Paper Abstracts

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ABARBANELL, Linda, REYES-HERNANDEZ, Elvira, and MORENO, John (SDSU) Negotiating Cancer Causes and Care at the US-Mexico Border. When reasoning about life-threatening events such as illness, individuals across cultures often combine supernatural and scientific explanations and treatments. In this study, we interviewed 20 individuals diagnosed with cancer residing near the US-Mexico border in the Imperial Valley, CA, regarding their endorsement of different possible causes and treatments for their illness and their experiences with the healthcare system. We discuss the factors specific to this binational and bicultural region that shaped participants’ experiences and outcomes. In addition to culture-specific beliefs, we found that structural factors such as poverty and access to healthcare services shaped their negotiation of different cognitive models. labarbanell@sdsu.edu (W-93) 

ABUALI, Gineen and GARCIA, Thairy (St. Peter’s U) Fighting the Phobias: Ethnogenesis into an Umbrella of the Other. They wear hijabs or they do not. They have different shades of brown, or black skin or they don’t. The reality is in the eye of the beholders and the beholders are increasingly xenophobic, Islamophobic or simply in a frightening metamorphosis of ethnogenesis they have created, widely diverse peoples are grouped into a single ethnicity of the “unwelcome other.” They see their mentors, born in the U.S. or “naturalized” citizens, being told to go back where they come. The students on this panel, and thousands like them, are not taking this. They are fighting back not only by succeeding as individuals, but organizing to form a resistance that links struggles on a campus, local, state and national basis. gabuali17@saintpeters.edu, tgarcia17@saintpeters.edu (W-123) 

AILSHIRE, Sara (UConn) Too Much Too Soon, Too Little Too Late: The Uses of Human Rights to End the Mistreatment of Women During Childbirth in India. The mistreatment of women during childbirth, or obstetric violence (Dixon 2014, Smith-Oka 2015), is increasingly recognized as a barrier to improving maternal health outcomes. Drawing from ethnographic research among human rights activists, birth care professionals, and members of birth care support groups in New Delhi, India, this paper uses Merry’s vernacularization of human rights (2006) framework to consider how human rights are employed by actors operating outside of the clinic, biomedicine, and public health to address this problem.sara.ailshire@uconn.edu (S-12)

AKIHO, Sayaka (Meiji U) Growing Khmer Products: Food Identities and Safety in Times of Globalization. This study investigates representations of nationalism in contemporary Cambodia with a focus on production and marketing practices. Rural farmers express a sense of alienation from trade logistics and the branding of their products, as well as a suspicion of the quality of incoming products from neighboring countries. This paper explores both the changing value of crops and the transformation in agricultural production and trade among Khmer farmers after a new farming technology was introduced by a local NGO. sayakaakiho@gmail.com (F-93)​​​​​​​ 

AL-JA’AFREH, Somaya (U Jordan), MATTHEWS, Elise (U Regina), and GELECH, Jan (U Saskatchewan) Family, Health and Community Experiences of Syrian Women Refugees in Saskatchewan. Thousands of Syrian refugees have come to Canada, often via Jordan, with over 1000 arrived in Saskatchewan. Refugees face stress, family disruption, culture shock, and the suffering of war, trauma, forced displacement and exile. We gathered 12 women’s stories of transition, adaptation, family functioning, and their perceptions of family violence after resettlement. Women described shifts in their beliefs and practices relating to their gendered role in the family and new community. The project goal is to inform local service providers to develop programs that meet the family health, mental health and social support needs of these women and their families. elise.matthews@uregina.ca (TH-04)

ALEKSEEVSKY, Mikhail (Ctr for Urban Anthropology) What Dreams May Come: Applied Anthropology of Residential Housing in Russian Cities.Questionable quality of new residential housing and urban environment is an urgent problem of Post-soviet cities in Russia. Nowadays all Russian developers are forced to use outdated standards of construction and urban planning. Russian urban consulting Strelka KB developed new standards of residential development for a state client. The presentation will be devoted to an applied study of the needs and dreams of Russian citizens about the ideal housing. The research was conducted by the Сentre for Urban Anthropology at Strelka KB to form a vision of the future of residential housing. alekseevsky@yandex.ru (W-73)​​​​​​​ 

