Matching Items (11)
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- All Subjects: environmental justice
- All Subjects: Cultural Anthropology
- Genre: Academic theses
- Creators: Bolin, Bob
Description
The causes and consequences of stylistic change have been a concern of archaeologists over the past several decades. The actual process of stylistic innovation, however, has received less attention. This project explores the relationship between the process of stylistic innovation on decorated pottery and the social context in which it occurred in the Hohokam area of south-central Arizona between A.D. 800 and 1300. This interval was punctuated by three episodes of reorganization, each of which was characterized to varying degrees by significant shifts in ideology, economics, and politics. Each reorganization episode was also accompanied by a rapid profusion of stylistic innovation on buff ware pottery. The goal of this study was to build a framework to understand the variation in the process of innovation as a response to different incentives and opportunities perceived in the changing social environment. By bringing stylistic analyses and provenance data together for the first time in Hohokam red-on-buff studies, I investigated how the process of innovation was variously influenced by social reorganizations at three different periods of time: the 9th, 11th, and 12th centuries A.D. Four variables were used to evaluate the process of innovation at each temporal period: 1) The origin of a stylistic invention, 2) the rate of its adoption, 3) the pattern of its adoption, and 4) the uniformity of its adoption among all buff ware potting communities. To accomplish the task, stylistic innovations and provenance were recorded on over 3,700 red-on-buff sherds were analyzed from 20 sites in the Phoenix Basin. The innovation process was found to vary with each reorganization episode, but often in different ways than expected. The results revealed the complexity and unpredictability of the process of stylistic innovation among the Hohokam. They also challenged some assumptions archaeologists have made regarding the scale and extent of the changes associated with some of the reorganization episodes. The variables utilized to measure the innovation process were found to be effective at providing a composite picture of that process, and thus warrant broader application to other archaeological contexts.
ContributorsLack, Andrew D (Author) / Abbott, David R. (Thesis advisor) / Hegmon, Michelle (Committee member) / Spielmann, Katherine A. (Committee member) / Nelson, Ben A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This study explores the potential risks associated with the 65 U.S.-based commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs) and the distribution of those risks among the populations of both their respective host communities and of the communities located in outlying areas. First, I examine the relevant environmental justice issues. I start by examining the racial/ethnic composition of the host community populations, as well as the disparities in socio-economic status that exist, if any, between the host communities and communities located in outlying areas. Second, I estimate the statistical associations that exist, if any, between a population's distance from a NPP and several independent variables. I conduct multivariate ordinary least square (OLS) regression analyses and spatial autocorrelation regression (SAR) analyses at the national, regional and individual-NPP levels. Third, I construct a NPP potential risk index (NPP PRI) that defines four discrete risk categories--namely, very high risk, high risk, moderate risk, and low risk. The NPP PRI allows me then to estimate the demographic characteristics of the populations exposed to each so-defined level of risk. Fourth, using the Palo Verde NPP as the subject, I simulate a scenario in which a NPP experiences a core-damage accident. I use the RASCAL 4.3 software to simulate the path of dispersion of the resultant radioactive plume, and to investigate the statistical associations that exist, if any, between the dispersed radioactive plume and the demographic characteristics of the populations located within the plume's footprint. This study utilizes distributive justice theories to understand the distribution of the potential risks associated with NPPs, many of which are unpredictable, irreversible and inescapable. I employ an approach that takes into account multiple stakeholders in order to provide avenues for all parties to express concerns, and to ensure the relevance and actionability of any resulting policy recommendations.
