Christopher Green

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How and why do languages vary? Studying closely related languages can tell us important details of the nature of human language, by holding most grammatical properties constant while varying others, across a set of languages. Understanding the limits on such variation?and how such differences arise historically?requires an accurate description of a group of related languages. <br/><br/>The heterogeneous varieties of Luyia, a group of Bantu languages of Kenya and Uganda, provide a laboratory for investigating such micro-variation in grammar. This project will produce the first comprehensive descriptions and formal analyses of four underdocumented Kenyan varieties of Luyia: Bukusu, Logoori, Tiriki, and Wanga. A series of monographs will be developed for each language which include a grammatical outline, a detailed description of the tonal system, in-depth studies in syntax, a collection of texts, and a dictionary. <br/><br/>The diverse tone systems of Luyia are a major focus of this work. Luyia tone has many notable features, including a rare process by which High tones spread leftward across and within words. Complex tonal patterns mark inflectional differences among verb tenses, and syntactically conditioned rules are also found in the phrasal tonology. A solid understanding of these processes bears crucially on theories of the phonology-syntax interface, which are concerned with what kind of syntactic information can be used by a phonological system. These theoretically and typologically interesting features of Luyia tone will be systematically investigated through targeted paradigmatic elicitation. <br/><br/>This project models team-based, data-rich and theoretically informed linguistic description and analysis. The Luyia team draws on the expertise of linguists in multiple subfields and brings together US-based and Africa-based scholars, enriching the practice of linguistics by each group. The monographs, text collections, and dictionaries produced by the project will be made freely available online, and relevant materials will be disseminated within the appropriate local communities.

Edward Malecki

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People, businesses, governments, and other organizations rely on telecommunications networks not only to communicate with others but also as a key source of information. The Internet and its web sites have become a vast database, linked to nearly all points on the globe, yet its critical infrastructure (such as hubs of telephone networks and interconnection points with other networks) is concentrated in large cities. This research is designed to unpack the Internet into its component networks, particularly the large global networks that span national boundaries, and to identify their geography as nodes and links. This project will identify emerging and established hubs and gateways within the Internet's structure both in and outside the USA, and especially in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. The research also will identify how changes in industrial structure and location have affected telecommunications infrastructure at the local scale in the United States, where both deregulation and competition have created new but largely unplanned patterns of critical infrastructure. Telephone networks remain the hubs for Internet dial-up and broadband access for households and businesses. Thousands of telephone system central offices house the points of presence for local access to Internet backbone and long-distance networks, and are agglomerations of telecommunications infrastructure in cities. This project will utilize a geographic information system to determine the coincidence of network nodes, such as major co-location facilities, interconnection points, and major digital switching wire centers. The research will use bandwidth pricing data to estimate the demand for actual flows of digital information on dozens of routes and to estimate traffic flows. Focusing analysis on world cities where networks converge will untangle supply and demand for Internet connectivity via trends in the price of bandwidth. The research is synthetic and analytical, aimed to combine detailed characteristics of nearly 40,000 central office switches in the USA with trends in pricing data for 80 global routes. The global and local aspects of the research are merged only upon distillation of the central office and wire center data into a smaller number of urban nodes. <br/><br/>Telecommunications networks comprise a critical infrastructure on which the global economy increasingly depends. This research will track the continuing evolution of the Internet/telecom infrastructure, and relate this infrastructure at the global scale to the network of world cities. This research will monitor the major local elements of critical Internet and telecommunications infrastructure, including co-location facilities and large wire centers. The project also will update knowledge about the extent of Internet infrastructure and about the flows of data on its networks. As the telecommunications industry consolidates through bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions, industry evolution affects the spatial form of the networks and their urban locations.<br/>

