Browsing by Author "Kwiatkowski, Lynn, advisor"

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Open Access
Cuidate mija: power in everyday discourses about adolescent pregnancy in urban Ecuador
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Ortega, Cynthia, author; Kwiatkowski, Lynn, advisor; Snodgrass, Jeff, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member
Adolescent pregnancy is a phenomenon which is heavily contested by local, national, and international entities. Problematically, the topic is predominantly referred to as a "social problem," a view which is often rooted in pathologized narratives about young people and their sexual and reproductive lives. This critical ethnography challenges these narratives by centering the voices of young people and their experiences with sex, sexuality, and pregnancy in the urban cities of Quito and Cuenca, Ecuador. Drawing upon interviews with young women who have experienced pregnancy and professionals working with pregnant adolescents, as well as a survey distributed to male and female adolescents, I identify several dominant discourses related to adolescent pregnancy in urban Ecuador. I argue that these discourses are informed by raced, classed, gendered, and aged notions about young women and their sexual and reproductive lives. Through the lenses of critical-interpretive medical anthropology, governmentality, and reproductive justice, my findings show that young women negotiate these discourses, reproducing some aspects while rejecting others. I further contend that these discourses work through the lives and bodies of young women through different forms of power. Although these young women could identify their desires, emotions, and frustrations, they were restricted in their social and bodily autonomy during and after pregnancy. I conclude by offering suggestions for advancing sexual and reproductive justice for young people based on the experiences that were shared with me by young women.
Open Access
New risks, new strategies: Greenlandic Inuit responses to climate change
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Derry, Kimberly Wolfe, author; Kwiatkowski, Lynn, advisor; Galvin, Kathy, committee member; Stallones, Lorann, committee member
As climate change accelerates, its effects are especially pronounced in the Arctic region. The Arctic has a history of susceptibility and vulnerability to climate change. The Arctic's indigenous peoples are facing increased challenges, most notably in their abilities to harvest food resources. This thesis uses field research and literature review to explore the ways in which Inuit in Greenland are able to manage their resources and responses to the changing climate conditions, and to prevent and cope with climate related injury. An in-depth analysis of the plight of the Inuit includes discussion of the historical political, social, economic, cultural, and geographical factors that shape and inform their methods of responding to climate change. This thesis describes ways that the Inuit perceive climate change and interact with their changing environment, and the extent to which they apply their traditional ecological knowledge and contemporary technology to survive and shape policy that influences their coping responses. It also discusses Inuit people's vulnerability to injury in relation to climate change. In this thesis, I argue that climate-related changes in sea ice conditions increase vulnerability to potential injury events during travel on ice for Greenlandic Inuit hunters and fishermen, particularly in remote locations. Specifically, individuals living in remote areas have less access to resources that can increase their chances for survival than do their counterparts living in population centers. In general, Inuit employing a wide range of coping responses are better positioned to act in response to climate change in spite of the emerging hazards. In addition, my research illustrates that different individuals within and across Inuit communities will be successful in this regard, which is largely based on historical legacy, intra-community access to resources, and differences within and between communities (including, e.g., gender, age, occupation, and location). Inuit individuals that I found to be the most successful in employing a wide range of coping responses include those who are hunters by occupation, and work as fishermen as well, living in or near larger population centers, with good access to resources and high levels of traditional ecological knowledge that is continuously negotiated in response to rapidly changing environmental conditions. Finally, in this thesis, I draw conclusions concerning which Inuit are most vulnerable to increased risk of injury related to changing sea ice, and which types of responses are most effective. The Inuit that I have found to be most vulnerable to increased risk of injury related to changing sea ice are those who are younger, traditional hunters living in more remote coastal villages, with reduced access to resources, low levels of traditional ecological knowledge, and limited hunting/fishing skills. Based on my research, the types of responses that I found to be most effective include making extra preparations, such as taking extra food and supplies, before going out hunting or fishing. In addition, people are becoming more "risk averse" and avoiding dangerous areas and travel at certain times of the year. Other coping responses involve group travel and a stronger reliance on intra-communal resources.
