Matching Items (104)
Description
Food system and health characteristics were evaluated across the last Waorani hunter-gatherer group in Amazonian Ecuador and a remote neighboring Kichwa indigenous subsistence agriculture community. Hunter-gatherer food systems like the Waorani foragers may not only be nutritionally, but also pharmaceutically beneficial because of high dietary intake of varied plant phytochemical compounds. A modern diet that reduces these dietary plant defense phytochemicals below levels typical in human evolutionary history may leave humans vulnerable to diseases that were controlled through a foraging diet. Few studies consider the health impact of the recent drastic reduction of plant phytochemical content in the modern global food system, which has eliminated essential components of food because they are not considered "nutrients". The antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory nature of the food system may not only regulate infectious pathogens and inflammatory disease, but also support beneficial microbes in human hosts, reducing vulnerability to chronic diseases. Waorani foragers seem immune to certain infections with very low rates of chronic disease. Does returning to certain characteristics of a foraging food system begin to restore the human body microbe balance and inflammatory response to evolutionary norms, and if so, what implication does this have for the treatment of disease? Several years of data on dietary and health differences across the foragers and the farmers was gathered. There were major differences in health outcomes across the board. In the Waorani forager group there were no signs of infection in serious wounds such as 3rd degree burns and spear wounds. The foragers had one-degree lower body temperature than the farmers. The Waorani had an absence of signs of chronic diseases including vision and blood pressure that did not change markedly with age while Kichwa farmers suffered from both chronic diseases and physiological indicators of aging. In the Waorani forager population, there was an absence of many common regional infectious diseases, from helminthes to staphylococcus. Study design helped control for confounders (exercise, environment, genetic factors, non-phytochemical dietary intake). This study provides evidence of the major role total phytochemical dietary intake plays in human health, often not considered by policymakers and nutritional and agricultural scientists.
ContributorsLondon, Douglas (Author) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Thesis advisor) / Beezhold, Bonnie L (Committee member) / Hruschka, Daniel (Committee member) / Eder, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The children of immigrants who arrived in the United States in the 1980s now make up one of the fastest growing components of American society. They face unique and interesting pressures as they incorporate aspects of their parents' heritage into their contemporary American lives. The purpose of this dissertation is to offer an in-depth look at the 1.5 and second generation by examining how the immigrant descendants negotiate assimilative pressures, transnational practices, and ethnic identification. Using ethnographic research methods, such as participant observation and in-depth interviews, I researched the children of immigrants, ages 18-30, living in northwest Arkansas, who have at least one immigrant parent from Latin America. This research is important because non-traditional receiving towns, especially more rural localities, are often overlooked by scholarly studies of migration in favor of larger metropolitan centers (e.g., Los Angeles, Chicago). Studying immigrant descendants in smaller towns that are becoming increasingly populated by Hispanic/Latinos will create a better understanding of how a new generation of immigrants is assimilating into American society and culture. To increase awareness on the Hispanic/Latino 1.5 and second generation living in small town America and to offer potential solutions to facilitate an upwardly mobile future for this population, my dissertation explores a number of research questions. First, how is this population assimilating to the U.S.? Second, are members of the 1.5 and second generation transnational? How active is this transnational lifestyle? Will transnationalism persist as they grow older? Third, how does this population identify themselves ethnically? I also pay particular attention to the relationships among assimilation, transnationalism, and ethnic identity. My dissertation documents the lived experiences of the 1.5 and second generation in northwest Arkansas. The children of immigrants are one of the fastest growing groups nationwide. To understand their world and the lives they lead is to understand the new fabric of American society. I anticipate that the results from this research can be used to facilitate easier transitions to the U.S. among current and prospective immigrant generations, ensuring a brighter outlook for the future of the newest members of U.S. society.
ContributorsSmith, Claire M. (Author) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Thesis advisor) / Eder, James (Committee member) / Chance, John K. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Museums are gaining increasing attention throughout the world for their ability to foster social inclusion, intercultural dialogue, and collaboration in practices of heritage management, exhibition, and interpretation. This dissertation aims to contribute a critical perspective on museums as agents of social change through an exploration of new museological practices in contemporary China. Through an ethnography of the ecomuseum, I unravel the assumptions and expectations of implementing a Western concept based on notions of community participation, empowerment, and the democratization of heritage in the context of a transforming China.
