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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political anthropology'
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Ford, E. J. "Life on the Campaign Trail: The Political Anthropology of Local Politics." [Tampa, Fla] : University of South Florida, 2008. http://purl.fcla.edu/usf/dc/et/SFE0002610.
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Dodaro, Robert. "Language and justice : political anthropology in Augustine's 'De Ciuitate Dei'." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.335661.
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Shore, C. N. "Organization, ideology, identity : The social anthropology of Italian communism." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.373907.
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Savage, O. M. "The Efik political system : the effervescence of traditional offices." Thesis, University of Manchester, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.356115.
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Turner, Benjamin. "The pharmacology of the political : on the relationship between politics and anthropology in the work of Bernard Stiegler." Thesis, University of Kent, 2017. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/66667/.
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A single question orients the argument that guides this thesis: what ramifications does the pluralisation of human nature have for our understanding of the political? This will be explored through two lines of argument. The first is established through an investigation of the rejection of a singular human nature found in Bernard Stiegler's philosophy of technics, which will argue that the political must be considered as plural as a result of his work. By claiming that the human is only ever constituted within a relationship with technical objects, Stiegler makes it possible to conceive of the political as a response to the problems unique to the way in which technics structures human life across varying contexts. This is consolidated by his understanding of technical objects as 'pharmaka', both poisonous and curative for political and social life. The political will be conceptualised as a response to these pharmacological tendencies, and thus differentiated across various anthropological contexts. The first three chapters will reconstruct how Stiegler's readings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, André Leroi-Gourhan, Jacques Derrida, Plato, and Gilbert Simondon contribute to the concepts that form his philosophical anthropology. These concepts are, namely, the default of origin, the pharmakon, and organology. Uniting the terms introduced across these three chapters will be the development of an understanding of the political based in Stiegler's concept of the a-transcendental. As a-transcendental, the concepts that direct the political are subject to transformation and change along with empirical technical systems, and are responses to particular a-transcendental horizons framed by pharmacological problems. The second line of argument will be that this a-transcendental conception of the political has ramifications for political theory more generally. It will be argued that Stiegler's philosophy of technics creates a tension between anthropological plurality and political judgement. Political theory makes decisions or judgements on the limits of politics, whereas anthropology represents the potential for these judgements to be suspended. Stiegler reveals this constitutive tension between political theory and anthropology insofar as his philosophy of technics puts this anthropological plurality at the heart of the political. After establishing this tension, an internal critique of Stiegler's arguments will show that he both furthers the possibility of understanding the political in the plural through his use of the concept of impossibility, but closes this space through his use of entropy and negentropy, and in his limiting of the political to a Western history following its emergence in the Ancient Greek polis. Despite his work both making the plurality of the political possible and negating it - by making political judgements that close off anthropological plurality - Stiegler's work is not unsuccessful in providing material for this pluralisation of the political. Instead, it will be claimed that his writing itself demonstrates this tension between political judgement and anthropological plurality. It will be concluded that Stiegler's work must be treated pharmacologically insofar as it makes anthropological plurality possible while also closing this space through his own particular political judgements. Stiegler's example will be seen to have broader ramifications for political theory, in that he demonstrates the demand for political theorists to pay critical vigilance to the way in which anthropological presuppositions form boundaries to the political, and that the possibility for the suspension of these limits must be incorporated into the work of political theory.
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Mousavi, Sayed Askar. "The Hazaras of Afghanistan : an historical, cultural, economic and political study." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.317761.
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Craig, Douglas Broward Jr. "Beyond snaketown: Household inequality and political power in early Hohokam society." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/290061.
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This study examines Pre-Classic Hohokam sociopolitical organization using data collected from recent research in the middle Gila River Valley of southern Arizona. The Pre-Classic period, ca. A.D. 500 to 1150, witnessed the first appearance of extensive irrigation works in the middle Gila River Valley. It also witnessed the introduction of ballcourts as part of a regional ceremonial and exchange system. Archaeologists disagree about the conditions that gave rise to these developments. Some researchers point to the scale of the irrigation works and the apparent need for massive labor coordination to argue for political centralization and the emergence of bureaucratic elites. Others point to the likely use of ballcourts as ritual facilities to argue that ultimate authority was vested in the hands of religious leaders. The dynamics of power in Hohokam society are examined in this study from the vantage point of a group of households that lived at the Grewe site, the ancestral village to Casa Grande Ruins. Attention is directed to the demographic and environmental conditions that contributed to household inequality at Grewe. New methods are advanced for deriving population estimates and measuring household wealth based on architectural evidence. This information is then used to explore the role of wealthy households in promoting political growth in early Hohokam society. It is argued that the influence of wealthy households extended across multiple social levels and multiple generations.
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Khalili, Mostafa. "Everyday ethnicity of Kurmanji speaking Kurds in Iran : a case in political anthropology." Thesis, https://doors.doshisha.ac.jp/opac/opac_link/bibid/BB13135798/?lang=0, 2020. https://doors.doshisha.ac.jp/opac/opac_link/bibid/BB13135798/?lang=0.
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This dissertation is an attempt to pose a challenge to the reified image of Kurdishness and Kurdayeti (awakening Kurdish nationalism), from an ethnographical perspective. The focus group is the comparatively understudied Kurmanji-speaking Kurds of Urmia county in Iran, both in rural and urban contexts. The questions is why do the Kurds of this study, in particular, and Kurds all over the Middle East, in general, have a high potential for mobilization during politically charged moments?博士(グローバル社会研究)
Doctor of Philosophy in Global Society Studies
同志社大学
Doshisha University
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Pes, Luca Giuseppe. "Building political relations : cooperation, segmentation and government in Bancoumana (Mali)." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2011. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/346/.
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A stable and peaceful country by West African standards, Mali uneasily fits the paradigm of a ‘failed state.’ While government and development agencies tend to interpret Mali’s stability as the outcome of successful institutional reform, foreign scholars and local intellectuals emphasise the power of enduring traditions and their adaptation to changing conditions in Malian society. Critically assessing both views, this dissertation explores political relations and practices in post-colonial Mali in a rural locality of Mande, the region south-west of the capital Bamako. The work draws on 18 months of field research in the rural municipality of Bancoumana to document an intensely mediated form of government resulting from the dynamic process of grouping and of building cooperative relations in everyday social life. I examine how projects broadly intended to deepen state control such as the ‘framing’ of resident and migrant populations by the state, the betterment of the land, the recognition and the registration of ‘traditional’ rights, among other practices of bureaucratic ‘fixing’ are dealt with in the locality. The analysis links their history to processes of fission and fusion of social groups, where the interventions may exacerbate tensions or, instead, create solidarity among different village factions. Thus, the practices and processes of government in the locality are able to successfully fill the gap between the state and other agencies, and society. Contributing to the anthropological tradition studying law, politics and the state in Africa, the dissertation links recent trends in the anthropology of the state, and of more specific regulatory domains such as land development and taxation, to a reanalysis of the traditional chestnut of the anthropology of West Africa, a ‘segmentary style’ of social organization.
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Pailes, Matthew C. "Political landscapes of late prehispanic sonora| A view from the Moctezuma Valley." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3680868.
