Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Latina Mothering As Diaspora Mission : The Role Of Latina Immigrant Mothers In The Religious Identity Formation Of The Next Generation, Rebekah R.S. Clapp

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Fairness Model Of Legal Institutions, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Books and Chapters

If any group is to endure over time, individual frustrations, while inevitable, must be usually experienced as acceptable, or at least tolerable. Failing that, little would prevent the losers in these conflicts from leaving or revolting, which would be cumulatively debilitating to the group. As opposed to holding law’s job to impose order and police infringers, the second approach suggests that finding the balance between group and individual desires is the ‘major difficulty of all law—the problem of really getting a fresh start in relations between litigants after disposition of a trouble-case. This is the problem not only of keeping …

The Impact Of Museum Curation On Community And Identity: Japanese Culture At The Japanese American National Museum And The Huntington Library's Japanese Gardens, Cate Hasler

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores Japanese culture and its representation in two museum sites, the Japanese American National Museum, and the Huntington Library's Japanese Gardens. It examines the history of the sites and the curation of exhibits to determine the impact on Japanese identity and community within the Los Angeles area. Through ethnographic interviews and research, this thesis concludes that museums can be locally embedded cultural processes, where the ideas of identity and community are contested, challenging the authoritative and top-down operations of a museum as a public institution.

Defining The Historical Significance Of Eatonville Memorial Gardens, Caroline Amein

Honors Program Theses

Eatonville, Florida is the first all-Black incorporated town in the United States and the hometown of Zora Neale Hurston. This remarkable town is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eatonville’s historic cemetery, however, is left out. This thesis examines why Eatonville Memorial Gardens was considered ineligible for the National Register and collects data to submit a new nomination. Through ethnographic interviews and archaeological and archival data, this work explores what historic Black cemeteries mean to their communities as well as our shared history. This work also hopes to answer the question of what is lost when a cemetery …

A Growing Dome In The Clouds Of Everest: An Applied Anthropology Project In The High Himalaya, Gary Mark Lesley

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Presented is a novel approach to addressing food insecurity within a remote indigenous community situated in the high Himalaya of Nepal. The village faces challenges in accessing fresh, affordable produce, particularly during harsh winter seasons. This threatens the community's food sovereignty and adversely affects the stability of the Sir Edmund Hillary School, a site of historical and cultural importance. Through the integration of indigenous knowledge and technological advancements, this APP details a strategy to augment local agriculture, drawing on applied anthropological methodologies. The genesis of this project stems from the creative leadership of the school principal and his vision for …

Mediating Authenticity: An Ethnographic Portrait Of Experience At U.S. Popular Music Festivals, Elizabeth Navarra Varnado

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This ethnographic study of U.S. popular music festivals subverts the impression of festivals as strictly ‘presentational’ live music events by utilizing a nuanced approach that is grounded in ethnographic fieldwork, historical analysis, and participant interviews.

Interlocutors, drawn from the author’s personal network of festival attendees, musicians, and promoters, reflect on “particularly positive festival moments,” the social and emotional benefits of festivals, and the corporeality of festival aesthetics. Discourse and published media play a vital role in festival participants’ perception of the festival field and their place within it; therefore, this study draws inspiration from the tripartite focus of iconic festival …

Feminist Geography: Impact And Inclusion In Geographical Research, Michael Atuahene Djan

Nebraska Anthropologist

Feminist theories have significantly influenced the field of geography, challenging traditional notions of objectivity and shedding light on the intricate relationships between place, gender, and society. The emergence of feminist geography has been crucial in advocating for the inclusion of women's perspectives, countering historical marginalization in academic debates. This systematic review aims to summarize and assess the impact of feminist theory on geography, exploring topics such as gendered spaces, feminist methodologies, and the integration of women's voices in research. Utilizing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Checklist, the study employed a thematic analysis of secondary sources. …

Hit Unmute And Press Record: Developing A Young Adult Mental Health Podcast, Arielle Hernandez Lyons

Student Research – Stevenson Center

No abstract provided.

