregiving and the rise of activism of people with disabilities and family caregivers who call for solutions to the neoliberalization of care work. However, despite growing attention to disability and care within anthropology, few studies have focused explicitly on caregiving relations in the context of disability, especially in the formerly socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe. This dissertation attempts …


A Patchwork Community : Exploring Belonging, Gender Roles, And God's Gifts Among Progressive American Mennonites, Christa D. Mylin Dec 2022

A Patchwork Community : Exploring Belonging, Gender Roles, And God's Gifts Among Progressive American Mennonites, Christa D. Mylin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation demonstrates that progressive Mennonites in southern Pennsylvania struggle to find belonging within their congregations due to the fluid nature of Mennonite affiliations. Mennonites critically examined their institutions and relations with each other, and this critique often led to schism. This research addresses how a recent schism among progressive Mennonites led some people to experience nonbelonging and highlighted other conflicting values that people had within their conference. An overview of Mennonite history demonstrated that Mennonites have often formed separate fellowships when disagreements could not be resolved. However, this history also demonstrated that Mennonites have been adept at interpreting their …


The Phonology And Syntax Of Grammatical Tone In Copala Triqui, Jamillah Shantel Rodriguez Aug 2021

The Phonology And Syntax Of Grammatical Tone In Copala Triqui, Jamillah Shantel Rodriguez

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Copala Triqui is an Otomanguean language of Oaxaca, Mexico with a highly complex tone system. In Copala Triqui, the lowering of tone from an upper register tone to a lower register tone acts as a conveyor of grammatical information. Tone lowering occurs across many syntactic environments in the language (Hollenbach, 1984; Broadwell; 2011; Broadwell, 2016; Broadwell & Clemens, 2017; Rodriguez & Clemens, 2020). In this thesis, I consider two aspects of tone lowering: i) the representation of tone lowering in the phonology and ii) the syntactic trigger for tone lowering across multiple environments.


Flexible Lives On Engineering's 'Bleeding Edge' : Gender, Migration And Belonging In The Semiconductor Industry, Sarah E. Appelhans May 2021

Flexible Lives On Engineering's 'Bleeding Edge' : Gender, Migration And Belonging In The Semiconductor Industry, Sarah E. Appelhans

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation explores gender, flexibilization, and belonging within professional high tech employment, particularly amongst women and migrant engineers. Prior studies of women in the “integrated circuit” focused on low-skilled factory labor (Nakamura 2014, Grossman 1980); however, women are increasingly choosing careers in the male-dominated engineering workforce, which designs and manufactures semiconductor technology. Fieldwork for this dissertation took place between May 2018 – Aug 2019 in the Northeastern US, a regional hub for semiconductor manufacturing companies. Thirty-eight life history interviews were conducted with participants from several companies in the area, along with frequent follow ups and participant observation with seventeen engineering …


Intergenerational Embodiment Of Stress : How The Broader Sociocultural Environment Can Shape Child Growth And Development, Elizabeth A. Holdsworth May 2021

Intergenerational Embodiment Of Stress : How The Broader Sociocultural Environment Can Shape Child Growth And Development, Elizabeth A. Holdsworth

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Childhood growth has been a means of identifying systemic, material inequalities within populations. The plasticity of growth is responsive to multiple environmental factors, most notably adequate nutrition, but also psychosocial stress. Psychosocial stress can be a function of the social and political economic ecology, reinforcing power hierarchies within societies. This dissertation proposes that childhood growth can also reflect inequality in the distribution of psychosocial stress exposure through mothers’ feelings of a chronically stressful environment conveyed through maternal-infant interactions.


Tick Bites And Blood Relations : Regional Relationships And Interpretations Of Lyme Disease Risk In New York's Hudson River Corridor, Jessica Somers Jan 2021

Tick Bites And Blood Relations : Regional Relationships And Interpretations Of Lyme Disease Risk In New York's Hudson River Corridor, Jessica Somers

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Lyme disease is a bacterial pathogen that spreads from animals to humans through bites from blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis). The disease is a public health problem causing both physical suffering and increased health care spending since the 1980s. A snapshot of Lyme disease coverage in the popular media shows that most people prioritize conversations about Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment over prevention concerns. Anthropology has recently examined peoples’ anxieties and debates regarding the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease in the United States. There has been less work within the discipline on Lyme and tick-borne disease risk perceptions. This dissertation …


