Este projeto tem o objetivo de descrever e analisar a morfologia de aspecto no idioma indígena amazônico Dâw (aprox. 100 falantes, pertencente à família Nadahup, anteriormente conhecida como Makú) em relação à descrição dada na única gramática disponível do idioma, Gramática e Fonologia Dâw, publicada por Silvana Martins em 2004. Naquela obra, a autora descreve 15 morfemas pós-verbais que chama de marcadores de aspecto, atribuindo funções aspectuais a cada um. Neste trabalho, analisamos a fundo essa afirmação, pondo em dúvida e reanalisando os 15 morfemas ditos aspectuais pela autora, com o intuito de verificar se a descrição da autora está correta. Os novos dados e análises confirmaram apenas parcialmente a análise de Martins, revelando na maioria dos casos que os morfemas desempenham funções bastante divergentes das propostas pela autora. Neste trabalho propomos uma nova classificação para a função desses morfemas, mediante à realização de trabalhos de campo junto aos falantes nativos do idioma no município de São Gabriel da Cachoeira, noroeste da Amazônia. As novas amostras dos trabalhos de campo e análise de outros materiais revelaram que alguns morfemas caíram em desuso, outros não possuem valor aspectual apreciável e outros são morfemas port-manteau tempo-aspecto-modais. Ainda outros possuem outras características, como quantificação dos argumentos do verbo (categoria que como veremos está bastante associada a aspecto) ou função adverbial. Os morfemas com valor aspectual revelaram ter efeitos diferentes com classes de verbos diferentes, como o morfema perfectivo, que com verbos ativos possui função perfectiva de ação concluída no passado, mas com verbos estativos possui valor de aspecto perfeito, ou seja, estado atual causado por transformação no passado. Também incluímos comparações com os sistemas aspectuais de outras línguas do Alto Rio Negro e com línguas tipologicamente similares do mundo inteiro. / This project aims to describe and analyze aspect morphology in the Amazonian indigenous language Dâw (approx. 100 speakers, belonging to Nadahup family, formerly known as Makú) in relation to the description found in the only available grammar on the language, Gramática e Fonologia Dâw, published by Silvana Martins in 2004. In that work, the author describes 15 post-verbal morphemes which she calls aspect markers assigning distinct aspectual functions to each of them. In this paper, we tested that assertion, questioning and eventually reanalyzing the alleged aspectual morpheme, in order to verify whether the description provided by that author is correct. The new data confirmed Martins analysis only partially, revealing in most cases that the morphemes play roles that diverge quite significantly from the authors description. In this paper we propose a new classification for these morphemes, based on the data collected during a field work in July 2015 with native Dâw speakers in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in the northwestern Brazilian Amazon. The new field work samples and an in-depth analysis of other source materials revealed that some morphemes have become obsolete, others have no discernible aspectual value, and others are port-manteau time-aspect-modal morphemes. Some display features such as quantification of verbal arguments (as we shall see, quantifications is intertwined with aspect) or play adverbial roles. The morphemes with aspectual value were shown to behave differently depending on verbal classes, such as the perfective morpheme, which with active verbs has a perfective function, indicating action completed in the past, but with stative verbs it indicates perfect aspect, i.e., current state caused by transformation in the past. A comparison with the aspectual systems of other Upper Rio Negro languages as well as with other typologically similar languages worldwise is also provided.

