Anthropology

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/4890

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Border Crossing, Collaboration, and Transition: Health Care Entanglements of an International NGO on the China-Myanmar Border
(2026-04-20) Luo, Juan; Harrell, Stevan
My ethnography focuses on Health Equity Alliance (HEA), an international charity organization providing health and humanitarian assistance in the border areas of Myanmar’s Kachin and Shan States neighboring China’s Yunnan Province. My research explores three dimensions of HEA’s entanglements with both government and self-governance actors in facilitating the health services network, which can be defined as legitimacy, sensitivity, and adaptability. By studying HEA’s entanglements and its resilience to changing environments, I propose the concept of “excluded middle” to describe INGOs that operate on the ground, collaborating with local actors and building local capacities, but have not yet been fully recognized and discussed in NGO studies and within the aid sector. This type of INGOs like HEA occupies a middle ground between the simplified dichotomy of top-down large INGOs and subordinate local NGOs in the first place and transforms into a decentralized INGO at the national level that is neither fully local nor entirely international in the second place. In doing so, I aim to challenge the prevailing dichotomies between INGOs, Western NGOs or global NGOs, and national, local, grassroots NGOs, found in both critical anthropology of development and in humanitarian and development aid sectors shaped by the Global North versus Global South framework. Through a historically grounded organizational ethnography of HEA, I argue that INGOs are not a fixed category but can be dynamic organizations capable of doing good by innovating cross-border health aid models and strengthening public health systems, as well as shifting power and resources to local actors through decentralized approaches.
Becoming Men, Becoming Human: Building Refuge, Masculinity and Worthiness in a Puerto Rican Church
(2026-02-05) Avella-Castro, Douglas; Pfeiffer, James
Puerto Rico continues to suffer from the impacts of its colonial status manifesting through the debt crisis, austerity, and the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Simultaneously, Protestant evangelical churches have emerged as one of the more prominent social institutions responding to this suffering, often playing significant roles in addressing the spiritual, social, and material needs of a population in crisis. Many of these churches have attempted to address the impacts of colonial-capitalism and severe austerity through spiritual approaches that center the family and link Puerto Rico’s social, political and economic suffering to a crisis of masculinity, manhood and the disintegration of traditional family values. The purpose of this study was to determine how the church discourse attempts to address the economic crisis facing the Reyes community through how church leaders make sense of their own approaches, and how—in relation to this— the participants make sense of their spiritual journeys and their relationship with the church. Through a reflexive phenomenological approach—guided by the methodology of reflexive praxis—I uncovered that the church addresses structural violence—as it manifests through the family and communities—by working to create new kinds of Christian men, manhood, and masculinity. Specifically, I uncovered (1) how two CDR male church leaders made sense of their own discursive approaches to becoming (Christian) men, and (2) in relation to these approaches and their logics, how two prominent male church members made sense of their own suffering and eventual spiritual and ethical transformation to become “hombres correctos” in a non-denominational evangelical Puerto Rican church. The results reveal the church as a contested space of biblical interpretation, competing masculinities and gender norms. At the same time, the results show that the crisis of masculinity, as it impacted participants, is best understood as a struggle to meaningfully exist and that spiritual “refuge”—involving divinely rooted worthiness—functioned as an indispensable component toward becoming more loving and compassionate men while simultaneously allowing them to detach themselves from more dehumanizing manhood and masculinities. Implications for policy, practice and research are discussed.
Crural Indices in Neandertals and Modern Humans: Implications for Limb Proportions, Environment, and Body Size Variation
(2025-08-01) Ochoa, Miguel; Kramer, Patricia Ann
This dissertation investigates the functional and adaptive significance of Neandertal limb morphology by integrating comparative anatomy, biomechanical modeling, and methodological validation. The crural index (CI)— a ratio of tibial to femoral length— served as a key metric for exploring thermoregulatory and terrain-related adaptations.In Chapter 3, CI values were analyzed across 21 modern human populations and multiple Neandertal individuals. Neandertals exhibited lower average CIs than modern humans, consistent with cold-adapted body forms, but fell within the observed range of modern variation. Chapter 4 modeled center of mass (CoM) shifts on sloped terrain and found that Neandertal limb proportions and trunk morphology produced a lower and more posterior CoM than in modern humans. These differences became more pronounced on inclines, suggesting biomechanical advantages for locomotion in rugged environments. Chapter 5 validated the use of external anatomical landmarks to estimate skeletal limb lengths using CT data from over 100 individuals. While femoral and tibial lengths showed strong agreement between external and skeletal measurements (RÂ² > 0.97), crural index values derived from external landmarks exhibited only moderate correlation (RÂ² = 0.60), highlighting limitations in ratio-based proxies. Together, these findings support a multifactorial model of Neandertal adaptation involving both climatic and biomechanical selective pressures. They also emphasize the importance of methodological rigor when using external measurements in evolutionary analyses. This work contributes a refined framework for interpreting postcranial morphology in both fossil and modern human populations.
Bone Functional Adaptation: Life History Constraints and Implications for Aging Research
(2025-08-01) Gildee, Cristina; Kramer, Patricia A
This dissertation examines skeletal adaptation across human life history, emphasizing how reproductive investment and aging influence bone mineral density (BMD), a crucial determinant of bone health and resilience. Specifically, it investigates how parity, habitual mechanical loading, and cellular aging–proxied by leukocyte telomere length (TL)--interact to shape regional variation in BMD. The first study analyzed associations between parity and regional BMD using anthropometric, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, health biomarker, and questionnaire data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES cohorts 2007–2018). Results showed that higher parity was linked with lower BMD, particularly in metabolically active skeletal sites such as the lumbar spine, highlighting the metabolic demands of reproduction on skeletal maintenance. The second study assessed whether habitual mechanical loading could buffer age-related BMD loss by comparing weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing skeletal regions. Findings demonstrated similar age-related declines between weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing regions, though gendered differences emerged; women experienced steeper declines in non-weight-bearing regions compared to weight-bearing regions, indicating that loading alone is insufficient to protect against aging-related skeletal deterioration. The third study investigated whether telomere length, a biomarker of cellular aging, is associated with regional BMD variation and parity (NHANES 1999–2002). Results showed that shorter TL correlated with lower BMD selectively in women but did not mediate the association between parity and BMD. Together, these findings demonstrate that reproductive history and cellular aging independently influence skeletal health across the lifespan. This dissertation emphasizes the complexity of skeletal aging and the importance of integrating life history theory, biomechanical analysis, and cellular biology to understand bone health in evolutionary, clinical, and public health contexts.
