Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Representations Of Argentine National Identity Via El Museo Nacional De Bellas Artes, Lindsay Newby

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

National identity is a concept that every nation constructs and celebrates through the remembrance of important events or persons, the projection of literary works, and the erection of monuments. Yet, in order to truly understand a nation’s self-imagery, one must examine and chart all of its different periods through time. This allows one to avoid narrow, static definitions by viewing a nation in a more holistic sense. In this study, it is hypothesized that museums function to preserve, assert, and disseminate a sense of heritage and, in the case of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, a sense of what …

The Diagnosis Narratives & The Healing Ritual, James Peter Meza

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

THE DIAGNOSIS NARRATIVES & THE HEALING RITUAL

by JAMES PETER MEZA

December 2013

Advisor: Dr. Andrea Sankar

Major: Anthropology (medical)

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

The goal of this dissertation was to describe healing practices in the setting of clinical encounters between patients and doctors. The theoretical background for this research began with the theory of the mind and using concepts from cognitive anthropology described the anthropological self as distinguished from person or identity. Additionally, the conceptual framework of cognitive anthropology was used to describe narrative theory. Narrative theory in the form of the narrative structure of experience, particularly the …

Flirting With Conversion: Negotiating Researcher Non-Belief With Missionaries, Hillary K. Crane

Faculty Publications

This article discusses Crane’s research in a Taiwanese Buddhist monastery. Crane came to the field as a former Catholic, which provided a particular lens through which to perceive the phenomena she researched. Beyond the difficulties of having one's research interests misinterpreted by the community one is researching and the ambiguities that result from remaining open to conversion when studying religious communities, Crane examines the further difficulty confronted when researching religious personnel who have an interest in representing their religious ideals both to and through the researcher. The article examines Crane’s time in the Buddhist monastery and explores her personal ambivalence …

The Adjustment Of Asian American Families To The U.S. Context: The Ecology Of Strengths And Stress, Yan Ruth Xia

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

The number of Asian American families is on the rise. Asian American families are a diverse group. This chapter focuses on Asian American families that migrated to the United States in the last three decades. This chapter challenges the media’s depiction of them as a Model Minority. Because of this stereotype, many challenges that this group encounters may not gain adequate attention. The chapter examines their strengths and resiliency, along with the ecology of stress that influences family dynamics.

Emotion Meaning-Making: Identity, Discourse And Social Interaction Among Arab Immigrant Healthcare Providers, Anne Katz

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation sought to deepen understandings of emotion and its role in human personal and social life by exploring how a group of Arab immigrant health care providers, involved in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in one clinic in the United States, assign meaning to emotion. Affectively charged and fluid, often involving conditions of disruption and dislocation, the experience of migration offers a fertile place in which to examine the roles that social and interpretive practices play in constituting emotional experience. Due to increases in patterns of migration associated with globalization, mental health diagnoses are often arrived at …

Sharing And Sustaining Maya Environmental Heritage In Southern Belize, Rebecca K. Zarger, Kristina Baines

Publications and Research

This paper documents an approach to sharing and sustaining Maya environmental and cultural heritage through the development of a primary school curriculum and associated activities in order to bring cultural knowledge and practices to formal school settings. Methods include long-term ethnographic research on environmental knowledge and practices in two Maya communities in Toledo; participatory workshops with educators; iterative consultations with district educators, community leaders, and families; and community for a focus on discussions of how and whether such information could be integrated into formal schooling. Curricula and content for workbooks, radio shows, and field guides are comprised of both generalized …

Sibyl 2013, Otterbein University

Otterbein University Yearbooks

No abstract provided.

Study Abroad And Identity: The African American Experience, Alicia Ranney

Capstone Collection

Not all students are alike, nor should they be treated as 'one size fits all' in study abroad. Students have different backgrounds, goals, and expectations of what they will gain from an international academic experience. Minority students face different types of challenges in study abroad than their non-minority counterparts.

This paper seeks to answer the question “does study abroad change the identity of African American students?” and examines the challenges of identity and racism and how those two factors may decrease participation rates of African Americans in study abroad. Students from Marygrove College in Detroit, Michigan were surveyed before and …

The Clothing Culture Of Parkland College, Abigail Brooks

A with Honors Projects

An ethnography of the clothing choices of students at Parkland College, a community college in Central Illinois.

