Mongolian gazelles (Procapra gutturosa) are one of Asia's last large populations of ungulates and their 275,000-km2 steppe habitat is considered to be the largest remaining example of a temperate grassland ecosystem. The gazelles and their habitat are increasingly threatened, primarily as a result of human-induced activities. In order to provide informed recommendations to best address these threats, studies concerning steppe vegetation composition and nutritional qualities, the degree of and economic factors contributing to wildlife hunting by rural households, seasonal movements, and population and distribution estimates were conducted from 2000 to 2006. The most common forage species in the steppe are Stipa spp. grasses, Artemesia spp. shrubs, and Allium spp. forbs. Steppe vegetation appears to be of sufficient quality to meet Mongolian gazelles' nutritional demands, at least during the summer season. Wildlife harvesting is an important economic and subsistence activity by a majority of rural households with 65% having harvested at least one of the five game species commonly occurring in the steppe. Mongolian gazelles were the most sought after species with 71% of hunting families harvesting an average of 5.6 gazelles/year. As a household's livestock holdings decreased and family size increased they were more likely to participate in hunting activities. A rural household of 5.5 people earned just over US$1,200/year, and hunting households earned approximately 9% of their income from wildlife products. Movements of Mongolian gazelles do not appear to follow a specific pattern and do not show fidelity to any given range. Annual range size of 4 marked adult gazelles was 26,500-km2 with little range overlap occurring between seasons. The Mongolian gazelle population that occurs to the east of the UB-Beijing RR was estimated by driving long distance line transects in May and June 2005. Density estimates ranged between 2.9–10.9 gazelles/km2 suggesting a total population size of 1.126 million gazelles. Herding household density had significant negative impacts on the density of Mongolian gazelles; gazelle numbers dropped exponentially with each additional household per 5.75-km2 block, and gazelles were virtually absent in regions with more than 4 households/block. Conservation actions are needed to ensure the long term viability of Mongolian gazelles.

<p> Every year, hundreds of thousands of people visit the Native American ancestral lands in the western United States developed for tourism and recreation. The stewards of these lands seek to engage visitors and enrich their experience, and simultaneously to protect the lands&rsquo; natural and cultural resources. To achieve their mission, protected areas regularly use <i>interpretation </i>&mdash;materials and experiences that aim to educate visitors about resources and see them as personally meaningful. However, there is little literature on interpretive content in protected areas, few qualitative studies of interpretation as constructed by visitors and interpreters, and little literature on the representation of Native Americans in museums and protected areas. </p><p> I consider the public presentation of archaeology at exemplary protected areas in the U.S. Southwest and Great Basin within a theoretical framework of governmentality and representation. Within a mixed-method research design, this project used participant-observation at thirteen protected area locales to identify interpretive content and representational strategies, and semi-structured interviews with 31 individuals to elicit staff and visitors&rsquo; understandings of interpretation and display. This research found three types of narratives in the interpretation sampled&mdash;scientific narratives, cultural narratives, and management messages. In general, scientific narratives appeared more frequently than cultural narratives and both appeared more frequently than management messages. Archaeology dominated scientific narratives, cultural continuity dominated cultural narratives, and orientation dominated management messages. In general, archaeology appeared with greater relative frequency than any other component of interpretive content. This study also found that interpretation predominantly adopted a third-person omniscient point of view and represented people predominantly in the ancient past. </p><p> This study has both academic and applied outcomes. The work aims to contribute to the scant body of literature on interpretive content in protected areas stewarding natural and cultural resources, the few qualitative studies of interpretation as constructed by visitors and interpreters, and the existing literature on the representation of Native Americans in museums and protected areas as well as informing future interpretive practice. These findings inform a report on contemporary interpretive practice and recommendations for the public presentation of archaeology delivered to the US Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2013.</p>

