Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Management Of Biodiversity: Creating Conceptual Space For Indigenous Conservation, Nicholas Herriman

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

Indigenous people have, in recent decades, become increasingly involved in environmental conservation. Notwithstanding, some social science research has critiqued as problematic or untenable ideas (notably “Indigeneity” and “conservation”) that putatively underpin Indigenous conservation. But does the critique accurately characterize actual Indigenous conservation projects? And can we create conceptual space for Indigenous conservation? Based on experience participating in and observing Indigenous conservation projects, it appears that, partly by emphasizing human management of biodiversity, the projects avoided pitfalls identified by the critique. Future social science analysis might remain relevant by addressing the idea of management of biodiversity.

Epistemological Ruptures: Flashback On Fieldwork Dilemmas While Doing Research On Friends At Home, Israel Aguilar

The Qualitative Report

While doing fieldwork at home and/or with people who are familiar can yield new knowledge, researchers using ethnographic techniques ought to first assume the role of apprentice and enact vulnerability before they can represent findings that represent what really happened. Doing otherwise can tarnish relationships or jeopardize a study. The history of narrative within ethnographic research is discussed as an introduction to the author’s own personal narrative, which is in the form of a flashback that illustrates the journey he embarked on in 2010 when he initiated dissertation research in his hometown of south Texas. It is here where he …

Linking Ecotourism Livelihood Strategies To Post-Displacement Homemaking In Internally Displaced Communities In Southern Nepal, Sophia Graybill

Sustainability and Social Justice

National park creation and ecotourism development often cause the internal displacement of local communities and shifts in traditional lifestyles. Loss of the physical and intangible home is frequently accompanied by changes to livelihood strategies that, for generations, supported a critical social order, set of power dynamics, and means of producing life meaning for people. Therefore, communities affected by displacement and confronted by rapid modernization often experience protracted risks and instability. This paper draws on information from thirty interviews in four communities surrounding the Royal Chitwan National Park in Southern Nepal to analyze how resettlement and ecotourism development have affected the …

"They Chase Us Like Dogs": Exploring The Vulnerabilities Of "Ladyboys" In The Cambodian Sex Trade, Jarrett D. Davis, Glenn Miles

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

While the vulnerability of women and girls continues to be the subject of research and concern among social service providers, few attempts have been made to understand the vulnerabilities and lived experiences of transgender persons in the sex industry. Among the studies that have been done, most have focused on sexual health and their likelihood to contract or spread HIV/AIDS, often ignoring other potential vulnerabilities. This study aims to provide a broad baseline of data on the perspectives and experiences of transgendered persons in the sex trade in Phnom Penh, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of their needs, and …

Responding To Purdeková, Simon Turner

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: La Muerte Del Verdugo: Reflexiones Interdisciplinarias Sobre El Cadáver De Los Criminales De Masa, Vincent Druliolle

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Review of La Muerte del Verdugo. Reflexiones Interdisciplinarias Sobre el Cadáver de los Criminales de Masa, ed. Séviane Garibian (Buenos Aires: Miño y Dávila editores, 2016)

Situating Food Insecurity In A Historic Albuquerque Community: The Whorled Relationship Between Food Insecurity And Place, Janet Page-Reeves, Maurice Moffett, Molly Bleecker, Katharine Linder, Jeannie Romero, Carol Krause

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

This article examines conceptualizations of the relationship between food insecurity and place. We use an ethnographically inspired and community-engaged approach to situate our analysis of fluid dynamics at work in a community with high levels of food insecurity. We propose that the relationship between place and people’s experience of food insecurity is recursive, dialectical, and “whorled.” This relationship reflects complex, interconnected, and multidimensional processes with consequences for the health of residents. Our research demonstrates the key nature of the health-place nexus by exploring how food insecurity articulates with place in unexpected ways that go beyond discussions of food, …

After Nature: A Politics For The Anthropocene, Ann Vitous

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

No abstract provided.

