This linguistic study describes the internal structure of the Spanish of the Salitre-Cabagra Bribris and compares this form of Spanish to standard Costa Rican Spanish. / The corpus consists of selected data from a representative sample of Bribri Indians living in the Las Brisas area of the Salitre-Cabagra Indian Reservation in southern Costa Rica. The material used in the study was collected in the field by the author, and was compared with standard Costa Rican Spanish and with the Spanish of a local Hispanic control group matched for age, sex, and education level. / The study determines more precisely the phonological and morpho-syntactic composition of the Spanish of the Salitre-Cabagra Bribris, and also discusses its relationship to the local and popular varieties of Spanish. Occasional references are also made to the Bribri language. The author points out the main linguistic features and processes that characterize the Spanish of a group undergoing a transition period in which group members are in various stages of the process of exchanging a Chibchan language, Bribri, for Spanish. / The phonological description follows a structuralist format and concentrates principally on the segmental phonemes and their allophonic distribution. / The morpho-syntactic section concentrates on the grammatical differences from standard Spanish presented in the Spanish of the Bribris. For this section a generative-transformational format is used. / The study thus establishes possible guidelines for further examination of the Spanish of the remaining Bribri and other indigenous populations of Costa Rica, who are also undergoing similar transition processes of acquiring Spanish. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: A, page: 0900. / Major Professor: James L. Wyatt. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

Museums are deeply symbolic institutions that communicate complex systems of belief and value through various channels and at various levels. Thus museums function as cultural metaphors. It is hypothesized that the metaphoric properties of a museum can be discovered through the application of ethnographic and critical methods of study. This is such a study of an individual museum, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. This study was designed to gather data about the Heard and critically analyze and interpret them using metaphor as the sense-making construct to determine meaning and significance. A critical examination of the museum--its physical space, collection, exhibitions, programs, internal organization, staffing, and other human activities--is paired with data from interviews with staff, volunteers, and visitors. These data are interpreted through the application of various paradigmatic cultural metaphors. The result is a synthesis of the museum as a cultural institution, with implications for policy development at the Heard Museum and for research on similar cultural institutions. It is found that the Heard Museum is a powerfully metaphoric and symbolic structure, embodying a number of deeply-held conceptual systems that resonate at the nexus of several cultures. The findings are discussed in relationship to social and cultural changes currently taking place in America and to the methodological questions surrounding inception of the study, and conclusions and recommendations are posited, both for researchers and for museum professionals. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0694. / Major Professor: Tom Anderson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

This dissertation examines the call experience of various religious leaders as recorded in literature, and compares these to the call experiences of contemporary Southern Baptist ministers. / The analysis and comparison will be accomplished through application of a five-stage paradigm taken from Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces and Roger Walsh's Spirit of Shamanism. / Chapter One describes and compares the call experience of the shaman, the biblical prophet, and reformational literature on the call to ministry. Campbell's paradigm is applied to the specific ethnography of Black Elk as a shaman, the biblical accounts of Moses as a prophet, and the autobiographical material of Peter Young as an 18th Century minister. / Chapter Two presents a brief history of the Baptists. The historical data focuses on the development, and growth of the Colonial Baptists, the Southern Baptists, and the Florida Baptists. / Chapter Three develops further the methodology and research context of this study. It presents biographical data on the research group, and historical data on Wakulla County and the Southern Baptist churches of Wakulla County. In addition, Chapter Three provides information on the method of gathering data through ethnographic interviews. / Chapter Four presents the interview data and analyzes it in terms of the first two stages of Campbell's paradigm. These two stages incorporate the early childhood and life experiences, and the awakening and call to adventure of the ministers through their conversion and call experiences. / Chapter Five examines the ethnographic interview material for the final three stages of Campbell's paradigm dealing with religious vocation. These three stages incorporate discipline and training, culmination of the quest, and reintegration and return. / Finally, in Chapter Six the religious call experiences of the shaman, the biblical prophet, and the minister are compared within the context of Campbell's paradigm. This comparison will seek to examine how the call experiences and ministries are modeled by their respective cultural contexts. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2416. / Major Professor: Bruce T. Grindal. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 29-07, Section: A, page: 2294. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1968.

This dissertation is an ethnographic examination of the Evangelical-Baptist Church [EBC] of Georgia, the largest association of Baptist congregations in the former Soviet country of Georgia. Based on my anthropological fieldwork from January 2007 to August 2007 at the largest Baptist congregation of the EBC, located in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, my investigation pays close attention to an on-going reform movement within the EBC that among other things has introduced many Orthodox Christian forms and practices into ordinary Baptist practice. These reforms represent a conscious effort on the part of the EBC to accomplish three things: (1) to root out what Baptist leaders perceive to be their own sectarian legacy; (2) to bridge perceived gaps between Georgian Baptists and the Orthodox Christian, national majority by transforming the EBC into something more "culturally relevant;" and (3) to invigorate Baptist spirituality. My research probes the heart of the ideological struggle between national ideals and religious minorities by illustrating how Georgian Baptists challenge popular assumptions about Orthodox Christian faith and national membership. Through extensive participant-observation at church services, church administrative meetings, and ecumenical activities as well as indepth interviews with church leaders and laity, I investigate how Baptists are using these reforms to challenge authoritative discourses about Georgian national identity and to articulate new possibilities for religious practice that still have cultural authority. The broad subjects of Baptist and Orthodox Christian history and theology, Georgian nationalism, and Christian rituals and their change from one denomination to another form the theoretical crux of the dissertation. Informed by my own ethnographic data, I show that Georgian Baptists are creating spaces for the innovative embodiment of Christian faith and ministry, cultural identity, and national belonging.

