Anthropology Commons^™

God’S Design For Human Nature: Paul’S Biblical-Theological Use Of Creation Theology In Romans 1:18–32, Eunsoo (Daniel) Seo

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The world in which the Apostle Paul ministered was not a theological vacuum, but a sophisticated marketplace of competing worldviews and diverse moral frameworks. Within the specific milieu of first-century Rome, the cultural forces of Stoic philosophy, Roman imperial ideology, and pagan polytheism created an environment where complex expressions of human nature and sexuality emerged. Dominant Roman social stratifications often celebrated or normalized same-sex relations and blurred the distinctions of the created order. Paul found himself proclaiming a message of a Sovereign Creator in a society that had been conditioned for centuries to view the human nature through the lens …

Reframing Digital Ethnography As Research-Creation: A Review Of Exploring Digital Ethnography, Luis Miguel Dos Santos

The Qualitative Report

This review of Exploring Digital Ethnography: From Principles to Practice (Underberg-Goode & Otañez, 2025) argues that the book redefines digital ethnography as research-creation. This edited book not only explores social worlds through digital worlds, but it also shows how the design and production of multimodal creations establish how ethnographic knowledge is created and shared. Discoveries and guidelines are discussed, including examples of ethnographic comics, interactive autoethnographic narratives, participatory digital heritage designs, activist photography of bidi labor, organic theater, worldbuilding pedagogy, and collaborative smartphone storytelling with sexual minorities seeking asylum. This edited book shows how digital methods can allow deliberation (reflection, …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Longevity Trends And Disparities Among Native Americans And Whites In The Four Corners States, Ashley M. Lenarz, Hyojun Park, Max T. Roberts, Anwesha Pan, Erin Trouth Hofmann, Eric N. Reither

Sociology and Anthropology Student Research

Prior research has shown suboptimal health and longevity among Native Americans in the Four Corners region of the United States, which encompasses Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. Our study (1) investigates how life expectancy trends and disparities changed among non-Hispanic Native Americans and Whites in the Four Corners States (FCS) during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) examines the extent to which longevity changes are directly attributable to COVID-19, relative to other causes of death. Data sources include mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics and population data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Life expectancy at birth for …

Towards Critical Agency: A Case Study Of Japanese Peacebuilding And Development In The Bangsamoro, Hana Soma

Master in Public Policy Theses

Asking “In what ways have anthropological methods been part of Japan's peacebuilding and development interventions in the Bangsamoro?”, this research hopes to make a contribution to the study of anthropology and development and their practical application by exploring the possibilities of the role of an anthropological approach in making sense of modern-day development programs, particularly through the case study of Japan’s peacebuilding-through-development efforts in the Bangsamoro. After outlining the research question as well as the design and methodology used to answer it and an overview of the histories of dispossession and the Japanese relationship to Mindanao, the essay …

A Rarer Earth: The Many States Of Peat In Central Kalimantan, Layna Chen Ms.

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

Peat currently occupies a central place within climate discourse, with Indonesia’s peatlands as a key site of concern since the late twentieth century. Yet this contemporary understanding is historically unstable. Over the last two centuries, what we commonly consider peat has been repeatedly redefined by scientific and bureaucratic institutions. Within popular media, peat has circulated as a low-grade fuel, an infertile swampland, an agricultural soil awaiting rehabilitation, and a hydrological body requiring remediation. Tropical peatland fires, once treated as a scientific improbability, have become a recurring environmental crisis. This history of shifting definitions suggests that ‘peat’ is not a stable …

Inherited By “Merit”: What Caste Carries Across The Indian American Diaspora, Aarushi V. Jaiswal

English Undergraduate Distinction Projects

This project traces the rhetorical formation termed “meritocratic nationalism,” a political vocabulary that makes national belonging conditional on moralized merit, converting structural advantage into the language of individual character. Meritocratic nationalism is traced across three political figures whose rhetoric represents successive moments in a single ideological trajectory. Reading Narendra Modi’s 2014 and 2018 Independence Day addresses and his 2014 Madison Square Garden speech to the Indian American diaspora as the formation’s originating texts, this project argues that Modi’s recurring moral tetrad of conduct, values, traditions, and ability translated the structurally concentrated advantages of India’s upper-caste professional class into a universalist …

Migrant Mobility Across Necropolitical Territories Of Violence: Los Zetas/Cartel Del Noreste, Alondra Danixa Gonzalez