A TASTE OF BELONGING: FOOD, IDENTITY, AND HOMING AMONG CHAM AND MADURESE MIGRANT WOMEN
(2025-08-01) LESTARI, TUNGGUL PUJI; Lowe, Celia; Friedman, Kathie
This study explores the nuanced homing strategies employed by Cham and Madurese migrant women. Despite the distinct circumstances of their migrations, transnational forced displacement for Cham women and internal regional movement for Madurese women, and their varied relationships with their homelands and perceived identities, this study highlights in the similar strategy in their approaches to cultivating a sense of home. Drawing upon Boccagni’s framework, which emphasizes the active creation of familiarity, security, and hope to foster belonging, this research demonstrates how these women strategically leverage their culinary skills and food traditions to achieve these ends. Moreover, this study argues that the unique historical and social contexts of each group profoundly shape their homing approach. For Cham migrant women, the systemic identity erasure they faced both in Southeast Asia and subsequently in the United States, drives a homing strategy focused on making the invisible visible, through public culinary assertion. Food cultivate familiarity with their heritage, assert their right to belong, and build a sense of hope in the diaspora. Conversely, for Madurese migrant women, persistent historical marginalization and a "hypervisible" identity shape a homing approach centered on contesting ingrained stereotypes and transforming stigma into strength, through their culinary performance. They utilize food not just to create familiarity and belonging within their community, but strategically as a tool to gain security by creating economic opportunities and to foster belonging by reframing public perceptions of their identity. Ultimately, this research unveils how seemingly routine and undervalued domestic activities, specifically within the home, kitchen, and through food preparation, are transformed into political arenas for asserting women's aspirations and agency, challenging conventional narratives that often portray these spheres as sites of oppression.
Staying With the Patient: An Ethnography of Primary Care
(2025-05-12) Esveldt, Michael; Grant, Jenna M
This dissertation is an ethnography of Primary Care Medicine. It explores the characteristic tools and organizational form of Primary Care, and offers an account of the role of medical records in the production of clinical judgment and patient care in a California County Hospital. This dissertation argues that genres of medical writing play a special role in the provision of medical care by mediating interactions between clinicians, across the sites and specialties that make up a medical system. Since the first decades of the 20th century, Western medicine has conceived of itself as a collective practice requiring multiple specialties, presenting a problem for general medical practitioners. Primary Care Physicians formed professionally around that area of a medical expertise that deals with complex patients, multiple organ systems, and multiple specialties. I argue that Primary Care creates medical, financial, and patient value through the distribution of patient problems across long networks of care through clinical judgment (phronesis), a type of case-based decision-making related to ethical and legal thought that emphasizes health management over diagnosis. Through the description of Primary Care, and its comparison with other social-scientific analyses of clinical medicine, I offer a novel conceptual candidate for the replacement of the concept of biomedicine as the general type of medicine in the West.
The Pig Vaccine Tale: Vaccination, Technicalization, and Compatibility in Contemporary Indonesia
(2025-01-23) Romadhon, Dimas Iqbal; Lowe, Celia
This dissertation is an ethnography of power dynamics at play in two vaccination campaigns in contemporary Indonesia—measles rubella (MR) in 2017-18 and COVID-19 in 2021-22. It presents stories of subaltern making and resistance from four Indonesian cities—Banda Aceh, Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Malang—and Seattle, United States. Weaving together these stories into four chapters, this dissertation particularly examines two trajectories within science, technology, and society studies. The first trajectory is called technicalization, a prioritization of technical interventions and specialized knowledge to address complex socioecological issues. As a critic, technicalization reframes our understanding of vaccination as an institutionalized technology that becomes detached from its promise of artificially inducing immunity. The second trajectory, compatibility, can also be seen as a counterpoint of technicalization, emphasizes a match between the progressive dream of science and technology and the everyday reality, history, and identity carried by society. Compatibility suggests that science and technology are not, and should not be, value-neutral. In the context of Indonesia, compatibility manifests in the idea of prophetic paradigm from Indonesian thinker, Kuntowijoyo, which highlights the importance of religious values in shaping the national scientific and technological progress. Chapter 1 examines how the Indonesian government’s promotion of MR vaccines deemed impure (haram) during the vaccination campaign in 2018 in the sharia region of Aceh clashed with the region’s long-standing political construction of local Islamic identities and the collective trauma generated from decades of civil war between the local separatist movement and the Indonesian military, resulting in a widely circulating perception that the vaccination was the Indonesian government’s bioterror project to harm the Acehnese younger generation. Chapter 2 presents my autoethnographic account regarding challenges I encountered when transferring information from my son’s Indonesian vaccine certificate to the United States’ vaccine certificate during his move to Seattle in 2018. I argue that vaccination certification, a form of simulacra, has become the dominant mode of representing the state of immunity while overlooking the actual embodied experience of vaccination. In Chapter 3, I capture the frail political ground in Indonesia surrounding the national COVID-19 vaccination campaign which forced the Indonesian president and high-ranking national officials volunteered to become the first recipients through a highly theatricalized performance that was broadcasted nationwide. Chapter 4 shows how Indonesian vaccine scientists are ready to incorporate the halal principle into the existing technical guidelines and to work together with non-vaccine-expert actors previously unknown in vaccine development process to develop halal-certified vaccines, by looking into the national project of halal-certified vaccine development performed in the state-owned vaccine company, Bio Farma. Altogether, these four chapters provide ethnographic-grounded reflections to envision future radical possibilities that consider the needs and perspectives of local communities behind the shaping of global science, technology, and medicine.
