By early March 2020, COVID-19 had spread internationally and was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO). As of June 2020, the only strategies for disease control ...were the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as masking and social distancing resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate and continue to be a threat to public health globally. Brazil has seen one of the worst outbreaks, with cases and fatalities increasing as the southern hemisphere moves into its winter months. In the state of São Paulo, there is the island of São Vicente, home to the cities of São Vicente and Santos. These two cities are nearly identical geographically and environmentally, however, from epidemiological week 1 to 30, the island of São Vicente has seen infection rates significantly above the state and national averages. With distinct social disparities, creating divisive challenges between the two cities, the dueling public health crisis has affected government action, access to health care and testing, and the ability of residents to abide by strict WHO recommendations for transmission control that indicates socio-economic factors are directly, and divergently influencing health outcomes across the island. This thesis followed the public health database reporting for the COVID-19 outbreak on the island of São Vicente, as Brazil was also experiencing one of the worst Dengue Fever outbreaks in recent history, while analyzing social media postings for each of the two cities, allowing for a comparative analysis on how social factors influence health outcomes. Labeled a “syndemic”, the two concurrent outbreaks, create added challenges to controlling distinct public health emergencies on a semi-isolated island of only 57.4 km2. The difference between the socio-vieconomic demographic profiles of Santos and São Vicente, directly impacts the financial and political capabilities of local governments to provide the proper resources and information for informed and proactive action against current and future public health crises. These same factors also illuminated drastic health inequities when assessing the social determinants of health that directly influenced each city’s inhabitants’, in correlation with the prevalent and extreme income inequality, access to information, diagnosis, treatment, and resources.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD, usually abbreviated as autism) was introduced to China in the early years of the reform and opening up when the Chinese psychiatric community restored its international ...exchanges. In the 21st century, autism has been gaining global attention due to its increasing prevalence, changing diagnostic criteria, and the rise of the "neurodiversity movement" as reverberation. In the National Disability Survey in 2006, autism was for the first time recognized by the China Disabled Persons' Federation as a kind of “mental disability”. Since then, the official imagery of autism as a “disability/canji” or “disabling disease” sets the orientation of “early childhood intervention” central to government policy on this issue, turning children diagnosed with autism into “an Other in the making”. Although the official scheme of “early childhood intervention” aims to enable autistic people’s independent living and social participation by improving their “functions”, the truth is for most autistic individuals in China, their lives are still in the shadow of marginalization and precarity, and become the embodiment of misfortune in media representation. In the post-socialist era when the responsibility of individuals' well-being is shifted to the family, the diagnosis of autism points parents toward a bleak horizon, throwing them onto a rough journey of rearing a special child, and at the same time making parents themselves the critical force in shaping their children’s future life. Based on my 13-month’s fieldwork in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, this thesis attempts to draw on the theoretical perspective of “responsiveness” from existential anthropology and ethical anthropology, and examine how parents strive for a dignified and worthy life for their beloved ones by responding to various challenges at different stages of their children’s growth. In this thesis, parenting, or child-rearing, ii is considered as a field of moral action and moral experience. Although the diagnostic label implies an “extraordinary condition” of suffering and adverse circumstances, what I try to point out is the moral potentiality in the parental practices of therapy, education, and care in ordinary lives, which is rarely acknowledged. I show how a series of “core events” in a child's growing path constituted the space where parents enact agency and drew parents into a continuing project of moral becoming. Moreover, by focusing on the risk and uncertainties within parents’ struggle to protect their children from harm, this thesis seeks to provide a critical phenomenology of “moral tragedy” that reveals how the absence of institutional, relational, and material support in parenting creates paradox and vulnerability in the commitment of care.
