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University at Albany, State University of New York

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Articles 31 - 49 of 49

Full-Text Articles in Social and Cultural Anthropology

Museum Representation : Ethnostatic Representations Of Culture, Brynna Elizabeth Tussey Jan 2014

Museum Representation : Ethnostatic Representations Of Culture, Brynna Elizabeth Tussey

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Museums act as knowledge production centers for cultural objects. The knowledge produced and distributed frequently portrays the Other as being immobilized in ethnostatic history. Models and modes of representation serve to reinforce these perceptions, rather than aid in the development of new forms of knowledge production. Through the discussion of these models, my research presents new theoretical perspectives for the agencies within the museum, and proposes possible new models for displaying objects from other cultures and the dialogues around said objects.


On The Island : Marginalized Residents Of A Single Room Occupancy Motel, Christopher Philip Dum Jan 2014

On The Island : Marginalized Residents Of A Single Room Occupancy Motel, Christopher Philip Dum

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

One consequence of the punitive turn in criminal justice policy has been an increase in residential instability among previously incarcerated individuals. For registered sex offenders in particular, residence restriction laws severely limit housing options. Many formerly incarcerated individuals find difficulties securing employment, which limits their ability to afford a stable residence.


Information Structure, Agreement And Disagreement In English And French Asynchronous Online Discussion, Patrick Rodrigue Belibi Enama Jan 2014

Information Structure, Agreement And Disagreement In English And French Asynchronous Online Discussion, Patrick Rodrigue Belibi Enama

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This paper compares and contrasts the ways online discussion participants of French and English language expression realize common ground, agree and disagree on newspaper blogs on politics. For that purpose, a corpus of 365 replies among which 177 in French and 188 in English were collected from Le Monde.fr and nytimes.com, the world's two most popular newspaper websites of French and English expression. Kecskes & Zhang's (2009) socio-cognitive approach was used as theoretical framework to analyze common ground. The findings revealed that pragmatic competence, which was put to use depending on the context of situation, was more widely used than …


Negotiating Ethnosexual Difference In The Armenian Transnation, Nelli Sargsyan Jan 2013

Negotiating Ethnosexual Difference In The Armenian Transnation, Nelli Sargsyan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Since heteronormativity is an inextricable part of the ethnonationalist ideologies and discourses of Armenianness, conformity and transgression are communally policed both in the Republic of Armenia, as well as in the Armenian diaspora, albeit in different ways. In the diaspora it is through public silence regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) and queer self-identified Armenians that hetero-belonging is managed. In the Republic of Armenia, on the other hand, it is managed through hate speech promoted by public figures and through mass media. In both cases the anxiety that the issue of non-heteronormativity points to in the public outcry is that …


The Anti-Abortion Legislation In Nicaragua : Gender Hierarchies And Ideologies In Reproduction, Ilona M. Flores Jan 2013

The Anti-Abortion Legislation In Nicaragua : Gender Hierarchies And Ideologies In Reproduction, Ilona M. Flores

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This research examines the anti-abortion legislation that was passed in Nicaragua in 2006. The methods of investigation involve participant/observation and collaboration, semi-structured interviews, and content analysis. Through examination of the legal and medical implications of criminalizing therapeutic abortions, this research demonstrates that the anti-abortion law attempts to enforce traditional gender roles. The abortion debate inspired many questions of morality and motherhood, and that access to therapeutic abortions meant denying `normal' gender roles. While some women internalized these notions, others did not. However, Nicaraguans use the conceptual framework of `salir adelante' as a way to practice agency.


The Produced And The Perceived : Transnationalism, The Production Of Space, And The Role Of Media In Constructing Popular Perceptions Of Mexican (Im)Migrant Communities, Rachel Marie Forbes Jan 2012

The Produced And The Perceived : Transnationalism, The Production Of Space, And The Role Of Media In Constructing Popular Perceptions Of Mexican (Im)Migrant Communities, Rachel Marie Forbes

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

There were approximately 11.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States in 2011 according to the Department of Homeland Security. Of those, approximately 59 percent were of Mexican origin. These men and women likely risked their lives--many crossing through the least guarded but most dangerous part of the nearly two thousand mile long border--with the hope, not of starting a new life in America, but of creating a better life in Mexico. Migrants, most typically agricultural workers, once travelled seasonally to work as needed and returned home at seasons end with the earnings that would help sustain their families and …


Grains, Greenbacks And Governance : The Political Economy Of Rural Microfinance In Nicaragua, Courtney B. Kurlanska Jan 2012

Grains, Greenbacks And Governance : The Political Economy Of Rural Microfinance In Nicaragua, Courtney B. Kurlanska

