This dissertation analyzes how changes in infrastructure interact with cultural programming and rhetoric in a multi-faceted urban redevelopment project by examining social interactions, physical construction, and symbolic productions. Once part of Marseille’s port, the J4 Esplanade was bequeathed to the city as a barren swath of concrete and stone in the 1990s and has since been used by working-class and other Marseillais, many of whom hail from other nations, for recreation and socializing, with many of its regular users’ activities oriented towards the sea. A redesigned public space opened in 2013, anchored by two institutions, the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM), and the Villa Méditerranée, a structure dedicated to cross-cultural dialogues. From 2010 to 2014, I have tracked the J4’s transformation from a non-purposed common space to one that maintains public access and use, but that in the process has reconceived which publics are welcome, when, and how. I consider the particular stakes when a transitional urban space’s end product occludes preexisting categories of spatial use while purporting to preserve them in coded discourses of cultural valorization, in this case through the term “Mediterranean.” The recent widespread use of this label on the J4 and in Marseille entails seemingly paradoxical processes that simultaneously open and close, celebrate and confine, construct and eject under the banner of Mediterranean socio-cultural unity. / Anthropology

Tiivistelmä Työn aiheena on kulttuurinen puolustus Suomessa oleskelevien maahanmuuttajien ja ulkomaalaisten rikollisten tekojen perusteluissa. Tarkastelen, millaisten tekojen selittämisessä kulttuuri nostetaan esille, ja pohdin kuinka henkilön kulttuuri ylipäätään soveltuu rikoksen motiiviksi. Työssä käsittelen kulttuurin ja yksilön toiminnan välistä monimutkaista suhdetta sekä lainsäädännön mahdollisuuksia kulttuurin rikosoikeudelliseen huomioonottamiseen. Kulttuurinen puolustus voidaan ymmärtää vähemmistön oikeuksia turvaavana työkaluna enemmistön ehdoilla rakennetussa oikeusjärjestelmässä, jonka soveltamisen kautta rikoksen motiiveja kyetään tarkastelemaan erityisen perusteellisella ja luotettavalla tavalla. Toisaalta kulttuuri voi useissa tilanteissa paljastua liian epämääräiseksi ja myös manipulaatioalttiiksi rikollisen toiminnan selittäjäksi, minkä lisäksi huolta herättää kulttuurisen puolustuksen mahdollisesti edistämä, olemuksellinen käsitys kulttuurista. Työn pääasiallinen aineisto koostuu paikan päällä havainnoiduista oikeudenkäynneistä (8 kpl), minkä lisäksi olen tehnyt yksilöhaastatteluja (5 kpl). Analyysin kohteena ovat kenttätyömuistiinpanojen ja haastattelujen litteroitujen versioiden lisäksi oikeudenkäyntipöytäkirjat sekä kirjalliset tuomiot. Varsinaiset aineistonkeruumenetelmät ovat institutionaalinen etnografia ja teemahaastattelu. Analyysimenetelmänä on puolestaan sovellettu laadullisen aineiston teemoitteluun ja tiivistämiseen perustuvaa sisällönanalyysia, jonka olen määritellyt Tuomen ja Sarajärven (2009) jaottelua mukaillen teoriaohjaavaksi. Työn teoreettiset käsitteet tulevat antropologiasta, oikeussosiologiasta ja kriminologiasta, ja teoreettis-metodologinen lähtökohta on sosiaalisessa konstruktionismissa. Aineistossani kulttuurin ja rikolliseksi määriteltävän käyttäytymisen välillä nähtiin usein käytännössä yhteys, mutta oikeudessa näitä kulttuuriin sidottuja rikoksen motiiveja ei kuitenkaan tunnustettu. Tulkintani mukaan varsinaista kulttuurista puolustusta pyrittiin soveltamaan syytetyn toimesta yhdessä oikeudenkäynnissä. Kulttuuriin vetoava retoriikka rikollisen käyttäytymisen selittämisessä oli kuitenkin aineistossani vahvasti läsnä, jolloin vakavana puutteena voidaankin pitää kulttuuristen motiivien määrittelemätöntä asemaa lainsäädännössä. Kulttuurinen puolustus on puutteistaan huolimatta varteenotettava puolustusperuste joissain rikostapauksissa, jolloin sen soveltamisessa tulisi noudattaa määriteltyä, yhtenäistä linjaa. Erityisesti antropologisella erityisosaamisella olisi paljon annettavaa luotettavien kulttuuristen motiivien seulomisessa sekä toisaalta kulttuurin väärinkäyttötapauksilta välttymään pyrittäessä.