Andrew Apter

[email protected]u

This dissertation research project by an anthropologist at the University of Chicago examines how a dispersed Nigerian community maintains its Yoruba cultural identity through ritual performances of religious music in African as well as U.S. churches. The research focuses on the changes in cultural practices and transnational identities of Nigerian migrants through the performance of music, dance, and oratory in churches in Lagos and Chicago. The objectives of this ethnographic research are to describe and analyze the formal characteristics and aesthetic values of Yoruba church music, and to compare the effects of migration on local identities and practices. The methods to be used include participant observation, collection of demographic data, life histories, and migration profiles through surveys and interviews, and detailed ethno-musicological analysis of religious ceremonies. Through careful ethnographic study of the local as well as transnational networks produced through musical performance, this project will advance our understanding of the relationship between cultural and economic processes of transnationalism and globalization. Methodologically, the research will contribute to anthropological studies of music and ritual by focusing on the ways in which music structures and is structured by other ritual modes. Finally, the study will explicate the meanings of the term "diaspora" as a social scientific concept as well as a lived experience. In addition to contributing to the education of a young social scientist, the research will advance our knowledge of this region of Africa, and improve our understanding of how migrants preserve and modify their culture in both originating and receiving societies

Elinor Ochs

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Like many children in Africa and the rest of the world, Fulbe children in Maroua learn to use more than one language in their daily lives. Their linguistic repertoire comes to include Fulfulde, French, Arabic, and a simplified variety of Fulfulde. Thus, at an age when children are busy consolidating, re-organizing, and expanding their first language skills, Fulbe children encounter three new codes that they must also learn to use according to the linguistic and cultural rules of their families, schools, and peer groups. This project will investigate the development of communicative competence in multiple codes through a language socialization study. Over the course of nine months, or one school year, six children (three girls and three boys) will be observed and recorded as they learn to participate in routine language activities with more knowledgeable persons in home, neighborhood, public school, and koranic school settings. Data collection will be focused on three types of language routines: prompting, question-answer exchanges, and narrative. Annotated transcripts of these recordings will be complemented by participant observation and interviews with family members, teachers, and education officials. <br/><br/>The goal of this longitudinal, ethnographic study is to obtain greater understanding of how children growing up in a linguistically heterogeneous setting learn to use multiple languages and varieties thereof in culturally appropriate ways. More specifically, this study will document linguistic variation to which the children are routinely exposed, local language ideologies about languages and language varieties used in the community, and language socialization practices in the homes and schools of these children. Home and school language socialization practices will be compared and their impact on the children's development of communicative competence in Fulfulde, French, and Arabic will be examined.

Mary Abrams

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9321925 Abrams This is a proposal for a planning trip to the Desert Ecological Research Unit (DERU) at Gobabeb, Namibia, to finalize a collaborative research effort on resource cycling efficiency, for both water and nutrients, of several plant communities along the Kuiseb River near Gobabeb. The project will be integrated with an ongoing DERU study on ecosystem dynamics within ephemeral rivers and the associated Faidherbia stands. The collaboration will allow a more extensive study of the soil's role in resource cycling in arid ecosystems, using the Namib as a relatively undisturbed model. Data obtained during this trip will then be compared with existing studies in the United States. This project in ecosystem dynamics fulfills the program objective of advancing scientific knowledge by enabling leading experts in the United States and Namibia to combine complementary talents and conduct research in areas of strong mutual interest and competence. ***