Real Men Don't Get Lipos : Gender, Political Economy, And Biomedicine In Colombia's Male Beauty Industry, Jose Alejandro Arango-Londono Jan 2020

Real Men Don't Get Lipos : Gender, Political Economy, And Biomedicine In Colombia's Male Beauty Industry, Jose Alejandro Arango-Londono

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The last few years in Colombia have seen the rise and expansion of male beauty industry. Such growth seems to suggest a shift from entrenched gendered ideas as well as new markets and economic opportunities to pursue. This dissertation is the result of eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Cali, Colombia focusing on how the development of male beauty has emerged in a context that is profoundly shaped by the legacy of armed conflict and drug-trafficking. The expansion of male beauty industry flourishes in a political and economic moment in Colombia where neoliberal policies are prevalent in the state’s agenda.


Navigating The Binary : Gender Presentation Of Non-Binary Individuals, Sharone Amalia Horowit-Hendler Jan 2020

Navigating The Binary : Gender Presentation Of Non-Binary Individuals, Sharone Amalia Horowit-Hendler

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Much of linguistic study of gender has focused on the binary: “men’s language” and “women’s language”. Similarly, most of society recognizes only two genders with the assumption that gender is connected to body and that everyone will map onto this binary. How then do non-binary individuals present themselves when they desire to be perceived outside of this dichotomy? This study re-examines the question of which masculine, feminine, and non-binary markers exist, and explores the ways that participants are aware of and utilize these signifiers in performing their gender identities.


Marginal No More: An Introduction To A Special Issue On The Archaeology Of Northern Coasts, Christopher B. Wolff Jan 2019

Marginal No More: An Introduction To A Special Issue On The Archaeology Of Northern Coasts, Christopher B. Wolff

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Introduction to a special volume of Arctic Anthropology. This introduction discusses the use and abuse of Arctic peoples for archaeological and anthropological analogy in the study of hunter-gatherers.


Harm Reduction Policy : Biopower, Race & Stigma At The Heart Of The 'Opioid Crisis', Cole Charles Melby Jan 2019

Harm Reduction Policy : Biopower, Race & Stigma At The Heart Of The 'Opioid Crisis', Cole Charles Melby

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Across the U.S., concerns regarding substance abuse, addiction, and treatment are coming to the forefront of public discourse, due to increased media coverage of the popularly dubbed ‘opioid crisis.’ As overdose rates increase, particularly in rural and suburban white communities, so have debates about the ethics and efficacy of harm reduction services. Through a review of existing literature and reflections on interviews from key informants at New York State Department of Health, grassroots harm reduction organizations, and a ‘mainstream’ addiction clinic, this thesis will critically examine the history of drug user stigmatization in the U.S. and how it has influenced …


"We Get Nothing" : An Ethnography Of Participatory Development And Gender Mainstreaming In A Water Project For The Bhil Of Central India, Indrakshi Tandon Jan 2019

"We Get Nothing" : An Ethnography Of Participatory Development And Gender Mainstreaming In A Water Project For The Bhil Of Central India, Indrakshi Tandon

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Through the close examination of a state-sponsored watershed project being implemented by Association for Integrated Social Development (AISD) in the district of Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, this dissertation project explores how current development approaches in water projects impact its intended targets, in this case the Bhil tribal community. A key aspect of this research is to analyze in detail how development narratives such as participatory or bottom-up approaches and gender mainstreaming often result in unintended consequences. With a focus on the gendered nature of participatory policies, I argue that popular development practices in India often lead to governing and managing target …


The Everyday Sacred : A Symbolic Analysis Of Contemporary Yucatec Maya Women's Daily Realities, Crystal Sheedy Jan 2019

The Everyday Sacred : A Symbolic Analysis Of Contemporary Yucatec Maya Women's Daily Realities, Crystal Sheedy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As a collaborative effort between myself and the Maya women with whom I worked, who live in Xocén, this dissertation seeks to illuminate the sacred world of Maya women, as well as dismantle the insidious narrative that younger generations of Mayas are losing their culture. Instrumental to this process is the use of decolonial methods (Lawless 1993) and descriptive theoretical premises (Geertz 1973; Turner 1967, 1969) that allowed me to analyze Maya women’s discursive speech, referred to as both chismes and heridos in Spanish, which can be translated as gossip, as well as the speech genre of u t’àan nukuč …


