Anthropology Commons^™

Halfies, Half-Written Letters, And One-Eyed Gods: Connecting The Dots Of Communicative Cultures, Gregory Stephens

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This essay distills the theory of communicative cultures as a tool for cultural analysis. Nadine Gordimer’s line about the difficulties of returning to “half-written letters” is used to frame anthropology’s critique of “bounded culture” or “container cultures,” predominat in Cultural Studies. Anthropologists Lila Abu-Lughod and Kirin Narayan have described “halfies” as in-between peoples who can help us understand fluid, processual cultures as normative. Building on this stance, and the work of rhetorical genre scholars, Stephens defines communicative cultures as “a set of shared commitments expressed through cultural means.” This approach to cultural analysis, in which literature is viewed as an …

Gait Measurement Descriptions Of Human Tracks, Robert Speiden

International Journal of Missing Persons

Search and rescue missions use a variety of tools to find missing persons, one of which can be visual tracking. Trackers detect, interpret and document information about human contact with the ground. Humans typically move on two feet at various speeds. Movement as an obligate biped leaves a series of footprints that alternates from one side to the other. This pattern of footfalls is rather simple, and the footfalls can be easily divided into descriptive dimensions.

This work summarized published measurements of bipedal gait ground contact points in 70 resources. Four resource types were surveyed including 33 biomechanical gait analysis …

The Monsters In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century Illustrated Adaptation Of Beowulf For Children And Young Adults, Johanna Katharine Burton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I examine how some authors and illustrators of children’s and young adult literature adapt the old English Beowulf, how critics receive their works, and the functions these adaptations serve. My focus is on how the interplay between the visual and verbal text modifies or amplifies the overall story as well as how theories of translation/adaptation, monster, gender, and post-colonialism provide insight and aid in analysis. My ultimate objective is to demonstrate the significance of children’s and young adult adaptations of Beowulf and how these texts contribute to a rich and varied corpus. I argue that the adapter’s social/cultural context affected …

Human Sacrifice And Propaganda In Popular Media: More Than Morbid Curiosity, Jason Tatlock

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Representations of human sacrifice, whether based upon real or fictitious events, powerfully demonstrate societal norms and fascinations related to the acceptability of slaying humans for religious or national interests, particularly given the divisive and bloody nature of the topic. Readers of eye-witness accounts, newspaper reports, and historical narratives, and viewers of cinematic productions, war posters, and political cartoons come face to face with the beliefs and agendas of the creators of popular media. Such sources represent the slaying of victims in sacred rituals, as individuals attempt to demarcate societal boundaries along the etic/ emic spectrum, be they commentaries on their …

Indigenous Conflict Resolution Mechanism And Peace Building Process In Nigeria: An Analysis Of The Yoruba Traditional Institution, Fasuan Emmanuel Olawale

Student Works (2020-2029)

This study delves into the conflict resolution and peace building processes in Africa, focusing specifically on the traditional institutional systems of the Yoruba people in Southwestern Nigeria. It examines how the Yoruba traditional system is characterized by various processes and pragmatic dynamism that fosters social cohesion. The study highlights the significance of cultural and traditional institutions in conflict resolution, particularly from an African perspective, in response to the ethnic, communal, and violent conflicts prevalent in Africa. By shifting the focus from international to local practices in conflict management and peace building, the study explores the role of Yoruba traditional approaches …

Folktales - Witchcraft, Lechuza-P, 1972, 1979-87, 1994-5

Mark Glazer's Traditional Mexican American Folklore Collection

Folktales collected by anthropology students from 1972, 1979-87, and 1994-5. NOTE: Personally identifiable information has been redacted.

Un Silence Assourdissant! Listening To What’S Not Being Said, Addressing The Silence Around And Impact Of Intersectionality For Leaving Certificate Applied Students In Irish Second Level Education., Vicki O'Reilly

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

Intersectionality as a concept for diversity and discrimination helps us to put shape on the many layers and descriptors that label and often define us as individuals. The narrative we hear about how we discuss and describe each layer can shape how society places value on each layer or descriptor. Where we hear nothing, where there is gap in our narrative, we can find discourse lacking as a means to shape and overcome intersectionality. In looking at two specific descriptors, socio-economic status and educational attainment, we investigate how their intersection can impact individuals and the ensuant discourse that surrounds them. …

Storm-Driven Tree Exposure And Geomorphic Change: Predicting The Distribution Of Preserved Late Pleistocene Tree Stumps On The Outer Alabama Continental Shelf, Kelli L. Moran, Kehui Xu, Jeffrey Obelcz, Kristine L. Delong, Kendall Fontenot, Carl A. Reese, Grant L. Harley, Douglas Jones, Alicia Caporaso

