Co-sponsored by the International Student Association, The Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Program, and the Dickey Center
Hurricane Katrina became the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States when it came ashore over southern Mississippi on August 29, 2005. After three years, the disaster experience continues in the city of Biloxi, Mississippi. While some residents have returned to their homes, many others continue to suffer directly from the hurricane due to inadequate housing, social and psychological displacement, and the inefficiencies of the recovery. This thesis compares the Biloxi experience in Katrina to existing cases in anthropological disaster literature, and situates the Katrina disaster in its sociohistorical context. Based on my independent field and academic research, I argue that preconceived local cultural approaches to hurricanes, an unexpectedly burdensome toll on the individual and collective state of emotions and social relationships, and systematic inefficiencies and miscommunications in the recovery process exacerbated the impact of Hurricane Katrina and the progress of the ongoing recovery process in Biloxi. Advisor: James J. Igoe
The research investigated the development of exchange systems in the Basin of Mexico during the Early and Middle Formative Periods (1800-500 B.C.). The degree and nature of exchange was quantified by sourcing decorated pottery previously collected from the Teotihuacán Valley in the northeastern Basin of Mexico. The ceramics were sourced by three physical methods: instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) and thin section petrography. The first two methods provided bulk elemental composition that was compared to that of regional clay samples. Significantly similar compositions of pottery clay and raw clay were the basis for source assignments. Thin section petrography served as a complimentary provenance method because it characterized ceramics and clays by their mineral content. The study intended to comparatively evaluate INAA, LA-ICP-MS, and petrography as sourcing methods, as well as reveal insights about early exchange networks in the Basin of Mexico. Advisors: Brian Jackson and Deborah L. Nichols.
The Japanese describe themselves as a people without religion, yet every year, every city or town will hold any number of festivals that focus on the kami, god-like spirits of the Shinto religion who are intrinsically tied to the land, making space an important aspect of Shinto. This thesis will analyze at both sacred and secular space as used in the Lantern Festival of Nihonmatsu, Japan to explore the relationship between the Japanese people, space, and Shinto. The Lantern Festival gives a unique insight into the Japanese peoples' conceptualization of space, both sacred and secular. The project consists of fieldwork done in two separate visits to Nihonmatsu through the Goodman Fund. Advisors: John M. Watanabe and Christopher Ball.
The proposed research is an anthropological exploration of the construction of scientific knowledge. Constructing scientific knowledge into observations, results, and conclusions has been the subject of much research in the sociology of knowledge and the history of science. Historian of science Thomas Kuhn, French social philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, and medical anthropologist Amade M'Charek have each offered insights into the construction of scientific knowledge, albeit from different perspectives. The proposed research explores how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Emory University approach concepts of etiology, pathology, and disease using standard methodologies and analytical tools to construct answers about morbidity, mortality, and the incidence of disease. The project will examine what Pickering (1992) and Hacking (1992, 1999) suggest as the self-vindicating nature of scientific research and scientific knowledge. I will extrapolate from their basic argument and apply it to the paradigms and praxis of health care in research settings by studying the construction of scientific knowledge at the CDC and Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Furthermore, this project seeks to understand how the paradigms with which scientists of these two institutions work and the practices they use in their research construct viable results from their data sets. Advisor: Hoyt Alverson.