Senior Theses

This thesis examines migrant mobility across northeastern Mexico as a process shaped by organized crime and necropolitical violence, with a focus on the evolution of Los Zetas and their successor, Cartel del Noreste [CDN]. Based on Achille Mbembe's concept of necropolitics, along with Sayak Valencia's theory of gore capitalism and Melissa W. Wright's notion of disposable bodies, this paper identifies cartel-controlled border regions as necropolitical spaces where migrants are exposed to death and exploitation. Using a qualitative, testimony-based methodology, this paper incorporates three first-person family narratives of border crossing alongside documented cases of mass violence in Tamaulipas and Coahuila, including …

Assessing Legacy Collections: Analyzing The Preservation, Recovery, And Interpretive Value Of Archaeobotanical Remains From Site 15le70 (Pine Crest Rockshelter), Lee County, Kentucky, Jennifer Carroll

Graduate Final Projects

This paper uses the archaeobotanical assemblage from Site 15Le70, a multi-excavated and extensively looted rockshelter in eastern Kentucky, while opening new lines of inquiry into gendered labor and practice during the Archaic-Woodland transition. Because legacy collections are often dispersed across institutions and/or research projects, the materials from any single site may be fragmented, as was the case for 15Le70. Such collections can be overlooked, yet this investigation into 15Le70’s archaeobotanical assemblage demonstrates that partial or scattered datasets can yield meaningful results and hold the potential to fill gaps in the archaeological record left by looting.

In this study, a small …

The Co-Existing Of Religious And Secular Systems: An Ethnographical Study Of The Kalvária V Topoľčanoch And Religious Community In Topoľčany, Slovakia, Ruzena Zatko

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

During the communist era in Slovakia from 1948 to 1989, religion was forced into the private sphere and then re-entered into the public sphere when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) collapsed in 1989. This research aims to answer how the communist state and religious community interacted during communism and how a democratic state and religious community interacted post-communism. This paper focuses on how people preserved their religion, how secularization was rejected, and how religion re-entered the public sphere after communism ended. To answer these questions, I conducted oral interviews, primarily with the townspeople of Topoľčany, Slovakia, and this includes …

A Technical Analysis Of Ground Stone From The Group Iv Neighborhood At Palenque, Mexico, Alexandra Castillo Espinoza

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Ground stone tools (manos and metates used to grind food) are among the most recovered yet least studied artifacts in Classic Period Maya archaeology. Their consistent association with women's domestic labor has contributed to their analytical neglect, producing a gap in what is known about daily food production, household organization, and the lives of the people most responsible for both. This thesis addresses that gap through a technical analysis of 211 ground stone artifacts recovered from the Group IV neighborhood at Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, by the Proyecto Regional de Palenque (PREP) between 2016 and 2025. It is the first systematic …

Impairment And Disability In Mesoamerica: Bioarchaeological Evaluation And Interpretation Of The Maya Of Palenque, Dayanira Lopez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The application of disability theory to the past is of growing interest among bioarchaeologists, both nationally and internationally. However, its application poses greater challenges when considering ancient contexts, such as Mesoamerica. Nonetheless, engagement with disability studies has led to the development of various theoretical frameworks in bioarchaeology, including dis/ability. This model views physical impairment as a fluid state that may exhibit adaptability and resilience rather than a biological deficit. Importantly, it views ability on a spectrum and does not make assumptions about social and cultural perceptions of ability where there is a lack of contextual data. Thus, it is a …

Automation, Migration, And Development: Geography Of Job Precarity In South Asia And North Africa, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

This article examines how accelerating automation and the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in advanced economies reshape labor markets across the Global South through interconnected channels of production, migration, and remittances. Drawing on the theories and practices of economic geography, labor economics, and development studies, the analysis conceptualizes automation as a transnational shock that contracts demand for migrant labor while simultaneously amplifying employment precarity in labor-surplus economies. The article advances a geographically grounded framework linking technology adoption in core industries with labor displacement, youth unemployment, and urban labor saturation in South Asia and North Africa. It further highlights the macroeconomic …

Creating Space For The Public In Anthropology, Madison Joseph, Grace Tucker

2026 Symposium

This ongoing collaborative research project between Grace Tucker and Madison Joseph aims to evaluate an overlooked gap of knowledge and linguistic understanding concerning how anthropological findings are presented to both disciplinary experts and the general public. We will examine ways to improve public anthropology through improving our understanding of how to utilize everyday speech and specialist jargon simultaneously in the field. This project will include an extensive literature review of educational barriers and language use in anthropological research to identify solutions to remedy accessibility to, and dissemination of, these findings. We argue that museums and libraries are designed with the …

