Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

‘Unbelievable’: Perspectives On The Digital World In Manang, Alex Halaby

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Manang lies one hundred miles northwest of Kathmandu in a valley called Nyeshang. Until a major road was constructed in 2014, the challenge of importing goods in and out of the town slowed the development of digital infrastructures supporting internet use. Consequently, the widespread use of the internet and digital communication is a relatively new phenomenon. Already, its effects are visible in classrooms, health clinics, hotels, and social structures. This paper investigates how Manangis learn about themselves, each other, and the world outside the valley in this new digital space. Emphasis is not placed on quantifications, but rather on the …

Waldo, Florida: Ruination And Dissolution, Lennon Myers

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

The small town of Waldo is disintegrating. Although part of the larger Alachua County, residents still must drive far into Gainesville to send their children to school, go to the bank, the doctors, and get their groceries and medicine. Even though Waldo residents pay taxes to this county, they remain without many of the necessities only available in Gainesville. On weekends, individuals from Gainesville and beyond make the drive to the Waldo Flea Market to buy cheap produce and fruit from local growers. This research utilizes both Wallerstein’s World-Systems theory and Stoler’s concept of ruination, which provide context for the …

Casar Student Discussion Series: ‘Does Social Media Bring More Harm Than Good?’, The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar

Performances, Events, and Presentations

CASAR Student Debate Series - Launched in Fall 2023:

The Center of American Studies and Research (CASAR) launched a Student Discussion Series in Fall 2023 semester, it is a student-led debate on a plethora of current hot topics. In this student discussion series, students play the role of delving into topics together to understand one another. This event is broadcasted on Facebook live via the CASAR Facebook Page, where the entire record is still available to watch. Students passionately present their arguments in an organized manner, going back and forth between the two sides, and often students become excited about …

Archival Data On Latinx Students At The University Of Louisville, Bailey Wilson, Isabel Abarca

The Cardinal Edge

In recent years, there has been an increased focus on minoritized students on college campuses and within higher education institutions. This data is situated as background research for a UofL Master’s research thesis titled, Identity and Cultural Expression Among Latinx Students in Higher Education by Isabel Abarca. Based on UofL's Card Analytics program and Common Data Sets, there were numerous disparities found between Latinx students and the total student population, with significant differences when compared to white students. From 2005 to 2022 the proportion of Latinx students increased steadily, more than tripling the number of Latinx degree-seeking undergrads on campus, …

Recommended Editions (1/3)

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

Introduction to Recommended Editions (1/3)

1) Open Semiotics (Vols. 1-4) Amir Biglari (Ed.)

2) The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony, Vicente-Juan Ballester-Olmos and Richard W. Heiden, (Eds.)

Social And Cultural Values In Alaskan Subsistence Management: Rurality And The Meaning Of “Meaningful” Natural Resource Management, Jarred Haynes

Capstone Collection

In Alaska, subsistence is a way of life for some communities. The Federal Subsistence Board (FSB) oversees the Federal Subsistence Management Program. One of its responsibilities is to determine areas as subsistence or non-subsistence areas. This decision, in part, is based on whether subsistence is a “principal characteristic of the economy, culture, and way of life”. (James A. Fall, Division of Subsistence, 2018). The federal policy grants these communities priority in the taking of wild resources (Title VIII of the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act). Interviews revealed factors of vulnerability and resilience, specifically in the context of subsistence. Scoones …

Managing Fires And Ecosystems Indigenous Fire Ecologies Session_Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Wildland Fires Workshop, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"I’M Mixing Comic Book Canon And Mcu Canon To Suit My Own Needs": Information Sharing As Community Building In A Fandom In Flux, Alison Harding

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Utilizing the rapidly changing landscape of the Marvel fandom on fanfiction archive Archive of Our Own (AO3) as a research site, this paper presents the findings of a combined autoethnography and digital ethnography of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier community. The work explores the ways in which a fandom community builds itself through information sharing. While the study garnered many findings, this paper primarily focuses on how tags are vital to crafting community identity, while also creating barriers to entry within the Falcon and the Winter Soldier fandom.

The results show that while the broader Marvel fandom can be …

Violinmaking Apprenticeship: A Qualitative Investigation Of Learning As Embodied Familiarization, Isaac Calvert, Melissa Noel Hawkley, Samantha Swift

The Qualitative Report

This case study examines Yanchar, Spackman, and Faulconer’s “Learning as Embodied Familiarization” (hereafter LAEF) framework in the case of a violinmaking apprenticeship. Its purpose is to critically examine each facet of the LAEF framework as manifest in the lived experience of both master and apprentice. While previous studies investigating this framework have used various qualitative and hermeneutic methodologies, none have done so from a prolonged, ethnographic perspective. This perspective comes from an immersive autoethnography in which I apprenticed under a master violinmaker in an informal, one-on-one workshop environment for six months working four to five days a week for three …

De Pingüinos Y Personas: La Red Alimentaria Antártica En La Época Antropoceno, Clare A. Sammells

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Of Penguins And People: The Antarctic Food Web In The Anthropocene, Clare A. Sammells

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

Author’s Translation of: Sammells, Clare A. 2023. “De pingüinos y personas: la red alimentaria antártica en la época Antropoceno.” Proceedings of the SLACA Biennial Conference / Memorias de la Conferencia Bienal de SLACA. Cartagena, Colombia March 15-17, 2023. Clare A. Sammells and Natalia Quiceno Toro, eds., 34-39.

