Thesis (M.A.)--Taiwan da xue. / Reproduced from ms. copy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-72).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Classical Languages and Literatures, June 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (D. Miss.)--Western Seminary, Portland, OR, 2001. / Abstract. Includes author's "Manual of biblical and cultural interpretation." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 286-294).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Anthropology, August 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

This thesis is about the traditional beliefs and the process of Islamization among the Zaghawa. It examines Islam as understood and practised by the Zaghawa society rather than the "universal model" of Islam or Islam as it is supposed to be. Chapter one is concerned with the 'basic' cosmology, system of belief and objects of sanctity among the Zaghawa. The Zaghawa gave the names of their ha mandas (sacred mountains) to their territorial divisions and their newly appointed chiefs in the past slaughtered a pregnant camel on top of their clans' ha mandas in order to legitimise their leadership and power. Chapter two explains how the harsh environmental conditions of Dar Zaghawa and the lack of security in the past caused many uncertainties and led the Zaghawa to consult various divinatory techniques to arrive at the hidden knowledge and the hazards that might lie ahead. The various divinatory techniques practised by the Zaghawa are also examined in detail in this chapter in addition to various forms of afflictions caused by supernatural powers and their traditional healing devices. Chapter three is devoted-to the introduction of Islam into the Zaghawa society. It shows how the point at which Islam met the Zaghawa at first was such that it appeared less alien to them, a fact which made it easy for them to accept the new religion. This chapter furthermore examines the impact of Islam upon cosmology, system of belief, objects of sanctity, divination, affliction and healing. It also explains why Islamization brought about the sex division of religion and how the concept of religious purity and pollution introduced by Islam has been interpreted by the fakis to justify the discrimination against the mai . Chapter four describes the Islamic ritual practices, notably the five pillars of Islam and the ritual practices related to the life cycle, agricultural activities, purification and reconciliation on the occasion of adultery and manslaughter. The main purpose of this chapter is to discern how these general Islamic rituals have been influenced by the particular setting of the Zaghawa environment. Chapter five discusses and evaluates the effect of formal education, the establishment of the new Sudanese state and formal peace keeping institutions, the improvement of communications and medical services and the deterioration of environmental conditions in Dar Zaghawa in facilitating religious change. The chapter goes on to explain how the socioeconomic crises and political upheavals in Dar Zaghawa in the sixties on the one hand and the complicity of the national political parties with the Zaghawa chiefs on the other anguished the commoners and led many of them to join the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaa Ansar al--Sunna al--Mohamediva and demand the return to the pristine Islam and the application of the Islamic shari'a law. It furthermore explains why the religious reformers, though they succeeded in persuading the Zaghawa to accept the religious changes in some aspects of their lives, failed to do so in many other aspects, notably the gender relations and the discrimination against the mai. The concluding chapter critically assesss and evaluates the existing literature on conversion to Islam in Africa. The syncretism and the marginalization models, though important, do not go far enough to explain why the Zaghawa continued to perform their pre--Islamic rituals even when their belief changed. It suggests Fernandez's model, which differentiates between the social consensus and cultural consensus, as particularly useful for deeper analyses of the impact of Islam upon the Zaghawa society.