Rethinking Psychosocial and Energetic Influences on Cortisol, Testosterone, and Hormonal Coupling among Jordanian, Syrian, and Indigenous Qom Adolescents
(2024-10-16) Glass, Delaney; Martin, Melanie
Extreme forms of stress derived from displacement, poverty, and armed conflict exposures may confer lasting changes to the neuroendocrine system and may impact the pace of development for children and adolescents. Evolutionary theorists suggest that early life stressors may accelerate or suppress pubertal development due to high psychosocial stress, nutritional disadvantage and shortened life expectancies. A key mechanism by which puberty may be regulated is through the relationships between the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) and gonadal axes (HPG) that in adulthood may suppress one another, but in puberty may upregulate in concordance to meet developmental demands of puberty (e.g., growth, responses to stress). ‘Hormonal coupling’ describes the relationship between two or more hormones over time, to quantify the relationship between the HPA (cortisol) and HPG (testosterone). We predicted cortisol and testosterone would not couple at pre-pubertal ages, positively couple at pubertal ages, and de-couple post-puberty. While testosterone reliably increases in puberty, past research on pubertal and age-related changes in cortisol are inconsistent. In addition, studies of hormonal coupling have rarely focused on diverse populations outside of the United States wherein socioecologies and childhood exposures may include more significant forms of marginalization and extreme exposures to conflict. In U.S. teens, the connection between cortisol and testosterone weakens in the presence of early life stress. However, it's unclear how stress signals related to insecurity, trauma, and mortality risks may affect hormone coupling in teens affected by war and socioeconomic marginalization and how hormonal trajectories might vary in disparate contexts. In this dissertation, I leverage collaborations and data among Indigenous Qom adolescents in Argentina who have been affected by socioeconomic marginalization and among Jordanian refugee and Syrian non-refugee adolescents living in Jordan to advance understanding of how cortisol varies with pubertal timing and linear growth, and whether hormonal coupling varies between these two populations and in response to trauma, insecurity, distress, mental health, and resilience among the cohort in Jordan. In my first chapter, I explored relationships between age, linear growth, adiposity, C-peptide (proxy for insulin), and cortisol across puberty, and tested whether higher cortisol levels are associated with earlier ages at menarche and peak height velocity. I used longitudinal data (n = 777 urine samples) from Qom females ages 7-14 (n = 46) and tested my pre-registered analysis using Bayesian longitudinal mixed effects models and joint modeling. I found limited evidence supporting the overarching hypothesis that HPA upregulation is associated with pubertal maturation or timing but that cortisol may be more clearly related to differences in relative linear growth at early-mid puberty, as measured by height-for-age Z-scores. In my second chapter, I draw from two populations: Indigenous Qom females living in Argentina and male and female adolescents living in Jordan ages 10-19 (n =769). Qom participants had >1 year of quarterly morning urine samples assayed with commercially available kits and in-house assays. Jordanian and Syrian participants had dried blood spots, which were analyzed for free cortisol and testosterone using multiple reaction monitoring mass spectrometry. I used Bayesian hierarchical models with age, log cortisol, and an age-specific log cortisol slope to estimate testosterone. In both studies, I found small positive associations between cortisol and age on testosterone, consistent with the notion of hormonal coupling. For Qom females, the age-specific effect of cortisol on testosterone increased in magnitude at ages 12-14, possibly suggesting greater post-menarcheal changes among Qom females whose median age at menarche is 11.5. Among Jordanian/Syrian adolescents, the age-specific effect of cortisol on testosterone was somewhat greater for females vs. males at earlier ages, potentially indicative of pubertal timing differences and relatively later pubertal timing. Overall, I found evidence of positive hormonal coupling and no evidence of de-coupling. In the third chapter, with data from Jordanian and Syrian participants, I focus specifically on differences between Jordanian and Syrians who have very different life circumstances as non-refugee host teens and refugee teens displaced into Jordan. I focus on the potential effects of extreme stressors such as lifetime trauma, human insecurity, human distress, mental health, resilience, and experiencing an 8-week psychosocial intervention on cortisol-testosterone coupling at baseline (n=769 participants) and 12 months later (n=225 participants). Overall I found that when disaggregating by refugee status, Syrians as compared to Jordanians had relatively higher cortisol and changes in cortisol across age groups and Syrian males had slightly higher testosterone compared to Jordanians. I found evidence of positive coupling across participants, with mixed findings for the effects of trauma, insecurity, distress, mental health and resilience. I found scant evidence of de-coupling. Syrian females with higher trauma, insecurity, and distress showed robust hormonal coupling but less of an age-related trend, implying that there may be early life programming of HPA regulation affecting overall hormone levels. Further, some of the evidence in Chapter Three implies that hormonal coupling and de-coupling are context-dependent rather than a universal developmental pattern. Overall, my dissertation research propels an understanding of energetic and psychosocial influences on the neuroendocrine system forward and helps to bridge research on hormonal coupling to global populations with diverse socioecologies.
