Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

The Solidarity Manifesto: A New Network For Future Change, Sofia Calicchio

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Colonialism is a scheme of standpoint; colonizer versus colonized, West versus East, good versus bad. When put in the foreground, the value of what we see heavily relies on our perspective and knowledge. When learning to dissect, deconstruct, and decolonize spaces, we need to start utilizing decolonial thought as an historical tool rather than a true depiction of reality. Decolonizing spaces and recognizing Western colonization practices means challenging the normative structures in colonial history, thus breaking the cycle of oppression through building community and fostering solidarity. Drawing on theories exploring access to public spheres, representation, protection, permanence, cultural displacement and …

Only 2000 Psi Of Bottom-Time Air: A Case Study Of Diveheart Participant Social Capital, Kirk J. Williams

Nonprofit and NGO Studies Student Projects

Social capital development for many, but not all, is a relatively organic process, and as social creatures, people work together to reach collective goals. The defined interactions related to the practices of societal norms, taboos, and broad cultural acceptance are constructs of communal decisions lending deep credence to the value of any number of the social capital definitions. However, opportunities are not always readily available to individuals living with disabilities, so they can and do get left out to varied degrees. With unsurprising results, previous research relied on comparing survey data from individuals with and without disabilities to identify possible …

“Nails Done, Hair Done, Everything Did!”: Consumption And The Creation Of Black Feminine Selves, Simone Reid

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how race and gender shape the meaning that Black women associate with their beauty consumption practices and spending. Much of the existing feminist scholarship on beauty has been postfeminist, privileging the concept of agency and empowerment over structural realities. However, the materialist feminist frame has more utility to address how beauty operates within the lives of Black women as a form of distinct gendered racial oppression. The concept of aesthetic capital emerges from the materialist feminist perspective and suggests that beauty demands the investment of considerable economic resources and can deliver economic returns. Despite this, aesthetic capital …

Dungeons & Dragons: Fractals Of The Human Self, Katie Anderson

Honors Theses

Dungeons & Dragons at its core is roleplay based storytelling, which implies the idea that the game is a work of fiction. While the world of Iad and the Free States of Tarvan does not exist on planet earth, the experiences and emotions felt by the players and their characters within the world are very much real. Players use extensions of themselves, their characters, to interact with the world around them, forging relationships and new lines of fate and destiny. Characters are fractals of their out of game personas, attached to one’s base personality and expanding outwards. The development of …

“... I Thought You Were Black .” An Autoethnographic Exploration Of The Fragmentation Of Identity And Culture., Sherley Arias-Pimentel

Honors Theses

"If anthropology doesn't break your heart, then you're not doing it right." - Ruth Behar Writing this thesis has been a trying experience. Within these pages, you will find the therapeutic expedition of a caramel-colored, Spanish-speaking, second-generation black Dominican woman from Newark, NJ who took advantage of this research opportunity to better understand the racial and ethnic parts of her identity which have caused her much turmoil and low self-esteem. Centering myself, my identity, and my story in this research and grappling with the complexities of the subject matter has been an exhausting yet liberating experience. I have contemplated many …

China's Public Diplomacy Philosophy, Logan Webb

ATU Scholars Symposium

China has become a giant in the globalized world in such a short period of time. This led me to the research question, “What is China’s public diplomacy philosophy?” Using a textual analysis of major geopolitical events that China is involved in (The Belt and Road Initiative, the South China Sea dispute, Uyghur imprisonment, and the Hong Kong government takeover) and the history of China since the Chinese Civil War, it becomes apparent that the country uses the concept of hard and soft power for its public diplomacy. If a country is not receptive to China or its intended actions, …

An Exploration Of The Experience Of Leisure Among Adults Who Immigrated To The United States From Latin American Countries, Violeta Chavez Serrano, Jazminne Orozco Arteaga, Karen Mccarthy

