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The Brazilian government has recently enacted some of Latin America's most extensive affirmative action laws and policies, including racial quotas in all public universities and a law that requires schools throughout Brazil to teach Afro-Brazilian history and culture. In this context, a large-scale black consciousness movement has emerged, with a vast array of black organizations (otherwise known as "Black NGOs") using race as a productive political strategy to secure access to resources and rights for people of African descent. Through yearlong ethnographic investigations of three of these organizations in the city of Salvador (Bahia) from 2009-2010, this dissertation examines the effects of such changes on black activists' interpretations of blackness and their understanding of black consciousness. It looks to the complex ways in which black activists are creatively juxtaposing Brazil's long-held racial ideologies on the one hand with discourses and forms of knowledge about race that have been set forth by the new race-conscious legislations and policies on the other. Drawing from and contributing to the field of linguistic anthropology, I demonstrate that language is crucial to their goals of revealing patterns of institutional racism, critiquing commonsense notions of blackness in Brazil, and promoting anti-racism. I show how black activists teach one another elaborate ways of using language to scrutinize deeply entrenched ideas about race and blackness embedded in their own and others' speech as well as new ways of thinking and talking about race in Brazil. The dissertation carries throughout a concern with the status and formation of black consciousness in light of recent cultural and political changes. Drawing on my training in linguistic and cultural anthropology, I combine the analysis of data from participant observations, in-depth interviews, and countless conversations with black activists to examine what I call "affirmative language practices"--linguist

This dissertation is aimed at analyzing how ethnic hierarchies question the environmentalization of indigeneity, which is the foundation of the Colombian state's multicultural policy. In particular, the dissertation develops a comparative ethnographic approach to the way in which the "multicultural turn" of 1991 impacted three indigenous communities located at San José del Guaviare, a colonization frontier in the Colombian Amazon: the Nükak, the Jiw and the Tucano. Against the assumption of multicultural policy that indigenous communities form a vast mass of people radically diferent from mainstream (even portrayed as anti-modern), in San José there is an unequal distribution of the Nükak, Jiw and Tucano in different positions inside local ethnic hierarchies. For some, Nükak incarnate what Hale (2004) label as a "good ethnicity", that serves to promote Guaviare as an eco-touristic destination, the Jiw are a "bad ethnicity" that annoys White people in San José, while the Tucano are portrayed as "civilized Indians". Thus, the dissertation states how these ethnic hierarchies contradict some of the core assumptions of multicultural policies that are based on an essentialized understanding of indigenous peoples as "ecologically noble savages." The dissertation argues that the analysis of contemporary experiences on indigeneity in an Amazonian context such as San José, could be better understood if it observes a set of processes and actors including: the historical transformation of senses on otherness, the production of forests as a field of domain under state regulations, the economic crossroads affecting indigenous peoples on their "resguardos" (indigenous lands) and the intervention of state laws, NGOs, indigenous political organizations, settlers, foreign governments and state officials. The analysis of such a variety of processes and actors shaping contemporary experiences on indigeneity in the Colombian Amazon follows the environmentality approach (Agrawal, 2005).

This dissertation explores the impact of multiculturalism on the relationship between ethno-racial social movements and the Venezuelan State. It assesses movements´s capacity to achieve recognition and redistribution within a State embracing anti-neoliberal multicultural discourses and policies.I conducted a comparative ethnographic study of two ethno-racial movements in northwestern Venezuela - the Ayamán-turero indigenous organization located in Lara state and the Afrodescendant movement in Yaracuy state. In order to explain the contemporary variations of these movements´s strategic capacities, I proposed the concept of mobilizing habitii - which I defined as the multilayered dispositions, practices, perceptions, and values orienting social mobilization. I argue that the mobilizing habitii of social organizations can be explored by examining their collective actions frames, strategic actions, and habitual practices. Historical evidence suggests that Ayamán mobilizing habitii have been characterized by strategies of avoidance, while Afroyaracuyan mobilizing dispositions have been shaped by their direct engagement with the State.My comparative research also suggests that Afroyaracuyan people from Veroes have managed to engage in successful territorial struggles, involving effective land redistribution. In contrast, Ayamán people have focused their efforts on reproducing State cultural performances and local ritual practices. However access to material resources, still remains limited for this indigenous population, and almost impossible to achieve through ethno-racial forms of mobilization.My comparative endeavor also shows how the Venezuela multicultural project represents a significant rupture with other Latin American neoliberal multicultural projects. Since 2006, the Venezuelan State has been indigenized, by representing indigenous peoples as the "seeds" and "holders" of the socialist project. The State has institutionalized some indigenous organizations by cont

For the past three decades, policy-makers in Santiago, Chile, have pushed laissez-faire free-market reforms on most sectors of the Chilean economy. On the Archipelago of Chiloe in southern Chile, these reforms have had the effect of introducing wage labor, on a massive scale, to communities that once relied primarily on collective practices of unpaid, reciprocal labor (mingas). My research examines the role of these changing labor practices and livelihoods in the shaping of local identities. I argue that while the Chilean government's neoliberal policies have brought increased commerce to Chiloe through the introduction of export-oriented fishing and aquaculture industries, the accompanying erosion of mingas and rural livelihoods has triggered a pronounced intergenerational shift in collective identity: whereas older islanders today bemoan the disappearance of an ethos of reciprocity, solidarity, and mutual assistance, younger islanders express an explicitly critical view of Chilote history while upholding select values of old.