The role of neighborhood poverty and malnutrition on female reproductive outcomes
(2024-10-16) Pan, Anwesha; Holman, Darryl J
Stressful environments affect female reproduction in a variety of pathways. The objectives of this dissertation are to understand the role of neighborhood poverty and malnutrition on female reproductive aging and fecundity, respectively. Another goal of the dissertation is to examine the stability of cortisol in frozen archived urine samples. The first study of this dissertation explored the relationship between neighborhood poverty and ovarian aging on two ovarian biomarkers, anti-MÃ¼llerian hormone, and antral follicle count in a U.S. population. The results showed the potential detrimental effects of neighborhood poverty on the ovarian reserve. The second study examined the association between famine and the probability of fertile conception in a Bangladeshi population, showing a decline in sterility with no change to fecundability immediately after the famine. The third study demonstrated the stability of cortisol (a proxy for stress) in 30-year-old frozen urine samples collected from Bangladesh. Overall, the results of the dissertation contribute to showing that secondary data and archived biological samples can be extremely useful in addressing basic questions in human biology and potentially help uncover the role of environmental stresses on reproductive health.
Innovation Bubbles: Social Experiments in Global Chinese Higher Education
(2024-09-09) Lee, Racquel; Anagnost, Ann S; Harrell, Stevan
Global growth of higher education as an industry has driven migration, economic development, and the restructuring of learning—the joint venture business model has been adapted to build collaborative university campuses which combine cultural and pedagogical diversity as a strategy for creating new sources of value in education. This dissertation is a study of how students, faculty, administrators, and government officials understand and direct “innovation” in material, everyday encounters at joint venture universities in China. By pairing contemporary histories of “the global” in China with ethnographic fieldwork at three joint venture universities, I analyze how innovation—as a paradigmatic goal of universities, corporations, and nations—drives strategic globalization. This research presents a theoretical model for understanding innovation’s cultural logics, limits, and obstacles through what I conceptualize as “innovation bubbles”—designated spaces of exception to social norms which produce and test alternative futures. In doing so, it considers how experimentation operates as a form of governance that concentrates power in China and argues that joint venture universities have become prototypes for how to address global problems in higher education.
Edible Memory: Revitalizing Ancestral Appetite, Taste, and Flavor through Indigenous Culinary Art and Cuisine as Food Sovereignty
(2024-02-12) Serrato, Claudia; Chapman, Rachel; Peña, Devon
This dissertation presents a culinary ethnography focusing on the Indigenous Food Sovereignty movement within the kitchens and kitchenspaces of Turtle Island. By adopting decolonizing methodologies and alterNative Indigenous approaches, combined with sensory observation and hands-on cooking experiences, a profound exploration into the world of Indigenous culinary arts, cuisine, and culture was achieved. This research journey revealed the nuances of embodied ancestral memory, examining how such memories are transmitted and activated through culinary practices. The immersive nature of the study fostered an intimate and sensorial perspective on culinary anthropology, leading to the formulation of novel Indigenous culinary methodologies. Through this work, deeper insights are provided into the rich tapestry of Indigenous culinary heritage and its significance in contemporary movements centered on food and identity.
Weaving life: Vivencias Paving the Way for The Sistema Indígena de Salud Propia e Intercultural (SISPI) [Self-determined and Intercultural Indigenous Health System] in Colombia's Departamento of Vaupés
(2024-02-12) Puerto, Hugo; Pfeiffer, James
Colonization adversely affected the health of the Indigenous Peoples in Colombia. The European colonizers stripped these communities of their lands and sought to eliminate them both physically and in identity. Such oppressive colonial frameworks continue to exist, jeopardizing the Indigenous philosophy of "Buen Vivir" [Good Living], a cornerstone for Indigenous health. Nevertheless, Indigenous Peoples in Colombia have ardently advocated for community-based health practices in the face of colonial adversities. Consequently, the creation of the Sistema IndÃgena de Salud Propia e Intercultural (SISPI) [Self-determined and Intercultural Indigenous Health System] symbolized the Indigenous resistance and resilience to safeguard and apply their ancestral health wisdom. Given the stark disparities in Indigenous health in Colombia, understanding the SISPI process and the relationships among the different actors that are part of it is crucial. Therefore, this research is a collaborative effort to answer the research questions: How can the SISPI support local communities to build or strengthen their health models? Can bridges be constructed between Indigenous and "Western" medicine to provide more comprehensive and culturally appropriate healthcare access to Indigenous communities? And if such a bridge is possible, how could these bridges be built through the SISPI? This research explores the feasibility of establishing connections between various medical systems, focusing on Indigenous health, to integrate Indigenous principles while fostering collaboration and dialogue to inform the ongoing SISPI implementation process further. Specifically, the intention is to provide embodied experiences accompanying the SISPI to inform strategies for improving health services for the Indigenous population in the Departamento of VaupÃ©s. Employing Participatory Action Research principles and Indigenous methodologies through vivencias (embodiment of life experiences) and oral tradition, I emphasize the need to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into mainstream health initiatives. Grounded in vivencias of the actors involved in the SISPI process, the narrative advocates for a comprehensive, intercultural approach to Indigenous health. I utilize a sentipensante [feel-thinker] analysis through Chris Andersen's concept of "density," delving into the intricacies of human vivencias, challenging stereotypical categorizations created by the dominant paradigm about Indigenous Peoples. The research concludes by laying out the different ways density manifests across these vivencias and providing my recommendations, as requested by the elders who contributed to the study.
