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Anthropology
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Native American
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- Creator:
- McAdams, Melodi Amber
- Description:
- This thesis research examines diabetes as one playing field on which Native groups and individuals reposition and reassert identity by simultaneously exploiting the language and premises of biomedicine to frame and to inform traditional Native concepts of health while also critiquing and resisting biomedical institutions and discourses. This multi-sited ethnography is conducted at the sites of biomedical studies of the genetic etiology of diabetes, national community-based healthcare education and prevention programs, and expert opinion or literature on Native California Cuisine and Culture.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Anthropology
- Creator:
- Storms, Natascha
- Description:
- Bioarchaeologists have used fluctuating asymmetry to compare the levels of environmental stress a skeletal population may have encountered during life. Fluctuating asymmetry is traditionally scored on the dentition, though recent studies have also examined the skull and epiphyseal union. Previous bioarchaeological health studies of the Arikara of North Dakota detected significant differences in the levels of environmental stress in pre-contact, contact and post-contact Arikaran populations. This thesis examines three Arikaran archaeological sites, Mobridge, Larson and Leavenworth, in an effort to test the sensitivity of epiphyseal union to environmental stress, measured by fluctuating asymmetry. The data were collected from the Overland skeletal collection housed by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Department of Anthropology. This thesis found that fluctuating asymmetry of epiphyseal union did not reveal any statistically significant differences among the people of the Mobridge, Larson or Leavenworth archaeological sites. These results suggest that epiphyseal union may not be an indicator of environmental stress during development or that the Arikara may exhibit high levels of canalization.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Anthropology
- Creator:
- Garcia, Valerie Marie
- Description:
- Archives are critical sites for investigating intersections in contested history, for mapping the social and material landscape upon which humans engage with one another—violently, unsteadily, compassionately, creatively—and for expanding the depth of our understanding of human nature in cultural context. Personal archive collections provide a partial but focused interpretation of this history—our history—through the eyes, heart, and mind of someone who was there, struggling with it, documenting the gains, the losses, the uncertainties, the firmly entrenched obstacles in the road and the creativity with which people transcend them everyday. The personal collection of Native artist and activist Frank R. LaPena (Wintu-Nomtipom), held by the Special Collections and University Archives, California State University, Sacramento, is a particularly powerful site for loosening the grip of oppressive forces and revealing the varied dimensions of human existence and experience that have been silenced for centuries. Based on my ethnographic research on LaPena’s collection, I highlight the ways that art and action can reshape history and make it more whole, more consistent, and more “truthful.” The broad scope of LaPena’s life and the wealth and breadth of materials he bequeathed—which include personal and professional correspondence, artwork, photographs, manuscripts, project files, and newspaper clippings—make this collection a particularly evocative and relevant site for anthropological investigation, one that has the power to bring to light the actions of those individuals who make it their responsibility to reconcile the social inequities that humans create and reaffirm everyday.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Anthropology
- Creator:
- O'Deegan, Meagan Marie
- Description:
- This study aimed to examine the incidence of osteoarthritis in adult individuals from the Arikara Native American population. Samples from pre-contact, contact, and post-contact periods were broken down by sex and age to test the hypothesis that osteoarthritis increased after European contact. Statistically significant increases in osteoarthritis before and after contact were observed in the ankle and wrist (overall osteoarthritis prevalence), ankle and elbow (female osteoarthritis prevalence), ankle (male osteoarthritis prevalence), ankle and cervical vertebra (young adult osteoarthritis prevalence), ankle, knee, hip, wrist, elbow, and shoulder (middle aged adult osteoarthritis prevalence), and lumbar vertebra (old aged adult osteoarthritis prevalence). The increase in osteoarthritis post-contact is attributed to the dramatic population decreases caused by disease and conflicts with outside groups that led to the need for the healthiest individuals to take on more intense labor roles in hunting and agriculture to compensate for a population with an ever decreasing number of individuals who could contribute to the Arikara society. The cause of osteoarthritis is difficult to attribute to an exact activity but is typically associated with actions that impacted a specific joint over a long period of time or intermittent high intensity activities (Bridges 1991). Activities associated with increased Arikara osteoarthritis incidence include long distance walking, frequent travel over hilly or rough landscapes, activities associated with food processing, the fur trade, carrying heavy loads, and for middle to older aged individuals may be linked to the aging process.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Anthropology