Matching Items (9)
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- All Subjects: Cultural Anthropology
- Creators: Estrada, Emir
- Creators: Rush, James
- Status: Published
Description
This dissertation explores the history of ancestral rituals and the related political controversy in the Song China (960-1279). Considering the pivotal role played by ancestral rites in shaping Chinese identity and consciousness, this study contributes to a better understanding of how ancestral ritual has been politicized in Chinese history as a specific cultural apparatus to manipulate politics through theatrical performance and liturgical discussion. Through a contextual analysis of a variety of Song scholar-officials and their ritual writings, including memorials, private letters, and commentaries on the ritual Classics, this study demonstrates that Song ritual debates over the zhaomu 昭穆 sequence--that is, the positioning of ancestral temples and spirit tablets in ancestral temples with preparation for alternation or removal--differentiated scholar-officials into separate factions of revivalists, conventionalists and centrists. From a new perspective of ritual politics, this study reveals the discursiveness of the New Learning (xinxue新學) community and its profound influence on the Learning of the Way (Daoxue 道學) fellowship of the Southern Song (1127-1279). It examines the evolution of the New Learning fellowship as a dynamic process that involved internal tension and differentiation. Daoxue ritualism was a continuation of this process in partaking in the revivalist approach of ritual that was initiated by the New Learning circle. Nowadays, the proliferation of ritual and Classical studies crystallizes the revitalization of Confucianism and Confucian rituals in China. Taking zhaomu as a point of departure, this project provides a lens through which modern scholars can explore the persistent tension between knowledge and power by rethinking the modernization of ritual and ritual politics in contemporary China.
ContributorsCheung, Hiu Yu (Author) / Tillman, Hoyt C (Thesis advisor) / Tillman, Hoyt (Committee member) / Mackinnon, Stephen (Committee member) / Rush, James (Committee member) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Committee member) / West, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This dissertation project addresses one of the most critical problems in the study of religion: how new formations of religion are constructed and constituted. My work builds on the recent revisions of the secularization theory, which demonstrates the alternative and hybrid ways people seek out religion in modernity. To this end, my project examines the emerging popularity and phenomenon of international meditation centers in Thailand, focusing on encounters between international meditation center teachers and their international students. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews at these sites throughout Thailand, my project explores the social processes of religious change and adaptation, and the construction of religious meaning. I detail the historical conditions that led to the formation of persisting ideas of Buddhism by tracing the continuities between Orientalist interpretations and modern-day spiritual seekers. My work contributes to a greater understanding of the most recent articulation of this engagement and interaction between Buddhism and the international community and adds to the burgeoning scholarship that reconsiders the relationship between religion and modernity. I investigate this relationship in regard to international meditation centers in Thailand through three angles: promotional materials concerning meditation in Thailand, experiences of international meditators, and teachings of international meditation center teachers. I contextualize this ethnographic analysis with an evaluation of the relationship of Buddhism to discourses of modernity and Orientalism as well as a historical inquiry into the rise of lay meditation in Thailand. Throughout I argue that international meditators' engagement with meditation in Thai temples constitutes a hybrid religiosity where the decontextualized practice of meditation is mixed with both non-religious and other religious beliefs and practices. Social discourses and practices involving meditation, even in a Buddhist country, demonstrate the deconstruction of traditional religiosity in modernity and the rise of hybrid religiosity. Through the decontextualization of meditation and the discourse of the practice having no religious boundaries, meditation becomes mixed with tourism, therapy, healing, as well as other religious and secular practices. This research contributes to studies of Theravada Buddhism as well as modern, global religions and the contemporary intersection between religion and tourism.
ContributorsSchedneck, Brooke (Author) / Schober, Juliane (Thesis advisor) / Rush, James (Committee member) / Fessenden, Tracy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation research examines the impact of migration on the emotional well-being of temporary, low-wage workers who migrate from the Global South to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Unlike previous research in the UAE, this study’s sample reflects a far broader diversity of nationalities and occupations, and focuses on those earning in the lowest wage bracket. Their experiences revealed the systemic attributes of precarity and the violent structures that perpetuate them.