This dissertation considers experiences of embodied memory and indigenous connection to land by which people reconstitute social life in Skolt Sámi resettlement areas of Arctic Finland. After their Petsamo homeland was ceded to the Soviet Union following the Second World War, Skolt relocation to new areas of northern Finland radically transformed social, political, and subsistence lifeways, including through education in Finnish boarding schools. Continuing out-migration to Finnish cities has contributed to the suppression of identity and threats to community wellbeing, felt in ruptures of practice associated with material culture, language, and relationships with local ecologies. Though most studies in the region still focus on the reindeer herding and fishing commonly associated with Sámi populations, there is actually resurgence of Skolt craft (boats, tools, dress), as well as collection and processing of wild foods, which form the core of a vibrant cultural revival. Through participant observation and life history methods, I follow the making of things using local materials as a means by which people remake relationships with the land and with each other. The thesis focuses on the first 14 months of fieldwork in Čeʹvetjäuʹrr (F. Sevettijärvi) 2014-2015, out of a total of 26 months of multi-sited research in the Sámi regions. Scholarship on memory, practice, and displacement examines how memory becomes embodied, reworked, and reconciled across generations, and how material objects and the creation of home in new places create connections to original homelands. Meanwhile, studies among indigenous communities highlight how people use craft and art to establish connections to land despite, and through, displacement and movement. However, to understand the tangible mechanisms of these attachments and interventions, I inquire into the material practices by which people form relationships to resettlement environments. The thesis follows the concept of practical knowledge as transformed and mobilised through revival of local forms of production, to show how practices and memories are selectively rewoven to shape social futures. I argue that embodied processes of making, enmeshed in the materiality of resettlement environments, make Skolt community visible and felt in new ways by establishing connections between resettlement area and indigenous homeland. Grounding each chapter in stages of reconstruction of a Petsamo-style boat, made with roots, pine, and without metal nails, I weave points of analysis and diverse case studies to explore how processes of production, from collection of materials to building and ceremony, serve as loci of memory and practice by which people establish relationships with land to remake social worlds. In the first chapter, I explore spatial and temporal reconnections among Skolt return migrants and Finnish settlers to the Skolt regions of Finland. The second chapter deals with political and gendered dimensions of cultural revival work, showing how different ways of relating to the environment are negotiated through humour and production. The third chapter examines institutional avenues of reviving techniques of production. In the fourth chapter, I consider politics surrounding the role of non-Skolt actors in Skolt cultural revival. The final chapter examines how these politics are reconciled through ceremony and the making of collective memory, establishing Skolt presence in resettlement areas, as well as spatial and temporal continuity with Petsamo, through the public launching of the root boat. I conclude the thesis by bringing together the stages of boat production and related case studies to show how engagements with the environment through making create ways to reimagine relationships to people and place. I further suggest the broader contributions of this study for understanding indigenous movements, displacement, memory, and future-making.

abstract: Art is a form of spiritual expression that is thriving in many Indigenous cultures. It can take many forms, meanings and have a multitude of emotional, mental, physical and spiritual effects on its creator as well as its audience. Amongst American Indians, art has been a method for maintaining holistic well-being intended to heal and cope with traumatic experiences. In this thesis, I examine the western societal and cultural influences that have led to the loss of cultural identity and examine approaches and practices that aim to re-establish a resilient connection to identity and well-being using art as a spiritual catalyst. Literary research and articles were reviewed related to the issue of art as a form of spiritual expression in Indigenous cultures. An autoethnography was conducted with the intent to record and reflect on the well-being of the researcher in relation to her artistic expression. Journaling and vlogging were used as research methods and painting, sketching, and beading was used as artistic methods. Over the course of six months, over 50 videos with 30 hours of raw footage were recorded; averaging 2 hours per day. The results are reflected in the researchers free-flowing and emotionally driven reflection of experiences that have driven her artwork. This thesis supports the establishment of art as a form of spiritual expression for transforming the current western focused health care paradigm to one that recognizes, values and employs Indigenous insight, methodologies, worldviews, culture and spirituality. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis American Indian Studies 2018

