<p> Classical dance has been tightly woven into discourses of national and international heritage as a representation of Cambodian cultural identity, particularly after the country&rsquo;s devastating civil war in the 1970s. This dissertation articulates how Cambodia&rsquo;s classical dancers and teachers negotiate the effects of large-scale processes, such as heritage development policies, on the art form and their bodies. Several scholars and dancers have developed perspectives on the revitalization efforts of the classical dance form in the period after the Khmer Rouge Regime, but this dissertation fills a gap in the documentation of the role that international nongovernmental organizations and tourism have on dance production. </p><p> The dissertation research in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in 2011 and 2012 traced the training and performance activities of practitioners at a broad range of arts NGOs and tourism venues to examine the large-scale processes that affected the lives of practitioners. To demonstrate the deeply woven connections among global heritage, tourism, NGOs, nationhood and Cambodia&rsquo;s dance artists, this dissertation first articulates the process through which classical dance transformed from ritual practice to global commodity while maintaining ritual functions. Second, it demonstrates how practitioners navigate their personal corporeal economies&mdash;the labor of practice and performance&mdash;to balance the benefits of their bodily work with the possible alienation of their bodies being commoditized. Third, it shows how UNESCO intangible heritage directives are interpreted and embedded in local context, creating paradoxes for dance practitioners. Fourth,it develops a web-based model for understanding classical dance production, preservation and development in Cambodia&mdash;a social web that practitioners must navigate to survive. And finally, it further develops Bruner&rsquo;s (2005) borderzone concept, expanding it into a borderzone field, to analyze the experiences of both audiences and performers in tourist settings. </p><p> The amalgamated framework proposed in the dissertation, including tourism, heritage, development, and economic theory is necessary to peel away layers of phenomena from the global to the local while unpacking their links to the lived experiences of classical dance practitioners.</p><p>

<p> This study used Culturally Relevant Reading materials (CRRM) with a proprietary, culturally relevant pedagogy for Reading. It was focused on results in Reading Achievement, both reading fluency and comprehension, involving 7^th and 8^th grade students in a twelve (12)-week program of Reading Language Arts. It was an exploratory sequential mixed methods study using a quasi-experimental design, with two student groups, A and B, experimental and control respectively. The results are situated within cultural expert views of Native perspectives on reading from the community as well as student surveys on motivation. </p><p> Results from the study indicate that student achievement in Reading using the CRRM program, as measured by standardized tests, namely Edformation&rsquo;s AIMSweb&reg; (2002) tests of both R-CBM and MAZE, met with similar results in student Reading achievement using a Western curricular program. Both control and experimental groups in the quasi-experimental, exploratory sequential mixed methods study showed significant growth in Reading achievement in both fluency and comprehension, on standardized tests over a 12-week interval. </p><p> Results from the study showed students in the CRRM program showed no significantly greater growth in reading comprehension or fluency during the study, as measured by AIMSweb&reg; tests of MAZE and R-CBM. Student survey results showed increases in student motivation to read, enjoyment of reading class, and desire to read CRRM. Written questionnaires from community members outlined criteria for student success in reading. </p><p> The results indicate that Alaska Native culturally relevant materials and teaching techniques can be used interchangeably with Western curricular materials in Alaska Native village schools with expectation of similar success in student Reading achievement. Students are eager to have CRRM in Language Arts classes, and the community is encouraged by the promising results.</p><p>

This thesis is based on fieldwork, carried out over a five year period, amongst a group of young, male, football fans. The question of what football means to its loyal adherents is asked and answers such as a religion, a quasi religion, or a magical ceremony are analysed and discussed. The language of the fans in terms of songs, chants, and graffiti, as well as emblems, scarves and their way of dress is e camined as a development of this analysis, and finally the position of football as a central interest in the lives of the fans is discussed. Throughout ethnographic examples and case studies from the group under study are dispersed in the relevant sections, linking the twin themes of violence and football, and, in the case of this particular group, putting the emphasis firmly on football. The thesis also looks at the history of violence at football grounds and at other places over the years where young males from working class backgrounds have been involved. Issues of class and culture, especially the sub-culture of the young and the sub-culture of violence are also examined with special reference to young males and their occupation of the football terraces. Statistics on arrests and ejections at football matches are analysed and correlated with research already carried out on football related offences, convictions and punishments. Particular attention is paid to the role of the group as an intervening variable on the football terraces between the individual and the crowd on the football terraces.

<p>To understand the life-course narratives of women who leave the California prison system, life history interviews were used. The focus was on how they perceive their identities and how their life trajectories have been influenced by social institutions (i.e., family and education). Reform to California penal policy is recommended based on the experiences discussed in the interviews. It is thus proposed, based on the narratives, that policy be community-oriented for effective prevention, intervention, and reintegration programming and strategies. While reform is needed within government, it must largely come from within communities in which crime and trauma have been normalized. Part of the process is changing the way in which communities are defined as ?ghetto? or ?crime-ridden? and how such definition influences women?s lives. To change how women in this study are defined socially and legally, public perception of them has to expand beyond the lens of crime and conviction.