Queering Ghana: Sexuality, Community, And The Struggle For Cultural Belonging In An African Nation, William D. Banks

Wayne State University Dissertations

In this dissertation, I provide an analysis of the social practices of a queer community in southern Ghana known as Saso people. Drawing on in-depth interviews with indigenous religious priests, I focus specifically on practices of leadership and kinship, sexual initiation, and engagement and marriage. I interpret these practices as a set of strategies deployed by Saso people to articulate a sense of cultural belonging in contemporary Ghana. In so doing, I make a contribution to the scant ethnographic literature on queer African communities, while demonstrating the value of priests as research subjects. My ethnographic fieldwork, as well as that …

Sedentism, Social Change, Warfare, And The Bow In The Ancient Pueblo Southwest, Paul F. Reed, Phil R. Geib

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

In the ancient American Southwest, use of the bow developed relatively rapidly among Pueblo people by the fifth century AD. This new technology replaced the millennia-old atlatl and dart weaponry system. Roughly 150 years later in the AD 600s, Pueblo socioeconomic organization began to evolve rapidly, as many groups adopted a much more sedentary life. Multiple factors converged to allow this sedentary pattern to emerge, but the role of the bow in this process has not been fully explored. In this paper, we trace the development of the bow and discuss its role as sedentism emerged and social changes occurred …

Remapping Nature: Motherhood, Autonomy, And Anti-Mining Activism In Íntag, Ecuador, Ellicott K. Dandy

Honors Theses

This honors thesis explores the social changes that women engaged in anti-mining activism bring to a region in rural Ecuador. I discuss the ways in which they incorporate their activist techniques into everyday life, using their status as mothers to access public discourses of environmentalism, and ultimately rewrite gender roles locally. Framing the mining conflict as a catalyst for social change, I draw parallels between this movement and indigenous politics in Ecuador, propose new interpretations of the mestizo ethnic identity and assimilation in the Spanish Empire, and finally, make the case for a nature-centric cultural analysis in anthropology.

Finite To Fail, Infinite To Venture: Interactivism And Relational Ethics, Rachel A. Rosenbaum

Honors Theses

This project tells the story of a group of anonymous activists at Colby College that I call 'The EDFC.' To tell the story of The EDFC I build a theory of activism that I call 'Interactivism as Anarchism' that reveals how certain structures and processes affect activism. My goals are to highlight the subjectivity of the members of the group, the creation of the collective, and the process of our activism in ways that reveal the broader implications that this group has on: 1) what makes activism effective, 2) what inhibits and incites activism at Colby, and 3) what does …

Last (Un)Fair Deal Goin' Down: A Case Study On The Racial Ideologies And Projects Advanced By The Blues Tourism Industry In Clarksdale, Mississippi, Kathryn Anne Radishofski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Considerations regarding the mechanisms through which cultural commodification may be woven into the fabric of racial inequity are indispensible when conducting research on African American music tourism in the United States, as white consumers and producers may attach invidious racial mythologies to such heritage, while the industries themselves often take root in communities inhabited by multiple racial groups possessing disparate social and economic power. With these bearings in mind, this thesis assesses the impact of blues tourism development on the experiences of, and between, blacks and whites in Clarksdale, Mississippi, an endemically impoverished Delta city populated by a sizable African …

The Gamer Tribes: An Ethnography, Sonoma Bryan

A with Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Yogahome: Emotional, Physical And Social Impacts Of A Yoga Program On Community Homeless Shelter Residents, Jennifer Davis-Berman, Jean Farkas

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

This article reports on a qualitative analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 12 women and 2 men who participated in a community-based yoga program, run by a certified yoga teacher and a social worker, at a homeless shelter in a medium-sized city in the Midwestern United States. This restorative yoga program was developed in the shelter in response to the severe stress of being homeless and the chaotic nature of shelter life. Based on an analysis of transcribed interviews, the following themes were generated and discussed: Yoga as Relaxation, Stress Relief, Pain Relief, and Future Practice. The challenges and …

Population Pressure And Family Planning In The Case Of Sub Saharan Africa's Demographic Transition, Jessica T. Ysunza

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Ua3/9/4 President's Office-Ransdell Installation File, Wku Archives, Virginia Brothers

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created and received by the President’s Office in preparation of Gary Ransdell’s installation as president.

Negotiating Ethnosexual Difference In The Armenian Transnation, Nelli Sargsyan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Since heteronormativity is an inextricable part of the ethnonationalist ideologies and discourses of Armenianness, conformity and transgression are communally policed both in the Republic of Armenia, as well as in the Armenian diaspora, albeit in different ways. In the diaspora it is through public silence regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) and queer self-identified Armenians that hetero-belonging is managed. In the Republic of Armenia, on the other hand, it is managed through hate speech promoted by public figures and through mass media. In both cases the anxiety that the issue of non-heteronormativity points to in the public outcry is that …

The Anti-Abortion Legislation In Nicaragua : Gender Hierarchies And Ideologies In Reproduction, Ilona M. Flores

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This research examines the anti-abortion legislation that was passed in Nicaragua in 2006. The methods of investigation involve participant/observation and collaboration, semi-structured interviews, and content analysis. Through examination of the legal and medical implications of criminalizing therapeutic abortions, this research demonstrates that the anti-abortion law attempts to enforce traditional gender roles. The abortion debate inspired many questions of morality and motherhood, and that access to therapeutic abortions meant denying `normal' gender roles. While some women internalized these notions, others did not. However, Nicaraguans use the conceptual framework of `salir adelante' as a way to practice agency.