Founded in London in 1844, the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) has spread across the world, becoming integrated into state programmes of social reform and driving a development discourse that links socially productive youth into economic moralities of transformation. I trace the circulation of these ideas through a multi-sited, cross-cultural ethnographic study of Young Men's Christian Associatin (YMCA) centres in the UK and The Gambia, focussing on YMCA programmes that operate transnationally, implementing global youth-oriented policy in local centres linked by bilateral partnerships. I follow these transnational linkages from Sussex Central YMCA (based in Brighton and Hove, England) where I have strong links as worker and volunteer, to a similarly sized centre in Banjul, Gambia, creating a cross-cultural analytical framework through which to explore the experiences of young men participating in their programmes. Using these contrasting contexts, I focus on the lives, narratives and practices of young men and YMCA staff in each location, analysing how YMCA programmes foster a version of transnational masculinity that combines economic rationality with the spiritual principles derived from Protestant Christianity. I explore this in reference to an often implicit, idealised form of YMCA masculinity based around strenght of 'mind, body and spirit', known as the 'Whole Man'. I suggest that the 'Whole Man' operates as an idealised motif of manhood within YMCA centres, fostering notions of self-sacrifice, empathy and embodied dynamism that is reproduced at the YMCA through 'secular rituals'. I trace how these masculine subjectivities interact with localised conceptions of manhood and youth in each location, focussing on the interplay of differing versions, conceptualisations and practices of masculine behaviour in each location. This thesis is generated by the friction between self-help models and actual lived realities, frictions which I hope to show represent the limitations of totalising models of coherent subjectivity based on moral principles.

In the Temecula Valley, California, neoliberal development policies were implemented that had the potential to bring drastic changes to this semi-rural area, renowned for its wine production and idyllic setting as a wine tourism destination. In order to better understand the contested nature of these development plans, I conducted ethnographic and key informant interviews and public policy analysis research with policy-making officials, local residents and other stakeholding groups that formed in opposition to the planned expansion. This applied anthropology of policy was uniquely situated to explore the tensions between various stakeholders. This thesis serves to propose interventions that could have the intended impacts of the expansion plan, which included increasing tourism and bolstering the economy, while preserving the qualities that made the Temecula Valley marketable and consumable as a wine tourism destination. Bringing together diverse fields of study including economics, tourism and environmental anthropology, this thesis sheds light on policy making processes in the 21st century United States.

This research prioritized the identification and retention of African American cultural heritage in the face of dramatic landscape alteration associated with comprehensive redevelopment. As an approach aimed at providing the most comprehensive understanding of cultural phenomenon, the holistic tradition applied by anthropology asserts that it is productive to identify and apply as many sources of data toward engaging research as is possible. Consistent with this goal, this study applied several categories of data toward investigating material symbols of African American cultural heritage in Tampa, Florida. The holistic anthropological approach demonstrated the relevance and complementarity of research documenting cultural heritage and its relationship to Tampa's contemporary urban landscape, urban archaeology, participatory research, anthropological advocacy, and historic designation and preservation research in a community threatened by large-scale redevelopment. Tampa represented a fruitful context for this research because for the second time in less than forty years, the urban landscape historically associated with African Americans in Tampa is slated to be impacted by wide-ranging demolition resulting from the actions of city and county planners. This research is particularly important in Tampa because urban policy carried out in this area of Tampa during the 1970's eradicated the vast majority of physical reminders of the African American cultural heritage in Tampa. This research proposes that even in the face of dramatic demolition resulting in comprehensive change in urban landscapes, anthropologists have an obligation to prioritize material symbols of cultural heritage which in this context represent enduring evidence of African American cultural heritage in Tampa. Collectively the components of this study represent an anthropological model defined as an Urban Model of Applied Preservation (UMAP) designed to facilitate the anthropological engagement of evolving relationships between urban spaces and their cultural associations with urban populations. This model clarifies a set of complementary methods that might be applied toward investigation prioritizing the effects of urban change on cultural heritage.

This study focuses on how terminal diagnoses impact individuals and families within the Hispanic/Latino community. Hispanic/Latino hospice caregivers, Hispanic/Latino non-hospice caregivers and physicians participated in the study, which explores the utilization of hospice by Hispanic/Latino terminally ill individuals. The data collected from 30 semi-structured interviews, ethnographic participant observations, and archival data were analyzed using structured and statistical analysis. Verbatim transcripts were examined through a combination of ethnographic and content analysis. Barriers related to language and culture, as well as immigration, are critical themes that impact access to healthcare. The physicians' discourses relate patients' responses to terminal diagnoses, including the Hispanic/Latino patients' perceptions of hospice services. My research also ascertains how caregivers of Hispanic/Latino hospice patients cope with their loved ones' terminal diagnoses, structural organizational barriers to hospice utilization as well as cultural factors that contribute to the under-utilization of hospice services by this population. The findings indicate that higher incomes, higher education, and fewer years in the United States mainland directly affect healthcare decisions and treatment choices at end of life. Female gender and identity also directly impact access to health care, especially hospice services, at the end of life.

