Theses and Dissertations

Booklets – M.A. Recipients & Ph.D. Graduates

Master’s Theses & Reports

Elizabeth Arnold, M.A.
Unveiling Diasporic Markets: An Archaeology of Consumption in California’s Chinatowns
Chair: Monica L. Smith, Ph.D.

Natalie Finnegan, M.A.
Mitochondrial DNA for phylogeny building: Assessing individual and grouped mtGenes as proxies for the mtGenome in platyrrhines
Chair: Jessica Lynch, Ph.D.

Thomas Gabriel Gerz, M.A.
Colonialism; Language Ideologies; Linguistic Landscape; Ryukyuan Languages; US Military & Okinawa
Chair: Erin Debenport, Ph.D.

Sophie Elizabeth Klitgaard, M.A.
An Evolutionary Approach to Privacy
Co-Chairs: H. Clark Barrett, Ph.D. and Daniel Fessler, Ph.D.

Leroy F. Moore, M.A.
Krip-Hop Nation: Community-Based Education at the Intersection of Blackness & Disability
Co-Chairs: H. Samy Alim, Ph.D. and Norma Mendoza-Denton, Ph.D.

Doctoral Dissertations

Vincent M. Belletto, Ph.D.
Attitudes of Loss: A Phenomenological Analysis of Identity, Cultural Shift, and Language Death Among the Unserdeutsch Creole German Community of Australia
Chair: C. Jason Throop, Ph.D.

Blake Erickson, Ph.D.
Challenges to Psychiatric Care: A Clinical and Anthropological Analysis of Psychosis and Dependency
Chair: Laurie Kain Hart, Ph.D.

Aditi Anand Halbe, Ph.D.
Trademarks of Tradition: Artisan Labor, Development and Place making in Rural India
Chair: Akhil Gupta, Ph.D.

Delaney Knorr, Ph.D.
Embodied experiences: a mixed-methods approach to understanding stress and resilience in Latina mothers
Chair: Molly Fox, Ph.D.

Naakoshie Awurama Mills, Ph.D.
Cultures of Foreign Policymaking: State Department Diplomats and Race in US-Africa Strategy
Chair: Laurie Kain Hart, Ph.D.

Molly Theodora Billings Oringer, Ph.D.
Spatial Relations: Post-War Reconstruction and the Afterlives of Jewish Terrains in Lebanon
Co-Chairs: Laurie Kain Hart, Ph.D. and Susan Slyomovics, Ph.D.

Rachel Parks, Ph.D.
Translating Pain, Communicating Care: Representing Expertise, Kinship, and Disability Through the DisDAT Form
Chair: C. Jason Throop, Ph.D.

Reuven Sinensky, Ph.D.
Early Agriculture and Indigenous Foodways in the US Southwest and Mesoamerica: Cuisine and Social Change in Mobile Farming Societies
Chair: Gregson Schachner, Ph.D.

Jaime Vela, Ph.D.
Diabetes Prevention Strategies for the Diné: Cultural Learning to Implement change. A Qualitative Study
Chair: Russell Thornton, Ph.D.

Sasha Lutz Winkler, Ph.D.
Evolutionary Perspectives on Play and Laughter
Co-Chairs: Erica Cartmill, Ph.D. and Susan Perry, Ph.D.

Haoyan Zhuang, Ph.D.
Collective Individualization: Co-living among Youth in Contemporary China
Co-Chairs: Nancy E. Levine, Ph.D. and Yunxiang Yan, Ph.D.

Master’s Theses & Reports

 

Madison Aubey, MA

The Archaeology of Sovereignty: Africatown, Black Mobile, and Resistive Consumption

Chair: Justin P. Dunnavant

 

Amber Kela Chong, MA

Experiments in Sovereignty: Cultivating ʻĀina Momona at Waipā

Chair: Jessica Cattelino
 

Dani Heffernan, MA

Constructing the “Cisgender Listening Subject”: Trans-Feminine Speakers’ Commentaries on Voice and Being Heard

Chair: Norma Mendoza-Denton
 

Sally Li, MA

Racial and temporal differences in fertility-education tradeoffs highlight the effect of economic opportunities on optimum family size in the US

Chair: Brooke Scelza
 

Robin Stevland Meyer-Lorey, MA

Manifest Destiny in Southeast Asia: Archaeology of American Colonial Industry in the Philippines, 1898-1987

Chair: Stephen Acabado
 

Victoria Newhall, MA.

