Rural Sociology Commons^™

The Promises And Perils Of Radio As A Medium Of Faith In A Q’Eqchi’-Maya Catholic Community, Eric Hoenes Del Pinal

Journal of Global Catholicism

Because their parish is large, dispersed, and overwhelmingly rural, FM radio is one of the few reliable means through which the Q’eqchi’-Maya Catholics of San Felipe in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, can communicate with each other en masse. Yet, because it is a one-way medium, it is also impossible to gauge how its intended audience is responding, or if is even there to receive broadcasted messages. Drawing on ethnographic material collected in 2005 (on the use of radio broadcasting to call together ritual participants) and 2016 (on an ultimately failed attempt to launch a radio station to serve rural parishioners), …

Introduction: Mediating Catholicisms: Studies In Aesthetics, Authority, And Identity, Eric Hoenes Del Pinal, Marc Roscoe Loustau, Kristin Norget

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Overview & Acknowledgements, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Characterizing Systems Of Reporting And Mitigating Anthrax Outbreaks Near Mto Wa Mbu, Monduli District, Tanzania, Megan Levy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Northern Tanzania has experienced several anthrax outbreaks in the recent past. In Monduli district, an outbreak in 2016 prompted an organization of district officials to create an updated outbreak response action plan. The pastoralist community is often affected by these outbreaks due to their frequent direct contact with cattle and herds’ proximity to wild species potentially affected by the disease. This characterization of the existing systems of reporting and mitigating anthrax outbreaks was accomplished through structured interviews with ward and village officers, local veterinarians, and members of the pastoralist community in Monduli district near Mto wa Mbu. The purpose of …

Natura Sanat: On Ecological Aspects Of Healing Miracles In Kalwaria Pacławska, Poland, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska

Journal of Global Catholicism

The subject-matter of my article is a change affecting the discourse on miraculous healings in a Catholic Marian sanctuary – Kalwaria Pacławska – run by Franciscan friars in the South-Eastern Poland and a way in which those changes affect pilgrims’ bodies. In Kalwaria Pacławska there meet, intersect and compete various religious and secular discourses and they all influence emotions and bodily sensations accompanying pilgrimage to this sacred site. One of those discourses has been introduced to Kalwaria just recently. The central element of the sanctuary is the miraculous image of Virgin Mary which is the goal of numerous pilgrimages from …

Authors' Introduction, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska, Magdalena Lubanska

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Dispossession And Protection In The Neoliberal Era: The Politics Of Rural Development In Indigenous Communities In Chaco, Argentina., Mercedes Biocca

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

Neoliberal reforms and technological innovations associated with the agribusiness model have led to profound transformations in the Argentine agricultural sector. These transformations, far from being limited to a central region, are expanding rapidly into areas previously considered marginal, causing major changes in the socio-economic and cultural dynamics of those territories. As argued by Sanyal and Chatterjee, the state has played a dual role in these processes of ‘accumulation by dispossession.’ On the one hand, it has created the necessary conditions for the displacement of peasants and indigenous peoples while on the other hand, it has implemented programs that seek to …

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 …

Las Ofrendas A La Tierra En Un Mundo Global \ Offerings To Land In A Global World, Alison Wuensch

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta investigación aborda si las ofrendas a la Pachamama en el Cusco responden a la desvalorización de las culturas andinas en un mundo globalizado por el turismo, la globalización, la modernización, y la urbanización. El turismo místico en el Perú ha crecido desde las noventas con la promoción del estado peruano de la cultura viva, y una de las ceremonias andinas más importantes es la ofrenda a la Pachamama. El objetivo era identificar y explicar los efectos del turismo, la globalización, la modernización, y la urbanización en las ofrendas a la Pachamama según los chamanes y la observación. Fui a …

Fracked Perceptions: Changes In Perception Regarding Hydraulic Fracturing Among Residents Of Dimock, Pennsylvania., Brian Straniti

All Master's Theses

The primary objective of this research is to critically analyze changes in perceptions associated with hydraulic fracturing within Dimock, Pennsylvania. Residents of Dimock initially welcomed fracking in 2006 due to positive corporate rhetoric promoting economic benefits such as mineral rights acquisition, land-leasing, and local business development. However, economic benefits diminished as Dimock advanced through a boom period resulting in a current economic and ecological bust. Two months of data collection occurred in the summer of 2016 using semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis. Political economy of nature and political ecology theoretical frameworks were used to analyze and conceptualize the …

Positionality And Feminisms Of Women Within Sufi Brotherhoods Of Senegal, Georgia Collins

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

No abstract provided.

