Humans and other primates have been in contact for the entirety of our evolution and our relationships have been complex and ever changing. Many cultures hold a position of dominance, exploitation, or power over other primates. This often results in turning them into the "Other," which allows humans to use them as they see fit. This research examines the ways in which humans relate to and perceive other primates to understand how these relationships are associated with varied human uses of them. Expanding upon the current research in ethnoprimatology, which examines the human-other primate interface, my work studies the relationships and perceptions that develop in the context of captivity. I investigate these relationships in a biomedical research facility, a zoo, and an animal sanctuary. I use observation, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and discourse and artifact analysis to determine the human perception(s) of other primates. Qualitative data analysis will be used to discern and interpret similarities, differences, and patterns. What I expect to find from this study is that humans treat other primates as "Others" and assign them a lower status in order to justify their varied uses. This study will help us to understand our hierarchical relationships with other primates, how they allow for exploitation, entertainment, or conservation values, and what this teaches us about the construction of "human nature".

Colonization is often associated with exploitation of local laborers. However, the degree to which physical activity in local populations changes following colonization depends upon the policies of the colonizers, and the technology that is locally available. This research tests the null hypothesis that levels of physical activity, as evidenced by osteoarthritis in human skeletons, remained constant at Epidamnus, Albania during Greek and Roman colonial occupation (620-100BC). To test this hypothesis, 80 skeletons from Epidamnus were examined for evidence of osteoarthritis, and scored according to international standardized protocols. Of these 80 individuals, 27 were adults that showed sufficient preservation for analysis of osteoarthritis. Results indicate that osteoarthritis was more pronounced in all joint surfaces during the Greek than the Roman period (shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, ankle, cervical vertebra, and temporomandibular joint), with the exception of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae. Chi-square indicates that this pattern is statistically significant in the shoulder (p=0.02) and ankle (p=0.003), and approaches significance in the elbow (p=0.09), wrist (p=0.06), and temporomandibular joint (p=0.06). These results do not support the null hypothesis of no change from the Greek to the Roman period. Historical documents indicate that Greek colonization resulted in increased dependence on agriculture and largely replaced nomadic pastoralism in local Illyrians. The Romans then introduced new technologies to increase agricultural efficiency. The emerging pattern indicates that the introduction of new, sophisticated technology made life easier for Illyrians during the Roman period. However, the impacts of small sample size are also considered.

 Depictions of Our Lady of Refuge of Sinners, or La Refugiana, were among the most popular religious images produced in viceregal Mexico since the early eighteenth-century, especially in areas north of Mexico City. Although the iconography of these images did not change, the artists who produced these works adopted a variety of styles—classical, Baroque and even popular folk. It is safe to assume that there is nothing arbitrary about the production of religious devotional images; these objects surely must adhere to specific concepts of theological decorum while, at the same time, meet the religious and devotional needs of the public. By examining an array of early nineteenth-century Mexican retablos of La Refugiana, I will attempt to explain the reasons behind these distinct formal approaches and how they may have been tailored to fit the civic, theological and apotropaic needs of an ethnically diverse population. My research will closely examine how images were produced in viceregal Mexico. Additionally, I will consider how stylistic variety may have been the result of innovation, experimentation or creative competition in reaction to European models. To this aim, I will also explore the hybridization between old and New World artistic traditions, the didactic use of images by the mendicant orders, the use of religious images in private versus public devotional use, as well as the political climate of the time. While my final research paper will not discuss all of these elements in great detail, they will be useful to gain a better understanding of why images of La Refugiana manifested such a wide variety of styles and place them within a much more decisive cultural context.

