Sociology of Culture Commons^™

Evidence To End Fgm/C Research Programme: Presentation At The Sixtieth Session Of The Un Commission On The Status Of Women, Jacinta Muteshi-Strachan

Reproductive Health

No abstract provided.

Be Your Own Guru: Authoritarianism And The Problem Of The Guru In Conscious Evolution, Mcauley, Charles E.

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This paper is an exploration of the problematic nature of the guru/disciple relationship, specifically, in Western Society. It begins with a discussion of the nature of spirituality and the spiritual quest. To contextualize the process, I also discuss my own spiritual path based in Roman Catholicism, Taoism, Buddhism and my thoughts on the philosophy of Krishnamurti. I explore the topic of the authoritarian follower in some depth. Its connection is symbiotic to the existence of the authoritarian leader. This connection is demonstrated within this paper as well. Additionally, I look at the flaws in some well-known guru figures and how …

Capstone Revival, Mary Mesele, Ruochen Lu, Quilin Jiang

School of Professional Studies

The capstone project is a culminating experience whereby students choose to research a topic that is relevant in their field of study and have been highly regarded as important learning activities. The capstone allows students to use research, analytical, problem solving and evaluation skills they have learned in the course of the graduate program. McGill indicates the benefit of the completion of a capstone project not only in gaining knowledge in capstone but also in learning how to apply the knowledge gained in other courses in the major (McGill, 2012). Currently, COPACE (College of Professional and Continuing Education) has three …

Changes In Luoshui: How The Outside World Affects Luoshui Village And The Mosuo Culture, Lucy Woychuk-Mlinac

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Is tourism really the biggest harm to Mosuo culture? Mosuo people are often the center of studies about how tourism affects the traditions and cultures of minority groups, but there is little focus on the other influences that change Mosuo culture. This study focuses on the lives of the Mosuo in Luoshui village, and how their everyday lives are influenced by the world outside of the village. Without knowing the causes of changes in the Mosuo village, there is little hope for fixing the situation and keeping dying traditions alive. Looking into their religion, education, and the holiday shazhu, …

Marriage Culture In Tunisia: Post-Independence To Post-Revolution Shifts, Emma Wilder Conover-Crockett

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Personal Status Code became law in Tunisia in 1956, revolutionizing gender law and relationships. This law, development programs and nationalization pushed by President Habib Bourguiba, and modernization and globalization significantly altered the state of Tunisian marriage and gender relationships. Prior to the Personal Status Code, the basis of marriage in Tunisia was the preservation of family relationships, status, and finances. Throughout the last half century, it has evolved from a family-based endeavor to a partnership between two people, as the individual has simultaneously replaced the family and tribe as the main actor in society. These changes are reflected prominently …

Mari Et Femme, Sous Dieu: L’Évangile Du Genre Dans Le Mariage Chrétien Camerounais, Allison Aaronson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Cette étude cherche à analyser les implications sur le genre d’une institution sociale influente, le christianisme, à travers l’optique des rôles conjugaux. Les interviews individuelles face à face étaient conduites en quatre semaines, avec pour objectif d’analyser ces rôles conjugaux chrétiens du genre dans l’espoir de mieux comprendre leur relation à l’émancipation désirée du genre. Ces interviewés ont inclut un échantillon divers des chrétiens mariés, des leaders religieux, et des membres de la société civile/ le gouvernement. Leurs réponses ont indiqué une influence forte d’un christianisme uniquement camerounais sur la conception des rôles conjugaux du genre. Ces rôles mettent les …

Exploring Cape Malay Identity Through The Lens Of Food, Allyson Ang

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study explores the construction of Cape Malay identity through the lens of food. Made up of descendants of slaves from India, Madagascar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mozambique, and other places, “Cape Malay” is a very contentious identity. Although people who fall under the label of Cape Malay today are hundreds of years removed from their slave ancestors, there are still distinct remnants of these origins in Cape Malay culture. One of the ways in which this is most evident is Cape Malay cuisine. Cape Malay dishes such as bobotie, samosas, bredie, and beryani have become staples in South African …

Seeds Of Peace: Visible Cooperation Between Jews And Muslims In Morocco, Namratha Somayajula

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

A carrefour in various contexts, Morocco stands in a unique position between the Arab world and Israel for several reasons. The country is unique due to the historical presence of Judaism in the region that, over the years, became a Muslim-majority Islamic kingdom. The members of Morocco’s Muslim and Jewish communities coexisted for centuries, albeit with minor hurdles, as did the Muslims and Jews of Palestine. However, political events around the world in the twentieth century led to the rapid departure of Jews from their Moroccan homeland. Today, with so few remaining in Morocco, “Jew” often becomes synonymous with “Israel,” …

Percepciones De La Muerte Y La Espiritualidad Cristiana-Aymara Entre Los Proveedores Del Cuidado A Los Adultos Mayores En Putre, Emma Wright

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Research Question: How does Cristian-Aymaran spirituality influence medical decisions and perceptions of death during the end of life care of Aymaran elders?

