bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Rise of Fourth‐Wave Feminism in the Arab region? Cyberfeminism and Women's Activism at the Crossroads of the Arab Spring
Authors: Tazi Maha , Oumlil Kenza
Published: February 2021

This article explores the emergence of fourth-wave feminism in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region in the context of the Arab Spring, which was a series of uprisings that followed the self-immolation of Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi in December 2010 and spread through several countries in the MENA region. The uprisings protested authoritarian regimes and called for democracy, freedom, and social justice. Fourth-wave feminism finds its origins in the new Web 2.0 technologies which give users the power to shape their own content, and is characterized by a mass of techsavvy and young feminists who harness the power of the Internet and the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to advocate for social justice and gender equality (Baumgardner 2011; Licudine 2015; Martin and Valentin 2013). Despite the enduring digital gap in the MENA region, feminists contributed significantly in the context of the Arab Spring to the public debates and discussions online to call for mass mobilization as well as raise awareness about gender issues and discrimination.

Taking as objects of analysis three case studies of feminist interventions from Egypt, Tunisia, and Lebanon, the article examines the ways in which the selected activists in the region respond to their contemporary context by advocating for gender equality at the same time that they seek to promote a wider social justice agenda for their respective countries. The case studies were selected on the basis of the artists self-identifying as feminists who attempt to harness the power of ICTs to end authoritarian rule and promote human rights, with specific attention to achieving societal gender equality. In addition, the selected case studies are particularly relevant because their online platforms received significant media coverage and also benefit from a significant online following and fan-base (ranging from 2,400 fans to 12,660 followers for the Facebook pages). The analysis is based on conducted structured interviews with the three feminist activists, and is complemented with a textual analysis of their own online platforms, which include a feminist blog and Facebook pages, as well as relevant contextual information found in the public domain.
The Cosmopolite Indian: History, Geography, and Multiplicity
Authors: Nicholls Heidi
Published: February 2021

Using the lens of the cosmopolitan, this paper looks to the legislative, economic, and political ideologies creating the notion of the u/Urban Indian who I argue to be a cosmopolite. While taking the reader through a brief history of the emergence of Indian centers as Indian space or structure, I use the example of one Indian Center, in particular located in the Midwest, as a site of the cosmopolitan, focusing on the center's annual powwow. The powwow sponsored by the center, serves as the structure that encompasses the individual circulating from differing nations, engaging in a mutual respect of Pan‐Indian‐ness, both converging and diverging, creating a home abroad and an abroad home for the cosmopolite Indian.
Kazakh‐Speaking University Students Proverbial Perspectives on Community: Circulation Studies and Frame Analysis in Tandem
Authors: Aasland Erik
Published: February 2021

Past attempts at using proverbs for cultural analysis have provided questionable results. There has been an overreliance on comparable proverbs from other cultures (Mieder 1981) or the search for “underlying” static cultural traits (Bartlotti 2000). The current paper explores the potential of using frame analysis (Goffman 1974; Johnston 2002; Snow 1986) and circulation studies (Spitulnik 2001) as methods better suited to explicating societal change. The two methods are complementary: circulation studies aiding understanding of the process of proverb use; frame analysis allowing for insight on the meaning of familiar proverbs. Rather than explore perspectives of the culture in general, I selected college students in Almaty, Kazakhstan as the group to be investigated. The current generation of students in Kazakhstan is unique, since they have only known an independent and Post‐Soviet fatherland. As they have grown up, the country has been in the throes of redefining itself as a society. Part of this process has been reestablishing Kazakh as the national language. Field research was carried out among university students at the Kazakh National Technical University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Surveys provided information about the most familiar proverbs out of the proverb set concerning “community”. Analysis of the survey results showed that the population functions using proverbs as a speech community, a group able to communicate with each other effectively. Surveys and proverb encounter reenactments will provide the type of data necessary for circulation studies and frame analysis to establish a baseline concerning proverbial perspectives concerning “community” among Kazakh‐speaking college students.
Beyond Artifacts: Bridecentrism, Meaning, and Market in Wedding Material Culture
Authors: Vélez-Gómez Lorna M.
Published: February 2021

