Over the past thirty years, we have seen a rise in sexual self identification and group affiliation based on sexual identity across the world, but particularly in China. Much of the research on this topic has focused on the role capitalism and urbanization has played in producing the circumstances under which tongzhi (gay men) could come together, which has necessarily prioritized processed of transnationalism, class aesthetics and geographic emphasis on coastal areas. This project expands the literature on tongzhi assembling by focusing on the legacy of HIV/AIDS organizations in the province of Yunnan in helping to bring important funding and political opportunity to emerging tongzhi social groups. Through presenting detailed ethnographic data, I argue that the organization’s leaders engage in a form of fragmented authoritarian politics which involves balancing between localized bureaucratic political demands and organizing opportunities of fun for tongzhi men who may lack other spaces and times to meet. In this dissertation I will discuss how activities of play allow these groups to balance between dominant discourses and pragmatic social interactions.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between task cohesion and social cohesion and performance of women's intercollegiate Division I field hockey teams. Twenty-six teams (n=26) from the 1989 season participated in this study, representing 32% of the total number of NCAA Division I teams. Specifically, team task cohesion and social cohesion measures from mid-season were compared to performance measures at the end of the season. The Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) developed by Widmeyer, Brawley, and Carron (1985) was used to measure cohesion. Performance was measured by percentage of games won, and also by a power rating developed by the NCAA field hockey committee. The GEQ consists of four cohesion constructs, two task and two social. Each of the four scales was compared to each of the performance measures, as well as both task scales combined and both social scales combined. Median values for each teams' cohesion measures were correlated with performance measures using the Pearson Product Moment coefficient of correlation. The results indicated that task cohesion was significantly related to team performance. Social cohesion variables when compared to power rating, and the Group Integration-Social construct when compared to win/loss percentage were significantly related to performance. Although significant, the social cohesion results were considerably lower than the task cohesion results.

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Cyberanthropology or the anthropology of cyber space/culture is an emerging subfield of cultural anthropology that deals with the varied integration of human beings and technology. This specialized area of study focuses on topics ranging from new technologies used in ethnographic research to information and communication technologies utilized by specific societal groups. Communication technology encompasses the World Wide Web, email, and online multiperson interactive spaces such as chatrooms and video games. In this work, I ethnographically investigate human social interactions in the online gaming realm of World of Warcraft. On the whole, the expanding numbers of virtual communities in existence today offer new and exciting realms for social scientists in general, and anthropologists in particular, to expand their knowledge of social interaction. During the period between August 2007 and May 2009 I “lived” with the players of WoW as a participant observer. The culmination of this research spotlights virtual group formation and dynamics from an anthropological perspective and is intended to pave the way for future research.

This study is intended to explore the interactive effect of various interpersonal groups and longitudinal maturation on the socialization of individuals within a culture. It will deal with conflict resolution and the formation of a transitory sense of self informed by George Herbert Mead's perspective with an emphasis on symbolic interaction. I have chosen as my sample group a division I female college soccer team in the eastern United States . My time as an assistant coach has given me access to the daily lives of these players for a two year period during which I have acted as a participant observer. Although the study is limited to a small group of elite athletes, it is presumed that similar processes are at work each time an individual enters a new social setting or attempts to reconcile conflicting norms between different groups. When such groups collide, the individual is forced to conform to one at the expense of the other(s). This creates what I will call deviant conformity / Master of Science

The first part of this dissertation investigates the possibility of an output cut by a firm as a result of an increase in demand in industries with constrained capacities. We are specially interested in the crude oil industry, although the paper has implications beyond that market. Two simple closely related models are developed. In both models a firm cuts the output at some point solely because of an increase in demand. We use this fact to explain the sharp decline of the crude oil prices in 1986. There are price and quantity hysteresis in the second model. The price hysteresis has two implications. First, the price path when the demand increases might be different from the price path when the demand decreases. This in turn implies that a temporary shock in the demand for (or supply of) crude oil can cause permanent changes in the price. We claim that the temporary changes in the supply of crude oil in 1973 resulted in the price hysteresis phenomenon described in the second model in such a way that it kept the prices high even after the return of the producers to the market. The second part investigates the relationship between the taste for public expenditure and the size and distribution of social groups in a society. Societies with ethnic heterogeneity spend less on redistribution and welfare programs and impose lower tax rates relative to homogeneous societies. We construct a theoretical model to explain these facts. There are two social groups in the model: a minority group and a majority group. When members of one group feel empathy for each other but not for members of the other group, then taxes, and redistribution depend upon the size and distribution of those groups. At first, the equilibrium tax rate and redistribution decrease as the size of the minority group increases from zero, then eventually, the relationship between them becomes positive. / Ph. D.

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