Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Crystal Healing Practices In The Western World And Beyond, Kristine D. Carlos

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Humans have been using crystals for various healing and ritual reasons for centuries. Both geographically and culturally, a diverse range of groups have turned to crystals and gemstones to address diverse needs over the millennia. While the oldest legends of crystal magic date back to the mythical ancient continent of Atlantis whose people allegedly used crystals for telepathic communication (Raphael 1985), it is believed that the crystal customs continued to perpetuate in Egypt, South America, and Tibet over subsequent centuries. Over recent decades, a renewed interest in crystals and gemstones has emerged in various New Age and mainstream contexts. In …

Crafting Local Food Narratives With Immigrant Voices: Participatory Ethnography Among Somali Bantu Farmers In West Denver, Raymond Alexander Pang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2013, a non-profit, Re:Vision, established the Ubuntu Farm to work with the local Somali Bantu refugee population. It was supposed to improve access to fresh produce, offer educational opportunities, skill training and more. Early on in 2014, it became clear Re:Vision was not delivering on its promises, and by 2015 the farm had ceased to exist. Using participant observation, interviews with farm participants and staff and a review of publicly accessible financial documents, I argue that Re:Vision maintained a conflict of mission, which contributed to their farms' failings, despite their ability to grow plenty of vegetables. From there, I …

Psychotropic Medications And Children: Perceptions Of Mental Health Professionals, Elinor Jane Brereton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project explores mental health professionals' perspectives on the prescription of psychotropic medications to children. It emphasizes the placement of biomedicine within its larger social, economic, and political context, and the influence these structures have on the way mental illness is conceptualized and treated in children. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted in Denver, Colorado with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and a pharmaceutical board member to capture multiple perspectives from different positionalities within the field. Participants discussed factors that they believe influence prescribing practices including: professional role changes, issues of access, limited evidence, cost, and institutional pressures to practice within a …

The Global Dance Network: Reykjaví­K, Iceland, Takes On New Moves, Emily Creek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is an exploration of the contemporary dance community in Reykjaví­­k, Iceland. The research questions guiding this thesis were founded in a desire to understand how the dance community in Reykjaví­k creates its own agency and meaning within the city of Reykjaví­­k, as well as how the dance community in Reykjaví­k takes imported dance knowledge, localizes it and creates local meaning. With this goal of understanding the ways the community navigates the wider global dance network from its location as a northern island, I utilize concepts from the anthropology of globalization as well as dance anthropology. I specifically employ …

Through The Yoruba Lens: A Postcolonial Discourse Of Female Circumcision, Jennifer Quichocho

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the Western media attention and the critique of female circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa, few studies consider the local populations' traditions, values, and ideologies. Through the Yoruba Lens: A Postcolonial Discourse of Female Circumcision investigates female circumcision practices from a philosophical, Yoruba traditionalist perspective. African philosophy and religion provides an ideological foundation and helps reveal the postcolonial and feminist theoretical framework that continues the academic debate. Framed by LeCompte and Schensul's notion that "ethnography emphasized discovery; it does not assume answers" (2010: 33), my research draws from literature reviews, quantitative data, and interviews. I will present and investigate three hypotheses …

A Shifting Island Landscape: Changes In Land Use And Daily Life In The 19th And 20th Century Village Of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland, Lauren Marie Couey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates changes to village spatial arrangement and land use patterns in the nineteenth and twentieth century village of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland. To understand how spatial changes within the historic village were shaped by interactions between villagers and outside groups, including landlords and government agencies, a landscape approach was utilized. An examination of historic maps, valuation documents, and Irish Census documents, combined with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey and archaeological excavation, were used to understand how historical pressures impacted island life. Inishark's geographic isolation creates a unique case study to understand the impact of historical pressures on rural Irish …

The Artistic And Anthropological Influence Of Lighting Design On Guests At The Disneyland Resort, Jennifer Pershon

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Lighting design, while popularized by theatre, has emerged beyond the stage into real world environments and settings. Its advancement has led to an evolution of light, allowing for light to appear as a work of art independent from objects and productions despite lacking a tangible existence. As themed entertainment has grown into an entire industry of spectacle and performance, the concept of theme parks developed from one man’s dream to bring his animated films to life in a constructed environment for the promotion of imagination. Lighting design within the Disneyland Resort facilitates the ideologies of Walt Disney, utilizing its foundation …

