Search
Now showing items 1-10 of 22
Signature Injury: An Ethnographic Study of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in the Post-9/11 VA Health Care System
This dissertation is an ethnography of a politically symbolic injury: mild traumatic brain injury. It explores the dynamics of institutional mandates, clinical uncertainty, and the ideology of rehabilitative fantasies as they intersect in encounters between military veterans and clinicians in the Department of Veterans Affairs ...
The Traditional Hammam Bathhouse from Morocco to France: The Body, Purity, and Perception
This dissertation explores what it means to be clean - spiritually, corporeally and psychologically, not only in the context of Moroccan traditional bathing practices, but also within the ethnographer’s experience and perception. It gives a detailed account of the ethnographer as a subjective research instrument and the role ...
Immunocompetence and the Hygiene Hypothesis
(2012-09-13)
Background: Evidence from the United States and Europe supports the hygiene hypothesis-- exposure to infectious agents during immune system development protects against immune-mediated disorders (allergy and autoimmunity). An evolutionary perspective suggests that this protection may represent adaptive priming in immune system ...
Towards an Indigenous Museology: Native American and First Nations Representation and Voice in North American Museums
The museum field has had a definite impact on the identity of Native American and First Nations peoples, perhaps more than on any other cultural group. Yet the dynamics and historical relations between museums and these populations have been contentious at best. This dissertation examines museums and their history through an ...
Vibrant Risks: Scientific Aquaculture and Political Ecologies in China
(2013-02-25)
This dissertation examines how the dissemination of science in shrimp aquaculture is intertwined with issues of sustainability and risks in south China. In the Leizhou Peninsula of Guangdong Province, shrimp aquaculture took off in the mid-1980s with the dissolution of collective farming, when farmers were encouraged to become ...
Testosterone, Energetics, and Male Life-History
(2013-02-25)
Testosterone-mediated behavior and muscle mass convey advantages to male fitness. However, high-testosterone phenotypes entail energetic and immunologic costs: the physiological and somatic effects of testosterone require significant caloric maintenance, and may disrupt immune function. Human studies of acute testosterone ...
Living our Values, Living our Hope: Building Sustainable Lifestyles in Seattle Intentional Communities
(2013-02-25)
Sustainable consumption and the sustainable use of resources is a growing concern as negative environmental impacts such as carbon emissions, overuse of natural resources, and degradation of non-renewable resource stocks continue to rise. Disproportionate consumption by Northern countries and particularly the United States ...
Creating and Transcending Territorial Boundaries in Late Holocene Pacific Coast Communities
(2013-02-25)
In this research, I investigate precontact territorial behavior in the San Juan Islands, Washington and San Nicolas Island, California. Drawing on economic defensibility models, I generate hypotheses for change over time in boundary defense and permeability in the context of Late Holocene climate and settlement pattern change. ...
Social Movements and Scientific Forestry: Examining the Community Forestry Movement in Indonesia
(2013-02-25)
Industrial scientific forestry has been one of the main tools of state control over land and forest resources in post-colonial Indonesia, particularly since the beginning of the New Order era inaugurated by the military coup of General Suharto in 1966. Suharto's regime facilitated a massive process of forest exploitation by ...
Stratified Foreign Bodies and Geopolitics of Desire: Gender, Class and Race in the Transnational Marriage Market in Taiwan
(2013-02-25)
This dissertation investigates the market formation of transnational brokered marriages between Taiwanese men and foreign women mainly from China, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. It looks at what kind of desire and needs in the rapidly global circulation of capital and labor is created to trigger the formation of the ...