Objective: To describe the perceptions of spirituality and death among the providers of end of life care in the commune of Putre in order to determine the role of such beliefs in the medical decisions of Aymaran elders with the goal of improving the methods of care.

Background: Statistically the population of Chile is getting older creating a greater need for end of life care programs. In Putre, specifically, the need for end of life care is particularly …

La Santé Maternelle À Antsiranana Selon La Médicine Occidentale Et La Médicine Traditionnelle : Une Étude Des Traitements Opposés Pour Les Femmes Enceintes, Lauren Nguyen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Dans un pays comme le Madagascar, où des coutumes traditionnelles et le lien avec les ancêtres demeurent une grande partie de la culture, l’introduction des aspects « occidentales » présente un peu du désaccord. Cela est vu avec l’introduction de la médecine « occidentale », et le choix que font des Malagasy pour leurs soins médicaux. Spécifiquement dans le secteur de la médecine, la tension entre des pratiques occidentales et des pratiques traditionnelles est significative.

La présence des guérisseurs traditionnels et de la médecine traditionnelle sur l’île existait bien avant l’introduction de la médecine occidentale. Bien que de plus en …

La Nouvelle Immigration Et L’Identité Ethnique, Christoph Schimmele, Zheng Wu

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series/ Un Réseau stratégique de connaissances Changements de population et parcours de vie Document de travail

Cette synthèse des connaissances fournit une évaluation à jour de l’influence de l’acculturation des enfants sur leur identité sociale. Bien que d’autres facteurs aient un impact sur le développement de l’identité, cette synthèse met l’accent sur le point de rencontre entre l’identité et les relations intergroupes. La plupart des immigrants arrivés après 1965 se heurtent à des circonstances économiques et à une barrière de « couleur » qui compliquent le processus d’acculturation. Comment ces forces structurelles affectent-elles le parcours qui mène à devenir un Canadien ou un Américain est une question dont la portée est étendue. Dans les groupes qui …

Discussion Of Iran Awakening By Shirin Ebadi, Musselman Library

Iran: Beyond the Headlines

In preparation for our book discussion on Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi for our Iran: Beyond the Headlines series, we created some of our own discussion questions about the book. Please feel free to use for your own book discussion!

Huggies, High-Fives, And Huismannen: Exploring The Masculinity And Everyday Experiences Of Dutch Stay-At-Home Fathers, Courtney C. Grey

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This qualitative research study explores Dutch stay-at-home fathers, or “huismannen,” and their everyday experiences with their role and their own masculinity. There has been much research conducted on stay-at-home fathers within other countries and cultures, but the current research significantly lacks the perspective and voices of those within the Dutch culture. To gather these voices, oral history interviews were conducted with five Dutch huismannen, and the collected data were analyzed using gender theory focused on masculinity and current relevant literature. This analysis led to the conclusion that Dutch stay-at-home fathers create and conform to a complicit masculine identity. …

Herbs, Home Medicine, And Self-Reliance: A Study On The Current Status Of Traditional Home Medicine In Idukki District, Kerala, Richard Gaunt

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Home medical knowledge, or knowledge of how one’s surroundings can be used to maintain and restore health, can be an important tool for health self-sufficiency in rural places as well as for the ecological conservation of important plants and natural materials. The Indian state of Kerala has a rich heritage of traditional medicine, found in the historically inter-related forms of codified Ayurveda and folk knowledge. In Idukki district, a region of Kerala nestled in the hills of the Western Ghats, rural households engage in small-scale home-gardening and agroforestry, which in addition to providing nutritionally diverse food is a source of …

Placeness: Mongolia A Call For The Creation Of A Human Impact Assessment, C. Winston Kies

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Sense of place, place-­‐based identities, and “placeness” are fundamental ways through which human beings understand their physical place in the world. The means by which most Mongolians—and indeed most human beings—strive for placeness is fairly simple. First, one decides what location will become their place. Their place may be predetermined (i.e. a birthplace) or chosen (based on the wildlife, the scenery, the neighborhood, etc.). Once one has a place, sense of place necessarily follows. One’s place becomes the standard by which locations are understood, and by which one understands oneself. The latter process constitutes the formation of place-­‐based identities, which …

Transracial Adoption In Cape Town, South Africa: The Perspectives Of Black Young Adults, Emma Bilodeau

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This independent research project focuses on transracial adoption in Cape Town, South Africa. Specifically, this project tries to fill in the gaps of past research by providing how black young adults perceive white adoptive parents adopting black children in Cape Town. Past research has not focused solely on the perspectives of blacks. Therefore, this research will be increasing the literature around transracial adoption in Cape Town and in South Africa.