My research addresses several substantive debates. I found that rather than emigrating for rational reasons—as neoclassical theory of migration posits—the migrants in my study tended to rationalize their reasons for emigrating through processes of cognitive dissonance. Further, where previous scholarship has tended to conflate issues of national, ethnic, and racial discrimination, I disentangle the processes that motivate discriminatory behavior by showing how seemingly innocuous references to “nationality” can be driven by a desire to hide racial prejudices, while at the same time, conflating all as “racism” can reflect a simplistic analysis of the contributing factors. I show how past historical structures of colonialism and slavery are manifest in current forms of structural violence and how this violence is differentially experienced on the basis of nationality, perceived racial differences, and/or ethnicity. Additionally, my research expands theories related to the spatial dimension of discrimination. It examines how zones of marginalization shape the experiences of low-wage migrant workers as they move through or occupy these spaces. Marginalizing zones limit workers’ access to the sociality of the city and its institutional resources, which consequently increase their vulnerability.
Individual well-being is determined by stressful events that one encounters, by personal and external sources of resilience, and by perceptions of oneself and the stressful events. For the migrants in my study, their stressors were chronic, cumulative, and ambiguous, and while they brought with them a sufficient amount of personal resilience, it was often mitigated by non-compliance and lack of enforcement of UAE laws. The result was a state of well-being defined by isolation, fear, and despair.
My research addresses several substantive debates. I found that rather than emigrating for rational reasons—as neoclassical theory of migration posits—the migrants in my study tended to rationalize their reasons for emigrating through processes of cognitive dissonance. Further, where previous scholarship has tended to conflate issues of national, ethnic, and racial discrimination, I disentangle the processes that motivate discriminatory behavior by showing how seemingly innocuous references to “nationality” can be driven by a desire to hide racial prejudices, while at the same time, conflating all as “racism” can reflect a simplistic analysis of the contributing factors. I show how past historical structures of colonialism and slavery are manifest in current forms of structural violence and how this violence is differentially experienced on the basis of nationality, perceived racial differences, and/or ethnicity. Additionally, my research expands theories related to the spatial dimension of discrimination. It examines how zones of marginalization shape the experiences of low-wage migrant workers as they move through or occupy these spaces. Marginalizing zones limit workers’ access to the sociality of the city and its institutional resources, which consequently increase their vulnerability.
Individual well-being is determined by stressful events that one encounters, by personal and external sources of resilience, and by perceptions of oneself and the stressful events. For the migrants in my study, their stressors were chronic, cumulative, and ambiguous, and while they brought with them a sufficient amount of personal resilience, it was often mitigated by non-compliance and lack of enforcement of UAE laws. The result was a state of well-being defined by isolation, fear, and despair.
ContributorsReber-Rider, Elizabeth A (Author) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Thesis advisor) / Estrada, Emir (Committee member) / Martin, Nathan D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
There is no doubt that globalization has been a force in history , and especially in the past one hundred years. This is extremely evident in the implications of global epidemics. The global response to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) revealed tensions between nation states and international health organization such as the World Health Organization) collectively called "Global Health Governance"). The issue was sovereignty. SARS showed us that there was more state-centric resistance to the Post-Westphalian world than previously thought. Where infectious diseases are concerned, however, the eventual compliance of states with the WHO shows reluctant but tacit compliance with international intervention.
ContributorsLaw, Stephanie (Author) / Rush, James (Thesis director) / Green, Monica (Committee member) / Lundry, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2012-05
Description
This dissertation research examines the impact of migration on the emotional well-being of temporary, low-wage workers who migrate from the Global South to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Unlike previous research in the UAE, this study’s sample reflects a far broader diversity of nationalities and occupations, and focuses on those earning in the lowest wage bracket. Their experiences revealed the systemic attributes of precarity and the violent structures that perpetuate them.
My research addresses several substantive debates. I found that rather than emigrating for rational reasons—as neoclassical theory of migration posits—the migrants in my study tended to rationalize their reasons for emigrating through processes of cognitive dissonance. Further, where previous scholarship has tended to conflate issues of national, ethnic, and racial discrimination, I disentangle the processes that motivate discriminatory behavior by showing how seemingly innocuous references to “nationality” can be driven by a desire to hide racial prejudices, while at the same time, conflating all as “racism” can reflect a simplistic analysis of the contributing factors. I show how past historical structures of colonialism and slavery are manifest in current forms of structural violence and how this violence is differentially experienced on the basis of nationality, perceived racial differences, and/or ethnicity. Additionally, my research expands theories related to the spatial dimension of discrimination. It examines how zones of marginalization shape the experiences of low-wage migrant workers as they move through or occupy these spaces. Marginalizing zones limit workers’ access to the sociality of the city and its institutional resources, which consequently increase their vulnerability.
