Matching Items (14)
Description
This creative project consists of a series of narrative and interactive videos that explains the Mediterranean Diet from both nutritional and cultural perspectives, its history, and shares the stories and insights of female farmers in Southern Italy. These women preserve native ancient varieties of edible flora and cultural practices that have evolved with the plants and the territory. This video series recognizes the women preserving their traditions and local varieties native to Southern Italy and highlights the importance of local place-based eating and foodways. The videos provide questions and vocabulary to engage with the audience and challenge them to develop ideas and ruminate on the material presented.
ContributorsLarson, Chloe (Author) / Vitullo, Juliann (Thesis director) / Dal Martello, Chiara (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
How do writers, scientists, Indigenous knowledge holders, farmers, and practitioners co-create ‘relational foodways’ in different places and times? How does the transformation of scientists’ positionality help navigate food security potential for future generations? This dissertation counter-maps Western and non-Western food knowledges and practices through analysis of diverse seed narratives in two indigenous communities: the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana and MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians of Alabama and farmers’ collectives in southern Italy. Based on three years of interdisciplinary and community-based participatory research, I observed affinities in communities’ stories regarding their Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Traditional Local Knowledge (TLK) and foodways. The research questions examine how community memories of relationships with land, ancestors, and beliefs encapsulated in heritage seeds contribute to forming an external innovation space for food security, which evolves through the repetition of seed reproduction cycles. I also examine how land relations in place-embedded narratives were erased from the future of seed by the systemic agricultural industry. Drawing on interdisciplinary theories, Indigenous research methods, and outside-of-academia frameworks, I argue that preserving TEK and TLK empowers community resilience as documented in their community stories regarding climate change and biodiversity. Interviews with community members revealed the important role of seed savers’ and basket weavers’ knowledge protection efforts in developing contemporary innovative models of food sovereignty, especially in the leadership of women passing down generations of local values and culturally enhanced principles of sustainability. This study attempted an interdisciplinary approach to integrate Indigenous epistemologies to envision a break from the colonial past. Mapping traditional foodways allows us to rethink the ontological basis, reconsider the epistemological approaches, and unfold the new narrative picturing the Middle Place where scientists and traditional knowledge holders can come to reimagine humanity’s future relationship to other forms of life, including plants and seeds.
ContributorsMelkozernova, Arina (Author) / Vitullo, Juliann (Thesis advisor) / Adamson, Joni (Thesis advisor) / Bates, Denise (Committee member) / Ferrando, Serena (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
The following dissertation stories and analyzes the discourses and development of human-environmental connections in the Sonoran Desert. Firstly, after providing a brief introduction to the Sonoran Desert region, an overview of relevant theoretical, linguistic, and social psychological ideas is presented in relation to environmental orientation. Then, ten semi-structured interviews with environmentally-oriented individuals from two languacultures—White American (E group) and Mexican/Chicanx (S group)—are analyzed linguistically and thematically to uncover discursive and developmental patterns, respectively, of more-than-human affinities within and between groups. The results of the linguistic portion of the analysis—whose major codes include agentive verb use, personhood markers, I-constructions, and we-constructions—indicate a high degree of overlap between groups. Quantitatively, we-constructions and agentive verb use were more common than I-constructions and personhood markers, although the S group's greater use of I-constructions is of note. Qualitatively, consultants frequently identified emotive and/or cognitive functions not typically granted to more-than-human beings and perceived a degree of personhood within them, illuminating what might be considered a personhood-based affinity (which are linguistically demonstrated via the use of agentive verbs and personhood markers). Secondly, consultants instantiated a mirror-based affinity, which is built on the premise that humans and more-than-human beings can see themselves in one another. This type of affinity is exemplified by the use of I-constructions, and, as is the case for the personhood-based affinity, is most prevalent when referring to more-than-human beings perceived as discrete (e.g., animals, plants) when referring to direct mirrors (e.g., anthropomorphizing a more-than-human being), but is more common among more abstract more-than-human beings (e.g., desert/nature) when referring to scientific and/or spiritual parallels between humans and more-than-human beings. The final type of affinity identified—support-based affinity—is exemplified by the use of we-constructions, and is also most prevalent when referring to more abstract more-than-human beings. The results of the thematic portions of the analysis—whose major codes include cultural influences and more-than-human influences—similarly indicate a high degree of overlap between groups. Cultural influences were more prevalent among both groups, specifically family/friends/partners and education/media; however, it is of note that the first was more prevalent among S group consultants while the second was more prevalent among E group consultants. The more-than-human influences of emotional impact, receiving, and seeing oneself were popular among both. The overarching similarities identified between groups supports the idea that there is an environmentally-oriented cognition that extends beyond language and culture.
ContributorsShea, Jacqueline (Author) / Sipka, Danko (Thesis advisor) / Johnson, Christopher (Committee member) / Vitullo, Juliann (Committee member) / Kwan, Sau "Virginia" (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
Throughout his lifetime Leonardo Da Vinci was an ardent observer of natural phenomena. He sought to explain these phenomena and to understand how the natural world works. Being an illegitimate child he was forced to educate himself independently and that helped him develop a scientific mind that was not subject to the religious, traditional, and unproved biases of his contemporaries. In order to understand the world he kept many notebooks to record his observations. They are now known as codices. One Codex in particular was devoted, in its entirety, to scientific observation of geology, hydrological and astronomical processes. This is the Codex Leicester. Written in the latter part of his life, the Codex Leicester is a scientific marvel that contains within its pages, the discovery of stratigraphy, the theory that mountains can be built and eroded away, a refutation of the story of Noah's Ark, and the discovery of the process known as planet shine. In addition, the Phoenix Art Museum exhibited the Codex Leicester recently during the time period of January to April 2015. On loan from former Microsoft CEO and Chairman Bill Gates, the Codex was on full display surrounded by artwork meant to enrich the patron's experience. In this thesis I will review the exhibit examining its successes and failures in its attempt to educate the Phoenician public about Leonardo Da Vinci, the scientist.
ContributorsPieve, Giovanni Jourdain (Author) / Vitullo, Juliann (Thesis director) / Baldasso, Renzo (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05