Sahrawi communities in the Western Saharan region of northwest Africa have experienced a series of radical shifts over the past century from decentralized nomadic tribal organization to colonial rule under the Spanish Sahara (1884-1975) and annexation by Morocco and Mauritania in 1975. The international dispute over the future of the Western Sahara remains unresolved between the Moroccan government that administers the territory and the Sahrawi opposition that seeks self-determination under the leadership of the Polisario Front. In this context, this dissertation explores the lived experience and social memory of Sahrawis affected by conflict, diaspora, and urbanization over the past thirty-five years by examining multivocal expressions of ethnic and gender identity, nationalism, and citizenship in personal narratives and oral poetry in Hassaniyya Arabic. Through modes of everyday speech and verbal performances, Sahrawis living in the undisputed region of Morocco and the disputed Western Sahara exhibit varying political allegiances linked to tribal and national affiliations and political economic factors. Pro-independence activists negotiate public and clandestine aspirations for an independent state with the realities of living under Moroccan administration while refugees in Algeria employ performance genres to appeal for political and humanitarian support in the international community and maintain communication in the Sahrawi diaspora. Intergenerational perspectives between Sahrawis born before and after the 1975 cleavage reveal key divergences between the older generation that retains an active memory of nomadic livelihoods and pre-national tribal organization, the middle generation affected by a massive shift to urban residence and compulsory postcolonial nationalism, and the younger generation raised primarily in urban environments and refugee camps. Across generations, Sahrawi women have retained a prominent role in maintaining tribal and family ties and serv

This study examines the reactions of the Serrano from Capulalpam in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca, Mexico to the pressures of global capitalism. This is examined through the community responses to mining exploitation, which began in mid 19th century and which during the early years of the 21st century became linked to a concept of global business.Historical memory of indigenismo and mestizaje of the 20th century plays a major role in the configuration of collective identities in Capulalpam, which the community has used to claim full ownership of gold and silver. This mobilization of lived experiences of the past is examined through the role of the elders, former indigenous miners, and indigenous authorities who are the intermediaries between the community and the state. They have mobilized major local spaces of collective representation such as the agrarian and municipal jurisdictions, as well as the communal assembly, to challenge the federal government's granting of mining concessions to multinational corporations. Members of the community adjust discourses about community to novel circumstances.Consequences of mining on Capulalpam's key resources for survival such as depletion of aquifers, pollution of water and communal lands, as well as the extraction of gold and silver, are assessed through the language of collective possession of resources. Former indigenous miners have used the landscape to attach memories to reconstruct and assess changes in the environment occurred over time due to mining. Documentation of communal land possession forged through time, memories of elders about mining and experiences of community cargo carried out across generations are connected to international and national law for Capulalpam to claim its indigenous rights and its inclusion into the politics of allocation of subsoil resources.In claiming a historical possession of gold and silver, Capulalpam has undermined major ideologies shaped by cultural anthropology depicting indigeno

This research explores the subtle distribution of power within early American industrial capitalism, as seen in the nineteenth-century company town of Fayette, Michigan. Research methods for the project include GIS-based analysis of the built environment and artifact patterns; the development of a historical ethnography for the town; and archaeological excavations of household refuse excavated from three class-based neighborhoods (an artifact database is attached to this document in CD format). Issues surrounding power and agency are explored in regard to three heuristic categories of power. In the first category, the company imposed a system of structural, class-based power that is most visible in hierarchical differences in pay and housing, as well as consumer behavior. A second category, bio-power, addresses disciplinary activities surrounding health and the human body. The class system extended to discrepancies in the company's regulation of employee health, as observed in medicinal artifacts, disposal patterns of industrial waste, incidence of intestinal parasites, and unequal access to healthcare. In addition, landscape analysis shows how the built environment served as a disciplinary technology to reinforce hegemonic and naturalized class divisions, to regenerate these divisions through symbolic violence and workers' daily practices, and to impose self-regulation. The third ensemble of power relations is pluralistic, heterarcical, and determined by personal identity (e.g., consumer behavior and gender). Individuals drew upon non-economic capital to bolster social status and express identity apart from the corporate hierarchy. This research explores the social impacts of our industrial heritage and the potential repercussions of industrialization today.