Since this form of adoption was only made legal in 1991, it is an extremely relevant issue in this country particularly since the minority race (whites) is adopting the majority …

The Effect Of Refugees On Jordanian Identity, Max Yenkin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Jordan has become known as the home for refugees from the crises that have occurred along its borders. Several waves of large groups of refugees have come to Jordan: 1948, 1967, 1991, 2003, and 2011-present, with copious amounts of refugees coming from different surrounding countries to Jordan. The Hashemite Kingdom is ruled through keeping relations between the Bedouin tribes that have lived in the area from the founding of the country. This has led to the denial of equality for former refugees who obtained citizenship as well as the other refugee populations in areas such as work and education. As …

Gender And Sexuality In Nepal: The Experiences Of Sexual And Gender Minorities In A Rapidly Changing Social Climate, Sophia Greene

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Gender and sexuality in current day Nepal is at the crux of a societal revolution, as the deeply ingrained patriarchal society framed against the emergence of new ideas results in a shifting social climate in which old and new clash. As modernization and economic development permeate Nepal, they bring with them individualistic ideals which gradually infiltrate society, altering long held social attitudes toward marriage, gender, and sexuality. However, despite societal change and even changing legislation for the rights of women and members of the LGBTI community, both of these minorities still face overwhelming discrimination and prejudice in Nepali society. Sexual …

Meditating On Mountain Bikes, Sam Bowen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

For a long time, Nepal has been an exotic destination for adventurers and spiritual wanderers. Geographically, there are no comparisons. “The country is vertical,” said Jagan Biswarka as he pointed across Phewa Lake to the snow-capped mountains. “You can see the 8000 meter from 800 meter. This will be one of the best playgrounds in the world. Nowhere in Nepal. Nowhere in the world.” Mads Mathiasen, a Danish expatriate agrees. “I think very few people realizes how big a contrast there is in Nepal from seventy-one meters above sea level – the lowest place in Nepal – to eight-thousand eight-hundred …

A Resistance, Remembered? Remembrance, Commemoration And The Parallel System In Prishtina, Kosovo, Conner Gordon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Though the 1999 war that liberated Kosovo from Serbian control is over fifteen years in the past, memories of the 1990s still remain in a state of chaos. This paper approaches the development of these collective memories through interviews with Prishtina residents about the memories and legacy of Ibrahim Rugova’s parallel structures in the 1990s. Though they draw from similar narratives as memories of the Kosovo Liberation Army’s armed resistance, memories of the nonviolent resistance play a vastly different and largely underrepresented role in current Kosovar Albanian public discourse. Through competing deployments of resistance memories, disproportionate memorialization of Kosovo’s violent …

From Laws To Last Names: Examining Popular Opinions Of Adoption In Morocco, Margaret Liston

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As international adoption is becoming a much more common reality for many orphans and abandoned children worldwide, it is an important time to consider the implications of attitudes regarding adoption in Morocco—an Islamic state which defines adoption in a very specific but different way from the Western world. Despite the abundance of literature analyzing the historical and legal aspects of adoption in Morocco, there is a notable absence of research that examines the opinions of Moroccans removed from the adoption process on the institution itself. This study seeks to highlight potential trends in attitudes regarding adoption by examining the views …

Theravada Buddhism And Dai Identity In Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, James Granderson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This ethnographic field project focused upon the relationship between the urban Jinghong and surrounding rural Dai population of lay people, as well as a few individuals from other ethnic groups, and Theravada Buddhism. Specifically, I observed how Buddhism manifests itself in daily urban life, the relationship between Theravada monastics in city and rural temples and common people in daily life, as well as important events wherelay people and monastics interacted with one another. This research was intended to fulfill a need to observe how Theravada Buddhism influences Dai lives on the mundane level.This involved a several week study period in …

Identity, Movement And Belonging In A Land Of Tradition: A Critical Examination Of The Nepali Workforce In Leh, Ladakh, Teresa Langseth-Depaolis

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In recent years, Nepal has emerged at the forefront of the international labor market with a growing and continuous out-flow of migrant laborers. Such migratory patterns have landed people from Nepal in jobs all over the world; from power plants in Dubai to coffee shops in Toronto. This study situates the phenomenon of Nepali migrant labor in the rapidly urbanizing capital of Leh, Ladakh, and examines the experiences of identity and complexities of belonging within the transnational system of migration.