Individual well-being is determined by stressful events that one encounters, by personal and external sources of resilience, and by perceptions of oneself and the stressful events. For the migrants in my study, their stressors were chronic, cumulative, and ambiguous, and while they brought with them a sufficient amount of personal resilience, it was often mitigated by non-compliance and lack of enforcement of UAE laws. The result was a state of well-being defined by isolation, fear, and despair.
My research addresses several substantive debates. I found that rather than emigrating for rational reasons—as neoclassical theory of migration posits—the migrants in my study tended to rationalize their reasons for emigrating through processes of cognitive dissonance. Further, where previous scholarship has tended to conflate issues of national, ethnic, and racial discrimination, I disentangle the processes that motivate discriminatory behavior by showing how seemingly innocuous references to “nationality” can be driven by a desire to hide racial prejudices, while at the same time, conflating all as “racism” can reflect a simplistic analysis of the contributing factors. I show how past historical structures of colonialism and slavery are manifest in current forms of structural violence and how this violence is differentially experienced on the basis of nationality, perceived racial differences, and/or ethnicity. Additionally, my research expands theories related to the spatial dimension of discrimination. It examines how zones of marginalization shape the experiences of low-wage migrant workers as they move through or occupy these spaces. Marginalizing zones limit workers’ access to the sociality of the city and its institutional resources, which consequently increase their vulnerability.
Individual well-being is determined by stressful events that one encounters, by personal and external sources of resilience, and by perceptions of oneself and the stressful events. For the migrants in my study, their stressors were chronic, cumulative, and ambiguous, and while they brought with them a sufficient amount of personal resilience, it was often mitigated by non-compliance and lack of enforcement of UAE laws. The result was a state of well-being defined by isolation, fear, and despair.
ContributorsReber-Rider, Elizabeth (Author) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Thesis advisor) / Estrada, Emir (Committee member) / Martin, Nathan D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Following mixed method ethnographic research conducted between January 2020 and January 2022, this thesis discusses how United States all-female mariachi musicians, or mariacheras, express femininity in the mariachi femenil. Mariachis femeniles are all-female mariachis. Building upon Mary Lee Mulholland’s (2013) discussion of how mariacheras in Jalisco are often valued more for their physical appearance than for their musical skills, this thesis investigates how similar phenomena manifest in the United States’ professional mariachi femenil circuit. Applying a Chicana Feminisms lens to a collection of 28 mariachera plática-interviews, generational and transborder mariachi knowledge production, visual expressions of mariachi femininity, and aural feminine expressions in the mariachi setting are complicated. Each participant details what it means to be a mariachera, breaking down concepts of purity in the face of dichotomous cultural gender expectation and the genre’s visual expectations of how female musicians should present themselves in society. These sociocultural phenomena led these women in many ways to disidentify and resignify various pieces of the mariachi tradition to “carve out” their own space in the practice, expressing the concern they want to be respected as a musician, not as just a visual object. Ultimately, the “carved out” space allows mariacheras to perform a “different” sound of mariachi—a negotiation of strength, femininity, and balancing sociocultural expectations of the mariachera in and out of performance.
ContributorsFlores, Cameo Rachelle (Author) / Fossum, Dave (Thesis advisor) / Estrada, Emir (Committee member) / Feisst, Sabine (Committee member) / Wells, Christi Jay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Much of the anthropological and Islamic studies focus in recent years has addressed the shifting forms of Islamic piety across Muslim majority societies. The analysis of this shift in Islamic practice and belief has enveloped the changing sensibilities around technologies, social strata, democracy, law, and everyday life. In light of these transformations, after the fall of the Indonesian New Order in 1998, the performances of Islamic devotional songs (salawat) by Habib Syech bin Abdul Qadir Assegaf (Habib Syech) began bringing millions of people together across Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Although salawat has typically been performed in remembrance of the birth of Prophet Muhammad (mawlid) in localized celebrations. The performances of salawat by Habib Syech, on the other hand, occur fifteen or more times a month with crowds swelling to tens of thousands across multiple nation-states. Habib Syech’s salawat performances furthermore appeal to and bring together diverse Muslim populations that have historically been more divided. Habib Syech’s gatherings reveal how popular forms of piety are shifting in conjunction with profound societal changes in Indonesia and other Muslim communities. In untangling the popularity of Habib Syech’s gatherings, it was not until I became entangled in the rhythm of salawat that baraka, often translated as blessings, emerged as a slippery, elusive, and living helping propel the popularity of this phenomena. The guttural cries of my interlocutors (baraka, baraka, baraka) resonate and summon a methodology that takes the visible and invisible together in understanding the concept and life of baraka. I, like my interlocutors, began hunting baraka as an alternative, living concept that challenges understandings of Islam in Indonesia driven by Islamic civil organizations, prescriptive vs everyday Islamic piety, and Western interpretations of the world as disenchanted. This dissertation is an exploration of new opportunities for understanding religion in the modern world that emerge from the ethnographic field through the life of baraka.