Cette recherche se penche sur l’expérience historique de la population afro-descendante et indienne originaire des Basses Terres de Charcas, faisant partie de la servitude dans la ville de La Plata, entre 1560 et 1650. À travers les principaux critères des discours normatifs, et d’autres discours sociaux, l’on peut ici discerner de quelle manière se construit l’image publique des personnes esclavisées. Dans la logique des relations de pouvoir, apparaît, avec des caractères distinctifs, le traitement particulier que cette société multi-ethnique réserve aux nombreux membres de la servitude. Bien qu’il rend compte de la violence des pratiques esclavagistes, ce travail cherche à démontrer que l’expérience du sujet captif n’est pas limitée à la sphère de la soumission mais possède une dimension sociale plus large. Même fortement conditionnée, son image n’est pas déterminée par des préjugés phénotypiques, et ne dépend pas de liens avec une quelconque ancestralité, mais, au contraire, s’inscrit dans un jeu de complexes interactions sociales face l’ordre colonial. / This research examines the historical experience of the Afro-descendant and indigenous population from the Lowlands of Charcas who were in servitude in the city of La Plata between 1560 and 1650. Through the main criteria of normative discourse, and of other social discourses, we can discern how the public image of the enslaved people was constructed. Whitin the logic of power relations, appears, with distinctive characteristics, the particular treatment that this multiethnic society gave to its noumerous members in situation of servitude. Although it takes into account the violence of slavery practices, this work seeks to demonstrate that the experience of the captive subject was not limited to the sphere of submission, but that it had a wider social dimension. Even strongly if conditioned by phenotypic prejudices, its image was not determined and did not depend on its ties to any ancestry, but, on the contrary, was part of a complex context of social interactions within the colonial order.

abstract: WHO estimates that 830 women die every day due to maternal health complications. The disparities in maternal health are unevenly distributed between wealthy and poor nations. Ethiopia has one of the highest mortality rates in the world. Existing high maternal mortality rates worldwide and in Ethiopia indicate the shortcomings of maternal health interventions currently underway. Understanding the socio-cultural, economic and political factors that influence maternal health outcomes locally while simultaneously examining how global reproductive and development programs and policies shape and influence the reproductive needs and knowledge of women is important. Employing feminist and African indigenous methodologies, in this research I explore maternal health issues in Ethiopia in two of the largest regions of the nation, namely Oromia and Amhara, more specifically in Seden Sodo and Mecha districts. Using qualitative interviews and focus group discussions, I examined the various socio-cultural, political and economic factors that influence maternal health outcomes, assessing how gender, class, education, marriage and other social factors shape women's health outcomes of pregnancy and childbirth. I also explored how global and local development and reproductive health policies impact women's maternal health needs and how these needs are addressed in current implementation strategies of the Ethiopian health system. Recognizing women's social and collective existence in indigenous African communities and the new reproductive health paradigm post-ICPD, I addressed the role of men in maternal health experience. I argue that global and local development and reproductive policies and their implementation are complex. While comprehensive descriptions of national and maternal health policies on paper and gender-sensitive implementation strategies point toward the beginning of a favorable future in maternal health service provision, the global economic policies, population control ideas, modernization/development narratives that the nation employs that focus on biomedical solutions without due emphasis to socio-cultural aspects have a detrimental effect on maternal health services provision. I advocate for the need to understand and include social determinants in policies and implementation in addition to legal enforcement and biomedical solutions. I also argue for alternative perspectives on masculinities and the role of men in maternal health to improve maternal health service provision. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Gender Studies 2017

This dissertation considers photographs of American Indians in Parisian exhibitions between 1870 and 1890 as part of a mobile and dynamic visual culture in the larger Atlantic World and as the embodiment of performative cross-cultural encounters. The project analyzes western American survey photographs disseminated abroad, as well as pictures of Native performers taken in the French capital. The study ranges from John K. Hillers’s output for John Wesley Powell and William Henry Jackson’s work for Ferdinand V. Hayden to the photographic albums of Prince Roland Bonaparte, the grandnephew of Napoleon I. Active in French scientific circles, Bonaparte photographed Plains Indian performers in 1880s Paris. Working within the developing fields of American and French anthropology, these photographers and their project directors transmitted pictures internationally in order to present their respective nations as scientific and political powers and showcase American Indians as figures of competing national patrimonies. Composed of four case studies based on exhibitions, the study challenges readings grounded solely on the original imperialist intentions of the objects’ producers. Instead, a transcultural perspective examines American Indian agendas and circumstances in these photographic exchanges. The dissertation also traces the changing meaning of these pictures over time. Chapter One analyzes a set of Hillers’s photographs of Hopi villages sent to the Société de géographie de Paris in 1877 by Powell as part of an international competition to claim authority regarding Southwest cultures. Chapter Two examines Jackson and Hayden’s Photographs of North American Indians (1878) similarly given to the Société d’anthropologie de Paris in 1879 in this culture of rivalry. However, a close reading of the volumes’ delegation portraits disrupts the imperialist framing of its text. Chapter Three explores Bonaparte’s album, Peaux-Rouges (1884) of frontal and profile photographs of Umonhon (Omaha) at the Jardin d’acclimatation and argues that references to performance and histories of contact subvert its essentializing physical anthropology approach. Chapter Four reads Bonaparte’s volumes of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in Paris for the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Here, allusions to intercultural exchanges of the Lakota performers abroad, as show members and tourists, also challenge a hegemonic interpretation of Bonaparte’s anthropological photographs. / 2020-01-25