In my ethnographic account of the multifaceted politics faced by ecomuseums, I question how power and authority are mediated through these civic institutions and how central aspects of museum and heritage practices are being redressed in Chinese society. This study exposes how ecomuseums in China are a result of global processes and positioned as part of a heritage protection movement and museum development boom to promote cultural nationalism, a "civilized" China, and state edicts of rural development in impoverished ethnic minority regions. Detailing the implications of government-led ecomuseum development in ethnic villages in southwest China, and the specific case of Huaili ecomuseum, in Guangxi, I interrogate the institutionalization of heritage and cultural landscapes through processes of exhibition, museumification, and the revaluing of culture. I explore the ecomuseum as a social space of cross-cultural encounter and friction through which local actors grapple with conditions of cultural governance and the entanglements cultural difference and a national heritage discourse. In my critical analysis of collected ethnographic narratives over 15 months of fieldwork from state-directed interest groups, Chinese technocrats, and villager informants involved in the institutionalization of heritage, I present the complex arrangements and interactions that take place through the ecomuseum context and how subject positionalities shift and claims to heritage, identity, and voice are negotiated, regulated, and contested. This study contributes to the anthropology of China and museum and heritage studies, and aims to push new directions in the study of community heritage and museums, in offering a critical perspective of the political nature of ecomuseums in non-Western contexts, such as China.
In my ethnographic account of the multifaceted politics faced by ecomuseums, I question how power and authority are mediated through these civic institutions and how central aspects of museum and heritage practices are being redressed in Chinese society. This study exposes how ecomuseums in China are a result of global processes and positioned as part of a heritage protection movement and museum development boom to promote cultural nationalism, a "civilized" China, and state edicts of rural development in impoverished ethnic minority regions. Detailing the implications of government-led ecomuseum development in ethnic villages in southwest China, and the specific case of Huaili ecomuseum, in Guangxi, I interrogate the institutionalization of heritage and cultural landscapes through processes of exhibition, museumification, and the revaluing of culture. I explore the ecomuseum as a social space of cross-cultural encounter and friction through which local actors grapple with conditions of cultural governance and the entanglements cultural difference and a national heritage discourse. In my critical analysis of collected ethnographic narratives over 15 months of fieldwork from state-directed interest groups, Chinese technocrats, and villager informants involved in the institutionalization of heritage, I present the complex arrangements and interactions that take place through the ecomuseum context and how subject positionalities shift and claims to heritage, identity, and voice are negotiated, regulated, and contested. This study contributes to the anthropology of China and museum and heritage studies, and aims to push new directions in the study of community heritage and museums, in offering a critical perspective of the political nature of ecomuseums in non-Western contexts, such as China.
ContributorsNitzky, William (Author) / Hjorleifur Jonsson (Thesis advisor) / Isaac, Gwyneira (Thesis advisor) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Committee member) / Eder, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The health situation of indigenous peoples is comparable to that of the world's poorest populations, but with the additional burdens of social and cultural marginalization, geographic and cultural barriers to accessing health services, and, in some areas, appropriation of land and natural resources. Cultural transmission (the transfer of beliefs, ideas, and behaviors from one culture to another) from outsider health institutions should presumably aid in closing this health gap by transferring knowledge, practices, and infrastructure to prevent and treat disease. This study examines the biosocial construction of the disease ecology of tuberculosis (TB) in indigenous communities of the Paraguayan Chaco with varying degrees of cultural transmission from outside institutions (government, religious, and NGOs), to determine the influence of cultural transmission on local disease ecologies. Using a biocultural epidemiological framework for the analysis of human infectious disease ecology, this study employed an interdisciplinary, mixed methods approach to examine the interactions of host, pathogen, and the environment in the Paraguayan Chaco. Three case studies examining aspects of TB disease ecology in indigenous communities are presented: (1) The effective cultural transmission of biomedical knowledge to isolated communities, (2) Public health infrastructure, hygiene, and the prevalence of intestinal parasites: co-morbidities that promote the progression to active TB disease, and (3) Community-level risk factors for TB and indigenous TB burden. Findings from the case studies suggest that greater influence from outside institutions was not associated with greater adoption of biomedical knowledge of TB. The prevalence of helminthiasis was unexpectedly low, but infection with giardia was common, even in a community with cleaner water sources. Communities with a health post were more likely to report active adult TB, while communities with more education were less likely to report active pediatric TB, suggesting that healthcare access is the major determinant of TB detection. More research is needed on the role of non-indigenous community residents and other measures of acculturation or integration in TB outcomes, especially at the household level. Indigenous TB burden in the Chaco is disproportionately high, and better understanding of the mechanisms that produce higher incidence and prevalence of the disease is needed.