Colin Chapman

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With primate populations losing 125,140 km2 of habitat annually most populations exist either in isolated, scattered protected areas, or in unprotected areas facing pressures from an increasing human population. Cercopithecine monkeys, a subfamily of small, frugivorous monkeys, are now found only in tiny forest fragments and a few national parks and forest reserves throughout West and East Africa. Scientists have recognized that little progress has been made towards providing scientific information that managers can use in the conservation of this subfamily. For example, while it has been suggested that weather, disease, infanticide, and food resources may all act to regulate primates populations, little is known about the specific conditions necessary for a species to survive and prosper. Food resources have been argued to be the most common limiting factor for most species, yet little is known about how food quantity and quality interact to determine the size and distribution of primate populations. This is particularly true for frugivorous primates since fruit, unlike leaves, is typically low in protein, minerals, and lipids, making it difficult to maintain a balanced diet. Therefore, this study will use redtail monkeys in Kibale National Park, Uganda to investigate the relationship between nutrient intake and availability, reproduction, and population densities. In addition, it will determine if nutritional factors are responsible for reduced population densities of redtail monkeys in heavily logged areas. Three focal groups have been identified in the heavily logged and unlogged areas to: 1) quantify and compare seasonal nutrient intake of groups between areas and to examine relationships between nutrient availability and intake, 2) compare the relationship between nutrient intake and reproduction between groups and correlate nutrient intake and availability with reproductive rates, timing, and infant survival, and 3) identify behavioral responses to changes in seasonal nutrient availability and intake. In addition, nutrient intake and behaviors will be correlated with group size across all six groups. Finally, existing data on redtail population densities and diets across six habitats within Kibale will be used to test for correlations between nutrient availability, key food resources, and redtail population densities. This will be the first study to explicitly examine the role of nutrition in population regulation of frugivorous primates and one of only a few to quantify the mechanisms by which habitat disturbance affects primates. The results of this study have implications to our understanding of the diets and nutrition of extinct and extant primates and hominids, the role of nutrition in population regulation, and the conservation and management of frugivore populations. By identifying the tree species needed to support high densities of redtail monkeys, current and future habitat restoration and protection plans will have the information necessary to design appropriate management strategies.

Mark Stoneking

[email protected]

ABSTRACT P.I. Mark Stoneking/Steve Sherry SBR- 9318826 The last decade has seen the adoption of molecular technology in surveys of human genetic diversity. The purpose of these studies has been a clarification of the human evolutionary process. One study in particular, from Alan Wilson's lab, initiated a vigorous period of research on the information contint of phylogenetic trees, their underlying assumptions and their potential role in reliably inferring past evolutionary events. A second theoretical impetus centers on the effecto of ancient population growth on a type of molecular data: the distribution of pairwise mutational differences between individuals (called the mismatch distribution). Human mismatch distributions should preserva record of popuations expansions and spearations in the remote past. Expansion times have been identified for different populations from 30,000 to 180,000 years ago, and that significant expansion occurred during thelate middle and upper Paleolithic (40,000 to 125,000 years ago). The latest hypothesis to emerge from these sorts of studies center around a gradual Middle Paleolithic migration out of Africa followed by later regional episodes of rapid population growth during the Upper Paleolithic, although all inference is currently based on variation at a single genetic locus. This project will satisfy the theoretical needs for multiple, independent measures of population diversity, by analyzing Alu repeats. It will also further the technical capabilities of an excellent young scientist. *** Panthrojfried9318826.abs ! ! ! D H H ( Times New Roman Symbol & Arial D D D " h Tt Est E = Jonathan Friedlaender Jonathan Friedlaender

Anthony Di Fiore

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Multilevel societies are some of the most complex social systems found in nature and have been identified in a wide array of taxa including elephants, cetaceans, birds, some species of non-human primates from Africa and Asia, and humans. However, little attention has been paid to possible examples of multilevel societies among New World primates. To resolve this gap and to provide additional insights into the causes and consequences of multilevel societies, the proposed research will focus on within- and between-group association patterns of woolly monkeys at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station (TBS) in Amazonian Ecuador. At TBS, woolly monkey groups may fission into small coordinated subgroups that persist for hours or even days, but similar to other multilevel societies, socially-cohesive groups may also coalesce into temporary supergroups that rest, travel, and forage together for several hours. Both of these patterns of behavior are reminiscent of human social systems. The project will contribute to long-term ecological, behavioral, and genetic datasets on an Amazonian research site of global biodiversity significance and will support the professional development of a female graduate student and research assistants.<br/><br/>Utilizing social network analysis, this project will quantitatively assess whether woolly monkeys form predictable grouping levels consistent with other multilevel societies. Additionally, behavioral data will be coupled with molecular genetic methods to investigate how range use, genetic relatedness, reproductive status, and attraction to others of the same age and/or sex class influence spatiotemporal associations. The proposed study represents one of the first investigations of the social dynamics of a New World primate from an explicitly multilevel perspective and promises to bring new insights to the understanding of sociality in humans and non-human primates. Additionally, by correlating genetic relatedness with social network structure, this project will provide a critical comparative dataset in which to examine the importance of kinship in maintaining affiliative relationships within and across social units.