This dissertation analyzes how winegrowers in central Ohio and the eastern French region of Alsace respond to changes in their vineyards, wine cellars, and tasting rooms, as well as how changing ...ecological conditions influence changing social processes (and vice versa). I build upon the French notion of terroir to reconceptualize it as a theoretical model of social-ecological “sense-making” that helps people make sense of the various interactive components of the winegrowing system. Such a framework also provides individuals with a guide for understanding through their sensory faculties what an idealized system of winegrowing feels like. By analyzing how they define the taste of place, I argue that winegrowers and others are able to pinpoint not only changes in their respective landscapes, but also opportunities for adaptation and/or innovation.Amid discourses of global climate change, winegrowers are experiencing its differential effects. Central Ohio winegrowers tend to be more concerned with increased rainfall and freezing temperatures, while those in Alsace are concerned with periods of less rainfall and very high temperatures. These conditions appear to prompt winegrowers to (re)consider whether they can plant new varietals, how they may intervene in the fermentation process, and what wines are available for their clientele. In short, vitivinicultural practices are invariably linked to cultural behaviors that continue to change over time and space.Bringing together multisensory ethnography and multispecies perspectives, and based on my case studies and each new vintage, I characterized the extent to which changing landscapes influence the production and elaboration of place-based goods. Accordingly, I asked: (1) What changes do winegrowers perceive in their winegrowing landscapes? (2) How do they adapt to changes in winegrowing conditions? (3) How do these changes influence winegrowers’ constructions of terroir and the “taste of place”? I interviewed over 24 winegrowers, as well as their co-workers, family members, and volunteers. I also incorporated into my analysis characteristics of local birds, yeasts, plants, weather, and trellising systems.The principal chapters of this dissertation are composed of four articles, which are synthesized in my conclusion. The first article frames my understanding of terroir in central Ohio and Alsace. The second article presents my multisensory approach. The third article considers who (or what) comprises the winegrowing system. And the fourth article uses actor-network theory to trace interactions between and among terroir actants. While the actual taste of a wine may be different from year to year as a result of local conditions and winegrower practices, I demonstrate that the proverbial “taste” of a place does not in itself change, as winegrowers make incremental adaptations to maintain a sense of consistency. Winegrowers, vines, and wines from Ohio or Alsace are still Ohioan or Alsatian, despite changing practices or cultural norms that result from changes in weather, legislation, and/or market demands. As I have learned through more than 18 months of fieldwork, this study of terroir reveals how winegrowers and the plants in their care are able to reproduce, redefine, or in some cases create anew, place-based identities in times of change.
This research engages the social and environmental impacts of petroleum development through an ethnographic study of a fracking boom in the Mexican American town of Cotulla, Texas. I worked closely ...with residents, community leaders, and regional stakeholders to analyze how residents of South Texas, who have a long history of resource extraction, engaged with the development of the Eagle Ford Shale, one of the largest natural deposits of oil and gas in the world. For Texas, shale petroleum dominates discussions of energy independence and local economic sustainability given the expected long-term production of three major shale basins: the Barnett Shale, Permian Basin, and Eagle Ford Shale. Here, as in other areas of resource extraction, effective environmental discourse proves to be in direct opposition to neoliberal development strategies and local perceptions of prosperity. The socio-political history of south Texas is a rich and complex one characterized by the dominance of evolving political-economic systems—missionization, farming, ranching, hunting, and now energy. For Mexicans and Mexican Americans, much of this history is one of prejudice and poverty. Wealth has historically been concentrated among the region’s minority population, the Anglo population, while racial and ethnic tensions fueled social and political segregation until as recently as the 1970s. The early 1970s saw the rise of a political revolution and emergence of a political party in Cotulla that was deeply inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. La Raza Unida Party, led by some of Cotulla’s most educated and boisterous youth, permanently altered the political landscape. This generation of leaders remains very active in their community. More important, the political narrative of the movement they helped create is the foundation to the community’s perspective of its future. In all, this dissertation articulates the ways in which the Chicano heritage of South Texas informs how communities like Cotulla see the Eagle Ford Shale as an opportunity to develop in historically inaccessible ways. The dissertation contributes to a broader argument for how certain regions present idiosyncratic understandings of environmental devastation as economic development and how these contribute to a growing anthropological literature on resource frontiers, Latinx environmentalism, and development.