ContributorsVansteelandt, Amanda (Author) / Hurtado, Ana Magdalena (Thesis advisor) / Stone, Anne (Thesis advisor) / Hruschka, Daniel (Committee member) / Rojas de Arias, Antonieta (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The dissertation is based on 15 months of ethnographically-informed qualitative research at a liberal arts college in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. It seeks to provide a sense of daily life and experience of schooling in general and for female students in particular. Access to literacy and the opportunities that formal education can provide are comparatively recent for most Bhutanese women. This dissertation will look at how state-sponsored schooling has shaped gender relations and experiences in Bhutan where non-monastic, co-educational institutions were unknown before the 1960s. While Bhutanese women continue to be under-represented in politics, upper level government positions and public life in general, it is frequently claimed at a variety of different levels (for instance in local media and government reports), that Bhutan, unlike it South Asian neighbors, has a high degree of gender equity. It is argued that any under-representation does not reflect access or opportunity but is instead the result of women's decision not to "come up" and participate. However this dissertation will dispute the claim that female students could choose to be more visible, vocal and mobile in classrooms and on campus without being challenged or discouraged. I will show that school is a gendered context, in which female students are consistently reminded of their "limitations" and their "appropriate place" through the use of familiar social practices such as teasing, gossip, and harassment. Schooling, particularly in developing nations like Bhutan, is usually implicitly and uncritically understood to be a neutral resource, often evaluated in relation to development aims such as creating a more educated and skilled workforce. While Bhutanese schools do seem to promote new kind of opportunity and new understandings of success, they also continue to recognize, maintain and reproduce conventional values around hierarchy, knowledge transmission, cooperation (or group identity) and gender norms. This dissertation will also show how emergent disparities in wealth and opportunity in the nation at large are beginning to be reflected and reproduced in both the experience of schooling and the job market in ways that Bhutanese development policy is not yet able to adequately address.
ContributorsRoder, Dolma Choden (Author) / Eder, James (Thesis advisor) / Hjorleifur Jonsson (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation is intended to tie together a body of work which utilizes a variety of methods to study applied mathematical models involving heterogeneity often omitted with classical modeling techniques. I posit three cogent classifications of heterogeneity: physiological, behavioral, and local (specifically connectivity in this work). I consider physiological heterogeneity using the method of transport equations to study heterogeneous susceptibility to diseases in open populations (those with births and deaths). I then present three separate models of behavioral heterogeneity. An SIS/SAS model of gonorrhea transmission in a population of highly active men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) is presented to study the impact of safe behavior (prevention and self-awareness) on the prevalence of this endemic disease. Behavior is modeled in this examples via static parameters describing consistent condom use and frequency of STD testing. In an example of behavioral heterogeneity, in the absence of underlying dynamics, I present a generalization to ``test theory without an answer key" (also known as cultural consensus modeling or CCM). CCM is commonly used to study the distribution of cultural knowledge within a population. The generalized framework presented allows for selecting the best model among various extensions of CCM: multiple subcultures, estimating the degree to which individuals guess yes, and making competence homogenous in the population. This permits model selection based on the principle of information criteria. The third behaviorally heterogeneous model studies adaptive behavioral response based on epidemiological-economic theory within an $SIR$ epidemic setting. Theorems used to analyze the stability of such models with a generalized, non-linear incidence structure are adapted and applied to the case of standard incidence and adaptive incidence. As an example of study in spatial heterogeneity I provide an explicit solution to a generalization of the continuous time approximation of the Albert-Barabasi scale-free network algorithm. The solution is found by recursively solving the differential equations via integrating factors, identifying a pattern for the coefficients and then proving this observed pattern is consistent using induction. An application to disease dynamics on such evolving structures is then studied.
ContributorsMorin, Benjamin (Author) / Castillo-Chavez, Carlos (Thesis advisor) / Hiebeler, David (Thesis advisor) / Hruschka, Daniel (Committee member) / Suslov, Sergei (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Collective action among non-governmental organizations working in maternal and child health in Haiti
Description
This mixed-methods research study examined the level of collective action that is occurring among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in maternal and child health in Haiti. This study takes the view that health, and by extension, maternal and child health, is a global public good; global public goods are most efficiently provided by the means of collective action. Therefore, to the extent that maternal and child health services are provided efficiently in Haiti, collective action should be occurring.