<p> The Syrian Refugee Crisis, which began in 2011, is among the worst since WWII and continues to wreak havoc on the lives of millions of Syrian refugees. Through an ethnographic approach, I examine the wellbeing of Syrian refugees within the chronologies of peace, war, displacement, and resettlement to the United States. Specifically, I focus on the concepts of waiting and liminality to understand the wellbeing and identity of Syrian refugees. My research shows that the refugees&rsquo; definition of wellbeing changes during the different phases of peace, war, displacement, and resettlement; ideas of wellbeing are reinforced within each waiting space; and as refugees, Syrians enter into a liminal stage of de-identification and loss of personhood. Nevertheless, they employ diverse strategies to escape each waiting space in an effort to improve wellbeing.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation examines how legacies of war and ongoing violence are incorporated into peacetime development in contemporary Laos. I introduce the conceptual parallel of remains and revivals. By &ldquo;remains,&rdquo; I refer to massive military wastes left over from the Secret War in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. During the Vietnam War, Laos was secretly bombed by the United States for nearly a decade. As a result of this covert conflict, contemporary Laos is the most massively cluster-bombed country in the world. Dangerous explosives continue to maim and kill; the risk of explosion frustrates plans to lure investors and build basic infrastructure. Remains also refers to the ongoing sociocultural impact of violence, including experiences of malicious ghosts and personal misfortune. By &ldquo;revival,&rdquo; I refer to the present period of rapid socioeconomic transformation as Laos opens to foreign intervention. I use revival as a touchstone for several interweaving processes: socioeconomic liberalization, authoritarian renovation, and religious awakening. Drawing on ethnographic evidence of Lao poetic parallelism, I innovate a method of poetic inquiry suited to hazardous fieldwork.</p><p>

Chapter one describes who the Yawo people are; how they became involved in slave trade and acquired the Arabs' religion, Islam; and how they entered Malawi from their original home. The introduction of Christianity into Malawi is described. While the Protestants were the first to introduce Christianity into Malawi, it was the White Fathers, as far as the Catholicism is concerned, who initiated the work of evangelization there, soon followed by the Montfort Fathers. Chapter two analyses the reality of marriage according to the Yawo's world view. Yawo society is matrilineal, uxorilocal and matrilocal, founded on the most important kinship relationship between the sister and the brother who eventually becomes the maternal uncle to the sister's children. The kinship relationship between maternal uncle and the sister's children is another feature with its own importance in the Yawo society. The sisters and their eldest brother form the nucleus and basis of the Yawo village community, creating a sorority-group under the brother's charge; their marriages come under the brother's guardianship. This function is by no manner of means surrendered to the husband who is accepted into the village merely as a worker in the sense of a begetter of children for the increase of the sorority-group. The Yawo progressive marriage comes into being through a long dynamic process with three main stages. Chapter three assumes the responsibility of identifying one problem area. It is shown that the very progressivity of the Yawo marriage already constitutes a problem, in that the traditional theology regards the first stage or the phase of acceptability as nothing less than concubinage, despite the fact that the people themselves recognize it as a valid procedure for the commencement of marriage. Progressive marriage is believed to go counter to the teaching on the absolute inseparability of the contract and sacrament. This chapter attempts to show that the problem may simply be a cultural rather than an evangelical one, in view of the fact that the separability of contract and sacrament seems to have been taught by a considerable number of theologians in the Church and that the canonical form was employed in the formation of Christian marriage. Chapter four aims at discovering whether the local African magisterium of Malawi and the African local magisterium in general together with their theologians have been able to identify the problem of the progressivity of the African marriage and, if so, what action has been taken to wrestle with the situation. It may be affirmed that the majority of the episcopal conferences seem to indicate that they have been able to identify it and have taken action to address it, albeit only by way of statements and recommendations. In Chapter five, we try to search for the possibility of an African local theology of marriage, at least in one of its aspects. Our first task will be the attempt to identify the gospel core with which culture is supposed to confirm. Then, we will investigate the possible values of which the progressive marriage may be in possession. However, inculturation is also dependent upon the attitudes of the evangelizers who can bring it about. We will therefore try to examine what these attitudes may be. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The purpose of the present study was to explore the role of imagery in a positive birth experience, specifically with respect to the experience of vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC). The quantity and quality of imagery used and its perceived value were explored. A VBAC Imagery Questionnaire was developed and sent to Ontario women known to have had a VBAC. The following types of imagery were explored; healing imagery, vaginal birth imagery, repeat cesarean imagery, "block point" imagery, "augmenting" imaging, other "uplifting" imagery and imagery experienced during the actual VBAC birth. Many women described their images as very positive and absorbing, and women rated all types of imagery as very helpful in achieving their vaginal birth after cesarean. Imagery was rated by women to be as helpful in the VBAC experience as vital changes made in health care professionals and location of labor and birth. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