Personal History Ethnography In Environmental Anthropology: A Methodological Case Study, Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

The study of the relationship between humans and the environment and the ways in which humans use, abuse, or protect the environment is in part a study of motivation. Understanding the basis for motivation requires not just understanding individual or community sentiment towards the environment but researching the cultural norms, values and beliefs that underlie and foster cultural perspectives in the first place. But how do we begin to determine where, when and how those cultural norms, values, beliefs get developed, taught and inculcated?

The following paper presents the collection of life hisories as one methodological approach to accessing the …

Early Fieldwork At The Beijing Farmers’ Market, Amy Y. Evrard

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Now that I’ve passed tenure review, published a book, cemented my teaching skills, and learned how to be a productive member of a college committee, I feel confident, self-assured, and filled with certainty about every aspect of my career as a professor. The same certainty extends to research and fieldwork. From choosing a topic to developing research questions to getting a good start in the field—it’s all a piece of cake.

Ha! I wish I felt this confidence. The truth is that passing the tenure phase two years ago, as wonderful as it was, opened up a whole new set …

Towards Queer Space: Bisexual Experiences And Imaginative Geographies, Jacklyn Weier

Theses and Dissertations

Bisexuality has typically gone ignored in human geography. Specifically, geographers of sexualities have not incorporated the perspectives of bisexuals when theorizing about the production of queer or heteronormative spaces. This thesis asks what the experiences of bisexuals are throughout sexualized space and how bisexuals envision bisexual space. It argues that bisexuals, as people with non-binary subjectivities (not straight or gay), offer unique insights that challenge the widespread assumption of tolerant queer space, as well as performative approaches to space production. Bisexuals utilize preexisting models of gay space and their dissatisfaction within dichotomous space to imagine how bisexual space and queer …

A Tale Of Two Paranoids: A Critical Analysis Of The Use Of The Paranoid Style And Public Secrecy By Donald Trump And Viktor Orbán, Andria Timmer, Joseph Sery, Sean Thomas Connable, Jennifer Billinson

Secrecy and Society

Within the last decade, a rising tide of right-wing populism across the globe has inspired a renewed push toward nationalism. Capitalizing on an increasingly chaotic public sphere, leaders are stoking fear in their constituents such that their radical ideologies and hardline policy decisions may be enacted. This article offers a comparative study of two leaders exploiting the vulnerabilities of their respective citizenries: United States President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán. Drawing from and reimagining Richard Hofstadter’s germane essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” we argue that both represent a new manifestation of the paranoid style as …

Deinstitutionalization Of Bulgarian Orphanages: Examining Caregiver Discourses On The Changing Reforms, Sophia Page

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The housing of orphaned children in institutions has been common practice in Bulgaria. The post-communist era ushered in reforms to the orphan care system, under the guidance of the state and the international community. This has shifted care for orphaned children from institutions to alternative care in family-type settings, under a process referred to as deinstitutionalization. These reforms are believed to benefit a child’s development and well-being. New questions arise surrounding the role of the caregiver in implementing these reforms in their care practice, chiefly how caregivers strive to integrate the children into society while facing the persisting limitations of …

Home Garden Diversity Of The Tahuayo Region, Peru, Daniel Bauer, Duncan Taylor, Nelly Pinedo Alvarado

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

We examined cultural and environmental factors affecting species diversity of home gardens in Amazonian Northeast Peru based on 33 surveys conducted in July/August, 2014, in three communities varying in remoteness, demography, ecological zone, and ethnicity. The results support the idea that community variation in home gardens is not influenced by a single factor such as remoteness, but instead is the result of multiple cultural and environmental factors. Similar to other studies of Amazonian home gardens, fruits and medicinal plants make up the bulk of home garden diversity; however, we did not find an association between a tourism and reduced garden …

The Wolf Is Back By Robert Priest, Kelly Shepherd

The Goose

Review of Robert Priest's The Wolf is Back.

