College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Chincoteague in Transition: Vernacular Art and Adaptation in Community Heritage(2014) Sullivan, Kristin Marie; Chambers, Erve; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In addition to serving aesthetic or representational purposes, art can express values related to heritage and identity politics. This dissertation discusses the ways in which the vernacular arts of hunting decoy and decorative wildfowl carving in Chincoteague, Virginia, as well as the closely related tradition of wildfowl hunting, express understandings of various forms of heritage in touristic and community exchange, representing and helping tell the story of the ways in which this locale's rural population has adapted to, resisted, and at times encouraged changes related to tourism development and environmental regulation. In the process this project considers how embodied cultural knowledge is presented through carving and closely related practices such as hunting, how environmental and community values relate to carving and carving-related traditions, and the ways in which community members negotiate identity and maintain the integrity of their communities through the production and appreciation of localized artistic expression. Research supporting this dissertation consists primarily of systematic participant observation and key informant interviewing with hunting decoy and decorative wildfowl carvers. It was conducted over the course of nearly two years living on Chincoteague Island, developing close relationships with wildfowl carvers and others associated with this tradition, for example shop owners, arts organizations, local historians, hunters, and museum specialists.Item Community through Comedy: Cultural Consciousness in the Russian Soviet Anekdot(2013) Smirnova, Michelle Hannah; Kestnbaum, Meyer; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The way by which nationality and citizenship are codified in law or used by political entrepreneurs to mobilize populations is different from how individuals make sense of themselves. Although sharing a particular attribute or physical connection offers some sort of relational identity, it is the product of belonging both to a category and network of individuals in addition to the feeling of belonging which produces a bounded groupness. The Russian Soviet anekdot--a politically subversive joke--provides an intimate view into the perspective of the Russian people living under the Soviet regime. The anekdot serves as a discourse of "cultural consciousness," connecting otherwise atomized people to a homeland, collective culture and memory. Beyond its transgressive properties, politically subversive texts like the anekdot articulate the details of an intimate set of knowledges that insiders "are taught not to know" (Taussig 1999). In this dissertation I look at how the characters and narratives construct (1) the boundaries of "we"--who belongs and who does not by exploring how different groups are "marked" in the anekdoty, (2) how the collectivity negotiates their understanding of leaders, institutions and State propaganda as a means of rejecting or reifying aspects of Soviet power, and (3) what sort of collective memory and identity is conveyed through the expressions of the public secret, nostalgia and/or regret. The anekdot reveals power dynamics at multiple levels: within the family, between ethnic groups and geographical regions, and between people and state. Together these multiple identities and relationships express a form of "cultural consciousness" among Russians uniting this group in a shared identity and network amid the disintegration of the Soviet Union.