Stories of Sugpiaq Survivance: Uncovering Lifeways at Ing'yuq Village
(2023-08-14) Miller, Hollis Katharine; Fitzhugh, Ben
This dissertation explores various storytelling methods in archaeology, as situated within a community-based project in Old Harbor, Alaska, a Sugpiaq village in the Kodiak Archipelago. The research is grounded in archaeologies of survivance, which center Native presence, sovereignty, and futurity throughout the archaeological research process. As a concept, survivance is an important intervention within studies of settler colonialism, especially in North America, because it encourages researchers to consider multiple ways of knowing beyond the dominant systems of the academy. Epistemic diversity creates rigorous and robust research practices and interpretations, and often leads to new insights when data are contextualized within specific Indigenous epistemic communities. In this dissertation, an engagement with survivance has led to the co-creation of storytelling methods with collaborators in Old Harbor. These story methods work to both interpret archaeological data and effectively communicate and engage with the Old Harbor community. Story genres employed in this dissertation include story-models for hypothesis generation, fictive narrative, personal reflection, artistic reconstruction, and object-centered vignettes. These stories were generated as part of the Old Harbor Archaeological History Project (OHAHP). The purpose of OHAHP is to uncover Sugpiaq lifeways during the Russian colonial period (1760s to 1867 CE) in the Old Harbor region. This dissertation research focuses on labor practices, foodways, and elements of residence and governance among the people of Ing’yuq Village (KOD-114). Sugpiaq ancestors lived at Ing’yuq, located on Sitkalidak Island, for at least a century prior to Russian arrival in 1784, and persisted in place until the year 1840. This dissertation draws on data from archaeological excavations at Ing’yuq, critical examinations of the ethnohistoric and archival documentation of the Russian colonial period, and ethnographic interviews with Old Harbor community members to examine Sugpiaq negotiations of Russian colonialism. Analysis of these data reveal how Sugpiaq ancestors at Ing’yuq creatively maintained their relationships to their homelands through the tumultuous period of Russian occupation. Archaeofaunal remains from the Ing’yuq site show that people ate a wider variety of locally-procured foods and lived at Ing’yuq year-round during the Russian colonial period, which contrasts with indications of seasonal occupation in the century prior to Russian arrival. This signals a consolidation of the population, as men were sent away to hunt sea otter in distant regions for months at a time, and women pooled their labor to address Russian demands for goods. By reorganizing households, Sugpiaq families sought to maintain community even while so many relatives were lost to violence, disease, and removal. Analysis of belongings (a.k.a. artifacts) found that processing and manufacturing were the predominant activities in both the precolonial and colonial period deposits at Ing’yuq. That pattern roughly fits in with the characterization of belongings from other late precolonial and early colonial sites in southeastern Kodiak, suggesting a continuity of practice within these villages through time. The ubiquity of locally made pottery at Ing’yuq and the diversity of ulus found at the site suggest that Sugpiaq crafting traditions continued into the Russian colonial period, despite the increasing availability of imported goods through time. Storytelling is what holds these archaeological conclusions together and makes them make sense anthropologically and in community. The narrative that emerges from integrating the archaeological interpretations together is one of persistence and survivance by Sugpiaq people as they navigated, and continue to navigate, waves of Russian and American colonialism within their homelands. The use of collaborative storytelling in this dissertation contributes a novel framework for interpretation of the past. In using multiple storytelling strategies throughout this dissertation, I showcase a grounded method for making sense of archaeological data within an Indigenous survivance framework that weaves together cultural stories, archaeological data, personal narratives, and oral history to prioritize Indigenous experiences in our telling of Indigenous histories.
Applying cultural evolutionary theory to the technological transition during the Late Pleistocene in Korea
(2023-08-14) Park, Gayoung; Marwick, Ben
The cultural-technological transition in stone artifacts from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic during the Late Pleistocene is considered as one of the major revolutions in the prehistory of humankind, along with the appearance of modern humans. The new technologies include introduction of blade and bladelets, a high degree of morphological standardization in tool types, exploitation of bone, antler, and ivory as raw materials for tools, systematic use of grinding and pounding stone tools, and extensive use of bows and arrows. One of the explanations for this transition is to connect the technological change to hunter-gatherers’ subsistence strategies using a theoretical framework derived from cultural evolution theory. The evolutionary approach enables us to understand human behaviors by linking material evidence and socio-environmental dynamics. In this research, I explore the technological transition from the Early to Late Paleolithic in Korea represented by the appearance of stemmed points through evolutionary concepts including human behavioral ecology (HBE) and cultural transmission (CT). I also examined different likely uses of stemmed points by measuring tip cross-sectional area (TCSA). The previous studies have primarily discussed the origin and route of stemmed points and blades while my research focuses more on related human behaviors and decision-making processes. I raised three questions to address cultural and environmental roles in the technological transition: what changes in foragers’ landscape use and mobility were associated with the introduction of new tools? What were stemmed points used for? And what was the dominant mode of cultural transmission during the time of technological innovation in the Korean Late Paleolithic? My approach to answer these questions is combined with traditional theoretical frameworks and novel methods for testing hypotheses. As an answer to the first question, I hypothesized that stemmed points enabled foragers to survive in more marginal and extreme environments based on HBE. I applied quantitative analyses of artifact volumetric density, retouch frequency, composition of toolkits, and artifact raw materials. I explore environmental and demographic contexts by applying paleoclimate simulations and summed probability distribution models. My results show that forager groups using stemmed points may have been associated with occupation of marginal or extreme environments, represented by higher altitude and decreased temperature. I raised the second question to understand the possible role of stemmed points played related during the technological transition. Using the metric called tip cross-sectional area (TCSA), I was able to discriminate between different likely use classes of projectile points such as stabbing spears or poisoned arrow tips. I also explored the temporal and spatial patterns of TCSA values of stemmed points. My results show the multiple likely uses of stemmed points in a site, which indicate people might use them as multi-functional tools, with many likely designed for javelin and stabbing spear tips. I applied the CT framework to examine the process and social context of the technological transition and address the third question. I built two models that describe the transition process based on guided variation and indirect bias and tested them through computing coefficients of variation (CV), and correlation coefficients. The results show high variation and low correlation between morphological attributes on stemmed points, indicating the guided variation as the dominant mode of cultural transmission. Combining all results, my dissertation research concludes that stemmed points were introduced to maximize the landscape use during the Late Pleistocene and the shape and usage of the tools were adjusted depending on the local environment. In addition to achieving research goals, this dissertation demonstrates how to apply theoretical frameworks and test hypotheses by applying noble quantitative methodologies. My research pursues an open science approach by enabling maximum access to research data, analysis processes, and final results to promote research transparency to promote reproducibility. I expect to see that my approaches will be adopted in future research about technological transition and cultural evolution.
