Geography Commons^™

Man And Land: Competing Ontologies, Colonial Legacies, And The Quest For Food Sovereignty, Savannah Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Land is an ontological reality, which is at the center of different relationships to land. These relationships are situated in and a product of historical and spatial process that have an under lying power geometry. These different understandings of land tenure can create conflict when they intersect with competing interests in the same space. In Cameroon, this is currently the case in the form of large-scale land acquisitions, which often conflict with local communities as multinational corporations and local elites acquire land concessions with facilitation by the government in the name of development. This paper aims to understand this issue …

Geopolitical Relations: Uganda’S Role In The Development Of The River Nile, Jordan Williams

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examined the geopolitical relations of the Nile Basin by looking at Uganda as a case study, and analyzed Uganda’s use and development of the River Nile. It reviews the history of transboundary politics and treaties along with Uganda’s development projects in the region. The paper then discusses modern relations and agreements, with a focus on the most recent agreement between the Riparian States, the Cooperative Framework Agreement, and how Uganda fits into them with regards to their interest in hydropower development within their borders on the Nile. It then explores possible future developments on the river and the …

A Framework For Evaluating Stay Detection Approaches, Cornelia Schneider, Simon Gröchenig, Verena Venek, Michael Leitner, Siegfried Reich

Faculty Publications

In recent years, sensors of mobile devices are increasingly used in the research field of Active and Assisted Living (AAL), in particular, for movement analysis. Questions, such as where users typically stay (and for how long), where they have been or where they will most likely be going to, are of utmost importance for implementing smart AAL services. Due to the plethora of application scenarios and varying requirements, the challenge is the identification of an appropriate stay detection approach. Thus, this paper presents a comprehensive framework covering the entire process from data acquisition, pre-processing, parameterization to evaluation so that it …

Land Insecurity In Gulu, Uganda: A Clash Between Culture And Capitalism, Zachary Slotkin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper presents the causes and consequences of land insecurity in Gulu, Uganda. In order to address this important and often sensitive issue, the paper analyzes the role of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency and the government’s policy of forced encampment during the insurgency in contributing to land insecurity, causing widespread displacement among former internally displaced persons (IDPs). It further explores the importance of land ownership in providing economic productivity to rural landowners, as well as the nature of customary land tenure in Acholi culture and the government’s efforts to privatize communal land, to give a background on the …

Gis Spatial Analysis Of Arctic Settlement Patterns: A Case Study In Northwest Alaska, Justin Andrew Junge

Dissertations and Theses

In northwest Alaska, archaeologists hypothesize that environmental variability was a major factor in both growing coastal population density, with large aggregated villages and large houses, between 1000 and 500 years ago (ya), and subsequent decreasing population density between 500 ya and the contact era. After 500 ya people are thought to have dispersed to smaller settlements with smaller house sizes in coastal areas, and perhaps, upriver. This settlement pattern was identified through research at four site locations over 30 years ago. The changing geographic distribution of sites, associated settlement size, and house size has not been examined in detail. A …

Yellowing The Logarithm: How Money Solved The Problem Of Freedom, Neil S. Agarwal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is on the historical development of a co-constitutive relationship between money as the form of appearance of value and race as the form of appearance of human difference. It demonstrates this relationship through a study of experiments with monetary value in eighteenth-century British America. At a time when Bank of England notes circulated primarily among merchants and within London, colonial freeholders issued paper currencies through representative assemblies and posited a link between this enterprise and the well-being of a larger provincial community within which their bills would circulate. I show how their experiments provided a means for creole …

Thule Iron Use In The Pre-Contact Arctic, Eileen Colligan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the use of iron by the Thule people, a Neoeskimo culture that lived in the North American Arctic between approximately 1000 AD and 1400 ̶ 1500 AD. The study takes a pan-Arctic perspective to bring together research that has usually been done on a more-limited geographical scale. This viewpoint shows the Thule culture from a view that corresponds to their world.

The study focuses on: (1) revisions in the accepted chronology of the Thule and how these have affected the explanations for the Thule Migration from Alaska to Greenland; (2) new understandings about the iron that was …

Some Hispanic And Latino Landscapes Of New Orleans, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Landscape-Scale Geophysics At Tel Shimron, Jezreel Valley, Israel, Rachel Grap

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetometry were used at Tel Shimron, an archaeological site in Israel’s Jezreel Valley. GPR primarily measures electric properties while magnetometry measures magnetic properties, making them complementary methods for subsurface prospection. Magnetometry can be collected and processed quickly, making it an ideal landscape-scale reconnaissance tool. It takes more time to collect, process, and interpret GPR data, but the result is a higher resolution dataset. In addition, GPR often works better than magnetometry in desert environments such as the Jezreel Valley. Conventional wisdom suggests that GPR should not be used as a landscape-scale reconnaissance tool unless there is …

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.

