Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Beyond The Indicators: Community-Defined Sustainability In Bario, Sarawak, Rhonwyn Hagedorn

Capstone Collection

This study examines how Kelabit community members in Bario, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo define and practice sustainability within community-based tourism (CBT), and how these local understandings align with or diverge from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The study used a thematic analysis drawing on fifteen semi-structured interviews with Kelabit community members, supplemented by tourist questionnaires and document analysis of online tourism materials. Four themes emerged: sustainability as collective stewardship; community decision-making and collaboration; cultural identity as the core of tourism; and equity, participation, and the limits of growth. Findings suggest that Kelabit community members hold a holistic, relational, and …

Textile Work And Its Interface With Climate Change For Quechua Communities In Peru, Esmeralda Torres-Martinez

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English – Indigenous communities have argued that their knowledge, lived experiences, and representation are crucial to address the climate transition because their communities have adapted to past climatic changes. Although climate change and culture can be interconnected in ways that are unique to each community, little research is done on how cultural practices can be catalysts for climate action. In fact, communities around the world have sparked socio-political movements from within their cultural context to solve both local and global issues. Therefore, this research asks how the practice of traditional textile making and weaving assist Quechua communities with adapting to …

From Larvae To Livelihoods: Examining The Realities Of Black Soldier Fly Farming In Malawi, Emily Herriott

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Black Soldier Fly (BSF) larvae offer a cost-effective, nutrient-rich alternative to synthetic fertilizers and conventional feed inputs such as soy, fishmeal, and maize bran in sub-Saharan Africa. In Malawi, where smallholder farmers grapple with declining soil fertility, high input prices, chronic food insecurity, and livestock nutritional challenges, BSF farming is emerging as a promising circular agricultural innovation. Despite its technical promise, the social, economic, and ecological realities of BSF adoption remain underexplored.This study investigates the early implementation of BSF farming in Malawi through the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, focusing on farmer experiences, challenges, and the social and structural processes shaping uptake …

Social And Cultural Values In Alaskan Subsistence Management: Rurality And The Meaning Of “Meaningful” Natural Resource Management, Jarred Haynes

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In Alaska, subsistence is a way of life for some communities. The Federal Subsistence Board (FSB) oversees the Federal Subsistence Management Program. One of its responsibilities is to determine areas as subsistence or non-subsistence areas. This decision, in part, is based on whether subsistence is a “principal characteristic of the economy, culture, and way of life”. (James A. Fall, Division of Subsistence, 2018). The federal policy grants these communities priority in the taking of wild resources (Title VIII of the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act). Interviews revealed factors of vulnerability and resilience, specifically in the context of subsistence. Scoones …

Common-Pool Resource Management And Conflict Resolution: A Case Study Of Two Self-Governed Irrigation Schemes In Ntcheu, Malawi, George Kasch

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Contrary to conventional common-pool resource (CPR) theory – where it is presumed that strong central states must be the primary actors in regulating the commons – self-governed CPR theory is a method that enables the appropriators themselves to be the primary actors in designing and managing a given CPR. Irrigation systems are one on the most common examples of CPR sharing. Using Elinor Ostrom’s theory on self-governed CPR management and her Eight Design Principles, I examine the mechanisms by which two neighboring small-scale irrigation schemes in rural Malawi manage and govern common-pool water resources to contrast intra-scheme functions and the …

Feminism At The Borders: The Navigation Of Gender Issues By Mexican-American Women Along The U.S.-Mexico Border, Carolina Fuentes

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Feminist movements have taken on various iterations since they first began, particularly as the movements expanded beyond predominantly Western and white spaces. This research study explores how gender equality is perceived and navigated along the U.S.-Mexico border area, taking into account the various Latin American and U.S. feminist developments that have shaped the current landscape of the border. 11 Mexican and Mexican-American women living in U.S.-Mexico border states were interviewed to gain an understanding of their definitions, perceptions, and opinions on feminism and gender-related issues given their bicultural contexts. These conversations revealed that ideas of rights and equality were central …

How Palestinian Aid Organizations Adapt To The Possibility Of Further Annexation And Rights Abuses In The Wake Of "The Deal Of The Century", Nadia L. Wiggins

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This research explores the question, “To what extent has the ‘Deal of the Century’ impacted Palestinian aid organizations, and how might it impact them in the future?” The significance of this question lies in the fact that the “Deal of the Century” claims to solve one of the longest and most complex conflicts, yet it has not been sufficiently analyzed from a Palestinian perspective nor a humanitarian perspective. Furthermore, by presenting scholarly critiques of the deal and aid worker’s concerns, my hope is that an American audience may be convinced of the complicity of our government in devising a failed …

Music As A Cultural Gateway: A Short-Term Folk Music Program In Albania, Catherine Pierattini

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Folk songs have been described as a musical representation of a society’s entire culture. The field of ethnomusicology combines aspects of music and anthropology, and the study of folk music can give considerable insight into worldviews, histories, and traditions. Yet there are few study abroad program providers using this discipline as an approach to cultural analysis and exploration.

