<p> This dissertation challenges the traditional histories of rhetoric in early America by examining how Scottish Enlightenment rhetoric affected those outside of the white, male-dominated social hierarchy of the early eighteenth century through an examination of works by white women, Native Americans, and African Americans that confluence around national calls for Native American removal and African colonization. Scholars have shown the influence of Scottish Enlightenment rhetoric on the early Republic, specifically the rhetoric of George Campbell and Hugh Blair, and historians have shown the relationships between abolitionists, Native Americans, and African Americans during the nineteenth century. However, these scholars have not shown how writers deployed Scottish Enlightenment rhetoric in these debates. By examining writings by Lydia Maria Child and Catharine Maria Sedgwick, I show how both women incorporated the ideas of sympathy in their works about Native Americans and African Americans. I also explore how activists such as William Apess, David Walker, and Hosea Easton all implemented Campbell's rhetorical ideas into their arguments and discuss how their rhetorical practices can be seen in relationship to one another. Drawing on Blair's thoughts on taste, I explore how newspaper editors John Russwurm and Elias Boudinot viewed taste and how they presented their views to their African American and Cherokee readers respectively. Looking forward, I conclude with a brief examination of the poet Albery Allson Whitman who wrote epic poems centered on the confluence of Native American and African American experiences. Overall, this dissertation works to show how those outside of the social hierarchy wielded rhetorical principles taught in the hallowed halls of the university, and it also explores the understudied links between activists who fought for Native American and African American rights during the early nineteenth century.</p>

<p> Individual burials are always representative of both individuals and collective actors. The physical remains, material culture, and represented practices in burials can be used in concert to study identities and social personas amongst individual and collective actors. These identities and social personas are the result of the interaction between agency and structure, where both individuals and groups act to change and reproduce social structures. </p><p> The three burials upon which this study is based are currently held in the collections of the Milwaukee Public Museum. They are all indigenous burials created in Wisconsin in the 19^th century. Biological sex, stature, age, and pathologies were identified from skeletal analysis and the material culture of each burial was analyzed using a Use/Origin model to attempt to understand how these individuals negotiated and constructed identities within a colonial system.</p>

<p> Alaska Native populations have undergone relatively rapid changes in nearly every aspect of life over the past half century. Overall lifestyles have shifted from subsistence-based to wage-based, from traditional to Western, and from self-sustainability to reliance on Outside sources. My research investigates the effects of these changes on health and well-being. The literature appears to lack concern for and documentation of Native peoples' perceptions of the changes in food systems and effects on their communities. Additionally, there is a lack of studies specific to Alaska Native individual perceptions of health and well-being. Therefore, my research aims to help identify social patterns regarding changes in the food that individuals and communities eat and possible effects the changes have on all aspects of health; it aims to help document how Alaska Native individuals and communities are adaptive and resilient; and it aims to honor, acknowledge, and highlight the personal perspectives and lived experiences of respondents and their views regarding food, health, and community well-being. </p><p> I conducted interviews with 20 Alaska Native participants in an effort to document their perspectives regarding these changes. Many themes emerged from the data related to subsistence, dependency, and adaptation. Alaska Natives have witnessed what Western researchers call a "nutritional transition." However, Alaska Native participants in my research describe this transition as akin to cultural genocide. Cut off from traditional hunting and fishing (both geographically and economically), Alaska Natives recognize the damage to individual and community health. Studies attribute rising rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and mental illness to the loss of culture attached to subsistence lifestyles and subsistence foods themselves. Alaska Natives report a decrease in cultural knowledge and traditional hunting skills being passed to the younger generations. Concern for the future of upcoming generations is a reoccurring theme, especially in regard to dependence on market foods. When asked what changes should be made, nearly all respondents emphasized education as the key to cultural sustainability and self-sufficiency. The changes sought include means and access to hunting and fishing. This is seen as the remedy for dependence on Outside resources. From a traditional Alaska Native perspective, food security cannot be satisfied with Western industrial products. </p><p> When considering Arctic community health and cultural sustainability, food security must be considered in both Western and Indigenous Ways. Control over local availability, accessibility, quality, and cultural appropriateness is imperative to Native well-being. Many participants point to differences in Western and Native definitions of what is acceptable nourishment. Imported processed products simply cannot fully meet the needs of Native people. Reasons cited for this claim include risky reliance on a corporate food system designed for profit with its inherent lack of culturally-appropriate, nutrient-dense, locally controlled options. Respondents are concerned that junk food offers dependable, affordable, available, and accessible calories, whereas traditional foods often are not as reliably accessible. Based on these findings, I named the concept of "nutritional colonialism." </p><p> Respondents expressed a desire to return to sustainable and self-sufficient subsistence diets with their cultural, emotional, social, spiritual, and physical benefits. Although they expressed concern regarding climate change and environmental pollutants, this did not diminish the significance of traditional foods for respondents.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-06, Section: A, page: 2622. Advisers: Frederick Hoxie; Kathryn Oberdeck. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 275-293) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Calgary (Canada), 2006. / (UnM)AAINR13611. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-04, Section: A, page: 1193.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 1696. Adviser: Antonia Darder. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 191-210) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-09, Section: B, page: 5322. Adviser: Holly P. Kennedy.