This work aims at examining the “strangeness” of the familiar ritual of the wedding through an in‐depth look at how artifacts circulate in weddings. Carried out in the western part of Puerto Rico, this study makes a contribution by addressing a gap in the anthropological literature on Puerto Rico with the study of the wedding ritual and contributing to the broader anthropological study of how meaning is produced, communicated and negotiated. This research reveals that Puerto Rican weddings are a bride‐centric ritual, and that the meaning attributed to wedding artifacts is the result of negotiations between what are perceived by participants as structural, traditional, ritual constraints or guidelines and what are described as more personal or idiosyncratic preferences. This analysis of wedding artifacts also suggests an underlying logic of how people and things are classified in Puerto Rican culture. Artifacts are classified; much like people are classified‐ objects are incorporated into the ritual because they perpetuate notions of valuable characteristics in people (eg. uniqueness). The market then, targets brides, because the market understands women long to possess these values and also posses the knowledge necessary to produce the truth and the power needed to make decisions regarding wedding aesthetics.
The Effect of Masculinity on Sexual Health Practices among College‐Age Students in the United States
Authors: Graffy Peter
Published: February 2021

My study investigates the realm of masculinity and its effect on our health system, specifically contraception. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the range of effects which masculinity produces in our society by way of shaping American sexual health practices. I conducted my fieldwork research in the environment veritably deemed the most sexual and “genderized”: college campus. The college is located in a small Midwest town of 8000 where most of my research occurred outside a downtown bar, Roscoe';s. I distributed contraception in the form of condoms to gauge the responses of my peers when it came to sexual health. I argue that masculinity has a significant impact through the social power which it wields over the American system of sexual health.
We Are All Insider‐Outsiders: A Review of Debates Surrounding Native Anthropology
Authors: Forster Abby
Published: February 2021

More and more anthropologists are doing “anthropology of home” by researching within their own communities. Major methodological and theoretical contributions for researchers working in their home communities come from debates surrounding “native” anthropology. Since anthropology has historically involved going outside one's community, the shift to research sites in an anthropologist's home community has fostered debates about the application of traditional anthropological methods to one's own community. This article outlines several important methodological issues that have been debated by native anthropologists including issues of distance, cultural competence, translation, and defining “native.” This article shows that native anthropology offers a critique of dominate anthropological practices by opposing the customary position of natives as objects and countering Eurocentrist domination in academia. At the same time, native anthropologists have been strong in voicing the fluidity of identity which shows that every researcher is both an insider and an outsider. These insights are important for every anthropologist of home.
Engaging Students as Critical Storytellers: Classroom Observations from a Boricua Anthropologists
Authors: Martinez Vanessa
Published: February 2021

Public and private higher education's need to recruit “the brightest and most accomplished students” has created social and economic barriers to college admissions and student retention. In contrast, community colleges, due to their open door policies, provide an academic home for students who might otherwise be unable to attend college. However, the community college classroom is a continuum of academic potential and problems requiring innovative teaching to bridge these divides. Storytelling is a teaching tool that I use to unmask social inequalities while helping students with different educational backgrounds understand and personalize the lessons that different anthropological writings strive to teach them. In this commentary, I share some of my own racialized and privileged experiences, the complexities of teaching and learning at a community college, and the experiences and voices of students engaging in their own knowledge building and storytelling.
The Veiled Periphery: Rural Kurdish Women in Turkey and the Taboo of Sexuality
Authors: Boston University Feyza Burak
Published: February 2021

Sexuality is the most salient taboo informing many practices in Cibo, a Kurdish village located in Erzurum, Turkey. In this article, I explore the manifestations, permutations, and ramifications of sexual shame through gendered practices. My analysis manifests the complex matrices of the deployment of the practices. That is, the modesty code based on sexual shame emerges at once as an index of traditional, ethnic (Turkish vs. Kurdish) and sectarian (Sunni vs. Alevi) identity, a religious observance, an instrument to attain honor and status, an assertion of morality and virtue, and lastly as resistance to Turkish hegemony and the perceived urban objectification of women. I explore the nuanced ways in which rural Kurdish women assert agency and resistance and in doing so I complicate stereotypic images of “subjugated” rural Kurdish women in Turkey. True to a feminist tradition, I locate the expressed problems of these women not in an abstract category of patriarchy, but in the intersectionality of class, ethnicity, state, and discursive Islamic tradition.
Reconstructing the Farm: Life Stories of Dutch Female Farmers
Authors: Turesky Marisa
Published: February 2021

My research asks: what are the lived experiences of female farmers in a Dutch agricultural community like the Netherlands? Although popular culture portrays most female farmers as uneducated individuals of lower socioeconomic status, the six women who I interviewed in the Netherlands over the course of a short ethnographic research study present life stories that complicate this stereotype. In my conversations with female farm owners in the Netherlands, it emerged that a patriarchal paradigm appears to persist in industrial, conventional agriculture, seeming to encourage larger numbers of women to own more small‐scale farms. While there is substantial existing research on rural women's historical roles in farming, I add additional layers to this work, through my analysis of the personal experiences of a small sample of women farmers in the contemporary Netherlands. These women, who consider farming their lifestyle, discuss their inspiration, challenges, successes, and passion for their chosen occupation. In attempting to balance traditional roles of labor versus domesticity, these women actively challenge the gender binary through experiences in motherhood and business ownership.
Maintenance of Individual Identity in Older Adulthood: Responses to Successful Aging in America
Authors: Rosenthal Staci
Published: February 2021