Aspiration, Attainment, And Assimilation : A Critical Ethnography Of Newcomer Youth In An American High School, Aaron Leo Jan 2018

Aspiration, Attainment, And Assimilation : A Critical Ethnography Of Newcomer Youth In An American High School, Aaron Leo

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As immigrants and refugees constitute an increasingly large proportion of public school students across the United States, much scholarly attention has focused on the variables which promote and hamper academic success of these students. Specifically, the high aspirations and optimistic attitudes towards schooling and the effects of assimilation pressures have been identified as two important features contributing to the academic performance of newcomers.


Exemplary Welshness : The Role Of The Transnational Welsh Heritage Network And Being Welsh In Patagonia, Kimberly Anne Berg Jan 2018

Exemplary Welshness : The Role Of The Transnational Welsh Heritage Network And Being Welsh In Patagonia, Kimberly Anne Berg

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In recent years, the Welsh Diaspora community in Chubut has gained significant visibility in Welsh and other media in light of the 150th anniversary of the settlement’s establishment. In addition to the commemorative sesquicentenary celebrations taking place in July of 2015, the performance of Welshness has become increasingly congruent with homeland displays of the familiar aspects of Welsh national identity. In large parts, Welsh Patagonian language and heritage revitalization efforts have been facilitated by the transnational Welsh heritage network, composed of Welsh national institutions and Welsh Patagonian heritage associations collaborating with the expressed goal of maintaining a distinct Welsh identity …


Grassroots Activists And Movements Against Female Genital Mutilation And Cutting Bridged With Political Alliances : Agency Power And The Potential To Bring About Change, Aisha Kearney Jan 2016

Grassroots Activists And Movements Against Female Genital Mutilation And Cutting Bridged With Political Alliances : Agency Power And The Potential To Bring About Change, Aisha Kearney

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this thesis I highlight grassroots activists and social movements/mobilization against FGM/C throughout some of the regions where it's concentrated, and consider the political alliances that have aided these activists and their movements towards declines in the prevalence of the practice. I consider the recent outlawing of the practice in the Gambia (last year) which was strongly motivated by grassroots activists originally from the Gambia and the transnational political alliances they were able to form. I examine activists and movements in Senegal, paying particular attention to the approach of NGO TOSTAN. I also highlight long standing histories of grassroots activism …


The Push And Pull Of Language Ideologies : Multilingual Communicative Practices Among Youths In An Indonesian City, Kristian Tamtomo Jan 2016

The Push And Pull Of Language Ideologies : Multilingual Communicative Practices Among Youths In An Indonesian City, Kristian Tamtomo

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This thesis deals with the use of Javanese, Bahasa Indonesia and English in the spoken and written communication of high school youths in the city of Semarang, Central Java. The thesis aims to understand the patterns in which youths make use of these languages in various communicative contexts and the way youths use languages to either enact or negotiate the polycentric "push and pull" of the various language ideologies associated with local, national, and global language. Data collection was conducted using ethnographic methods, which involved participant observation, recordings of conversations, collection of texts, as well as interviews with youth groups …


Prisons And Power : Carceral Coloniality In Hybrid Post-Neoliberal Venezuela, Cory Fischer-Hoffman Jan 2016

Prisons And Power : Carceral Coloniality In Hybrid Post-Neoliberal Venezuela, Cory Fischer-Hoffman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines contemporary Venezuela’s dual prison system--in which half of the prison population is incarcerated in internally controlled prisons run by armed inmates, and the other half are locked up in the Bolivarian Government’s restricted “New Regime” prisons. The Venezuelan state formation is conceptualized as ‘hybrid post-neoliberal,’ demonstrating how rationalities of a liberal rentier state and neoliberalism, combined with anti-neoliberal logics all act together in competing yet co-existing ways in the post-neoliberal era, which was initiated by the 1999 Bolivarian Revolution. The central question examines the “work” of the prison in the (re)production of power relations and how policies, …


Jakaltek Identity And The Fiesta Maya In Jupiter, Florida : Ethnic Belonging, Community, And Home, Maria M. Diaz Montejo Jan 2016

Jakaltek Identity And The Fiesta Maya In Jupiter, Florida : Ethnic Belonging, Community, And Home, Maria M. Diaz Montejo

