Global ETD Search

1	A Colorful Past: Turquoise and Social Identity in the Late Prehispanic Western Pueblo Region, A.D. 1275–1400 Hedquist, Saul, Hedquist, Saul January 2017 (has links) Turquoise is synonymous with the U.S. Southwest, occurring naturally in relative abundance and culturally prized for millennia. As color and material, turquoise is fundamental to the worldviews of numerous indigenous groups of the region, with notable links to moisture, sky, and personal and familial vitality. For Pueblo groups in particular, turquoise and other blue-green minerals hold a prominent place in myth, ritual, aesthetics, and cosmology. They continue to be used as important offerings, deposited in shrines and decorating objects like prayer-sticks and adornments. Archaeological occurrences of turquoise in contexts such as caches, structural foundations, and burials demonstrate its important, perhaps ritually oriented role in prehispanic Pueblo practices. This research examines the myriad uses of turquoise and other blue-green minerals in the late prehispanic Western Pueblo region of the U.S. Southwest (northeastern Arizona and western New Mexico, A.D. 1275–1400). I assess the distribution and depositional patterning of turquoise to explore the role of social valuables in expressing similarities or differences among groups at various social scales. In recent decades, studies of material culture from late prehispanic contexts (most commonly ceramics) have broadened understandings of settlement-specific demographics, the direction and approximate size of distinct population movements, and the structure and transformation of social networks. Such studies have revealed complex and variable relationships between settlements, even those located within distinct settlement clusters. While building upon these insights, this study provides a different, yet comparable outlook by focusing on turquoise, its various uses in social or ritual settings, and its involvement in expressing social or ideological connections that may have differed from other material forms. The project employs a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating archaeology, geochemistry, and ethnography in an effort to address a central research question: How did the circulation and consumption of turquoise vary throughout the late prehispanic Western Pueblo region, and what are the implications for understanding interactions and identity expressions within and among aggregating settlements and settlement clusters? The ancient role of turquoise and other blue-green materials in social identification was explored through several angles, including: 1) spatiotemporal patterns in the stylistic characteristics of ornaments and painted media (e.g., shape and size of beads and pendants or designs on blue-green painted objects); 2) the context and content of archaeological deposits with turquoise (i.e., uses beyond personal and ceremonial adornment, such as ritual offerings); and 3) regional patterns of mineral acquisition and exchange using measurements of heavy stable isotopes. Interviews with Hopi and Zuni consultants—jewelers, artists, and cultural experts—augmented the study by incorporating the participation and perspectives of descendent communities. Taken together, patterns of use and acquisition provide novel means of assessing social or ideological connections between late prehispanic Pueblo communities, and help to clarify the complex and multifaceted ways past Pueblo groups materially expressed their social identities. Woven with contemporary Pueblo sentiments, these data provide indisputable evidence of a colorful and spiritual past. Archaeology Turquoise U.S. Southwest
2	Inconspicuous Identity: Using Corrugated Pottery to Explore Social Identity within the Homol'ovi Settlement Cluster, A.D. 1260-1400 Barker, Claire, Barker, Claire January 2017 (has links) This research explores the relationship between social identity, artifact style, and communities of practice in the late prehispanic U.S. Southwest, focusing on how domestic, utilitarian objects and contexts both shape and reflect social identities. During the A.D. 1200s and 1300s, large-scale migration and aggregation occurred over much of the U.S. Southwest, bringing diverse individual and community identities into contact and, potentially, conflict. Within this social context, this research focused on clarifying the relationship between social identities and utilitarian objects and domestic contexts, and how this relationship can elucidate the social history of a community. These issues were explored through analysis of corrugated utilitarian pottery from the sites of the Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster (HSC), a community of seven villages in northeastern Arizona occupied from around 1260 through 1400. The social organization of corrugated pottery production in the HSC was approached from several angles. To identify the number and nature of the ceramic manufacturing communities present during the Pueblo IV occupation of the Homol’ovi area, sherds were submitted for instrumental neutron activation analysis and petrographic analysis. The results of the compositional analyses indicate that ceramic production groups in the Homol’ovi area were not primarily distinguished by access to specific raw material resources. What differentiation there is within the raw materials used by Homol’ovi potters appears to have been determined primarily by village, with the residents of a few villages preferring to use specific clay or temper sources. Both locally produced pottery and ceramics imported into the Homol’ovi area were incorporated into a typological and stylistic analysis. This analysis found evidence of