ALESHIRE, Jewel (UNT) The Impacts of Climate Change: A Comparative Study of Fiji and Tuvalu. Prior research concludes that climate change is generally impacting islanders’ culture. This comparative research of Fiji and Tuvalu identifies the specific impacts of climate change on island environments and islanders’ lives, how climate change is defined and perceived, education surrounding climate change, and local responses and solutions to climate change. This study uses semi-structured ethnographic interviews and surveys, conducted virtually, as the primary sources of data. The data is intended to assist aid organizations in providing culturally competent aid. Furthermore, this paper provides an important contribution to the literature by highlighting islanders’ personal lived climate change experiences. jewelaleshire@my.unt.edu (F-131)​​​​​​​ 

ALEXANDER, Sara, SCHULTZ, Alan, and MARTENS, Paul (Baylor U) Worldviews, Value Systems, and Climate Change Policies Deepen Challenges to Farming Communities in Western Belize. The nature of agriculture and farming practices in any location is strongly influenced by the long-term mean climate state—the experience and infrastructure of traditional agricultural communities are generally appropriate to particular types of farming and to a distinct variety of crops known to be productive under a present-day climate. Research in Maya, Amish, and Mennonite farming communities in western Belize reveals distinct vulnerabilities relative to varying levels of subsidy entitlements, scale and nature of production, and entrenched value systems and worldviews that may allow for adaptive coping strategies but can also act to ultimately guard against embracing certain options. sara_alexander@baylor.edu (TH-05)​​​​​​​ 

ALEXANDER, William, DAVIS, Ashley B., and CABALLERO, Grey W. (UNCW) Proximities to Risk in the Cape Fear River Basin: An Introduction to Situated Perceptions and Strategies in an Environmental Justice Movement. This paper provides an overview of public response and activism in southeastern North Carolina after revelations three years ago that a Chemours (Dupont) plant had been releasing GenX fluoroethers and other PFAS into the Cape Fear River system for at least a decade. The coastal city of Wilmington benefits from an experienced network of environmental justice activists devoted to protecting water. We introduce a project that is comparing how risk perception, values, organizing strategies, and media campaigns to translate awareness into action are situated and framed differently relative to spatial, social, political and economic proximities to the source of contamination. alexanderw@uncw.edu (TH-156)​​​​​​​

ALTMAN, Heidi (GA Southern U) The Georgia Moms Project: Amplifying Women’s Own Narratives of Their Healthcare Experiences. The state of Georgia has the worst maternal mortality outcomes in the country. While the CDC has identified areas for improvement, there has been no documentation of Georgia women’s experiences and perspectives to contribute to understanding this critical issue. The Georgia Moms Project is a partnership between an anthropologist, an OB-GYN and a “safety net” health clinic in Savannah, Georgia. The goal of the project is to work with community members to raise women’s voices about their health care experience during pregnancy, labor/delivery and the postpartum year and begin to address issues related to access, standards of care and maternal health outcomes. heidi.altman@gmail.com (W-95)

ALVEY, Jennifer (UM-Flint) Leading Without Authority: Advancing Reflective Practice and Reforming General Education from the Bottom-Up. This paper describes a volunteer faculty initiative to embed a shared, innovative high-impact pedagogy into courses across our General Education curriculum in order to bring more significance, connectivity, and coherence to it. Focusing on the insights of integrative learning, metacognitive practice, and learning transfer, and “leading without authority,” we are using an IRB approved study to advance this pedagogy; build community and collaboration across disciplines; provide professional development for tenure-stream and contingent faculty on reflective practice and the connections between assignment design, equity, and student success; incorporate a qualitative dimension into our current assessment practices; and create bottom-up demand for larger or more formal reform. jalvey@umflint.edu (TH-134)​​​​​​​ 

AMAYA, Brenda (CSDH) Marketing Tintes Naturales in San Juan La Laguna. This paper explores how Tz’utuji women weavers in the textile industry of San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala make decisions about natural dyes. Additionally, I examine how weavers’ market themselves to appeal to the growing tourist industry of San Juan, and how they deal with competition among other textiles shops. The main methods I used for my research are interviews, participant observation, and questionnaires. The outcome of this study illustrates how women weavers make decisions on how they are going to sell their products and deal with competition among other textiles shops. bamaya@calstatela.edu (TH-09)​​​​​​​ 

AMPADU, Felix (U Arizona) Material Attachments: Inequality and Other Explanations for Extractive Resource Conflicts. In communities with exhaustible natural resources, extraction has become synonymous with economic and socio-environmental conflict. This paper examines how understandings of conflict and economic deprivation in extractive communities need to go beyond questions of unequal distributions of power and wealth. Beyond inequality, historical and ethnographic analyses demonstrate how local attachments to land and specific cultural knowledge of resource materials explain the resource conflict. I argue that conflict and livelihood ‘dispossession’ within local communities must be understood in ways that attend to political relations and cultural knowledge that determine the causes and effects of socio-environmental conflict. felixampadu@email.arizona.edu (TH-103)​​​​​​​