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This dissertation offers a reformulation of social organization in eastern Sonora from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries based on survey and excavation data collected in the Moctezuma Valley, Sonora, Mexico. Prior researchers, utilizing Spanish exploration era documents, argued for the presence of territorial polities that controlled large sections of river valleys with an elite class supported by the management of long distance trade. Previous archaeological research demonstrated hierarchy in settlement patterns, but differed in interpretations regarding the methods of "elite" ascendance. This dissertation addresses questions of both the scale of political organization and its likely underpinnings. Multiple data sets including artifact style boundaries, settlement pattern analysis, and consideration of ecological parameters demonstrate political organization rarely reached beyond local sections of river valleys. This suggests dozens of locally autonomous settlement communities were present in an area previously argued to contain less than ten political units.
Additionally, application of a diverse set of provenance techniques facilitated testing previous hypothesis regarding exchange in the region. The character of regional exchange systems appears to be mostly through down-the-line acquisition, likely orchestrated by aspirant leaders at the level of local settlement communities. These interactions rarely reached beyond near neighbors and excluded some immediately adjacent settlement communities. In contrast, the exchange of mundane ceramics crossed these same boundaries, indicating different segments of society forged incongruous social networks.
In summary, these data suggest the region would be a very poor conduit for long distance exchange, most aspirant leaders had only limited access to social valuables, and that the social landscape was sufficiently volatile that most households sought exterior ties as a means of risk reduction. Local warfare in conjunction with demographic and ecological factors are argued to play the predominant roles in generating the political landscape of eastern Sonora. Overall, small scales of political consolidation and minimal hierarchical control characterized the broader region.
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Murphy, John Todd. "Approaching Maya polities from the side: Models of classic Maya political structure." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/278726.
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Maya scholars have proposed models of Maya political organization that range from small, independent, autonomous polities, to large centralized states. This essay examines a series of cross-cultural models (Feudal models, Peer-Polity Interaction, Galactic Politics, Theatre States, Segmentary States, a 'Dynamic' model, and recent speculations by Yoffee (1993)) and asks how they have been applied to the Maya area, in what ways they are similar or different, how they have been applied in other areas, and how they have been treated by Maya scholars. These models share many elements, and this has resulted in some confusion in the literature; this essay attempts to resolve this confusion and to discuss the implications of the relationships among the models. It is suggested that notions of 'power' and 'control' are poorly defined, and for the Maya little understood, and that archaeological definitions of political organization must differ from anthropological models.
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Greschner, Catherine Katrina E. "Attitudes and Methods of Political Resistance in Occupy Denver." Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1563559.
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The Occupy Movement arose out of an atmosphere of dissatisfaction with the political and economic structure of the country. The objective of my research was to look at individuals in the Denver Occupy Movement in order to understand what their personal goals for the movement were, as well as what tactics they were willing to partake-in as a way to change society's dominant power structures. A key characteristic in Occupy is how diverse it is in terms of the political will and the express direction its members wish it to go in. My anthropological work is applicable to Occupies across the country as well as other similar socio-political movements since it sheds light on how the individual within the movement expresses his/hers agency not only in shaping acts of resistance but the structure of the movement itself. The theoretical framework of my thesis is based upon three foundational frameworks: Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and various social capitals, Giddens's theory on how agency and structure interact to result in structural change, and concepts in cognitive anthropology. Through these frameworks I show how an individual's background shapes their actions of resistance and mediates how they negotiate the structure and culture of Occupy itself.
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Greenup, Jeremy Jay. "Identity as Politics, Politics as Identity: An Anthropological Examination of the Political Discourse on Same-Sex Marriage." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2006. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/anthro_theses/10.
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Marriage has come to be center-stage in a semiotic and ideological “culture war.” The issue of same-sex marriage has emerged as a defining political argument shaping the manner by which the contemporary gay rights movement positions itself. In Georgia’s 2004 election, a constitutional amendment was proposed defining marriage as legal unions between only biological men and women. In response, campaigns were organized by both supporters and opponents to same-sex marriage. This thesis examines the politics of spectacle at play through which both sides of this argument positioned themselves. This thesis employs anthropological theory, queer theory and public sphere literature to illuminate the campaign against same-sex marriage as one of not only the denial of citizenship rights, but of identity recognition. The methods of theatricality employed by both sides of this debate are examined alongside the manners by which they represented themselves as legitimate voices in the fight over “marriage.”
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Vaidya, Anand Prabhakar. "The Origin of the Forest, Private Property, and the State: The Political Life of India's Forest Rights Act." Thesis, Harvard University, 2014. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:11654.
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This dissertation tracks the creation and implementation of India's 2006 Forest Rights Act or FRA, a landmark law that for the first time grants land rights to the millions who live without them in the country's forests. I follow the law in relation to the forest rights movement that has been central in lobbying for, drafting, and implementing it in order to examine both how the movement has shaped the law's meaning as well as how contests and alliances over the law's text and meaning have transformed the many movements citing and using the law. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, I track the law from contests over its drafting in New Delhi to contests over its meaning in Ramnagar, a North Indian village. Ramnagar was settled by landless forest dwellers organized by forest rights activists, and its continued but still precarious existence is premised on a claim to land through the Act. I show that the meaning of the FRA was contested at every stage through collective action oriented around what Bakhtin (1982) terms `chronotopes,' the joint depiction of time, place, and characters in language. By diagnosing contemporary injustice through a depiction of the past and pointing to a just future to be brought about through the action of a collective, political movements and identifications form around and act through chronotopes. The movements enacting the Forest Rights Act have critically seized upon what one bureaucrat involved in its drafting called its `word traps,' words or phrases in the text with apparently uncontroversial literal meanings that in fact allow the law to be read through the political chronotopes of political parties or movements. By attending to the relationship between the legal text, its chronotopic deployment, and collective action, my project provides new ways to understand laws in political practice and language in political practice.Anthropology
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Bormpoudakis, Dimitrios. "Green infrastructure and landscape connectivity in England : a political ecology approach." Thesis, University of Kent, 2016. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/56639/.