Development non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are under immense pressure to adhere to the programs and methods put forth by external donors, particularly if the NGOs rely on the funding to sustain their own organizations. Those external donors that represent neoliberal ideologies and enforce neoliberal practices, particularly in the area of microfinance, maintain a power that most recipient NGOs cannot evade. This becomes a difficult position for the NGOs to navigate as they try to accomplish good work in their communities. This research project is a study into the experience of one NGO, the Egyptian Development Organization (EDO), as it implemented microfinance programs in rural Egypt. The study revealed that EDO maintained an overall, structural orientation towards foreign donors and audiences, and employed discourses that appealed to neoliberal ideologies and practices. For the NGO, this orientation went beyond an accommodating lip-service and resulted in the institutionalization of demand-driven microfinance. Additionally, through decentralization EDO transferred risks and responsibilities to a more local level, and required the infusion of neoliberal ideologies into the practices and actions of microfinance borrowers even before their loans were disbursed. This thesis argues that a point of disjuncture occurs as the context of neoliberalism, specifically the aims of material accumulation through the mechanism of microfinance, meets the program participants practices of the development and preservation of social and human capital. This study found that microfinance program participants are both accepting and reproducing the rhetoric, often in ways that defy their own experiences within it. Their high rates of participation in microfinance, as evidenced by repeated and multiple loans, are pronounced considering that few have achieved the increased economic and financial gains promised by neoliberalism and microfinance. By conceptually conflating financial and non-financial capital gains, loan recipients were able to go beyond tolerating rhetoric that does not come to fruition, and justify continuous participation in the program. By perceiving investments into non-financial gains as valuable, the participants altered their livelihood strategies new ways that may or may not secure against vulnerabilities in the long run.

This thesis presents results of research I conducted during Spring 2003 through an internship with a private economic development organization (called here the TBEDO) that markets the strategically branded, seven-county region know as Tampa Bay domestically and internationally. This internship provided me with the means to conduct research about Tampa Bay's international economy and explore the elusive topic of globalization. It provided me with networking opportunities needed to "study up" on business elites and to understand what their international development agendas are, how they accomplish these objectives, whether they subscribe to the belief that the world has undergone a qualitative change called globalization, and how their global agendas are expected to impact Tampa Bay residents. My work at the TBEDO revealed that this high-profile organization has only recently begun to formulate a strategy for marketing the Bay Area internationally. Its internationally oriented activities are few in number and reflect no long-term goals, and its connections with internationally affiliated organizations are uneven. My key informant interviews with professionals working in international development and marketing allowed the exploration of issues including the consistency of my respondents' international agendas with those of the TBEDO, the relevancy of the globalization concept to the Bay Area, and my respondents' understanding of this concept. I also explore the difference between globalization as a perceived set of pressures determining how business must be done and globalization as a marketing strategy employed by business elites. More important in terms of the applied implications of this research is the impact that the international business agendas of the TBEDO and my key informants have had on the lives of Tampa Bay residents. This last component of my research provides the most important contribution to policy and the debate concerning the costs and benefits of globalization. Both the officers at the TBEDO and my interview respondents do not concern themselves with the impacts that their activities could have on Bay area residents because their jobs are in the service of a specific population: Bay area business people.

U.S. fisheries legislation requires National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to attend to the critical social and economic issues surrounding the definition and identification of fishing communities, and to the effects that changes to the physical environment and regulatory decisions can have on such communities. To fulfil their mandate, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) sponsored the research entitled "Identifying Fishing Communities in the Gulf of Mexico" to study the economic, social and cultural status of potential fishing communities along the Gulf of Mexico. NMFS contracted the research project to Impact Assessment, Inc. to study 80 plus potential fishing communities in the Florida Gulf Coast. I worked as an intern in the research and visited the communities with other team members. The task of our project was to provide NMFS with basic profiles of fishing communities for NMFS to develop a culturally appropriated intervention. Research methods include Rapid Assessment Procedures (RAP), semi-structured key informant interviews, participant observation, and archival and secondary research mainly for community histories. Apart from my internship research, I also conducted some additional interviews and observations for my thesis. My findings indicate that fishing communities along the Florida Gulf Coast encounter with challenge from increased regulation, "dumping" seafood imports and virtually uncontrolled waterfront development. By a comparison of three groups of fishing communities, i.e., "diminished communities," "residual communities," and "resilient communities," the thesis explores how communities respond to the challenges and encourages fishermen to take action to preserve their generation-long fishing tradition. In conclusion, the thesis suggests that a solution to ease the decline of fishing communities requires cooperation of all parties concerned, including the fishery regulatory agency, commercial fishermen, and the federal and local government.