This study utilized a semi-structured interview approach to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. A total of 17 participants who were managers or executives of NGOs working in maternal and child health in Haiti were interviewed. The interviews also gathered quantitative data that characterized types of cooperation that were occurring among NGOs. The qualitative data that were collected in these interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis, and quantitative data were analyzed using social network analysis. The findings concluded that while there is cooperation occurring among NGOs in Haiti, the cooperation levels are low, networks are not very dense and there is overall general consensus that more cooperation is needed
This study utilized a semi-structured interview approach to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. A total of 17 participants who were managers or executives of NGOs working in maternal and child health in Haiti were interviewed. The interviews also gathered quantitative data that characterized types of cooperation that were occurring among NGOs. The qualitative data that were collected in these interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis, and quantitative data were analyzed using social network analysis. The findings concluded that while there is cooperation occurring among NGOs in Haiti, the cooperation levels are low, networks are not very dense and there is overall general consensus that more cooperation is needed
ContributorsMcCool, Sarah (Author) / Gaughan, Monica (Thesis advisor) / Wutich, Amber (Committee member) / York, Abigail (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Criticisms of technocratic and managerial sustainability responses to global environmental change have led scholars to argue for transformative shifts in ideology, policy, and practice favoring alternative, plural transformation pathways to sustainability. This raises key debates around how we build transformative capacity and who will lead the way. To further this critical dialogue, this dissertation explores the potential for sustainability experiential learning (SEL) to serve as a capacity building mechanism for global ecological citizenship in support of transformation pathways to sustainable wellbeing. In the process it considers how the next generation of those primed for sustainability leadership identify with and negotiate diversity—of perceptions, values, agency, and lived experiences—in what constitutes sustainable wellbeing and the approaches needed to get there.
Inspired by the STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre’s transformation pathways approach, this research proposes a Transformative Capacity Building model grounded in a Transformation Pathways to Sustainable Wellbeing framework that integrates and builds upon tenets of the original pathways approach with transformative learning, Value-Believe-Norm, and global ecological citizenship (eco-citizenship) theories and concepts. The proposed model and framework were applied to an in-depth ethnographic case study of sustainability experiential learning communities formed within the four Summer 2015 Global Sustainability Studies (GSS) programs at Arizona State University. Using mixed methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and Photovoice, this study examines the values, perceptions, and perceived agency of participants post-program in relation to the knowledge-making and mobilization processes that unfolded during their international GSS programs. Of particular interest are participants’ cognitive, moral, and affective engagement as SEL community members.
Through multi-level thematic analyses, key values, perceptions, agency and engagement themes are identified and influencing relationships highlighted across the different SEL communities and programs. Implications of these factors and their relationships for capacity building for eco-citizenship and future program development are considered. The dissertation concludes by translating study findings into actionable pathways for future research AND practice, including the proposal of program development and implementation recommendations that could enable future sustainability experiential learning programs to better contribute to transformative capacity building for eco-citizenship.
Inspired by the STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre’s transformation pathways approach, this research proposes a Transformative Capacity Building model grounded in a Transformation Pathways to Sustainable Wellbeing framework that integrates and builds upon tenets of the original pathways approach with transformative learning, Value-Believe-Norm, and global ecological citizenship (eco-citizenship) theories and concepts. The proposed model and framework were applied to an in-depth ethnographic case study of sustainability experiential learning communities formed within the four Summer 2015 Global Sustainability Studies (GSS) programs at Arizona State University. Using mixed methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and Photovoice, this study examines the values, perceptions, and perceived agency of participants post-program in relation to the knowledge-making and mobilization processes that unfolded during their international GSS programs. Of particular interest are participants’ cognitive, moral, and affective engagement as SEL community members.
Through multi-level thematic analyses, key values, perceptions, agency and engagement themes are identified and influencing relationships highlighted across the different SEL communities and programs. Implications of these factors and their relationships for capacity building for eco-citizenship and future program development are considered. The dissertation concludes by translating study findings into actionable pathways for future research AND practice, including the proposal of program development and implementation recommendations that could enable future sustainability experiential learning programs to better contribute to transformative capacity building for eco-citizenship.
