Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (or ‘queer’) youth are increasingly the objects of intense concern for ‘the state’, subjects of – and subject to – a panoply of interventional programs designed to mediate against queer youths’ ‘risk-taking’ behaviors. While the material and structural realities of queer youth’s lives are discursively absent in policy formation, they largely determine policy implementation and significantly shape policy reception, as there is an uneven distribution of state-based queer youth programming in Massachusetts. In the Commonwealth it is primarily rural and working-class community-based organizations that receive most of the interventional programs, and thus it is working-class and rural queer youth who remain the primary – yet unarticulated - targets of state intervention. This research project is designed as an ethnographic intervention into the discursive absence - yet implicit operationalization - of class and geography in queer youth policy discussions and programming, exploring how working-class rural queer youth experience both their lives writ large as well as the programs designed to ‘help’ them navigate their way to a ‘healthy’ adulthood. Incorporating principles of Participatory Action Research, the research methodology actively involved queer youth who were members of either a community-based queer youth organization or an education-based Gay Straight Alliance at a local high school, as well as a group of youth conceptualized as ‘policy refusers’ who attended neither organization. As class and geography can significantly shape the kind of engagement and messages that queer youth receive in policy and intervention programs, it may also determine the extent to which they participate in these programs. In exploring queer youths’ experiences with – or resistance to - such programs in a working-class and rural context, the project offers possibilities for understanding queer youth’s subjective realities as well the ways in which policies and programs often fail in attempting to reach such members of this ‘hidden population’. This collaborative project offers grounded insight into how queer youth coming-of-age in the economic and geographic margins of Massachusetts navigate their way to adulthood through, around, or in spite of the state’s programs of support and surveillance.

This dissertation examines the mortality experiences of two emerging industrial cities, Northampton and Holyoke, in the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts, during the period from 1850 through 1910, and the processes that delayed the transition to lower mortality levels in New England. This was a period in which these two towns, and many others in New England, grew rapidly due to early industrialization and urbanization. Death rates rose after the middle of the nineteenth century and stabilized at high levels, only falling again after the turn of the twentieth century. This work is an anthropological enquiry into why life seems to have been more precarious in the emergent cities of New England as mortality was declining throughout western Europe. Some characteristics of these towns, for example, changing occupational, ethnic and age composition, can be ascertained from decennial census data. However, in order to analyze the relationship of mortality to changing population characteristics I use linked individual-level census and death records from 1850 to 1912 to analyze mortality across panels defined by the timing of decennial censuses. I also look at how individuals might have attempted to mitigate the risks of mortality through strategies of household formation and household economies. The use of individual-level linked census-death data in these communities supports detailed analyses of the changing risks of mortality over the emergence and eventual maturation of these industrializing urban centers. I find that the mortality experiences of Holyoke and Northampton were shaped by the processes that formed these unique communities: a large population of young adults, influxes of poorly-paid immigrant labor, densely crowded living and working conditions, and delays in adequate infrastructure, particularly clean water and sanitary sewerage. During the period mortality rose and the most vulnerable groups experienced the worst life chances. Over time, the communities matured. The population aged, growth slowed, outlying areas became accessible to industrial workers through a regional trolley system, and public works were better able to keep pace with population. Death from infectious and parasitic disease became less frequent, and death from chronic or degenerative disease more prevalent.

Constructing family history integrates the discourses between an individual, family members and the historical record. When facts are missing, there are other paths to create the family story. The reconstruction of family history through autoethnography is an alternative way to facilitate forms of identity and create a deeper connection to the events of another time. In this thesis, I hope to show the genealogy of meanings and values producing forms of socio-political identity of the Salsedo family members in the present moment. How can one resolve the challenges of a belief system when the controversial socio-political family narrative is contradicted and incomplete? This study investigated how autoethnography applied through digital multimedia can be utilized to reconstruct a family history. The case study of Andrea Salsedo was conducted, whose untimely death on May 2, 1920 at the age of 38 was related to and preceded the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti. For this study, qualitative research methods were used. This included: archival research, interviews and autoethnography as informed by Ellis and Bochner (2000) and Reed-Danahay (1997). A digital interactive DVD was produced as a component of this research project. Keywords: Autoethnography, Family History, Autobiography, Cultural Identity, Anarchy, Andrea Salsedo, Sacco and Vanzetti, Digital Multimedia, Hypermedia, Interactive DVD Rom

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It has been suggested in the literature that Synaesthesia, as an expression of syncretic thought, would be more common in non-Western than in Western cultures. Given the lack of availability of widely divergent cultural groups and the general lack of knowledge about the phenomenon, it was decided to study the possibility that synaesthesia in our society might be related to socio-economic class. A group of high school students from a broad range of socio-economic backgrounds was studied, and the results suggest that the occurrence of synaesthesia is not related to class. In addition, it was found that 50% of the sample tested were synaesthetic to some degree, an incidence higher than any reported previously for adults. The various types of synaesthesia are discussed in conjunction with a hypothetical neurophysiological basis for the phenomenon. It was found that about 60% of the synaesthetic subjects showed evidence of incomplete cerebral dominance. However' no definite conclusions as to the causes of synaesthesia in adults could be determined from the observations made, and the questions raised by this study offer suggestions for future research into the problem.