M.A. - Anthropology
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Item A CHRONOLOGY OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ON HAWAIʻI ISLAND(2024) Agruss, Emma; Quintus, Seth; AnthropologyItem KNIT TOGETHER: CRAFTING SOFT SUPPORT STRUCTURES WITH YARN, PAIN, STICKS, AND STORIES(2023) Ryan, Rita H.; Saethre, Eirik; AnthropologyItem Trust and confidence in a Hong Kong wholesale vegetable market(1965) Silin, Robert H.Item Geoarchaeological Investigation of Agricultural Terraces in Pualaulau, Hālawa Valley, Moloka‘i, Hawai‘i(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Tuitavuki, Kylie Aiea; Kirch, Patrick V.; AnthropologyAgricultural systems on islands provide good case studies for studying landscape modification, resource allocation, and the potential sustainability of these systems. The Hawaiian Islands offer a unique environment for analyzing how geomorphological constraints shaped landscape modifications, creating environmental legacies that were further developed under specific socio-political systems. This study investigates the archaeological remains of a terraced agricultural system in the ‘ili of Pualaulau in Hālawa Valley, Molokai, posing the question of whether the terraces were formerly irrigated. The location of the terraced agricultural system is slightly northwest of what today is an intermittent stream. Past climate data suggests that seasonal rainfall may have allowed for potential irrigation of the terraces during the rainy season. Varying levels of seasonal rainfall suggest that this terrace system could have been seasonally irrigated, diversifying its uses for potential year-round cultivation. Geoarchaeological methods are used to determine 1) whether terraces within the designated dryland agricultural system were potentially seasonally irrigated, and 2) how frequently seasonal irrigation was used in this terrace system. Particle size analysis (PSA) and an assessment of sediment particle angularity are used to determine the origin and mode of deposition of sediment particles within the terraces. Samples from a natural colluvial slope, from known dryland terrace systems, and from the adjacent streambed serve as controls for samples collected from the agricultural terraces. Utilizing established agricultural systems, like the side-stream terrace systems of Pualaulau and Kapana, for permanent or seasonally irrigated agriculture demonstrates the adaptability of early Kanaka Maoli working and living in Hālawa Valley. As populations continued to grow it was necessary for these populations to adapt to seasonal changes in natural resources, to better support their communities.Item A stylistic analysis of the Mangaasi tradition, Central Vanuatu(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1982) Bordner, R.; AnthropologyThis study is an attempt to apply a decorative motif analysis similar to those used success fully in the past with the Lapita ceramic tradition on the Mangaasi ceramic tradition of central vanuatu. Definition was made of those elements which typified theItem Obesity and related seriological variables in a migrant Samoan population(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1978) Klapstein, Susan; AnthropologyHuman adaptability is a major focal point of anthropological inquiry and the physical changes resulting in response to a new environment are an important aspect of the process of human adaptability. Obesity and elevated blood pressure are two examples of these physical changes. High levels of obesity are relatively recent occurrences in the evolution of mankind and in modern times, obesity, blood pressures and serum lipids tend to be more elevated in Western, urbanized populations, including several Westernized Polynesian societies. The adverse effects of associations between obesity, blood pressure and certain biochemical variables have long been recognized and studied. High levels of obesity have been found to produce numerous adverse health effects and have been implicated in elevated blood pressures and serum lipids. Obesity is also associated with cardiovascular disease, as well as being a risk factor in coronary heart disease, a major health problem in Western industrialized Polynesian societies. The adverse effects of associations between obesity, blood pressure and certain biochemical variables have long been recognized and studied. High levels of obesity have been found to produce numerous adverse health effects and have been implicated in elevated blood pressures and serum lipids. Obesity is also associated with cardiovascular disease, as well as being a risk factor in coronary heart disease, a major health problem in Western industrialized societies. A group of Samoan migrants residing on the North Shore of Oahu provided the opportunity to measure obesity, blood pressure and serum lipids, and their relationships to the length of residence in the Westernized environment. Weights and blood pressures were elevated and similar to those observed in other Westernized Polynesians. However, cholesterol and plasma sodium levels were lower than anticipated. A modification in the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system was suggested as promoting the low sodium values and perhaps influencing blood pressures. Weight and biacromial diameter also had significant relationships to blood pressure. Length of residence in Hawaii did not have a significant effect on blood pressures, weights or serum lipids. It was proposed that the subject population may not have yet resided a sufficient time on Oahu for a significant relationship to occur. Levels of acquired weight were examined through the use of skinfold measurements. Acquired weight categories were based on the size of the subscapular and triceps