ContributorsKyne, Dean (Author) / Bolin, Bob (Thesis advisor) / Boone, Christopher (Committee member) / Pijawka, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The coastal fishing community of Barrington, Southwest Nova Scotia (SWNS), has depended on the resilience of ocean ecosystems and resource-based economic activities for centuries. But while many coastal fisheries have developed unique ways to govern their resources, global environmental and economic change presents new challenges. In this study, I examine the multi-species fishery of Barrington. My objective was to understand what makes the fishery and its governance system robust to economic and ecological change, what makes fishing households vulnerable, and how household vulnerability and system level robustness interact. I addressed these these questions by focusing on action arenas, their contexts, interactions and outcomes. I used a combination of case comparisons, ethnography, surveys, quantitative and qualitative analysis to understand what influences action arenas in Barrington, Southwest Nova Scotia (SWNS). I found that robustness of the fishery at the system level depended on the strength of feedback between the operational level, where resource users interact with the resource, and the collective-choice level, where agents develop rules to influence fishing behavior. Weak feedback in Barrington has precipitated governance mismatches. At the household level, accounts from harvesters, buyers and experts suggested that decision-making arenas lacked procedural justice. Households preferred individual strategies to acquire access to and exploit fisheries resources. But the transferability of quota and licenses has created divisions between haves and have-nots. Those who have lost their traditional access to other species, such as cod, halibut, and haddock, have become highly dependent on lobster. Based on regressions and multi-criteria decision analysis, I found that new entrants in the lobster fishery needed to maintain high effort and catches to service their debts. But harvesters who did not enter the race for higher catches were most sensitive to low demand and low prices for lobster. This study demonstrates the importance of combining multiple methods and theoretical approaches to avoid tunnel vision in fisheries policy.
ContributorsBarnett, Allain J. D (Author) / Anderies, John M (Thesis advisor) / Abbott, Joshua K (Committee member) / Bolin, Bob (Committee member) / Eakin, Hallie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Low-income communities of color in the U.S. today are often vulnerable to displacement, forced relocation away from the places they call home. Displacement takes many forms, including immigration enforcement, mass incarceration, gentrification, and unwanted development. This dissertation juxtaposes two different examples of displacement, emphasizing similarities in lived experiences. Mixed methods including document-based research, map-making, visual ethnography, participant observation, and interviews were used to examine two case studies in Phoenix, Arizona: (1) workplace immigration raids, which overwhelmingly target Latino migrant workers; and (2) the Loop 202 freeway, which would disproportionately impact Akimel O'odham land. Drawing on critical geography, critical ethnic studies, feminist theory, carceral studies, and decolonial theory, this research considers: the social, economic, and political causes of displacement, its impact on the cultural and social meanings of space, the everyday practices that allow people to survive economically and emotionally, and the strategies used to organize against relocation.
Although raids are often represented as momentary spectacles of danger and containment, from a worker's perspective, raids are long trajectories through multiple sites of domination. Raids' racial geographies reinforce urban segregation, while traumatization in carceral space reduces the power of Latino migrants in the workplace. Expressions of care among raided workers and others in jail and detention make carceral spaces more livable, and contribute to movement building and abolitionist sentiments outside detention.
The Loop 202 would result in a loss of native land and sovereignty, including clean air and a mountain sacred to O'odham people. While the proposal originated with corporate desire for a transnational trade corridor, it has been sustained by local industry, the perceived inevitability of development, and colonial narratives about native people and land. O'odham artists, mothers, and elders counter the freeway's colonial logics through stories that emphasize balance, collective care over individual profit, and historical consciousness.
Both raids and the freeway have been contested by local grassroots movements. Through political education, base-building, advocacy, lawsuits, and protest strategies, community organizations have achieved changes in state practice. These movements have also worked to create alternative spaces of safety and home, rooted in interpersonal care and Latino and O'odham culture.
Although raids are often represented as momentary spectacles of danger and containment, from a worker's perspective, raids are long trajectories through multiple sites of domination. Raids' racial geographies reinforce urban segregation, while traumatization in carceral space reduces the power of Latino migrants in the workplace. Expressions of care among raided workers and others in jail and detention make carceral spaces more livable, and contribute to movement building and abolitionist sentiments outside detention.
The Loop 202 would result in a loss of native land and sovereignty, including clean air and a mountain sacred to O'odham people. While the proposal originated with corporate desire for a transnational trade corridor, it has been sustained by local industry, the perceived inevitability of development, and colonial narratives about native people and land. O'odham artists, mothers, and elders counter the freeway's colonial logics through stories that emphasize balance, collective care over individual profit, and historical consciousness.
Both raids and the freeway have been contested by local grassroots movements. Through political education, base-building, advocacy, lawsuits, and protest strategies, community organizations have achieved changes in state practice. These movements have also worked to create alternative spaces of safety and home, rooted in interpersonal care and Latino and O'odham culture.