This is an investigation into the daily life of a small subsistence village called Rio Blanco located in the coastal province of Manabí, Ecuador. It is focused primarily on the traditional ...interactions between people and nature, how these interactions sustain life and create a sense of place and identity, and how these interactions are changing under pressure from the modern world. Through participant observation, information on the various aspects of interaction with the natural environment were collected. These include subsistence horticulture in the mountains of the cloud forest, movement through the landscape, and impacts on the immediate environment. The people of Rio Blanco depend heavily on their environment for the cultivation of food, procurement of non-timber forest resources, and above all as a place to call home. The repeated, quotidian interactions with nature and the environment cultivate a sense of place and in turn a sense of identity is daily born and perpetuated.
Taking Istanbul’s Tarlabaşı neighborhood as a prism, this dissertation asserts care and time as political tools for racialized communities facing displacement. This project draws on 16 months of ...engaged ethnographic fieldwork, oral histories, and archival research.In 2006, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party enacted a new “urban transformation” law, allowing the expropriation of property in neighborhoods chosen as sites of urban transformation projects. The first project under this law, located in Tarlabaşı, proposed to demolish a portion of the buildings in the neighborhood and erect an upscale residential and business complex in their place. Since then, many Tarlabaşı residents—mostly Kurds, Roma, transgender women, West African and Central Asian migrants, and Syrian refugees—have been evicted to make room for the project, which is still under construction. For the rest, the possibility of future displacement looms large. Rather than assuming that this uncertainty produces subjugation, I argue that residents take the future as a political object they can shape, rather than something for which to passively wait. They rework the limitations that broader political projects putatively impose on urban life in the making. I found that in an uncertain present, residents enact a set of everyday care practices to assert themselves as part of the future. Following them, I call these practices “figuring it out” (in Turkish, halletmek): using the delayed durations of urban transformation, they cultivate relationships with politicians and builders to curtail the project’s expansion, devise ways to retain their property and access government services, and maintain community by hosting public events. My work allows an understanding of care as a practice that takes shape through future-oriented calculations and actions. It shows that through the open-endedness of the present, residents reconfigure a future that assumes their displacement.
The purpose of this thesis is to provide the first case study of the Santa Ana riverbed homeless encampment. It contributes valuable information about the little studied factors contributing to the ...formation and dismantling of transient homeless encampments. It is the first discussion of three reoccurring characteristics of homeless camps: camps form a self-governing system, camps are viewed by the community as unsavory places, and the campers are viewed as being unable or unwilling to participate in normal society.I propose three theories as explanations for these characteristics: the social capital theory as a reason for homeless campers to develop a system of self-government, the aesthetics theory as rationale for camps being viewed as unsavory places, and the theory of vulnerable and inevitable inequality as a reason why campers are seen as being unable or unwilling to participate in normal society. I introduce three hypotheses to assess these theories: The encampment was created because it provided inhabitants a sense of safety and autonomy. It was dismantled due to its highly visible location and lack of adherence to the Orange County consumption and leisure aesthetic. Most homeless people from this encampment relocated approximately thirty miles east to Riverside County to avoid harassment by police.I review interviews with camp inhabitants; fifty-one percent resided in the camp because it gave them a sense of safety and autonomy. I examine Anaheim city council meeting meetings; thirty-eight percent of complaints were related to aesthetic concerns. I analyze population reports from HUD; there was a notable increase in homelessness in Orange County the year after the camp was dismantled. I investigate anti-camping ordinances; Anaheim and Riverside had similar anti-camping ordinances. These results reflect that the social capital theory is an applicable explanation for the homeless being drawn to set up camp as a collective. The aesthetics theory can be used to explain why a third of residents complained about the encampment. Camp residents did not move East to Riverside after the camp was dismantled. Further investigation into the enforcement of anti-camping ordinances needs to be conducted to evaluate if policing contributed to the vulnerability of the homeless.