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'Conservation is about people, not just animals' argued Prince William in a letter to The Financial Times , written to gather support for ending ivory poaching and trading. This truism is often repeated by conservationists; we are frequently reminded that what we do - as humans - influences nature 'out there'. Nevertheless, conservation science often hesitates to interrogate what we do as organised human societies. Time and again, that leads to somewhat simplifying analyses of humanity's enormous power in shaping the whole Earth System -currently argued to surpass the power of geological forces. A case in point could be the isolation of corruption in Africa as the main driver for ivory market explosion in the last decade. Without considering the political-economy not just of ivory, but of the global-to-local societal organisation that allows for thousands of elephants and rhinos to be killed - for something of so low use-value such as ivory - little understanding can be shed on this alarming trend. I argue, and hope I have shown in this thesis, that we should aim towards enriching what conservation understands as its field of vision and allow the latter to encompass not just human and nonhuman nature and societies, as Prince William rightfully argues, but also the political and societal. I would be satisfied if by going through this thesis the reader would be convinced of just this argument. I am not claiming to be the first to identify this contradiction within conservation, but contra a sizeable number of scientists who work on similar subjects, I am normatively for conservation. A wealth of research has been published on conservation-society relationships that interrogates wider political, societal and economic constrains and opportunities as they relate to conservation. Usually though, research on what could be called critical conservation studies is (a) published in journals that conservationists do not read, and (b) is conducted by non-conservationists, often critical of conservation as a science and praxis per se. Thus all this wealth has little import to wider discussions about the future of conservation science and practice, and is even considered by conservationists as hostile to their agenda. I hope it is obvious from the above that I place this piece of research within the wide field of conservation science - despite drawing from a variety of disciplines. In essence, this piece of work looks at the relation between political-economic transformations and the way societies think about, manage and regulate nature. Geographically, my focus is on England, but with a sideways glance to developments at the EU level. Historically, the scope is circumscribed by two years: 1981, the year of the Toxteth riots in Liverpool, and 2015, the year I submitted. Naturally, in this country-wide, 24 year study I have not even attempted to include 'everything'. I focused on what after examination of empirical data I considered to be key moments and places in the evolution of English conservation. I begin with a section that introduces the reader into the area of study , followed and a brief literature-based summary of conservation in England from the beginning of the 20th century. The next three chapters should be read as a small trilogy that discusses the general trends in conservation policy and governance in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis (Chapter 3), followed by two smaller chapters (vignettes) that study post-financial crisis landscape scale conservation from: (a) a policy and governance perspective (Chapter 4); a use of science and scientific metaphors perspective (Chapter 5). The following two chapters try to reconstruct the where and when (geography and history are important) specific conservation policies and practices emerge, always in relation to economic and political changes. Chapter 6 is a genealogy of green infrastructure, from its emergence in the post-riot Liverpool landscape of 1981, to its current amalgamation with ecosystem services and monetary-valuation-of-nature milieu. Chapter 7 looks at biodiversity offsetting and argues that changing economic and transport geographies are crucial in understanding why biodiversity offsetting emerged as a solution to wildlife-development conflict in this instance and in the South East of England in particular. I conclude with a proposal for a new conservation that places utopia at the centre of its methodology (Chapter 8).
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Preston, Laura Julia. "A mortuary approach to cultural interaction and political dynamics on LMII-IIIB Crete." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2000. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317690/.
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This thesis analyses the published evidence for tomb burial practices on Late Bronze Age Crete, focusing on the problem of understanding the political and cultural significance of the introduction of tomb use on the island from the Late Minoan II period (c1450 BC) to the end of Late Minoan IIIB (c1200 BC). The adoption of tomb burial customs was one element within a broader cultural reorientation towards mainland Greece occurring on Crete in this period that has resulted in the common application in archaeological literature of the epithet 'Mycenaean' to the island. It also coincides with at least two horizons of political upheaval within the island, the first resulting in Knossian hegemony over much of Crete from LM II and the second in decentralisation and regionalisation in LM IIIA2. However, while mainland-derived cultural influence on Crete has frequently been observed, and the internal political changes recognised, the reasons behind these developments have never really been explored or problematised, beyond recourse to traditional models of invasion and migration. The purpose of the present thesis is to explore how the cultural and political dynamics of the island were negotiated through changing mortuary practices. The development of the mainland-inspired strategy of tomb ostentation as a medium for high status advertisement is charted from its initial introduction at Knossos to its appropriation by regional centres in LM IIIA2 and LM IIIB. It is argued that invasion or migration hypotheses are not necessary to account for the developments in tomb use in Crete, though these may have been contributory factors. Crete was participating within a broader Aegean trend of cultural 'Mycenaeanisation', though it was simultaneously deploying the burial sphere for internal political negotiations that also involved the development of a specifically Cretan mortuary vocabulary - particularly in terms of deposition methods and standards of monumentality.
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Higgins, John Erwin 1954. "The political ecology of peasant sugarcane farming in northern Belize." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/288803.
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The Belizean export sugar industry is dominated by small family farmers who produce the nation's most important cash crop in terms of area under cultivation, employment, and export earnings. These peasant farmers control both cane cultivation and the harvest transport system and receive the lion' s share of the proceeds from the sale of Belizean sugar. The origins of this anomalous industry can be traced to the regions' long history of peasant resistance to exploitation. Sugarcane was brought to Belize by refugees of the Mayan Caste Wars in the mid-nineteenth century who began producing sugar for the local market using swidden technology. Sugar production was briefly taken over by British plantations; however, the peasants were never fully proletarianized despite attempts to turn them into a plantation labor force. The peasantry's historical resistance to proletarianization is the result of several factors. Colonial officials and capitalists found it difficult to control either the movements or the labor of these independent cultivators. Low rural population density, peasants' refusal to give up subsistence farming, sugarcane's compatibility with swidden farming practices, and the peasantry's politicization all contributed to the dominance of small-farmer cane production during this century. During the 1950s plantation production was resurrected in order to meet the colony's recently acquired Commonwealth Sugar Agreement export quota. Colonial planners assumed that plantations were more efficient and competitive than peasant farmers. Nevertheless, in 1972 the state sponsored plantations were forced to shut down due to competition from independent small cane farmers. Peasant sugarcane farming has proven to be remarkably resilient in the face of crises spawned by chronic fluctuations in the price and demand for cane sugar. Most farmers depend heavily on family labor to minimize their production costs. Because they have minimal capital inputs to production, they can sustain negative profits from cane and still survive by deploying family labor into other income and/or subsistence producing activities. The viability of peasant farming families that allows them to compete successfully with large-scale capitalist sugarcane farmers contradicts the Marxian notion of the inevitability of polarization into capitalist farmers and proletarian workers.
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Stevens, Charles John 1950. "The political ecology of a Tongan village." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/290684.
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This dissertation presents a political ecological case study of a Tongan village. Political ecology includes the methodological approaches of cultural ecology, concerned with understanding human/resource relations, and political economy, concerned with the historical examination of the political and social organization of production and power. The ethnography of political ecology is primarily interested in understanding how certain people use specific environmental resources in culturally prescribed and historically derive ways. With this in mind, the research provides an historical and ethnographic account of a diversified, local economic system characterized by a highly productive but depreciating smallholder agriculture once regenerative and sustainable. The smallholders in the Kingdom of Tonga are imperfectly articulated with market systems and rely on agricultural production for a significant proportion of household consumption and ceremonialized obligations to kin, and community. The dissertation presents an historical account of the political economic changes in Tonga beginning in the nineteenth century and culminating in recent alteration of traditional farming techniques and the loss of economic self-sufficiency and agricultural sustainability.
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Al-Rasheed, Madawi Talal. "The political system of a North Arabian chiefdom : the Rashidi Amirs of Hail, 1836-1921." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1988. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272460.
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Crockford, Susannah. "After the American dream : the political economy of spirituality in Northern Arizona, USA." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3559/.
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This thesis examines the ways in which spirituality as a religious form interacts with political economy in the United States. Based on 22 months fieldwork in two small Northern Arizona towns, Sedona and Valle, it traces the way spirituality is enacted by individuals through foodways, bodily practice, and relationships to nature. I argue that it is pursued as an alternative to ‘mainstream’ American values, often summed up by my informants in the ideal of the ‘American dream’. For them, the American dream is that any individual can succeed in a meritocratic system through hard work, increase their economic prosperity from one generation to the next, and pursuing this will lead to personal happiness and fulfilment. Pursuing one’s spiritual path means foregrounding personal happiness and fulfilment often at the expense of economic prosperity. Spirituality is an alternative way of living and of making a living. This renegotiation of traditional American values is held to be the necessary response to the political, economic, and environmental crises of late capitalism. Spirituality is a category of growing salience for many Americans; while its genealogy remains complex and usage fluid, it has come to mean something specific for my informants, referring to what was once known, often pejoratively, as ‘new age’. This thesis delineates the religious form called spirituality, defining it as a constellation of beliefs and practices clustered around the central concept of ‘energy’ as an all-pervasive force; ‘the universe’ as a pantheistic conception of divinity; and progressive stages of enlightenment described as a ‘spiritual path’. The centring of the individual in spirituality mirrors the emphasis on individual responsibility at the heart of neoliberal policies implemented by successive governments since the late 1970s. At the same time, the expansion of agency to all nonhuman actors in spirituality destabilises the notion of human superiority as well as American exceptionalism. In this way, spirituality presents a challenge to dominant discourses in American society at the same time as it is constrained by the limits of those discourses.