Analyzing Best Practices In Large-Scale Digital Archaeological Databases, Chloe M. Vizier

Honors Theses

Archaeological databases, the foundation of archaeological analyses, have changed drastically alongside the rise of new digital tools in the twenty-first century. Digital databases, alongside other digital tools, must therefore be evaluated for their efficiency and effectiveness within the field. This thesis seeks to determine a set of best practices within large-scale digital archaeological databases through analyzing an existing example: The Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA). PIDBA is composed of multiple state-level datasets, a trait that both invited collaboration and creates discrepancies in data entry. Though examining both PIDBA's user-facing website and one of its most robust state-level datasets, the …

Assessing College Tuition And Wage Prospects For Careers In Archaeology, Angelina H. Gutierrez

Honors Capstones

The pressures of rising college tuition are raising questions about whether a degree in higher education is worth the return on investment in today's society and economy. This study aims to acknowledge the issues of affording college and the opportunities granted in the face of college wealth premiums from the perspective of the field of archaeology. The college wealth premium is understood as additionalopportunities and increased salaries offered to those with a degree in higher education compared to those without. Using the Midwestern United States as a case study, I discuss the gender/race wage gap, college debt, loan inequity, and …

Lifestyle And Activity Patterns Of The Classic Period Maya From Chac Balam And San Juan, Ambergris Caye, Belize, Abigail L. Hornbeck

Honors Theses

Bioarchaeological research often uses skeletal remains to reconstruct patterns of activity and labor in past populations. This study examines potential sex-based differences in long bone morphology among individuals from the Classic Maya sites of Chac Balam and San Juan on Ambergris Caye, Belize. These coastal communities participated in maritime trade networks, and daily activities such as cargo transport, canoe travel, and fishing may have placed distinctive mechanical stresses on the skeleton. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether measurable differences in bone structure between males and females reflect differences in habitual activity patterns.

Two complementary methods were used …

Becoming Mandan: The Collaborative Life History Of Robert O’Brien, Douglas D. Meigs

Sociology and Anthropology Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

This thesis examines how separation from—and later discovery of—an Indigenous family and culture shapes ethnic identity formation. Grounded in Charles Horton Cooley’s theory of the looking-glass self, it uses collaborative life history methodology to analyze the process of Indigenous identity formation experienced by Robert O’Brien, a Native American orphan who discovered his Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) heritage as an adult. Drawing on two decades of reflexive research, unstructured interviews, participant observation, and archival documents, the case study shows how O’Brien’s sense of identity developed in response to shifting and often contradictory social mirrors.

Living Archaeology: A Comparative Perspective On How Archaeologists Can Study And Document The Present, Alia S. Moran

Honors Capstones

Archaeology has long remained a social science that has tended to exclude sustained consideration of contemporary societies in the analysis of material culture. In recent decades, approaches such as ethnoarchaeology and the archaeology of the contemporary have expanded the field to include the study of present-day societies through material culture. Inspired by my involvement in the Thais in Illinois Project, which focused on documenting the Thai American immigrant experience in the greater Chicago area to produce an oral history collection, alongside other goals, this thesis intends to further explore how archaeological practice can be used to understand everyday issues in …

Kafr Kama: The Marble Finds, Anastasia Shapiro

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The study of 127 marble fragments from the excavation of the Umayyad building at Kafr Kama revealed that most of the samples are made of Proconnesian marble and originally belonged to panels that likely decorated a church demolished by the earthquake of 749 CE. The collapse of the building caused the breakage of the panels, which then became spolia. They were marked and reshaped into small geometric forms, such as octagons or trapezoids measuring up to 20–30 cm. Given that no completed items were found, the studied assemblage probably represents the workplace of a stonemason active in Umayyad-period Kafr Kama.

Kafr Kama: The Coins, Robert Kool

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The excavation at Kafr Kama yielded five coins. One coin, minted in Rome, dates to the reign of Constantius II, while the others are from the Early Islamic period. Among these are a gold dinar and two silver dirhams from the early Abbasid period, including a rare dirham minted in al-Haruniya during the brief reign of the caliph al-Hadi. The coin assemblage attests to activity at the site during the third quarter of the eighth century CE.