A surge in commercial wild mushroom extraction since the 1980s has precipitated a need for research that examines harvester culture and the ramifications to forest conservation. My research looks at harvest practices in two key areas of the Pacific Northwest: the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, and Northwest Oregon. The primary data for this study were collected using ethnographic methods. Semistructured and informal interviews were performed with harvesters in fifteen months of fieldwork spanning six years. Additional interviews were also done with mushroom buyers, forest managers, law enforcement, and other stakeholders. Participant observation of harvester-associated activities included joining them in the forest to pick mushrooms, camping together, visiting their homes, and interacting in various social activities. Harvesters are a diverse group of people in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, class, and the physical distance that they travel in pursuit of mushrooms. Individuals typically harvest for a range of reasons beyond economic gain. Harvesters were found to have a strong connection to their patches as important physical places and in protecting the mushroom resource. Many engaged in investigating avenues of resource stewardship. An analysis of these findings using political ecology and common property theory concludes that trends in forest management such as restricting forest access through gates and regulations are stressing harvester culture and undermining stewardship attitudes and behaviors. This study contributes to anthropological knowledge by illustrating that, even in an industrialized country like the United States, individuals operating in social networks formed around resource extraction may develop attitudes and behaviors to mitigate resource degradation. This research comes at a critical juncture as forest management and policy are undergoing extensive revision; changes that are being influenced by a multitude of stakeholders concerned with how and for whom forests are managed. Mushroom harvesters have been largely absent from these debates and revisory processes. By looking at how mushroom harvesting is embedded in complex social systems of political, economic, and cultural opportunities and constraints, incentives, and disincentives, the study illuminates variables that act as restraints and influence the efficacy of forest policy and management. Through the use of ethnography and multilevel analysis, the views and lifeways of harvesters are partially revealed, and show why harvesters direct participation in forest management, policy, and scientific processes can improve and are probably essential to forest conservation efforts.

This study explores the online embodied experiences of gay men, contending that these experiences deconstruct naturalized physical world understandings of the attractive and healthy erotic body. In particular, this study examines discourses emerging from three distinct queer-identified IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels: #gaymuscle, a community formulated around images of the muscular male body; #gaychub, a community celebrating male obesity, where—in diametric opposition to #gaymuscle—fatness holds considerable value; and #gaymusclebears, a space representing the erotic convergence of the obese and muscular male body. Constructed by gay male interactants, each of these three IRC channels represents an affirming space for the discussion, exploration, and eroticism of the male body. Utilizing the methods of critical ethnography, I analyze not only the terms and forms prevalent to these online communities, but the deeper intricacies concerning the negotiation of embodied identity and eroticism in cyberspace. In doing so, I demonstrate how interactions in the virtual can provide significant embodied experiences while subverting naturalized conceptions of physical beauty and normative sexual practices.

This study deals with the phenomenon of dependency on imported western television programs in the Arab states. The primary concern of this study is that the Arab culture is under siege by western culture through the massive importation of western television programs. This influx has jeopardized the continuity of the indigenous national Arab culture since the content of most of the imported materials has no connection with the authentic culture, which needs help in its promotion and enhancement. The aim of this study is to search for the reasons that cause the Arab governments to depend heavily on imported western programs rather than the nationally produced programs. This study concludes with some suggestions to promote the production and airing of Arab nationally produced programs which could provide a solution or alternatives to the issue, or at least reduce its impact in order to preserve and promote the national Arab culture. The study examines and analyzes the experiment of the Arabian Gulf States Joint Production Programs Institute (AGJPPI) as the first professional and successful Arab educational television production and seeks the secret behind its success. The state of Kuwait is selected as a case study for the research, and presents Kuwait television as a model of Arab television systems.

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This thesis examined the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the structure of drug treatment in the United States and how the effects have influenced the experience of undergoing and providing services in a variety of contexts. The COVID-19 pandemic emerged amid an opioid epidemic, which has taken the lives of over 564,000 Americans since the late 1990s. With overdose deaths increasing since the onset of the pandemic and government agencies responding with policy changes, recent research in the social sciences and on drug treatment services has necessarily shifted its focus to the effects of the pandemic on people who use drugs (PWUD) and the delivery of drug treatment. Yet, this work has focused primarily on logistical changes that occurred within specific public health or treatment settings; it has not investigated the experiences of individuals accessing or facilitating different drug treatment modalities. Based on 20 semi-structured interviews with 16 patients and four clinicians, this thesis examines how both groups across the United States experienced changes to drug treatment services during the COVID-19 pandemic. I argue that the temporal dimensions of the pandemic are key for understanding the variety of treatment experiences of my participants, as services fluctuated over time in concert with the pandemic's developments. However, I also argue that there are certain elements of the treatment experience that are "timeless," in other words not contingent on the pandemic, that continue to influence treatment in both positive and negative ways, including the therapeutic relationship and prohibitive cost of care. This project contributes to the call for a greater understanding of the shifting landscape of drug treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially from the perspective of PWUD accessing care.

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