ANDREATTA, Susan (UNCG) For the Next Generation Is Farming a Life Style Or Something Else? The food movement of the past twenty-five years has paved the way for foodies, farmers markets, chefs and experiential eaters. Over the years there have been fluctuations in the number of farmers and edible crop acreage under production. What is clear is that older farmers are aging out, and fewer younger farmers are entering in to farming. Of interest is what attracts younger people to farming? In this paper I examine the next generation of small farmers in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the wake of climate change, political and economic challenges, and food justice. s_andrea@uncg.edu (TH-91)

ANDREEV, Kari (U Texas) The Epic Festival: Strategic Use of Intangible Heritage in the Sakha Republic. In Russia’s Far Northeast the Sakha summer solstice festival Ysyakh has been appropriated as a vehicle for the promotion of the Sakha epic oral tradition, Olonkho which was recognized by UNESCO as a “masterpiece of intangible heritage” in 2005. This paper analyzes how the epic poetry festival Ysyakh Olonkho has become a potent site of Sakha nation building practices and cultural revitalization discourse. This work also demonstrates how UNESCO’s intangible heritage movement has been strategically mobilized by one of Russia’s ethnic minorities as a symbol of prestige and a shield against accusations of ethnonationalism in Russia’s fraught political climate. k.andreev@utexas.edu (W-132)​​​​​​​ 

ANDREWS, Deborah (UNF) Sex, Gender, and the U.S. Supreme Court: Words and Deeds Matter. Three cases were recently heard by the United States Supreme Court regarding the civil rights of gay and transgender plaintiffs. The legal meaning of the word “sex” as used in Title VII of the Civil Rights statute, and the hegemonic intent of Congress in 1964, when it used the term “sex” in the law, is the heart of the dispute. The intersection of the theoretical and practical distinctions and entanglements between the use of the terms “sex” and “gender” can be problematic. This paper addresses the real-world issues that can arise from such dichotomies, including biological assumptions and social stereotypes, and what it can mean. deborah.andrews.esq@gmail.com (S-12)​​​​​​​ 

ANTENUCCI, Isabella, IDALI TORRES, Maria, and GRANBERRY, Phillip (UMass) Por Ahi Dicen: Sexual Health Promotion Campaign in a Puerto Rican Community. This study assesses Puerto Rican mother’s exposure and identification levels to the Spanish media campaign launched by Por Ahi Dicen. In-person surveys were conducted on 210 mothers residing in Springfield, Massachusetts. A subset of data from these interviews was taken and analyzed using Microsoft Excel and Stata15. Findings of this study show that mothers who regularly watched television during the campaign were more exposed to the campaign than with other media formats, and showed that mothers felt more identification with stories from the newspaper ads. These results indicate that easily accessible media sources are effective in campaigning for public health. I.antenucci001@umb.edu (TH-158)

ARAUJO HERRERA, Mariana N. and ALBERO, Kimberly (UVA) Biomedicine and the Local Cultural Contexts of Central Appalachia. Opioid use disorders account for a large proportion of premature death in the U.S. Many have prioritized the urgency of offering evidence-based treatments. While the complexity of “the epidemic” is increasingly acknowledged, there is less attention to how treatment efforts must address diverse cultural and local needs. By drawing from the partnership between UVA and a rural free clinic in Wise, Virginia to launch an OBOT program we explore the conflicts between biomedical approaches to substance use treatment in a local context. Institutional structures of power pose an array of challenges and risks in the process of planning and negotiation. ma7yp@hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu (TH-124)​​​​​​​ 

ARCENO, Mark Anthony (OH State U) Conducting Multisensory and Multispecies Research in Alsace: Experiences from the Perspective of a Humanities and Social Sciences “Make Our Planet Great Again” Chateaubriand Fellow. In response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s “Make Our Planet Great Again” initiative (2017), the Embassy of France received additional funding to support more French-based research by U.S.-based doctoral students. This paper offers a reflection of how my work with winegrowers regarding perceptions, responses, and adaptations to landscape change has not only been supported, as a recipient of this funding, but how it has allowed me time to better understand the taste of place; global warming rhetoric; and relationships between and among human and non-human life. Here, I position this work against my experience conducting comparative research in central Ohio. arceno.1@osu.edu (TH-96)​​​​​​​ 

