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This dissertation explores the responses and engagement of the Pamunkey Indians with an expanding capitalist economy in nineteenth century Tidewater Virginia. Framed by theoretical discourses of political economy and landscape, I investigate the Pamunkey community’s Reservation subsistence economy, and the transitional effects the infiltration of industrial capitalism had on the economic life and experiences of Pamunkey people. Evidence uncovered from archaeological investigations on the Reservation, archival resources, and oral testimony from tribal members reveal how the Pamunkey community structured their engagement with the market. Pamunkey market engagement formed a mixed economy that followed an annual seasonal round grounded in the Reservation landscape. The annual round combined traditional subsistence practices of pottery making, fishing, hunting, trapping and horticulture with migratory wage labor. It is apparent these processes and the relationships that fueled them are still at work within the contemporary Reservation community. Thus, this dissertation and the questions that inform it are also shaped by the historical consciousness of the Pamunkey people. Pamunkey economic experiences throughout the nineteenth century highlight the persistence, creative agency, and ingenuity of an Indigenous community that was socially, economically, and politically marginalized. The Pamunkey community’s ability to strategically adapt these practices structured the community’s engagement in the capitalist economy to the Tribe’s advantage, while simultaneously ensuring these practices and the knowledge required to do them survived for future generations.

This thesis analyses the narratives of 33 parents in the United States concerning their decisions to circumcise or leave their children intact, and five key informants consisting of medical professionals involved in obstetric and gynecological care and trained childbirth companions. The United States differs from other nations in the Global North due to its comparatively high rates of neonatal male circumcision, a procedure that is performed as a preventative surgery, rather than for cultural or religious indications. However, in recent years, rates of circumcision have begun to decline. This study sought to gain a nuanced understanding of these trends by examining the factors that influenced the parents in my sample. The results show that parents' circumcision decisions were affected by their evaluations of the procedure's medical risks and benefits and their considerations of the relationship between being circumcised, hygiene, and health. Also relevant to their decisions were concerns and expectations regarding their child's future sexual functioning and pleasure, as well as cultural assumptions about bodily autonomy and integrity. Interviews with five key informants, including medical providers and trained childbirth assistants, provide further context to findings regarding the sometimes-unequal power dynamics between providers and parents. The results of this study raise questions about the extent of informed consent for this procedure and shed light on the ways that parents are sometimes "selective" with the information they use to make decisions. Overall, the findings in this research offer valuable insights into the complexities of parents' decision-making processes and contribute to scholarship on the social and medical dimensions of circumcision.