This thesis explores how contemporary Fijian men construct and understand masculinity as a result of their dual colonial and Polynesian cultural heritage and contemporary, globally-connected society. Currently, Fiji's tourism industry and the availability of television, movies, and the internet have provided for Fijian's continuous consumption of global culture. Based on nearly three months of fieldwork, conducted from March through May 2007, this thesis will provide insight into how individuals craft their identities within complex cultural landscapes formed from local and global histories. My research illustrates and examines examples of syncretic identities born of the complex and often conflicting messages Fijians face in their daily lives. Specifically, I examine the cultural practices surrounding rugby, male gender, and global media. I have identified definite shifts in popular exercise practices and the use of oppositional identities in defining and grading individuals' social position. Advisor: Sergei Kan
The proposed thesis examines the discovery of a possible Neolithic court tomb and seven similar platform structures on a mountainside in County Mayo, Ireland. Specifically it seeks to understand the relationship of these structures to farming and Neolithic social structure. Neolithic court tombs are found in many parts of Ireland. In some instances they are associated with farming families and field boundaries. This association has led some archaeologists to propose that stone monuments, such as court tombs, gave definition and symbolic power to the surrounding land. By having ownership over the monument and thus land, individual people began controlling the means of food production in the newly established agriculture and economy of the Neolithic period. Once some people held more power than others, chiefdoms started to develop. The thesis will determine how the newly discovered structures fit into this theory of chiefdom development. Advisor: Deborah Nichols
My research with the Cabécar of the Bajo Chirripó Reserve in Costa Rica focuses on a recently formed women's artisanal cooperative. The cooperative has 15 members, all of whom are indigenous women, and it represents an important influx of cash into the community. I want to understand more thoroughly the impact this cooperative and the income it generates has on the women, their families, and social relations within the community more generally. As a comparison, I interviewed Cabécar men who work on a local banana plantation and are the other main source of cash income coming into the various small communities in Bajo Chirripó. I investigated what the moral, ethical and gendered implications of cash is in the Reserve and how and why attitudes towards money may be changing. Advisor: John M. Watanabe.
The lecture examines the historical basis of the conflict between the Dalai Lama and Beijing, the recent manifestations of the conflict over the past three decades, and an assessment of the likelihood of a solution.
Co-sponsored by:
- The Dickey Center and the Rubin Foundation
April 28, 2009
Dr. Goldstein is the John Reynolds Harkness Professor of Anthropology and Co-Director of the Center for Research on Tibet at Case Western Reserve University. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Tibet (Tibet Autonomous Region of China) on a range of topics including nomadic pastoralism, modern Tibetan history, monasticism, and rural socio-economic change. Dr. Goldstein's current projects include: a large Tibetan Oral History WebArchive that will be permanently housed and maintained by the Library of Congress, Volume Three of his History of Modern Tibet series, and a longitudinal study of change in rural Tibet. He is the author of A History of Modern Tibet, Volume One, (1913-51, the Demise of the Lamaist State) and Volume Two, (1951-1955, The Calm Before the Storm), The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama and a number of other books and articles including On the Cultural Revolution in Tibet: The Nyemo Incident of 1969, A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life of Bapa Phüntso Wangye and The New Tibetan-English Dictionary of Modern Tibetan.
This presentation describes the findings from an ethnographic study on the relationship between a Native American community and biomedical/genetics research. Related political, cultural, economic, and ethical issues will be discussed.
Puneet is an MD/PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, and she will be graduating from the Ph.D. program in May 2009. She recently defended her dissertation, which is about the relationship between a Native American community and medical/genetics research, including ethical, political, and cultural issues. For her dissertation, Puneet spent 2 years working with a Native American community in the Southwest, and helped develop tribal policies on research regulation in addition to conducting in-depth interviews with community members on their views of medical/genetics research. This work was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. She recently presented her dissertation work to the Native American Interest Group at the Mayo Clinic. Puneet has also worked with the National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Center (NCAI PRC) to write papers on research regulation in Native American communities and will be a Post-doctoral Fellow at the NCAI PRC starting in June 2009. She graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 2002, with majors in American Studies and the Honors Program in Medical Education.