<p> A global entertainment powerhouse with millions of fans, WWE produces and archives thousands of hours of content every year that is often dismissed as low brow, incomprehensible, base, and/or harmless. However, WWE content is guilty of propitiating heteronormativity, binary gender construction, and the exploitation, repression, and erasure of LGBTQ+ culture. </p><p> I argue that the pro wrestling personae that perform in the fictional WWE universe are perfect embodiments of Judith Butler&rsquo;s theory of performativity, as evidenced in how the gender and sexuality of these often fluid and paradoxical personae are discursively constructed. This thesis also analyzes ironic and transcendent counterhegemonic performances by personae that can be read as rupturing WWE&rsquo;s repressive, heteronormative hegemony, as informed by Kenneth Burke. This thesis is an analysis of the counterhegemonic personae Nia Jax, Tyler Breeze, Bayley, and Chris Jericho based on their appearances in primary WWE content between 2 January, 2017 and 25 April, 2017.</p><p>

<p> Holyoke, Massachusetts is not traditionally seen as a hub for immigrant experience. To the contrary, there is a rich history of diverse groups occupying Holyoke. For the purposes of this thesis, I focus on two pan-ethnoracial groups: Puerto Ricans and Indians. On the one hand, Puerto Ricans, a Latinx subgroup, comprise the majority of the downtown population of Holyoke, which is the site of the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans outside of the island. On the other hand, Indians, a South Asian subgroup, have very little visibility in the larger community fabric. Additionally, South Asians are undertheorized in the context of the east coast, and particularly in Massachusetts. Yet, despite these differences, both the Puerto Rican and Indian diasporas create their identity vis-&agrave;-vis the other. I analyze the sociolinguistic and sociocultural experiences of these two groups through a comparative, community-based examination. Through analyzing the experiences of two pan-ethnoracial groups simultaneously and in relation to each other and whiteness, I seek to bypass the white/black racial imaginary in the U.S. context. My analysis is sharpened by paying attention to the ways ethnoracial and linguistic identities come to be enacted, reproduced, and transformed in the context of mass mediatization of language and identity. Examining the construction of identity in a comparative manner of two groups who are represented varyingly in popular media and everyday discourse illuminates the profound erasures that happen when experiences of a particular group are homogenized. A theoretical lens on language adds to complexity of the analysis, as it is often a group boundary marker and through which differences are perceived. </p><p>

<p> The competition for resources between increasingly commodified pets (especially dogs) and human needs has often been qualitatively studied as an aspect of gentrification. This research is a quantitative, GIS-based case study that tests the hypothesis that there are spatially correlated effects on the urban environment where populations owning highly commodified pets cluster. The research began by identifying and mapping populations favorable for possessing commodified pets in the City of Chicago and continued with mapping the distributions of pet-centric and other specific businesses and amenities. The study examined the relationships between the spatial distributions of probable commodified pet owners, various businesses, and amenities. The results indicate commodified pet ownership does affect the urban landscape and may be indicative of a diversion of resources from established public facilities and amenities to those that are dependent on pet ownership. This is a serious issue to examine, especially in times of tighter municipal budgets for publicly funded facilities.</p>

<p> A qualitative methodology employing an auto-ethnography, face-to-face interviews, and an online survey investigates: 1) how American gondoliers experience, interact with, and fulfill romantic expectations of couples, 2) what couples experience when encountering gondola boats, gondoliers, and the landscape of Naples and Alamitos Bay, and 3) why gondola cruising is significant for the neighborhood of Naples, its adjacent communities, and the City of Long Beach. Results provide insight on the experience of romantic spaces, the relations, subjectivities, and dispositions of workers (gondoliers) and clientele (couples), issues of gender and ethnicity, the culture and performances of American gondoliers, and maritime landscapes as workplace. This study shows American gondola boats, gondoliers, and canals work together to socially construct, authenticate, and embody a romantic sense of place throughout the landscapes of Naples and Alamitos Bay, which benefits the tourism of Long Beach, California by attracting visitors wishing to experience romance in a special way.</p>

The Magic Kingdom at Disneyland is a performance of Public Culture deliberately designed to appeal to culturally diverse audiences despite its highly nationalistic symbolic content. The study explores the Disneyland experience from the participants' (employees and visitors) point of view. In-depth interviews with former employees and frequent visitors, supplemented by extensive questionnaires and essays from different target populations provide diverse readings, descriptions of the Disneyland stage and personal experiences. Despite such diversity, patterns of interpretation, participation and use can be clearly discerned. Experiences which visitors describe primarily as "fun" and "feeling like a child again" have far reaching effects on individual construction of self, life-style and social and historical location. The metaphor of childhood, the organization of the stage and the engineering of the experience, however, do place constraints on the visitors' autonomy in modes of appropriation and are instrumental in the education of perception of the United States and its citizens as "authentic" leaders in the context of on-going international restructuration and emergent refeudalization.

Amidst the socioeconomic and political constraints imposed from a dominant Euroamerican society, the Hopi, Native American farmers living in northeastern Arizona, continue to be resilient in maintaining an overall tradition of their foodways. A rise through time in diet-related disease testifies to the biological consequences of a changing diet encircled and catalyzed by social disruption. This change continues to be resisted and negotiated in prophesy and tradition. In this dissertation I present data documenting change in Hopi foodways from such varied sources as dietary surveys of Hopi women and children, food processing surveys of Hopi women, a survey of Hopi storage and agricultural practices, and historic documents. Underlying contradictions at the point where cultural action or inaction and biological change interact. The contradictions and subsequent actions or coping strategies needed to contextualize, explain, and confront these contradictions lie at the heart of a biocultural interface. I present two materialist models, one based in political-economy, the other in adaptation. These models outline conditions under which Hopi foodways have been transformed along with the subsequent consequences of such transformations. This approach seeks explanation and an objective view on a perceived problem related to diet and health. In order to contextualize the issues, I also offer mentalist views, which are embedded in ideology and originate from Hopi explanations of the same change as well as from my own subjective perspectives. The ideal expression of this endeavor is the linking of ideology with biology. This blend of materialist and mentalist paradigms, and the dialectic that emerges, are necessary steps towards an investigation of the biocultural interface. They also serve as a platform for engaging in discussions that can facilitate and confront change. In this dissertation I call for bioculturalism, the dynamic interplay of theory with praxis. This process is an integral part of a needed emerging synthesis in biological anthropology.