Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Navigating Creative Careers On Social Media: Self-Employment And Neoliberalism, Katherine Carlson , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This thesis describes and analyzes the working conditions of illustrators who work on social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and Patreon. Ultimately, it argues that the perceived perks of self-employment that artists publicly discuss on social media are paradoxical because they are limited by the social media platforms on which the artists post. Additionally, the cons of self-employment artists experience, such as burnout, are systemic issues, even though they are framed as personal problems on social media. The various solutions that artists used throughout the course of this project to combat these issues are individual, rather than collective. Finally, …

Get Out To Got Out: Residential Mobility And The Language Of Opportunity In A Black Southern Louisiana Family, Gabrielle Cosey , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This study examines the migration of Black, middle and upper class members of my family from Black neighborhoods in Southern Louisiana into white neighborhoods. Most of the canon on Black residential patterns question why such high levels of residential segregation remain. Thus, the existing literature explores various structural and individual reasons as to why Black households, regardless of income level, continually reside in Black neighborhoods, even though they often exhibit higher rates of poverty and associated characteristics. This research project approaches the topic from the opposite end, centering its analysis on Black individuals who move into white neighborhoods, in order …

Care For The Land: Restoration As Interspecies Care Labor And Emergent Activism At The Hawaiian Fishpond-Scape, Cynthia Ruimin Shi , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

In the last two decades, environmental NGOs on the islands of Hawai’I have been leading efforts to restore traditional land practices and foodways, among them fishpond, or loko i’a, which are traditional aquaculture infrastructures that ensure a stable production of fish protein. This ethnographic study of loko i’a restoration projects is informed by four months of fieldwork grounded in participant observation at Paepae O He’eia, a non-profit organization on the windward side of O’ahu heading the restorative effort at He’eia fishpond.

My thesis addresses the ethics of care, labor, and Indigenous worldmaking emerging from ecological and cultural restoration of fishponds …

Brazilian Camming: The Monetization Of Intimacy In Online Sex Work, Fernanda Veiverberg

Master's Theses

This thesis addresses a form of online feminized labor in Brazil, which employs digital technology to relieve the urges for intimacy and monetary insecurity. Camming is a genre of online sex work, in which cam models sell their body image and attention online through computer-mediated interactions. It constitutes a profitable activity that employs body performance without physical contact between model and client, typical in most categories of sex work such as prostitution, and where the clients are not mere spectators as within the pornography industry because camming requires authenticity and communication. For that, I explored three conceptual spheres that combined …

Resources, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Reimagining Yiddishkeit: Place And Belonging In A Modern Orthodox Synagogue Community, Joshua Jacoves

Senior Theses and Projects

This is a study of the disruption of place and belonging in an urban, multi-generational, Modern Orthodox Jewish community in the Northeastern United States. It asks how members define themselves as part of a religious community. Living within walking distance of their synagogue, members build community based upon shared space. In order to embrace a more pluralistic community, local leaders in the past ten years have been pushing the boundary on what is and is not religiously allowed. This creates new, more inclusive spaces to be formed within this community, which fall along the lines of gender, sexuality, and religious …

“It Looks Like The Future But Feels Like The Past”: Oral (Hi)Stories Of Appalachia As Covid-19 News Stories, Ashley Reid Mcgraw

Theses and Dissertations

Oral historians have often felt obligated to collect stories during disasters and crises, to preserve recollections of experiences and trauma of those affected. During the onset of COVID-19 in the United States, this surge was certainly present. Appalachia, although its boundaries are contested, has a strong association with oral histories, and thus was the focus of one project in particular: a collaboration with the Blue Ridge Public Radio and the Foxfire Appalachian Heritage Museum to collect, curate, publish, and broadcast oral histories of "local" individuals. But what does it mean to be local, in a region as broad as Appalachia? …

Female Perpetrators Of Ritually Motivated Pedicide And Mutilation Of Children, Chima Agazue

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Ritually motivated pedicide is among contemporary Africa’s most severe crimes against children. Most of these crimes involve brutal acts of violence or mutilation of the victim. While men are most often the perpetrators of violent crimes, ritually motivated pedicide and mutilation equally attract women. The role of women in these crimes is not restricted to the less violent aspects of the crimes; instead, they also extend to the most brutal elements, often involving mutilation, decapitation or outright murder of the victim. This article explored the involvement of women in these crimes that target children for mutilation and pedicide. The article …