'Legs Feed The Wolf': An evolutionary perspective on psychosocial stress, physical activity, and their associations with telomere length in NCAA student-athletes and non-athletes
(2023-01-21) Tennyson, Robert L; Eisenberg, Dan
Psychosocial stress negatively impacts our mental and physical health, predisposing us to illness, worsened mental health, and accelerated aging. Conversely, regular physical activity, such as exercise and sports training, positively impacts our health. These opposing effects are intriguing because psychosocial stress and physical activity were inextricably linked throughout human evolution. Large populations of humans have only recently begun transitioning into more sedentary lifestyles, uncoupling psychosocial stress from physical activity. Improving our understanding of these two factors and their interactions will, in turn, improve our understanding of the mechanisms through which psychosocial stress impacts health in both modern and ancestral human populations. My dissertation examines whether physical activity moderates the association between psychosocial stress and capillary blood telomere length in NCAA student-athletes and their non- athlete counterparts in the general student population. My first paper develops an in-depth comparison of psychosocial stress in these two groups using a suite of psychosocial stresssurveys and an adapted cognitive interview protocol. Student-athletes (N=65) reported lower levels of current perceived stress and anxiety symptoms (p<0.05) but similar levels of childhood psychosocial stress, recent exposure to external stressors, and depressive symptoms compared to non-athletes (N=57). My second paper utilized self-report and objective measures of physical activity (i.e., accelerometry) to compare physical activity patterns in these groups. Student- athletes (N=60) both self-reported higher levels of physical activity and recorded higher levels of activity via accelerometry (p>0.001) compared to non-athletes (N=50). Interestingly, categorical measures of activity levels (i.e., time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) identified Rowers as the most active among student-athletes, but continuous measures of activity levels (e.g., total physical activity level) identified Track and Field athletes as the most active (p>0.05 for both comparisons). My third and final paper tested whether higher physical activity weakened the association between childhood psychosocial stress and telomere length estimated from capillary blood collected on Hemaspot HF devices (N=111). Telomeres are DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes. They shorten with cell replication, age, and oxidative stress, leading to functional decline with age and worsened health outcomes. Importantly, psychosocial stress is thought to accelerate TL shortening. My a priori analyses did not support a direct association between psychosocial stress, physical activity, or the interaction of these variables and telomere length. However, a post hoc analysis found that individuals who recorded higher total physical activity demonstrated a positive association between childhood psychosocial stress and telomere length (i.e., higher childhood stress predicted longer telomeres) while individuals who recorded lower total physical activity had a negative association (i.e., higher childhood psychosocial stress predicted shorter telomeres). My results do not offer explicit support for the hypothesis that physical activity moderates the effects of psychosocial stress on telomere length. However, my project adds to the literature in at least several ways. It produced a novel and much-needed comparison of psychosocial stress between NCAA student-athletes and non-athletes. It illustrated and validated several data collection techniques for psychosocial stress and physical activity. Further, my telomere findings offer an exciting direction for the future exploration of psychosocial stress- physical activity interactions. Lastly, this work improves our overall understanding of NCAA student-athletes' mental and physical health and how their unique circumstances intersect with the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Using Landscape Learning to Explore Diachronic Change: A Quantitative Model and Western Stemmed Tradition Case Study
(2022-07-14) Hunt, David B.; Grayson, Donald K.
University of Washington Abstract Using Landscape Learning to Explore Diachronic Change: A Quantitative Model and Western Stemmed Tradition Case Study David B. HuntChair of the Supervisory Committee Professor Emeritus Donald K. Grayson Anthropology In this research, I propose new methodologies for measuring landscape learning and gauging residence time on a landscape. I use a landscape learning model to set expectations and propose testable hypotheses utilizing these methods. The model and methodologies are then tested against data in the context of a Paleoindian colonizing event within the Old River Bed (ORB) delta in Utah.I develop what I refer to as the Discoverability model to predict the order in which a random walker will discover patchy resources found on a neutral landscape, dependent only on distance and patch size. The simulation results for the model support my hypothesis that patch size affects encounter rate and that the model could be used to create a deterministic baseline for patch discovery against which to measure the accumulation of landscape knowledge. I also present an original methodology to quantitatively determine toolstone patch sizes, or exposure extents, using hydrographic algorithms along with known primary source locations. These methods are tested on toolstone sources used by Paleoindians residing in the ORB delta. The results demonstrate that, on average, the methodologies predicted 66% of the actual downslope flow of obsidian sediments and successfully returned an average scaled prediction of 89% of the area of the actual surveyed flow extents. To test the Discoverability model, the ORB Paleoindian assemblages are divided into temporal groups. For each assemblage, the Discoverability values were calculated using the exposure and distance values for each toolstone source, and Discoverability lists (Dlists) of expected rank-order usage of toolstone sources are created. The corresponding Observed lists (Olists) were created using the observed toolstone proportions in each assemblage. The Dlists and Olists were then compared using Spearman’s rank order correlation. From these results, the landscape learning variable (%LL) was calculated for each temporal group/assemblage. The oldest temporal group’s Olist returned a very strong correlation (rs = 0.777) with its expected Dlist. This, in turn, returned the lowest level of landscape learning of any of the temporal groups (%LL=39.7%), as my model predicts. Importantly, the magnitude of difference in %LL (δ=35.1%) between the oldest and next oldest assemblage (~1096 cal years later) is significantly greater than any differences between any other subsequent temporal steps between the assemblages. These results indicate a significant step in landscape learning occurred between the earliest assemblage and the next temporally discrete assemblages. Overall, the results suggest that up to 48% of the variance in landscape learning over time at the ORB delta is explained by my Discoverability model. With limitations of scale and archaeological resolution, the model and resultant methods show promise as a means to quantify and rank the level of landscape learning within an assemblage.
