The Progression of the Field of Kinesics

Kinesics, a term coined by anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell, is the study nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication is primarily conducted through the use of gestures, facial expressions, and body language. These sometimes subtle cues are estimated to convey as much as seventy percent of the context of a conversation. In this thesis, I review the origin of the field of kinesics in anthropology, the development of subfields, its introduction into other various fields of study, and its significance today. Using citation analysis, I show the movement kinesics through various disciplines. This significant field of research has progressed from a research topic centered in anthropology to a subject studied by psychologists, linguists, and professional speakers. An in-depth examination of the available literature shows the major contributions of kinesics scholarship in anthropology and in other fields

The Conundrum of Developing Country`s Heritage Tourism: How Tourism Destroys what it Tries to Preserve

Organizations like United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, have joined with more than a hundred nations in order to develop sustainable preservation techniques for World Heritage Sites, thereby, allowing for a sites continued appreciation for future generations throughout the world. Heritage tourism purports to allow nations to benefit economically from investing in heritage sites as their continued preservation will increase tourist`s cultural motivation to travel to the country, resulting in increased cash flow into the country. However, as more and more tourists visit a location the more wear and tear is put on the site, thereby negatively effecting its preservation. In this thesis I argue that heritage tourism is a counterproductive endeavor with the long term effects being detrimental to the site itself, the surrounding area, and local communities regardless of the economic stimulation it brings to a country. This study reviews the current literature on the effects of heritage tourism and examines the World Heritage Site Angkor, located in Cambodia, as a case study. This case study demonstrates several of the negative economic, social and cultural effects tourists have on a locations and the level of administrative action needed to understand and implement courses of action to mitigate the problems. I conclude that developing countries have to pay both more economically and culturally than what is reaped from tourist revenue as the country already has a week economy, and that a strong governmental presence through protection policies must be utilized if there is any hope of mitigating preservation issues

Inadequate Access to Healthy Opportunities and Structural Violence: A Case Study of Health Disparities among Hispanics in McLean County

Significant disproportionate human suffering is experienced by socially disadvantaged populations as a result of preventable difference in the burden of disease, injury, violence, and/or opportunities to achieve optimal health. Disparities in health refer to differences between two or more population groups in health outcomes and in the prevalence, incidence, or burden of disease, disability, injury, or death (CNHEOa 2013). Health disparities are discriminatory and are directly related to the historical and current unequal distribution of social, political, economic, and environmental resources (CDC 2007). While such disparities are more visible when comparing health status of whole countries, they are also embedded in the structure within individual countries and even with local communities. In this thesis I argue that significant health disparities exist between ethnic-minorities and whites in the United States as a result of social and governmental structures, such as national and local policies and lack of accessibility to community social services. Structures that allow such indirect yet noteworthy forms of human suffering are forms of structural violence. On various structural levels, scholars, policy makers, and ordinary people alike, must recognize health disparities as an issue of injustice for the specific groups subjected to systematic racial discrimination. First, I explore the value of health care in the United States, and then examine differences in health statuses in various social determinants among ethnic-minorities and whites in the United States. Second, I discuss how barriers of inadequate access of healthier opportunities are an act of structural violence. Thirdly, I provide a small case study of health disparities among Hispanics in McLean County Illinois where the Hispanic population has significantly increased in recent years in a predominately white community. Lastly, I explore innovated strategies to eliminate health disparities and strive for health equity. I conclude that (1) health care is fundamentally a ethical issue and a matter of basic human rights, (2) health disparities can be viewed as an act of structural violence and exist on various structural levels, including the community level, and (3) health disparities can be reduced and eventually eliminated by advancing policies, programs or practices that address factors that impact health

A Cross Cultural Gendered Analysis of France’s and the United States Dietary Guidelines

New information about how Americans should eat comes from health food suppliers, vitamin suppliers, government agencies, fitness experts, doctors, and also the government in the form of dietary guidelines. In this paper I argue that the U.S dietary guidelines are not the product of objective, neutral scientific inquiry, but rather, are a product of a long legacy of culturally constructed moral values with roots in the “Cult of Domesticity.” This legacy has been documented in the Victorian era and has continued into the current day. I discuss the history of national dietary guidelines of then compare and contrast current U.S and French guidelines to show the culturally constructed gender ideas manifest in food guidelines. I note also the food politics that exist within the guidelines in the United States which favor dairy, corn, and meat. From my analysis it can be discerned that the current U.S food guidelines are constructed upon morals, gender ideology, and politics and are not necessarily what is healthiest for the population as a whole. This is not in comparable with other countries, like France, where a differing notion of gender and food practices prevails