Belonging And Identity In Mustang: Lived Experiences, Social Identities, And Mobility Patterns Among Himalayan Peoples Of Nepal, Lauren Carter

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper delves into an immersive exploration and contemplation of a pivotal transformation unfolding in the heartland of Lower Mustang, Nepal. What began as an endeavor to channel my creative expression and unearth the diminishing world of yak herding soon necessitated a broader, more nuanced analysis of the profound changes sweeping across the region. This paper, mainly drawing upon the narratives of the inhabitants, seeks to portray the contemporary cultural and capital significance of yaks, as well as the various factors— climate change, outmigration, national policy discrepancies, conservation initiatives, and shifting cultural paradigms— that render specific patterns of movement increasingly …

Entre Punzones Y Percutores Reconstrucción De Tecnología Ósea De Los Selk'nam (Tierra Del Fuego), Rachel Dietz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta investigación se enfoca en el estudio, reconstrucción y uso de la tecnología ósea empleada por las sociedades cazadoras-recolectoras-pedestres que ocuparon el litoral Atlántico de Tierra del Fuego, durante el Holoceno, específicamente se enfoca en la tecnología utilizada por los Selk´nam del Norte de Tierra del Fuego. La tecnología ósea fue una parte importante de su cultura y dos tipos fueron elegidos para investigar: percutores blandos y punzones huecos. Los percutores blandos fueron confeccionados sobre huesos de guanaco, un recurso importante para las sociedades cazadoras-recolectoras.

Los percutores blandos fueron usados para la formatización de artefactos líticos a través de la …

Hunting In Maine, Elizabeth Tibbetts

Honors College

Hunting remains a common practice for many people in the state of Maine. While the stories and traditions held by hunters differ from person to person and family to family. There are commonalities that aid in building the sense of community between hunters in the state of Maine. This hunting community is strengthened through the sharing of stories and the common traditions shared by many. These communities remain strong even as the Maine landscape and hunting legislation changes over time. Here a number of questions regarding hunting are explored through the lens of one family spanning multiple generations through oral …

Grabbing The Paycheck: A Glimpse Into The Modern Economic Livelihoods Of Xe Máy Grab Drivers In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Maddie Davis

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Woven into the very fabric of urban life in Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam is commuting via motorcycle (Vietnamese: xe máy). The versatility of xe máy can be witnessed in the surge of rush hour traffic, the shipment of a great variety and quantity of goods, and the crunch of people in order to get the whole family atop a single bike. Due to xe máy as the primary way much of the population gets around, Ho Chi Minh City’s transportation infrastructure and traffic patterns are highly conducive to this method of transit. Resulting from these favorable conditions, a multitude …

Biocultural Diversity Of Medicine In Tsum Valley, Ashira Weinreich

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Health is intrinsically connected to biodiversity in the Himalayan mountains of Tsum Valley. Medicinal plants have historically been integral to primary health care in this region. The main objectives of this paper are to explore the role of biocultural diversity on perceptions of health and to demonstrate that medicinal plant knowledge contributes to health sovereignty in times of cultural and environmental change. The nutritional and medicinal significance of plants were examined in the daily lives of villagers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted from April to May 2023. Preliminary results are analyzed ethnographically. Interviews and participant observation will provide a rich understanding …

The Headbangers Of The Himalaya: An Investigation Of Nepal’S Rock And Metal Scene, Samuel White

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The goal of this research endeavor was to generate findings which unveil information about the culture, the bands, and the lives of the musicians and fans who make up the Nepali rock and metal scene. The community is rather esoteric and information regarding certain bands and their musicians’ background is limited to broad, outdated articles published online. Thus, most of the information regarding the scene can only be obtained if one truly immerses themselves within it. I was fortunate enough to make friends which granted me a firsthand look into the Nepali rock and metal scene. The general questions which …

The Role Of Story In The Creation And Life Of Man, Leah Ginion

Senior Honors Theses

Story was created by God as a vehicle for the revelation and glorification of Himself. Man, made in the image of God, was created as an innate storyteller. The world was created through story, and story is how it progresses and is sustained. As such, story is the foundation of all culture and the most natural and effective method of human communication. Research points to all of man’s stories being derivatives of the Great Story: the metanarrative of Scripture. Exploring man’s relationship with story reveals his place within the metanarrative and ultimately provides evidence for the existence and active presence …