Evaluating the Role of Foodways During Large-Scale Socio-Political Transformations at Formative Tres Zapotes

Co-Chairs: Richard Lesure and Gregson Schachner
 

Wanda Quintanilla Duran, MA

Chair: Jason De León
 

The Force of Intimacy in a Honduran Community

Nicole Smith, M.A.

From Exile to Eviction: Garífuna Indigeneity, Land Rights, and Heritage in Roatán, Honduras

Co-Chairs: Jason De León and Justin Dunnavant

 

Doctoral Dissertations

 

Steven Ammerman, PhD

Human-Animal Interaction at the Ancient Urban Site of Sisupalgarh, India

Chair: Monica L. Smith

 

Spencer Chao-Long Chen, PhD

Dubbing Ideologies: The Politics of Language and Acoustic Aesthetics in Taiwan’s Mandarin-Voiceover Production

Chair: Paul V. Kroskrity

 

Kristine Joy Chua, PhD

Environmental, Biological, and Cultural Influences on Health and Behavior

Chair: Abigail Bigham

 

Rodney R. Gratreaks Jr., PhD

Talking to the Wind: Towards an Understanding of Numic Verbal Art and Language Planning in the Village of Shaxwapats

Chair: Paul V. Kroskrity

 

Emily Virginia Jones, PhD

A Violent Operation: Trauma Surgery, Policing, and the Politics of Care in a Los Angeles County Public Hospital

Chair: Laurie Kain Hart

 

Sucharita Kanjilal, PhD

Home Chefs: Indian Households Produce for the Global Creator Economy

Chair: Akhil Gupta

 

Andrew E. MacIver, Ph.D.

The Shang-Zhou Transition: Immanence, Power, and the Micropolitics of Encounter

Chair: Li Min

 

Joshua L. Mayer, PhD

Conjuring Territory: Afro-Indigenous Authority and Settler Capitalism in Nicaragua

Chair: Shannon Speed

 

Bianca Romagnoli, PhD

Patrolling North of 60: Military Infrastructure in Canada’s Arctic Communities

Co-Chairs: Salih Can Açiksöz and Laurie Kain Hart

 

Theodore Samore, PhD

Traditionalism, Pathogen Avoidance, and Competing Tradeoffs During a Global Threat

Chair: Daniel M.T. Fessler

William James Schlesinger, PhD

The Production and Governance of Risky Sexual Subjectivity in the Era of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) to HIV

Chair: Salih Can Açiksöz

 

Saliem Wakeem Shehadeh, PhD

Researching the General Union of Palestine Students from the Diaspora

Co-Chairs: Jemima Pierre and Susan Slyomovics

 

Madeleine Amee Yakal, PhD

Spanish Colonialism in Bikol, Philippines: Localizing Devotion to Our Lady of Peñafrancia

Chair: Stephen Acabado

Master’s Theses & Reports

 

Emilia Rose Ørsted Holmbeck, MA

Contextualizing PTSD as Diagnosis and Intervention: Situating Trauma and the Subjective Experience of Suffering in Locally Meaningful Worlds

Co-Chairs: Douglas W. Hollan & Linda Garro
 

Jewell Ruth-Ella Humphrey, MA

Harboring History: A Maritime Archaeological Analysis of an 18th Century Shipwreck in Coral Bay, St. Jan

Co-Chairs: Stephen Acabado & Justin Dunnavant
 

Lillian Kohn, MA

Public Mourning, Online Spaces: Virtual Memorialization and Binational Grief in Israel-Palestine