This dissertation examines the politics of labor, gender, and heritage in Turkey's carpet industry, drawing on thirteen months of comparative, multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork among carpet weavers, manufacturers, designers, exporters, and tourists. The project contributes to the debates on globalization of work and labor, in particular stressing the importance of gendered and place-specific analyses of discourses, practices and material flows. It also argues for a historically situated, genealogical understanding of agency and subject formation through the nature of relationships that develop between the actors participating in the Turkish carpet industry and the ways in which both transparency and secrecy are employed as strategies of survival within diverse sites of production and sale by culturally-defined agents.As Turkey implements social reforms vying for membership to the European Union, the culmination point of the modernization and secularization processes that started even before the formation of the nation-state, the structural economic shifts result in increasingly complex gendered power relations and negotiations in Turkey's carpet industry. This dissertation argues that a detailed analysis of Turkish carpet industry in global economic competition discloses that globalization needs to be understood as a productive discursive practice that is heavily implicated in disciplinary programs and in the ubiquity of power politics that define and justify productivity and liberalism as emancipatory universals to be emulated and ultimately reached. Yet, as this study shows, both men and women taking part in the Turkish carpet industry actively participate in several balancing acts that traversed presupposed boundaries such as public and private, informal and formal and were experienced in thresholds that constantly questioned these naturalized boundaries. Investment in fictive kinship ties as well as friendships proposed relations that depended on networks of al

This dissertation documents my active involvement in anthropological research on elder well-being in Comitan, Chiapas, Mexico, and how my research was a springboard for local dialogue on the need for primary health care for the elderly, an issue with global significance. I describe my work as part of a larger process, still unfolding, that I helped initiate and continue to trace as an ethnographer engaged in participant observation. My long-term residence and applied health research in Chiapas, graduate training in medical anthropology, and institutional backing from the Comitan Center for Health Research (an NGO where I have worked since 1994) equipped me to catalyze engagement around elder health in Comitan. To do so, I drew on formative research, a multi-stage participatory process that is iterative and draws upon multiple methods and actors to identify and define a problem, then develop, monitor, and assess locally-congruent interventions. Specifically, I conducted: 1) ethnographic research on middle and lower class elders living alone and with family; 2) an elder health needs and resources survey of 300 households; 3) interviews with elders, home-based caregivers, and formal care providers; 4) an interinstitutional elder health conference and 5) a strategic planning meeting, which spawned 6) an independent working group that is currently exploring potential elder care strategies, with 7) my ongoing facilitation. In detailing elders' lives, problems, and care, I at once address the specific issue of elder well-being in Chiapas as seen by elders, caregivers, and providers, and describe the social relations of community action to provide basic elder care. I take stock of historical factors that have altered family relations and elder care dynamics in Chiapas, including structural adjustment, epidemiological and demographic transitions, globalization, and migration, as well as resultant local and regional socio-political struggles. I give special consideration to t

This dissertation addresses the role of ritual practices in the emergence of complex forms of social organization during the Late Archaic Period of the Central Andes (ca. 3000 1500 B.C.). This theme is approached through description and analysis of ritual architecture remains recovered in excavations at the site of Cerro Lampay, located in the Fortaleza Valley, within the North Central Coast of Peru.The emergence of social complexity is approached from the perspective of Practice Theory, noting the relevance of ritual practices in the generation, reproduction, and/or transformation of social conditions of existence.Following these theoretical principles, archaeological information is analyzed through a methodological frame built to understand the performative aspects of ritual and its material manifestations. A particular emphasis is put on the analysis of architectural remains, which are analyzed from proxemics and space syntax perspectives, in order to define the patterns of human interaction produced during the conduct of ritual.The inference of behavioral patterns conducted within construction events and ritual performances have allowed me to propose a scenario of a community with emergent leaders and a dual organization, which was responsible for the building, use, and closure of the architectural compounds found at Cerro Lampay. Ritual practices such as conspicuous consumption and feasting played a key role in the development of social dynamics and might have been a significant power source for the emergent leaderships.

The investigation of the relationships between migration processes and the reconstructions of social identities and of social relations within local, national and international contexts illustrates how social change in an Oaxacan community in Mexico is a complex, multi-faceted process. This study examines how migration processes and social change shape and are shaped by people and practices in specific historical moments interacting dialectically with broader social, economic and political structures. By paying greater attention to the quotidian and to the choices that people make as they go about their daily lives, the heterogeneity and multiplicity of community members' subjectivities and experiences are highlighted. Gender, ethnicity, race, age, class, sexuality, and religion are examined as crucial variables in processes of social differentiation and in the social reproduction of gender/racial/class hierarchies in which women and men are situated. The research applies the concept of hegemony to demonstrate that power is not separate from meaning; the social construction of meanings plays an important role in the creation of consent, collaboration or resistance. Community members have internalized their own domination through hegemonic processes, reproducing the dominant social order, yet they frequently challenge their own particular social locations within this social order. Migration processes and the globalization of communication and consumption in advanced capitalism have played key roles in these processes. New experiences and information technologies have led to a redefining and re-presenting of meanings and practices which have had negative and positive impacts on individuals, on families and on the community.