Spring 2023 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

Kaplan (1975) defined leisure as a self determined activity that is pleasant and allows for personal growth. Although the diversity among the population in the United States has continued to increase over the past years (United States Census Bureau, 2019) the amount of leisure research related to race and ethnicity is relatively limited. According to Floyd et al., (2008) only 4.5% of published articles highlighted the impact of race and ethnicity on leisure. Exploring how personal context influences occupational engagement, by examining a specific group's experience engaging in an occupation can help further develop the understanding of how personal factors …

Real-Time Mapping With Global Positioning Systems Devices In A Mixed Methods Toolkit For Studying Social And Environmental Change, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

To explore the process through which people develop knowledge about socioecological change, this article describes a mixed-methods toolkit containing a technique for making maps in real time while moving through landscapes. The quantitative component of the toolkit is grounded in ethnobiologists’ embeddedness in place-based communities and harnesses the power of global positioning systems (GPS). As GPS-wielding ethnobiologists engage in participatory mapping by moving through landscapes with their research collaborators, we can use handheld devices and simultaneously communicate with satellites in outer space to produce maps in real time. Within the existing, large inventory of ethnobiological methods, using handheld GPS devices …

Mental Health In Transnational Contexts: Reconsidering Conceptualizations, Coping Strategies, And Racism Through The Narratives Of Refugees Resettled In The United States, Ryeora Choe, Ryeora Choe

Sociology ETDs

This dissertation examines refugees’ mental health conceptualizations in their resettled contexts, their views on Western mental health services, and their perspectives on how changing experiences related to discrimination affect their mental health. Despite refugees’ social and cultural contexts changing multiple times, little is known about their views on and interactions with the dominant biomedical model of mental health in their country of resettlement and how their hybrid identities and experiences embedded in multiple locations affect their understanding of mental health and healing practices. A transnational framework emphasizing continuity between various locations and “in-between the designations of identity” across borders, and …

Environmental And Social Factors Associated With High Chronic Kidney Disease Mortality Rates In Municipalities Of Guatemala: An Ecological Study Of Municipal-Level Mortality Data, Alejandro Cerón

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this study was to determine the association between social and environmental indicators and high mortality rates from chronic kidney disease (CKD) in municipalities of Guatemala. An ecological study of municipal-level factors associated with CKD mortality in Guatemala was conducted. Crude mortality rates were calculated for the 2009–2019 period for each of the country’s 340 municipalities, by gender and age groups. Municipal-level social and environmental indicators were used as independent variables. Linear regression was used for bivariate and multivariate analysis. A total of 28,723 deaths from CKD were documented for the 2009–2019 period. Average crude mortality rate for …

Coping Mechanisms In Rural Healthcare, Lindsey Bushman

Student Research Symposium

I recently moved to a small, rural town to work in healthcare. I have noticed a drastic difference in patient relationships when compared to bigger cities. The healthcare workers in these small areas tend to know the majority of patients they treat personally. I interviewed 30 healthcare workers with direct patient contact from towns of less than 3,000 people to discover their coping methods. How do they keep coming back to work in this environment?

Mandala: On The Logos Of Place, Michael Schwartz

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Suddenly, during the night, one awakens while dreaming – aware that this is a dream. The “rules” of action, reaction, and of form itself are not that of the waking state – one might leap in the air and fly, transform one’s body into any number of forms, reach up in the sky and grab the sun and clouds, pulling them to the side, bringing forth a canopy of moon and stars. The entire scene, in the lucid dream, has a heightened sense of radiance and joy, vitality and freedom.