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This research examines the livelihood strategies of rural agriculturalists in Nicaragua in relation to the availability of microcredit and microfinance. Since its emergence as a tool for development in the 1970 microlending has become a key tactic for many developing countries in their attempt to reduce poverty and improve the lives of the poor. With the arrival of the global recession, however, the weaknesses of this strategy were highlighted as growing numbers of individuals around the globe struggled to make payments on their microloans. Faced with shame, loss of land and property, or jail, debtors around the globe responded to …


Stewards Of The Land : Demonstrations Of Agricultural Authenticity In Columbia County, Ny, Jaclyn Rose Bruntfield Jan 2012

Stewards Of The Land : Demonstrations Of Agricultural Authenticity In Columbia County, Ny, Jaclyn Rose Bruntfield

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The origins of food in the U.S. have come under close public scrutiny in recent years. An increasing number of farmers markets, certified organic products, and Community Supported Agriculture programs indicate that Americans are seeking out alternatives to the mainstream food system. The industrialization of food production in the post-World War II era, while providing larger amounts of inexpensive food than ever before, has arguably compromised people's relationships with food. While farming was once a common way of life in the U.S., today only one percent of Americans identify farming as their primary occupation.


Maya Cosmopolitans : Everyday Life At The Interface Of Archaeology, Heritage, And Tourism Development, Sarah Ruth Taylor Jan 2012

Maya Cosmopolitans : Everyday Life At The Interface Of Archaeology, Heritage, And Tourism Development, Sarah Ruth Taylor

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The village of Ek'Balam is located approximately 300 meters from the ceremonial center of the archaeological zone by the same name. The ruins at Ek'Balam are some of the most impressive pre-Columbian stuccoes found in the Maya World. In 1994, the archaeological zone opened to the public, and since then this village of around 350 residents has experienced numerous changes. While residents have always had ties to the regional economy, the opening of the archaeological zone represented their first extended engagement with the tourism industry. A major agent of change in Ek'Balam is a community-based tourism project, funded primarily by …


Gringotenango : The U.S. Retirement Migration To Antigua, Guatemala, Katherine Wilnelia Platt Jan 2011

Gringotenango : The U.S. Retirement Migration To Antigua, Guatemala, Katherine Wilnelia Platt

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation documents the migration of U.S. retirees to Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua is a charming Spanish colonial city in the middle of the Guatemalan highlands with beautiful volcano views, cobblestone roads, the presence of Mayan and Ladino cultures, and an eternal spring climate. The physical and cultural beauty of Antigua allows U.S. citizens to enjoy a permanent vacation-like retirement experience. Antigua, however, is located in a country whose recent history is characterized by 36 years of civil war, and current events are stressed by new violence criminal activities. Despite the beauty of Antigua, this colonial city is an odd retirement …


Confraternity And Community : Negotiating Ethnicity, Gender And Place In Colonial Tecamachalco, Mexico, Annette Dionne Richie Jan 2011

Confraternity And Community : Negotiating Ethnicity, Gender And Place In Colonial Tecamachalco, Mexico, Annette Dionne Richie

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Cofradías, lay religious brotherhoods introduced to New Spain by Mendicant friars in the mid-16th century, were optimal vehicles for corporate consciousness. This case study in colonialism, evangelization and ethnic politics centers on avenues and strategies for assessing, accommodating and rejecting cultural elements from "foreign" groups, as well as the freedom to assemble and incorporate, but also marginalize, others.


GarifunaduáÜ : Cultural Continuity, Change And Resistance In The Garifuna Diaspora, Boyd Malcolm Servio-Mariano Jan 2010

GarifunaduáÜ : Cultural Continuity, Change And Resistance In The Garifuna Diaspora, Boyd Malcolm Servio-Mariano

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The Garifuna are a diasporic community that positions Yurumein (St. Vincent) at the center of its collective memory, and whose populations primarily reside in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and, more recently, in urban centers in the United States. This multi-sited, historio-ethnographic study traces the group's socio-political struggles over time and space against cultural dislocation, ethnic oppression, and culturally destructive forces. It highlights how this population's core principles and forms, Garifunaduáü ("Garifunaness," or the "Garifuna way"), and particularly its central tenet of reciprocity "Aü bu, amürü nu" (roughly translated as "me for you and you for me"), functions on multiple levels …


Negotiating New Roles, New Moralities : Ukrainian Women Physicians At A Post-Socialist Crossroad, Maryna Yevgenivna Bazylevych Jan 2010

Negotiating New Roles, New Moralities : Ukrainian Women Physicians At A Post-Socialist Crossroad, Maryna Yevgenivna Bazylevych