<p> Between 1990 and 2010 changing perceptions of water-scarcity and evolving adaptation strategies to water stress transformed water management in San Diego, California. This project examines how perceptions of water scarcity affect the programmatic variety, geographic scale, and types of adaptations that are undertaken. It also investigates whether a cultural consensus developed within San Diego County as a whole about what causes particular water problems. Lastly, the research shows how adaptation responses to the collective action problem of water provisioning contributed to resolving the other collective action problems of wastewater production and water conservation. The project presents San Diego as an example of polycentric governance arrangements that were adaptive to the challenges of a changing social-ecological system. </p><p>

<p> The aim of this investigation is to analyze the effects of incorporating scent-based elements in ethnographic exhibits. Specifically, it attempts to identify changes in patron response to a visual display, with and without a scent element. Groups of patrons were observed throughout their engagement with the exhibit, and interviewed post-engagement to generate data on information retention, opinion on content and empathetic response in relation to the exhibit. Findings suggest that the inclusion of scent did increase memorization of the limited facts reinforced through the scent element. However, there was no detectable difference between the groups on measures of overall comprehension of the subject matter, nor their empathetic responses toward the exhibited culture. The results of the study are discussed as a measure of the observer&mdash;observed dichotomy, and the argument is made that multisensory representation in the museum can aid in the facilitation of cross-cultural education.</p>

<p> In today&rsquo;s world, people from various cultures interact on a daily basis on a number of occasions. During these intercultural encounters, conflicts often arise. Intercessors are needed to help people navigate these types of disagreements. Mediators are considered some of these peacekeepers. This thesis engaged with mediators at a mediation center in the Midwestern United States in order to understand what strategies seemed most effective. </p><p> I examined the research that scholars have conducted regarding building rapport through utilizing respect and face issues, as well as nonverbal behavior. In addition, I explored the connection between the understanding of these factors and intercultural competence and intercultural conflict competence. </p><p> The purpose of this thesis was to see how these mediators understood and valued respect and face issues, including nonverbal behavior, when building rapport with parties in mediations. These mediators were engaged in two manners, via survey and interview questions. The intercultural competence of the mediators in these domains was also explored. </p><p> The results of the research in this thesis showed how the mediators were skilled in some areas, such as in rapport building and respect issues. It further revealed that they were in need of some skills for their toolbox, such as training on face issues and nonverbal behavior, including silence, tone of voice, and eye contact. Detailed recommendations for the mediators are provided. Future research is encouraged: A group of mediators that have exhibited intercultural competence should be selected in order to test their intercultural conflict competence.</p>

<p> National parks and protected areas are an integral component of the Mexican government&rsquo;s long-term natural resource conservation strategy. They comprise over 90 million hectares throughout the country. However, the establishment and upkeep of these protected areas often incites conflict both between and among local actors. From poachers taking protected resources to indigenous peoples exercising their rights, protected areas have become a source of political, economic, and moral contention across the globe. In addition, their effectiveness in either ecological or sustainable development terms has been ambiguous at best. </p><p> Tulum, Mexico exemplifies this dilemma. The site of pre-Columbian Mayan architecture, Tulum is now facing explosive economic growth driven largely by an international tourism industry. This fragile ecological site and vulnerable cultural community have the potential to be seriously impacted by mass tourism. Accompanying the myriad social, political and ecologic implications of tourism are real challenges for park managers, who are placed in the delicate position of attending to federal objectives while mitigating on the ground realities. </p><p> This report chronicles nearly two months of ethnographic field work conducted with The National Commission for Natural Protected Areas, a federal government agency responsible for the management and administration of protected areas in Mexico. Preliminary results suggest that effective management strategies of protected areas are constrained due to &ldquo;top down&rdquo; and hierarchical management philosophies and approaches that do not adequately incorporate the multiple challenges faced by local communities, especially in light of the burgeoning tourism pressures. This report recommends the implementation of a participatory applied ecological management framework that adequately includes perspective from local actors. Hopefully, Tulum can come to represent a locality in which internationally-based tourism development can coexist with an increasing capacity for the adaptive management of natural protected areas.</p><p>