Re-thinking the Emergence of Iron Metallurgy in Taiwan - a Trade Diaspora Model
(2022-04-19) Liu, Jiun-Yu; Lape, Peter
As a society is composed of waves of immigrants, overseas influences have been common to Taiwan since ancient times. Among these external forces, the overseas immigrant-influenced technological leap is believed to be the prime mover for Taiwan entering the Metal period (1800 BP) directly from the Neolithic period (5500-1800 BP). Several studies have proposed overseas influences, like foreign traders and craftspeople, for explaining the emergence of the Metal period and metallurgy in ancient Taiwan. In this doctoral research, I further apply the concept of trade diaspora and build a model to explore the introductory mechanism and localization process of foreign elements that led Taiwan from the Neolithic times into the Metal period. I hypothesize that these overseas materials, cultural elements, and metallurgy were brought by traders who were also metallurgical craftspeople in the form of trade diaspora. A three-stage trade diaspora model is proposed to accommodate the published data from the Jiuxianglan舊香蘭, Huakangshan花岡山, Shihsanhang十三行, and Chongde崇德sites for understanding the introductory mechanism and localization process of foreign elements. Ceramic, burial practice, and metallurgical tradition are the primary aspects for determining the existence of trade diasporic community in the proposed model. In addition to the published data, the newly excavated Blihun Hanben 漢本 (BHB) site is the primary fieldwork site and is expected to provide new data and insight into the proposed model. There are two major cultural layers (L4 1600-1000 cal. BP and L6 2000-1600 cal. BP) in the Blihun Hanben site. Totally, over 9000 kg ceramics, 2500 kg iron slag, 200 burials were unearthed during four years of salvage project. In this research, I applied technical typology to analyze ceramic and iron metallurgical remains. This concept reveals the embedded manufacturing stages from visible attributes on the end-product and helps us understand the choices made by the potter and smelter, and may further distinguish the hidden social boundaries between social groups. Instrumental analyses are applied to further support the technical typology. Ceramics are the most abundant remains in Taiwan's Neolithic and Metal periods context. Based on the technical typology, both L4 and L6 cultural layers have more than fifteen ceramic types, and I have designated those types into seven (L4) and seven (L6) wares. Petrographic analysis shows five sources for the temper for both L4 and L6 specimens. Those are BHB local, the southern part of the Ilan Plain, the northern part of the Ilan Plain, the Igneous/volcanic areas, and the East Rift Valley. It is reasonable to say that the BHB ceramic temper was acquired from locations ranging all over northern and eastern Taiwan. From a technical typological perspective, this petrographic analysis of temper provenience mainly consists with the macro analysis (by naked-eye) results, in other words, the ceramics in the same ceramic ware have the same temper provenience. The L4 ceramics match to known Shihsanhang cultural assemblage Pulowan subset, especially identical to the ceramic assemblage from the Chongde site. While L6 ceramics can hardly be matched with any known ceramic assemblage, L6 ceramics show a certain connection to the Upper Huakangshan ceramics. Multiple ceramic proveniences indicate the connectedness between the Blihun Hanben people and other eastern and northern Taiwan residents. Moreover, the ceramic analyses results fit the archaeological prediction of the proposed model. L4 unearthed over 99% of iron slag, and the heatmap of slag chronological distribution shows an abrupt increase of slag deposit from L6 to L4. This sudden increase of iron slag deposit indicates the practice of matured iron technology at the beginning of L4. Slag technical typology shows that bloomery was the metallurgical tradition of the BHB site, and the whole slag assemblage is dominated by smithing hearth bottom, which is the indicator of smithing activity. The lack of furnace body fragments also supports this result. Commonly speaking, a bloomery furnace is a onetime-use structure since the furnace needs to be broken for bloom extraction. Under this circumstance, a large number of furnace body fragments are usually associated with smelting slag in the smelting site. However, the examined BHB slag specimens lack both furnace-lining fragments and smelting slag; in contrast, this slag assemblage reflects intensive smithing activities (ironworking) rather than smelting (ironmaking). The micro-analyses (SEM-EDX) support the macro-analysis (technical typology). The specimens of the presumed smelting slag, which is rare in the whole slag assemblage, yielded typical iron smelting slag micro-structure and mineral composition. Long and semi-rectangular fayalite lath and dendritic wÃ¼stite are typical minerals in bloomery smelting slag. On the other hand, fat wÃ¼stite globules were found in the smithing hearth bottom specimens. Fat wÃ¼stite globule is the typical microstructure in smithing slag. While we did not find direct evidence of iron smelting, the large amount of smithing slag implied the frequent smelting practice near the Blihun Hanben site. The slag analyses result also fits the archaeological prediction of the proposed model. In summation, the possession of matured metallurgical ability is the crucial characteristic of trade diasporic craftspeople I proposed, and both the ceramic and metallurgical analyses support that the BHB L6 fit the second stage and BHB L4 fit the third stage of the proposed trade diaspora model. The proposed model represents a long-term adaptation of hypothetic trade diaspora communities to the local societies. While subsequent studies need to be carried out, the proposed model is not denied in the current research state.