ContributorsDiddams, Margaret (Author) / Bolin, Bob (Thesis advisor) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Committee member) / Cheng, Wendy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
In this study, the researcher develops a documentary-driven methodology to understand the ways four women in the United States use their involvement in the belly dance phenomenon to shape their ongoing individual identity development. The filmmaking process itself and its efficacy as a process to promote self-understanding and identity growth among the participating belly dancers, are also investigated phenomenologically. Methodological steps taken in the documentary-driven methodology include: initial filmed interviews, co-produced filmed dance performances, editorial interviews to review footage with each dancer, documentary film production, dancer-led focus groups to screen the film, and exit interviews with each dancer. The project generates new understandings about the ways women use belly dance to shape their individual identities to include: finding community with other women in private women's spaces, embodying the music through the dance movements, and finding liberation from their everyday "selves" through costume and performance.
ContributorsWatkins, Ramsi Kathryn (Author) / Bolin, Bob (Thesis advisor) / Hegmon, Michelle (Committee member) / Hjorleifur Jonsson (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Following harsh economic and political reforms in the 1990s, Peru became a model of a neoliberal state based on natural resource extraction. Since then social and environmental conflicts between local communities and the extractive industry, particularly mining corporations, have multiplied resulting in violent clashes and a shared perception that the state is not guaranteeing people's rights. At the crossroads of the struggle between mining corporations and local communities lay different ways of living and relating to nature. This research concerns water conflict in an urban mining setting. More precisely, this research critically analyzes water conflict in the city of Arequipa as a backdrop for revealing what water injustices look like on the ground. With one million inhabitants, Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru. Arequipa is also home to the third largest copper mine in Peru. On June 2006, social organizations and political authorities marched in protest of the copper mine's acquisition of additional water rights and its use of a tax exemption program. In the aftermath of large protests, the conflict was resolved through a multi-actor negotiation in which the mine became, through a public-private partnership, co-provider of urban water services. Through a unique interdisciplinary theoretical approach and grounded on ethnographic methods I attempt to expose the complexity of water injustice in this particular case. My theoretical framework is based on three large fields of study, that of post-colonial studies, political ecology and critical studies of law. By mapping state-society-nature power relations, analyzing structures of oppression and unpacking the meaning of water rights, my research unveils serious water injustices. My first research finding points to the existence of a racist and classist system that excludes poor and marginal people from water services and from accessing the city. Second, although there are different social and cultural interpretations of water rights, some interpretations hold more power and become hegemonic. Water injustice, in this regard manifests by the rise in power of the economic view of water rights. Finally, neoliberal reforms prioritizing development based on the extractive industries and the commodification of nature are conducive to water injustices.
ContributorsRoca Servat, Denisse (Author) / Bolin, Bob (Thesis advisor) / Fonow, Mary Margarent (Committee member) / Romero, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Mexico City has an ongoing air pollution issue that negatively affects its citizens and surroundings with current structural disconnections preventing the city from improving its overall air quality. Thematic methodological analysis reveals current obstacles and barriers, as well as variables contributing to this persistent problem. A historical background reveals current programs and policies implemented to improve Mexico’s City air quality. Mexico City’s current systems, infrastructure, and policies are inadequate and ineffective. There is a lack of appropriate regulation on other modes of transportation, and the current government system fails to identify how the class disparity in the city and lack of adequate education are contributing to this ongoing problem. Education and adequate public awareness can potentially aid the fight against air pollution in the Metropolitan City.