ARELLANO-LOPEZ, F. Sonia (Independent) African Diasporas in the Andes: Social Visibility and Cultural Identity. For the Andean countries of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, the political and economic reforms of the 1980s involved undertaking profound social and cultural changes, along with adopting neoliberal fiscal and monetary policies. International donors and governance institutions compelled them to embrace concepts such as gender equity and indigenous peoples’ rights and adopt measures against racism, xenophobia and discrimination. They adopted the language and adjusted legal frameworks, tacitly acknowledging that their social structures not only reflected and perpetuated economic disparities, but socially and culturally grounded inequities. This paper discusses the impacts of these changes on Afro-descendant populations. (W-92)​​​​​​​ 

ARMAS, Desiree and CAMARGO, Pyetra (St. Peter’s U) Youth Organizing for Climate Justice. It is important to recognize the youth of color who are at the forefront of climate justice and combating environmental racism. From indigenous youth standing alongside elders as water protectors in Standing Rock, to middle school age Black girls fighting for clean water in Flint, Michigan (Burton, 2019), young people and often young women of color are standing up for their communities and the future of our earth mother. It is in this vein and with this sense of urgency that students are mobilizing to confront the climate crisis. The authors are part of a group made up of young women of color who together formed a climate change hub within a college campus. This presentation will focus on the struggles and opportunities of youth organizing on climate justice that starts on a college campus and stretches beyond the academy walls. darmas17@saintpeters.edu, pcamargo19@saintpeters.edu (W-123)​​​​​​​ 

ARMSTRONG, Lisa (USF) Another Side of American History: Teaching Race in a Public Museum. Black communities have been inexhaustible cultural contributors, yet the under-representation of Black heritage in scholarship undermines efforts to inclusively teach race in public educational settings. Bias in producing racial narratives limits teachable resources to popular court cases, socially accepted themes and people. Extreme cultural loss is inevitable by excluding many unfamiliar, valuable achievements and particularities of Black people. This study demonstrates how a museum panel on the education of Black people in Sulphur Springs- Spring Hill Community in Florida provides a theoretical and ethnographic framework for diversifying race narratives in a way useful for teaching race in public spaces. lkarmstr@mail.usf.edu (S-35)​​​​​​​

ARMSTRONG, Melanie, REHN, Maddie, DOWNING, Emily, and ZALDUMBIDE, Gabriela (W Colorado U) Environmental Citizenship through Engaged Scholarship: A Case Study in Adaptive Management on the Gunnison National Forest. Since emerging as a tool to improve natural resource management practices, adaptive management (AM) has come to represent learning through monitoring and managing by incremental adjustments. Citizen engagement processes lie close to the core of AM, but often fail to advance agency objectives or improve community satisfaction. How do formal and informal methods of public participation enact rights and responsibilities of environmental citizenship? Through a case study of the Taylor Park AM Group on the Gunnison National Forest, we argue for “engaged scholarship” as a mechanism to cultivate a culture of learning among diverse actors working within an AM framework. marmstrong@western.edu (W-121)

ARNOLD, Randy (U Alabama) Cultural Consonance in Narrative: An Example in the Transition to Retirement. Retirement is a liminal period that has been shown to have positive or negative effects on subjective well-being. In this study, a cultural model of retirement was identified among the general population in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Participant self-narratives and autobiographical memories were compared to the cultural model, resulting in a cultural consonance in narrative (CCIN) score. The CCIN locates the participant within cultural space, and determines how the use of cultural models within memory construction and self-narrative effect an individual’s subjective well-being. This study demonstrates that memory formation is culturally constructed and highly influenced by cultural consonance. randyj.arnold@gmail.com (TH-39)​​​​​​​ 

ARNOLD, Taylor, QUANDT, Sara A., MORA, Dana C., ARCURY, Thomas A., SANDBERG, Joanne C., TALTON, Jennifer W., and DANIEL, Stephanie S. (Wake Forest Med Sch) Educational Outcomes for Migrant and Seasonal Latinx Child Farmworkers in North Carolina. Agriculture is a dangerous industry, yet children as young as ten can legally hold farm work jobs in the United States. Many hired children are part of the vulnerable Latinx farmworker community. Little research has examined how farm employment at a young age affects schooling for seasonal and migrant child farmworkers in North Carolina. This paper draws from 30 in-depth interviews and 202 structured interviews with Latinx child farmworkers aged 10-17 to describe their education status. The qualitative findings provide meaningful context for the interpretation of quantitative findings and highlight avenues for improving education outcomes among these children. tjarnold@wakehealth.edu (F-153)