With social, political, and economic conditions in the United States emphasizing individual productivity and self maintenance, there is a new concern for how American elders take care of themselves. In contemporary American culture, optimal models of the aging process–often labeled “Successful Aging” or “Healthy Aging”–emphasize independence, the importance of evading disease and disability, the maintenance of physical and mental facilities, and sustained engagement in social relationships. In this article I argue that my financially‐comfortable, welleducated older American informants from Boston and West Palm beach communities respond to notions of Successful Aging by creating and constructing identities as “successful aging persons” that acknowledge a need to accept and adapt to change in later life. My informants creatively and resourcefully strove to create health, activity, and productivity in their own lives; in this way, they remained deeply invested in the American ideals of independence and autonomy. At the same time, many informants emphasized the need to not simply retain health, activity, and a youthful independence, but also to resourcefully adapt to the very real changes of age. In other words, the experiences offered by my informants tended to reflect ways they have appropriated culturally inflected notions of success into their own aging routines. Successful Aging for them became about passing through later life's stages with poise, intelligence, resourcefulness, and self‐sufficiency. Data collection began in the Spring of 2012 when I conducted preliminary interviews and gathered observation notes in a Jewish retirement community in Wellington, Florida; collection continued in Boston through the Spring of 2013. Individual phone interviews, home visits, group discussions, and participation in and observance of older‐adult education classes all contributed to the collection of this research data.
Neoliberalism Illustrated: Privatization in the Republic of Macedonia's Tikveš Wine Region
Authors: Otten Justin
Published: February 2021

This paper draws upon anthropological fieldwork carried out in 2010–11 in the Tikveš wine region of the Republic of Macedonia. Unlike most other countries of the former Eastern Bloc, Macedonia's post‐socialist transition was held off due to the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The result is that a slower, more subtle shift has occurred there. But it has been one guided by neoliberal principles, thus significantly altering the livelihoods of the country's inhabitants. My research in Tikveš illustrates the role privatization is playing in the region's transition from government to private ownership and production, specifically in the wine growing business. Although the quality and selection of wine in Tikveš has improved, the lives of the independent grape growers and their families have not. Instead, the growers have been subject to the leverage of the winery owners—who have reduced and delayed payments to them—while a neoliberal government has taken a laissez‐faire approach to market regulation. This photographic essay therefore focuses on how individuals in the region are both protesting and adapting to the change at hand, by staging protests and blocking main roads, and more so through rearranging their livelihoods and work. Indeed, grape growers have been left with a surplus of grapes and a dearth of income and certainty, inciting some to produce vast quantities of homemade rakija (brandy) while others replace, abandon, or sell their vineyards. New ways of bringing in income, such as selling one's brandy, produce, or homemade goods, are also modes of survival. Yet many claim that is all they are doing, and “not living, just surviving.”
From the Mouths of Babes: An Examination of Elderspeak in An Intergenerational Daycare Facility
Authors: Portney Allison E
Published: February 2021

As the population in the United States ages, it becomes increasingly important to understand how a new generation is learning to interact with older adults. This study examines the way that children and staff at an intergenerational daycare facility speak to older Americans. Kristine Williams observed the pervasive phenomenon of “elderspeak,” a linguistic register similar to baby talk used to speak to older adults in many settings, including a long‐term care facility (Williams 2011: 4). Elderspeak was found to have extremely negative consequences on older individuals’ health outcomes. I analyzed twenty hours of audio data from naturalistic interactions I observed at my research site. This study found that using 1) age‐avoidance terms, 2) a patronizing tone, 3) lack of honorifics, and 4) scolding by staff, older adults, and children linguistically separated older adults into a different and lower social status from staff members and children. This communicative practice impacted the social and linguistic environment of the intergenerational care facility. As elderspeak is socialized, it spreads across generations. The simplified register with a tone and structure of condescension is a reflection of local ideologies about aging.
Europe's Erased: Rethinking European Migration and Citizenship Policies Based on the Example of the Erased Residents of Slovenia
Authors: Protner Beja
Published: February 2021