Faculty Publications

The Alabama Underwater or Drowned Forest is a well-preserved Late Pleistocene (dated to 72–56 ± 8 ka, 2σ) terrestrial landform on the northern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf that provides geomorphic and ecosystem information rarely preserved during the glacial intervals. Stumps of bald cypress (Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich.) trees were exposed in ∼18 m of water following Hurricane Ivan in 2004. This research investigates geomorphic changes to the Mississippi-Alabama-Florida (MAFLA) sand sheet, which presents as shore-oblique Holocene sand ridges, and the exposure and burial of tree stumps following the passage of Hurricane Sally in 2020 using repeat sidescan and bathymetric …

Community Perspectives Of Heat And Weather Warnings For Pregnant And Postpartum Women In Kilifi, Kenya, Adelaide Lusambili, Veronique Filippi, Britt Nakstad, Julian Natukunda, Cathryn Birch, John Marsham, Nathalie Roos, Peter Khaemba, Sari Kovats

Institute for Human Development, East Africa

Background: Extreme weather is a recognised risk factor for stillbirth and preterm birth, disrupts women’s access to healthcare during pregnancy and childbirth, and negatively affects the care of newborns. Reliable and accessible heat and weather warning systems are key in alerting individuals to undertake protective measures. There is a notable gap in understanding how women and caregivers in rural East Africa perceive and utilize weather information. We investigated community members’ heat and weather warning information-seeking behaviour, identified available sources, assessed their reliability and utility, and examined their influence on behaviour.

Settings: Our research was conducted in rural Kilifi County in …

The Association Between Food Production, Food Security, Household Consumer Behaviour And Waist-Hip Ratio Amongst Women In Smallholder Farming Households In Kilifi County, Kenya, Rosebella Iseme, Eunice Muthoni, Roselyter Riang’A, Felix Agoi, Noveline Khatievi, James Orwa, Beatrice Karembo Karisa, Bibi Abdallah Bakari, Morris Ogero, Mwanamaka Mabruki, Cyprian Mostert, Anthony Ngugi

Population Health, East Africa

Food insecurity disproportionately affects smallholder farming households and within them women, who bear primary caregiving responsibilities and contend with time and resource constraints that heighten their vulnerability to adverse nutrition-related health outcomes. This study cross-sectionally investigates the association between food production practices, household consumer behaviour, and the experience of food insecurity with women's waist-hip ratio (WHR), a key indicator of abdominal obesity, in a coastal community in Kenya. In total, 394 households were randomly selected from a list of farming households in Kaloleni and Rabai sub-counties of Kilifi. Trained enumerators administered questionnaires to adult female family members who play a …

The Identity Of A Gymnast: How Health, Wellbeing, And Injury Become Embodied In The Identity Of Collegiate Gymnasts, Skyler M. Yakes

LSU Master's Theses

Gymnastics scholarship has traditionally focused on the physicality of the sport and what the body can and cannot do. This research expands upon gymnastics scholarship by exploring the individual experiences and histories of college gymnasts in the United States through a series of interviews. The goals of this research are to better understand the gymnastics experience and to explore health and wellbeing in gymnastics as it pertains to the formation of a gymnast’s identity. A combined approach using medical anthropology and anthropology of sport serves as a guiding framework for analyzing interview data. Definitions of health and wellbeing change between …

Mitochondrial Memory: Transgenerational Trauma, Functional Medicine, And Quantum Physics, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Building from Karen Barad’s “diffractive methodological approach” (2007, 71), this article combines Mariella Pandolfi’s notion of the female body as a transgenerational “physiological memoir” (1990, 255) with functional medicine perspectives on mitochondria and advances in quantum physics around “entanglement” to explore a new concept—“mitochondrial memory.” Recent findings in biological research depict a communicating collective of mitochondria distributed across different “human” organs and describe how this collective controls many aspects of human health through epigenetic mechanisms. Since exact copies of mitochondria are inherited through the maternal line, I draw from anthropological theory, functional medicine research, and recent discoveries in physics to …

Subjective Well-Being Across The Life Course Among Non-Industrialized Populations, Michael Gurven, Yoann Buoro, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, Katherine Sayre, Benjamin Trumble, Aili Pyhälä, Hillard Kaplan, Arild Angelsen, Jonathan Stieglitz, Victoria Reyes-Garcia

ESI Publications

Subjective well-being (SWB) is often described as being U-shaped over adulthood, declining to a midlife slump and then improving thereafter. Improved SWB in later adulthood has been considered a paradox given age-related declines in health and social losses. While SWB has mostly been studied in high-income countries, it remains largely unexplored in rural subsistence populations lacking formal institutions that reliably promote social welfare. Here, we evaluate the age profile of SWB among three small-scale subsistence societies (n = 468; study 1), forest users from 23 low-income countries (n = 6987; study 2), and Tsimane’ horticulturalists (n = …