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Draper, Kelsey. "Technologies, knowledge and capital : towards a political ecology of the Hake Trawl Fishery Walvis Bay, Namibia." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10344.
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Around the world, the implementation of effective fisheries management has been met with a variety of challenges. The incorporation of fisher's local ecological knowledge (FK) into the management paradigm is an important step in understanding perceptions and responses to the changing environment, and emerges as an indispensable component in the dialogue between trans-disciplinary coastal ecology studies. This dissertation seeks to contribute to the integration of these knowledges, and emphasises the involvement of fishers, communities, and research in informing policy.
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Arkaraprasertkul, Non. "Locating Shanghai: Globalization, Heritage Industry, and the Political Economy of Urban Space in a Chinese Metropolis." Thesis, Harvard University, 2016. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493323.
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Given the rapid urbanization of Shanghai in the past three decades, how might we attempt to understand the changing meanings, usages, and values of urban space and the built environment, as occupied, lived, and experienced by its residents? In this dissertation, I use ethnography to explore the complex processes of urbanization and globalization in Shanghai – China’s largest and most urbanized city – examining the myriad ways that space orients and even determines the actions, commitments, and everyday sociocultural practices of the various agents and stakeholders involved in this transformation. By investigating how residents, planners, and local officials variously conceive of historic preservation and urban renewal programs, and by eschewing the artificially coherent image of the city promoted by state planners, I paint a more nuanced picture of the specific challenges faced by the populace and their creative methods of negotiation, adaptation, and appropriation in the face of a rapidly changing landscape. My primary case study is the Shanghai’s traditional alleyway neighborhoods (known locally as the lilong: 里弄) through which I investigate issues arising from their restoration and preservation: state discourse and law enforcement, globalization and local heritage, place-making, and aesthetics. What my research demonstrates is how knowledge of the global not only informs but encourages pragmatic residents to "foresee" a different future and voluntarily get involved in the process of urban renewal to enhance their interests. In this dissertation, I develop new concepts such as "gentrification from within," to explain this unique process of demographic change involving capital investment and cultural reproduction, in which the original residents themselves are agents. Also developed in this dissertation are the concepts of "traditionalism as a way of life," and "emancipatory masculinity," which explain the undergirding tension between the traditional belief of homeownership and the economic reality of modern life resulting in unprecedented patterns of social reproduction and familial formation.Anthropology
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Wilde, Matt. "'We shall overcome' : radical populism, political morality and participatory democracy in a Venezuelan barrio." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2013. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/713/.
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This thesis is an ethnographic exploration of radical populist politics among working class residents of a Venezuelan barrio (shantytown). It draws on fieldwork conducted over 19 months and focuses on the political ideals and practices of pro-government chavista activists in the context of the “Bolivarian Revolution”. Specifically, it analyses the utopian desires that underpin activists’ engagement with a number of political organisations in their communities, uncovering how political activism is embedded in broader projects that seek personal transformation, material betterment and moral redemption. It also examines state-led efforts to establish participatory democracy at the local level, tracing the experiences of grassroots activists as they attempt to build new political institutions in their communities. My approach involves a close attention to the relationship between political discourse, state policy and everyday practice, exploring the complex interactions that unfold between state agencies and community actors. Overall, the aim of this thesis is to understand the appeal of a radical populist project by looking beyond claims that political efficacy rests solely on the redistribution of resources. I suggest that the particular appeal of chavismo lies in the fact that it also asks its adherents to usher in a new moral order by transforming themselves, their communities and their democracy in profound ways. I explore many of the complexities that are inherent to this process, analysing how activists seeking radical change encounter disjunctures between an idealised future and a compromised and contingent present.
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Benessaiah, Nejm Lakani. "Authority, anarchy and equity : a political ecology of social change in the Algerian Sahara." Thesis, University of Kent, 2015. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/54683/.
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This thesis charts and theorises a general transition from authoritarian to participatory forms of governance and natural resource management, as viewed from the locale of a Saharan oasis town situated within wider temporal and spatial change processes. Ostrom’s (2014) work on the ability of communities to regulate access to the commons hinges on resource users jointly agreeing on and conforming to rules of use. Similarly, recent theoretical developments related to Social Ecological Systems and adaptive management also emphasise group consensus as a prerequisite for adaption. These approaches presume a degree of equality in social relations across the group. In Beni Isguen, Algeria, by contrast, the management of water commons is complicated by class inequalities. This region has recently seen a shift from religion to capital as the dominant ideology behind ruling factions, entailing the contraction of a theocratic influence, with the accession of a secular merchant class. This latter faction has achieved this by ideologically and pragmatically positioning themselves within the hierarchical administration of the nation-state, and thus conforming to national laws. This key shift in political alignment followed a long period of local resistance to over-arching ruling powers. I argue that this conformation has entailed a displacement of a localised ‘social contract’ whereby welfare, labour and regulation were previously achieved through the ‘moral economy’ of reciprocal relations, to a citizen-state contract based on the assumption of rights and certain services (e.g. protection of private property, creation and maintenance of infrastructure), and a reliance on the market to provide goods and other services (e.g. labour). These historical social changes have implications for theoretical developments regarding the role of the citizen-state relationship in terms of the protection of private property vs. protection of communal property, of anthropological perspectives of legal pluralism, and social contract theory. Furthermore, the thesis describes mixed modes of resource management involving new voluntary associations as alternative forms of local governance from below, alongside customary regulatory officials in charge of water. The emancipatory idea of some regarding civil society has received thorough critique by anthropologists (Benthall 2000; Comaroff & Comaroff 1999), yet along with Butcher (2014), I argue that despite this, the recent opening of the civic sector has created an opening for new forms of activity within the Algerian political landscape. However, the informal agreements of voluntary associations appear to lack the ‘teeth’ necessary to regulate uncooperative individuals. Authority today is locally perceived as the prerogative of the state, and so some state regulation appears necessary. The study thus views these processes from the viewpoint of the crucial determinant of life in the desert: water, and from there its social dependents, and how they organise themselves.
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Oendo, Ayuka Waya. "Identity and adaptation : social and political factors in health and development among the Digo of Msambweni, Kenya." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1988. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265345.