Rwandan Rebels and U.S. Federal Prosecutors: Studying American Power in the Age of the War on Terror
His publications include:
He is currently finishing a book entitled "Singing the Right Way: Transition, Secular Enchantment, and Orthodox Christianity in Estonia"
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
New Ideas about the Teotihuacan Collapse
Friday, January 9, 2009
Amazonian ethnology suggests that a symbolic economy of alterity organizes regional social systems. I approach the place of alterity in discourse and ritual among the Wauja in the multilingual Upper Xingu of Central Brazil. I argue that Amazonian discourse is characterized by an alter-centric linguistic ideology. I contrast this with the ego-centric linguistic ideology of Euro-American discourse that is increasingly influential in Amazonian Indians’ production of ascriptive identities. While we take identity as unmarked, both in social life and in social scientific scholarship, Amazonians take alterity as unmarked. Recognizing this point allows for a better description of Amazonian interactional pragmatics. Furthermore, it allows for a more profound understanding of what is involved in indigenous adoption of identity politics. Lastly, it reminds us as linguistic anthropologists that comparative study of language as emergent in interaction provides a privileged lens on matters of basic import to social theory.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Dr. Beall is a physical anthropologist whose research focuses on human adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia, particularly the different patterns of adaptation exhibited by Andean, Tibetan and East African highlanders. Her current research deals with the genetics of adaptive traits and evidence for natural selection, with the role of nitric oxide in oxygen delivery at high altitude and with the human ecology of high-altitude Tibetan nomads. Dr. Beall is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Igiugig is a modern Alaskan village with a unique settlement history—a history which has never been documented. I propose to study and document the Igyaragmiut connection to place, the Lake Iliamna watershed, and how their relationship to this region may have changed through time. Oral histories will be used to create life histories of Igiugig’s five or six elders. I will provide a detailed historical and cultural context to situate these life histories by using anthropological studies of the Yupiit and all available historical documents relating to the establishment of Igiugig Village. My research will be founded upon three principles: in situ interviews, reciprocity, and respect which will minimize risks for participants involved. This research project will be valuable to the community of Igiugig, the oral history collection for Alaska Natives, and the field of anthropology. Advisors: Kirk Endicott, Darren Ranco.
My thesis is an exploration of the conflicting ideologies surrounding land conservation and property in the American West, particularly Colorado. Specifically, I focus on ranchers' and environmentalists' perception and utilization of conservation easements as a way of protecting agriculture, ranching culture, and the environment. In order to protect all three, easement policies must reflect the varying factors by which they are threatened and define their goals in pursuing conservation. My thesis examines how these three goals and the ideologies that support them are revealed and compete in the policy making process as Colorado struggles to adapt to a new, non-agricultural economy. Advisor: Darren Ranco.
The proposed honors thesis will explore the motivations of collectors of classical antiquities. The proposed project is concerned with the collecting habits of classical antiquities collectors vis-a-vis other types of collectors and vis-a-vis one another. The dynamic networks between collectors and “outsiders” that share an interest in classical antiquities help form a “culture of collecting.” Through participant observation the proposed honors thesis will evaluate how this “cosmology of culture” materializes. Advisors: Deborah Nichols, Robert Welsch.
This study addresses the questions of how Kenyan urban youths view HIV and AIDS and how these views influence their behavior. My fieldwork for this study consisted of a ten week internship performing testing and counseling for HIV and AIDS in Nairobi, Kenya and working with a research team on a study about HIV positive youths in the fall of 2006, as well as participant observation and in-depth interviews of youths in and around Nairobi in the summer of 2007. In addition to fieldwork, this study draws from East African ethnography, medical anthropology, and documents pertaining to the policies, programs and services addressing youth and HIV in East Africa. Advisor: Kirk Endicott.
Morphometric analyses in biological anthropology are concerned with establishing the pattern and degree of human variation with respect to morphological traits. Despite its importance in paleoanthropology, no range of variation has been established for the human chin. The purpose of this study is to develop a quantitative approach for evaluating human chin morphology. I will use elliptical Fourier functions to quantify chin shape in a sample of recent human skeletons representing all of the main geographic regions. This study will be the first to establish a range of variation for the modern human chin. These data will represent a baseline for comparing fossil hominins to determine whether individual specimens fall within the range of modern human variation. The results of such comparisons have important implications for ongoing modern human origins debates. Advisors: Seth Dobson, Kathleen Muldoon.