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As immigration increasingly becomes a divisive issue in US politics and political measures are implemented to ensure safe borders, immigrants must find ways to avoid deportation. They must also find ways to support each other and maintain a sense of identity as their presence in the USA continues to be challenged and threatened. My research on Jakaltek migrants in Jupiter, Florida concentrates on Jakaltek migrant reconceptualization of home at the same time that they engage in identity politics that challenge a singular understanding of ethnic belonging. How Jakalteks react to their experiences in Jupiter as (mostly undocumented) migrants suggests that …


"Porque Tienen Mucho Derecho" : Parteras, Biomedical Training And The Vernacularization Of Human Rights In Chiapas, Mounia El Kotni Jan 2016

"Porque Tienen Mucho Derecho" : Parteras, Biomedical Training And The Vernacularization Of Human Rights In Chiapas, Mounia El Kotni

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This doctoral research stems from thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Mexican State of Chiapas. Chiapas is one of the regions with the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. To comply with international development goals to lower maternal mortality rates, indigenous midwives are trained in detecting risk factors in pregnancy and birth, while women are encouraged to give birth in hospitals. This dissertation sheds light on the impact of such policies on poor women's access to reproductive health care and Mayan midwives' practices. Over the course of my research, I utilized the methodology of participant-observation and conducted in-depth …


Prolegomena To Any Future Synthesis Of Hip-Hop And The Novel That Will Be Able To Present Itself As Dope And All-The-Way-Live, Austin Dylan Krauss Jan 2016

Prolegomena To Any Future Synthesis Of Hip-Hop And The Novel That Will Be Able To Present Itself As Dope And All-The-Way-Live, Austin Dylan Krauss

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This work will serve as a prologue to any future attempt at further articulating or writing a hypothetical HIP-HOP Novel.


"We're All In This Together" : Creating A Community Around A Diy Music Scene, Steve Osikowicz Jan 2014

"We're All In This Together" : Creating A Community Around A Diy Music Scene, Steve Osikowicz

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

To many people, music is just a hobby, something they listen to on the drive to work or background noise throughout their day. Maybe they will go to an occasional concert or buy a record here or there, or more likely download one off iTunes. To some though, it can mean so much more. To some people, music can be the whole basis of their social lives. Here I will show how the music scene in DeKalb, Illinois has created strong bonds, enough to be termed a community. Helped through punk ethics and a DIY(do-it yourself) mindset, the DeKalb punk …


Dialogic Festivity : Tourism, Diaspora, And The Hybridization Of Being And Becoming, Heidi J. Nicholls Jan 2014

Dialogic Festivity : Tourism, Diaspora, And The Hybridization Of Being And Becoming, Heidi J. Nicholls

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This research is centered on touristic performances, diaspora studies, and hyphenated identities in general and the Indian diaspora in particular. This project looks to the co-construction of identity within the Indian diaspora as is experienced by the Indian international student attending cultural events and festivities or Third Spaces, produced by the Indian diaspora at large, through a theoretical lens of tourism. In other words, this project is an investigation through ethnographic research and narrative analysis, of the interface between cultural festivals, diasporic tourism, and hybridized identities. In turn this research addresses the duality of identity negotiation in the diaspora in …


Imperial Consumption, Cruise Ship Tourism And Cozumel, Mexico, Christine Preble Jan 2014

Imperial Consumption, Cruise Ship Tourism And Cozumel, Mexico, Christine Preble

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation defines cruise ship tourism in the context of a local community. The theoretical manifestations and development of cruise ship tourism are presented and analyzed. This research traces the development of the U.S.-based cruise ship industry (i.e. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Carnival Corporation & PLC) and its subsequent effects in one port-of-call community, the island of Cozumel, Mexico. Cruise ship tourism in Cozumel is compounded in San Miguel, the island's only urban center, at the three cruise ship piers and associated shopping centers. Defining U.S.-based cruise ship tourism in the context of Cozumel is significant as it is …


Refugee Protection And Assistance : Locating Gender In Refugee Policies, Programs, And Experiences, Mwaka Nachilongo Jan 2014

Refugee Protection And Assistance : Locating Gender In Refugee Policies, Programs, And Experiences, Mwaka Nachilongo

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

REFUGEE PROTECTION AND ASSISTANCE: LOCATING GENDER IN