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The thesis examines the relationship of rural people with the wider society t ~rough their responses to development interventions. In Diga society, as elsewhere, there are integrative tendencies promoting group identity, and adaptive forces encouraging relations with the outside world. Responses to interventions commonly reflect the way people identify themselves socially and politically in relation to the wider society. Diga see their identity in terms of traits and features associated with their religion, social structure, and the history of their interactions with outsiders. An attempt is made to show the role of Diga identity in their participation in women's groups where their behaviour differs considerably from that of their neighbours. Their participation in the South Coast H~ndpump Project is also discussed, as are Diga perceptions of health and disease. It is argued that Diga ideas on disease and its causes are statements of their identity and expressions of their relationship with the environment. These are also reflected in their therapy seeking behaviour which represents views of themselves and their place in the world. It is further suggested that the principles on which therapy seeking is based are also reflected in responses to other programmes. However, it is also argued that the emphasis on some features which the Diga claim as distinctive mainly reflects their position as peasants. The thesis attempts to show that their treatment in this manner is an expression of alienation. It therefore attempts to outline the conditions in which traits are used this way. It is suggested that it is sometimes immaterial what the particular features are, providing that they can be used as marks of identity in situations of deprivation and marg i nality.
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Mawson, Andrew Nicholas Mirehouse. "The triumph of life : political dispute and religious ceremonial among the Agar Dinka of the Southern Sudan." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1989. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272535.
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Cox, Melvyn. "Régis Debray : a study of his political and theoretical works, 1962-1992." Thesis, Loughborough University, 1996. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/11949.
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Riskedahl, Diane Renae. "The intertextuality of civil identity: Political uses of oral discourse in post-war Lebanon." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/280793.
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This dissertation draws on the specific case-study of post-war Lebanese political rhetoric in order to take a close look at the ways in which a complex amalgam of distinct and varying histories is articulated linguistically under one national rubric. Research was conducted largely in the urban Beirut region of Lebanon from 1999 to 2001. By analysis of specific linguistic strategies for maneuvering within and between interpretive frames (in particular, Arabism, Lebanese Nationalism and Sectarianism) I have illustrated how Lebanese political actors are able to draw on language, in both its form and content, in order to establish and define their political identity. I also argue that these political actors are able to accomplish social work: they modify relationships, incite discussion, and motivate change through their talk. Through various forms of linguistic incorporation speakers actively work to redefine or to reaffirm authority in the public sphere. I have tried to illustrate how the historical situatedness of the interpretive frames that they utilize affects and limits their ability to do so in a uniquely post-war Lebanese fashion, by drawing on the points of contested meaning in an environment of active political re-configuration. This focus moves away from definitive interpretations of discourse and instead concentrates on interpretive flexibility, with an eye to understanding how that flexibility is constrained. The discursive space of the Lebanese public sphere, then, becomes a primary site for political and civil identity construction through the use and re-use of political discourse.
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Nomita, Dave. "The revolution's echoes : music and political culture in Conakry, Guinea." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4224085a-354f-409f-8c9b-1160a8e9a789.
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This thesis is an ethnographic study of music and authoritarianism in Conakry, Guinea. Representations in the scholarly and popular literature often emphasize African music as a site for resistance and oppositional politics, while musicians who support the state are seen as tools of propaganda. In this thesis, I examine instead the choices and subjectivities of musicians who sing for an authoritarian state. As I show, musicians in Conakry, across genres and generations, rarely express dissent and overwhelmingly adopt cautious and conservative positions towards the state. I describe these stances as operating within a politics of silence that has emerged over the past half-century of authoritarian rule in Guinea, deriving from norms of ambiguity and secrecy in Mande culture. I begin in Chapter One by considering the foundational moment of the Guinean Cultural Revolution to examine how music became intertwined with a political culture of control under the regime of Guinea’s first president Sékou Touré. In Chapters Two, Three and Four I then investigate the legacy of the Revolution in shaping musical practice in Conakry today. My analysis is based on ethnographic research conducted in 2009, following a military coup d’état. I use the particular circumstances of the post-coup moment in 2009 as a lens through which to understand the ongoing legacy of authoritarianism on Conakry’s musical and political landscape. I consider the afterlife of musical nationalism as musicians from the Revolution seek to find a place in the post-nationalist state; anxieties about praise-singing and music professionalization that have sharpened since the Revolution’s end; and the politics of youth music as young people negotiate between ideals of protest and the quiet accommodation of power. As I argue, silence is a form of agency for musicians in Conakry as they attempt to negotiate the complexities of life in an authoritarian state.
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Bardell, Geoffrey. "The role of pre-1945 national and catholic myths in transforming an illiberal Polish political culture into a liberal political culture of opposition under communism." Thesis, Brunel University, 2002. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/5105.
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The thesis, in exploring how and why illiberal pre-1945 Polish nationalism and political Catholicism were synthesised into a post-1945 liberal political culture of opposition under communism, argues that this process was much aided by universal myths. The thesis shows how these myths enable political culture to be transmitted over time and to be adapted to take on different values and yet retain legitimacy. In so doing, the research may contribute insights into how the political cultures of other Central East European countries were similarly transformed. Chapter 1 argues that the social anthropological literature on myths provides a theoretical framework to better understand the nature of political culture, its dynamics and its relationship with the process of democratisation. Chapter 2 maps the pre-1945 territory of nationalist and political Catholic illiberal and liberal discourse as reflected in the genesis and meanings of key myths. Chapter 3, in exploring how pre-1945 myths were deployed in 1945-1989 Poland, illuminates the relationship of myths with the dynamics of political culture and democratisation. Chapter 4 explores the 1970-1976 process of dialogue between liberal-leaning dissident Catholic and secular left Polish intelligentsia. The chapter sheds light upon the emergence of a liberal political culture of opposition and argues that the dialogue went beyond expediency. Chapter 5, in demonstrating how and why John Paul II deployed pre-1945 myths, argues that the Pope's preachings found practical expression in the formation of Solidarity. Chapter 6 in exploring the role of pre-1945 myths in influencing Solidarity, argues that these myths acted as vehicles for the union's liberal political culture. Finally Chapter 7 draws together the conclusions of the thesis.
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Chiu, Hsiao-Chiao. "An island of the floating world : kinship, rituals, and political-economic change in post-Cold War Jinmen." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3472/.
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During the Cold War era, the island of Jinmen was the frontline of the Republic of China in its military standoff with the People’s Republic of China. From 1949 to 1992, the life of the islanders was profoundly disturbed and altered by wars and militarization generated by the bipolar politics. Despite this, the localized patrilineages dating from imperial times remain central to the organization of local social life. Grounded on fifteen months of fieldwork in a patrilineal community, this dissertation demonstrates the significant roles of kinship and kinship-related rituals in sustaining the local social fabric through turmoil and uncertainty during and after the Cold War. The first part of this thesis focuses on lineage ancestral sacrifices, domestic worship, and funerals. The continuation of rituals that sustain patterns of interpersonal relationships is argued to constitute a means of negating the destruction of social order experienced in the period of military control and conflict. Yet, against the background of these ritual continuities, the thesis also examines how they have been adapted to shifting circumstances, such as the involvement of military and political authorities in folk ritual practices as a means for securing their legitimacy, and the material changes in rituals that have accompanied rapid commercialization from the 1990s. The second part focuses on the impact of the Cold War on local political and economic life and state-society relations. Despite some salient changes, the ways that people define their social roles and relate to one another are shown to have remained largely framed by values and morals from the sphere of kinship. Kinship therefore actually continues to constitute a distinctive feature of the local political-economic structure, countering an often-seen formula assuming causal relations between the dramatic political-economic changes and the declining role of kinship or “traditional” values in orienting people’s life and action.
