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The purpose of this study were to provide fundamental ethnographic information about the Ticuna Indians and to determine to what extent the programs of bilingual education, administered among them by the Ministerio de Educación Pública del Perú and the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), had accelerated their integration into mainstream Peruvian Life.

While chronic pain is an increasingly prevalent condition in the United States, it is twice as common among the military veteran population. As many Vietnam War era veterans are aging and experiencing comorbid medical conditions, their chronic pain is becoming increasingly complex. Policies enacted in response to the ‘opioid epidemic’ have in some ways made treatment of pain safer, but have also left remaining questions regarding how to properly provide care. There are three fields of complexity that interact within this topic: patients with a clear need for care and pain management, providers committed to helping patients, and structural barriers that unintentionally interfere with the provision of care. The lived experience of chronic pain and receiving care through the VA healthcare system combined with a common military culture exemplifies a lifeworld centered on pain—which I call a ‘painworld.’ This painworld is seen in the illness narratives of older, white, male veterans with chronic pain. Examining the way a single VA site provides pain care shows the providers are dedicated to treating veteran patients and offer a large number of treatment options. While the need for pain management services is clear from both the patient and provider perspectives, translating the lived experience of these veterans and their medical needs into a hierarchical bureaucratic structure is difficult. Furthermore, the bureaucratic nature of a large federal organization creates gaps in the healthcare system. This leads to the creation of informal systems through systems-correcting praxis to fill the gaps and attempt to prevent siloing and slippage throughout. Together, these fields of complexity are organized into three chapters, building the argument that the convergence of veteran painworlds, pain care, and bureaucracy can contribute to miscommunication, leading to unintended slippage through the system and inadequate care, despite good intentions of staff. Furthermore, the VA system and structure of providing pain care both influences and is part of the painworld, as are the interactions that occur between veteran patients and staff.

<p> This work explores the importance anti-capitalist protest in the contemporary international system. In doing so, I address some of the practical, philosophical and ethical considerations of academic depictions of protest through examples in Toronto, Canada and Seoul, South Korea. Drawing on fieldwork at protest sites in both places, I focus on forms of contemporary anti-capitalism through a political economy of 'Capital' and the inherent contestation of contemporary political decision making. I outline how it is important to develop subjective accounts of political protest that utilize ethical and psychoanalytic insights to come to terms with the tension between conformity and resistance. Contrasting what I call 'militant masculinties' of protest with 'alternative masculinities' of anticapitalism, I problematize some of the commonly held assumptions about the distinction between activism and academic efforts. Instead, I demonstrate how the methodological insights of an 'ethnographic sensibility' can benefit International Relations scholarship by discussing the possibilities and limits of political participation in the contemporary capitalist system. This research seeks to contribute to debates about political subjectivity and political activism through an examination of the efforts to challenge economic decision making power that rests in the hand of a few supposed experts. This thesis is an effort to democratize the way we think about participation in the site of protest, in order to encourage popular and academic engagement with the local and global struggles taking place across the world.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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This ethnographic case study investigates the diverse means and processes by which environmental identities were produced by five first grade students as they participated in an emergent, public school garden space. The children's histories, choices, personal and social experiences, expressions, and corresponding narratives are explored alongside the garden structure and social context to unpack the individualized and layered nature of children's environmental identity and care development. To locate and analyze children's engagements in the garden space, ethnographic, discourse, and narrative analysis methods are employed. The figured world concept is used to theorize and study the caring, environmental identities taken up and enacted by the children in this context. Through participation in emergent provocations, the creation and leveraging of garden artifacts, and investments in caring relationships, the children in this study shaped and cared for the garden space while it simultaneously shaped and cared for them. The environmental identity stories presented in this work broaden the definition of environmental identity to be more inclusive and less normalizing, thus, creating new spaces and moments for children to identify as environmentalists. The stories also raise implications for environmental education researchers to utilize more rigorous frameworks for investigating environmental care and identity development in the field. Findings from this research indicate that emergent garden spaces are potential sites for children to build relationships with nature in the public school. This is a significant practice for schools, as children today lack spaces in which to form environmental identities that implicate environmental care behaviors. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this project is to improve parents experience in the NICU through design, technology, communication and storytelling. A series of shadowing appointments were conducted to gain empathy and a greater understanding of the environment the design would be in. Next 15 user interviews were conducted. The qualitative data was then analyzed and a needs analysis for the application was determined by identifying patterns in the qualitative data. The design then went through three phases of design, testing and iterating, before the final prototype was complete. This study found that design, technology and storytelling could improve communication and the experience of parents in the NICU. / Master of Fine Arts