The proposed thesis will examine the interconnection between local and global forces in Heena, a small rural community in Himachal Pradesh, India, as viewed through agriculture and food production. Based on five months of field research, this thesis will examine what agriculture and food production specifically local ideas surrounding food quality, safety, and sustenance, and what they reveal about the social construction of gender and identity in Heena and the effects of the larger development discourse, agricultural policy, and markets on local agriculture. This thesis attempts to provide a better understanding of how global, national, and regional forces impact a local community, as well as how local practices shape, respond to, or even reinterpret these 'outside' influences. Data was collected primarily through participation and informal and formal interviews. The local food economy was also assessed by market surveys, visiting local commercial farmers, and following crops, specifically capsicum, through the entire marketing chain. Advisor: Sienna Craig
My thesis will he an examination of the oral health in the south-central area of Portugal during the period of the transition to agriculture. This region of the world has had very little archaeological attention in general, and is especially lacking information in the areas of osteology and dental anthropology. The transition to agriculture had major effects on health throughout the world, and the particular ways in which it affected populations varied depending on the region in which the change took place. I have chosen three main oral health indicators by which to evaluate oral health among these populations: caries, enamel hypoplasia, and wear. The purpose of this study is:
Advisors: Seth Dobson, Deborah Nichols.
This research examines the lives of Mexican migrant dairy workers in Addison County, Vermont. The migration of mostly unauthorized Mexicans to work in the Vermont dairy industry is a phenomenon that is relatively new, emerging only in the last ten years. Migrants work long, hard hours for little pay and have few opportunities to leave the dairies. When they do go out to shop, visit a doctor, or socialize with friends, they risk arrest and deportation. In this thesis I explore the following questions: How is the historical role of Mexicans as disposable and exploitable "braceros" in the United States realized in the context of 21st century rural Vermont? What are the root causes of migrants' bracero status? And how do migrants' cope with their marginalization? Advisors: Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera, John Watanabe.
Professor Ball will discuss interethnic negotiation over the construction of a hydroelectric dam near the Xingu Indigenous Park in Brazil. He will highlight how different speech genres are used to different ends by indigenous and national Brazilian participants,and he wiIl analyze the connections between these cultural ways of speaking and cultural models of space and territory.
This thesis explores cultural responses to modernization and globalization on Nukunonu, Tokelau. Nukunonu is the middle of the three coral atolls of Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand located roughly 250 miles north of Samoa in western Polynesia. Tokelau has undergone rapid changes in recent decades, acquiring new technologies and ideas as well as establishing new connections with the outside world. Many anthropologists studying cultural change and modernization have described both processes as negative ones. They see globalization as bulldozing indigenous culture, leading to cultural loss and homogenization, increasing poverty, creating problems of alcoholism, and harming the environment. Tokelau provides an important counter-example to these studies. Its culture has changed but has not been lost. This thesis will challenge other negative examinations of globalization and modernization by exploring Tokelau's unique circumstances. (Sponsored by the the Claire Garber Goodman Fund).
Quartzite was chosen by prehistoric people throughout the world for stone tools due to its workability and durability, as well as its presence in almost all regions inhabited by humans. Despite this fact, there has been relatively little study devoted to quartzite lithic materials. The 5GN.1EQ site of the Upper Gunnison Basin is a quartzite quarry that shows evidence of extensive human modification. Scattered atop bedrock of fairly homogenous, fine grained off-white to grey quartzite is colored material. Much of the colored, non-grey, stone appears to be a product of human modification. Numerous flakes, as well as worked cobbles, of various colors are present atop the plateau. To test whether the scattered stone originated in the bedrock or was manuported from another location, Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) was conducted on in situ and modified samples. LA-ICP-MS confirmed that the scatter and bedrock are quite similar in concentrations of the Rare Earth Elements (REE). To test the possibility of prehistoric annealing, heating trials were conducted with the intent of inducing color change in in-situ samples that would mimic the colors found atop the bedrock. Finally, Raman Spectroscopy was conducted on scatter colored samples, as well as in-situ samples (those that were unheated and others that were heated in the lab at various temperatures and durations of time). Even though a color change did not occur in in-situ samples at temperatures achievable in aboriginal fires, perhaps a chemical or textural change occurred that is detectable with Raman Spectroscopy. If so, Raman Spectroscopy could have valuable applications in heat treatment studies. (Sponsored by the Claire Garber Goodman Fund).