Factors Associated To Acceptable Treatment Adherence Among Children With Chronic Kidney Disease In Guatemala, Brooke Ramay, Alejandro Cerón, Luis Pablo Méndez-Alburez, Randall Lou-Meda

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

Pediatric patients with Chronic Kidney Disease face several barriers to medication adherence that, if addressed, may improve clinical care outcomes. A cross sectional questionnaire was administered in the Foundation for Children with Kidney Disease (FUNDANIER, Guatemala City) from September of 2015 to April of 2016 to identify the predisposing factors, enabling factors and need factors related to medication adherence. Sample size was calculated using simple random sampling with a confidence level of 95%, confidence interval of 0.05 and a proportion of 87%. A total of 103 participants responded to the questionnaire (calculated sample size was 96). Independent variables were defined …

Who Are The Apistoi? Symbolic Boundaries And Anthropological Language In 2 Cor 6:14-7:1, Nii Addo Kobina Abrahams

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s “Qumran and the Interpolated Paragraph in 2 Cor 6:14-7:1,” originally published in 1961, argued that 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 was an interpolation from an undiscovered Qumran text. Fitzmyer’s thesis was the prevailing scholarly opinion for over a decade, and while several counter-arguments have convincingly challenged Fitzmyer’s theory, scholars are still hard-pressed to explain how the passage fits into its context. Not only does 6:14-7:1 seem to lack any organic connection to the verses immediately prior or following, but it also contains unique vocabulary and what seems to be uncharacteristic use of standard Pauline terms. However, all of these …

Animate Planet: Making Visceral Sense Of Living In A High-Tech Ecologically Damaged World By Kath Weston, Kelly Shepherd

The Goose

Review of Kath Weston's Animate Planet: Making Visceral Sense of Living in a High-Tech Ecologically Damaged World.

Monks As Model Men: Gender Anomalies Or Heroic Ideal?, Aaron Raverty Osb

Saint John’s Abbey Publications

The movie The Mask You Live In portrays gender socialization for men in the United States today as dominated by a trajectory emphasizing ruthless competition, a never-ending search for prestige in material wealth, and a largely self-serving quest to overcome and control women. The movie graphically depicts all the accompanying psychological dysfunction, legal difficulties, and emotional distress experienced by boys and young men desperately trying to conform to such a scripted model of masculinity. Anthropological research invites alternate ways of thinking about the relationship between sex and gender. This is especially true among those who claim a close relationship with …

Riding In Circles: Horse(Wo)Manship In The American Saddlebred Community, Brianna Meyer

Celebration of Learning

Not many people know about the very small yet very dynamic sect of intense sport culture of the American Saddlebred show horse. Even those who do could always learn more, since, like any subculture, it constantly evolves and changes through time. This paper outlines the historical changes since the advent of Saddlebred showing with a focus on female involvement and feminist revolution. Gender has been an important but relatively unseen factor within the community itself—female participants today do not know the history of female involvement. But based on an emergence of women professionals and amateurs in the past 50 years, …

Public Ritual Sacrifice As A Controlling Mechanism For The Aztec, Madeline Nicholson

Honors Scholar Theses

For decades, archaeologists have researched the fascinating finds of Aztec sacrifice. Evidence of their sacrifices are seen on temple walls, stone carvings, bones, and in Spanish chronicler drawings. Although public ritual sacrifice was practiced before the Aztecs, with evidence from the Olmec civilization (1200-1300 BCE) and Maya (200-900 BCE), Aztec sacrifices are among the most extensively documented. How does such a practice survive in different civilizations through different rulers? This thesis will analyze the phases of Aztec public ritual sacrifice (specifically the location, length, and number of sacrifices) and the close relationship to their origin myths, or founding stories. It …

Do Non-Human Primates Have Gender?, Aaron Pelchat

Senior Honors Projects

As activism for trans rights and gender equality becomes ever more prevalent in the current American political discourse, so too has there been a rise in questions about gender. Are sexuality and gender linked? Aren’t there only two genders? What is the difference between gender and sex? Is there a difference? How does one DO gender? Isn’t gender just something you are born with? Helping the public understand these questions is important to transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in a time when more people are “coming out of the closet” and identifying as genders other than cisgender. As an anthropologist, …