ContributorsGwiszcz, Julianna Marie (Author) / Eder, James (Thesis advisor) / Haglund, LaDawn (Committee member) / Wutich, Amber (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Sexual assault at colleges and universities in the United States is a significant health and human rights issue that impacts somewhere between one-in-four and one-in-five students. Despite the alarmingly high burden, overall rates of disclosing to crisis, health, and victim services, and reporting to schools and law enforcement remain low. In order to buffer students from associated short- and long-term harm, and help them reestablish safety and pursue justice, empirically-supported, innovative, and trauma-informed secondary prevention strategies are needed. To address this pressing issue, the current study used a trauma-informed, feminist community research approach to develop and design a prototype of an internet-based decision aid specifically tailored to assist students at Arizona State University who experience sexual assault with making informed choices about reporting and seeking care, advocacy, and support on and off campus. Results from preliminary alpha testing of the tool showed that: 1. It is feasible to adapt decision aids for use with the target population, and 2. While aspects of the tool can be improved during the next phases of redrafting and redesign, members of the target population find it to be acceptable, comprehensible, and usable.
ContributorsVillegas-Gold, Michelle (Author) / Hurtado, Ana Magdalena (Thesis advisor) / Gaughan, Monica (Thesis advisor) / Durfee, Alesha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Background In the United States (US), first-year university students typically live on campus and purchase a meal plan. In general, meal plans allow the student a set number of meals per week or semester, or unlimited meals. Understanding how students’ use their meal plan, and barriers and facilitators to meal plan use, may help decrease nutrition-related issues.
Methods First-year students’ meal plan and residence information was provided by a large, public, southwestern university for the 2015-2016 academic year. A subset of students (n=619) self-reported their food security status. Logistic generalized estimating equations (GEEs) were used to determine if meal plan purchase and use were associated with food insecurity. Linear GEEs were used to examine several potential reasons for lower meal plan use. Logistic and Linear GEEs were used to determine similarities in meal plan purchase and use for a total of 599 roommate pairs (n=1186 students), and 557 floormates.
Results Students did not use all of the meals available to them; 7% of students did not use their meal plan for an entire month. After controlling for socioeconomic factors, compared to students on unlimited meal plans, students on the cheapest meal plan were more likely to report food insecurity (OR=2.2, 95% CI=1.2, 4.1). In Fall, 26% of students on unlimited meal plans reported food insecurity. Students on the 180 meals/semester meal plan who used fewer meals were more likely to report food insecurity (OR=0.9, 95% CI=0.8, 1.0); after gender stratification this was only evident for males. Students’ meal plan use was lower if the student worked a job (β=-1.3, 95% CI=-2.3, -0.3) and higher when their roommate used their meal plan frequently (β=0.09, 99% CI=0.04, 0.14). Roommates on the same meal plan (OR=1.56, 99% CI=1.28, 1.89) were more likely to use their meals together.
Discussion This study suggests that determining why students are not using their meal plan may be key to minimizing the prevalence of food insecurity on college campuses, and that strategic roommate assignments may result in students’ using their meal plan more frequently. Students’ meal plan information provides objective insights into students’ university transition.
Methods First-year students’ meal plan and residence information was provided by a large, public, southwestern university for the 2015-2016 academic year. A subset of students (n=619) self-reported their food security status. Logistic generalized estimating equations (GEEs) were used to determine if meal plan purchase and use were associated with food insecurity. Linear GEEs were used to examine several potential reasons for lower meal plan use. Logistic and Linear GEEs were used to determine similarities in meal plan purchase and use for a total of 599 roommate pairs (n=1186 students), and 557 floormates.
Results Students did not use all of the meals available to them; 7% of students did not use their meal plan for an entire month. After controlling for socioeconomic factors, compared to students on unlimited meal plans, students on the cheapest meal plan were more likely to report food insecurity (OR=2.2, 95% CI=1.2, 4.1). In Fall, 26% of students on unlimited meal plans reported food insecurity. Students on the 180 meals/semester meal plan who used fewer meals were more likely to report food insecurity (OR=0.9, 95% CI=0.8, 1.0); after gender stratification this was only evident for males. Students’ meal plan use was lower if the student worked a job (β=-1.3, 95% CI=-2.3, -0.3) and higher when their roommate used their meal plan frequently (β=0.09, 99% CI=0.04, 0.14). Roommates on the same meal plan (OR=1.56, 99% CI=1.28, 1.89) were more likely to use their meals together.
Discussion This study suggests that determining why students are not using their meal plan may be key to minimizing the prevalence of food insecurity on college campuses, and that strategic roommate assignments may result in students’ using their meal plan more frequently. Students’ meal plan information provides objective insights into students’ university transition.
Contributorsvan Woerden, Irene (Author) / Bruening, Meg (Thesis advisor) / Hruschka, Daniel (Committee member) / Schaefer, David (Committee member) / Vega-Lopez, Sonia (Committee member) / Adams, Marc (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019