A common narrative in the late twentieth-early twenty-first centuries is that historic rural landscapes and cultural practices are in danger of disappearing in the face of modern development pressures. However, efforts to preserve rural landscapes have dichotomized natural and cultural resources and tended to "freeze" these resources in time. They have essentialized the character of both "rural" and "developed" and ignored the dynamic natural and cultural processes that produce them. In this dissertation I outline an agenda for critical and applied heritage research that reframes heritage as a transformative social practice in order to move beyond the hegemonic treatment of heritage as the objects of cultural property. I propose an anthropological theory of shared heritage: a culturally mediated ethical practice that references the past in order to intervene in alienating processes of the present to secure a recognizable future for practitioners and prospective beneficiaries. More specifically, I develop (1) an ethical framework for shared heritage practice that values social tolerance and future security, (2) a model for the critical assessment of a heritage protection strategy's potential for supporting a shared heritage ethic, and (3) a methodology for scholars, heritage advocates, and community leaders to realistically enact shared heritage. I document two case studies of rural residents implementing heritage protection strategies in the face of suburban and tourism development in Hadley, Massachusetts, and Eleuthera, Bahamas, respectively. I engage with these case studies at three distinct levels: (1) locating and critiquing the potential for a shared heritage ethics in the attempts to preserve private agricultural land in Hadley; (2) developing and applying a community-based heritage inventory assessment in Hadley; and (3) modeling an internet-based communications system for supporting shared heritage development in Eleuthera. Taken together, this dissertation offers an anthropological model for documenting and analyzing the discursive and material productions of cultural identities and landscapes inherent in heritage resource protection and a set of methods that heritage professionals and practitioners can apply to cultivate shared heritage ethics.

This thesis is a study of ethics and multiplicity as found within contemporary commercial settings. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) sensibilities and ethnographic-style research, the thesis proposes that current ethical phenomena should be understood as a user-enacted chimerical object: an object that is multiple in its ontology and as much enacted by what it is, as what it is not. This research is particularly pertinent now because the term 'ethical' has become commonplace in modern Western life, including crucially within commercial activities. In certain uses, doing ethics becomes synonymous with doing business. Despite the increasing prevalence of what is considered 'ethical business', the exploration of how the term is appropriated and enacted remains largely under-examined. Through examination of research material gathered during extensive ethnographic studies in three self-avowedly 'ethical organisations' - an ethical start-up, an ethical confectionery company, and an ethical consultancy - the thesis addresses this research gap. By focusing on the users of ethical business, the investigation questions traditional market assumptions of homogeneity within producing organisations, the supposed linear transfer of ethical knowledge, what we can know about 'users', and the genesis of novel ethical realities. Through this questioning the thesis provides new insights on the ethical object. The thesis additionally builds upon questions of how far we can push the boundaries of what we can know about knowledge, and whether it is possible to bring the mess of investigation back into the reporting. Developing previous applications of constitutive reflexivity, the research symmetrically investigates the appropriateness of my application of STS sensibilities to ethical business as a new research area, and interrogates my thesis as an ethical object in order to address the underlying question(s) of whether 'STS means ethical business?'

