Anthropology Commons^™

Cognitive Relatives Yet Moral Strangers?, Judith Benz-Scharzberg, Andrew Knight

Animal Welfare Collection

This article provides an empirically based, interdisciplinary approach to the following two questions: Do animals possess behavioral and cognitive characteristics such as culture, language, and a theory of mind? And if so, what are the implications, when long-standing criteria used to justify differences in moral consideration between humans and animals are no longer considered indisputable? One basic implication is that the psychological needs of captive animals should be adequately catered for. However, for species such as great apes and dolphins with whom we share major characteristics of personhood, welfare considerations alone may not suffice, and consideration of basic rights may …

Canada’S Commercial Seal Hunt: It’S More Than A Question Of Humane Killing, David M. Lavigne, William S. Lynn

Animal Welfare Collection

No abstract provided.

Experiencing Samoa Through Stories: Myths And Legends Of A People And Place, Samantha Lichtenberg

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research will explore oral tradition, indigenous beliefs prior to Christianity, and the significance of place through the study of Samoan myths and legends. The researcher will investigate the tradition of storytelling by hearing the stories from Samoan elders themselves. These stories will be supplemented with details from secondary written resources in order to compile comprehensive versions of the myths and legends. The research will consider the affect that Christianity has on the meaning of the stories and examine whether traces of indigenous belief/religion are preserved today through storytelling and the remembrance of myths. The researcher will spend a significant …

“It’S Just Not That Simple:” Territory And Politics At Girdwood Park, Kyra Fallon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This report is the outcome of a month long study of space and territory in North Belfast. Data was obtained by way of qualitative methods using focused interviews and mapping, within theoretical frameworks from sociology and human geography. Segregation, space, and demographic change are explored as factors of localized territorial conflict. This theory is applied to the Crumlin Road Gaol and Girdwood Barracks regeneration project in North Belfast, where the contentious issue of housing on the site has stalled other development. The research finds that these factors do play a role in the project and also seeks to explore the …

From Famine To Feast: The Give And Take Of Food In A Global Subsistence Environment, Laurence M. Carucci

Pacific Studies

Food is the primary transactional substance for Enewetak/Ujelang people [Republic of the Marshall Islands] and its production, preparation, consumption and exchange are central to how local people fashion and maintain social relationships and how they construct identities. At the same time, while the constitutive properties of food have remained culturally vigorous, the foods themselves have changed radically under colonialism. In particular, rehabilitation attempts in the post-nuclear testing era on Enewetak introduced extraordinary rapid dietary changes in the community and resulted in the onset of an epidemic of sedentary illnesses. The social practices that relate to food production and consumption are …

Toward A Cosmopolitical Democracy: Process Over Ends, Rebecca Lea Mccarthy

Journal of International and Global Studies

“Towards a Cosmopolitical Democracy” argues that in order for cosmopolitanism to effectively challenge destructive forms of nationalism, misguided universalism, and economic globalism, it must be rearticulated conceptually and philosophically for today’s world as a cosmopolitical process rather than a set ideal or vision. This cosmopolitical process is best promoted in the realm of rhetoric and praxis, where everyday practices and values between self and collective interest are navigated using a Bakhtinian understanding of the dialogic imagination, as well as a “double process” of negotiation between the universal and the particular, both cognitively (Burke, 1970) and across cultures (Tarrow, 2005).

The Migrant Making Organization Gender, Labor And Agency In A New Migration Process, Marit Aure

Journal of International and Global Studies

Labor migration is increasing in scale and diversity and is characterized by a new feminization. Despite these transformations, a common theme remains unchanged: immigrant workers are employed in low-skilled jobs. This study of labor migration from Russia to Norway analyzes the establishment of a new migration process, who was involved in this migration, and why this migration from Russia to Norway became dominated by women. It also discusses the situation of the Russian workers in the Norwegian labor market. Analyses of the recruitment processes show how gender, sexuality, age, marital status, education, and motherhood construct women as suitable migrants and …

Global Transmission And Local Consumption: Navajo Resistance To Mainstream American Television, Sam Pack Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

A common assumption maintains that the global outreach of mass media inevitably leads to deleterious consequences for native communities. Indeed, different scholars have argued that awareness of the outside world from television results in the homogenization of local cultures. However, images viewed through the electronic peephole radically transform not only an understanding of the outside world, but the way indigenes define themselves and their relationship to each other. By presenting subaltern audiences with an idealized other, television compels the emergence of an objectified self. “Who are ‘we’?” would not have been asked—or asked in the same way—were it not for …

F.S.J. Ledgister, Only West Indians: Creole Nationalism In The British West Indies. Trenton, N.J: Africa World Press, 2010., Jerome Teelucksingh Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

No abstract provided.

Mahjoob Zweiri And Emma C. Murphy (Eds.). The New Arab Media: Technology, Image And Perception. Ithaca Press. 2010., Timothy James Wilkerson Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

No abstract provided.