Social Determinants Of Health: Evaluation Using Rates Of Vision Screening And Follow-Up Examinations, Madeline Dyer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Vision care is essential to the quality of life of young children, impacting them over the course of their lives. Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) affect the likelihood of a child having access to appropriate care specified by the Bright Futures. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of SDOH on the completion of vision screening and the rate of follow-up with an eye care provider when applicable. In addition, rates of instrument-based vision screening and recommended ophthalmology follow-up were compared with COI, a metric assessing the quality of resources available and the conditions that matter for …

“Muchakang Pangkalawakan”: Queering Engagements With Bakla Of The Philippine Tropics, Artemio P. Millo

Sociology & Anthropology Department Faculty Publications

The performance of participants in the Miss Gay Muchakang Pangkalawan [Miss Ugly Gay Universe] in Quiapo, Manila, reflects characteristics of the flamboyant and effeminate bakla. However, these stereotypical depictions may not always be consistent with how participants view themselves. This study argues that an introspective understanding of how participants make sense of their identity work engendered by ever-turning tropes reveals slippages that can liberate them from existing oppressive stereotypes. By utilizing personal narrative and ethnographic reflexivity, this study deconstructs the participants’ performances, revealing identity-making that may reinforce or resist dominant discourses on the bakla under which these narratives are …

The Unseen River And Infrastructural Silences: The Santa Ana River And The Ontology Of Floods, Cooper Lennon Crane

Pomona Senior Theses

This article discusses the history of land development and infrastructure along the Santa Ana River in Southern California. The river plays a significant role in the landscape of many of Southern California’s cities and urban geographies but has been relatively underdiscussed in literature. This article approaches the river using a combination of historic ethnography and sociocultural theory to unpack the meanings of the infrastructure of the river and its relation to Southern Californians. From these meanings, the article places the river in context with environmental politics, urban development, and water management issues in California today. The article argues that the …

Lingering Presence: (T)Racing Chinese Community In The Borderlands, Reia Li

Pomona Senior Theses

By the mid-1900s, although there were only around 700 Chinese people in Tucson, Arizona, there were over 100 Chinese-owned markets. These small grocery stores were located in Mexican American barrios and served mainly Mexican, Indigenous, and Black people. Starting from these stores and moving to other spaces important to the Chinese community, this work explores race as a spatial process and space as a racialized project. Drawing on anthropology, geography, and Asian/American studies, this thesis (t)races the transformations of Chinese homes, grocery stores, and suburban spaces throughout the 20th century, examining the racial meanings that these places both emerged from …

Bearing Witness: Ancient Dna Analysis And The Dynamics Of Food Procurement In A Historic Missoula Chinese Community, Sarah Elizabeth Grenfell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In 2019, construction of a brewery called Cranky Sam Public House in downtown Missoula, Montana provided an unexpected opportunity to recover and preserve late nineteenth and early twentieth century archaeological evidence of a Missoula neighborhood that included a Chinese temple, a Chinese store, and dwellings with Chinese residents. The area, like many urban landscapes in the American West, also included a restricted, or red-light district. Teams of volunteer University of Montana graduate and undergraduate students conducted on-the-spot salvage archaeology monitoring and were able to recover a sample of artifacts and ecofacts from this once-bustling part of Missoula. The objectives of …

Recovering The Nium Trail: A Journey Through Collaboration And Multidisciplinary Mapping, Crystal West

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study explores and maps an ancient, historic, and contemporary travel corridor that follows the San Joaquin River in the Central Sierra Nevada of California. It is called the Nium or People’s Trail by the North Fork Mono Tribe, the French Trail in historic archives, and the Mammoth Trail on contemporary US Forest Service maps. When I agreed to the request by Chairman Ron Goode of the North Fork Mono Tribe to map the Nium Trail, I was saying yes to a different, more broad and inclusive approach than I had previously taken as an archaeologist documenting archaeological sites and …

Using Ethnobotanicals For Language Preservation And Cultural Connections, Riza James Mcclurkin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The creation and implementation of interpretive ethnobotanical trails can be used to help preserve and teach about the use of native, and in some instances, non-native plants that were brought into use, both historically and in present day by Indigenous peoples. As examples, I will use my work assisting on the Reserve Street Trail in Missoula, Montana and the Pioneer Park Campground Interpretive Trail on the Colville National Forest in Washington. The Reserve Street Trail is still in its beginning phases but has the goal to cultivate plants identified as being culturally significant to Indigenous peoples and to create trail …