The focus of this dissertation is the Sakha language (Sakha tyla) and ways of speaking in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District. Following Hanks’ (1996) approach to communicative practice that unites ideology, activity and formal structure, I explore the maintenance of Sakha ways of speaking among Sakha-Russian bilinguals. The past Tsarist and Soviet regimes are analysed according to how their language policies and plans have shaped the current Sakha communicative practices in urban and rural locales. Through the analysis of discourse surrounding language ideologies and the examination of how language ideologies are reflected in, or challenged by daily communicative practices, I show how both ideologies and practices have been reinforced or transformed due to the shifting socio-political situation of the past two post-Soviet decades. Bilingual speakers also move toward, or away from, different languages, following language trajectories. Factors such as social groups, educational history and migration patterns all shape language socialization over a speaker’s lifetime, illustrating how the development of a linguistic repertoire is a dynamic process. Examining patterns of mobility among Sakha-Russian speakers, I trace how Sakha communicative practices are relocalized within urban and rural spaces; speakers’ movement between these spaces affects both the practices and shifting indexical fields attached to linguistic features. Through investigating Sakha-Russian code-switching and code-mixing, I concentrate on how speakers ‘move’ within and between languages and discuss what communicative choices may index for different interlocutors. When examining both speakers’ connections between village and city as well as the movement between Sakha and Russian ways of speaking, boundaries are blurred. Examining how ways of speaking Sakha might be conceived of as existing along a spectrum, the divisions between languages are challenged. The first chapter of this thesis provides an introduction to the Sakha language, its speakers, and the Sakha Republic, as well as an overview of the central research questions and the theory in which this work is grounded. Chapter Two presents further information on the fieldsites, while also introducing the research approach and the types of data gathered and examining the researcher’s position and ethical considerations. Chapter Three is focuses on the history of Sakha language policy and planning, and how it has shaped current communicative norms and language ideologies in urban and rural environments. Chapter Four is concerned with the changes in language policy and planning in the Republic of Sakha in the post-Soviet era (from the early 1990s until the time of research in 2010-2011). The effect of shifts in both of population and politics on both language policies and practices are described. Language ideologies that gained purchase in the post-Soviet era are described, along with the implications of these ideologies for language practices. Chapter Five presents an approach to understanding mobility and movement and its relationship to Sakha communicative practices, examining how relationships based on zemliachestvo (the sense of being compatriots, people of one land) support village people in the city while also playing a crucial role in maintaining Sakha language practices. New spaces and fields for Sakha communicative practices are also mentioned, in particular mobile telephony and the internet. In Chapter Six, issues of Sakha language acquisition and socialization are discussed, as speakers move toward or away from the Sakha language throughout their lifetimes. Factors, in particular interpersonal relationships, are described in terms of how they shape language socialization; both ideological and infrastructural factors connected to language acquisition are investigated in order to ascertain the difficulties new learners of the Sakha language might face. Chapter Seven is an in-depth look at Sakha-Russian language contact and the code-mixing and code-switching practices that occur among bilinguals, focusing on what mixing language ‘features’ can index for village-identifying and city-identifying speakers. Finally, Chapter Eight concludes the dissertation by revisiting its main themes, as well as identifying gaps that arose during this research in order to identify areas for further exploration.

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This thesis analyses the social relationships of a group of northern Hai||om, who also call themselves Akhoe, in the Oshikoto region of Namibia. The Hai||om are a Khoisan-speaking group, labelled "Bushmen" or "San" by outsiders, who were dispossessed of their land during the colonial period. Today most Hai||om combine hunting, gathering, agriculture, handicrafts, wage labour, and cattle-keeping in a mixed economy. The Hai||om changing economy has elements of an immediate-retum strategy aimed at gaining access to the delayed-return economies of neighbouring groups, particularly Owambo-speaking agropastoralists, and farmers of European origin. Based on long-term participant observation with the Hai||om, this thesis shows the flexibility and versatility of Hai||om social organization and its institutions. Particular reference is made to the ways in which social categories are established on the basis of material transactions (sharing, gift-giving, bartering and commercial exchange), and are grounded in shared classifications of land and its resources. The thesis documents and analyses how Hai||om construct and maintain social relations, including relations with outsiders, in everyday social interaction. Patterns of Hai||om social practice involving these social relations emerge in language pragmatics, in the usage of space, and in ritual activities. The thesis also includes an analysis of representations of ethnic identity and economic difference in Hai||om folklore. The investigation shows that Hai||om social relationships and social values continue to shape the diversity and overall flexibility that characterize Hai||om life today. Although Hai||om have little power to influence the conditions imposed on them by national and international contexts, Hai||om social strategies across changing conditions can be explained on the basis of a set of instituted social practices centred around open accessibility and informal common ground.

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