The erasure of more than 25,000 people from the population registry of the Republic of Slovenia in 1992 left these people who had been living there for several years, some for all their lives, without any legal status. As such, these previously ordinary citizens became the legal equivalent of undocumented migrants. They were the first in Slovenia to experience European migration policies with their classification order of legal statuses and citizenships, which organizes populations into hierarchies both within and among the states. Their struggle to gain legal status is proof of the absurdity of these policies where desubjectivated migrants are trapped in an administrative circle that prevents their inclusion in society. Citizenship, a status that promises full participation in the community, is very hard to acquire because the community is defined as a national community. Behind the curtain of the “home security” discourse, the real goal of selective and partial inclusion of migrants seems to be protection of capital, since undocumented workers (among them also the erased residents) are unprotected from exploitation and as such are a benefit to the economy. The main argument of the article, supported by the ethnographic data, is that migration restrictions not only cause a great deal of suffering to migrants but also (re)produce their illegality. Due to the migration policies, these migrants stay in a specific territory illegally and as a consequence they cannot work in the legal sector. In order to break this vicious cycle, the official concept of citizenship has to be changed and the foundations upon which migration policies rest have to be reconstructed in the spirit of inclusiveness.
Dietary Restrictions: Life at College
Authors: Shaker Dana , Matteson Emily
Published: February 2021

This ethnographic study seeks to understand the quality of life for residential undergraduate college students in the United States who restrict their diets either by choice or medical necessity. Since all kinds of dietary restrictions present similar lifestyle challenges not experienced by non‐dietary‐restricted residential college students, we define dietary restrictions broadly. A review of the existing research literature on dietary restrictions reveals that most studies are biomedical, focusing on clinical, cognitive, and psychological aspects of dietary restrictions. Few studies explore college students exclusively as a population, and even fewer consider how the social and material conditions of a college environment affect the lived experiences of dietary‐restricted students. This ethnography remedies the absence of qualitative and ethnographic research with a study of twenty‐nine individuals, most of whom are students who restrict their diets, across five undergraduate private college campuses over a fifteen‐week period in the spring of 2012. Our results add a new dimension to the biomedical research, which has tended to locate the “problem” of dietary restrictions within the dietaryrestricted. Contrary to the existing literature, we argue that such problems are sociocultural and institutional rather than pathological and individual. Our data illustrate that the quality of dietary‐restricted living improves when dietary‐restricted students advocate for and institutions respond to material, systemic solutions that allow the dietary‐restricted population to eat safely, socially, and quickly in a college environment, just like their non‐dietary‐restricted peers.
Occupy Wall Street: A Hybrid Counterpublic
Authors: Subramani Shreya
Published: February 2021

In this article, I explore the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement in New York City as a hybrid counterpublic. I conducted research on OWS during its encampment at Liberty Plaza from September‐November 2011 to understand its membership, emergence, and growth. I describe OWS as a hybrid counterpublic mediated by discourse that is both physically, through the use of bodily performance, and virtually, through social media channels online, circulated. These discursive forms embody the ideological principles of decentralization of power, collective participation, and individual agency. OWS created innovative spaces, practices, and temporalities to extend the existing social architecture and modes of communication, effecting democratic deliberation through affective performance. The hybridity of this constructed social space has allowed for novel sensorial experiences that expand and reinforce engagement with the OWS counterpublic. I propose that OWS has allowed for significant social actors to emerge and become publicly salient while subverting hegemonic institutions of the state and dominant civil society through the redefinition of citizenship. Since the eviction of the Liberty Plaza encampment, OWS in New York City has lost some traction. This signifies the integral symbiosis between the virtual and physical discursive realms of the movement's existence and sustainability. Furthermore, this analysis of the OWS movement demonstrates the cultural emergence of a new hybrid counterpublic that mediates the way Americans engage with politics, dissent, and everyday life.
Representing Simultaneity in Polychannel Linguistic Events: A Multitrack Method for Transcription
Authors: Noah C.G. Johnson
Published: February 2021

Despite the advances in audio and video recording that have been made in the last century and the implications of the more recent advent of the internet and other information sharing systems, the study of linguistic anthropology requires us from time to time to present reproductions of recorded linguistic events in a textual format — a transcript. In addition, transcripts can also prove invaluable during analysis, making clear what we miss in the auditory or visual reproductions of a recording device. And yet, the transcript is not a neutral tool but, like a lens, it has the ability to distort everything that is seen through its paradigm. A discourse‐centered approach to the study of language advocates that we seek to investigate linguistic events that occur in natural, dynamic and often messy situations. Unfortunately, our transcription methods, though now greatly bolstered by sophisticated technology, still lack methodological robustness when applied to polychannel interactions — or conversations involving multiple speakers — which are often typified by interruptions or overlapping. In this article, a method of transcription that relies upon the same organizing logic as multitrack recording is proposed, the process by which this method was developed is explained and additional directions for future research are suggested.
Methodological Biases in Zooarchaeology and the Interpretation of Human Activity from the Faunal Record
Authors: Rebecca Torgerson
Published: February 2021