Imagine this sense of lucid dreaming is occurring right here …

“They’Re Still Trying To Wrap Their Head Around Forever”: An Anatomy Of Hope For Spinal Cord Injury Patients, William A. Lucas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation draws on ethnographic data to investigate the nature of spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation in Central Florida, using participant observation and interview data to understand how people with SCI (pwSCI) conceptualize their own disabilities after experiencing such radical alterations in their subjectivities. Using case studies and ethnographic vignettes, it argues that the extreme double binds in which pwSCI find themselves (where they are personally ordinarily disabled and socially extraordinarily novel; and where they are enabled resources to pursue “hopeful” therapy modalities while being designated as hopelessly disabled) is further polarized by the various legislative regimes of truth in …

Remembering The Future: Wild Time And The Cosmic Imagination, Arabella Thaïs

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Entropy – the Second Law of Thermodynamics – is generally held to prove “time’s arrow”: that time is linear and unidirectional, and that the universe is following this trajectory. This paper presents a preliminary exposition into a new, integral ontology of time in which time is hyper-dimensional, non-linear and flows in both directions. This is supported through trans-disciplinary praxis at the intersection of aesthetics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory. The metaphysical implications of reverse causality are investigated, and confer a teleological universe that is coherent with the paradigm of an intelligent, self-realising cosmos in which beauty is a fundamental …

Path To Utopia, Leila Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

The way to survive in the Anthropocene and transform the world is to end capitalism. Humanity must stop commodifying everything and reifying its value for consumption for the sake of power and survival. The way to do this is through love. This is an inquiry into methods and processes for confronting and transforming the planetary destruction caused by capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism among other phenomena. This paper challenges the idea that it is unrealistic to believe that love can change the world. It posits that loving is caring and caring is the way humanity will shift consciousness so that capitalism …

The Hillman Site (16ebr60): A Glimpse Into Pre-Contact South Louisiana, Brandy Kerr

LSU Master's Theses

Situated along the north bank of Bayou Manchac lies the pre- and post-contact Hillman site, 16EBR60. First discovered in 1960 by the landowner, George Menefee, the site was subsequently investigated by Louisiana State University archaeologist Dr. William Haag, who pronounced the site a Marksville village, due to the large number of lithic tools recovered from the site. Subsequent investigations at the site by Surveys Unlimited Research Associates, Inc. (SURA) in 2021 confirmed the Marksville component of the site and found occupation continued into the succeeding Troyville and Coles Creek cultures. The principal research questions asked include: (1) How does the …

We Would Be Friends: Fans, Musicians And Social Media, Cassidy Byrnes

INSPIRE Student Research and Engagement Conference

With social media being one of the most prominent forms of communication today, it has become a pillar in the way our society functions. Social media has completely transformed the way we interact with people we know and with people we don’t. Celebrities have taken social media in stride and are using it as part of their brand to communicate with fans, which creates a very interesting dynamic. Musicians and their fans appear to communicate regularly through social media, so fans are doing more than consuming music, they are interacting with other fans and their favorite musicians. Fans, through social …

Blending Reproductive Justice Into General Education Courses, Ophra Leyser-Whalen, Adelle D. Monteblanco

Feminist Pedagogy

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, there is still work to be done by reproductive justice advocates. As educators, we can integrate reproductive justice topics into our existing courses or we can create new courses. In this paper we briefly define reproductive justice and provide some learning resources for educators. The bulk of our paper describes our special topics Introduction to Sociology: Sociology of Reproduction course as an example and potential model for educators as we urge them to think about how they might integrate reproductive justice into their existing courses and texts, such that students …

An Ethnographic Study Of Student Eating Habits At Parkland, Jordan Goodhart, Aaron Triplett, Tyler Thomas, Logan Haake, Prechethan Kesireddy

Ethnographies of Parkland Student Life

Our research question was broad as we chose to examine the eating habits of Parkland students and how it may affect their performance in the classroom. We also chose to focus on how Parkland students’ eating/snacking habits have changed since being at Parkland compared to high school or wherever they snacked before becoming college students. From our cultural anthropology course, we understand that food and eating habits are part of the “everyday actions that reflect cultural ideas” and can be studied to define the identity of a group (Miller Griffith and Marion 2020). Our research will reflect part of the …