A Narrative Map Of Fort Missoula: Silence, Stillness And Death In Living Cultural Memory, Daniel A. Goldhamer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fort Missoula is a rare site of history, memory, and narrative. This project seeks to trace the complex web of identities and relationalities at the Fort through a narrative map: a method that combines site-based ethnography and qualitative storytelling relying on first-person perspective. This methodological framework reveals that Fort Missoula’s distinct character lies in its role as a living archive of cultural memory, accessible through the past, present, and future narratives of its places and spaces. Engaging with the theories of Foucault (1972), de Certeau (1984), and Low (2017), the narrative map of Fort Missoula is a work that investigates …

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 …

(Agri)Cultural Activism: The Role Of Pgaz K’Nyau Karen Youth In Sustaining Rotational Farming In Thailand, Mitchell Rigert

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this thesis is to shed light on youth group activism in an Indigenous Pgaz k’Nyau Karen community in Thailand. These youth are seeking rights and recognition to sustain their subsistence-based practice of swidden agriculture in the context of state forest policy officially banning such practices. I draw on over two months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in Thailand. I argue that the youth use a variety of strategies to render swidden agriculture visible and legible to the state and public in the interest of sustaining the practice, which they see as an essential part of their communal identity. …

Re-Feminizing The Divine: Understanding The Cultural Constructs Of Gender And Sexuality In A Church-Based Christian Community, Cameron K. Thomas

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Historically, Christianity has sought to maintain rigid separation between men and women. Christianity often views women as secondary to men, particularly in relation to authority under Jesus Christ. These ideals have led to the restrictions of rights and roles of people who choose not to adhere to strictly defined or enforced gender roles. For this ethnography, I examined one church community; namely Barbwire Baptist Church in northern Illinois and how its members used scripture and doctrine beyond simply worship to reinforce norms and expectations of self and others regarding gender and sexuality. I draw on scholarship in gender studies, and …

High-Risk Individuals And Naloxone Use: Implications For Thn Programs In Rural Appalachian Communities, Victor Garcia, Lisa Mccann, Erick Lauber, Christian Vaccaro, Melissa Swauger, Alex Daniel Heckert

Journal of Appalachian Health

Introduction: Take-home naloxone (THN) is being made available across rural Appalachia to curb opioid overdose fatalities. Despite this initiative, some opioid users do not possess naloxone, and if they do, do not administer it to others.

Purpose: Research findings on risk factors that contribute to opioid overdose are presented. These factors, identified in a sample of 16 overdose cases, are (1) early onset age of opioid use; (2) progressive opioid use; (3) a transition from pain medication to heroin and fentanyl; (4) fears of being arrested at a naloxone intervention if first responders are contacted, and (5) limited knowledge of …

The School Of SharīʿA Judges: SharīʿA Courts’ Reform And Legal Modernization In Egypt (1907-1927), Yamen Nouh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studied the history of the school of sharīʿa judges (1907-1927) as an essential episode of the reform of Sharīʿa courts in Egypt in the early 20th century. The thesis studied the school in connection with the broader context of legal modernization of the Egyptian legal system. The study explored the institutional, pedagogical, and legal aspects of the reform that the school advocated. The study analyzed the impact of the school’s pedagogy on the practice of the Islamic judiciary and the theoretical conception of Sharīʿa. The study used a significant yet understudied historical source: the judicial press. A comparative …

Narrating The Act Of Truth In The Jataka And Avadana Reliefs At Candi Borobudur, So Tju Shinta Lee

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This paper analyzes the Act of Truth in nine Jataka and Avadana stories depicted in Candi Borobudur, Central Java, aiming to identify its key factors and purpose in the allegories. Through content analysis and comparative analysis, the study finds that merit, right speech, and intention are the primary contributing factors to the Act of Truth. A beneficial Act of Truth involves taking a firm stance on truth, driven by compassion to benefit others and attain one’s highest potential. The findings suggest that the acts in these stories form a part of the bodhisattva’s path to achieving perfect awakening. This study …

Introduction To Lgbtq+ Studies, Allison P. Brown, Deborah P. Amory

Milne Library

Introduction to LGBTQ+ Studies was a collaborative, multi-year open textbook project that engaged faculty authors, librarians, a university press, and OER professionals. The resulting textbook takes a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of LGBTQ+ issues that helps students grasp core concepts through a variety of different perspectives. The text offers accessible, academically sound information on a wide range of topics, including history, culture, and Queer Theory; an exploration of LGBTQ+ relationships, families, parenting, health, and education; and how to conduct research on LGBTQ+ topics. This case study will cover the project’s transformation through years of development, including engaging a large …

From Margins To Museums: Tracing The Evolution Of Representation For Contemporary African Artists In The United States, Victoria Mouraux Durand-Ruel

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on the art community in the United States and the evolution of representation for Contemporary African artists. By analyzing the careers and artistic contributions of Omar Ba, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, the study explores the concept of artistic agency according to which African artists have more control over the production and distribution of their works.