This thesis describes an internship for the Department of Anthropology that was part of the Florida Health Literacy Study (FHLS) conducted at the University of South Florida College of Public Health, Department of Community and Family Health in the spring and summer of 2003. The FHLS implemented Pfizer Inc.'s For Your Health program, a type 2 diabetes and hypertension education programs, at 14 community health clinics across the state of Florida. The internship was designed to elicit the experiences of 10 bilingual health educators about their experiences and their perceptions of the experiences of their Latino patients with type 2 diabetes with the Spanish version of Pfizer'ts For Your Health or Para Su Salud type 2 diabetes education program. This internship examined the Para Su Salud program for its cultural appropriateness for the diverse Latino population in the community health clinics in Florida. This internship combined the fields of anthropology and public health to provide a holistic analysis of the issues important to the Latino Health Educators participating in Pfizer's Para Su Salud type 2 diabetes education program. Through anthropological methods including in-depth interviews, class and clinic observations and patient satisfaction surveys, this internship found that the program was well-liked in the community health clinics and it could provide more culturally appropriate themes and food options for type 2 diabetic Latinos in Florida. This thesis makes nine specific recommendations for improving the appropriateness and ultimate success of the Para Su Salud educational program.

Fanfiction consists of works written by amateurs using pre-existing characters and plots, often shared online for free. Although fanfiction began long before the advent of the internet, the worldwide web has created a platform wherein fanfiction is allowed and encouraged to spread almost unconditionally, reaching new populations and rising slowly but surely into the public eye. As the internet has made fanfiction more accessible and public, it has also increased the number of children and young adults involved in the process. And in the unsupervised wilderness of the internet, sexual content is a common feature of fanfiction, with a varying degree of accuracy in said sexual content. As the influence of fanfiction spreads, academic research into fanfiction has also spread. The purpose of this project is to better understand how fanfiction can impact what adolescents and young adults know about sex and how that information shapes their sexual attitudes. A secondary goal is to question fanfiction authors and readers about whether they are interested in the presentation of accurate sexual information in fanfiction. In order to answer these questions, this project included a review of several works of fanfiction, as well as a survey of 25 fanfiction readers and writers, and interviews with seven of the survey participants. In general, the answer to whether fanfiction has impacted users has been a resounding yes. Prosumers (those who may produce and/or consumer fanfiction) reached through the survey and the interviews largely identified fanfiction as an important resource in their sexual education, with a mostly positive influence. Prosumers cited fanfiction as a source that broadened their knowledge of the intricacies and variations of sex, as well as something that made them more understanding of their own desires and the desires of others. On the other hand, fanfiction prosumers did not necessarily cite fanfiction as being technically accurate. Instead, they valued fanfiction for the variety of viewpoints fanfiction brought them, and the chances it gave them to portray their own lives and issues through their favorite pieces of pop culture. Because the information gathered through this project identifies fanfiction as a source of information about sex for prosumers, and the Archive of Our Own platform specifically, as a reasonable and useful place to embed health-based sex ed interventions. However, fanfiction prosumers mostly seem to know the limits of their creations already, and already have some types of intervention in place, such as the tradition of informational author notes. If future interventions were to be enacted, it would have to be carefully planned with the prosumers, and would likely be most efficacious if it were to utilize those existing prosumer interventions.

The focus of this research was to: 1) study the perceptions of female students attending the university Student Health Center, concerning available services, 2) learn how they describe their decisions to obtain care, and 3) identify perceived barriers to reproductive health care and contraception. This exploratory study used a mixed-methods approach that included clinic public-space observations, interviews with health care providers and staff at Student Health Services (SHS), surveys distributed to clients of the campus clinic, and in-depth interviews to contextualize emergent themes. Topics addressed included sexual health behaviors and perceptions, influence of peers and partners, the propagation of health myths, and past experiences with SHS. Gathering practitioner perspectives on student barriers to care, goals of the clinic, and perceived health needs of the student community, allowed for measurement of incongruence between student and staff, thereby adding greater context to results. SHS sought recommendations in order to improve student's use of the Sexual Health and Gynecology clinic, increase accuracy of student's sexual health knowledge, and guide future clinic operations. SHS is now working with the College of Public Health to create improvement projects based on my results, including a peer education program. Research such as this can result in greater student awareness of available services, and more productive communication between patients and provide. Implications on the larger issues of gender and the search for health care, acceptance and knowledge of STI testing, and client comfort are addressed, and provide opportunity for future work in this area.