Leadership Prototypes And Cultural Variations Amongst Hmong Men And Women Working Professionals In Minnesota, Ying K. Yang

PhD in Organizational Leadership

Since arriving in the United States in 1975 as immigrants, the Hmong have faced many cultural challenges and were forced to adapt quickly. In 2011, the Hmong lost their last officially recognized leader, General Vang Pao. With the Hmong assimilating to the American culture, it is unclear whether their leadership prototype has changed due to cultural variation. This qualitative phenomenological study aimed to examine leadership prototypes and cultural variation amongst working professional Hmong men and women in Minnesota. Minnesota was chosen because it is home to the largest Hmong population in the United States. This study targeted understanding the lived …

Grabbing The Paycheck: A Glimpse Into The Modern Economic Livelihoods Of Xe Máy Grab Drivers In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Maddie Davis

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Woven into the very fabric of urban life in Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam is commuting via motorcycle (Vietnamese: xe máy). The versatility of xe máy can be witnessed in the surge of rush hour traffic, the shipment of a great variety and quantity of goods, and the crunch of people in order to get the whole family atop a single bike. Due to xe máy as the primary way much of the population gets around, Ho Chi Minh City’s transportation infrastructure and traffic patterns are highly conducive to this method of transit. Resulting from these favorable conditions, a multitude …

Belonging And Identity In Mustang: Lived Experiences, Social Identities, And Mobility Patterns Among Himalayan Peoples Of Nepal, Lauren Carter

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper delves into an immersive exploration and contemplation of a pivotal transformation unfolding in the heartland of Lower Mustang, Nepal. What began as an endeavor to channel my creative expression and unearth the diminishing world of yak herding soon necessitated a broader, more nuanced analysis of the profound changes sweeping across the region. This paper, mainly drawing upon the narratives of the inhabitants, seeks to portray the contemporary cultural and capital significance of yaks, as well as the various factors— climate change, outmigration, national policy discrepancies, conservation initiatives, and shifting cultural paradigms— that render specific patterns of movement increasingly …

College Misconceptions, Craig Ondevilla, Thalia Gonzalez, Aaron Saucedo, Alam Martinez

Ethnographies of Parkland Student Life

Researching a topic can never take the place of actually experiencing something, but you can find out a lot about a topic by looking at information online. You can’t research every aspect of college to be completely prepared, but you could still learn a lot so why isn’t the difficulty of adjusting to college a thing of the past? Our group chose to focus on college misconceptions because with so much information readily available online, we want to know what areas students still end up struggling with. We wanted to gain insights on how college students’ expectations of college compared …

Parkland Pathways Impact On The Student Body, Chase Belt, Blessing Omoniyi, Margaret Daniels, Taylor Blackwell

Ethnographies of Parkland Student Life

The goal of our group’s study was to find differences between Parkland Pathway students to Illinois and non Pathway students. We gathered information from students and faculty to observe and analyze the culture of the Pathway program from many perspectives.

An Ethnography Of Factors Leading Students To Choose Parkland, Dwayne Hubbard, Jaimee Hudson, David Schroeder, Jazmine Smith

Ethnographies of Parkland Student Life

Our research question was focused on why students choose Parkland, a community college, and not a 4-year institution where they can get a bachelors degree if their goal is the college degree. Looking at Parkland’s website and at studies on community colleges (Chen 2021) we found that most outsiders looking in would say that the flexibility of a two-year college is one of the most significant advantages. You can enroll in classes that fit into your schedule and you can also generally transfer your credits to a four-year university later if you decide to earn a bachelors degree. We wanted …

Exploring The Lived Experiences Of Parkland College Students, Yashvardhan Ahlawat, Michael Bellamy Iii, Ethan Derringer, Sheena Shane

Ethnographies of Parkland Student Life

Parkland College is home to roughly 10,000 students, coming from various backgrounds and cultures. This diversity in the student body, led us to focus this study on the types of resources offered to Parkland students. We believe that the college answers to the needs of its students and that looking at these resources in terms of academics and mental health can help identify the challenges that students deal with in their lived experiences.