In my thesis, I explore the experiences of women living with HIV in rural New England. Through their narratives, I discuss how their diagnosis of being HIV positive affects their lives and influences how they construct their identities in different situations. In particular, I examine construction of identity in the contexts of social relationships, larger communities, medical interactions, and in their roles as mothers and partners. In doing so, I explore issues of actual and feared rejection, acceptance and support, and the multiple layers of stigma that the women encounter. This allows me to trace their self-described identities and compare them with the identities forced upon them by others, as well as the marginality that they both resist and accept. In discussing the women’s narratives, I identify similarities and differences in the various women’s lives, and unpack the specificities of their individual situations that cause these comparable and contrasting experiences to arise. (Sponsored by the the Claire Garber Goodman Fund).
Cities nationwide have experienced rising rates of childhood obesity leading to increased health concerns and a critical need for more research. Focusing on more in-depth cultural factors, I looked to the primarily African-American community of North Lawndale on Chicago's west side to construct a framework that revealed a system of interrelated cultural elements likely influencing the alarmingly high rate of 51%. Through general participant observation, attendance at two weight management clinics, interviews, journals kept by children, surveys of food resources, and mapping certain community features I was able to examine the reality of combating such an 'epidemic.' (Sponsored by the the Claire Garber Goodman Fund).
The marae, a ceremonial building complex, is a physical statement of Maori identity, kinship, and connection to the land. Architecture, carvings of ancestors, and special protocol are used to construct this statement. Use of the space for life celebrations, teaching, debates, and hosting visitors reinforces the identity of the Maori through transmission of culture. Traditionally built by Maori within a clan, marae have been built in urban spaces in which new institutions of association have replaced kinship networks. This change of users, along with other social processes of urbanization, has influenced the design and use of marae in Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand. In this paper, I examine three urban marae in academic and museum settings: Hotuniu at the Auckland War Memorial Musuem, Waipapa at the University of Auckland, and Rongomaraeroa at Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. I discuss how each is used to assert Maori identity in contemporary New Zealand. (Sponsored by the the Claire Garber Goodman Fund).
The concept of "human nature" is a pre-Darwinian one, but has been adopted by sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists as a Darwinian rallying-point. Predicated on an unproblematic separation of "nature" from "culture," however, aspects of "human nature" have proven far easier to assert than to demonstrate. Nevertheless, it remains popular in the media, fueled by the rise of evolutionary psychology in popular science and its increasing legitimization in mainstream science. I will argue that there is no "human nature" separable from culture, and that consequently the concept of "human nature" is itself fundamentally anti-Darwinian.
This event was sponsored by the Robert A. 1925 and Catherine L. McKennan Fund for Anthropology, and
The Department of Anthropology
Alan Shabel's work centers on the intersection of paleontology, modern ecology, and anthropology. He seeks to reconstruct the ecological and faunal context of human emergence during the Plio-Pleistocene. Current evidence shows that Paranthropus arose about 2.6 million years ago, and Homo appeared soon after. These two hominids lived together in the same habitats for over one million years. How did two such closely related organisms coexist on the same landscape for so long?
October 3, 2006
Fatima Sadiqi is professor of Linguistics at Mohamed ben Abdallah University in Fez, Morocco, and director of its Center for Studies and Research on Women. Her books include Women, Gender, and Language in Morocco (Leiden: Brill 2003) and Grammaire de Berbère (Paris: Harmattan, 1997), and she has published over sixty articles on language and women's issues in Morocco. She is editor-in-chief of Languages and Linguistics, a former Fulbright scholar, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard University. She also teaches regularly in Dartmouth's Foreign Study Program in Fez, Morocco.