Credentialing Care: Covid-19 And The Bureaucratization Of Doulas, Ellen Block, Julie Johnson Searcy, Angela N. Castañeda

Sociology Faculty Publications

Doulas in the United States offer embodied, informational, and continuous one-on-one care to birthing people. Doulas have historically sought certification to gain knowledge through training and to gain legitimacy for healthcare providers and clients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals required doulas to provide proof of certification. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the proliferation of state-sponsored doula programs, has sparked a shift in how doulas are viewed and regulated, enabling new forms of bureaucratic oversight and control. Based on participant observation, surveys, and semi-structured interviews, we examine the connection between certification and care including motivations doulas have for certification, the perceived value …

Credentialing Care: Covid-19 And The Bureaucratization Of Doulas, Ellen Block, Julie Johnson Searcy, Angela N. Castañeda

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty publications

Doulas in the United States offer embodied, informational, and continuous one-on-one care to birthing people. Doulas have historically sought certification to gain knowledge through training and to gain legitimacy for healthcare providers and clients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals required doulas to provide proof of certification. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the proliferation of state-sponsored doula programs, has sparked a shift in how doulas are viewed and regulated, enabling new forms of bureaucratic oversight and control. Based on participant observation, surveys, and semi-structured interviews, we examine the connection between certification and care including motivations doulas have for certification, the perceived value …

Book Review Of, Calling Family: Digital Technologies And The Making Of Transnational Care Collectives, Michele Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Book Review: Calling Family: Digital Technologies and the Making of Transnational Care Collectives

Refereed Research - Religiosity And Sociality As Sources Of Resilience For Women Subsistence Entrepreneurs During The Pandemic, Rozina Akther

Subsistence Marketplaces

This study examines challenges faced by subsistence women entrepreneurs during COVID-19, the crisis of 2020, and their resilience in addressing the circumstances. The results of qualitative interviews with 13 subsistence marketplace women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh are presented in this article. In the current study, two themes are found to best capture the experiences and resilience of women business owners in the subsistence marketplaces. Furthermore, the study provides important insights from informant interviews, showing how women business owners navigate their operations during a pandemic. It highlights attributes such as relational strength and faith in a higher power that contribute to their …

“Forget The Rest ...”: Notes On Magnetic Tape And Other Antiquated Media As Archives Of Afro-Atlantic Liturgy, David Font-Navarrete

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The virtuosic complexity of Afro-Cuban orisha music has led scholars and artists to enshrine it as a “classical” tradition, and it has become one of most iconic and closely-studied sacred music traditions of the historical Afro-Atlantic. This essay traces the legacies of several analog-era multimedia technologies in orisha music traditions: reel-to-reel and cassette tapes; limited edition and out-of-print books and phonograph discs; ephemeral texts such as album liner notes; and photographic negatives, prints, and slides. The tapes and photos — along with a vast body of informal, unpublished, and out-of-print documents of Afro-Cuban orisha liturgy — are seldom archived by …

Sexual Dimorphism And Divergent Evolutionary Pathways In Primate Cranial Biomechanics: Insights From A Theoretical Morphology Framework, Z. Jack Tseng, Claire E. Terhune

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

he mammalian order Primates is known for widespread sexual dimorphism in size and phenotype. Despite repeated speculation that primate sexual size dimorphism either facilitates or is in part driven by functional differences in how males and females interact with their environments, few studies have directly assessed the influence of sexual dimorphism on performance traits. Here, we use a theoretical morphology framework to show that sexual dimorphism in primate crania is associated with divergent biomechanical performance traits. The degree of dimorphism is a significant covariate in biomechanical trait divergence between sexes. Males exhibit less efficient but stiffer cranial shapes and significant …

Reporting On Racial Violence: A Content Analysis Of Local & National Coverage Of Jacksonville, Florida’S Dollar General Shooting, Carter Mudgett

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

This study investigates how local and national news media outlets — particularly the Associated Press, CNN, the Florida Times-Union, and News4Jax — presented the “Dollar General Shooting” in Jacksonville, Florida on and after August 26, 2023. Far-reaching expectations for journalists call for “objective” observation and reporting, an ideal that is nearly impossible given that collective and individual experience inform perceptions and understandings. Nonetheless, the original definition of objectivity — as described by Kovach and Rosenstiel (2014, p. 10) — outlined a transparent approach to evidence, a process to remove personal bias from reporting, with the goal of a stronger journalistic …