The proposed Middlebury Music Studies in Albania program would introduce diverse folk music traditions in three distinct cities, giving students the chance to learn the basics of the Albanian language, understand the historical, geographical, and social influences on the music in the …

Improving Access To Clean Water In Rural Ecuador: The Connection Between Willingness To Pay And Population Health, Micalea Leaska

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Climate change is affecting social and environmental determinants of health through access to safe drinking water, safely managed sanitation systems, and access to health care services and the ability for individuals to break free from unsuitable circumstances. Ecological disturbances such as those caused by climate change can cause a shift in host vectors or a change in habitat that results in a greater likelihood of the pathogen coming in contact with humans. Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services and their accessibility to populations can directly impact a community’s vulnerability to diseases and limiting factors to increase economic growth. If rural …

Criar Y Dejarse Criar: Trans-Situ Crop Conservation And Indigenous Landscape Management Through A Network Of Global Food Neighborhoods, Cass Madden

Capstone Collection

As climate change progresses, global food security is likely to become increasingly threatened and crop biodiversity will be a significant source of resiliency and adaptability. However, these adaptations will only be fully realized through cooperative in situ and ex situ conservation and cultivation of domesticated crops, crop wild relatives, and wild foods. This conservation is best realized in places where communities have the cultural resources to invest meaningfully in the cultivation of native crops, and where the cultivation of those crops can reinforce place-specific livelihoods and identities. To this end, the principal objective of this research is to propose a …

Facilitating Community Participation With Palestine Refugees: An Exploratory Study Of Unrwa, Tiffany Rene Baccus

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Community participation plays an important role in reversing the traditional power dynamic between service providers and beneficiaries. However, the level of community participation facilitated by organizations in their initiatives often varies greatly. This study sought to understand how and to what extent the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) West Bank Field Office can best facilitate community participation with Palestine refugees through its initiatives. Data collection took place at two levels: the strategic and camp level. The strategic level included interviews with a representative from the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Department of Refugee Affairs (DORA) as well as nine staff …

Hide And Seek: How And Why Peace Corps Panama Volunteers Conceal And Reveal Parts Of Their Social Identities And Perceived Impacts On Their Cultural Integration, Sara Sweeney

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Hide and Seekexplores Peace Corps’ role in Panama and details the unique opportunities that Peace Corps Volunteers have to integrate and experience remote communities of the Indigenous tribe known as the Ngäbe Bugle. The main research question of this paper is derived from the challenges that Volunteers in Panama commonly face upon arriving to their communities and presenting themselves to their community members. I will discuss how Volunteers process the cultural differences they experience in their communities, how they respond to them, and whether they choose to conceal or reveal parts of their social identities to their community members. …

Preventative Community Policing In Immigrant Communities, Carole Chopi

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The purpose of this exploratory qualitative case study was to discover what kind of mutually comfortable activities community residents and police officers of the White Oak District in Montgomery County Maryland would like to participate in to strengthen social bonding, social bridging, and social linkage so that they can prevent future difficulties in practicing community problem-solving policing. In this case study located in a major Mid Atlantic community on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, community policing was discovered to be actively engaged in. One police commander, three community leaders, 28 immigrant community members, and 11 immigrant community members …

Is Restorative Justice Doing Enough To Address The Power Imbalances Caused By Systems Of Privilege And Oppression, Matthew Furnell

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Restorative justice is an ever growing philosophy which is causing a paradigm shift in the way society understands and responds to crime, punishment and victimization. The State of Vermont has become a pioneer and an example of how to implement restorative practices into the official criminal justice system, developing an alternative process to traditional punitive approaches. However, it is now more important than ever to ensure that there is not a false sense of success or a level of complacency in the further development of restorative practices. It is time to critically analyse the current restorative process and explore the …

Bridges Out Of Poverty As An Anti-Poverty Strategy In Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, Katlyn M. Uhler

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This paper explores the initial results of the Bridges Out of Poverty (“Bridges”) community framework as implemented by the organization Kennett Area Community Service in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. The aim of this research is to provide perspective on Bridges Out of Poverty’s contribution to the understanding of poverty in the United States and its potential as an antipoverty intervention. It does so first through an exploration of the historical and current discussion on poverty and anti-poverty interventions in the United States, followed by research on the Bridges model itself and its implementation in Kennett Square. This latter research includes content …

Assessing The Influence Of Career-Linked Experiential Opportunities On The F-1 Undergraduate Student Enrollment Decision-Making Process, Harrison Fuerst