The interplay between gender, sexual identity and language raises issues of power, social inequalities and social norms. Lan-guage plays a crucial role in social structure and hierarchy and its political use resides in exploiting polysemy, inherent in language, in order to achieve ideological effect. Being a multilingual Muslim country, Morocco offers an interesting case study in this respect because of its four major languages: Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Ber-ber and French. Each of these languages carries specific social mean-ings that significantly interact with gender, politics, and religious power. Whereas Standard Arabic may be termed “male”, Berber is “female”, and Moroccan Arabic and French are both “male” and “female” but with highly distinctive social overtones.
This event was sponsored by:
the Robert A. McKennan Fund of the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth College,
the John Sloan Dickey Endowment for International Understanding, and
the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences.
October 10, 2006
The world-renown archaeologist, Professor Philip Kohl, discussed some distinctive features of Soviet archaeology, including its complex and contradictory relationship with Soviet nationalities policy, its official use of Marxist evolutionary theory, and its focus on ethnogenesis and the determination of archaeological cultures. He also explored the role of intellectuals in separatist political movements that began during the Gorbachev era, presenting several examples of how the remote past was and still is used to justify claims to specific territories and/or provide meaningful frameworks of understanding in a world set free from its former state-sponsored ideology.
May 17 and May 18, 2006
This project explores how “traditional” religion is being used to create a contemporary Hawaiian identity on the Big Island of Hawaii. Are Hawaiians using “traditional” religion to mobilize themselves into cohesive social groups? Is “traditional” religion a substitution of Christianity? Or is “traditional” religion a reaction to Christian New Life Churches? Is the practice of “traditional” religion limited to a narrow demographic group or is it a broader movement? This study will survey three historical religious sites on the Big Island of Hawaii over an eight-week period during the early winter of 2006. Research will consist of observation, participant observation and informal interviews. The data collected will provide information on who is participating (age, gender, educational level. etc.), what their activities consist of, how traditionally based these activities are, and some sense of their reason for engagement. This project will form the basis of a senior thesis.
My thesis is to analyze ethnographically a modern brujo ("spiritual worker") in the urban setting of Caracas, Venezuela. My primary source of information will be my ethnographic field notes/gathered during ten weeks of fieldwork, which were mostly spent living and working alongside a thirty-two year-old brujo named Guillermo Sandoval. The thesis will focus specifically on Guillermo's relationship with his social, economic and spiritual environment, in an effort to illuminate the intricate ties between the practice of brujeria and the environmental conditions that perpetuate its existence. I will also examine the religious system at the heart of Guillermo's personal brand of brujeria. The various religious styles which he incorporates into his practice create a complex syncretic web of rituals and beliefs. Guillermo's constantly transforming practice defies many common conceptions of religion. This thesis will undoubtedly raise questions about the underlying belief system behind the shifting trends of Venezuelan brujeria.
The thesis studies the applicability of modem medical anthropology to the Ancient world, and populations known only through archaeology. In particular, Ancient Egyptian conceptions of illness will be studied through an examination of the treatments of disease visible on mummified remains. Using CAT scans and plain film x-ray of select mummies currently being held in the collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Manchester Museum of England, an in depth examination will be made to determine both disease and possible human interventions. Relating the findings from diagnostic imaging to artwork and literature, I will attempt to establish bridges from the bodies to the beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians.
My thesis focuses on a grassroots cooperative, Unidas Para Vivir Mejor (United for a Better Life or UPAVIM), located in the squatter settlements of Guatemala City, Guatemala. UPAVIM focuses on community aid programs ranging from medical, economic, and educational all of which are indispensable for the marginalized community. In my research I found three distinct groups co-exist within the organization. Consequently these three groups have different views on the purpose and needs of the organization. These three views represent the problems endemic to development organizations discussed in post-developmental approaches: the differentiation between top-down processes versus bottom-up processes of development. By recognizing post-developmental literature and its applicability to my research, my thesis will address the greater issues posed in the discourse of developmental.