Architecture is a pathway to capture memories in the physical presence. Like a charm bracelet, a path leads you through individual segments, each telling their own stories. "Community Narratives for Architecture Spaces" investigates how to choreograph design strategies around the memories of the Christiansburg Institute, a historically African American school, and its cultural legacy. Materiality, lighting, and programming articulate specific memories within the spaces of this project. It is essential to have moments highlighting the past, present, and future while individuals maneuver through the site. There is a life cycle where things must end, and new opportunities can grow from them. This cycle can be beautiful yet ugly to navigate through. Architecture highlights the essence of this cycle by portraying how beginnings can be born from the old. An old site can be transformed into a new one, creating new memories and perspectives while preserving existing ones. Christiansburg Institute encompasses all of these beliefs. This design proposal honors the life cycle of the institute. / Master of Architecture / Historically African American school in Southwest Virginia for approximately 100 years. At its prime, it reached over 185 acres with over 14 buildings. It now stands with less than five acres and only one surviving building. This thesis is a design proposal to rejuvenate the current site in honor of its legacy and contributions bestowed to the African American community. Ethnographic storytelling documents the cultural identity of a group of people or a specific experience. Historically, storytelling has documented the history of African American communities. To directly honor the alumni of the site, I interviewed four individuals to discuss their memories of the school's spiritual and physical presence. Their stories will remain documented and help understand the Christiansburg Institute's space and its legacy. These recollections of memory were analyzed and dissected to influence the new design proposal. As an emerging designer, the relationship between social narratives, the role of an architect, and creating community space are imperative. Community members should have a voice in how the design process shapes their neighborhoods and buildings. Community Narratives for Architecture Space; Christiansburg Institute uses Christiansburg Institute as a case study to further explore the process of engaging the community with schematic development procedures. Ideally, these actions will influence future design and planning strategies to be more intentional and inclusive.

This ethnographic study examines the organizational structure, formation of community and ritual performance of a Catholic charismatic prayer group in the United States. Heavily influenced by the Protestant Pentecostal movement, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) began as a grassroots movement among the Catholic laity in the late 1960s and proposed a personal connection with God through "baptism in the Holy Spirit" and reception of "charisms," spiritual gifts, such as glossolalia (speaking in tongues), healing and prophesying. Earlier studies suggested that such groups would fade out due to the inherent tension with Catholic institutions. Nevertheless, this dissertation presents the case study of a rapidly growing Catholic charismatic group at the suburbs of Boston, with a charismatic leader who is also a priest. The research methods include participant observation of all the meetings, retreats, and rituals, formal and informal interviews of the leader, his clerical associates and members, and review of the groups' publications and the leader's own radio program, during a period of twenty months from December 2001 to August 2003. I have also visited and interviewed priests and lay people of non-charismatic Catholic churches and two Protestant Pentecostal churches in the greater Boston area. Building upon Max Weber's theory of charisma, this dissertation examines how the charismatic leader maximizes his authority by integrating both personal and institutional charisma. The vertical ties the community members cultivate with the leader and the horizontal ties they establish among themselves through narratives of conversion and healing experience reinforce group cohesion and resilience. By analyzing ritual language and bodily movement, this study argues that ritual is a communication system in which the charisma of the leader and the religious experience of the followers are embodied. This study of the actual workings of a charismatic group within the hierarchical structure of the church not only advances the relationship between charisma and institution beyond the Weberian paradigm but also situates the case study of charismatic leadership within the social and historical context of American culture at large.