two different production styles in the corrugated pottery assemblage. One appears stylistically similar to pottery produced in areas to the north around the Hopi Mesas; the other appears to be more akin to stylistic traditions practiced in the Puerco area and in the Chevelon drainage. This diversity suggests the presence of multiple immigrant communities co-residing within the HSC. This social diversity is not reflected in the decorated ceramic tradition of the HSC, which largely conforms to the ceramic traditions of the Hopi Mesas. Interrogating the disjuncture in the identities embodied through different categories of material culture, used in different social contexts, provides a framework through which to explore the complex social relationships that characterized Pueblo IV villages formed as individuals and communities negotiated the competing forces of integration and differentiation. This study demonstrates the value of approaching identity from multiple scales. If identity is understood as fundamentally multi-faceted and multi-scalar, even seemingly homogeneous cultural units are characterized by social diversity and the tension that accompanies such diversity. The patterns of production visible in utilitarian corrugated pottery provide a nuanced method of clarifying the complex identities of Ancestral Puebloan communities and assessing social connections and differences between groups. Ceramics Communities of practice Corrugated pottery Identity Migration U.S. Southwest
3	Human Vulnerability to Climatic Dry Periods in the Prehistoric U.S. Southwest January 2010 (has links) abstract: This study investigates the vulnerability of subsistence agriculturalists to food shortfalls associated with dry periods. I approach this effort by evaluating prominent and often implicit conceptual models of vulnerability to dry periods used by archaeologists and other scholars investigating past human adaptations in dry climates. The conceptual models I evaluate rely on an assumption of regional-scale resource marginality and emphasize the contribution of demographic conditions (settlement population levels and watershed population density) and environmental conditions (settlement proximity to perennial rivers and annual precipitation levels) to vulnerability to dry periods. I evaluate the models and the spatial scales they might apply by identifying the extent to which these conditions influenced the relationship between dry-period severity and residential abandonment in central Arizona from A.D. 1200 to 1450. I use this long-term relationship as an indicator of potential vulnerability to dry periods. I use tree-ring precipitation and streamflow reconstructions to identify dry periods. Critically examining the relationship between precipitation conditions and residential abandonment potentially sparked by the risk of food shortfalls due to demographic and environmental conditions is a necessary step toward advancing understanding of the influences of changing climate conditions on human behavior. Results of this study support conceptual models that emphasize the contribution of high watershed population density and watershed-scale population-resource imbalances to relatively high vulnerability to dry periods. Models that emphasize the contribution of: (1) settlement population levels, (2) settlement locations distant from perennial rivers, (3) settlement locations in areas of low average annual precipitation; and (4) settlement-scale population-resource imbalances to relatively high vulnerability to dry periods are, however, not supported. Results also suggest that people living in watersheds with the greatest access to and availability of water were the most vulnerable to dry periods, or at least most likely to move when confronted with dry conditions. Thus, commonly held assumptions of differences in vulnerability due to settlement population levels and inherently water poor conditions are not supported. The assumption of regional-scale resource marginality and widespread vulnerability to dry periods in this region of the U.S. Southwest is also not consistently supported throughout the study area. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2010 Archaeology Climate Change Cultural Anthropology drought food shortfalls resource marginality subsistence agriculture U.S. Southwest vulnerability
4	A QUEST FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SOVEREIGNTY : Chicana/o Literary Experiences of Water (Mis)Management and Environmental Degradation in the US Southwest Perez-Ramos, María Isabel January 2017 (has links) The U.S. Southwest is a semi-arid region affected by numerous environmental problems. Chicana/o communities have been directly affected by such problems, especially ever since the region was annexed from Mexico by the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. From this moment onwards they lost their environmental sovereignty, mostly through their dispossession of the natural resources. This environmental humanities dissertation focuses on the ethics, politics, and practices around water (management), for water is a key natural resource and a central element of Chicana/o cultural identity. It explores the ways in which Chicana/o culture is interconnected with environmental practices and sites in subaltern literary works about the Chicana/o experience. It investigates how the hegemonic Anglo-American environmental, political, and economic practices have challenged and undermined Chicana/o culture, identity, and wellbeing, and how this has been addressed in fiction; and it questions whether establishing such a connection adds any useful insights to the larger discussion on the global socio-environmental crisis. This