Marcia Inhorn

[email protected]

Doctoral student Christina Palivos (Yale University), with the guidance of Dr. M. Kamari Clarke, will undertake research on secularism, the state, and migration. As migrants with particular religious orientations move into secular and semi-secular democracies, they pose unanticipated challenges for both the theory and practice of modern state governance, as evidenced by the head scarf debate in France. Palivos will focus her research on the problems of burial of migrant Muslims who die while moving through Greece on their way to various destinations in Europe. In the past decade, the Evros River and the Aegean Sea along the eastern borders of Greece have become the main points of entry for approximately 90 per cent of migrants en route to Europe from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Central Asia; many of them are Muslim. As the number of people crossing these bodies of water has grown, so has the number who die along the way, making Greece an excellent site to explore these issues. <br/><br/>Palivos will undertake eighteen months of ethnographic research amongst Muslim immigrants in three Greek locations: Athens, Lesvos, and Alexandroupolis. She will gather data on the different treatments that Muslim dead receive in Greece, including repatriation of remains to the country of origin, relocation of remains from to Thrace (the only Greek site with Muslim cemetaries), and local burial of unidentified remains in unmarked graves. Research methods will include participant observation, semi-structured interviews, burial case studies, repatriation case studies, and archival research. <br/><br/>This research is important because it will contribute to social scientific understanding of how the current economic crisis and attendant migration are together changing what it means to be a modern state subject. Her research also will fill gaps in what is known about the circulation of dead bodies within and across national borders and contribute to the ethnography of contemporary Greece. Supporting this research also supports the education of a graduate student.

Paul Kroskrity

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Environmental conservation efforts are often directed to regions of the world that have high levels of biodiversity. Such areas frequently have high levels of linguistic diversity, as well. This means that the difficulties of bringing about coordination and cooperation among diverse stakeholders are all too often compounded by miscommunications and misunderstandings resulting from linguistic failure. Successful conservation requires collaboration between scientists, educators, hunters, farmers, policy makers, and citizens, all of whom may have different goals and hold different beliefs about the environment. How is such collaboration possible when people must work across multiple languages to communicate? When is it successful? When and why does it fail? To answer these questions, University of California Los Angeles anthropology doctoral candidate Rosalie Edmonds, supervised by Dr. Paul V. Kroskrity, will conduct a close anthropological and linguistic investigation of communication and collaboration in a site that is both highly bio-diverse and deeply multi-lingual. Examining how varied stakeholders work together in this site will enable the creation of appropriate policies and practices for multi-lingual workplaces wherever they may occur.<br/><br/>The research will take place at the Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon, Central Africa. This is an appropriate site for this investigation because in addition to English and French, Cameroon is home to 280 indigenous languages and the Centre is also visited by tourists who speak yet more languages. Despite these major lingustic challenges, the Centre has successfully rescued and rehabilitated animals for over twenty years, while also providing environmental education programming in local schools and rural communities, and serving as a tourist destination. In such a diverse context, what languages do people use to communicate with each other, and how do they resolve misunderstandings? The researcher will collect data by observing how people collaborate to solve environmental problems. She will record daily activities and natural language interactions; conduct interviews to explore people's beliefs about conservation work and perceptions of communication; and carry out participant observation to gain an insider understanding. By combining approaches from linguistic and environmental anthropology, this research document how people talk about, conceptualize, and perform conservation-related tasks in a multilingual environment, and what impact their talk has on how the work is accomplished. Clarifying how people communicate and work together in this situation will permit a new perspective on how global problems can be successfully negotiated in transnational, multilingual settings. Additionally, this research will develop practical materials to facilitate cross-cultural communication, including language guides, and a best practices workshop for communicating with people from different backgrounds.