Open Access
Polygamy on the Web: an online community for an unconventional practice
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Sweet-McFarling, Kristen, author; Kwiatkowski, Lynn, advisor; Griffin, Cindy, committee member; Hawthorne, Barbara, committee member
This thesis is a virtual ethnographic study of a polygamy website consisting of one chat room, several discussion boards, and polygamy related information and links. The findings of this research are based on the interactions and activities of women and men on the polygamy website. The research addressed the following questions: 1) what are individuals using the website for? 2) What are website members communicating about? 3) How are individuals using the website to search for polygamous relationships? 4) Are website members forming connections and meeting people offline through the use of the website? 5) Do members of the website perceive the Internet to be affecting the contemporary practice of polygamy in the U.S.? This research focused more on the desire to create a polygamous relationship rather than established polygamous marriages and kinship networks. This study found that since the naturalization of monogamous heterosexual marriage and the nuclear family has occurred in the U.S., due to a number of historical, social, cultural, political, and economic factors, the Internet can provide a means to denaturalize these concepts and provide a space for the expression and support of counter discourses of marriage, like polygamy. The findings show that individuals who support polygamy, desire to practice polygamy, or who are in a polygamous relationship may use the online space provided by the Internet to make connections and develop social networks, whether those networks result in the creation of friendship, community, polygamous relationships, activism, or political involvement. My analysis is based on the observation of four main discussion boards on the polygamy website, participant observation conducted in the website's chat room, eight formal, semi-structured interviews with website members and administrators, a self-administered, non-random survey of 37 individuals in the Western U.S., review of primary and secondary historical documents, information from the Internet and media addressing polygamy, and government reports and laws regarding polygamy and marriage. I also reviewed the relevant literature published from anthropology and other fields of study examining polygamy and Internet relationships.
Open Access
Semillas de concienca | seeds of consciousness: sowing change from the Ecuadorian highlands
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Radford, Hope, author; Kwiatkowski, Lynn, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Van Buren, Mary, committee member
This thesis is a small part of Pintag Amaru's story, and mine. I met Pintag Amaru – a small Kichwa organization in Ecuador – in 2022, and this work is the fruit of our collaboration. Focusing broadly on sumak kawsay, a Kichwa principle engaged in Ecuador's 2008 constitution, our research explores Pintag Amaru's understanding, and living out, of the concept. Sumak kawsay has gained recent attention in scholarship as a grassroots "alternative" to the paradigm of international development, but this conversation has rarely included the voices of Indigenous communities at the heart of sumak kawsay's conception and practice. Engaging the central analytical lens of post-development theory and a diversity of anthropological qualitative research methods including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups, I explore sumak kawsay through perspectives of – and relationship with – the people of Pintag Amaru. Built collaboratively from the onset, our work seeks to convey Pintag Amaru's grounded understandings on sumak kawsay, development, and their relation as they navigate today's world. Though they see the state's use of sumak kawsay as a co-option of a profoundly expansive and dynamic principle, I find Pintag Amaru conveys creativity and depth of autonomous efforts towards Indigenous resurgence, and sumak kawsay as part of it. They face challenges within the structures of a dominant development paradigm, but navigate these structures strategically to live sumak kawsay out amidst them. Through this work, too, I've come to understand sumak kawsay is dynamic, and deeply tied to place; it is not a prescription for us to replicate. I do believe, however, it is a view of the possible. We hope that this thesis, if nothing else, can offer such an opening – one seed of many – rooting in the cracks of decaying structures to grow something new.
Open Access
Transmen and transwomen in China: darkness and resilience
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Xue, Yan, author; Kwiatkowski, Lynn, advisor; Snodgrass, Jeffrey, committee member; Daum, Courtenay, committee member
Anthropologists have studied transgenderism in various cultures and societies; however, few of these studies investigate the topics of identity development, family lives, and transgender community engagement, and their interwoven relationships in a socialist society. In this research, I look at the lives of Chinese transgender people and aim to understand what roles the government, family and domestic transgender community institutions play in their identity development trajectory. I approach this main research question through a contextualized cultural perspective, analyze it within a critical-interpretive medical anthropological framework, and draw from both anthropological and non-anthropological literature that focus on these three themes. Research data is collected through a mixed qualitative methodology, including online and offline participant observation and semi-structured interviews of ten Chinese transwomen, ten Chinese transmen, and three key informants. Findings suggest that for Chinese transgender respondents, their trajectory of realizing, exploring, and living as their identified gender, which is different from their assigned sex/gender, is commonly repressed and stigmatized on an everyday basis within the cisgender male-female binary system in Chinese society. During these processes, acquiring family recognition and building community connection are respondents' vital sources of resilience, which not only consolidate their (trans)gender identification but also facilitate their transitions. Nevertheless, this is not to say that the family and community institutions are immune to the sexist ideology and cisgender prejudice circulating in Chinese society, which can generate distress mixed with their empowering influences on Chinese transgender respondents. Therefore, throughout their identity development trajectory, respondents always have to resort to their own agency to protect and emancipate themselves from both structural discrimination and transnormative discipline that operate within the institutions which are commonly expected to enhance the resiliency of transgender people.