abstract: My dissertation topic engages in the trajectory of Roma/Gitano culture and flamenco and its implications for Chicanx culture in New Mexico. New Mexicans have the reputation amongst US Chicanx as referring to themselves as Hispanic and aligning culturally with a Spanish sensibility. Historically in the larger US Chicanx community this type of popularity for flamenco would be described as typical of New Mexico’s wavering Chicanidad that yearns to be connected to a Spanish colonial past more than to its indigenous Mexican roots. However, I believe the reality is a bit different. What makes New Mexican Chicanx different from the larger US Chicanx community is that they utilize flamenco and its Gitano roots as a cultural example of their Chicanidad. There is scant research on how Chicanidad as a historical movement has been influenced by the flamenco culture that exists in New Mexico. This dissertation will begin a conversation that places flamenco and the precarious identity of Chicanx, Gitanos and Nuevomejicanos in dialogue through the body, the art form, and the cultural stylings of flamenco rooted in the Flamenco Festival Internacional de Albuquerque (FFI). / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Theatre 2019

abstract: This research works from in an institutional ethnographic methodology. From this grounded approach, it describes the dialectic between the individual and the discourse of the institution. This work develops a complex picture of the multifarious ways in which institutional discourse has real effects on the working lives of graduate teaching associates (GTAs) and administrative staff and faculty in Arizona State University's Department of English. Beginning with the experiences of individuals as they described in their interviews, provided an opportunity to understand individual experiences connected by threads of institutional discourse. The line of argumentation that developed from this grounded institutional ethnographic approach proceeds thusly: 1) If ASU’s institutional discourse is understood as largely defined by ASU’s Charter as emphasizing access and academic excellence, then it is possible to 2) see how the Charter affects the departmental discourse in the Department of English. This is shown by 3) explaining the ways in which institutional discourse—in conjunction with disciplinary discourses—affects the flow of power for administrative faculty and manifests as, for example, the Writing Programs Mission and Goals. These manifestations then 4) shape the training in the department to enculturate GTAs and other Writing Programs teachers, which finally 5) affects how Writing Programs teachers structure their courses consequently affecting the undergraduate online learning experience. This line of argumentation illustrates how the flow of power in administrative faculty positions like the Department Chair and Writing Program Administrator are institution-specific, entangled with the values of the institution and the forms of institutional discourse including departmental training impact the teaching practices of GTAs. And, although individual work like that done by the WPA to maintain teacher autonomy and the GTAs to facilitate individual access in their online classrooms, the individual is ultimately lost in the larger institutional conversation of access. Finally, this research corroborates work by Sara Ahmed and Stephanie L. Kerschbaum who explain how institutions co-opt intersectional terms such as diversity and access, and that neoliberal institutions' use of these terms are disingenuous, improving not the quality of instruction or university infrastructure but rather the reputation and public appeal of the university. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

[pt] Esta dissertação é baseada no trabalho de campo realizado em uma ocupação indígena no bairro do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro. Rico local de trocas interétnicas, o Instituto Tamoio dos Povos Originários é uma legítima aldeia de índios urbanos, como os próprios moradores se definem. Pataxós, Fulni-ôs, Apurinãs e Guajajaras dividem este espaço, que já foi sede do antigo Museu do Índio fundado pelo indigenista Darcy Ribeiro. Lá, uma pajé, das etnias Fulni-ô e Cariri-Xocó, coordena uma casa de reza, freqüentada pelos mais diferentes grupos sociais da metrópole. Embora a casa de reza tenha uma filiação declaradamente indígena, suas atividades podem ser melhor descritas como mágicas, tema que permeia todo o texto da dissertação. / [en] This dissertation is based on the fieldwork performed at an indigenous squatter situated at Maracanã district, Rio de Janeiro. Full of interethnic exchanges, the Instituto Tamoio dos Povos Originários is a true urban-indigenous village, as the residents define themselves. Ethnic groups as Pataxós, Fulni-ôs, Apurinãs e Guajajaras share the edifice, that was first seat of the brazilian Indigenous Museum, founded by the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro. At the same space, a shaman woman, from Fulni-ô and Caririr-Xocó tribes coordinate an house of prayer, frequented by different urban groups. Though the house of prayer declares indigenous filiation, its activities can be better described as magical, subject that is broached in the entire text of the dissertation.