abstract: During the 1850s, Indian policy objectives pursued by the civil and military branches of government in New Mexico would have a lasting impact on future relations between the two cultures. Many later policies originated in this antebellum period, but often receive only a summary analysis by scholars who focus on the more popular post-Civil War period. Debates over proper policies and enforcement would proliferate in the 1850s as military and civil officials vied with one another over their own perceived authority. Many officials pursued viable policies, but did not remain in office long enough to ensure their implementation. Additionally, personal egos and stubbornness often undermined interagency cooperation. An overall cultural misunderstanding regarding Apache tribal structure and the inability to distinguish between subgroups exacerbated the conflict. Anti-Indian sentiments prevailed in the military, which often contradicted the more humanitarian approach advocated by the Indian Department. As a result, a contention for power and prestige emerged on three separate fronts: civil government leaders, military leaders, and within the Apache tribe. This thesis offers a contextualization of events that transpired during the 1870s and 1880s by demonstrating how these three entities contended amongst each other for power, undermining policy objectives in the antebellum era. Americans sought to conquer and control--to exert authority and power--over all components of the western landscape in order that they might realize its full economic potential. The Apaches formed a part of this landscape much the same as lofty mountain ranges, raging rivers, and parched deserts. All of these required conquering before that nineteenth century American dream could be fully imbued in the Southwest, and over the several decades following Kearny's arrival countless individuals streamed westward in torrents intent on accomplishing just that. The Apaches, like all western tribes, thus fell into an unstoppable cycle of conquest driven by an insatiable Anglo-American obsession with exerting control. Just as swarthy lawyers challenged claims to gain legal dominion over western tracts of land; just as engineers constructed dams and sought ways to manipulate streams and rivers; just as the plow tilled millions of acres of raw lands; just as the miner's pick slowly chipped away at formidable peaks; so too did the United States Army subdue the Apaches, all of these being a means towards a common end for the American West. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. History 2011

