This work is centered on the archaeological site of San José de las Huertas, occupied from 1765-1826 and excavated in 2002-2004. In my historical study of this 18th-century village, I draw upon archaeological evidence, archived documents, and oral historical accounts in order to explore processes of community formation and maintenance as they are revealed through the reciprocal relationship of structure and agency, otherwise known as structuration. Since the performance of social identity is a consequence of community creation, its investigation provides one means through which structuration may be accessed. Through the analysis and integration of the various lines of information, my research contributes to our understanding of the complex relationships that connect objects and places to people and community. Located in the northern Borderlands of New Spain, Las Huertas was one of several outpost communities established in the mid-1700s to deter American Indian raids on the capital and principal settlements of New Mexico. As a buffer settlement, the village was founded by people with diverse and complex personal histories. The landless colonists who established the community were comprised of families who considered themselves to be culturally Spanish as well as those who were labeled as genizaros (war captives taken from various native groups who were then placed as servants in the homes of Spanish settlers and missionaries). As such, the crafting of a local community and its accompanying identity amidst a diverse mix of ethnic, class, gender, and kinship relations was an important part of negotiating daily life on this frontier, where remote communities faced many challenges and hardships that were particular to their locations. The range of data sources utilized by this project illustrate that the community of Las Huertas was constructed through social discourses of difference and similarity among informed and strategic social actors as they navigated different contexts: that of the community itself, in their dealings with colonial administrators, in their contacts with the Pueblo and Spanish-American settlements that neighbored the village, and when nomadic peoples attacked their homes and property. Kinship, age, gender, and religion comprised the principal vectors of social identity crucial in community formation, while status and ethnic affiliation (as defined by casta categories) seemed to be of greater concern to colonial officials and clerics. Las Huertasanas' associations with their neighbors also tended to be shaped through kin networks, in addition to economic transactions. But it was membership within the community of Las Huertas that served to contextualize social identities as they were enacted in all situations.

The dissertation investigates a repertoire of ideas and objects produced by the Underground Scene (Escena Subterránea) that problematize notions of property within the Peruvian culture and society of the time. This is a young subcultural and countercultural social formation that bonded around rock music and created urban interventions, fiction and non-fiction literature, visual arts and music. My inquiry focuses on how this scene perceived as marginal contested well-established aesthetic practices and believes. I trace the way in which their poems, lyrics, interviews, cassette tapes, covers and prints deal with the expectations of what is appropriate and proper to, often migrant, young mestizo, working-class people within the cultural field. The conditions placed by the Peruvian Internal Conflict (1980-2000) and the migration of rural Peruvians to Lima created a social space where matters of property of land and circulation of people and goods were pivotal to the social experience. Literary and art criticism, along with the historical accounts of music, tend to explain the communal configuration of the scene and its aesthetics in relation to the violence of the armed struggle. These, I argue, also take from the coexistence with the migrants. The Underground Scene produced alongside with a massive marginality of indigenous rural migrants, appropriating their cultural and aesthetic procedures as well as their organizational forms. It worked within the war reflecting upon its various immediate consequences through a generational perspective using tactics borrowed from international subcultures such as the DIY, and others like piracy vastly and successfully used by the migrants. While this influence has been read as purely cultural, I am proposing a material approach. I claim that these conditions of production shaped up in a definitive way what is widely taken as a subculture and counterculture arranged as a mere imitation of the Anglo- Saxon, white, male punk movement. By using the tropes of voice, yell and noise rather than discourse or logos, these youth gave their criticism and affectivity a political dimension that pointed out the failure of party politics and democracy within the national structure.

An extraordinary number of scholarly works have been produced about community-level power in America. The focus of attention, however, has been primarily upon the Anglo-Saxon community. Virtually all these reports contained serious inaccuracies about black leaders. Where exceptions existed they were based solely upon data gathered during the legally sanctioned biracial system or immediately thereafter. Conclusions about contemporary blacks tend to rely upon these earlier, suspect explanations. The most persistent theme can be stated as "black leadership is chaotic, episodic, non-representative, ineffective and uncontrolled by the black community." This appalling lack of knowledge about contemporary black leadership has provided the framework for the case study of a medium sized southeastern United States city, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Twin (although not identical) hypotheses underlie the study: First, efforts made by black and white communities to designate and control the actions of black leaders resulted in a bifurcated leadership structure. The findings of the study were that the interpenetration between the black and white communities altered and affected the patterns of power and influence in each. Second, these two designated black leadership segments took different positions on issues because they represented the interests of different constituencies. The three operative variables--the years 1970-79, black leadership and designation sources--were measured with a range of data and methodologies. For example, modified-stratified samples of 29 white and 57 black respondents were used. Data extracted from newspapers and organization records were correlated with issues, events, and leaders and their activities. The research data supported the major hypotheses, revealing that whites employed five major strategies which weakened and, at times, defeated blacks' goals. Evidence emerged to substantiate the existence of a decidedly cohesive black leadership which fashioned a set of skillfully designed and executed strategies while simultaneously coping with a counter black leadership structure supported by the white leadership.