La prison fait l’objet d’un nombre croissant de publications biomédicales depuis les années 1980, en France, comme dans la plupart des pays occidentaux industrialisés, mettant l’accent sur les prévalences élevées de certaines affections chroniques parmi la population carcérale. Comment se fait-il que tant de personnes emprisonnées ont des « problèmes » de « santé » ? Cette thèse entreprend de répondre à cette question en appréhendant la santé non pas comme un état, mais comme une norme. À partir d’une enquête ethnographique associant observations de pratiques judiciaires, monographies des services médicaux d’établissements pénitentiaires, entretiens, statistiques et étude de corpus d’articles scientifiques, elle s’attache à montrer, pas-à-pas, selon une approche processuelle, comment la chaîne pénale produit des « malades » en confrontant les individus saisis par ses dispositifs à des normes de santé et à des savoirs médicaux. À la croisée d’une sociologie des institutions, d’une sociologie de la médecine et d’une sociologie de la connaissance, en étant à la fois attentive à des pratiques bureaucratiques, à la construction de décisions (pénales, gestionnaires et médicales), aux conditions concrètes de réalisation d’études biomédicales en maison d’arrêt et à leurs effets, à des rhétoriques judiciaires et scientifiques, aux activités professionnelles qui constituent le soin en prison et à l’appropriation socialement différenciée de ce travail par les détenus, l’enquête permet de comprendre comment le pouvoir médical se déploie, au présent, de façon discrète et diffuse, dans et par des institutions ne se donnant pas pour première mission de soigner. / In France, as in most Western countries, prison has been the subject of a growing number of biomedical publications since the 1980s that emphasize the high prevalence of certain chronic conditions among the prison population. Why do so many prisoners have “health” “problems”? This dissertation undertakes to answer this question by approaching health not as a state, but as a norm. At the intersection of the sociology of institutions, the sociology of medicine and the sociology of knowledge, it draws on an ethnographic study combining observations of judicial practices, monographs of prison medical services, interviews, statistics and analyses of scholarly articles. Through a processual approach, it shows how the penal system produces “ill persons” by confronting the individuals caught by its devices with health norms and medical knowledge. By attending to the bureaucratic practices, to the construction of (criminal, managerial and medical) decisions, to the concrete conditions under which biomedical studies are conducted in prison as well as their effects, to the judicial and scientific discourses, to care activities and to the appropriation of such care by prisoners according to their social background, the present investigation allows for an understanding of how medical power currently unfolds, in a discreet and diffuse fashion, in and by institutions that do not primarily mean to cure.

In recent years, the production and marketing of local food has become the fastest growing segment of the natural food industry and an important part of the sustainable agriculture movement. The heightened attention to local food systems has bolstered farmers markets attendance, Community Supported Agriculture memberships, and Farm to School programs. The movement has gained such popular salience that in 2007, "locavore" (defined as a person who seeks out locally grown foods) was Oxford American Dictionary's word of the year. Many scholars have also recognized that local food systems may provide positive economic effects (Swenson 2009) and have the potential to build community relationships (Kloppenburg 2000; Lyson 2004). This thesis is based on ethnographic research among local food producers in Iowa that was conducted between June of 2008 and August of 2011. Here I examine the daily practice of producing and marketing local food and consider the challenges producers face in their attempts to develop economically viable farms. Emphasis is placed on the relationships between small-scale direct market producers and their larger-scaled conventional neighbors, the implications for rural labor associated with alternative agriculture and small-scale processing, and the strategies producers use to meet the demands of diverse market outlets such as farmers markets or institutions. I argue that, while producers differentiate their farms from the conventional, industrial system, they are embedded within it. Local food producers must contend with the same land shortages and federal policies as conventional producers and in some cases they make use of the equipment and expertise of their conventional neighbors.