Contributors To Indian Catholicism: Interventions And Imaginings, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

Contributors to Indian Catholicism: Interventions and Imaginings, the inaugural issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism.

Authority, Representation, And Offense: Dalit Catholics, Foot Washing, And The Study Of Global Catholicism, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

In reflecting on a sharp scholarly exchange at a conference, this article explores issues of authority, representation, and offense in global Catholic and South Asian Studies. Focusing on the act of foot washing by Dalit Catholics, the article examines how scholarly offense is linked to particular claims of representational authority. The article also puts this discussion within the context of contemporary debates about Western portrayals of Indian culture and society.

Dalit Catholic Home Shrines In A North Indian Village, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines three Catholic home shrines in a Dalit community in North Indian and argues that it is misleading to think that home shrines and other collections of material objects are somehow static conveyors of meaning. “Meaning” can mean many things or nothing at all, depending upon the terms we are using and the scholarly methods we deploy. The crucial aspect of Dalit Catholic home shrines is that they are literally open to interpretation and reinterpretation, to touching and being touched. Their significance—their meaning—depends not on decoding their structure or symbolic logic, but interacting with them as part of …

The Grace Of God And The Travails Of Contemporary Indian Catholicism, Kerry P. C. San Chirico

Journal of Global Catholicism

This essay discusses the challenges faced by Indian Catholicism, particularly as it seeks to adapt to and in contemporary, post-colonial India through the process or program of what is called inculturation, a self-conscious program of adaptation to Indian religion and culture. Since Indian Catholicism is constituted by so many irreducible persons-in-relation, the article focuses on the life of the Catholic priest, Swami Ishwar Prasad in whose life we may chart something of the inculturation movement and the Catholic tradition as it is found in North India region, in one rather long and rich lifetime connecting two centuries. The article seeks …

In Continuity With The Past: Indigenous Environmentalism And Indian Christian Visions Of Flora, James Ponniah

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article considers whether Indian Christianity can be said to have a distinctive ecological vision. The first two parts of the article examine Christian environmentalism in two native forms of Indian Christianity: Tamil Christianity and Tribal Christianity. Continuing with the theme of conformity to the local culture—though of the elite—the third part of the article investigates how Christian Ashrams function as dynamic centers for ecological praxis. The last part of the article considers how contemporary Indian Christian communities can respond to the ecological challenges confronting them.

Through The Gateway: Marijuana Production, Governance, And The Drug War Détente, Michael Polson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the 1996 voter approval of medical marijuana laws in California, marijuana policy has become increasingly liberalized. Producers, however, have remained in the greyest of grey market zones. Federal anti-drug laws and supply-side tactics have intensively targeted them even as marijuana has become more licit. In this legally unstable environment, marijuana patient-cultivators and underground producers have articulated and asserted themselves politically and economically, particularly as the likelihood of full legalization has increased. This dissertation explores how producers navigated the nebulous zone between underground and medical markets. I argue that even as producers supplied marijuana to a formalizing, regulated medical industry …

Wildlife And Local Community Investigation In Trans-Boundary Area Between China-Mongolia Borders, Weikang Yang, Wenxuan Xu, Canjun Xia, Wei Liu, Xingyi Gao