skinfolds which measured trunkal adipose tissue and were thought to represent acquired fat. The categories appeared useful in identifying individuals with elevated blood pressures and cholesterol values. It appeared that higher innate obesity, as well as acquired obesity, may influence these values. Also, women were found to attain higher levels of obesity than were males. The statistical evaluation of acquired weight categories was disappointing but would probably improve with a larger sample size.Item Conservation Against Conservation: Contesting Ways of Understanding Forests in Southern Myanmar(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2019) Flanagan, Brendan; Padwe, Jonathan; AnthropologyIn this thesis I seek to provide an understanding of how a specific rural community in Southern Myanmar, the Karen inhabiting the Kamoethway Valley, have come to identify as indigenous protectors of the environment, by paying attention to the strands of history that have produced the current conjuncture. In particular, I aim to show that, when faced with the prospect of exclusion by conservation, engagement with an explicitly environmental indigeneity remains a tactic of considerable nuance for marginalized communities. A central part of my argument will be that the forms of knowledge behind this tactical maneuver are multiple, drawing both upon local tradition and transnational discourses.Item When Treatment Is Violence: Making, Treating, And Regulating Addiction In Nepali Private Rehabilitation Centers(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2019) Zeller, Thomas; Brunson, Jan; AnthropologySituated in Kathmandu, Nepal, this thesis discusses the causes and consequences of placing addiction treatment within the privatizing Nepali healthcare market. Based on fieldwork conducted during the summer of 2018, I examine the ways in which state biopower is exercised in diffuse states, where multiple stakeholders operate to create and maintain a profitable status quo. This status quo involves the dispersal of the exercise of biopower to private actors, in this case for-profit rehabilitation centers, which are privileged to intern and treat addicted individuals on the periphery of state and medical regulatory structures in spaces of exception. I discuss the social processes through which drug abuse discourses, created by private addiction treatment centers, create the substance dependent as immoral individuals, effectively revoking their right to make claims of safety on the state. Finally, I examine how the lines between violence and therapy are blurred within private addiction treatment centers through narratives describing mistreatment and torture within the treatment setting.Item Learning Local Care: An Ethnography of Caregiving in Hawaii(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2019) McConkey, Erin Siobhan; Saethre, Eirik; AnthropologyThis thesis is an ethnographic account of caregiving and end-of-life decision-making in Hawai‘i. By participating in family caregiver classes provided by a local hospital, I detail how the socioeconomic realities of living in Hawai‘i and the biomedical authority of medical professionals actively work against the interests of caregivers who make health decisions based on both cultural values and economic limitations. Through the embodied experience of practicing care in the home, caregivers selectively reject the biomedicalization of care and organize their actions around the institution of family. As evidenced through examples from two key informants the circumstances of family caregivers are varied and complex, leading to a variety of experiences and creative solutions. Though the embodied experiences of family caregivers disillusions them to the examples provided through the family caregiver classes, the classes succeed in providing a platform for family caregivers and professionals to hold meaningful discussions.Item Put-or-Pay: Erasing the Impacts of Waste-To-Energy through Narratives of Sustainability in Honolulu(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2018-12) Chatterson, Nicole; Padwe, Jonathan; AnthropologyThe City and County of Honolulu (the City) claims to observe the U.S. EPA waste hierarchy, which positions waste reduction as the most effective strategy for managing waste and minimizing pollution. Source reduction precludes the generation of trash through policy, education, and consumer-culture interventions. However, the City primarily manages waste only after it has been generated through H-POWER, a $ 1 billion waste-to-energy (WTE) facility which burns waste to create and sell ‘clean energy’. H-POWER is owned by the City and operated by the multi-national corporation Covanta, which has contractually required the City to provide 800,000 tons of trash input annually to maintain revenue streams, which equal about $130 million/year. This thesis explores the material and discursive tensions of H-POWER as a sustainable waste management solution. Situated in a critical discard studies framework, and using tools from critical discourse analysis, this work unpacks the WTE-as-sustainability narrative offered by the City and Covanta, suppresses the serious consideration of waste reduction as a management modality and uplifts a neoliberal, technocratic waste-as-commodity approach that (re)creates consumer culture ideologies. This narrative positions H-POWER as: 1) a local clean energy source, and 2) a better choice than landfills. Zero Waste advocates contest WTE on the grounds that: 1) WTE generates problematic levels of GHG emissions, which are misrepresented in industry narratives, 2) WTE reinforces upstream pollution by incentivizing the production of goods to become trash-fuel, and 3) WTE is an environmental health concern.