ARPS, Shahna and PERALTA, Karie (U Toledo) Growth Status of Haitian and Dominico-Haitian Children Living in the Dominican Republic. Previous research has identified food insecurity, poverty, and environmental health issues among families of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic. Given that these conditions pose risks for children’s development and health, we partnered with a local organization that serves the Haitian immigrant community to assess school-aged children’s growth (n=117). Most children were within the WHO recommendations for height, BMI, and arm circumference; however, undernutrition and overweight/obesity were also identified. The co-occurrence of overnutrition and undernutrition in this population complicates the development of potential interventions by the organization to meet children’s needs and foster positive growth and health outcomes. shahna.arps@utoledo.edu (W-65)​​​​​​​ 

ARREDONDO, Brandylyn (USF) Bureaucratic Misrepresentation of Age and Its Educational Consequences for Young Refugees in America. Through literature review and informal conversations with resettled refugees, this paper examines what consequences bureaucratic organization of age has on refugee access to K-12 education. With often older ages assigned on resettlement paperwork, the US school system considers young refugees to have “aged-out” of full-time public education and instead, place them into the workforce to meet the strict self-sufficiency goals of the US government and resettlement agencies. I argue that by correcting wrongly assigned ages to reflect cultural understandings on the resettlement paperwork, the US government could better match refugees to American educational age groups. (F-33)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ 

ARTZ, Matt (Azimuth Labs) Consumer Genetics and Our Evolving Understanding of Race & Ethnicity. Given the rise of low-cost genetic testing, we are now able to truly see at an individual level the effects of movements such as colonialism and its predecessors. No longer are we reliant on malleable histories of the victors to call attention to global patterns of conquest, but instead, we can see how the ethnic makeup of individuals is, in fact, a diverse mixture that frequently extends beyond the modern nationalities that families pass down as part of their oral heritage. As such, we ask, does direct-to-consumer genetic (DTCG) testing have the ability to reshape notions of race & ethnicity. ma@mattartz.me (S-35)​​​​​​​ 

​​​​​​​ASMAN, Susanne (Gothenburg U) Gender, Migration and Citizenship Rights: Brokers Navigating the Gendered Labour Migration Control between Nepal and the Gulf Countries. This paper sets out to explore how the brokers in the migration industry navigate the state’s gendered labour migration control during the labour recruitment process mainly in sending but also in receiving country, here Nepal and the United Arab Emirates. The paper problematizes the discourse of these actors as “criminal others,” traffickers, smugglers and merely profit driven facilitators, and demonstrates that there is a continuum of navigating strategies among them where gender is one of the major aspects of importance. It shows that their gendered navigating strategies have different consequences for women’s labour migration and their citizenship rights. susanne.asman@globalstudies.gu.se (TH-02)​​​​​​​ 

ASSAVARAK, Passanan (King Mongkut’s U of Tech Thonburi) Coping with Modern Risk: Case Study of Lua Ethnic Group, Thailand. Bannamchang Patthana village and Bannamri Patthana village are located in Nan province, Thailand. The villages are near the border between Thailand and Lao PDR. The villagers are a hill tribe ethnic group called Lua. At present, the villagers are experiencing new forms of risk, such as pollution and the use of chemicals. As a result, they are concerned about their lives, health, and food security. This research attempted to empower the villagers to be aware and cope with the problems by using sociological and anthropological methods. Also, adopting a co-production of knowledge concept to provide credible information and promote human rights. passanan99@yahoo.com (S-41)

AYALA, Armida, CERVANTES, Gabriela, and SANCHEZ, Isabel Marcela (Kaiser Permanente S CA) From Subjects to Citizens: Vulnerable Groups, Biomedical Research and Cultural Citizenship in the United States. Human subjects research involves institutional practices that shape the cultural citizenship of diverse research participants. Yet, we know little about how vulnerable participants view the researcher perspective regarding their identity as human subjects. Building on theories of power and a case study about participants’ interpretations of research encounters indicated that some resist being identified as diseased citizens in favor of medicalization. As more patients claim their rights as active research participants, researchers and patients are equally caught up in a power struggle of negotiation and control about what makes a human subject in the Unites States. Armida.Ayala@kp.org (F-98)