Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

"Beautifully Awful": A Feminist Ethnography Of Women Veterans' Experiences With Transition From Military Service, Kiersten H. Downs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As issues of gender inequality in the military are addressed, women will continue to fill jobs traditionally occupied by men, and ultimately take on a greater percentage of leadership responsibility. For these reasons, women will remain the fastest growing population within our active duty forces. An increased need for research, advocacy, and resources for programs and services designed specifically for women veterans is necessary in order to prepare for an upsurge in the numbers of women who will be seeking services in the years to come. This research utilized a feminist ethnographic approach for data collection and analysis. Data was …

Water, Sanitation, And Citizenship: Perceptions Of Water Scarcity, Reuse, And Sustainability In Valparaiso De Goias, Brazil, Paola Andrea Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Access to reliable water and sanitation are two important goals to improve livelihoods around the world. Providing access to improved and safe water resources that are equitable and appropriate to local needs is important to improve sustainability long-term. In addition, framing access to water and sanitation as basic human rights is often used as a rationale in developing new water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions in developing countries around the world. But not all countries consider access to safe water and sanitation as a human right. In the thesis, the politics of improving and investment in water access and sanitation provision …

The Disney Nonhuman Princesses, Corey Lee Wrenn

Cultural Representation of Animals Collection

Many of the gender norms popular in human-centric Disney films are also perpetuated in those starring nonhuman princesses. These nonhuman princess films perpetuate Disney’s painfully heteronormative and white bias, although perhaps less obviously. They remain side characters to inspire male counterparts, to be rescued, and to be won—and again, marriage is presented as the epitome of a happy ending. Although these characters are deer, foxes, cats, lions, and frogs, they are also overwhelmingly coded as white. Whiteness structures characters’ speech, behaviors, and values. In fact, most of the voice actors are also white. For instance, The Lion King’s Nala is …

Bodies Of Water: Politics, Ethics, And Relationships Along New Mexico's Acequias, Elise Trott

Anthropology ETDs

Growing public attention to global economic and environmental instability and collapse have brought new urgency to a classic activity of anthropology: looking for alternative economic and environmental models in other ways of life. This dissertation is a case study of the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which New Mexico’s acequias (communally-managed irrigation ditches) are produced, experienced, and contested as an alternative form of living, creating community, and relating ethically to the environment. Drawing on over six years of participant observation and in-depth interviews with Nuevomexicano (Spanish- and Mexican-descendant), indigenous, and non-indigenous acequia users and organizers in North-Central New Mexico …

Grassroots Branding: An Exploration Of Grassroots Businesses Within The Florida Skateboard Community, Lawrence M. Shaw

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Why do original/grassroots branding efforts occurring on a local level continue to proliferate despite the existing market saturation created by larger corporate entities? Using existing theoretical frameworks associated with “do it yourself” (DIY) culture, this thesis explores cultures and themes associated with skateboarding, including the production and consumption of brands of skateboarding products; the use of space and spatiality by skateboarders; and, finally, changes in skateboarding. I conducted ethnographic interviews within a network of skateboard entrepreneurs in the Florida skateboard community, seeking to understand why they start brands, their perceptions of their entrepreneurial efforts, and how these businesses operate. Drawing …

Gis Analysis Of Dvāravatī Dharmacakras And The Rise Of Buddhism In Thailand, Areerut Patnukao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores how GIS as well as spatial and statistical analyses could be used to advance the understanding of Dvāravatī settlement and Dharmacakras locations. The research employs archaeological and geographical parameters to measure and quantify the patterns of Dvāravatī settlements, Dharmacakra locations, their interrelationship, and their relationship with environmental setting. The different types of spatial analyses, parameter settings within each analysis, and approaches are used to examine and explore the differences and commonalities of these variables at three different geographic levels: national, regional, and river basin levels.