I was prompted to conduct research in Leh after having heard from a local man that there was a small …

Mind Within The Body The Presence And Importance Of Mental Health Within Traditional Tibetan Medicine, Reta Flynt

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this Independent Study Project was to identify aspects of mental health within the traditional Tibetan medical system that are both taught in the classroom and carried out in clinical practice, with a primary focus on the importance of maintaining mental health. Throughout the research process, aspects of illness etiology, diagnosis, treatment processes, and influence from Tibetan Buddhism were found to be deeply connected in maintaining mental health within patients of Traditional Tibetan medicine. As well, much emphasis was found on the mind's influence on the physical wellbeing of an individual, suggesting that mental and physical health are …

The Curious Case Of Solu Khumbu: A Study Of The Effects Of Tourism In The Town Of Junbesi, Hannah Cho

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Before 1953, the year that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summited Everest, almost all Sherpas were subsistence farmers, traders, and herders. But ever since the 1980’s, Sherpas have taken over the trekking industry in this region. The increase of tourism and the monopolization of this industry have altered the livelihoods of Sherpas in Solu Khumbu. However, most tourism related research on Solu Khumbu has been done primarily on upper Khumbu, which has been affected by tourism drastically differently than Solu. I will be doing a case study of how the changes in tourism have affected Junbesi, a popular agriculture based …

The Social Institution And Inscription Of Child Marriage In The Terai Region Of Nepal, Alexandra Baer Chan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Marriage is typically considered to be one of the foundations of the family unit, and family is thought to be one of the pillars of society. Because marriage is such a primary social concept, its forms and functions may be taken for granted, despite the fact that it is culturally dependent. For example, the idea that one must be in love in order to get married may be more cultural ideal than universal idea—and is thus not true of many cultures. Arranged marriages are still performed in many parts of the world, and can be means of building kinship circles …

Child Marriage: Addressing The Challenges And Obstacles In The Post-2015 Agenda, Valeria Pelayo

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study explores the progress of child marriage eradication over the last forty years in order to identify the weak points of implementation as well as how these are being incorporated in the post-2015 agenda. An assessment of current rates by geographic region and several other demographic factors is included along with future projections for these affected areas. The shortcomings identified include a lack of program evaluation, negligence towards married children, a shortage of data on sub-national legislation efficacy, and minimal attention paid to child marriage in the context of slavery and human trafficking. The scope of the problem is …

Getting "Bi" In The Family: Bisexual People's Disclosure Experiences, Kristin S. Scherrer, Emily Kazyak, Rachel M. Schmitz

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

There are many similarities in gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals’ coming out experiences, but bisexual people face unique challenges. Despite this, an explicit focus on bisexual people is missing from family research. Using family systems and cultural sociological perspectives, the authors analyzed how social and cultural factors shape disclosure processes for bisexuals as they come out to multiple family members. After analyzing qualitative data from a diverse group of 45 individuals, they found that bisexual people navigate monosexist and heterosexist expectations in their family relationships. Cultural constructions of bisexuality shape the ways that bisexual people disclose their identities, including how …

The New Immigration And Ethnic Identity, Christoph Schimmele, Zheng Wu

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series/ Un Réseau stratégique de connaissances Changements de population et parcours de vie Document de travail

This knowledge synthesis provides an up-to-date assessment of how the acculturation experiences of the children of immigrants influences their social identities. While other factors affect identity development, this synthesis focuses on the interface between identity and intergroup relations. Most post-1965 immigrants encounter economic circumstances and a “color” barrier that complicate the acculturation process. How these structural forces affect the pathway towards becoming a Canadian or an American is a far-reaching issue. For groups that are able to achieve economic parity with Whites and encounter little racism, their “ethnicity” could recede across generations. Hence, recent immigrants could eventually adopt unhyphenated identities …

Family Therapist Connecting And Building Relationships With Substance Abusers In The Seminole Tribe Of Florida: An Ethnographic Study, Sunny Nelli Khachatryan

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to examine the process of a family therapist entering and then navigating the cultural system of working with substance abusing Seminole tribal clients. The study also utilized two tribal members sharing their opinions about how Seminoles view therapy. As noted in the interview questions and responses, the research presented guidelines for family therapists to follow when working with tribal members. Because there has been no study conducted with family therapists providing clinical services to tribal members, this study introduced tools for clinicians to keep in mind and utilize when working with tribal clients. …