ContributorsGarcia, Lucero (Author) / Duarte, Marisa E. (Thesis advisor) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Committee member) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Residents of the United States increasingly support organic and local food systems. New Social Movement theorists have described alternative agriculture as a social movement that transcends social class. Other scholars have critiqued alternative agriculture for catering to a middle-class, white public. Simultaneously, geographers have identified communities across the United States that struggle with reduced access to healthy fruits and vegetables. In some of these neighborhoods, known as “food deserts,” local groups are redefining an inequitable distribution of healthy food as a social injustice, and they have begun initiatives to practice “food justice.” The overarching research questions of this study are: 1) How do communities become food deserts? 2) How do food justice movements crystallize and communities practice food justice? 3) What are the social outcomes of food justice movements? Using an Ecology of Actors framework, this study analyzes the actors and operational scales of three food justice movements in Phoenix, Arizona. A narrative analysis of historical scholarly materials and other artifacts reveals that, for more than a century, some communities have tried to create minority-operated local food systems. However, they were thwarted by racist policies and market penetration of the conventional US food system. Interviews with residents, garden organizers and food justice advocates living and working in the city create a narrative of the present day struggle for food justice. Results of this work show that contemporary residents describe their foodscape as one of struggle, and carless residents rely upon social networks to access healthy food. Garden organizers and gardeners are creating networks of community gardens, market gardens, and informal farmers’ markets. They are actively transforming their communities’ landscapes with sophisticated garden ecology in an intense urban heat island. However, the movement’s continued success may be threatened. Many new Phoenix-based local food coalitions and national alternative agriculture social movements are now working to alter Phoenix’s foodscape. Composed of well-educated professionals, who have adopted a justice-based language around food, these organizations may unintentionally co-opt the local food justice movements.
ContributorsBleasdale, Thomas (Author) / Harlan, Sharon L (Thesis advisor) / McHugh, Kevin (Committee member) / Bolin, Bob (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This dissertation develops a multidimensional approach to examine the ways in which people in small-scale societies create, perpetuate, justify, and overcome social inequality. Inequality can exist within a number of independent domains, some of which are likely to be subtle and dissimilar from those familiar to Western society. The advantages and disadvantages of inequality can shift between various groups and across social scales. Recent ethnographic work suggest that the most common domain of inequality in small-scale societies may involve status accrued to founding lineages. This hypothesis is examined in relation to four additional domains, each inspired by ethnographic data from indigenous groups of the U.S. Southwest: differential access to productive resources, ritual knowledge and practice, nonlocal objects and styles, and material wealth. Analyses are carried out with data from seven archaeological sites in the Mimbres region of southwestern New Mexico, spanning a period from approximately 250 to 1130 C.E. Results show that inequality was present throughout the Mimbres archaeological sequence but that it shifted over time, across space and social scales, and varied in magnitude in non-directional ways. Results also identify persistent factionalism wherein groups vied for moral authority based on differences in residential antecedence and justified via religious differences. Insight from this research benefits the social sciences by developing a number of methodological approaches, particularly to the archaeological study of primacy and antecedence, by demonstrating the necessity of a nuanced, multi-faceted approach to inequality, and by revealing the complex and plastic nature of inequality.
ContributorsRussell, Will G. (Author) / Nelson, Margaret C. (Thesis advisor) / Hegmon, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Nelson, Ben (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Climate change poses a threat to the emotional well-being and livelihood strategies of individuals in biophysically vulnerable communities. While the biophysical effects and possibilities of climate change are well-documented, understanding the emotional impacts on individuals in these communities is an avenue of research that requires more exploration. Using an ethnographic approach, this study analyzes the emotional responses of individuals, first in three biophysically vulnerable communities in the United States, and second, in island communities. Study sites in the United States include Mobile, Alabama; Kodiak, Alaska; and Phoenix, Arizona, each of which have different vulnerabilities to the effects of climate change. Internationally, we conducted research in Viti Levu, Fiji; Nicosia, Cyprus; Wellington, New Zealand; and London, England. Using the 2014 Global Ethnohydrology Study Protocol respondents were asked about their emotional responses to the current effects of climate change, the effects of climate change on livelihoods in their area, and the effects of climate change on the younger generation. Using cross-cultural data allows for a broader understanding of emotional distress and wellbeing in response to climate change in areas with similar expected climate change outcomes, although with different levels of biophysical vulnerability, as well as understanding emotional distress and wellbeing in areas with different expected climate change outcomes, and similar levels of biophysical vulnerability. Results from this research can be used to understand possible mental health outcomes, the possibilities for political activism, and how to create mitigation strategies that resonate with local community members.
ContributorsDu Bray, Margaret V (Author) / Wutich, Amber (Thesis advisor) / BurnSilver, Shauna (Thesis advisor) / Bolin, Bob (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017