ContributorsEdmonds, James Michael (Author) / Talebi, Shahla (Thesis advisor) / Bennett, Gaymon (Committee member) / Haines, Charles (Committee member) / Rush, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
In an increasingly complex world, intergenerational collaboration is essential to address the problems the world faces with climate change, social inequity, economic change, and rapid technological development (Hibbs 2020). Research has shown that intergenerativity, or the process of adult/youth power, knowledge, and resource sharing for community development can be highly effective for building and maintaining community resilience (Ronan and Johnston 2005). This study offers a case study of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in the United States and Australia and how this organization has utilized the skills and leadership of people of all ages to build, grow, and maintain the organization’s community resilience. While the organization has experienced many disruptions due to external problems (such as COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters) and internal conflicts (such as bullying, bigotry, and adults seeking power and control over young people), the organization has both maintained and grown its organization membership from 30 people in 1969 to over 60,000 organizational members in 2023 at a national and international level. Some of the community resilience building strategies the SCA utilizes have been shown to be effective with some limitations. These strategies can include developing organizational policy and leadership, offering leadership and decision-making opportunities for diverse people to share their perspectives, removing harmful community members, supporting youth leadership, and increasing SCAdian capital both inside and outside the SCA. The SCA increases its members’ capital through skills training (human capital), social networks (social capital), and opportunities for employment and business development (economic capital). Moreover, the organization’s subcultural values increase the potential for all forms of capital while building a strong resource sharing and emotional support network for its members. This dissertation shows that intergenerativity and social capital are highly useful strategies for building and maintaining community resilience and offers practical strategies for other organizations and governments looking to increased their resilience through intergenerativity.
ContributorsVilla, Lily Katerina (Author) / Tsuda, Takeyuki G (Thesis advisor) / Estrada, Emir (Committee member) / Ruth, Alissa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
It is estimated that 3000 Mauritian immigrants live in the Canadian province of Ontario, yet despite this relatively small number they are culturally distinct in the city of Toronto. Using ethnographic methods, this dissertation examines immigrants’ changing identities, engagement in transnational politics, and transnational relationships with family members still in Mauritius. Mauritian immigrants in Toronto tend to conceptualize of a unified Mauritian community, created out of a sense of pride that Mauritians are doing well economically, as well as through shared cultural practices like speaking the Mauritian kreol language. However, there are also divisions within the diaspora along ethnic and religious lines, mirroring those in Mauritius. Immigrants also identify as Canadian to a degree, even though what it means to be Canadian varies. Mauritian immigrants’ engagement with Canadian governance influences their likelihood of engaging in transnational politics, even though this is further mediated by the context of migration. Those who migrated as adults with a fully established social network are more likely to try and actively engage in transnational politics compared to those who migrated as young adults to pursue higher education. The latter tend to show an aspiration to engage in transnational politics or a complete lack of engagement from the Mauritian state. Finally, family relationships, including transnational family ties, are an important factor in migration decisions, both in choosing to migrate and choosing to return home. The decision to migrate to Canada is not taken simply at the individual level but is made with input from other family members, or for the children’s welfare. Immigrants retain transnational ties to other kin through internet technologies, frequent visits back to Mauritius, and the sending of remittances. Immigrants are ambivalent about returning home because they do not wish to leave behind their children or grandchildren who have an established life in Canada. This dissertation contributes to the immigration literature by showing that there are generational factors in how immigrants identify and engage in transnational relationships. It also provides policy implications both for the Mauritian government and receiving countries concerned with culturally distinct diasporic populations.
ContributorsLuchmun, Rachel (Author) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Thesis advisor) / Estrada, Emir (Committee member) / Ruth, Alissa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021