Anthropology
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Item STRANDED AND SANDED IN: DRONE MOUNTED AERIAL MAGNETOMETER IDENTIFICATION OF BURIED AND SUBMERGED SHIPWRECKS ON THE NEW JERSEY COAST(2022) Davis, Cullan Matthew; Palus, Matthew; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)An estimated 3,000 to 7,000 shipwrecks have occurred off the coast of New Jersey, with hundreds occurring within the littoral zone. These sites have subsequently been buried by natural sand movement and beach replenishment projects or exist in a partially buried state within the surf zone. While terrestrial and vessel-mounted magnetometer surveys are not feasible in this shallow environment, the development of ultra-sensitive drone and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based remote sensing platforms has provided the potential ability to rapidly identify these cultural materials for compliance and planning of weather and climate change resiliency projects. This thesis proves the capabilities of a MAGPi ML-4 atomic magnetometer, initially designed to detect small, buried munitions and unexploded ordinance of approximately eight pounds of ferrous material, to accurately and rapidly identify multiple of types of shipwrecks in the high energy coastal environment where traditional survey methods are precluded when coupled with a Matrice 600 Pro 6-rotor drone. This thesis also proved the ability for this setup to effectively bridge the gap between terrestrial and underwater archaeological surveys as presented in the littoral zone, while producing data of sufficient quality to promote the development of the theoretical understanding of the relationship between shipwrecks and the larger maritime cultural landscape. Three shipwrecks were used for data collection, representing vessels comprised of iron, wood, and steel. Additional measurements of individual ferromagnetic objects commonly found in association with shipwreck archaeological sites were taken and analyzed using predictive modeling based on magnetic detectability algorithms created from prior remote sensing surveys to determine what material can be detected using the magnetometer and UAV platform. The results of this thesis confirm the predicted capabilities of the equipment used and provides detection ranges to establish a framework to future research, including a determination on the minimum amount of wooden hull material with iron fasteners required to exist in an archaeological context to be detectable.Item Cultural Heritage and Climate Change Adaptation Pathways(2018) Van Dolah, Elizabeth Rebecca; Paolisso, Michael; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation seeks to ethnographically understand the role of cultural heritage in climate change adaptation decision-making, and the mechanisms by which heritage is used to shape adaptation pathways for responding to climate-induced socio-ecological changes. Cultural heritage can broadly be understood as the practice of engaging with change through an ongoing social processing of the past. Research on cultural heritage to date has demonstrated the ways that heritage is closely linked to issues of identity, power, and sociocultural processes of change (Lafrenz Samuels 2018). In the context of climate change adaptation, heritage research has much to offer to a growing body of literature that points to the need to better understand the underlying sociocultural factors that affect social resilience and human adaptation (Cote and Nightingale 2012). This dissertation speaks to these calls in approaching heritage as a mechanism for carving climate change adaptation pathways. I explore the role of heritage as an adaptation pathway in the context of a collaborative adaptation planning project called the Integrated Coastal Resiliency Assessment (ICRA), which was carried out on the Deal Island Peninsula, a rural, low-lying area on the Maryland eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. I utilize qualitative methods in semi-structured interviewing, participant observation, and text analysis to ethnographically elucidate a range of heritage threads and to analyze how these threads shape collaborative adaptation decision-making through the ICRA process. Findings from this research identify three overarching heritage themes that are embedded in local Methodist traditions, traditional watermen livelihood practices, and histories of isolation and independence. I demonstrate how these threads are used to frame local understandings of socio-ecological change and climate change vulnerabilities on the Deal Island Peninsula. I also demonstrate how broader heritage deployments in the Chesapeake Bay shape local experiences of vulnerability through processes of disempowerment. I conclude with a discussion of how heritage is integrated into the ICRA process to facilitate a bottom-up decision-making process that re-empowers local actors in governing their own vulnerabilities. The main conclusion from this research points to the importance of considering heritage mobilization in climate change adaptation planning.Item Resilience to Climate Change: An Ethnographic Approach(2016) Johnson, Katherine Joanne; Paolisso, Michael J; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Global projections for climate change impacts produce a startling picture of the future for low-lying coastal communities. The United States’ Chesapeake Bay region and especially marginalized and rural communities will be severely impacted by sea level rise and other changes over the next one hundred years. The concept of resilience has been theorized as a measure of social-ecological system health and as a unifying framework under which people can work together towards climate change adaptation. But it has also been critiqued for the way in which it does not adequately take into account local perspective and experiences, bringing into question the value of this concept as a tool for local communities. We must be sure that the concerns, weaknesses, and strengths of particular local communities are part of the climate change adaptation, decision-making, and planning process in which communities participate. An example of this type of planning process is the Deal Island Marsh and Community Project (DIMCP), a grant funded initiative to build resilience within marsh ecosystems and communities of the Deal Island Peninsula area of Maryland (USA) to environmental and social impacts from climate change. I argue it is important to have well-developed understandings of vulnerabilities and resiliencies identified by local residents and others to accomplish this type of work. This dissertation explores vulnerability and resilience to climate change using an engaged and ethnographic anthropological perspective. Utilizing participant observation, semi-structured and structured interviews, text analysis, and cultural domain analysis I produce an in-depth perspective of what vulnerability and resilience means to the DIMCP stakeholder network. Findings highlight significant vulnerabilities and resiliencies inherent in the local area and how these interface with additional vulnerabilities and resiliencies seen from a nonlocal perspective. I conclude that vulnerability and resilience are highly dynamic and context-specific for the local community. Vulnerabilities relate to climate change and other social and environmental changes. Resilience is a long-standing way of life, not a new concept related specifically to climate change. This ethnographic insight into vulnerability and resilience provides a basis for stronger engagement in collaboration and planning for the future.Item Integrating Environmental Justice and Social-Ecological Resilience for Successful Adaptation to Climate Change: Lessons from African American Communities on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay(2016) Hesed, Christine Danielle Miller; Paolisso, Michael; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research concerns the conceptual and empirical relationship between environmental justice and social-ecological resilience as it relates to climate change vulnerability and adaptation. Two primary questions guided this work. First, what is the level of resilience and adaptive capacity for social-ecological systems that are characterized by environmental injustice in the face of climate change? And second, what is the role of an environmental justice approach in developing adaptation policies that will promote social-ecological resilience? These questions were investigated in three African American communities that are particularly vulnerable to flooding from sea-level rise on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, I found that in all three communities, religious faith and the church, rootedness in the landscape, and race relations were highly salient to community experience. The degree to which these common aspects of the communities have imparted adaptive capacity has changed over time. Importantly, a given social-ecological factor does not have the same effect on vulnerability in all communities; however, in all communities political isolation decreases adaptive capacity and increases vulnerability. This political isolation is at least partly due to procedural injustice, which occurs for a number of interrelated reasons. This research further revealed that while all stakeholders (policymakers, environmentalists, and African American community members) generally agree that justice needs to be increased on the Eastern Shore, stakeholder groups disagree about what a justice approach to adaptation would look like. When brought together at a workshop, however, these stakeholders were able to identify numerous challenges and opportunities for increasing justice. Resilience was assessed by the presence of four resilience factors: living with uncertainty, nurturing diversity, combining different types of knowledge, and creating opportunities for self-organization. Overall, these communities seem to have low resilience; however, there is potential for resilience to increase. Finally, I argue that the use of resilience theory for environmental justice communities is limited by the great breadth and depth of knowledge required to evaluate the state of the social-ecological system, the complexities of simultaneously promoting resilience at both the regional and local scale, and the lack of attention to issues of justice.