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

During June 2008, and August and December 2010, we investigated both the status of wildlife and local human communities in the great Gobi trans-boundary area between China and Mongolia. We surveyed Baytik Mountain (called Baitag Bogdt on the Mongolian side of the border)( 44°59′ - 45°21′N，90°30′ - 90°53′E), which is located in the West of Great Gobi B strict protected area (GGB) and connected with Dzungarian Gobi. The Kazakh shepherds still maintain their nomadic life here in Baytik Mountains. The region was divided into summer, winter and transitional pasture, and most of the livestock were goats and sheep. We also …

Gold Mining And Unequal Exchange In Western Amazonia: A Theoretical Photo Essay, Gordon L. Ulmer

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

I combine fieldwork photography and ethnographic documentation of gold mining in Madre de Dios, Peru, to examine the localized material, social, environmental, and health outcomes of the global gold boom. This 'theoretical photo essay’ examines how local and global forces coalesce around gold mining and influence peoples and environments in Western Amazonia. I use embodiment theory in anthropology, ecological economics, and theories of underdevelopment to understand local consequences of the global gold trade and to elucidate how opulence and the machinations of capital accumulation in economic centers of the world occur at the expense of human lives and environments in …

La Vida Es Un Conflicto, Pero Hay Que Llevar Soluciones: La Resolución De Conflicto En Comunidades Rurales De San Ramón Nicaragua A Través De Facilitadores Judiciales Rurales Y Mediación, Marlee Raible

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In rural parts of Nicaragua historically there has not been a lot of access to the justice system. Conflicts have been going unresolved for years leading to a high amount of violence as people take justice into their own hands. The recent implementation of the Rural Judicial Facilitators Program (RJFP) is an effort to provide access to justice directly in rural communities. These facilitators are trained to use mediation as their principal method to resolve conflict.

This study exposes perceptions of mediation and the RJFP from community members, facilitators, and judiciaries. It discusses the key role of the facilitator in …

Constructing ‘Farmer’ And ‘State’ Identities In Moral Discourses About Semi-Subsistence Agriculture In North-East Brazil, Karen E. Pennesi

Anthropology Publications

Anthropological analysis elucidates how discourses about agriculture in one North-east Brazilian community reflect relational roles of citizens and the state, the position of farmers in society, and the relationship of individuals to their work. In these discourses, farmers are positioned as moral, hard-working, autonomous citizens, justifying their participation in low-paying activities. The declining numbers of agricultural workers is explained as a result of individual laziness or government irresponsibility. In using these discourses to take stances publicly on agricultural issues, speakers assign responsibilities and moral status to agents. In constructing rural identities, such moral discourses emphasise the symbolic value of subsistence …

Emerging From The Shadows: Civil War, Human Rights, And Peacebuilding Among Peasants And Indigenous Peoples In Colombia And Peru In The Late 20th And Early 21st Centuries, Charles A. Flowerday

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Peacebuilding in Colombia and Peru following their late-20^th and early 21^st century civil wars is a challenging proposition. In this study, it becomes necessary as indigenous peoples and peasants resist domination by extractive industries and governments in their thrall. Whether they protest nonviolently or rebel in arms, they are targeted for human-rights violations, especially murder, disappearance and displacement. The armed actors, state, insurgency, paramilitaries or drug traffickers, destroy civic institutions (local or regional government) and the civil (nonprofit) sector and replace them with their own authoritarian versions. Therefore, peacebuilding has emphasized rebuilding civic institutions, civil society and local …

Self-Reliance Beyond Neoliberalism: Rethinking Autonomy At The Edges Of Empire, Karen Hébert, Diana Mincyte

Publications and Research

Across scholarly and popular accounts, self-reliance is often interpreted as either the embodiment of individual entrepreneurialism, as celebrated by neoliberal designs, or the basis for communitarian localism, increasingly imagined as central to environmental and social sustainability. In both cases, self-reliance is framed as an antidote to the failures of larger state institutions or market economies. This paper offers a different framework for understanding self-reliance by linking insights drawn from agrarian studies to current debates on alternative economies. Through an examination of the social worlds of semisubsistence producers in peripheral zones in the Global North, we show how everyday forms of …

Older Adults’ Contributions To The Tsimane Forager-Farmer Economy, Eric Schniter

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Portfolio of original photographs and an accompanying essay about the role of elders among the Tsimane, an indigenous group living in the Bolivian Amazon.