Zooarchaeology is a growing multidisciplinary field, which can answer questions about the relationship of humans and other animals and its effects on the environment. There are significant advantages to studying faunal data over other types of assemblages. First, bones allow for a culture‐free taxonomy where there is little question of use. Second, faunal data from the past can be matched to species that still exist in the modern day. The latter especially, allows for the use of middle range theory or the ability to create a controlled experiment with living systems based on general principles. The biases in the methods of zooarchaeology can affect interpretation of human activity, therefore taphonomy, recovery, identification, and choice of quantification methods should be taken into account. Each of these methods should be standardized and tailored to a specific research question. Also I believe with the help of ethnoarchaeology we can increase awareness and even reduce some of the biases in zooarchaeology.
Disciplining Language and the Language of Discipline: A Case Study on Linguistic Methods for Classroom Management from an English‐Medium School in India
Authors: Chandras Jessica
Published: February 2021

This paper explores the linguistic methods used for classroom management in an English‐medium school in Maharashtra, India. This study is based on data collected through participant observation conducted in third and fourth grade classrooms in 2014. It documents how interactions between teachers and students serve to maintain the language of instruction (English) in a context where instructional language differs from students’ and teachers’ first languages (Marathi). I demonstrate that teachers use linguistic methods to convey meaning in English while also disciplining and socializing students into academic language norms. These methods include code switching, or alternating between languages, and discourse markers, which are phrases that take on significance based on their context in utterances. Findings indicate that code switching from Marathi to English marks not only linguistic, but also behavioral transgressions. I argue that code switching, among other strategies, concretizes the delineation of English as an academic language and Marathi as a subversive language in the classroom. This analysis contributes a unique ethnographic perspective to debates in linguistic anthropology and the anthropology of education regarding how broader societal expectations in relation to students’ language and behavior are defined through language use in classrooms.
Prolonging Disaster (Un)recovery: “Culturally‐Irrelevant” Fish Consumption Advisories in the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community
Authors: Gagnon Valoree S.
Published: February 2021

The United States responded to the 1971 international mercury crisis by establishing fish consumption advisories, which were intended to warn the American public of temporary mercury contamination in fish. However, advisories remain implemented as public health protection measures in all fifty states. This perpetual reliance on advisories is prolonging disaster recovery, or more precisely, ensuring a continuous state of what I term “disaster (un)recovery.” Modified approaches create “eat safe fish” guidance for fishers, producing “culturally‐relevant” recommendations. This means advisories offer a number of “healthy” choices that correspond to specific bodies of water and fish species favored by varying target populations. This article explores fish advisory policy in the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), a federally‐recognized Indian tribe that retains treaty‐established homelands and harvesting rights in the Lake Superior region. By using ethnographic and oral history methods, I examined fish harvest practices in an effort to create culturally‐relevant fish advisory recommendations for the community. However, my analysis reveals the cultural irrelevance of advisories as health protection measures for the KBIC. Examining cultural considerations within KBIC harvesting and in the development of fish advisories illustrates how the notion of “culture” actually leads to increased toxic exposure. The KBIC rely on fish for social and spiritual wellbeing, which simultaneously places their physical health at great risk. I argue that advisory policy as public health protection is primarily a social justice issue, and conclude by identifying pathways for culturally‐specific recovery.
“Look North”: Conspiracy and the Sojazacíon of Argentina
Authors: Smith Geneva
Published: February 2021

The scientific community now overwhelmingly agrees that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe. Yet vigorous public debate continues worldwide about the entry of GMOs into the environment and food chain. Unique to the Argentine context, however, is that expert and civic debates about GM soy have more to do the redistribution of export profits than with potential environmental or health risks. In this essay, I examine Argentina's GMO expert regulatory bodies and recent conspiracy theories as spaces where I would expect concerns to be voiced about the “dark side of the soy boom” (Lapegna 2013)—but are not. I argue that conspiracy theory involving GM soy's economic prospects reveal both a pervasive unease about the industry, and that GM soy more closely indexes economic anxieties than environmental or health concerns. I explore the production and circulation of knowledge about GM soy that led to its role in economic sovereignty. I develop the idea that conspiracy centers on Argentines' deepest concerns and ask whether the GM soy industry is seen more as an obstacle to redistributive politics than as a threat to the health of the Argentine population.
Economic Challenges for Atlanta's Small Farmers: Creating a Financially Sustainable Local Food Supply
Authors: Morrill Valerie , King Hilary
Published: February 2021