Chair: Susan Slyomovics
 

NaaKoshie Awurama Mills, MA

Par for the Corps: Black Diplomats and Race in U.S. Foreign Policy

Chair: Laurie Hart
 

Abdullah Puckett, MA

Decarceration and Social Justice Activism in South Central LA

Chair: Philippe Bourgois

 
Matthew James Schneider, MA

Against Accountability: Policing and Public Knowledge in Los Angeles

Chair: Hannah Appel
 

Doğa Tekin, MA

Claiming Big Sur: How Places Enter Semiosis

Co-Chairs: Erin Debenport & Paul V. Kroskrity
 

Kimberly Tanya Zhu, MA

Genomic Features Underlying Andean High-Altitude Adaptive Hemoglobin Levels

Chair: Abigail Bigham
 

Doctoral Dissertations

 

Brittany Nicole Florkiewicz, PhD

Properties of Facial Signaling in Captive Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Chair: Brooke Scelza
 
Yanina Gori, PhD

Re/mediating Revolution: Cultivating Solidarity in a Cuban Queer Community

Co-Chairs: Hannah Appel & C. Jason Throop
 

Jananie Kalyanaraman, PhD

Window seats: Making connection through transport and mobility in Bengaluru city, India

Chair: Akhil Gupta

 
Eva Rose Melstrom, PhD

The Gate of Weeping: Ethiopian Women Returning from Domestic Work in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf

Co-Chairs: Douglas W. Hollan & C. Jason Throop
 

Zachary Mondesire, PhD

Region-craft: An Ethnography of South Sudan’s Transnational Intelligentsia

Chair: Hannah Appel
 

Lauren Textor, PhD

Deserving Abandonment: Governing Pain and Addiction across U.S. Opioid Landscapes

Co-Chairs: Philippe Bourgois & Laurie Hart

Master’s Theses

 

Sara Isabel Castro Font, MA

Hipsters, Drunks, Tourists, and Locals: Calle Loíza as a Site of Ideological Contestation

Co-Chairs: Erin Debenport & Paul V. Kroskrity

 

Lilit Ghazaryan, MA

Speak Beautifully – Language Policies and Practices in Public Kindergartens in Armenia

Chair: Erica Cartmill

 

Nicco Amedeo La Mattina, MA

“Giving the Meaning” as a Social Practice on Pantelleria: The Metasemantics of Atttunement

Chair: Alessandro Duranti

 

Alessandra May Laurer Rosen, MA

Semiotic Labors of Personalization: Modernization and Access in an American Yoga School

Co-Chairs: Erin Debenport & Paul V. Kroskrity

 

Danielle Leigh Steinberg, MA

A robust tool kit: first report of tool use in crested capuchin monkeys (Sapajus robustus)

Chair: Jessica Lynch

 

Jessie Serene Stoolman, MA

Writing Letters and Reading against the Grain of Anthropology’s Past

Chair: Aomar Boum

 

Donghyoun We, MA

Food and Restaurants: A Review of the Literature and Exploratory Observations of Restaurant Pivots in LA in the Time of COVID-19

Chair: Akhil Gupta

 

Madeleine Louise Zoeller, MA

Eye See You: Investigating Predictors of the Evil Eye

Chair: Joseph Manson

 

Doctoral Dissertations

 

Farzad Amoozegar-Fassaie, PhD

The Pursuit of Happiness and the Other: Being a Syrian Refugee Child in America

Co-Chairs: Alessandro Duranti & C. Jason Throop

 

Theresa Hill Arriola, PhD

Securing Nature: Militarism, Indigeneity and the Environment in the Northern Mariana Islands

Chair: Jessica Cattelino

 

Yael Assor, PhD

Objectivity as a Bureaucratic Virtue: The Lived Experience of Objectivity in an Israeli Medical Bureaucracy

Chair: C. Jason Throop

 

Amanda Jean Bailey, PhD

Alluvial Hope: The Transformative Practices of Placemaking at a Montana Tribal College

Co-Chairs: Paul V. Kroskrity & Cheryl Mattingly

 