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Krause, Elizabeth Louise. "Natalism and nationalism: The political economy of love, labor, and low fertility in central Italy." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/284074.
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This dissertation examines the cultural politics of family-making in Italy, where women in the 1990s reached record-low fertility rates. Gender, kinship, ethnicity, race and nationalism have become foci of social and individual conflicts in the context of Italian reproductive patterns. This interdisciplinary project, based on 22 months of anthropological fieldwork, explores the effects of this demographic transition on the everyday lives, emotions, memories and family-making practices of women and men in one historic central Italian comune (county) in the Province of Prato. Located in a rural-industrial region of Tuscany, individuals there recount the shift from a peasant agricultural economy based on sharecropping and straw weaving to an urban industrial economy based on rag regeneration and textile production, and link this to the ongoing "crisis" in the patriarchal family. It examines relations between productive and reproductive labor from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, and offers a historical corrective to scholarship on globalization. Integrating methods from sociocultural, linguistic and historical anthropology, this ethnography contributes to the understanding of fertility decline in a way that analyses of aggregate statistics alone cannot: namely, it reveals how ideologies about class and gender create social identities that lead couples to make small families. Influenced by feminist anthropology and political-economic approaches, the project places attention on power relations associated with old and new meanings of domicile labor, social space, marriage, patriarchy as well as parenting; a persistently intense role of motherhood is connected to the "culture of responsibility." Discourse analysis is used to examine demography narratives, which depict the very low birthrate as "irrational" and as a "problem." In the context of immigration into Europe, such scientific authority enables elite racism and sneaky pronatalism. Hence, this research participates in the movement of scholars committed to critical population studies and, as such, adds much-needed depth to global debates about changing family dynamics, population politics and women's status.
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Mahumana, Narciso António. "Rethinking indigenous medicine : illness (mis)representation and political economy of health in Mozambique's public health field." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2015. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/58511/.
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This dissertation was motivated by the misrepresentation of, and apparent lack of knowledge about, indigenous medicine in Mozambique. This consequently raised the need to reveal the epistemologies of health, illness and healing; rewrite the historiography; and develop the knowledge of and about this medicine. The dissertation analyses illness representation and the political economy of health. The thesis defended is that indigenous medicine is a form of medical knowledge and practice that represents its illness, therapy and efficacy according to specific epistemological foundations, rooted in the local society and culture yet it has been misrepresented by local discourses, agencies and practices that battle to control health resources, knowledge and power in Mozambique. Within this, biomedical health paradigms, bodies, and representations have been imposed onto an imagined Official National Health Service (ONHS) whilst people, on the other hand, represent, legitimise, and seek therapy simultaneously in different epistemologies and practices of medicine within the therapeutic landscape creating a Contextual National Health Service (CNHS). This political economy of health is contingent on historical, socio-economical, political and geopolitical productions and constructions of health and efficacy within Mozambique's public health field. Research and health development needs to rewrite the historiography of indigenous medicine based on ethnographically sensitive material and linguistic competence. The construction and justification of this argument is made in seven chapters. The study was carried out in Maputo City and Manhiça district and relied on participant observation. It also uses a mixture of other qualitative methods which encompassed formal and informal interviews, documenting of life histories, desk review, and participatory learning for action (PLA).
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Rajan, Supritha McGowan John. "The rites and relics of value sacrifice and communality in nineteenth-century political economy, anthropology, and fiction /." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,1152.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007.Title from electronic title page (viewed Mar. 27, 2008). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature." Discipline: English; Department/School: English.
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Jayum, A. Jawan Victor T. "Political change and economic development among the Ibans of Sarawak, East Malaysia." Thesis, University of Hull, 1991. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:5341.
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Trivedi, Jennifer Marie. "Biloxi's Recovery from Katrina: Long-Term Influences and Inequalities." Diss., University of Iowa, 2016. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3204.
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Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the American Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. Biloxi, Mississippi, a small town on the coast, was one of the towns devastated by the storm. A decade after the storm, recovery remains an ongoing process. My ethnographic research in 2006, 2010, and 2011 and media and historic document analysis throughout these ten years explore this recovery process and what pre-disaster cultural, social, political, and economic issues have shaped Biloxi and Biloxians' recovery.
The small coastal city of Biloxi sits on the Mississippi Sound of the Gulf of Mexico. The city's history and residents' identities are intertwined with this waterfront location. Biloxians rely on the Gulf for recreation and job opportunities, particularly in the long-standing seafood and tourism industries. Scattered piers are filled with recreational and shrimping boats. Casinos dot the shoreline where seafood processing plants once stood. Many Biloxians still proudly identify with the city's coastal location, neighborhoods they were raised in or lived in before Katrina, their perceived socioeconomic class status, and their own and their ancestor's racial, ethnic, and national identities.
However, Biloxi's waterfront location also makes the city prone to hurricane strikes. Historic storms like Camille in 1969 and Fort Lauderdale in 1947 have affected the city's development and influenced residents' beliefs and behaviors during their preparation for Katrina. Biloxians were aware of Katrina's predicted landfall in the days and hours before the storm, but this history of hurricanes influenced many residents' decisions to remain in the city for the storm. Many residents I spoke to described their belief that survival in previous storms indicated they would survive Katrina.
Other pre-Katrina processes influenced Biloxians' preparations for, coping with, and response to the disaster, as expected in vulnerability theory. Poorer and working class residents were less able to prepare for or evacuate before the storm, if they chose to do so. Residents in higher risk neighborhoods like East Biloxi found themselves affected more severely by the storm, often losing much of their homes and lives. Biloxians' with less political and economic power struggled to keep their voice heard as city and other government officials laid the framework for recovery.
Pre-Katrina Biloxians' cultural, political, and economic inequalities directly affected the recovery process. To better understand these influences, in this research I use a political economy approach to describe and analyze Biloxi's recovery from Katrina. To strengthen this analysis, I have also drawn on theories regarding vulnerability and resilience, risk and uncertainty, and cultural-historical context. Each of these approaches contributes to a better understanding of how post-disaster recovery processes work - particularly in the case of post-Katrina Biloxi. This work also builds on disaster anthropology and social science research that rejects the concept of disasters as isolated events and instead argues that disasters are influenced by broader and long-standing cultural, political, and economic processes. In this work I also bring this argument for a holistic approach into long-term disaster recovery.
The holistic anthropological approach to the post-Katrina Biloxi that I have used here reveals the importance of understanding a range of facts and processes that exist before, during, and after a disaster to explore the recovery process. Post-Katrina Biloxi is as much a product of pre-Katrina Biloxi as it is a product of the effects of the hurricane itself.
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Solano, Maria Schelle. "Art, Commerce, and Social Transformation: Public Art And the Marketing of Philadelphia." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2012. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/184817.
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AnthropologyPh.D.