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International mobility efforts in the United States have garnered increased attention and funding in recent years, with such government-led initiatives as Generation Study Abroad and 100,000 Strong driving up inbound and outbound student numbers. Recent inbound mobility reports from the Institute of International Education show double-digit percentage increases in international student enrollment. Other countries also experiencing an influx of international students continue to research these trends to shape their own education strategies. Research conducted by the International Education Association of Australia points specifically to hands-on professional experience and enhanced employability as key factors important to Australia’s international student population. As …

Gëm Sa Bopp: A Case Study Of Peace Corps Senegal Girls’ Camps, Tesia A. Eisenberg

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This research explores the design, curriculum, and monitoring & evaluation efforts of Peace Corps Senegal Girls’ Camps through the lens of Youth Program Leadership and Design theory. The literature review reveals a research gap in youth camp programming and hopes to draw attention to this fact to promote more literature on this subject in the future. Interviews were conducted to gain information on the design and monitoring & evaluation experiences of camp facilitators from the 2015 and 2016 PCS Girls’ Camps. This research draws upon data collected from literature, interviews, personal experience, and relevant documents from Peace Corps Senegal to …

Fortaleza's Immigrant Song: Portrait-Narratives And An Identity Needs Analysis Of Recent Immigrants' Lived Experiences, Carl Weitz-Santiago

Capstone Collection

This inquiry sheds light on the personal stories and lived experiences of a group of recent immigrants currently living in Fortaleza, the sprawling capital of the Northeastern state of Ceará, Brazil. Utilizing a theoretical framework guided by “Epistemologies of the South,” ethnographic principles, and constructivist grounded theory, this capstones presents five first person portrait-narratives highlighting intimate details of project participants’ lives prior to immigrating, and uncovers four persistent and recurrent themes expressed by project participants: (1) language and communication, (2) professional opportunity, (3) personal growth, and (4) “saudade” and belongingness.

Through the lens of Johan Galtung’s Basic Needs Approach, …

A Dollar A Day: Child Sponsorship And The Marketization Of Human Development, Taylor Hallett

Capstone Collection

Child sponsorship as a method of international development offers child sponsors a personal connection to the process of alleviating poverty in the global South. As a form of human development, child sponsorship is constituted by neoliberal principles of marketization and social entrepreneurship. How does child sponsorship, in this context, require us to rethink the ethics of international development in light of ongoing debates about neoliberalism? In this research, I argue that child sponsorship reifies the binary of the “developed” and “undeveloped” worlds. Through undertaking a content analysis of three organizations (Compassion International, World Vision, and UNICEF) and applying post-structural critique …

How Do Connection And Hopeful Action Support Resilient Community?, Catherine Gormley

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This capstone arises from the course, Initiatives in Peacebuilding (IPB). As a graduate student focusing on Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation, IPB was a required course whose content propelled me toward the study of resource conflicts. Advancing from that study, I chose to practice strategies to lessen these conflicts by means of positive action. Facing two challenges—that Earth’s natural resources are finite and that excessive use of fossil fuels has caused destructive climate change—I wondered how to help transform human awareness to value the conservation of resources and the abatement of climate change. My research brought me to Joanna Macy, an …

A National Bilingual Education Policy For The Economic And Academic Empowerment Of Youth In St. Lucia, West Indies, Gabriella Bellegarde

Capstone Collection

This campaign portfolio argues the case for a national bilingual education policy on the island of St. Lucia, where youth speak both St Lucian Creole and St. Lucian standard English. The portfolio consists of a policy paper and brief, an advocacy plan, a communications plan, monitoring and evaluation plan. The Bilingual Education Taskforce (BET), made up of teachers, parents and principals, is an advocacy organization that discovered the need for a bilingual education intervention when they observed, assessed and analyzed the written work of struggling readers at their school, the Anse la Raye Infant School on the west coast of …

Black Gentrification Twice Removed: A Study Of Migration And Community Involvement In Washington, Dc, Janwin A. Zeegar-Holman

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This paper is about Black people and community involvement against the backdrop of gentrification in Washington, DC, and possibility of Black-led neighborhood revitalization. My practicum in Southeast Washington DC compelled me to examine the ability of a Black person in Washington DC to sustain commitment to a community that they do not live in, and if Black people moving to gentrifying areas of Washington DC can help the predominantly Black non-gentrifying areas to gentrify on their own terms.