Como El Hijo De Nadie: Internal Divisions And The Struggle For Attention In Bocana De Paiwas, Alina Rosenfeld

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Paiwas is a municipality located at the intersection of the Región Autónomo de Atlántico del Sur (RAAS),1 the Región Autónomo de Atlántico del Norte (RAAN),2 and the Pacific National half of Nicaragua. The autonomous regions are part of Nicaragua, but have their own regional government, control over their natural resources, and are dedicated to preserving indigenous culture, language, and traditions. Just as it is physically, Paiwas is an intersection between the regional autonomous government and the various levels of government on the Pacific side of the country: all governing entities in some way play a role in the development and …

"Let It Come From The People”: Exploring Decentralization, Participatory Processes, And Community Empowerment In Western, Rural Uganda, Rachel Harmon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study sought to understand the extent to which the participatory planning framework established in the Local Government Act of 1997 is utilized and to what extent it encourages and results in genuine community empowerment for rural communities.More specifically, it aimed to understand the extent of genuine citizen participation by assessing the degree to which community members feel that they are empowered to participate in strategies for rural development at all levels of the government. Additionally, this project sought to explore the position that the Epicenter Managers have within the participatory framework established for rural development, with a particular focus …

The Shifting Landscape Of Amish Agriculture: Balancing Tradition And Innovation In An Organic Farming Cooperative, Matthew J. Mariola, David L. Mcconnell

All Faculty Articles

In the context of the recent proliferation of alternative operations and marketing schemes across the agricultural landscape, this article examines an Amish organic farming cooperative in northeast Ohio. Contrary to popular perception, the large majority of Amish are not full-time farmers, and those who do farm typically use conventional, chemical-intensive methods. The adoption of certified organic among the Amish is a pragmatic decision that stems from concerns over the sociocultural effects of losing their agrarian heritage, but it also raises challenges that require a careful balance between market imperatives and cultural traditions. We investigate these challenges and the Amish response …

Changing The Very Fabric Of Society: A Case Study Of The Fundación Entre Mujeres Holistic Empowerment Model, Briana Frenchmore

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The women of rural northern Nicaragua live in a context that is shaped by the inequalities of gender and class that originate in machista culture and the dominant economic system. To confront this reality, the non-government organization, Fundación Entre Mujeres (FEM) works from the “Gender and Development” (GAD) approach using a model of holistic women’s empowerment. To create social change, FEM’s programs focus on ideological, economic, and organizational empowerment. This investigation seeks to understand how FEM carries out its holistic empowerment model within communities, while reflecting on the strengths of their methodology and the challenges they face in creating social …

Las Montañas Respiran: La Cosmovisión De La Comunidad De Rayampata Representada A Través Del Mito Pitusiray-Sawasiray, Gillian Thornton

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En las altas montañas de los Andes, donde los árboles crecen lentamente y los vientos están constantemente pulsando a través de la hierba desaliñada, se dice que la tierra respira. Allá, aun los animalitos más pequeños tienen una gran fuerza en el ciclo de vida, y cada uno de los seres vivos, de las plantas, y de las piedras tiene vida. Se dice allá que aun las montañas pueden hablar. En la comunidad alta de Rayampata, la gente se comunica con la tierra para sobrevivir; escucha a los murmullos del río para saber cuando es tiempo a cosechar, lee las …

R-E-S-P-E-C-T Expectations, Perceptions, And Influences On Moroccan Etiquette, Christina Ermilio

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Why do humans naturally create distinctions? How do we establish these distinctions between ourselves? What marks us as an individual within a particular group? In this project, I consider how etiquette is defined in Morocco and how it relates to the work of certain theorists and sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu. Primarily, this project focuses on expectations of behavior, perceptions of the ‘other,’ and influences on the definition of good behavior in Morocco. In addition to observations in public spaces and more specifically at universities, I interviewed University students from Ibn Tofail in Kenitra and from Mohammed V in Rabat, …