The New World is a story of realignment. It is an attempt to mark what is quite visibly the end of the dialectic between the nation-state and alliance (i.e., the US and the North-Atlantic) and ...between the nation-state and alternatives (e.g., Brazil and Latin America), a recognition that the paradigm of containment has failed (with China), and that a restructuring of partnerships is coming (with the Americas headed toward a rapprochement).
“We did not know we would be swimming,” residents of San Jose Beach neighborhood in Tacloban City, Philippines told me, reflecting on Typhoon Yolanda wave surges. However, storm surge warnings ...circulated in official state updates. How could they have not known? Something was lost in communication. This dissertation shows how low-income coastal dwellers experience inequality within the disaster communication infrastructure of the Philippines, and examines the stakes involved in typhoon communication as a tool for survival in a time of global climate change. Communication gaps and assumptions made in disaster media have created the conditions for death, injury and property loss. I show in this dissertation that vulnerability and inequalities are not only experienced in disaster, but are also produced within the disaster mitigation and relief infrastructures. This dissertation is based on long-term ethnographic research conducted in Tacloban City, Philippines in the years after Super-typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) caused extensive death and destruction in the region. Communication is an integral part of experiencing disaster. Residents of the Philippine Islands receive on average 19 typhoons every year. Typhoon alerts help affected people prepare for and survive oncoming typhoons. Beyond that, media like television and radio help interpret state-issued alerts to the public, or act as hotlines to answer questions. While these alerts are produced with the expectation that the message will make its way to all residents equally, that is not the reality. Residents across the Philippines experience disaster communication in different ways—according to their relationship to the infrastructure (access to media, their relationship to their local government, and more). This project asks: How do people experience the disaster communication infrastructure unequally? How does infrastructural inequality affect the ability of families and neighborhoods to respond to and survive a typhoon? I show throughout the dissertation that vulnerability and inequalities are not only experienced in disaster, but are also created in the space of disaster and media infrastructure. In particular I consider how vulnerabilities are produced through lived interactions with the disaster media infrastructure, historically-rooted marginalizations from infrastructure, and experiences of temporality through media and disaster.
Academic focus on contemporary western tattooing is primarily from the disciplinary perspectives of the sciences, economics, history, and anthropology. With few exceptions, attention is placed on the ...modified body and the recipient of the tattoo rather than the tattoo producer or the processes of production. Though tattooing is an important creative industry, the occupational role of the tattooist and the processes and development of practice is yet to receive academic investigation from a practice-centred perspective. This has led to understanding of tattooing that is either absent entirely, partially informed, or flawed, from a range of perspectives. This AHRC/NPIF funded research is conducted in partnership with Sunderland (England) based tattoo studio Triplesix Studios, where the researcher has worked as a tattooist. A multi-method methodology was created with practice at its core combined with a contextual overview and autoethnography to contribute insight into tattoo production, the role of the producer and stylistic development that is largely absent in academia. It is suggested that the processes of tattoo production are inherently collaborative between tattooist and client. The tattooist's role is proposed as both material (provision of medium) and non-material (provision of service). The material facet of the tattooist's role in the provision of the medium is presented as contingent in accordance with the tattoo brief. Autoethnographic accounts of tattooing practice are utilised to generate insight into the non-material facet of the tattooist's role in the provision of service. Stylistic development with tattooing as a medium through practical investigation that is informed by design training is then presented, illuminating factors that affect the approach of the tattooist. This is the first piece of research to be conducted using tattooing practice as a core methodological approach and demonstrates that understanding of contemporary western tattooing more broadly can be enriched as a result. Through the contribution of a novel methodology, frameworks and documentation offered by this research, it is proposed that tattooing may be better understood from the perspectives in which it has previously been studied and be introduced into broader arts and design scholarship.
![Changing [Vitivini] Culture...](http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/image/isbn/XR4PS5YY4K/9798471102163/small "Changing [Vitivini] Cultures in Ohio, USA, and Alsace, France: An Ethnographic Study of Terroir and the Taste of Place")