Cross-Cultural Managerial Behavior – A Comparative Study Between The Republic Of Korea And The United States Of America, Colson Richter

Senior Honors Theses

Among the many trade partners the United States engages with, the Republic of Korea is the nation’s seventh largest trading partner – exchanging over $154.9 Billion in 2020 (USTR, 2021). Despite this strong economic relationship between these two nations, the cultural distance that these societies have is one of the largest within anthropological academia (Hofstede, 2017). This reality creates the need for a solid framework of a management-focused, cultural understanding between these two countries.

In this study, academic literature will be collected and reviewed to lend insight into particular areas of culture that an American and Korean perspective would be …

Wakara's Waterscapes: Storytelling, Cartography, And Rhetorical Sovereignty On The Shores Of The Green River, Abbey O'Brien

Honors Theses

In the mid nineteenth-century, Wakara, a prominent Ute leader, witnessed the invasion of his homeland by Mormon settlers and mountain-men. He met the scouts and explorers who were sent out to examine the land and waterscapes, and who drew maps along their way. It was those same maps which were eventually used as tools to justify colonial expansion all across the Utah territories, Wakara’s home. But Wakara resisted. Employing his understandings of the roles that cartography and the written word played in Mormon and settler discourse, Wakara created his own maps in order to assert his Indigenous authority over the …

Atherosclerosis In Indigenous Tsimane: A Contemporary Perspective, Randall C. Thompson, Gregory S. Thomas, Angela D. Neuneubel, Ashna Mahadev, Benjamin Trumble, Edmond Seabright, Daniel K. Cummings, Jonathan Stieglitz, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

The Horus and other research teams have found that atherosclerosis is not uncommon in ancient people through the study of their mummified remains (Murphy et al., 2003; Allam et al., 2009, 2011; Thompson et al., 2013, 2014). However, some have postulated that traditional hunter-gatherers are in some ways healthier than modern people and that they had very little atherosclerotic disease (O’Keefe et al., 2010). The aim of this study was to evaluate the burden of atherosclerosis in a population alive today but living a traditional lifestyle similar to that experienced by past populations. This led to the Tsimane Health and …

Sanak Value In Women’S Land Inheritance Rights: Case Study On Women Inheritance Land Rights In Karangpakuan, Sumedang, West Java, Patricia Beata Kurnia

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

Karangpakuan Village is one of the villages in Sumedang, West Java, which territory was broken up into multiple parts by the government, as part of its land was submerged in the framework of the creation of the Jatigede Reservoir. Karangpakuan Village is one of the traditional Sunda Priangan villages, in which traditional customary inheritance norms based on bilateral kinship values are still practiced – despite the Islamic background of the community. These bilateral kinship values influence inheritance practices as these are not based on gender, but divided equally while considering other criteria, such as the number of children in the …

Transformative Psychedelic Experiences At Music Events: Using Subjective Experience To Explore Chemosocial Assemblages Of Culture, Gabrielle R. Lehigh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clinical interest in psychedelic treatments in the United States started in the 1950s, but anti-drug policy and anti-social sentiments quickly thwarted future research. The last decade has renewed clinical interest in using psychedelics to treat a diversity of mental health ailments. While these studies provide essential protocols, treatments, and therapy models for patients, they are limited in understanding the role of the contextual elements that influence psychedelic experiences and outcomes. This project examines how people use psychedelic substances outside medical settings by studying transformative psychedelic experiences at music events. This inquiry into psychedelic use utilizes an integrated framework of chemoethnography …

The Local Neurologies Of Substance Use Triggers, Breanne I. Casper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Substance use triggers are largely understood to be embedded in drug use contexts and to be a major precipitator of relapse. Yet, the relationship between triggers and future instances of drug use is not quite clear– particularly in understanding the nuances of when triggers are “triggering” and when they are not. Additionally, there is little ethnographic work that explores how individuals interact with triggers in contexts related to substance use, particularly during periods of active use. This project employs ethnographic and survey research methods to interrogate substance use triggers in the harm reduction context. In doing so, it answers the …

