<p> American Indian music and dance traditions unilaterally contain the following three elements: singing, dancing, and percussion instruments. Singing and dancing are of the utmost importance in American Indian dance traditions, while the expression of percussion instruments is superfluous. Louis W. Ballard has composed a piece of music for percussion ensemble which was inspired by the music and dance traditions of American Indian tribes from across North America. The controversy that this presents is relative to the fact that there is no American Indian tradition for a group comprised exclusively of percussion instruments. However, this percussion ensemble piece, <i> Cacega Ayuwipi</i>, does exhibit the three elements inherent to all American Indian music and dance traditions. <i>Cacega Ayuwipi</i> is consistent with American Indian traditions in that the audience must see the instruments, watch the movements of the percussionists, and hear the percussive expressions in order to experience the musical work in its entirety.</p>

This thesis explores native testimonies in Canada, Mexico, and Quebec written between 1950 and 1980. The goal of this research is to study the strategic use of life writing and the testimonial genre by Native subjects in particular in their struggle for self-governance, cultural recognition and survival in order to talk back to the dominant neo/colonial culture. Testimonio allows Native voices to emerge in scriptocentric culture while questioning the authority of neo/colonial cultures and addressing important issues regarding Native survival. The focus of this study is how the use of testimonial writing allows Native cultures to renegotiate history, fight cultural misrepresentation and resist cultural assimilation. By finding new ways to transmit oral knowledge and traditional heritage, while undergoing the process of mediation, such as translation and/or editing, Native writers are able to judiciously use testimonio as an empowering tool for cultural survival. The truth claims found in these narratives are discussed individually in order to render a clearer picture about Natives' oppression in the Americas. This enables the socio-historical specificities of each Native discourse to emerge from various geopolitical contexts and to stand tall against neo/colonial oppression. In order to better understand how testimonio can put forward Native voices and demands, this study draws on testimonial theory from researchers such as John Beverley, George Yudice and Georg Gugelberger as well as on postcolonial and life-writing theory. According to these theorists, testimonio writing speaks urgently about oppression, marginalization and survival, often for political not just aesthetic This thesis studies life stories by Juan Perez Jolote, Nuligak Kriogak, and An Antane Kapesh as example of testimonio, by analysing the collaboration between the author/teller and the editor/translator; the cultural mis/representation within these narratives, and the resistance (if any) these works engage in. The use of native languages (especially: Tzotzil, Inuvialuktun, and Innu-aimun) at the early stages of the collaboration testifies to the ongoing cultural survival of the Chamula, the Inuvialuit, and of the Innu in the 20 th century. The political urgency of these testimonios can be observed at the different stages of the process of their liberation in each respective narrative.

<p> The examination of the tools that prehistoric people crafted for subsistence and related practices offers distinctive insights into how they lived their lives. Most often, researchers study these practices in isolation, by tool type or by material. However, by using a relational perspective, my research explores the tool assemblage as a whole including bone, stone and shell. This allows me to study the changes in tool industries in relation to one another, something that I could not accomplish by studying only one material or tool type. I use this broader approach to tool manufacture and use for the artifact assemblage from Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI41), two sequential Middle and Late Woodland Period (A.D. 1-1050) archaeological sites on the central Gulf coast of Florida. The results of my research show that people made different choices, both in the type of material they used and the kind of tools they manufactured during the time they lived at these sites as subsistence practices shifted. Evidence of these trends aligns with discrete changes in strata within our excavations. The timing of depositional events and the artifacts found within each suggest people also used the sites differently through time. These trends exemplify the role of crafting tools in the way people maintain connections with their mutable social and physical world.</p>

"I mi himtham, ath'o huhug heg jeveḍ." The statement above basically means 'in time, the world will end'. My father said this when he saw something that he did not like involving O'otham Himthag and Ñeok. I began teaching in the classroom to help in revitalizing our language and culture. Learning to read and write linked with teaching the language in the classroom. Akimel O'otham did not have an orthography until 2009 and today Gila River is still adjusting and learning to utilize this new orthography today. If Gila River Akimel O'otham wants to avoid the 'Big Ka-boom' does it mean we should start to read and write in O'otham to learn how to talk our language? While attending the University of Arizona's American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) I came across many tribes that have an orthography, others were working on one and some did not have one at all. I learned that reading and writing could benefit Gila River especially if we are at the point where persons 55 years and older are the only speakers. It is sad to say but these speakers will be gone one of these days. Gila River must have a plan in archiving Akimel O'otham Culture and Language in written and voice recordings to support the teaching of the language. The language and linguistics classes I took with instructors Luis Barragan and Stacey Oberly have expanded my knowledge in linguistics which encouraged me do reading and writing in the Akimel O'otham language. My language is an awesome language to study, full of surprising wonderments I never knew. I hope the Akimel O'otham world will not end; it is time to wake up, because it is time for the beginning.