Recent decades have led to increased interest in geographically localized food production and consumption systems as a means of supplying healthy food and strengthening local economies. A major pillar of this economic-strengthening is the idea that more direct markets support the development of viable, small-scale farm businesses. However, literature has increasingly shown that even direct sales may prove challenging as an avenue to economic viability for small-scale farmers. This paper contributes to this literature through an examination of market perceptions and pricing strategies used by small-scale farmers engaged in direct sales opportunities. Interviews with nine farm owners and managers, as well as three leaders of local food initiatives, revealed the creative strategies that small-scale food producers use to mitigate costs, set prices and convey the value of their products. Though farmers employ these creative strategies to make ends meet, their ability to become viable businesses is limited by the scope of current opportunities available within Atlanta's local food system, primarily farmers’ markets and Community-Supported Agriculture. In order for local food production to provide viable livelihoods for small-scale farmers, Atlanta's local food infrastructure may need to support small-scale farmers’ access to more diverse direct-market opportunities.
The Duality of TripAdvisor: The Quantity of Reviews Deterring Strategists from Quality Sites
Authors: Walters Noah
Published: February 2021

TripAdvisor brands itself to travelers as a forum to plan the best, personalized vacation. While promoting inclusion and community organization, the site also foments an impractical craze for authentic consumption. Rather than offering a TripAdvisor user (a strategist) the full options available, the site organizes its results on popularity. This cycle entrenches the most-rated locations at the top of search results while flushing less-frequently rated ones out. Thus, the most visited places become the best, most ‘authentic’ sites. This theoretical research analyzes the duality of TripAdvisor—the attractiveness of self-planning for strategists seeking authenticity paired with the actual algorithms that favor tourist frequency rather than local quality.
The Transformation of La Guignolée in Ste. Genevieve
Authors: Valleroy Tessa
Published: February 2021

When French settlers came to North America in the seventeenth century, they brought with them a rich collection of French traditions. Among these traditions is La Guignolée, a song originally performed on New Year's Eve as part of a begging quest where young men in a community went house-to-house collecting donations of food and drink that were either donated to the poor or used in later community-wide celebrations. Although La Guignolée was a well-known and widely-practiced tradition in North America's French creole settlements, today it survives in a dwindling number of towns across the United States and Canada. The purpose of this research was to show how La Guignolée has persisted and changed in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri and to provide that community with a record of its now rare tradition. A comparison of ethnographic data on current Ste. Genevieve community members’ experiences with La Guignolée and archival data on La Guignolée practices in the last three centuries showed how members of the Ste. Genevieve community have maintained this tradition through a combination of community support, performer dedication, and cultural preservation.
Understanding Adaptations: The Importance of Contextualized History in Biological Anthropology
Authors: Winful Taiye
Published: February 2021

The future of biological anthropology is immense. However, to keep up with changing times and methods, biological anthropology needs to adopt and continue to push new methods. These methods include biocultural approaches, which aid in explaining biological variation as a response to human environmental interactions. Besides furthering the push for biocultural approaches, the need for adding and contextualizing history in terms of participants’ bio histories is important as well. In doing so, biological anthropology can be useful in constructing a narrative of people of African descent. Africa is a diverse continent yet overwhelmingly understudied. Understanding the complexity of the diversity of people of African descent can be used not only to address problems in the community (health disparities) but also to understand human biological evolution as a whole.
European Dancehouses: Models of Managing Tangible & Intangible Heritage
Authors: Creek Emily
Published: February 2021

The European Dancehouse Network is a sustainable model for stability in dance communities around Europe. A dancehouse is a practice space, a performance space, and an educational space. This model serves artists across Europe by facilitating stable jobs and serves the public through performances. It is also a model that can serve as heritage protection. This type of protection occurs through the stable presence of art in neighborhoods, the rehabilitation of historical and important buildings, and the sharing of stories through the dance created within the walls of these dancehouses. For this think piece, I looked at three Nordic dance houses in Copenhagen, Olso, and Stockholm. After establishing a foundation for the heritage management occurring in these three cities through dancehouses, I discuss the ways in which fully adopting this EDN model would be beneficial to the city of Reykjavík and its dancers. In this discussion I outline the changes occurring in Reykjavík, the growth of the Reykjavík dance scene in recent years, and the recent activism of the city's dancers. Throughout this piece I will tie the potential benefits of the EDN model in Reykjavík with anthropological thoughts and ideas on cultural heritage and its management. My goal with this article is to articulate the place for creativity in heritage management of urban historical districts and the benefits a highly tourist-visited city, such as Reykjavík, can experience from a re-investment in its artists.
Evaluation of the inflammatory responses to sol–gel coatings with distinct biocompatibility levels
Authors: Cerqueira Andreia , Araújo‐Gomes Nuno , Zhang Yang , van den Beucken Jeroen J. J. P. , Martínez‐Ramos Cristina , Ozturan Seda , Izquierdo Raúl , Muriach María , Romero‐Cano Ricard , Baliño Pablo , Romero‐Gavilán Francisco J.
Published: February 2021