“Where Food Grows on the Water”: Anishinaabe Wild Rice Restoration, Food Sovereignty, and Decolonization

In this project I argue that the wild rice restoration projects in the Great Lakes region contribute to the reversal of direct effects of colonization brought on as a result of the Columbian Invasion of the Americas. In doing this, I ask this question: How does this unique array of projects contribute to Indigenous food sovereignty? Wild rice has been a staple of Anishinaabe diet and culture for over two thousand years, but the industrialization of the region led to the decline of wild rice populations and severely diminished the availability of wild rice to the communities that depend on it (Barton 2018). I will show that efforts to conserve, protect, and restore wild rice populations take a step toward reversing the effects of colonization and in turn form food sovereign communities to varying degrees. I demonstrate this correlation with data from primary sources published by those leading the restoration projects, and secondary sources published by academics. I use the frameworks of four different definitions of food sovereignty, with a focus on issues faced uniquely by Indigenous people. With its roots in fights to regain access to land, forming food sovereign cultures is essential because it recenters Indigenous foodways and knowledge, while challenging the current food system models we have, that are grounded in the dominionistic practices of industry (Coté 2016). The concept and acts of decolonization support efforts such as achieving food sovereignty (Nyeleni 2007). That is, to achieve food sovereignty at any degree is to decolonize to that same degree. As decolonization efforts become more prominent among broad networks of activism, especially among networks of food sovereignty, this paper offers a useful case study on the relationship between efforts to decolonize and impacts of food sovereign systems

IT’S NOT FUNNY: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SEXISM IN STAND-UP

In this thesis, I will be doing a discourse analysis of two stand-up comedians over the course of their careers as comedians, these two being men who have been confirmed to have, or convicted for, committing acts of violence and sexual assault against multiple women. I ask: What can we learn about the relationship between violent acts and language through an examination of the speech of these two men? I chose stand-up comedy as my ‘field’ for researching violence because it is a unique platform that often reflects social norms and ideals, acting as a sort of mirror, and acts as a real time study which is beneficial to sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropology research. Using the cases of comedians Louis C.K. and Bill Cosby, one admitting to acts of sexual violence, the other imprisoned for sexual violence, I will argue that it is not always possible for the absence or presence of violent language to indicate whether an individual is violent or not. Rather, I will find that with C.K. and Cosby, while the latter being the more subdued and the former being the more vulgar, the language used by both comedians is still reflect of Western social ideals such as sexism. The comedian Hannah Gadsby in her award-winning comedy special Nanette articulates that “a joke is simply two things, it needs two things to work; a set-up and a punch line. And it is essentially a question with a surprise answer” (Gadsby 2018). Throughout this thesis, I will also attempt to show how, with the present political climate along with movements such as #MeToo, there is a prudent shift occurring in stand-up comedy away from the traditional and toward comedic story telling. I argue, however, that this reformation cannot occur without the analysis of the old ways of comedy

The Culture of CrossFit: A Lifestyle Prescription for Optimal Health and Fitness

The increasing frequency of obesity related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension are often the product of a nutritionally inadequate diet along with sedentary lifestyle. The fitness movement called CrossFit, formed by Greg Glassman in 1996, provides an alternative prescription to battling these physical ailments by incorporating high intensity-functional exercise along with a Paleolithic-inspired diet (The Paleo Diet). CrossFit is a distinct lifestyle that encourages participants to strive for an elite and optimal state of fitness and health. In this thesis I provide ethnographic data collected from participant-observation at a CrossFit gym in Bloomington, IL. I examine scientific research on the exercise and physiology of CrossFit training and the Paleo Diet, and I explore the history of fitness movements in America to place the culture of the CrossFit into historical perspective

Beyond “Respectability”: An Examination of the Discourse of Respect as Legitimacy as a Frame to Deny Truth and Immediacy to Silent Anti-Racist Protest