My thesis examines the contestation of Native American burial rights, focusing on the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's reburial conflict with the Washington State Department of Transportation and the community of Port Angeles. Contemporary power relations between Natives and the state cannot be understood in a simplistic oppressor-oppressed paradigm, but must be considered as a dialogue, both within modern legal structures as well as with the "traditional" cultural past and the effects of colonial history. My initial field research focused on understanding the daily influence Tse-whit-zen (ch-WHEET-son) had on the Lower Elwha Klallam people, whether through reconnecting with the oldways, providing employment, causing mental and emotional trauma, or influencing tribal and family politics. This thesis, however, will focus on unraveling how the Klallam are using Western systems of justice to achieve their goal of reburial using my fieldwork as an ethnographic grounding to my arguments. By examining the conflict and lawsuit through the lens of the colonial past, I hope to determine how litigation of cultural rights influences the experience of being Klallam today.
The thesis surveys the literature on the race-IQ controversy dealing primarily with the debate in the United States after 1969. Focusing on the debate in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, I will analyze both the content and character of the arguments on both sides of the issue.
The thesis is a sociology of knowledge, focusing more on the context in which each paper was written as opposed to analysis of the merits of each individual work. I will discuss how scientific knowledge is created in the tradition of Thomas Kuhn, focusing on the social sciences.
I also explore how ideology works its way into scientific discourse, and shapes the flow of that discourse. Thought on race and intelligence are both influenced by scientific observations as well as ideology, and the nature of this interaction changed over time, which in turn changed how the two ideas, race and intelligence, interacted at any given moment in time.
The thesis is a history of science, chronicling the evolution of scientific discourse and knowledge on race, and intelligence. The thesis will also analyze the purpose of scientific discourse, and its function in society.
In this proposal, I deal primarily with the works surrounding Arthur Jensen's 1969 paper, since the majority of the sources I have read come from that time period. The completed thesis has works up to the present, with a particular focus on works surrounding The Bell Curve.
During its height in the Early Classic period Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the world. Approximately one third of the residents in the city were non-agricultural craft specialists, producing both utilitarian and elite goods. Cosotlan 23 is an apartment compound located in the northwestern section of the city, which contains unusually dense concentrations of figurine fragments, pottery, and obsidian that give preliminary implications of production at the site. It is currently under study by Kristen Sullivan of Arizona State University as part of her dissertation. In the summer of 2005,1 worked under the direction of Sullivan analyzing the obsidian debitage collected during her extensive surface collection in the fall of 2004. I propose to continue my preliminary analysis and contribute to the current knowledge about obsidian consumption in craft production within the city.
The thesis examines issues of honor and identity creation faced by women attending university in Ankara, Turkey. These issues of identity creation can be divided into three interrelated sociocultural phenomena that affect the creation of women's identity: (1) the degree of personal connection to Islam in contemporary Turkey, (2) public conduct, and (3) interactions with men. There is a large range for the degree of connection to Islam, which directly influences opinions regarding the veil. Some women are very religious, some are very secular, but the majority are somewhere in between. The years spend at university serve as a liminal time for people, particularly women, to experiment with various identities. Since identity is formed within the socially acceptable boundaries, the Turkish university offers a place to push the limits and see how much freedom is permitted. Furthermore, social conduct and interactions between the genders on campus are influenced by but are not identical to the cultural rules for the same phenomena in the larger Turkish society.
Using Middle East Technical University as a case study, this thesis examines several issues: (a) the degree of influence of Islam on the creation of identity of women receiving higher education; (b) how the identities of the university women whose commitment to Islam ranges from strong to moderate to non-existent are expressed through their clothing choices, particularly in regards to issues surrounding the veil; (c) how the university culture and students' identities created in the universities compare to the culture of Turkish society and particularly how social conduct on campus, especially regarding interactions with men, compares to that outside campus; and (d) the role of honor in the establishment of the boundaries in identity creation.