Homeless outreach programs vary widely in their approaches to client treatment. At the Grace Café, an organization that serves daily meals to people who are homeless, the concept of dignity is central to guest treatment. According to the café's ideology, the importance of providing food is secondary to serving with dignity. This research explores dignity as an ideal of client treatment at the Grace Café. Based on ethnographic research, this paper explores how dignity is communicated to volunteers, implemented in service, and challenged at the Grace Café.

I examined what brand new Ph.D.s in Communication experience when they start their first, entry-level, tenure-track assistant professor position at a new university. Through the lens of scocial construction, I review vocational and organizational socialization, individual agency by newcomers, academic socialization processes, and the concept of the academic career in the current climate of university change and transformation. Then, I present the method of research, including the population and sampling method, and rationales for utilizing a narrative approach, interactive interviewing, and autoethnographic writing. After presenting the participants' narratives, I revisit both within- and between-case issues, beginning with socialization from the "bottom-up" lived experiences of the new faculty. The universities socialized these new professors through individual socialization processes. To lessen their uncertainty in their new place of work, the faculty members utilized seven individualized tactics to lessen ambiguity. Collectively, the new assistant professors saw the organizationally provided orientations and mentoring processes as inadequate. The loss of graduate school cohort necessitates the development of a new cohort with peers for new faculty development, despite the modern isolationist definition of the academic "subject." The new communication faculty generally found teaching to be an activity of stabilization within the new equivocal university environment, despite the supposed unpreparedness of new faculty. I discuss the interrelated use of strategically ambiguous communication, power, and the disciplining of the self and how they relate to the tenure process. I examine how the discourses of academic capitalism impact the daily lives and decision-making of new faculty, including compromised research agendas and publication production. I interrogate the pursuit of prestige by higher educational institutions and the manner in which this pursuit adds additional pressure and stressors on new professors. Finally, I consider how the short-term narrative of "getting tenure" truncates the canonical narrative of the academic career, and legitimizes the outsider-within category of the new faculty members.

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to examine vernacular music making in higher education. The participants, undergraduate music education majors (N=23 for Fall, N=10 for Spring), were investigated throughout the course of the 2012-2013 academic year. A constructivist philosophical framework was applied and data were collected using several methodologies including participant observation, journals, interviews, and audiovisual and multimedia methods. Results showed that students were able to successfully learn, create, and share music in a vernacular manner. Participants took a pragmatic approach to making music. Furthermore, students engaged several aspects of music making they had not encountered in traditional music education. This study demonstrates how traditional and vernacular music cultures can be synthesized; the study also suggests that vernacular music cultures should be further examined and should be made part of the music education curriculum

This thesis focuses on various topics related to transgender identity and culture. Through a combination of ethnographic and secondary research, I studied transgender coming out narratives, trans media representation, transgender performance and identity, and conceptualizations of group and chosen family in a community of trans students, the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group. The three chapters of my thesis address some of the traditional milestones of a trans person’s acculturation: coming out, constructing one’s newly discovered trans identity, and finding community. Chapter 1 explores coming out as transgender, and the way in in which coming out is valued and discussed within trans communities. Chapter 2 discusses transgender representation, and how gender presentation is contested and complicated by transfolk. Chapter 2 also addresses trans media representation, and the way in which transfolk create their own media representation in the absence of adequate and accurate trans representation in popular culture. Chapter 3 provides an in-depth analysis of the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group, discusses how the group functions as a chosen family, and explores the way in which group membership helps group members mitigate stigma and deal with trauma.

The study is an informative presentation of both qualitative and quantitative values observable in Japan today. By utilizing two uniquely distinct fields of study, I hope to gain greater context of Japan’s economy and its contemporary challenges. With close focus on ethnographical studies, I hope to derive potential relationships and develop further context for quantitative results highlighted in previously published economic studies. Ethnography provides an intimate look into specific groups, culture or subcultures in Japan. With emphasis on close observations, interviews, and field notes, empirical studies like that of many ethnography papers provides an intimate scope into the lives of Japanese people. Detailed publications of Japanese people and their daily lives should be valued with equal relevance to that of quantitative results. Moreover, in response to the stagnancy and demographic challenges highlighted by policy makers and political parties, I believe the value of ethnographical publications will continue to grow. Japan struggled to develop effective policies to combat issues of falling birthrates, an aging population and shortages in labor.