In consideration of the prevalence and popularity of tattoos among our prison population, I argue that the disciplinary institution and the carceral experience may have an effect upon the function and value of tattoos for the prisoner. My approach to analysis is informed by the application of discourse analysis in the work of James Messerschmidt on the construction of masculinity, and Michel Foucault on the body of the condemned within the dynamics of the disciplinary institution. Given such insights and theoretical underpinnings, the purpose of this qualitative study is to explore whether the prison and the experience of incarceration has an effect upon the meaning, value and appeal of tattoos among Canadian prisoners, and more specifically, among men serving life sentences. I conducted eight non-directive interviews with incarcerated lifers concerning tattooing and their tattoos. Following the interviews, I undertook a time frame analysis in order to organize and examine the subjects' experiences with tattooing during three different time periods, these being, prior to incarceration, during incarceration, and today. Given the exploratory nature of my study, my research may be more accurately conceptualized as an exercise in logic of discovery rather than an exercise in the logic of verification. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Ce texte se veut une reflexion sociologique sur la quete et la reconnaissance de l'identite politique et culturelle de deux peuples: les Autochtones et les Quebecois-es. Nous croyons qu'en cette fin de siecle ces deux peuples ont atteint la maturite politique necessaire a la negociation de compromis selon la theorie de l'agir communicationel de Jurgen Habermas. Les entites culturelles engagees dans ce type d'agir pourraient assurer la reconnaissance de leur identite dans l'histoire. Ainsi il nous a semble que la crise autochtone au Quebec avait montre que les peuples concernes etaient capables de l'agir communicationnel. Une analyse de contenu de La Presse et du Devoir pendant cette courte periode historique nous a permis de situer les Autochtones et les Quebecois-es dans un monde vecu partage.

In-depth interviews were conducted with eight European life-long sport professionals who were former elite athletes and then successful coaches in team sports. The purpose of the interview was to explore the role and the evolution of imagery from athlete to coach and to also determine whether mental imagery was used in any way by these professional coaches for enhancing team unity. Analysis showed that all these exceptional performers had excellent imagery skills and they used imagery training to achieve their sport related goals. Practical implications for enhancing team unity through imagery are also presented.

This is a study of whether Science DOES transcend Culture naturally--not whether it CAN do so. That Science can be adopted into any culture is clear from modern history (as in China today). That Science does not automatically develop even when a Culture has reached a high level of technical achievement (as in modern China) or intellectual sophistication (as in ancient Greece) is also clear from history. Evidently Science and Technology are not the same thing, for none of these high Cultures ever succeeded in crossing the threshold into an Industrial Revolution. Yet it did appear in Europe where Technology is not particularly remarkable, but Philosophy is. Research has shown that non-Indo-Europeans are highly inventive and responsible for all basic Technology, but are quite un-philosophical. On the other hand, Indo-Europeans are quite uninventive but philosophically inclined and responsible for all philosophical systems. Neither Philosophy nor Technology alone is capable of producing Science. Only when Philosophy is applied to Technology does Science arise. An examination of the reasons for these circumstances constitutes the subject of this thesis. To the question, Can Science transcend Culture, the answer would be unquestionably, Yes. To the question, Does Science transcend Culture, the answer apparently is NO. Science can transcend Culture but apparently it does not by nature do so. It thus appears to be an activity that is culturally conditioned. The interrelationship between language and thought is explored: evidence show that non-Indo-European languages do not permit or encourage speculation of a philosophical nature, whereas Indo-European languages do. How did this bifurcation come about and what factors tend to preserve it? Did language predetermine thought patterns, or has some mental characteristic, possibly genetically determined, been responsible for the structure of language? The possible relevance of all this in terms of educational methods is considered. By formulating precisely the relationships between Philosophy, Technology, and Science, and by giving attention to the part which the structure of Language plays in these relationships, it is hoped to give some direction to the content of Education needed to train and equip Scientists.