Domestic Material Culture And Wealth: Equality Bronze Age Houses And Intramural Tombs At Titriş Höyük, Turkey, Yoko Nishimura

East Asian Studies Faculty Publications

This article measures differential accumulation of material wealth between houses at the intrasite level. The dwellings measured are located in two separate residential neighborhoods at the urban settlement of Titriş Höyük in southeastern Turkey. As proxies of the measurement, the author employed various architectural spaces, built-in features, and portable artifacts exposed from primary floor contexts, as well as grave inclusions from burials within the houses that were completely or partially excavated. Gini values are calculated for thirteen variables derived from the material culture. The results show that occupants of the houses shared a similar economic status from about 2300 to …

Icons In Lyari: Resonance, Visibility, And Global Blackness In An Indian Ocean Port Town, Zehra Husain

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This doctoral dissertation studies the resonances of boxing, football, and rap music in Lyari Town, a working-class neighborhood located in Pakistan’s commercial port city Karachi. Based on 12 months of in-person and remote ethnographic fieldwork, this dissertation traces the circulation of iconographies of Blackness and global sports as they sediment in a port town on the Indian Ocean. Lyari has long been in the news for gang violence and urban strife, but is also noted for its talented boxers, footballers and more recently rap musicians, some of whom are of Afro-Baluch descent. These “two faces” of Lyari Town informs its …

Redrawing The Contours Of Care: Ethical Commitments And Gendered Politics In The Work Of Government Psychological Counsellors In Sri Lanka, Nadia Augustyniak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the last three decades, Sri Lanka has seen a growing popular interest in psychology as a field of professional practice as well as a steady expansion of mental health services. Historically, this shift has been linked to the impacts of political violence (1971, 1987-1989), civil war (1983-2009) as well as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, with local and international trauma and humanitarian interventions shaping recovery and the country’s mental health and psychosocial care infrastructure. More recently, however, psychology and mental health have been increasingly decoupled from the discourse of trauma, entering into everyday life and popular culture through the …

Extraction, Property, And Rights In Southeastern Arabian Seascapes C.1820–Present, Scott Erich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a historical and ethnographic examination of fish, pearl, sponge, and oil extraction in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. These waters, which were fished and labored upon in much of the same way for millennia, have, in the last two centuries, undergone a sea change. Regimes of property and rights have transformed the ocean from a wild and undifferentiated space into a place which is enclosed, privatized, industrially fished, drilled, and otherwise despoiled. This dissertation, building on recent works in environmental history, Indian Ocean studies, and legal and economic anthropology, probes the many cultural, religious, social, …

Gendered Care Work And State Ambivalence: Disaster Recovery And Puerto Rican Displacement In New York City, Lisa Jahn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the politics of disaster recovery and coloniality in New York City, documenting the forms of ambivalent care that characterize institutionalized disaster recovery programs. I examine how Puerto Ricans arriving in New York City post- hurricane María navigate the racialized and inadequately funded recovery aid program supported by the Office of the Mayor of New York City. Following the events of September 11, 2001, New York City faith-based agencies established programs to assist in rescue, relief, and recovery efforts. The New York City Relief Center (NYRC) was first incorporated in 2003 to address all phases of the disaster …

Police Officers’ Perspectives On The Death Of George Floyd By Minneapolis Police Officers: A Descriptive Study, Janet Henderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On May 25, 2020, four Minneapolis police officers reported to the location where an African American man had been accused of trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill in a convenience store. After being taken outside of the store, the man, George Floyd, was eventually placed in the back of a police patrol car, after he was handcuffed. Saying he was claustrophobic and resisting arrest, Mr. Floyd was removed from the patrol car, and placed on the ground on his stomach. One of the patrol officers, the most senior officer present, and a field training officer, placed his knee on …

Anth201: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Fall 2023), James Tolleson

Open Educational Resources

Cultural anthropology emerged to study the differences among human beings (and between human and non-human beings). This course will cover the foundations of the discipline, including a critical perspective on anthropology’s ties to European colonialism and the rise of global capitalism. Students will come away with an understanding of how cultural anthropologists study culture, defined as “a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways” (Brown, McIlwraith & Tubelle de González 2020, 6). We will also pay close attention to …

Metapopulation Dynamics Of Sars-Cov-2 Transmission In A Small-Scale Amazonian Society, Thomas Kraft, Edmond Seabright, Sarah Alami, Samuel M. Jenness, Paul L. Hooper, Bret Beheim, Helen Davis, Daniel K. Cummings, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, Maguin Gutierrez Cayuba, Emily J. Miner, Xavier De Lamballerie, Lucia Inchauste, Stéphane Priet, Benjamin Trumble, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

The severity of infectious disease outbreaks is governed by patterns of human contact, which vary by geography, social organization, mobility, access to technology and healthcare, economic development, and culture. Whereas globalized societies and urban centers exhibit characteristics that can heighten vulnerability to pandemics, small-scale subsistence societies occupying remote, rural areas may be buffered. Accordingly, voluntary collective isolation has been proposed as one strategy to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 and other pandemics on small-scale Indigenous populations with minimal access to healthcare infrastructure. To assess the vulnerability of such populations and the viability of interventions such as voluntary collective isolation, we …

Fantasy Escapism: Using Role-Playing Games To Explore Mental Health And Gender Identity, Aidan Cipolla

English and Creative Writing Summer Fellows

This project analyzes how escapism through the use of role-playing games can be used as a coping mechanism for those struggling with a variety of topics, including gender dysphoria and mental health issues. The project takes an ethnographic approach to data gathering, consisting of interviews with a small group of Dungeons and Dragons / video game players, and personal anecdotes regarding the author’s experience with escapism.