This thesis aims to illustrate the ways Black/Brown bodies are still widely and prolifically framed as sublegal and less legitimate, by examining the rhetorical racialized violence committed against persons of color who are considered to be the most respected and accepted by mainstream society; the respectables, Black/Brown academics and professional athletes. Simply put, my thesis is about using the way we respond to social movements as a lens to understanding the ways “colorblind” policies have failed in bridging our racial divide and have instead relocated the same problems under new terms. I will argue here that this does nothing more than create monuments for American chattel slavery and racial inequality within the minds of mainstream society. I contend that Black capture is ongoing and not past, and here I look to the racialized subjugation within academia and the NFL as microcosm and artifact that America is not the post-racial place it claims to be. It is a goal of this thesis to imagine solutions to our current racial divide and analyze the viability of current methods of challenging the status quo, such as political institutions and actors and social movements. I posit that intersectionality offers part of the solution, in that colorblind legislation and societal practices will be examined here by someone not of the majority disposition and world view, and with an entirely different identity composition than all the scholars presented here in this work. I also contend intersectionality can prove to be advantageous in allowing people of differing world views and experiences to view and examine the same information and offer different interpretations of the drawbacks and advantages of specific policy in order to minimize the amount of inequality that has been politely yet not unconsciously encoded into everyday life. This is a call to action to increase diversity not only in politics but academia as well, to signal a shift for accountability ensuring that no instance of whitewashing goes unchecked

Price and information. Whose Power? Lessons from the early 19th century

Trading and exchange of goods are playing more important role in human history, than their chapters in economic history books can imply and instantiate. Prices are regulating the market behavior, while price information generates the moment of decision making for every actors of the scene. In the mainstream history literature the velocity and exclusivity of price information transmission is a source of merchants’ power: the higher the price, the greater their benefits. James R. Beniger’s brilliant book (The Control Revolution, 1986) provides a sophisticated historical reconstruction of the 19th century paradigm shift: the rationalization of distributional control through different transition stages, like the factor/jobber system, new information platforms (Price Currents and early tele-distribution services), auction systems, fixed prices and price catalogs. „Better information, in short” as Beniger (1986:159) states, „meant better control of the distributional system by all actors involved”. But these improvements (and their „teleology” for higher possible prices) reveal themselves only on the level of purposeful actions, and within a cybernetic control/ communication conceptual frame. But it is also Beniger, who illustrates, that the new infrastructure of price-information created an integrated information ecosystem of actors, generating common rules, regulations and protocols, setting up new cooperation patterns. From this broader perspective shaping prices is always a part of an overall, metacybernetic control mechanism, which regulates the full material metabolism of interconnected people as social macrosystem, governing through hidden imperatives, derived from future planning priorities. The results of Uebele, Grünebaum and Kopsidis (2013:26-27) amazingly illustrate this correspondence. Observing price elasticity in proto-industrialized Saxony between 1790 and 1830, they found, that “demographic and socio-economic change was accompanied with defensive strategies by low income households to reduce the risk of hunger”. Storage decisions “were a mix of commercial and precautionary behavior”, based on both prices and harvest shocks – while prices were forcefully influenced by storage decisions

Editorial: Functional fitness/high intensity functional training for health and performance

[EN] Functional fitness training (FFT) is an emerging fitness trend that emphasizes functional, multi-joint movements, including aerobic (e.g., cycling, rowing, running) and strength exercises (e.g., weightlifting and derivatives: squat, snatch, clean and jerk, bench press, deadlift; bodyweight exercises: air squat, push-up, pull-up, muscle-up; plyometrics: box jumps, tuck ups) (Claudino et al., 2018; Feito et al., 2018). Researchers have shown that FFT may be not only suitable for professional athletes but also for populations with different fitness levels. Indeed, it is suggested that FFT elicits greater muscle recruitment than aerobic exercises alone, thereby improving both endurance and muscular strength and power (Bergeron et al., 2011; Claudino et al., 2018; Feito et al., 2018; Schlegel, 2020; Sharp et al., 2022). However, FFT units (i.e., workouts) are highly varied daily, and more research is needed to clarify its acute effects and its associated chronic training adaptations (Bergeron et al., 2011; Claudino et al., 2018; Feito et al., 2018; Schlegel, 2020; Sharp et al., 2022). Therefore, the aim of this Research Topic is to increase the knowledge of the evidence-based effects and adaptations of implementing FFT on health and performance in individuals with different biological conditions