Desde abajo How Day Workers and Domestic Workers Re-value Labor Power at Casa Latina
(2022-01-26) Garcia, Raul; Pena, Devon
This dissertation examines the rise of jornaleros and jornaleras in the Pacific Northwest at a community center in Seattle Washington called Casa Latina and critiques the contemporary interpretations of the jornalero/a experience, both regionally and nationally. The objective of the study is to understand how day laborers organize to negotiate their own labor value in urban centers and the impact of the current political milieu on the ability of those workers to self-organize. The principal research question of the proposed study addresses issues related to the political nature of the concepts of skill, labor value, and working-class agency. This research project raises the following questions: Are day laborers really the deskilled cheap labor depicted by most popular and scholarly accounts, or have they organized to redefine their value as skilled craft workers? What are the political and organizational dynamics that transform “cheap unskilled labor” into “well-paid highly-skilled craft work”? The analysis of the day laborer experience incorporates a diversity of interpretations including the application of the epistemology of Chicana/o anthropology, critical anthropology, and alterNative epistemologies. Moreover, this dissertation challenges mainstream economic interpretations of capitalism and proposes an autonomist perspective of workers and questions the centrality of the “informal labor market.” Through the application of a collaborative ethnographic and participant observation research with mostly Mexican-origin and Latina/o day laborers at a community center, the study concluded with a critical perspective of the day laborer experience. Based on in depth interviews, the research project unveiled the weaknesses of previous analysis on the jornalero/a experience: it rejected the common assumptions of day laborer studies grounded on theories of “globalization” and the centrality of the “informal labor market.” It explored and expended an ignored aspect of the day labor experience: the important role of women in the jornalero experience, thus placing women as important actors in the history of the working class in the region and the national level. Women set their own rules and participated in their own “asamblea”, exposing the politicization of women activists in decision making, political campaigns and political power. Most significant, the analysis of the day labor experience through the lens of an “autonomista” perspective unveiled how workers in Casa Latina self-governed themselves through the “asamblea.” It examined how workers organized and governed themselves: “los trabajadores en control (the value of worker agency). More specifically, it examined the self-valorization of the day workers in Casa Latina by observing how they set wages and refuse work. In this context, the day laborers demonstrate agency and re-value the labor power with the refusal to work.
Winyan Okodakiciye: Indigenous Resurgence & Women Society Lifeways
(2021-10-29) Spotted Eagle, Brook; Dennison, Jean
Winyan okodakiciye and Indigenous women led collectives and organizations play a vital role in our communities and movements. This dissertation examines the ways winyan okodakiciye work to address the community impacts of settler colonialism, colonial patriarchy, violence and historical oppression by nourishing resilience and providing community-care through Indigenous resurgence. The community care provided by winyan okodakiciye rooted in a deep relationality linking resilience to the powerful knowledge systems cradled within ceremony, language, cultural systems & structures. Following the works of Indigenous scholars of Glen Coulthard and Leanne Betasamosake, this can be recognized as a place-based lifeway standing upon a historical grounding of Indigenous systems and reveals living, breathing precolonial formation contemporarily driven by concepts and acts of rematriation, resistance, and resurgence.
(Re)Constructing the Body: An Ethnographic Study of Factory Accidents and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
(2021-10-29) Shapiro, Lily; Amrute, Sareeta
University of Washington Abstract (Re)Constructing the Body:An Ethnographic Study of Factory Accidents and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu Lily N. Shapiro Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Sareeta Amrute Department of Anthropology This dissertation is an ethnography of factory accidents and the reconstructive plastic surgeries that occur in their wake in Coimbatore, India. In what follows, I trace the workplace accident through various lenses and spaces. Keeping the accident as my primary analytic, I examine the social relations, institutions, and systems of power that produce the accident and become active in its aftermath. I ask, what can a focus on the accident show us about the daily operation of neoliberal capitalism, of social relations including care and debt, of systems of labor and social reproduction? What does it reveal about the body and the construction and reconstruction of the body in relation to ideas about what different bodies do and what they are for? How do the accident, and attendant ideas about risk and danger, articulate with understandings of gender, class, and ability? The accident disrupts the notion of neatly separable spheres of life, showing the ways in which the factory and the hospital are entangled. How, then, are practices of surgical expertise related to and dependent upon questions of labor, machine work, and care? This is a study of the accident, but it allows us to explore the interstices of medicine, labor, care, and the body. This dissertation is based on fifteen months of ethnographic research in Coimbatore, primarily at a large plastic and orthopedic surgery hospital, where between one and two hundred patients are seen each month as the result of a workplace accident. There, they are treated for a great variety of injuries that span a range of levels of severity, though most involve the hands and arms. This project takes up both the labor of the surgeons, exploring what kind of work the surgery does as part of a wider continuum of caring practices that are called up as the result of injury, and exploring the connections between workspaces, medical spaces, and medical expertise. Much of this research is also based upon in-depth interviews with individuals injured at work and treated at this hospital. Through these data, I explore notions of risk, work and labor practices, and experiences of trauma, care, and recovery (however incomplete). At its basis, this project is interested in the interweaving of concepts of work, care, and the body as they are constituted in and through the accident. The chapters, then, revolve around different ways of understanding, narrating, and analyzing the accident. They chart a rough chronology of the accident and the way that it intercedes in and exposes different institutions and practices. My primary argument is that care does not happen in spite of or on the margins of capitalism, but rather that capitalism provokes and depends upon mechanisms of care and caring relations. The first chapter approaches the relationship between work and the accident. How is our understanding of factory labor illuminated by a focus on the accident? The second chapter is about narratives and habit. How do people narrate their own accidents and recoveries, and how do these narrations articulate with concepts of temporality and habit? I use the Tamil word paḻakkam (habit) as an analytic to understand the slow process of adjusting (or being unable to adjust) to a changed body. The third chapter is about the surgery and the hospital — what does the post-accident surgery do, how does it attempt to reconstruct particular ideas about bodies, especially in terms of what I am calling class, and how do those ideas (and the material way they play out on bodies themselves) change our understanding of form, function, and normativity? The fourth chapter is about care and capitalism. What does it mean to care for someone in the wake of an accident? How do people care for themselves, how do family arrangements shift, and how do these shifts reveal uncertainties in already tenuous conditions? I draw on literature on the social reproduction of labor to think about the ways in which these uncertainties and forms of care articulate, reproduce, and exceed capitalist productivist logics. Finally in the fifth chapter, we turn to the question of responsibility and care, considering the critique of owners and labor policy structures that workers articulated in the wake of accidents.

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