Habitus in cultural anthropology is defined as the “dispositions, attitudes, or preferences” that a community uses to create an identity (Griffith and Marion 2020). By observing the …

Low Textbook Cost Syllabus For Ant 1001 (Cultural Anthropology), Maria Ramona Hart

Open Educational Resources

This course introduces students to the most significant concepts, methods, theories, debates, and possible applications of anthropology, including its four-field approach. This social and biological science is concerned with the processes that led to human evolution as well as with the diversity of cultures and the understanding of human experiences in the contemporary world. Anthropology also addresses society’s responses to the developments and challenges presented by what today is called “globalization”. The course will highlight societies’ pressing problems across cultures in case studies. Anthropology also aims at the understanding of humanity’s histories, struggles, developments, social production, and organizations. We will …

Humanity's Fate: An Analysis Of Speculative Human Evolution In Literary Fiction, Celeste T. Johnson

Senior Theses

Speculative human evolution is a literature subgenre of science fiction that explores the potential future of humanity and descendant species. Little academic research has been done to evaluate the scientific accuracy of works of this genre or assess the relationship between the themes presented in the works and our current world. Future human species and their evolutionary journeys were assessed for scientific possibility through comparison with current research in fields such as anthropology, evolutionary biology, and sociology. It was found that the species depicted in works of speculative human evolution were largely based in scientific accuracy and could possibly exist …

"Yes Mom, I'M Eating": Foodways Among An International Cohort, Tessa Sergile

Senior Theses

This research demonstrates different ways an individual’s habits around food change when exposed to new environments. It uses a combination of first-person sources and existing literature to draw conclusions surrounding the patterns of change in food preparation and consumption. A series of interviews were conducted and recorded to collect the information used in the thesis. The interview participants were college-aged students who had spent 6 < months in a foreign country. Most were participants of the IBEA cohort of South Carolina, a program where students around the world came together as a group to study at multiple universities over two years. Interviews were based on an interview guide that was refined throughout the process. There were a total of 33 interviews, with participants hailing from six different countries. The results of the interviews demonstrated that individuals exhibited varying types of behavior based on their own viewpoints towards cooking and meals, as well as the environment they were exposed to during meal preparation. This information was used to create a matrix to classify individuals based on their inspirations in cooking, and their use of home habits. The results lead to an additional category of “Unconscious Preparation” being proposed to the existing subcategories of food preparation. Further analysis of the data collected is also encouraged. This research adds depth to the present literature since it deals with individuals who are in foreign environments for the short-term, before moving away. Current literature mainly focuses on immigrants who move away from their homeland permanently (Brown and Mussell, 1984; Goode, Theophano and Curtis, 1984; Kalčik, 1984; Singer, 1984). It adds a new consideration to how we approach mealtimes when we are in a foreign environment and helps define different approaches that people may take when preparing food away from where they grew up. These findings could be used for other students studying abroad to better determine how their mealtime habits may change. There is also literature in Gottlieb and Rossi (1961), which describes similar effects in the military, whose style of travel and living is similar to that of an international student, meaning the results could also be interesting to the government when trying to plan for meals served to active-duty personnel abroad.

Biocultural Diversity Of Medicine In Tsum Valley, Ashira Weinreich

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Health is intrinsically connected to biodiversity in the Himalayan mountains of Tsum Valley. Medicinal plants have historically been integral to primary health care in this region. The main objectives of this paper are to explore the role of biocultural diversity on perceptions of health and to demonstrate that medicinal plant knowledge contributes to health sovereignty in times of cultural and environmental change. The nutritional and medicinal significance of plants were examined in the daily lives of villagers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted from April to May 2023. Preliminary results are analyzed ethnographically. Interviews and participant observation will provide a rich understanding …