Hannah Addaline Carlan, PhD

Producing Prosperity: Language and the Labor of Development in India’s Western Himalayas

Chair: Alessandro Duranti

 

Alejandro Suleman Erut, PhD

Lying: an anthropological approach

Chair: H. Clark Barrett

 

Nafis Aziz Hasan, PhD

Techno-politics of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) – Investigating Practices and Social Relations in Indian Public Bureaucracies

Chair: Akhil Gupta

 

Tanya Ruth Matthan, PhD

The Monsoon and the Market: Economies of Risk in Rural India

Chair: Akhil Gupta

 

Agatha Evangeline Palma, PhD

The Migrant, The Mediterranean, and the Tourist: Figures of Belonging in Post-Austerity Palermo

Co-Chairs: Aomar Boum & Laurie Kain Hart

 

Sonya Rao, PhD

Privatizing Language Work: Interpreters and Access in Los Angeles Immigration Court

Chair: Paul V. Kroskrity

 

Alexander Malcolm Thomson, PhD

Mesologues: An Ethnobibliographic Study of Cultural and Lingual Politics in Contemporary Brittany

Co-Chairs: Laurie Kain Hart & Paul V. Kroskrity

Master’s Theses & Reports

 

Ulises Espinoza, MA

Intuitions on Ownership Among the Achuar of Southeastern Ecuador

Chair: H. Clark Barrett

 

Eden Franz, MA

Cultural and Interspecific Symbiosis at Salemi, Sicily: Exploring Colonial and Human-Animal Interactions Through Faunal Analysis

Chair: Monica L. Smith

 

Joelle Julien, MA

Haitian Migration to Tijuana, Mexico: Black Migrants and the Political Economy of Race and Migration

Chair: Jemima Pierre

 

Eric Andrew Sinski, MA

Imagined Communities: Patriotic Sentiment Among Chinese Students Abroad in the Era of Xi Jinping

Chair: Yunxiang Yan

 

Sasha Lutz Winkler, MA

The Development of Sex Differences in Play in Wild White-Faced Capuchins

Chair: Erica Cartmill

 

Doctoral Dissertations

 

Katelyn Jo Bishop, PhD

Ritual Practice, Ceremonial Organization, and the Value and Use of Birds in Prehispanic Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, 800-1150 CE

Co-Chairs: Richard Lesure & Gregson Schachner

 

Molly Josette Bloom, PhD

Thick Sociality: Community, Disability, and Language in Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation

Chair: Norma Mendoza-Denton

 

Courtney Evelyn Cecale, PhD

Scientific Governance and the Cultural Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in the Peruvian Andes

Chair: Jessica Cattelino

 

Amy Marie Garey, PhD

The People’s Laughter: War, Comedy, and the Soviet Legacy

Chair: Nancy E. Levine

 

Kotrina Kajokaite, PhD

Social relationships in wild white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus): Insights from new modeling approaches

Chair: Susan Perry

 

Matthew Richard McCoy, PhD

Unsettling Futures: Morality, Time, and Death in a Divided Belfast Community

Chair: C. Jason Throop

 

Dalila Isoke Ozier, PhD

City of Magic: Aesthetic Value in the Los Angeles Magic Scene

Chair: Sherry B. Ortner

 

Mindy Gayle Steinberg, PhD

Legal Status and the Everyday Lives of Mexican-Origin Youth in Los Angeles: Family, Gratitude, and the High School Transition

Chair: Thomas S. Weisner

 

Christopher Shawn Stephan, PhD

“Focus on the Users”: Empathy, Anticipation, and Perspective-Taking in Healthcare Architecture

Chair: C. Jason Throop

 

Anoush Tamar Suni, PhD

Palimpsests of Violence: Ruination and the Politics of Memory in Anatolia

Chair: Susan Slyomovics

 

Gwyneth Ursula Jean Talley, PhD

Gunpowder Women: Gender, Kinship & Horses in Moroccan Equestrian Performance

Co-Chairs: Nancy E. Levine & Susan Slyomovics