The research begins with a comprehensive literature review, investigating the historical contexts that have shaped the art landscape, including the impact of colonization, decolonization, and globalization. The study reveals how these …

The Overture! Then Is Here-And-Now: Hindsight Is Twenty, Twenty?, Elena Kydd

Music Therapy Theses

My existence and presence as a Black woman and graduate scholar in music therapy have allowed me to share my experience of racial trauma and oppression in the hallways of GCSU’s music therapy program. Autoethnography is the method I use to write my thesis on the relationships between Blackness, pedagogy, and music therapy. Thus, I perform an evocative autoethnographic study that allows me to share my personal experience of racial trauma and oppression within the culture of music therapy and to critique the larger social structures of whiteness that disenfranchise and dominate me and other Black student music therapists (SMTs). …

At Noon: (Post)Nihilistic Temporalities In The Age Of Machine-Learning Algorithms That Speak, Talha Issevenler

Publications and Research

This article recapitulates and develops the attempts in the Nietzschean traditions to address and overcome the proliferation of nihilism that Nietzsche predicted to unfold in the next 200 years (WP 2). Nietzsche approached nihilism not merely as a psychology but as a labyrinthic and pervasive historical process whereby the highest values of culture and founding assumptions of philosophical thought prevented the further flourishing of life. Therefore, he thought nihilism had to be encountered and experienced on many, often opposing, fronts to be fully consumed and left behind. Thus, just as Nietzsche captured the subtle reinventions of nihilism in new forms …

Unraveling The Tapestry Of Indigenous Maize In North America: A Case Study Of Pawnee Ancestral Maize, Kahheetah Barnoskie

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Studies on Indigenous ancestral landrace maize in North America has significant historical and scientific importance. Indigenous peoples, such as the Pawnee people, have been cultivating maize for thousands of years, resulting in diverse varieties adapted to their local environments. This study aims to deepen the knowledge of Indigenous maize by examining specific varieties from the Pawnee, including a comparative analysis of the genetic makeup through DNA sequencing. This study used Genotyping by Target Sequencing (GBTS) method to examine the genetic variation and characteristics among the multiple varieties the Pawnee people once grew historically, providing valuable information about the evolutionary history …

Where One Puts Wood On The Fire: The Political Economy Of P’Urépecha Urban Neighborhoods At The Site Of Angamuco, Michoacán, Kyle Ryan Urquhart

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to understand the political and economic relationships in the organization and use of neighborhood public space at the archaeological site of Angamuco in Michoacán, Mexico. Ethnohistoric sources describe multiple distinct social classes for the P’urépecha people at the time of European contact, but they are ambiguous about the exact political and economic relationships among them. There is some description of how these different interest groups articulated at the level of the city-state, but there is not much information on the internal dynamics of neighborhood or district-level subdivisions of the city-state. The discovery of the remains of a …

Agency In Learning And E-Learning Through The Lens Of Disability And Inclusivity., Marta Martin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the analysis of ethnographic, qualitative data collected from students and their stakeholders at the University of Louisville, this thesis examines the experiences of students with disabilities in spaces of higher education, particularly virtual learning spaces. This research has illuminated systemic gaps in disability resources and accessibility within the landscape of higher education, restricting the agency of students with disabilities and their stakeholders.

Critical Regionality & Alternative Pedagogies In Eastern Kentucky., Zachary Shelton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the history of several Appalachian educational institutions, their approaches, and how that may influence contemporary Eastern Kentucky students (the Appalachian region in Kentucky). Eastern Kentucky today suffers from high rates of poverty and low rates of educational attainment, with a postsecondary attainment rate less than half of the nation’s average. This study proposes looking at Eastern Kentucky’s educational history and proposing ways to alter the current standardized pedagogies in secondary schools to cultivate higher rates of academic interest and motivation. I approach Eastern Kentucky’s complex history with the institution of education and its contemporary implications through a …