This is an exploratory, descriptive study that examines perceptions of the helping experience taking the views of a group of Puerto Rican adolescents from Newark, New Jersey and comparing them with the views of a group of adult helpers also from Newark, New Jersey. The study samples are selected using a purposive, non-random approach. A major purpose of the study is to examine the impact that the ethnic background of a helper might have on congruence or dissonance of perception with a group of Puerto Rican teenagers. With this idea in mind the helper sample is quota selected yielding roughly even numbers of Black, Latino and White helpers. A major assumption of the study is that congruence of views between a helper and client will have a positive impact on the helping experience. The study first describes the demographics and perceptions of its adolescent subjects. It then goes on to describe the demographics and perceptions of its adult helpers employing tests of significance to do inter-group comparisons. Finally the demographics and perceptions of the Puerto Rican adolescent subjects in the study are compared with each of the adult groups. The study hypothesizes that the ethnic background of a helping person will have an impact on congruence or dissonance of views with an adolescent group. More particularly the study hypothesizes that the views of Puerto Rican adolescents will be closer to the views of helpers of their own ethnic background or at least to helpers of a minority background and further away from the views of non-minority helpers. An instrument using both scaled and open-ended items was developed based on an operationalized definition of the helping experience. Data elicited through the instrument is analyzed using frequencies, chi-square and tests of significance. Qualitative material, which is used supportively relative to the central issues of the study, is analyzed using an inspection technique. Outcomes suggest that the Puerto Rican adolescents in the study feel more positively about a helping experience than do any of the adult groups. They tended to be closer to the Latino helpers than to the Black or White helpers in their perceptions, particularly in negative self perceptions and perceptions of their communities. Generally, they were closer to Whites than to Blacks in their perceptions. Beyond these general findings an analysis of congruence and dissonance of views between the adolescents and adult helpers in this study presents a very mixed picture, suggesting that for the population in this study there is not a consistent, overriding pattern. The study does establish that for its subjects the ethnicity of a helper is of importance but not of major importance in a helping experience. Competence and human qualities of warmth and caring are equally important. The study strongly suggests the need for basic research having to do with a significant population at risk - Puerto Rican adolescents - and the development of supportive counseling programs that are capable of reaching this population.

Black Americans have entered a new phase in the Civil Rights Movement. First they struggled for their legal rights. Then they struggled for equality, which meant integration and implementation of their legal rights. Now they struggle for power—“black power”. “Black power” is a metaphor which became part of the English language less than two years ago. Because of its newness, it has not been clearly defined nor its purposes clarified and evaluated. This paper is A Clarification and Evaluation of Black Power. Black power serves as a rallying call for unity and self-help among black people. But the words are more than a slogan. They stand for a mood and a program. The mood is one of worthiness—black is good, black is beautiful—not the inferiority of past generations. The program, although not well defined or organized, has three types of goals. They are cultural, economic, and political. The basic cultural goal is unity. The basic economic goal is to raise the black standard of living. Control or rightful share of control is the basic political goal. The masses of Black America are engaged in this Struggle for Power. They have lived through a “revolution of expectations”. Now they want tangible results. They want socio-economic gains, including, better jobs, housing, and education. They now believe the best way to achieve these ends is to work together as a group, not separately as individuals. They feel they were oppressed as a group, so they must leave the oppression as a group. As the group closes ranks, it is accused of racism and escapism. Actually, the separatism, which blacks are now advocating, is a realistic solution to a pluralistic society. Violent action and/or the threat of violent action are very real forces in America today. The ideology of black power does not call for this violence, but some of the advocates do. They see violence as a means to an end. It is unfortunate that black power has become so closely linked with violence, since this tends to mitigate its constructive value. The ideology and practice of black power needs to be clarified and evaluated, not by an academic, but by black people. The time for ambiguity is past. Black people need to define their goals. Then they need to organize their individual strengths into group action. A united Black America, with strong leadership and organization, may well be able to raise its standard of living and seize its rightful first class citizenship. The ideology and practice of black power does offer to black people an opportunity to raise their standard of living. Perhaps more important, however, black power allows black people to think well of themselves, which is, of course, psychologically healthy. Time may prove me wrong, but this writer feels history will pass a favorable judgment on the Struggle for Power—Black Power.

Generations of Americans believe that black political activism materialized in the decades of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Since this overwhelming view prevails, the history of local African Americans who made a means of not giving into racism in spite of the violent and recalcitrant oppression that had existed since the days of slavery is often overlooked. But blacks fought for, and at times secured, small victories on an individual or community level, although setbacks and challenges to those gains also occurred. The mis-impression that activism merely manifested itself in the days following either Emmitt Till’s murder or the Brown decision leaves generations of people missing, or erased, from the annals of history, and simply ignores the reality of making a movement on the ground. By expanding the parameters beyond the typical definition of the Civil Rights Movement, black activism from each successive generation after the Civil War emerges and provides a better understanding of race in America. Approaching the Southwest Georgia Movement through the lens of a longer evolving fight for racial equality, it becomes apparent that most of those involved were fighting against the ghost of Reconstruction. It was during this tumultuous episode that blacks had lost all gains garnered after the fall of the Confederacy (the Freedom Generation). Moreover, southerners found ways of restricting or erasing these liberties as the country transitioned into the Jim Crow era (the Terrorist Generation). The modern leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) and Ralph David Abernathy, for example, rose to prominence by fighting against these segregation statutes, but their ultimate goal was to reclaim many of the gains of Reconstruction (the Protest Generation). / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2017. / May 1, 2017. / Includes bibliographical references. / Maxine D. Jones, Professor Directing Dissertation; Maxine Montgomery, University Representative; Andrew Frank, Committee Member; Katherine Mooney, Committee Member.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Page Anderson, committee chair; Rod Watts, Leslie Jackson, committee members. Electronic text (101 p. : ill. (some col.)) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Dec. 5, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-85).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2006. / Thesis advisor: Prescott "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Modern American History" Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-151). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Aparna Bagdi, Dept. of Individual & Family Studies. Includes bibliographical references.