abstract: This study identifies the flora of the Eagletail Mountain Region, an area covering approximately 100,600 acres, located in west-central Arizona that includes the Eagletail Mountains, Granite Mountains, portions of the Harquahala Valley, and Cemetery Ridge near Clanton Well. The region is located about 129 km (80 mi) west of Phoenix and 24 km (15 mi) south of Interstate 10. Plants were collected over a six-year period, beginning September, 2004 and ending May, 2010, including two wet winters and two wet summers. A total of 702 collections were made covering 292 species that represented 63 families. Additional information on the region included in the thesis are: 1) an analysis of the climate, based on 20 years of rainfall records; 2) a description of the geology and its influence on plant distribution; 3) a prehistory and history identifying archeological sites; 4) an analysis of food plants used by the Native Americans that suggests how they were able to live in the region; 5)a paleo-botanical history based on an evaluation of pack-rat midden collections from mountain ranges around the region; 6) a comparison of the trees, shrubs, and perennials of the Eagletail Mountain Region with those of the Sierra Estrella and Kofa Mountains; and 7) a survey of non-native species. The habitats that the plants occupied based on climate and soils included were: 1) the bottoms and sides of sandy/ gravelly washes, 2) bajada slopes-volcanic soils, 3) bajada slopes-granitic sandy soils, 4) slot canyons/rock outcrops, 5) desert pavement, and 6) open valleys. Each habitat has its own characteristic species composition and distribution. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Biology 2012

<p> This dissertation examines the recognition of Indigenous territorial rights amidst the development of small hydropower in the Puelwillimapu Territory, which traditionally spans the R&iacute;os and Lagos regions of southern Chile. Around the world, small hydropower (internationally defined as generating between 1&ndash;10 megawatts, in Chile defined as generating 20 megawatts or less) is embraced as a more sustainable alternative to large reservoir hydropower in the transition to renewable energy. However, growing scholarship recognizes that small hydropower can create significant social and ecological impacts. This ethnographic and institutional research collaboratively examines small hydropower impacts in the Puelwillimapu, providing a process-oriented analysis of how Indigenous rights are recognized, and small hydropower is developed. A collaborative research approach with the Alianza Territorial Puelwillimapu, a Mapuche-Williche ancestral alliance, examines rights, conflicts, and small hydropower impacts. Research traces how small hydropower affects Puelwillimapu physical and spiritual territory. This approach emphasizes how to blend participatory mapmaking among other methods with <i>Trawun</i>, a traditional form of meeting of the Mapuche Pueblo. Ultimately, analysis centers on encounters between the two clashing logics in small hydropower conflicts: Chilean institutions and Mapuche-Williche cosmovision. </p><p> As the five case studies analyzed here demonstrate, regulating small hydropower by megawatt is inadequate for preventing the repercussions experienced in Mapuche territory. Small hydropower&rsquo;s careless boom also signals that, paradoxically, small hydropower has too much regulation to be easily developed, but not enough to safeguard Indigenous rights or environmental protection. The regulatory design of the Environmental Impact Assessment process is incapable of upholding ILO Convention 169 standards, an international treaty for Indigenous rights ratified by Chile in 2008. </p><p> Contrary to the official tendency to explain environmental management as a technical process, this dissertation explains recurring politics involved in small hydropower development and conflict. In scoping for the Environmental Assessment process, private consultancy companies enact a divisive <i> politics of recognition</i>, which furthers a historical pattern of territorial fragmentation in Mapuche territory. Second, a <i>politics of knowledge </i> is evident in how knowledge is recognized and produced in the Environmental Assessment process. Private consultancy groups are granted an interpretive role in the assessment process, underestimating environmental impacts while creating enduring social divisions in Mapuche-Williche communities. Inaccurate and limited scientific data is privileged over ancestral knowledge that suggests small hydropower exacerbates climate vulnerabilities such as seasonal drought. In response, the Alianza Territorial Puelwillimapu articulates a <i> politics of scale</i> through combining territorial mobilization and formal administrative and legal action. They seek justice in Chilean institutions in part by demanding that they be consulted at the scale of territory. As attempts for conflict resolution and dialogue continue to fall short of protecting territorial rights, the international realm becomes a more viable alternative for rights recognition. Broadly, this work contributes to geographic questions involving critical cartography, collaborative methodologies, water governance, and the transition to renewable energy. It aims to inform international scholarship on small hydropower regulation and impacts, and Indigenous rights recognition. </p><p>