The immune system plays a crucial role in determining the implantation outcome, and macrophages are in the frontline of the inflammatory processes. Further, cellular oxidative stress resulting from the material recognition can influence how cell responses develop. Considering this, the aim of this study was to study oxidative stress and macrophages phenotypes in response to sol–gel materials with distinct in vivo outcomes. Four materials were selected (70M30T and 35M35G30T, with high biocompatibility, and 50M50G and 50V50G, with low biocompatibility). Gene expression, immunocytochemistry and cytokine secretion profiles for M1 and M2 markers were determined. Moreover, oxidative stress markers were studied. Immunocytochemistry and ELISA showed that 50M50G and 50V50G lead to a higher differentiation to M1 phenotype, while 70M30T and 35M35G30T promoted M2 differentiation. In oxidative stress, no differences were found. These results show that the balance between M1 and M2, more than individual quantification of each phenotype, determines a biomaterial outcome.
Targeted delivery of paclitaxel by NL2 peptide‐functionalized on core‐shell LaVO4: Eu3@ poly (levodopa) luminescent nanoparticles
Authors: Hashemi‐Moghaddam Hamid , Ebrahimi Mansore , Johari Behrooz , Madanchi Hamid
Published: February 2021

Targeted drug delivery enhances drug efficiency and selectivity without affecting normal cells. Luminescent nanoparticles can be used for tumor imaging as well as selective tumor targeting for drug delivery. In this research, LaVO4:Eu3+ was synthesized, the luminescent nanocrystal was coated by surface polymerization of levodopa in the presence of Paclitaxel (PTX), and then NL2 peptide was coupled on the surface of polymer‐coated luminescent nanoparticles. Next, the capability of the modified drug was examined by in vitro and in vivo experiments. MTT assay on SK‐BR‐3 cell line (as breast cancer cells) and fluorescent microscopy results indicate that this modification decreases significantly drug toxicity and increases its selectivity. In addition, in vivo experiments confirm more capability of the NL2‐functionalized nanocomposite for reducing tumor size, drug distribution in the body, and more aggregation of PTX in tumor tissue. Overall, it is concluded that tumor imaging is possible using luminescent LaVO4:Eu3+ core and NL2 peptide increases significantly the specificity of PTX in combination with a functionalized luminescent polymeric carrier.
MC3T3 E1 cell response to mineralized nanofiber shish kebab structures
Authors: Yu Tony , Petrovic Mark , Attia Aria , Galindo Diego , Staub Mark C. , Kim Seyong , Li Christopher Y. , Marcolongo Michele
Published: February 2021

Block copolymers (BCPs) are of growing interest because of their extensive utility in tissue engineering, particularly in biomimetic approaches where multifunctionality is critical. We synthesized polycaprolactone‐polyacrylic acid (PCL‐b‐PAA) BCP and crystallized it onto PCL nanofibers, making BCP nanofiber shish kebab (BCP NFSK) structures. When mineralized in 2× simulated body fluid, BCP NFSK mimic the structure of mineralized collagen fibrils. We hypothesized that the addition of a calcium phosphate layer of graded roughness on the nano‐structure of the nanofiber shish kebabs would enhance preosteoblast alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, which has been shown to be a critical component in bone matrix formation. The objectives in the study were to investigate the effect of mineralization on cell proliferation and ALP activity, and to also investigate the effect of BCP NFSK periodicity, a structural feature describing the distance between PCL‐b‐PAA crystals on the nanofiber core, on cell proliferation, and ALP activity. ALP activity of cells cultured on the mineralized BCP NFSK template was significantly higher than the nonmineralized BCP NFSK templates. Interestingly, no statistical difference was observed in ALP activity when the periodic varied, indicating that surface chemistry seemed to play a larger role than the surface roughness.
Large scale production and characterization of SARS‐CoV‐2 whole antigen for serological test development
Authors: Cerutti Helena , Ricci Veronica , Tesi Giulia , Soldatini Claudia , Castria Marinunzia , Vaccaro Marco Natale , Tornesi Stefania , Toppi Simona , Verdiani Silvana , Brogi Alessandra
Published: February 2021

Background

The rapid spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) has generated a pandemic with alarming rates of fatality worldwide. This situation has had a major impact on clinical laboratories that have attempted to answer the urgent need for diagnostic tools, since the identification of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19). Development of a reliable serological diagnostic immunoassay, with high levels of sensitivity and specificity to detect SARS‐CoV‐2 antibodies with improved differential diagnosis from other circulating viruses, is mandatory.