This research explores the meaning, construction, representation, and function of Delaware ethnic identity during the 1820s. In 1821, nearly 2,000 Delawares (self-referentially called Lenape) crossed the Mississippi River and settled in Southwest Missouri as a condition of the Treaty of St. Marys. This dissertation argues that effects of this emigration sparked a vigorous reconsideration of ethnic identity and cultural representation. Traditionally, other Eastern Algonquian groups recognized Delawares by the metaphoric kinship status of "grandfather." Both European and Colonial governments also established Delawares as preferential clients and trading partners. Yet, as the Delawares immigrated into a new "western" Superintendency of Indian Affairs in 1821, neither status was acknowledged. as a result, Delaware representations transitioned from a taken-for-granted state into an actively negotiated field of discourse. This dissertation utilizes numerous unpublished primary source documents and archaeological data recovered during the Delaware Town Archaeological Project (2003-2005) to demonstrate the social, political, and material consequences of Delaware ethnic identity revitalization. Utilizing Silliman's (2001) practical politics model of practice theory, the archival and archaeological data sets of Delaware Town reveal the reinforcement of conspicuous ethnic boundaries, coalition-building that emphasized Delaware status as both "grandfathers" and as warriors, and also reestablishing preferred client status in trade and treaty-making. This study illuminates this poorly-known decade as a time where Delawares negotiated and exerted their ethnic identity and cultural representations to affect political, economic, and social outcomes of their choosing in the rapidly-vanishing "middle ground" of early-19th century Missouri.

Book Summary: In Indians Illustrated, John M. Coward charts a social and cultural history of Native American illustrations--romantic, violent, racist, peaceful, and otherwise--in the heyday of the American pictorial press. These woodblock engravings and ink drawings placed Native Americans into categories that drew from venerable "good" Indian and "bad" Indian stereotypes already threaded through the culture. Coward's examples show how the genre cemented white ideas about how Indians should look and behave--ideas that diminished Native Americans' cultural values and political influence. His powerful analysis of themes and visual tropes unlocks the racial codes and visual cues that whites used to represent--and marginalize--native cultures already engaged in a twilight struggle against inexorable westward expansion. Fascinating and provocative, Indians Illustrated reopens an overlooked chapter in media and cultural history. / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1022/thumbnail.jpg

This phenomenological study addressed teacher perceptions of indigenous representations in United States history within a school district in East Tennessee. Teacher perceptions of indigenous representations in history were defined as teacher beliefs towards the inclusion and representation of indigenous peoples in United States history. Individual and focus group interviews were conducted from a purposeful sample of United States history teachers from multiple high schools in the school district. The analysis of data revealed three themes: (a) systemic challenges to multiculturalism within state course standards and textbooks, (b) teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in teaching their students using indigenous perspectives, (c) and the perpetuation of indigenous stereotypes. Furthermore, analysis revealed that U.S. history courses in the district perpetuate both the notion of indigenous peoples as historical bystanders and the racial stereotypes of Native Americans.

Abstract is available to download.