Much of the wisdom written on the subject of Iraqi railways confides in the German interest of the 19th century in extending a railway from Baghdad to Haydarpasa, World War I, and the birth of the British Mandate, as noted in Sean McMeekin’s The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power (2010). As a result, there is a need within the academic literature regarding British controlled Iraqi railways and the correlation of concessions to various oil companies during the 1920s. This study has also found that the U.S. had a covert interest in the shaping of the Iraqi nation, while most research has focused on the British imperial agenda concerning the railways. By using data based on the Records of Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Asia, 1910-1929, which includes confidential correspondence between the American Consulate of Baghdad and Washington DC and pamphlets regarding the infrastructure, along with integral secondary source material like Peter Sluglett’s Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country (2007, 2nd ed.), this study addresses both a wide variety of identities such as the intellectuals and elite as well as Bedouin tribes and Kurds within the Iraqi nation, who were embedded within this new imperial reality, and the U.S. clandestine approach to addressing the issue of oil concessions. The methodology employed within this research project consists of both the imperialist agenda of Britain and the U.S. embryonic interests in Iraq, while conveying the consciousness of those imperialized and/or colonized. Therefore, this had implicated that there was a lack of sectarian violence prior to the creation of Iraq, and as such, there were new ethnic identities and nationalisms that resulted from its creation of which they were inherently influenced by the prospects of oil and the extension of railways throughout Iraq.

In many ways, our contemporary understanding of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, and its associated successes and failures, has been severely limited through socio-historical and political machinations to collapse and periodize it. Rather than situating it within or connecting it to the broader historical continuum and highlighting the rich multiplicity of forms of struggle and survival, the simplistic narratives we receive through media (and other forms of cultural production) are ones of heroes and villains—of near-infallible visionaries and separatist and corrupt radicals, one that highlights the contributions of the few at the expense of the many. Two such groups whose historical agency and significance suffer from such undertakings are the Black Panther and the Young Lords Parties. It can be said that both groups have suffered not from a crisis of denotation, but one of connotation—referring specifically to the ways in which their collective contributions have been socially diminished as they are instead associated with fear, needless violence, corruption, militancy and relegated to the margins. Thus my research asks: how did these groups function as powerful symbols of transformation during Modern Civil Rights Movement? To what end? How and why were individuals within these groups and even the organizations themselves framed as threats to the social order and how would their objectification exacerbate their struggles for equality? I seek to uncover through a careful examination of foundational documents, news articles and other print media, interviews, and film, how socially produced marginalization enabled a multiplicity of violence against them (and their associated communities) and also illuminate some of the associated contemporary consequences.

My research explores the means by which identities of “non-white” Habesha (Ethiopian and Eritrean) immigrants are negotiated through the use of media, community spaces, collectivism, and activism. As “black” immigrant subjects who do not have a longstanding historical past in the United States, Habesha face the challenges of having to re-construct and negotiate their identities within binary, black/white, American racial landscapes. To explore the ways in which ethnic-based collectivism and activism challenge stereotypical portrayals of Habeshaness and blackness which are typically cemented through media, I focus on unpacking mediated representations of Hana Alemu Williams, her death, trial, and subsequent support from the Ethiopian Community of Seattle (ECS). In short, Hana Alemu Williams was an Ethiopian child who died in 2011 from abuse, severe malnutrition, and cruelty at the hands of her white adoptive family in Sedro-Woolley Washington. Through close readings of mediated texts: news paper articles, television news broadcastings, blogs, and interviews of people from the ECS who were used as news “experts”, I will critically analyze the moments in which Habesha immigrants challenge narratives of race and identity in the American context. I hypothesize that Habesha immigrants sometimes assimilate into American constructions of race while at other moments creating counter-narratives of hybridity or exclusive ethnic-based identities like Habeshaness, or maintaining purely national identities as Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants, in an effort to defer perceived racial stereotypes and oppression that arise with identifying as simply black or African American. Furthermore, I discuss potential steps that can be taken by Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrant communities to address these harmful and limited understandings of race and racism in America. This research enriches the existing academic literature by creating a more nuanced understanding of the Seattle Habesha community’s racial discourses in their efforts to re-imagine Habesha identities.