Poverty In The Land Of Plenty? Deconstructing Role Of Community-Based Organizations In A Small Community, John Kevin Trainor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using the lens of a community-based childhood obesity intervention, it is possible to examine the role of non-profit organizations in community development and to deconstruct the “community” in community-based research and identify the many competing interests within a community. This contextual understanding includes how the community is formed, how a community’s agenda is set, and who will complete the tasks outlined in that agenda. In applied anthropological settings and public health interventions that are community-based, it is essential to understand the context of community and which community (or communities) the researcher is working with to ensure that the data you …

Ignatian Pedagogy Certificate Final Project, Catherine Nichols

Ignatian Pedagogy Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Chinese Communication Studies: Three Paths Converging, Wenshan Jia

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

This contribution presents the possibilities for anthropological and neo-Marxist media within the hugely expanding sector of Chinese communication studies. China has sourced mostly from the American positivist tradition but is increasingly ­taking on board European critical thinking but it also needs to absorb some of the depth and diversity of indigenous scholarship existing in Chinese.

Jia, Lu, and Heisey (2002) presented an influential meta-analysis of every ­example of communication studies in China at that time. The book chapter which talks about the rise of the discipline and scholarship of Chinese communication as an academic discipline (Jia et al., 2014) summarises …

Can You See Me? Ethnography Of Women's Experiences With Homelessness In Denver, Colorado, Taylor L. Morrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Following the economic crisis in 2008, the United States, and Denver in particular, saw a considerable rise in the number of people considered homeless. Despite an increase in the population, little anthropological research has been done to understand the experiences of street-embodied individuals and the services available to them. Through participant-observation, life-history interviews, and photovoice, I closely studied the lives of two women experiencing homelessness and used interpretive phenomenological analysis to analyze the data. Analyzed through Foucault's biopolitics, technologies of the self, and panopticism, as well as Goffman's presentation of the self, I make the case that the homeless experience …

The Effects Of Hegemonic Support Of Endangered Languages On Language Ideologies, Christy Box

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Endangered languages are those that are spoken by a very small percentage of the population and are at risk of disappearing with all the knowledge and diversity they contain. Endangered languages often become endangered because the speakers and the society perceive the language as low status or of little use, and a positive change in perception of the language could aid in revitalizing the language. Institutions such as governments, businesses, and universities have recently begun supporting endangered languages in several areas, and this support could greatly affect language ideologies, perceptions of and attitudes about the language. In this research project, …

Gender Division In Sport: Through The Eyes Of Female Student-Athletes At Cms, Kris Brackmann

CMC Senior Theses

In this ethnography (anthropology thesis) I explored the binary gender division in modern sports culture through the analysis of stereotypes shaped by the history of women's sport, iconography of female athletes portrayed by mainstream media, and the reinforcement of stigma and pressure to conform to social norms by the normalized everyday discourse of college men and women at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges. Even though Title IX brought significant gender equality to sport in terms of women's access to athletic participation and facilities, I argue that there is still much work to do to modify social attitudes toward women's sports. While CMS female …

You Can’T Walk Where There Is No Ground, Paul Stoller

Anthropology & Sociology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ancient Egyptian Figurines: An Investigation Into Manufacture, Use, And Culture., Kristina B. Donnally 2455289

UROP Posters

I will analyze the social and religious role of figurines in Egyptian society. I will delve into the differences in the figurines in both manufacture and purpose between the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. I hope to look at religious, political, and other figurines to get a broad spectrum of usage for the artifacts. The main purpose of the research is to identify the time period, purpose, and usage for the figure donated to VCU by Professor Waybright. Questions I have is if the changes in political structure and minute changes in religion between each Kingdom affected the manufacture and …

Patterns Of Enslavement And Economic Oppression Of Central Virginia, Hannah Bedwell

UROP Posters

I address how anthropologists can identify the patterns and development of slavery and economic oppression through archaeology and the visualization of Virginia enslavement. I focus on the enslaved people of James Madison's Montpelier. I use 3D modeling as a foundation for integrating enhanced visuals with the goal of presenting a tangible understanding of the enslaved individuals in relation to the artifacts and history of the archaeological sites. I intend to show a common theme in economic oppression by comparing modern themes in slavery and examining Fraser D. Neiman's synthesis of the evolutionary perspective of slavery, and how little has changed …