Participant/Observer Vol. 4. No. 1 Spring 2011, Anthropology Department

Participant/Observer

A Newsletter for Friends of the Western Michigan University Department of Anthropology

Table of Contents:

• Anthropology Instrumental in Bringing RACE Exhibit to Kalamazoo
• Letter from the Chair
• Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project: 2010 Field Season Summary
• Finger Lakes Field Work and Outreach
• Faculty News
• Anemone’s “Fossil Goldmine” Featured in USA Today
• Hill Article Receives Top 10 Award
• Student News
• 2010 Distinguished Alumni

Fort St. Joseph Post - Spring 2011, Department Of Anthropology

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Vol. 2

For friends of Western Michigan University’s Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Table of Contents:

• Greetings, Fort St. Joseph supporters!
• Work of Archaeology from September to June
• Women of New France
• After the dirt settles: lab work
• Camper Perspectives: Diane Newbury, Cathrine Davis
• 2010 Field Season Summary
• Beyond Fort St. Joseph: Alumni News and Happenings
• Alumni Write…
• Upcoming Events and Recent Outcomes

Heart Treatment In Ancient Egyptian Mummification, Andrew D. Wade, Andrew J. Nelson

Anthropology Presentations

Descriptions in the popular and academic literature, of the treatment of the heart as part of the Egyptian mummification tradition, are derived from accounts by classical authors.

Our reliance on these normative descriptions, in the absence of Egyptian accounts, has obscured the wide range of mummification practices and the intrasocietal changes occurring in ancient Egypt. It has impeded the study of geographic, chronological, and socio-political variations in ancient Egyptian mortuary practice and ideology.

This study focuses on computed tomography (CT) as a non-destructive gold standard for mummies studies, and in the examination of heart treatment indications and variations with time, …

Development Of A Dry Bone Mdct Scanning Protocol For Archaeological Crania, Gerald Conlogue, Andrew D. Wade

Anthropology Presentations

This poster discusses the development of a multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) scanning protocol for dry bone skulls, using a Toshiba Aquilion 64-slice scanner at Quinnipiac University, in North Haven, Connecticut. Unfortunately, for individuals working in paleoimaging, the preset image manipulation factors have been developed for hydrated living tissues. Three likely preset protocols were selected as the initial starting place for the dry bone study in preparation for a potential large sample scanning session of skulls from Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University. Each protocol had specific raw data acquisition parameters and algorithm, mathematical manipulations of the raw data, …

Cordage, Textiles, And The Late Pleistocene Peopling Of The Andes, Edward A. Jolie, Thomas F. Lynch, Phil R. Geib, J. M. Adovasio

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Harsh high-altitude environments were among the last landscapes to be settled by humans during the Late Pleistocene between ∼15,000 and 11,000 calendar years before present (cal yr BP). Successful colonization required physiological adaptations to hypoxia and cultural adaptations to limited resources and cold temperatures. How and when humans colonized Andean South America has been poorly understood owing to controversial early archaeological sites and questions about the impact of environmental factors, including the presence of glaciers. Here we report the reexamination and direct dating of six finely woven textiles and cords from Guitarrero Cave, Peru, that identify South America’s earliest textiles …

Negotiating History And Attending To The Future: Perceptions Among And Of Malaiyaha Tamils In Sri Lanka, Mythri Jegathesan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Agricultural Productivity And Nutritional Status In Rural South Wollo, Ethiopia, Anne M. Cafer

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Although many studies have focused on the plight, poverty, and severe malnutrition of rural Ethiopians, few have managed to incorporate qualitative and quantitative data to examine connections between health status and food production. This project is unique in that both types of data are combined and anthropometric measurements and a structured questionnaire are used to explore the link between agriculture, development, and nutrition. Additionally the research design incorporated feedback from local development agents, faculty and staff at an Ethiopian university, and community leaders. A survey of 120 households in seven villages within two districts of South Wollo revealed that a …

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage In The United States: Medicalization, Morality, And Mental Health, Ellen Lewin

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

Review Of Bridging The Divide: Indigenous Communities And Archaeology Into The 21st Century. Edited By Caroline Phillips And Harry Allen., Larry J. Zimmerman

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

An outgrowth of demands for ethical treatment and repatriation of their ancestral remains, Indigenous Archaeology (IA) reflects the desire of Indigenous peoples to have a say in how stories of their pasts get told. Too often, Indigenous people claim, archaeologists have discounted oral tradition in favor of scientifically derived histories, histories that may discount or contradict millennia-old beliefs. IA is different, done for them, sometimes by them, and usually in complete collaboration with them. Their questions are central to research agendas and interpretations. IA is controversial because some archaeologists see collaboration as infringement on academic freedom, as movement away from …

Review Of Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite At The Edge Of The Rockies. Edited By Mary Lou Larson, Marcel Kornfeld, And George C. Frison., Jack W. Brink

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Every Plains archaeologist has heard of the Hell Gap site. But few could tell you much about it. All that changes with the publication of this needed, dense, thorough collection that chronicles the life and content of this singularly important archaeological site. With 20 papers and 13 appendices, this book takes a monumental step forward in furthering our knowledge of nearly the entire Paleoindian sequence of occupation on the western Plains. Hell Gap is the type site for three Paleoindian point styles: Goshen, Hell Gap, and Frederick, and contains at least six other cultural complexes: Folsom, Midland, Agate Basin, Alberta, …