The field site for this US-based ethnography is the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The overwhelming presence of murals in the urban landscape calls into question how these figurative wall-sized paintings improve the lives and neighborhoods in which these paintings are found. With Philadelphia suffering the consequences of deindustrialization and neoliberal globalization, characterized by high poverty and inequality, and consistently low rankings in quality of life indicators by the national media, what role do murals play in change? Do murals mask urban problems by literally painting over blight, and, therefore distract from vital issues? Alternately, are murals a beacon of hope in an aging post-industrialized city? How do these murals contribute to the city - socially, culturally, and economically? This research study employs the following in its methodology: archival research, participant observation, interviews, visual and audio documentation, web site analysis of the Mural Arts Program's public transcript, and documentation of contemporary media coverage of the MAP and tourism related economic strategies. Over the course of its almost thirty-year history, the MAP has seen its mission shift from dealing with erasing graffiti, to helping transform (i.e. empower and motivate) communities and individuals, as a way to deal with poverty and increasing political and economic inequality. As globalization placed pressures on cities to compete in a global economy, new urban branding practices changed the scale of operations from place-based local communities (that focused on rehabilitating "at-risk" populations) to the city as a whole (city-wide murals and related projects/events), that increased local media coverage and brought the MAP to the attention of national media outlets - the kind of publicity necessary to advertise Philadelphia as an "urban brand," "The City of Murals." The promotion of Philadelphia as "The City of Murals" is premised on art having a "social life" by virtue of human interaction, and therefore, has the capacity to engage, captivate, and transform - its "value" is in being commodified and consumed. At the same time, the consumption of particular art objects and experiences demonstrates "taste" and marks social difference and maintains social hierarchies.
Temple University--Theses
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Goldstein, Daniel Marc 1965. "Por las propias manos/In our own hands: Resistance and representation on the margins of urban Bolivia." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282413.
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This dissertation is concerned with questions of collective identity, political process, and the relationships between one self-identifying community on the outskirts of Cochabamba, Bolivia and the larger systems of institutional power and authority to which that community is subordinated. It examines the practices of representation that are ongoing in the barrio of Villa Sebastian Pagador, the ways in which community leaders and residents elaborate images of and ideas about the barrio and project these to outsiders. The audience for these presentations is broad, but particularly includes representatives of the state and the municipal government, those people with the ability to improve the quality of life of barrio residents. By representing Villa Pagador as a "community," a group of people of shared origins working together for a common future, the people of Pagador hope to persuade the municipal and national authorities to aid them in their efforts to transform local infrastructure, and to negotiate a more positively valued identity for themselves as a community within the greater urban center of Cochabamba. Relying on a triangulated methodology that includes long-term participant-observation in the study community, informal interviewing of barrio leaders and residents, and the collection of a large corpus of secondary-source materials, this dissertation seeks to analyze the processes of community formation in Villa Pagador. In doing so, it conceptualizes community formation as a kind of resistance process, a way to contest the imposition of a pejorative identity that excludes urban migrants from the mainstream of urban national life. People in Villa Pagador resist the identity of a "marginal barrio" imposed upon them within the broader context of Bolivian society, in which urban migrant barrios are categorized as backward, isolated, uncivilized, and unimportant in the larger national social formation. By asserting their own centrality to the Bolivian nation, pagadoredos contest this sense of their own marginality, claiming instead that they are a community fully integral to the Bolivian nation and so deserving of attention from the legally constituted municipal and national authorities.
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Smith-Morris, Carolyn 1966. "A political economy of diabetes, pregnancy, and identity in the Gila River Indian Community." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/279885.
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More than half of all Pima Indians over age 35 have Diabetes Mellitus and prevalence rates continue to rise; this despite billions of dollars spent every year on research and prevention activity by the National Institute of Health, the American Diabetes Association, and the Indian Health Service nationwide. Because of the many health problems which can occur in conjunction with uncontrolled diabetes, including heart disease, kidney disease, neuropathy, retinopathy, and depression, the insidious or symptomless nature of this disease creates an urgent need for early detection, prevention, and effective treatment. Several anthropological studies of Native Americans have been conducted over the last century, but few have focused on Native American understandings of and response to diabetes, particularly its sometimes "latent" quality, as in gestational diabetes which "goes into remission" after childbirth. Biomedical concepts such as risk, prevention, disease latency, and genetic predisposition or heritability are critical to the prevention of many chronic illnesses, but do not translate well or effectively across cultural lines. This dissertation presents a focused ethnography examining this process of integration between Native American and biomedical health models at the Gila River Indian Community, particularly around the issue of diabetes. Because diabetes is a complicating factor in pregnancy and childbirth due to fetal stress, high birth weight, and necessitated cesarean-section deliveries, and due to the relationship between gestational diabetes and the subsequent health of both the mother and infant, pregnant women are the focus of this research.
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Yun, Kyoim. "Performing the sacred political economy and shamanic ritual on Cheju island, South Korea /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3278198.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 2007.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: A, page: 4015. Advisers: Richard Bauman; Roger L. Janelli. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 7, 2008).
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Green, Meredith Anne 1971. "Bottles, buildings, and war: Metaphor and racism in contemporary German political discourse." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/278523.
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Political discourse in contemporary Germany provides a window into issues of racism, nationality, and the overall question of German identity. The use of metaphor and racist semantic techniques in political speeches and articles addressing issues of increased neo-Nazi activity and changes in immigration policy point to an increasing struggle over the establishment of a common discursive framework within which such questions are discussed. Such a struggle itself points to a deeper crisis of the state and German identity. This paper offers an approach to understanding these struggles by first examining metaphorical conceptions of the nation and state that not only reflect and describe, but actually shape German experience of these phenomena, further impacting conceptions of race and national identity. The active role of racism in creating a common discursive framework and as it informs the process/state project of hegemony is examined. Questions concerning whether the racism detected is "new" and the consequences of establishing a racialized discourse will contribute, finally, to an exploration of possibilities for creating an anti-racist discourse in Germany.
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Vitous, Crystal Ann. "Impacts of Tourism Development on Livelihoods in Placencia Village, Belize." Scholar Commons, 2017. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6773.
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Placencia Village is one of Belize’s leading “eco-destinations,” due to its sandy-white beaches, coral reefs, and wildlife sanctuaries. While the use of “green washing,” the process of deceptively marketing products, aims or policies as being environmentally friendly, has proven to be effective in attracting consumers who are thought to be environmentally and socially conscious, the exponential growth, coupled with the absence of established policies, represents a significant threat to Belize. This thesis examines the political-ecologic dimensions of rapid tourism expansion in Southern Belize by investigating how the health of the biophysical environment is perceived, what processes are responsible for change, and how these changes are impacting the socioeconomic livelihoods of the local people.
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Gaunt, John Frederick. "The charismatic warlord in revolutionary Mongolia : an analysis of the advantage or liability of charismatic warlords with regard to the state's changing national and political expedient." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1993. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/251513.
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Meyers, Maureen Elizabeth Siewert. "POLITICAL ECONOMY OF EXOTIC TRADE ON THE MISSISSIPPIAN FRONTIER: A CASE STUDY OF A FOURTEENTH CENTURY CHIEFDOM IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA." UKnowledge, 2011. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/126.
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Although the Mississippian culture area has been studied for decades, the frontier of the Mississippian region is less understood. Various Mississippian frontiers appear to have been important for the obtainment of trade goods which were important symbols of chiefly power. Studying these frontiers will allow archaeologists to better understand the emergence and maintenance of power within Southeastern chiefdoms. This dissertation explores one frontier site, Carter Robinson (44LE10) in southwestern Virginia, and its role in Southern Appalachian chiefdom power through its control of trade at the border. This research identifies ceramic and non-utilitarian markers of trade and identifies changes at the frontier site over time, an accumulation of power that occurred through control of trade.