Four distinct approaches are incorporated in this study. Chi-Square analysis shows significant …

Cultivating Leaders Of Indiana: Global Collaborations And Local Impacts, Jennifer Sdunzik, Annagul Yaryyeva

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

“Cultivating Leaders of Indiana” was developed to establish connections between the Purdue student body and the Frankfort, Indiana, community. By engaging high school students in workshops that focused on local, national, and global identities, the goal of the project was to encourage students to appreciate their individuality and to motivate them to translate their skills into a global perspective. Moreover, workshops centering on themes such as culture, citizenship, media, and education were designed to empower project participants to embrace their sense of social value and responsibility, not only in their immediate communities, but also globally.

Why Do We Care?: A Natural History Of Noddings’ Ethical Theory, Walter Jason Niedermeyer

Between the Species

Noddings’ theory of caring, which is nearing its 35^th anniversary, has failed to garner the attention of the more classical theories of ethics. This slight may be due to its relative youth, or the historical support for other constructs, but if examined through the lens of evolutionary biology, the validity of Noddings might be tested. Using recent discoveries from the emerging fields of cognitive ethology and neuroscience, I have evaluated whether there exists evolutionary underpinnings for her theory. My analysis makes it apparent that the empathy and altruism required for the practice of caring are as much a product …

Factors Associated To Acceptable Treatment Adherence Among Children With Chronic Kidney Disease In Guatemala, Brooke Ramay, Alejandro Cerón, Luis Pablo Méndez-Alburez, Randall Lou-Meda

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

Pediatric patients with Chronic Kidney Disease face several barriers to medication adherence that, if addressed, may improve clinical care outcomes. A cross sectional questionnaire was administered in the Foundation for Children with Kidney Disease (FUNDANIER, Guatemala City) from September of 2015 to April of 2016 to identify the predisposing factors, enabling factors and need factors related to medication adherence. Sample size was calculated using simple random sampling with a confidence level of 95%, confidence interval of 0.05 and a proportion of 87%. A total of 103 participants responded to the questionnaire (calculated sample size was 96). Independent variables were defined …

All In - And More! Gambling In The James Bond Films, Pauliina Raento

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

Scholarly analysis of gambling in the James Bond films is rare, despite the multitude of topics in Bondology and the fictional agent’s global fame. The odd commentary in gambling scholarship criticizes the franchise from the perspective of harm prevention. This article counters both groups of scholars with a qualitative interpretation of Bond’s gambling habits and the role of gambling and risk taking in the film series. A basic toolkit of visual methodologies is applied to the 24 EON-produced Bond films released in 1962–2015. The examination shows the critical importance of gambling to character identity, power hierarchies and communication, atmosphere, and …

The "Native" As Ethnographer: Doing Social Research In Globalizing Nsukka, Chidi Ugwu

The Qualitative Report

Researchers have noted how local attitudes that connect research to the external world could affect findings differently in different contexts. How this played out for an indigenous researcher is the new perspective presented in this paper. Although an indigene of the study area, I became an outsider of sorts as soon as I began to show interest in malaria in a way that suggested to locals that the results of my investigation could eventually get to the government or the Western world – locals saw those two entities as embodying power and material abundance. Although I worked as an insider, …

Hermeneutic Philosophies Of Social Science: Introduction, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Man And Land: Competing Ontologies, Colonial Legacies, And The Quest For Food Sovereignty, Savannah Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Land is an ontological reality, which is at the center of different relationships to land. These relationships are situated in and a product of historical and spatial process that have an under lying power geometry. These different understandings of land tenure can create conflict when they intersect with competing interests in the same space. In Cameroon, this is currently the case in the form of large-scale land acquisitions, which often conflict with local communities as multinational corporations and local elites acquire land concessions with facilitation by the government in the name of development. This paper aims to understand this issue …

Who Am I? The Relationship Between Cultural Identity And Globalization Within The Local And Global Intersections, Nir Aish