Methods

An enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using whole inactivated virus cultured in vitro, was developed to detect viral antigens. WB and ELISA investigations were carried out with sera of convalescent patients and negative sera samples. Both analyses were concurrently performed with recombinant MABs to verify the findings.

Results

Preliminary data from 10 sera (5 patients with COVID‐19, and 5 healthy controls) using this immunoassay are very promising, successfully identifying all of the confirmed SARS‐CoV‐2‐positive individuals.

Conclusion

This ELISA appears to be a specific and reliable method for detecting COVID‐19 antibodies (IgG, IgM, and IgA), and a useful tool for identifying individuals which have developed immunity to the virus.
Cognitive reappraisal moderates the relationship between perfectionism and cognitive flexibility
Authors: Hayatbini Niki , Knauft Katherine , Kalia Vrinda
Published: February 2021

Objective

Characterized by setting high standards for performance, perfectionism is a transdiagnostic process implicated in the development and maintenance of psychopathology. In contrast, cognitive flexibility is associated with enhanced mental health. Yet, the relationship between perfectionism and cognitive flexibility is understudied. We examined the relationship between perfectionism and cognitive flexibility, and whether emotion regulation strategies moderated the association between them.

Method

Adult participants (N = 486) were recruited online and completed questionnaires on perfectionism, emotion regulation and cognitive flexibility.

Results

Perfectionism negatively correlated with one of the two aspects of cognitive flexibility assessed. Reappraisal, but not suppression, moderated the relationship between perfectionism and flexibility.

Conclusions

Results indicate that perfectionism is associated with inflexible appraisal of everyday challenges. Additionally, cognitive reappraisal attenuates the negative relationship between perfectionism and cognitive flexibility; except in individuals with high narcissistic perfectionism for whom the debilitating relationship between the two variables is enhanced by reappraisal.
Bullying victimization, psychosocial functioning, and protective factors: Comparing African American heterosexual and sexual minority adolescents in Chicago's Southside
Authors: Hong Jun Sung , Valido Alberto , Rivas‐Koehl Matthew M. , Wade Ryan M. , Espelage Dorothy L. , Voisin Dexter R.
Published: February 2021

African American heterosexual and sexual minority (SM) adolescents report widespread bullying victimization (BV), which is associated with poorer psychosocial functioning. However, studies examining potential protective factors that moderate this association are limited. Using data from a cross‐sectional study conducted in Chicago, we examined the association between BV and psychosocial functioning among a sample of heterosexual (n = 475) and SM (n = 105) African American adolescents and examined whether four empirically‐supported protective factors moderated these associations. Among SM adolescents, having close parents was protective against psychosomatic symptoms for those who reported high BV and having caring teachers was protective against substance use for those who reported both high and low BV. Among heterosexual adolescents, having close parents was protective against substance use for those who reported high BV but having high neighborhood support exacerbated the risk of developing psychosomatic symptoms for those who reported high BV. Implications for school and parental‐based interventions are discussed.
The involvement of semaphorin 7A in tumorigenic and immunoinflammatory regulation
Authors: Song Yao , Wang Liu , Zhang Lan , Huang Dingming
Published: February 2021

Semaphorins, a large group of highly conserved proteins, consist of eight subfamilies that are widely expressed in vertebrates, invertebrates, and viruses and exist in membrane‐bound or secreted forms. First described as axon guidance cues during neurogenesis, semaphorins also perform physiological functions in other organ systems, such as bone homeostasis, immune response, and tumor progression. Semaphorin 7A (SEMA7A), also known as CDw108, is an immune semaphorin that modulates diverse immunoinflammatory processes, including immune cell interactions, inflammatory infiltration, and cytokine production. In addition, SEMA7A regulates the proliferation, migration, invasion, lymph formation, and angiogenesis of multiple types of tumor cells, and these effects are mediated by the interaction of SEMA7A with two specific receptors, PLXNC1 and integrins. Thus, SEMA7A is intimately related to the pathogenesis of multiple autoimmune and inflammation‐related diseases and tumors. This review focuses on the role of SEMA7A in the pathogenesis of autoimmune disorders, inflammatory diseases, and tumors, as well as the underlying mechanisms. Furthermore, strategies targeting SEMA7A as a potential predictive, diagnostic, and therapeutic agent for these diseases are also addressed.