<p> Within the space of a battle to halt ski resort expansion and snowmaking on the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain in northern Arizona, a coalition has emerged of indigenous activists (primarily Din&eacute;), Euroamerican environmentalists, and anarchists. The resulting collaboration, Mountain Defense, goes beyond usual models of environmentalist-indigenous alliances as temporary and incommensurate. This dissertation explores the development of the Mountain Defense movement over time, the motivations of activists from divergent backgrounds in opposing snowmaking, the social interactions and negotiations of identity within this group, and the public discourse by which they construct a message about this space and threats to it. Ethnographic fieldwork was undertaken from 2009 to 2015; key methods of data collection included participant observation, interviews, archival research, and collection of spoken, print, and online communication. This data was analyzed for emergent themes as well as the ways in which meaning was produced between parties. Situating Mountain Defense within scholarship on place-making, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), and social constructionism, this dissertation explicates how the movement has articulated a hybrid knowledge, including layered conceptualizations of sacred land and syntheses of sacred and scientific idioms in expressing the dangers of snowmaking technology. This research also speaks to the complex dimensions and continuing salience of Din&eacute; relationships with the San Francisco Peaks and the ways in which snowmaking and expansion threaten these. </p>

Nowadays smartphones and smartphone-applications are a part of our daily life. There are variety of different operating systems in the market that are unalike, which are an obstacle to developers when it comes to developing a single application for different operating system. Furthermore, hybrid application development has become a potential substitute. The evolution of new hybrid approach has made companies consider hybrid approach as a viable alternative when producing mobile applications. This research paper aims to compare native and hybrid application development on a feature level to provide scientific evidence for researchers and companies choosing application development approach as well as providing vital information about both native and hybrid applications.This study is based on both a literature study and an empirical study. The sources used are Summon@BTH, Google Scholar and IEEE Xplore. To select relevant articles, the Snowballing approach was used, with Inclusion and Exclusion criteria’s.The authors concluded that native development is a better way to develop more advanced applications which uses more device-hardware, while hybrid is a perfectly viable choice when developing content-centric applications.

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This dissertation is a study of Arguments and Clausal Relations of Pima Bajo within the framework of Categorial Unification Grammar. The theoretical framework explored assumes the existence of three major categories--the Argument Categorizing Element, The Propositional Radical, and the Proposition--and studies the structure building mechanisms which account for those categories. The major categories are taken to be feature-value complexes which combine, via unification, with different type of pronominal forms. It is shown that the notion of arguments as feature-values and the application of a categorial unification grammar accounts for the structure of simple as well as for complex constructions. The final part of the dissertation discusses a phonological algebra which accounts for the linear order of elements.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to examine textual features in Native American children's literature and Native children's responses to these textual features. Culturally authentic children's literature was used to gain insights into children's perspectives as they engaged in responses within literature circles.This study utilized qualitative research methods and ethnographic techniques. This study draws on two complementary frames: the theorization of culturally authentic Native American children's literature and reader response theory. The study focused on two goals: first, to make explicit decisions about how to depict reoccurring themes, languages, and discourses of culture; second, to acknowledge a reader's ability to draw from a knowledge base of experiences available to members of a particular cultural community while interpreting literature. The students participated in fourteen literature discussions of culturally authentic literature. Data collection included transcripts from literature discussions, interviews, observational field notes, and written artifacts. Categories were constructed through inductive analysis of data.My three research questions were derived from Rosenblatt and reader response theory, including Native American perspectives:1. What Native American textual features are identifiable in fourteen Native American children's books?2. What types of talk about that these textual features do children engage in through literature circles of Native American children's literature?3. What are children's perspectives about reading and discussing Native American children's literature?The findings of this study contribute to teacher education programs, Indigenous education, and the field of Native children's literature. Furthermore, these cultural literatures provide and maintain Native American stories while promoting literacy for all children.

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