May 12, 2006
It is thought that it is in Late Antiquity that Iranian “national identity” was constructed by the Sasanian Persians. In this endeavor, the Zoroastrian church was the main actor which set forth the idea of Eran as a set territory, and which defined citizenry (Eranagan). This paper will argue against such a monolithic notion for the whole of the Sasanian period and will discuss the various views which the state and religious communities held in regard to the idea of Eran (territory) and Eranagan (citizenship). I would like to contend that these ideas shifted depending on the institutions and groups (Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and Manichaeans) who lived in Persia from the third to the seventh century CE.
Thus one has to study the issue of ethnicity and boundary of Eran as defined in the imperial inscriptions of the third and fourth centuries, private inscriptions of the post sixth century, Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts, and the material culture to have a grasp of the matter. The need for the use of such diverse material is that it can elucidate how the concept of Eran and being er “Iranian” evolved in Persia and how it was adopted by the Jews and Christians and why it was rejected by the Manicaheans.
To learn more about Professor Touraj Daryaee, please visit his website at http://faculty.fullerton.edu/tdaryaee/
Like syphilis, which was referred to as the “French disease” in Italy, the “Jewish disease” in Germany, and the “Chinese pox” in Japan, AIDS has been regarded as an alien affliction in every society into which it has made inroads. Japan, for its part, has witnessed waves of hysteria linking AIDS to foreign blood, Southeast Asian women, and, more recently, to teenage girls who are said to exchange sex for money in a practice known as enjō kōsai. Hence, over the past two decades a virus once associated with external threats has been domesticated, or rendered familiar, in a nation that had grown accustomed to thinking of itself as immune from world events. This lecture addresses that transformation and shows how AIDS emerged as a potent weapon in gender debates and in discussions that centered on the health of the nation in late 1990s Japan. Drawing on the concept of the “mindful body” put forward by Scheper-Hughes and Lock (1987), JoAnne will argue that AIDS in Japan affects the individual body, the social body, and the body politic alike.
March 6, 2006
Some evidence suggests that West Indian immigrants in Canada are a marginalized and over-burdened group. However, little attention has been given to examining health status and beliefs. We partly redress this gap by investigating health beliefs of West Indian immigrants in Montreal with somatic, emotional or medically unexplained symptoms. The overall aim was to elicit and explore illness narratives, explanatory models, symptom-attribution and help-seeking in the community. A sample of 15 West Indian immigrants took part in semi-structured interviews. We found that participants overwhelmingly ascribed their symptoms to post-migratory experience. They particularly highlighted the importance of two related factors: chronic over-work since migration and irregular patterns of daily living. Many worked long-hours, including over-time and moonlighting. Participants related their irregular patterns of daily living to disturbances of bodily functions (e.g. sleeping, eating) as well as to social functions (e.g. family-life). These themes reflected elements of ethno-physiological beliefs common in the West Indies, as well as North American illness models. Attributing medically unexplained symptoms to overwork and irregularity in personal and social realms may be a socially acceptable way of critiquing perceived injustices in participants' work, social and interpersonal situations. This is especially so because the dominant discourse regarding race and ethnicity in Canada tends to emphasise positive aspects of multiculturalism- only reluctantly acknowledging conflict and inequality. Narratives could be interpreted as an oblique criticism of Canadian society's apparent indifference to participants' ongoing marginalisation.
Download his paper
Dr. Whitley's paper is presently in press with the journal "Anthropology ad Medicine"
Professor Charles A. Reilly Research Scholar and Professor, Institute for Peace and Justice, University of San Diego and former Director, Peace Corps Guatemala Guatemala: Implementing the Peace
January 24, 2006
This event was sponsored by the Office of Alumni Relations, the Martin Luther King Day Committee, and the Department of Anthropology
Charles Reilly is a political scientist and Research Scholar and Professor at the Institute for Peace and Justice at the the University of San Diego. He is the former Director of the Peace Corps and Guatemala. In 2004 he was a Fulbright Visiting Professor, at the University of Ireland and he has been a senior consultant on Civil Society, Inter-American Development Bank. His recent work compares the peace process in Guatemala and Northern Ireland.