Together Without Consensus: Class, Emotions And The Politics Of The Rule Of Law In The Lawyers’ Movement (2007-09) In Pakistan, Salman Hussain

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an ethnographic examination of how political emotions, historical memory and notion(s) of the rule of law are mobilized in postcolonial Pakistan. It examines how liberal legality (the rule of law, judiciary and courts) and discourses of rights have become popular hegemonic languages for mobilizing political protests and legal claims in South Asia. In particular, the dissertation studies a protest movement, the Lawyers’ Movement for the Restoration of Judiciary and Democracy (2007-09), that was led by the lawyers and their allied educated and professional middle-classes, and investigates how the lawyers successfully galvanized Pakistanis against the then prevalent military …

Military Citizenship In The Post-9/11 Homefront, Estefania Ponti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In discussion with the literature on the treatment of veterans in the United States and the nature of American citizenship ideology, the following dissertation asks how post-9/11 veterans are defining, (re)creating, and contesting citizenship in the contemporary U.S. By studying a localized community of post-9/11 veterans, my dissertation highlights the dilemmas of U.S. citizenship at a time when the U.S. is engaged in a global War on Terror using less than 1% of the U.S. population as paid volunteers. Soldiers and veterans occupy states and spaces of exception, marking military citizens as distinct from civilians. Military citizenship benefits the nation …

The Shari'a Courts Of Mogadishu: Beyond "African Islam" And "Islamic Law", Ahmed Ibrahim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation, based on a year and eight months of fieldwork, is a historical ethnography of a Shari‘a-based movement which appeared in Mogadishu, Somalia within a year after the complete disintegration of the central government in 1991. The movement originated when religious authorities and “traditional” elders established centers in various neighborhoods in Mogadishu to deal with the vacuum of power after the fall of the state. Since Shari‘a structures of authority and discourse were integral to the formation and functioning of the centers, they became known as Shari‘a courts. My work on the Shari‘a courts intervenes in the literature on …

Race, Sexuality, And Masculinity On The Down Low, Stephen Kochenash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a so-called post-racial America, a new gay identity has flourished and come into the limelight. However, in recent years, researchers have concluded that not all men who have sex with other men (MSM) self-identify as gay, most noticeably a large population of Black men. It is possible that a tainted history of Black enslavement in this country that is inextricably linked with ideas of space, surveillance, subversion, and survival inform a Black male’s self-identification as being “on the down low” (DL). This begs the question: What does mainstream society view as gay-ness and how is the DL constructed …

Low Perceived Control Over Health Is Associated With Lower Treatment Uptake In A High Mortality Population Of Bolivian Forager-Farmers, Sarah Alami, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Indigenous people worldwide suffer from higher rates of morbidity and mortality than neighboring populations. In addition to having limited access to public health infrastructure, indigenous people may also have priorities and health perceptions that deter them from seeking adequate modern healthcare. Here we propose that living in a harsh and unpredictable environment reduces motivation to pursue deliberate, costly action to improve health outcomes. We assess whether variation in Health Locus of Control (HLC), a psychological construct designed to capture self-efficacy with respect to health, explains variation in treatment uptake behavior among Tsimane Amerindians (N=690; age range: 40–89 years; 55.8% female; …

Analysis Of Endocrine Response To Perceived Difference In Cross-Cultural Interactions, Carole Woolford-Hunt, Marlene Murray, Tevni Grajales Guerra, Kristina Beenken-Johnson

Faculty Publications

We live in a world where awareness of ethnic and cultural diversity is an ever increasing reality. Business and education turn to the social sciences to inform them about how to manage and optimize cross-cultural interactions. Although much research has been done on the impact of cross-cultural interactions on a wide range of variables, one less researched area is the endocrine response to cross-cultural interactions. In this study we set out to investigate the endocrine response to cross cultural interactions and the impact of these interactions on perceived differences. To do so we measured the pre and post levels of …

Grieving Behaviors During Parental Bereavement In Western Societies, Victor A. Luna

Theses and Dissertations

This paper will examine the grieving behaviors of parents who have lost a child. More specifically, it will discuss how grieving behaviors that are deemed appropriate depend on one’s gender, and how societal norms discourage behaviors that are deemed inappropriate. The focus will be on industrialized Western societies.