Visions Of Sovereignty: Tribal Sovereignty Through The Lenses Of Postcolonialism, Indigenous Film, And Visual Anthropology, Martin I. Lopez

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Tribal sovereignty has been a topic of discussion since the beginning of colonization in America. Anthropological thought, especially postcolonialism theory, addresses how colonialism can be analyzed to gain a better understanding of Indigenous perspectives on sovereignty. Visual sovereignty, an example of Indigenous Film, is an interdisciplinary approach that can contextualize in specific histories and social interactions all while serving individual tribes, depending on which tribe the filmmaker represents. A film, for instance, can be edited in a way to convey Indigenous ideas of time and space and staged presentations of oral histories that are nearly impossible to display through written …

Moving Toward A Holistic Menstrual Hygiene Management: An Anthropological Analysis Of Menstruation And Practices In Western And Non-Western Societies, Sophia A. Bay

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Educating girls is not only their human right, but also proposed as one of the best investments for improving quality of life in developing countries (Montgomery et al. 2016, 2). Although menstruation is a universal, biological process, it is fraught with cultural stigmas and taboos throughout Western and non-Western societies. Menstrual-related absenteeism is believed to be a primary cause of missed attendance and early dropout rates, so the developing field of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) is seeking to understand and evaluate what factors are contributing to these findings. After the analyzation of the current literature, a more holistic, nine-pronged approach …

E-Waste In Relation To Geopolitical Forces: A Case Study Of The United States - Mexico Border Region, Michael A. Hicks

Theses and Dissertations

Analysis deconstructs the electronic waste industry and its interconnectedness to geopolitical forces and economic development in the border region between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. A symbiotic business relationship exists between informal e-waste collectors, non-profit collection sites, and for-profit recyclers. Fieldwork data is analyzed from a slow/structural violence perspective.

Propiedad Intelectual Y Acceso A Medicamentos: El Caso De Lopinavir/Ritonavir En Guatemala, Luis Pablo Méndez-Alburez, Alejandro Cerón

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ambivalent Subjects In Neoliberal Times: Non-Governmental Organizations And Binational Same Sex Couples In The United States, Jara M. Carrington

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation is a critical examination of the increasingly intimate relationship between the neoliberal state, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and their constituents through the lens of NGO-produced advocacy for “binational same sex couples” in the United States. I analyze how neoliberal political and economic ideologies are reconfiguring the role of NGOs, entities traditionally understood as outside state power, as well as the aspirations of their constituencies, within the United States. In particular, I interrogate how NGOs are an increasingly important site in the (re)production of normative gay and lesbian subjects, and illustrate how LGBTQ-identified individuals negotiate these conditions as they seek …

Providers’ Perspectives On Inbound Medical Tourism In Central America And The Caribbean: Factors Driving And Inhibiting Sector Development And Their Health Equity Implications, Rory Johnston, Valorie A. Crooks, Alejandro Cerón, Ronald Labonté, Jeremy Snyder, Emanuel O. Núñez, Walter G. Flores

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

Background

Many governments and health care providers worldwide are enthusiastic to develop medical tourism as a service export. Despite the popularity of this policy uptake, there is relatively little known about the specific local factors prospectively motivating and informing development of this sector.

Objective

To identify common social, economic, and health system factors shaping the development of medical tourism in three Central American and Caribbean countries and their health equity implications.

Design

In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted in Mexico, Guatemala, and Barbados with 150 health system stakeholders. Participants were recruited from private and public sectors working in various fields: trade …

“That’S Enough Patients For Everyone!”: Local Stakeholders’ Views On Attracting Patients Into Barbados And Guatemala’S Emerging Medical Tourism Sectors, Jeremy Snyder, Valorie A. Crooks, Rory Johnston, Alejandro Cerón, Ronald Labonte

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

Background

Medical tourism has attracted considerable interest within the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. Governments in the region tout the economic potential of treating foreign patients while several new private hospitals primarily target international patients. This analysis explores the perspectives of a range of medical tourism sector stakeholders in two LAC countries, Guatemala and Barbados, which are beginning to develop their medical tourism sectors. These perspectives provide insights into how beliefs about international patients are shaping the expanding regional interest in medical tourism.

Methods

Structured around the comparative case study methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 50 medical tourism …