Examining The Use Of Amazon's Mechanical Turk For Edge Extraction Of The Occlusal Surface Of Fossilized Bovid Teeth, Gregory J. Matthews, George K. Thiruvathukal, Maxwell P. Luetkemeier, Juliet K. Brophy

Faculty Publications

In order to reconstruct environments associated with Plio-Pleistocene hominins in southern Africa, researchers frequently rely upon the animals associated with the hominins, in particular, animals in the Family Bovidae. Bovids in southern Africa are typically identified by their teeth. However, identifying the taxon of a bovid tooth is challenging due to various biasing factors. Furthermore, inaccurate identification of fossil bovids can have significant consequences on the reconstructed paleoenvironment. Recent research on the classification of bovid fossil teeth has relied on using elliptical Fourier analysis to summarize the shape of the outline of the occlusal surface of the tooth and the …

Amazonia In The Anthropocene: Peoples, Soils, Plants, Forests, John Ben Soileau

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

A Few Days With Bill Vickers: Quietly Advancing Indigenous Rights, Ted Macdonald

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

The Political Man As A Sick Animal: On The “Ideology Of Kisêdjê Political Leadership”, André Drago

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Eloquent, wise, generous; in short, “exemplary,” Kisêdjê political leaders are also said to be “animal-like” dangerous beings. For Anthony Seeger, this “ideological ambivalence” expresses the contradiction which constitutes the leader’s position-function, whose “political power” working at the center of the village derives from peripheral kinship affiliations. Moreover, supposed to withhold the group’s “norms”, he is surprisingly entitled to violate them–primarily, he is exempted from uxorilocality. I try to demonstrate that the inflections the leader subjects patterns of kinship-making process alter his body and agency, rendering him more or less human and, therefore, capable of mediating between the Kisêdjê and their …

Sex Roles And Social Change In Amazonian Ecuador, William T. Vickers

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

“Don Guillermo” Or William Vickers Among The Secoya, María Susana Cipolletti

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Upper Perené Arawak Narratives Of History, Landscape, And Ritual, Fernando Santos-Granero

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Images Of Public Wealth Or The Anatomy Of Well-Being In Indigenous Amazonia, Michael Chibnik

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

William Vickers And Gender Studies Of The 1970s, E. Jean Langdon

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Bill Vickers’ Modern Political Transformation, Robert Wasserstrom

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

William T. Vickers’ Contribution To Secoya Ethnobotany, Pablo Yépez, Stella De La Torre

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Bill Vickers: A Pioneer In Engaged And Dialogic Anthropology, E. Jean Langdon

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Remembrances Of Bill Vickers: Early And Late Career Activities, Norman E. Whitten Jr.

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Remembering William T. Vickers (1942–2016), Robert Wasserstrom

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

“Being Flexible”: Reflections On How An Anthropological Theory Spills Into The Contemporary Political Life Of An Amazonian People, Stine Krøijer

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article examines the work of William T. Vickers and describes how his theory about the flexible adaptation of the Siona-Secoya to their forested environment has spilled into their contemporary political life. Based on recurring fieldwork among the Secoya in Northeastern Ecuador, the article shows that “being flexible” has become a particular way of talking about and managing relations to powerful outsiders such as representatives of oil companies and government officials. The article brings together ethnography on the Secoya’s relationship to Occidental Petroleum Company in 1999–2001 and their turn to oil palm cultivation as subcontractors to a plantation company after …

Making The Gigantic Suburban Residential Complex In Beijing: Political Economy Processes And Everyday Life In The 2010s, Pengfei Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Suburbanization is an ongoing development process in China. Hundreds of thousands of construction projects are being undertaken in outskirts of most Chinese cities, despite the increasing domestic and international concerns over China’s housing oversupply (Xu, 2010; Gough, 2015; Li, 2015). The suburbanization of China, however, is fundamentally different from the suburbanization of most Western countries, especially the United States, whose massive post-war suburbanization took place as a continuation of its pre-war industrialization and urbanization movements. In the Chinese context, suburbanization is the process of urbanization as well—urbanization and suburbanization have been promoted simultaneously since the 1990s. It is …

The Anthropocene, Overview, Scott W. Schwartz

Open Educational Resources

This presentation offers an overview of the developing concept of The Anthropocene -- a term coined to describe our current geological epoch, in which human impact on the planet will leave a permanent trace.

A Catch 22 Of 3d Data Sustainability: Lessons In 3d Archaeological Data Management & Accessibility, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Jennifer Von Schwerin

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeologists can now collect an inordinate amount of 3D data. But are these 3D data sustainable? Are they being managed to make them accessible? The MayaArch3D Project researched and addressed these questions by applying best practices to build four prototype tools to store, manage, visualize, and analyze multi-resolution, geo-referenced 3D models in a web-based environment. While the technical aspects of these tools have been published, this position paper addresses a catch 22 that we, as archaeologists, encounter in the field of 3D archaeology – one that formed the initial impetus for the MayaArch3D Project: that is, while the quantity of …

The Spatial Ordering Of Nabataea: An Integrated Analysis Of The Geography, Architecture, And Morphology Of Nabataean Petra, Christopher Clifton Angel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Nabataean city of Petra is well known for its sandstone architecture and rock-hewn funerary landscape. Over the last few decades, numerous studies examined their history, culture, art, and architecture. The few studies that assessed the urban space of Petra focused on the functional properties of individual architectural forms and their nominal placement within the overall landscape. This study focused on the spatial configurations of architecture as relational to the dynamics of Nabataean politics and ritual where shifts in social order manifested similar shifts in spatial order which in turn produced and reproduced forms of social order. The production of …

Sacral Variability In Tailless Species: Homo Sapiens And Ochotona Princeps, Robert G. Tague

Faculty Publications

Homo sapiens is variable in number of sacral vertebrae, and this variability can lead to obstetrical complication. This study uses the comparative method to test the hypothesis that sacral variability in H. sapiens is associated with absence of a tail. Three species of lagomorphs are studied: Ochotona princeps (N = 271), which is tailless, and Lepus californicus (N = 212) and Sylvilagus audubonii (N = 206), which have tails. Results show that O. princeps has (1) higher diversity index for number of sacral vertebrae (0.49) compared to L. californicus (0.25) and S. audubonii (0.26) and (2) significantly higher percentage of …