dissertation also analyzes the writer activist character of the subaltern narratives of the corpus, with attention to the relevance of rhetoric in subverting and constructing environmental discourses and ethics. By examining regional and border narratives, as well as fiction and non-fiction narratives about the socio-environmental struggles of other ethnic minorities in the Southwest and in other parts of the world, this dissertation puts literature about the Chicana/o experience in a regional, national, and transnational context. It moreover explores the pivotal role of literature in reclaiming environmental sovereignty, in asserting cultural identities, and in countering the environmental crisis by imagining alternative managerial practices and socio-environmental relations, as much as in challenging cultural hegemonies. / <p>QC 20170508</p> Environmental humanities ecocriticism environmental history comparative literature U.S. Southwest Chicana/o subaltern literature environmental justice water political ecology postcoloniality decoloniality. Miljöhumaniora ekokritik miljöhistoria litteraturhistoria sydvästra USA Chicana/o subaltern litteratur miljörättvisa vatten politisk ekologi postkolonialitet dekolonialitet. History of Technology Teknikhistoria
5	Historie nerovných příležitostí v USA: Segregace hispánských dětí ve školách / Historie nerovných příležitostí v USA: Segregace hispánských dětí ve školách Veselková, Eva January 2015 (has links) A History of Unequal Opportunity in the U.S. Segregation of Latino School Children Half a century has passed since the U.S. Supreme Court famously stated that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. After all this time, separate facilities are still the reality and they are still unequal. This thesis examines the educational experience of Latino children in the United States from the twentieth century up to the present, with the main focus on the area of the American Southwest. The history of Latino school segregation is examined from the legal perspective, focusing on the significant court cases in which Latinos fought against segregation and for equal educational opportunities. A special attention is paid to Mendez v. Westminster federal court case, which has ended de jure segregation of Latinos after the World War II. While the topic of school segregation in relation to Latinos is often overlooked by professional literature and little known to the public, it is very important as Latinos represent one fourth of all public school children in the United States today. This paper concludes that, because of school segregation, the educational history of Latinos in the United States is one of unequal opportunity. Moreover, the educational opportunities of Latino children remain...
6	Through the Eyes of Shamans: Childhood and the Construction of Identity in Rosario Castellanos' "Balun-Canan" and Rudolfo Anaya's "Bless Me, Ultima" Nava, Tomas Hidalgo 09 July 2004 (has links) (PDF) This study offers a comparative analysis of Rosario Castellanos' Balún-Canán and Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima, novels that provide examples on how children construct their identity in hybrid communities in southeastern Mexico and the U.S. southwest. The protagonists grow and develop in a context where they need to build bridges between their European and Amerindian roots in the middle of external influences that complicate the construction of a new mestizo consciousness. In order to attain that consciousness and free themselves from their divided selves, these children receive the aid of an indigenous mentor who teaches them how to establish a dialogue with their past, nature, and their social reality. The protagonists undertake that negotiation by transgressing the rituals of a society immersed in colonial dual thinking. They also create mechanisms to re-interpret their past and tradition in order to create an image of themselves that is not imposed by the status quo. In both novels, the protagonists have to undergo similar processes to overcome their identity crises, including transculturation, the creation of sites of memory, and a transition from orality to writing. Each of them resorts to creative writing and becomes a sort of shaman who pulls together the "spirits" from the past, selects them, and organizes them in a narration of childhood that is undertaken from adulthood. The results of this enterprise are completely different in the cases of both protagonists because the historical and social contexts vary. The boy in Bless Me, Ultima can harmoniously gather the elements to construct his identity, while the girl in Balún-Canán fails because of the pressures of a male-centered and highly racist society. Rosario Castellanos Rudolfo Anaya Balún-Canán Bless Me Ultima Shamans Tomás Hidalgo Nava construction of identity Chiapas Mexico New Mexico Ladino mestizo Chicano Mexican American childhood Octavio Paz José Vasconcelos Gloria Anzaldúa René Girard Edouard Glissant Pierre Nora lieux de mémoire milieux de mémoire hybrid hybridity transculturation Fernando Ortiz Angel Rama syncretism written narration shamanism of letters Homi K. Bhabha colonial discourse mestizo consciousness sexism colonialism Tzeltal indigenista orality mestizaje transgression of rituals Paulo Freire Mexican literature Chicano literature Mexican-American literature transculturation and nature Virgin of Guadalupe curandera Amerindian roots racism Spanish conquest acculturation assimilation project of modernization imposed views Antonio Ladino girl Comitán racist society colonial dual thinking identity crisis creative writing sites of memory U.S. southwest Classics Comparative Literature

1

Page generated in 0.0302 seconds