L’objectif de ce travail est de questionner l’œuvre de l’écrivain français Georges Bataille (1897-1962) pour déterminer si elle permet ou non d’apporter de nouveaux points de vue ou de nouvelles voies de résolution des problèmes posés en sciences de gestion. Les textes sollicités sont d’abord les essais théoriques, mais aussi certaines œuvres de fiction. Ceux qui sont à l’origine de la notion de « dépense », centrale pour l’ensemble de l’œuvre, les articles correspondant aux diverses activités groupales dans les années 1930, les essais de La Somme Athéologique pendant la guerre et ceux de La Part maudite après-guerre sont examinés. On montre alors que les « notions » que ces textes mettent en jeu, qui témoignent d’une anthropologie déchirée (dépense productive / dépense improductive, homogène / hétérogène, souveraineté, communication, interdit / transgression, possible / impossible…), peuvent ouvrir des pistes de recherche dans de nombreux thèmes de sciences de gestion : le pouvoir, la culture d’entreprise, la criminalité dans les organisations, le changement organisationnel, le sens du travail, l’éthique, l’épistémologie, les rapports entre le management et les sociétés, la sexualité dans les organisations…Trois notions de Bataille (dépense, souveraineté, communication) sont ensuite sollicitées pour analyser en détail les problèmes posés par la « gestion » des risques psychosociaux. Huit cas d’organisations servent de support à l’analyse.Au final, la thèse conclut à la pertinence du recours à la pensée de Bataille pour conduire des recherches en management. / The goal of this thesis is to question the work of the French author Georges Bataille (1897-1962) to determine whether it can bring new points of view or new attempts at solving the issues raised by management sciences. The texts which were studied are primarily theoretical essays, but also some works of fiction. Those which are at the origin of the notion of “expense”, a central notion in the entire work, the articles which correspond to various group activities in the 30’s, the essays of La Somme Athéologique during the war, as well as those of La Part maudite, after the war, were also examined. We then show that the “notions” these texts illustrate, which reflect a torn anthropology (productive/unproductive expense, homogenous/heterogenous, sovereignty, communication, interdiction/transgression, possible/impossible…), can open fields of research in numerous topics associated with management sciences: power, corporate culture, crime within organisations, organisational changes, the meaning of work, ethics, epistemology, the relationship between management and societies, sexuality in organisations…Three of Bataille’s notions (expense, sovereignty, communication) are then called upon to analyse in detail the problems raised when managing psychosocial risks. Eight case studies of organisations back up the demonstration.Finally, the thesis concludes that it is pertinent to refer to Bataille’s thinking when conducting management research.

All governments aim to ensure better health and nutrition to children. The Rajasthan state (India) has implemented a unique frontline coordination model where Accredited Health Social Activist (ASHA) Sahyoginis are expected to support two other frontline workers (FLWs) i.e. the Anganwadi Workers from the Integrated Child Development Services and the Auxiliary Nurse Midwives from the Health department to improve child health. This thesis focuses on examining the existing coordination between the three groups of FLWs in Rajasthan by exploring FLWs' participation in child immunisation and Vitamin A supplementation (two common activities), service coverage and beneficiary's' knowledge (expected outcomes), and the challenges faced and areas that need improvement for better frontline coordination. A mixed methods design was used. Sixteen villages from two blocks (tribal and non-tribal) of Udaipur district (Rajasthan) were selected using multistage purposive sampling. The formative stage included 12 FLWs' in-depth interviews (IDIs) as well as a review of FLWs' job descriptions to understand the process and government expectations on their participation in routine childhood immunisation, polio camps, routine Vitamin A supplementation and Vitamin A campaigns. The next stage included data collection from the 16 selected villages i.e. structured questionnaire survey of FLWs (46), observations of Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition Day (16), review of FLWs' immunisation and Vitamin A registers (32) and a structured questionnaire survey of registered infants' mothers (321)-all to ascertain the actual participation of FLWs in these four activities and the outcomes. IDIs with FLWs (46) and FLWs' line managers (17) were conducted to understand their experience, issues and solutions for better frontline coordination. The participation of FLWs in three of the four activities (except Polio Camps) was found to be limited. The FLWs and their line managers were also dissatisfied with coordination between FLWs. Poor outcomes also indicated unsatisfactory coordination. Overall, frontline participation and outcomes were better in tribal than non-tribal villages. A variety of factors (i.e. personal, professional, organisational, and geo-socio-cultural) appeared to affect coordination between FLWs. Appropriate recruitment, training, monitoring and supervision and rewards to the FLWs along with greater political commitment for coordinated approached and addressing intra-departmental challenges are proposed to improve frontline coordination and child health in Rajasthan.