From Invisibility To Liminality: The Imposition Of Identity Among Non-Federally Recognized Tribes Within The Federal Acknowledgment Process, Christopher M. Drake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the imposition of a “liminal” identity among non-federally recognized American Indian tribes pursuing federal recognition through the Federal Acknowledgment Process. By requiring a tribe to simultaneously appear as both intelligible/similar to and distinctive/different from American society, the “liminal” identity fails to be maintained, barring a tribe’s recognition.

Insider Movements Among Muslims: Reflections On Their History, Identity, And Theology, Richard Doss

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"The enormity of the task still facing Christian missions is almost incomprehensible. Nearly 4.1 billion people are still in need of the gospel (Johnstone 2014:65). In some ways, the task of reaching the unreached is most difficult among Muslims. With nearly 1.3 billion adherents, Islam represents a significant challenge to the spread of the gospel. Or does it? Given the complex nature of the relationship between Christianity and Islam, could it be that the inability of Christian missionaries to shed the social, cultural, and political trappings of the West and Christendom have limited the effectiveness of the gospel? Might the …

Ethnography Of The Library: Milner Library, Andrew Bartolone, Ana Fochesatto, Duncan Losacco, Scott Lambert

ISU Ethnography of the University Initiative

No abstract provided.

Rural Sense: Value, Heritage, And Sensory Landscapes: Developing A Design-Oriented Approach To Mapping For Healthier Landscapes, Judith Van Der Elst, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Landscape design needs a novel value system centred on human experience of the landscape rather than simply on economic value. Design-oriented research allows us to shift the focus from mechanistic paradigms towards new sense-making approaches that value both the sensual and the cognitive in human experience. To move in this direction, we investigate cultural and natural aspects of sensory experience in rural landscapes, arguing that: (1) rural (non-urban) regions offer diverse sensory experiences for optimising human health; and (2) spatial interconnectedness between rural and urban areas means that healthy rural regions are critical for urban development. Our key argument is …

More Pipeclay Beads From Norton St Philip, England, Marek Lewcun

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

During the 17th century, Norton St Philip was a major production center for clay tobacco pipes. As a sideline, they also made such items as wig curlers, gaming pieces, and beads. A previous article discussed six beads recovered from pipe-making wasters in fields adjoining the village. Here are described an additional five specimens, each with different decoration.

Sourcing A Unique Man-In-The-Moon Bead, Thomas Stricker, Karlis Karklins, Mark Mangus, Thaddeus Watts

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Chemical analysis of a unique black bead found in Turkey that depicts the four phases of the moon reveals it most likely originated in the Fichtelgebirge region of Bavaria at some time prior to the early 19th century.

Glass Beads In Iron-Age And Early-Modern Taiwan: An Introduction, Kuan-Wen Wang

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Archaeological research has revealed a long history of glass bead exchange and use in Taiwan, yet it has seldom been discussed in the literature. This paper provides an introduction to this exchange from the Iron Age (ca. late 1st millennium BC – mid-2nd millennium AD) to the early modern period (ca. AD 1600-1900) by revisiting the archaeological and historical records. It is suggested that changes in bead styles and chemical compositions over time reveal the transition of bead supply in Taiwan, which further reflects two broad phases of bead trade: Phase I) the earlier involvement of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific …

Florida Cut-Crystal Beads In Ontario, Karlis Karklins, Alicia Hawkins, Heather Walder, Scott Fairgrieve

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Faceted rock-crystal beads attributed to ca. 1550-1630 have been found at a number of North American archaeological sites, principally in the southeastern United Sates where they are generally termed Florida Cut-Crystal. Finds further to the north are rare. It was, therefore, of great interest to discover three different examples in the bead collections of two 17th-century Huron-Wendat sites in southern Ontario: Le Caron (BeGx-15) and Warminster (BdGv-1). The beads are investigated using a multi-disciplinary approach in an effort to determine how and where they were produced.