Environmental Justice From The Ground(Water) Up: Coping With Contamination In Tallevast, Florida, Grey W. Caballero

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

How do communities living with chronic environmental contamination cope with the social, political, and economic impacts of the contamination? This research employs a community-engaged oral history approach with participant observation and archival research to address this question. We focus on the case of Tallevast, Florida, where the local groundwater has been contaminated with chlorinated solvents for over 60 years and where cleanup is estimated to take another 100 years. In addition to concerns about health and wellness, we find that residents are also concerned about household displacement and the disruption of social networks, failed governance at the local and state …

Peace Studies And The Limits To Growth, Selina Gallo-Cruz

The Journal of Social Encounters

150 Peace Studies and the Limits to Growth Selina Gallo-Cruz Scientists have issued increasingly dire warnings about the present and future danger posed by ecological overshoot. Peace scholars’ entrée into this discourse is often through a concern over extractive politics, a central locus for how conflicts are bound up in environmental destruction at the hands of the same industries responsible for ecological decline. Policy and practical responses to the urgent need to scale down production lag behind reality, however, and a global growth-based economy continues to prevail. Here, I explore the dilemmas faced by peace studies scholars who may want …

Working Across Organizational Lines: Grassroots And Grasstops Tensions And Possibilities, Corrie Grosse

The Journal of Social Encounters

The climate justice movement is increasingly stressing the importance of building broad-based coalitions for addressing climate change. Two important elements in these coalitions are grassroots and grasstops organizations. The former bring creativity and flexibility to coalitions whereas the latter bring resources, staff, and specialized expertise. Drawing on 106 in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in Idaho and California, this chapter from the book Working Across Lines: Resisting Extreme Energy Extraction (University of California Press, 2022) analyzes how grassroots and grasstops organizations work to build effective coalitions. Contributing to emergent theory on social movement coalitions, I argue that organizational form, particularly nonprofit’s …

Fixing Prior Consultation For Indigenous Empowerment, Marcela Torres-Wong, Elia Méndez-García

The Journal of Social Encounters

Over the last three decades, extractive conflicts in Latin America have become increasingly violent. Hundreds of Indigenous activists have been murdered for defending their land against extractive interests. The international formula for addressing this type of conflict is for governments to conduct prior consultation procedures with Indigenous communities before affecting indigenous territories. However, the misuse of consultations by governments and companies to legitimize ecologically destructive projects has led a sector of Indigenous organizations to reject prior consultation, while others continue advocating for free, prior, and informed consent. We compare two cases of Indigenous communities from Oaxaca and Yucatán in Mexico …

Introduction - Volume 7, Issue 1, Selina Gallo-Cruz

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Engagement In Water Governance Action Situations In The Lake Champlain Basin, Patrick Bitterman, Christopher Koliba

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Water quality governance encompasses multiple “wicked” interacting problems that manifest within social-ecological systems. Concerned governments, institutions, and actors concerned with addressing these issues must wrestle with complex systems that span time, space, and scale. This complexity of connected systems requires the participation of multiple actors across political boundaries, problem areas, and hydrologic domains. In Lake Champlain (US), frequent cyanobacteria blooms negatively affect property values, recreational activities, and public infrastructure, in addition to their impacts on the aquatic ecosystem. Through a survey of actors working on water quality in the Lake Champlain Basin, we analyze how actor participation in structured issue …

Strange Windows From Early Maryland, Henry Miller

Northeast Historical Archaeology

No abstract provided.

A Bone To Pick: An Unusual Tableware From The Victorian Era, Patricia M. Samford

Northeast Historical Archaeology

No abstract provided.

Historical Accounts Of Forgotten Stone-Heaping Practices On Nineteenth-Century Hill Farms, Timothy Ives

Northeast Historical Archaeology

This article offers a modest contribution to the ongoing debate among archaeologists, Native American cultural authorities, and avocational researchers concerning the historical origins of the stone-heap sites commonly found in New England’s forested hills. The author’s recent review of historical periodicals, mainly newspapers and agricultural journals, yielded many previously unknown references to farmers constructing stone heaps by hand in working fields and pastures. Popular perceptions of this apparently widespread phenomenon varied. While stone heaping provided opportunities for both young and old family members to prove their worth, some ideologically progressive farmers expressed a strong distain for the practice. By the …