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The imminent phenomenon of globalization has been mainly explored in academia through the lens of economics and politics. Little attention has been given to the relationship between this phenomenon and culture, and yet the yield of this relationship could be tremendous as culture determines how individuals operate in our growing globalized world. This research project takes place in Bertoua, the capital of the East Region of the Republic of Cameroon. The country is located in Central Africa, and is often referred as “Africa in Miniature” due to its vast cultural and geological diversity. The focus of the study is on …

Hermeneutics And Its Discontents In Philosophy Of Science: On Bruno Latour, The “Science Wars”, Mockery, And Immortal Models, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Themes discussed include a hermeneutic of hermeneutic philosophy of science, along with the hegemony of analytic style in university philosophy in the US and Europe as well as the rhetoric of power, highlighting the politics of mockery using the example of Alan Sokal’s hoax as this sought to exclude other voices in the academy, especially philosophy of science. In addition to reviewing Sokal’s attack on Bruno Latour, Latour’s own “biography” of an investigation is read as articulating a doubled hermeneutic reflection on modernity including both field ethnography and lab-ethnography. The further question of the viability of a hermeneutics of science …

Losing Faith: An Exploration Of Village Ponds In The Thar Desert, Pentti Hanlon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The intention of this study is to provide a holistic look at the Naadi: a rain-fed common property resource used for drinking water collection in the Thar Desert, Rajasthan. A sustainer of human life in the Thar, Naadis have decided how and where residents of the Thar lived. This study examines both current and historical naadi use in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan. The format of the study is a compilation and analysis of 15 field visits, a series of interviews, and investigation of recent alternatives to naadis. The success of a naadi is a function of geology, geography, and …

Women Of Leh Town, Ladakh: An Overview Of Perceptions Of Health, Health-Seeking Behaviors, And Access To Health Care, Sophia Marion

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The following study seeks to investigate access to health care services and perceptions of health care among women residing in traditional farming communities around the Ladakh region, and to analyze perspectives on health, health-seeking behavior, and access to health care. This project was prompted by the fact that health care in this region is understudied. This study also focuses on marginalized communities including local women and immigrant women. Methods used for the collection of data were qualitative interviews conducted with 24 women, as well as an amchi worker, doctors, and informal and formal conversations with people from different nongovernmental Organizations …

When Knowledge Flows: A Case Study Of Village Health Workers’ Motivations In Jamkhed, Selaem Hadera

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Across the field of global health, there have been many attempts to cater to the health needs of the most marginalized populations. Community health workers (CHWs) are individuals that live in the communities they serve and are typically low-­‐income women with little to no formal education. After a period of training by their program, they enter their communities equipped as a bridge between the community and the health system. Although CHWs do play a substantial role in health delivery and education, the structure of CHW programs varies widely, but a common characteristic of these programs is that the CHWs are …

A Critical Examination Of The Climate Change Vulnerability And Adaptation Literature In Nunavut, Canada, Sarah Prentice

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper attempts to study the climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature in Nunavut, a province in the Canadian Arctic. The paper begins with a review of literature produced by Inuit organizations on colonization in the Canadian Arctic and Nunavut specifically, then systematically reviews the literature on climate change vulnerability and adaptation. Using a post-colonial analysis, this study found that while the climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature attempts to attend to colonial histories and legacies, it often falls short. Climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature had minimal representation of colonization, residential schooling, sanatoria, and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. This may perpetuate …

Perspectives On Language From Street Produce Vendors In Cape Town: An Examination Of Education, Trading, And Development In The Informal Sector, Hannah Oldham

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Language is vital for the functioning of societies, from education to economic interactions. Language of education presents challenges in Africa due to colonial linguistic legacies and the diversity of indigenous African languages. While education trains learners for work in the formal economy, the South African formal cannot absorb all the available labor. The informal economy therefore provides vital work and income to millions of South Africans and immigrants. Language use in the informal sector was studied, including the education and work traders had before working as street produce vendors.

Six interviews were conducted: two near the Cape Town taxi rank, …