This paper focuses specifically on Black individuals who have spent time in DC and proposed ways that Black non-gentrifying communities can revitalize …

Community Viability And Marine Conservation: Hybrid Resource Management And The Role Of The Coral Triangle Center On Pulau Ay, Indonesia, Jerica Rossi

Capstone Collection

This qualitative research explores the traditional marine resource management system of sasi on Pulau Ay, Maluku, Indonesia and how it has been adapted under modern circumstances to promote conservation. The study was based on interviews with staff of the marine conservation NGO Coral Triangle Center (CTC) and the local Conservation Team, narratives of traditional leader elders, and focus groups with local fisherman. The first section of the findings articulates their perspectives on the historic and current situation regarding sasi and conservation on Pulau Ay. The study then utilizes The Interdependence of Ecosystem and Community Viability: A Theoretical Framework to Guide …

Traditions And Proficiency Abroad - Spain (Tapas) Program: A High School Study Abroad Program For District 128, Michaela Kendzior

Capstone Collection

As colleges begin to internationalize campuses and global competencies continue to become a demand in the workforce, secondary schools should also aim to internationalize the curriculum and offer international education opportunities to their students. In an effort to do this, I have created the Traditions And Proficiency Abroad - Spain (TAPAS) Program for Community High School District 128 in Illinois. The TAPAS program is a 20-day summer intensive cultural and language immersion program created to maximize learning potential in D128 students. While the program’s focus is on Spanish language and culture education, the orientation and instructional activities have been designed …

An Acculturation Program For Foreign-Born Workers At Multinational Companies Transferred To Offices In The United States, Eric Krieger

Capstone Collection

The purpose of this study is to create an acculturation program that multinational companies can use to ease the transition of foreign-born employees who are transferred to the United States. There are a number of challenges for these employees, from navigating the logistics of finding a place to live, setting up a bank account and filling out taxes to the social emotional issues of trying to adapt to another culture, build community and be successful in a new work environment. Through interviews with foreign-born employees, Human Resources professionals, and intercultural trainers, qualitative and quantitative data was collected to understand current …

Motives And Methods Of Social Mobilization In Rural Senegal, Antonia Morzenti

Capstone Collection

Senegal, a predominantly Muslim West African country, has demonstrated political stability, sustained a constitutional democracy, and maintained a pluralistic society since independence in 1960. Amidst this, there are several small groups of social organizers who are engaging in effective social change. Tostan, a regional INGO focusing on community empowerment through nonformal education, has been working in Senegal for more than 25 years and has reached more than three million people in West Africa. After completing Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program (CEP), the social organizers have decided to travel from village to village educating and sensitizing others on what they have learned. …

Rebuilding Houses, Rebuilding Ukraine: Peacebuilding Through Youth Service-Learning, Katherine Tremont

Capstone Collection

In order to successfully transform conflict in a complex situation such as Ukraine, it is critical to examine projects designed by Ukrainians themselves that support and reflect Ukrainian attitudes towards conflict and peace. Lviv Education Foundation is one such Ukrainian-run organization developing and implementing peacebuilding projects between the east and west of Ukraine. From interviews with Lviv Education Foundation personnel, this paper examines the feasibility of two important peacebuilding interventions through the lenses of positive and negative peace, basic human needs, and conflict transformation through ritual. This project finds that Lviv Education Foundation’s programs encourage peacebuilding in all three of …

Giving A Voice To The Powerless: Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation As A Tool For Inclusive Development Through Microfinance, Evan T. Burke

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The greatest experts on the situation of the marginalized peoples of the world are the marginalized communities themselves. This paper explores how participatory monitoring & evaluation can be a powerful tool for giving voices to marginalized communities, ensuring that the voices of beneficiaries and local stakeholders are heard and inform sustainable project design. It analyzes a participatory monitoring and evaluation methodology implemented for women’s credit cooperatives in Gujarat, India by the Human Development & Research Centre, and examines lessons to be learned to design evaluations facilitating inclusive development.

Strategies for the monitoring and evaluation of microfinance have evolved along with …

Reinventing The Role Of Children And Youth In Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, Amirah M. Alias

Capstone Collection

This paper underlines the roles of children and youth in post-conflict peacebuilding and the reinvention of their roles from participants of peacebuilding to active facilitators of post-conflict peacebuilding. The reinvention is based on the re-interpretation of the traditional roles of children and youth in post-conflict peacebuilding and the analysis of children and youth peacebuilding programs. The re-interpretation will suggest that children and youth take on a more active role, if not, a leadership role in peacebuilding programs conducted for children and youth. This paper will look at the historical and contextual information about Nigeria's inter-religious conflict and a youth peacebuilding …

Ensuring Social Success: Assessing The Factors That Affect The Social Experiences Of International Students At A Large, Urban Community College In Texas, Sharon A. Miller

Capstone Collection

According to the 2014 Open Doors report published by the Institute of International Education, 87,963 international students enrolled in community colleges and/or associate’s degree granting institutions during the 2013-2014 academic year. Community colleges offer many benefits to international students, such as lower tuition, less restrictive English proficiency requirements, smaller class size, and transferability of credits to four-year institutions.

Past studies have found connections between social relationships and the ability to manage acculturative stress and student satisfaction. Nevertheless, international students attending a community college face different social challenges than those who choose to attend a residential four-year university. Lack of student …