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

My dissertation discusses concepts of professionalism and morality as seen by women physicians in post-socialist Ukraine. As in many other post-socialist societies, Ukrainian women constitute the majority of the medical profession (over 70% of practicing physicians and 80% of medical students). Most of the existing literature explains this narrowly in materialist terms whereby low salary is viewed as determinant of low prestige and thus unattractiveness to men. I suggest that prestige is defined much broader in the local context. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Central and Western Ukraine (2007-2008), I argue that the meanings of prestige carry both socialist and …


Ecotourism, Sea Turtles, And Livelihoods : Adaptation And Resistance To Development And Conservation In Mexico And Brazil, David Ivan Rezende Fleischer Jan 2009

Ecotourism, Sea Turtles, And Livelihoods : Adaptation And Resistance To Development And Conservation In Mexico And Brazil, David Ivan Rezende Fleischer

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation's objective is to understand how two communities, Praia do Forte, in Brazil and Mazunte, in Mexico engage in development and conservation practices through work, protest and discourses. Development is represented here by ecotourism and conservation by sea turtle projects and environmental regulations. Sea turtle conservation projects in both locations represent the strong external intervention of the federal government and of the scientific community on traditional livelihoods. This dissertation analyzes both conservation project and ecotourism development using a comparative perspective via onsite ethnography.


Glossolalia Influences On Stress Response Among Apostolic Pentecostals, Christopher Dana Lynn Jan 2009

Glossolalia Influences On Stress Response Among Apostolic Pentecostals, Christopher Dana Lynn

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study tests the hypothesis that long–term experience of Apostolic Pentecostal glossolalia or “speaking in tongues” reduces the reactivity of biological stress response to normal or "daily" stressors. Glossolalia is a form of religious dissociation. Dissociation is a universal capacity often conflated with “trance.” It refers to the partitioning of awareness associated with a variety of cross–cultural forms, from daydreaming and denial to possession trance, shamanic spirit journeys, and dissociative identity disorder. Dissociation is believed to reduce or filter stress by mediating evaluation of potential stressors and reactivity of the mechanisms of biological stress response. Previous studies have examined these …


The Practice Of Ideology : A Theory Of Ideology And Conceptual Analysis Of Irish Republicanism, Robert Marcello Mauro Jan 2009

The Practice Of Ideology : A Theory Of Ideology And Conceptual Analysis Of Irish Republicanism, Robert Marcello Mauro

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The thesis of this dissertation is that ideology is an ontologically autonomous social object that social science can reconstruct accurately only if it treats ideology as ontologically autonomous. To demonstrate this thesis, the text has three mutually supporting aims. First, it seeks to further our understanding of ideology as a form of political thought, and to develop an appropriate theory of ideology. Second, it critiques the academic literature on Irish Republicanism and, when necessary, the academic literature on Northern Irish political thought. Third, it is a conceptual morphology of Irish Republicanism. Through an examination of Irish Republicanism, the dissertation shows …


Common Origins/"Different" Identities In Two Kaqchikel Maya Towns, Walter E. Little Jan 2003

Common Origins/"Different" Identities In Two Kaqchikel Maya Towns, Walter E. Little

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Kaqchikel Maya residents of San Antonio Aguas Calientes and Santa Catarina Barahona (neighboring towns in Guatemala) tell the same origin story. This story is used to root historically their concepts of collective identity and community. However, residents in each town hold that those in the other town have no real claim to the story. Both towns can equally claim this origin story, but the debate between residents of these towns offers an opportunity to discuss how the meaning of place is related to the historical and ethnographic contexts of which that place's residents are part. By weighing the story and …


Performing Tourism: Maya Women's Strategies, Walter E. Little Jan 2003

Performing Tourism: Maya Women's Strategies, Walter E. Little

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Walter Little is assistant professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Albany and codirector of Oxlajuj Aj, Tulane University’s Kaqchikel Language and Culture class in Guatemala. He has conducted fieldwork among Maya handicrafts producers and vendors since 1992 on issues related to tourism, gender roles, and identity performance, and this research is the subject of his book, Mayas in the Marketplace: Tourism, Globalization, and Cultural Identity (Austin: University of Texas, 2004).


Home As A Place Of Exhibition And Performance: Mayan Household Transformations In Guatemala, Walter E. Little Jan 2000

Home As A Place Of Exhibition And Performance: Mayan Household Transformations In Guatemala, Walter E. Little

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the town of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, Guatemala, has been incorporated into transnational movements of people, commodities, and ideas through tourism, development, and religious evangelism. The Kaqchikel Mayas living there have long looked outward from their community as they embraced, ignored, or criticized these global flows. Contemporary Kaqchikel Mayas have incorporated these global flows into the organization and maintenance of their households, while giving them a local interpretation. Some families have made their homes a place to enact their culture through exhibitions and performances for tourists. Such performances are indicative of the strategies …