This dissertation examines the opportunities and constraints surrounding the production and commercialization of bacanora, which is analyzed as an economic alternative for Sonora, in the context of a new legal and economic environment that forces farmers to become competitive and efficient. It integrates many topics related to the knowledge of Agave angustifolia and other Agavaceae and the study of several distillates from agaves, contributing to the emergence and development of the bacanora industry in Sonora, Mexico. The economy of small-scale bacanora producers in the sierras is analyzed. Cost and return estimates for the activity show the relative profitability of bacanora making. Subsequent analyses of marketing strategies indicate that serrana producers have potential in bacanora production by adopting or adapting different technologies and marketing schemes. The new institutional frame will increase competition among producers, which in turn will put greater pressures on agave populations. Therefore, more research on domestication of agave is required to find sustainable solutions to avoid overexplcitation of the resource. The major outlet for increased bacanora production is the international market, especially the United States. However, regional and national markets might provide an important group of consumers, as derived from the study of the tequila and mescal industries.

Trauma resulting from torture and other forms of organized violence has been recognized as a growing international public health problem. International NGOs have responded to this problem by initiating anti-torture information campaigns and by establishing collaborative torture rehabilitation and community mental health programs in more than 120 communities in refugee resettlement countries as well as in countries recovering from war-related violence and gross human rights violations. These programs have faced the challenge of recognizing and integrating the non-Western ethnomedical and ethnopsychiatric beliefs of the populations being served into programs founded on Western medical epistemology. The appropriateness of applying in such settings Western diagnostic criteria such as post-traumatic stress disorder has been called into question. Buddhist beliefs further problematize the idea of culturally sensitive treatment. This paper examines torture rehabilitation programs working with Khmer and Tibetan populations with particular attention to the potential contribution of indigenous healing modalities and religious beliefs and practices.

Humans have utilized glass for over five thousand years. This dissertation seeks to show how, following a variety of anthropological avenues, one can come to a richer understanding of glass-working in the past. The research deals with the application of ethnoarchaeology, excavation, experimental archaeology, archaeometry and physical anthropology to an archaeological case study in an integrated manner. The case study in question is the production and distribution of glass in the Galilee region of Israel during the Byzantine period (363-640 C.E.). Remains of glass production, vessel production, and even the transportation of glass have all been excavated in the Galilee dating to this era. Integrating the data from the various anthropological sources yields a glimpse into the lives of glass-workers in antiquity.

This study explores: (1) Attitudes and perceptions of Tubac residents that may have an impact on their QOL--both personally and at the community level; and (2) QOL measurement techniques that may contribute to the utilization of QOL indicators as a tool for studying and monitoring human communities toward a sustainable future. Informal interviews were conducted with seventeen Tubac residents followed by the distribution of a questionnaire in a "snowball" sampling method (Bernard, 1994). Fifty-two responses were compiled and compared for similarities and differences. Results demonstrate the majority of Tubac residents are extremely satisfied with the QOL and feel fortunate to live in a community they believe is unique--mostly for its surrounding natural scenery. Results also support the idea that qualitative approaches to QOL measurement techniques are necessary for further comprehension of the complexities of human communities.

At first glance, the Sonoran table grape industry may seem to fit the profile of a typical non-traditional agro-export system; and thus it might be expected that most of the generally accepted distinguishing characteristics of such systems would also be found here. However, a closer look at each link of this particular global commodity chain, and a greater appreciation of the historical precedents of the production region, reveals that individuals, rather than transnational corporations, are able to exert fairly high levels of control over the system, and reap a fair share of the benefits. Global commodity chain analysis, coupled with a political economy perspective, reveals that important changes further up the chain, at the retailing link, may in the future determine more of how table grapes are grown and distributed, and how the benefits of this production system are distributed. The analysis of changing agro-food systems is important because of their central role in determining the course of a nation and the well being of its people; in essence, as the food system goes, so goes the country. In diverse locations around the globe, food is increasingly being produced, distributed and marketed under the dictates of transnational corporations, which changes the role that nations, communities and individuals play in the global food system. Thus in recent years social scientists have been adding to the corpus of studies that constitute the political economy of the global agro-food system; this study intends to contribute to our knowledge of this important and rapidly evolving field.