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RezaeiSahraei, Afsaneh. "Iranian Political Humor in Social Media." TopSCHOLAR®, 2014. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1420.
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Pailes, Matthew Collin. "Political Landscapes Of Late Prehispanic Sonora: A View From The Moctezuma Valley." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/347230.
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This dissertation offers a reformulation of social organization in eastern Sonora from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries based on survey and excavation data collected in the Moctezuma Valley, Sonora, Mexico. Prior researchers, utilizing Spanish exploration era documents, argued for the presence of territorial polities that controlled large sections of river valleys with an elite class supported by the management of long distance trade. Previous archaeological research demonstrated hierarchy in settlement patterns, but differed in interpretations regarding the methods of "elite" ascendance. This dissertation addresses questions of both the scale of political organization and its likely underpinnings. Multiple data sets including artifact style boundaries, settlement pattern analysis, and consideration of ecological parameters demonstrate political organization rarely reached beyond local sections of river valleys. This suggests dozens of locally autonomous settlement communities were present in an area previously argued to contain less than ten political units. Additionally, application of a diverse set of provenance techniques facilitated testing previous hypothesis regarding exchange in the region. The character of regional exchange systems appears to be mostly through down-the-line acquisition, likely orchestrated by aspirant leaders at the level of local settlement communities. These interactions rarely reached beyond near neighbors and excluded some immediately adjacent settlement communities. In contrast, the exchange of mundane ceramics crossed these same boundaries, indicating different segments of society forged incongruous social networks. In summary, these data suggest the region would be a very poor conduit for long distance exchange, most aspirant leaders had only limited access to social valuables, and that the social landscape was sufficiently volatile that most households sought exterior ties as a means of risk reduction. Local warfare in conjunction with demographic and ecological factors are argued to play the predominant roles in generating the political landscape of eastern Sonora. Overall, small scales of political consolidation and minimal hierarchical control characterized the broader region.
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Fang, Zihan 1962. "Chinese city parks: Political, economic and social influences on design (1949-1994)." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/278614.
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This thesis is an attempt to understand the purposes of modern Chinese park design. The goal of this work was to identify the social, economic, and political factors influencing contemporary park design. The primary approach was analysis of case studies. By analyzing characteristics of parks constructed at different stages in urban park history and in the cultural history of China, the results provide strong support for important political, economic, and social influences on park design.
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Acheson, Julianna 1965. "Traversing political economy and the household: An ethnographic analysis of life after communism in Kojsov, a rural village in eastern Slovakia." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282421.
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This dissertation is the result of ethnographic fieldwork in eastern Slovakia in the village of Kojsov during the year of 1993. The goal of the dissertation is to examine issues of the household economy in light of the "transition from communism to capitalism". At the level of the household differences between consumption and production can be revealed and reaction to opportunities from the 1989 Velvet Revolution are made lucid. Household composition, production, and consumption form the basis for the second part of this dissertation. I point out how individuals consume significantly less, produce more in kitchen gardens, and endure the financial stress of economic change. Of prime importance during this period of transition is the process of decollectivization and reprivatization of land in rural Slovakia. This process is the focus of the third and final section of the dissertation. Villagers in Kojsov are extremely slow to reprivatize their family lands. This behavior is tied to a village ethos of egalitarianism, an antipathy for stratification, and overall lack of capital necessary to take the risks integral to entrepreneurial activity. Thus both ideology and limited finances determine the fate of Kojsov's land. This dissertation is a case study which examines contemporary issues surrounding peasants, the moral economy, the "transition" to capitalism and entrepreneurship.
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Del, Cairo Silva Carlos Luis. "Environmentalizing Indigeneity: A Comparative Ethnography on Multiculturalism, Ethnic Hierarchies, and Political Ecology in the Colombian Amazon." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/217111.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation is aimed at analyzing how ethnic hierarchies question the environmentalization of indigeneity, which is the foundation of the Colombian state's multicultural policy. In particular, the dissertation develops a comparative ethnographic approach to the way in which the "multicultural turn" of 1991 impacted three indigenous communities located at San José del Guaviare, a colonization frontier in the Colombian Amazon: the Nükak, the Jiw and the Tucano. Against the assumption of multicultural policy that indigenous communities form a vast mass of people radically diferent from mainstream (even portrayed as anti-modern), in San José there is an unequal distribution of the Nükak, Jiw and Tucano in different positions inside local ethnic hierarchies. For some, Nükak incarnate what Hale (2004) label as a "good ethnicity", that serves to promote Guaviare as an eco-touristic destination, the Jiw are a "bad ethnicity" that annoys White people in San José, while the Tucano are portrayed as "civilized Indians". Thus, the dissertation states how these ethnic hierarchies contradict some of the core assumptions of multicultural policies that are based on an essentialized understanding of indigenous peoples as "ecologically noble savages." The dissertation argues that the analysis of contemporary experiences on indigeneity in an Amazonian context such as San José, could be better understood if it observes a set of processes and actors including: the historical transformation of senses on otherness, the production of forests as a field of domain under state regulations, the economic crossroads affecting indigenous peoples on their "resguardos" (indigenous lands) and the intervention of state laws, NGOs, indigenous political organizations, settlers, foreign governments and state officials. The analysis of such a variety of processes and actors shaping contemporary experiences on indigeneity in the Colombian Amazon follows the environmentality approach (Agrawal, 2005). From that perspective, I discuss the following ideas: a) indigenous resguardos were designed as governmentalized localities in multicultural policy to regulate and control how indigenous peoples manage natural resources; b) those communities portrayed as followers of the ecological nobility script act as regulatory communities; c) the technologies for governing the ecological realm do not necessarily assure the formation of environmental subjectivities.
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Porroche-Escudero, Ana. "Listening to women : political narratives of breast cancer in Spain." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2012. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/36135/.
Full textAbstract:
The thesis examines the complex relationship between individual experiences of breast cancer and the wider social, political and discursive context in which they are located. It focuses on how Spanish women living with breast cancer define their own health priorities by exploring their experiences and their dissatisfactions, which appear to have been excluded from public and biomedical discourses. The data was collected in a provincial city in Western Spain and focused on the lived experiences of 32 women living and surviving breast cancer. Interviews were mainly conducted in the headquarters of the Spanish Association against Cancer of that region, but also at women's homes and in other public spaces. Based upon a framework of narratives of resistance, grounded in feminist theory, critical medical anthropology and sociology, an ethnographic approach allowed a focus on breast cancer patients and survivors as âexperts' of their own health, addressing fundamental concerns in the production of knowledge. The thesis discusses the relationship between breast cancer and social inequality. It examines the dramatic ways that structures of power such as class, age, gender, and disability, intersect and âconspireâ through a web of social beliefs, practices, norms and expectations to shape, and exacerbate, women's experiences of illness, in particular, of those women who need health care the most. The research also highlights the ways in which the experiential symptoms of breast cancer are portrayed and perceived in public and medical discourses in sexual terms or physiological terms, which ignores the wider social and embodied contexts of women's experiences. By answering the call made by feminist writers such as Wilkinson (2001) and Broom (2000) to listening to the narratives of resistance of these Spanish women, this study therefore offers both a particular cultural account of their collaboration with a range of institutions such as health professionals, charities, the family and the social care system, but also valuable lay experiences which are more generally relevant to wider healthcare practice and policy.