6th Annual Postgraduate Anthropology Conference

Wednesday 24th April 2013

Event Programme

Contents

Welcome Timetable Session 1 Abstracts Session 2 Abstracts Session 3 Abstracts Session 4 Abstracts Poster Presentations Feedback and Acknowledgements

Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 8 Page 11 Page 13 Page 16 Page 17

Welcome!
Dear Staff and Students, Welcome to the 6th Annual Postgraduate Anthropology Conference!

As a student-led conference, this is an opportunity for postgraduate students to practice their presentation skills and gain feedback from their peers in an informal environment. Please take advantage of our feedback forms; these are designed for the audience to provide valuable, constructive feedback to the presenters.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to approach one of the committee members.

We hope you find the day engaging and enjoy the wide range of research topics.

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The Postgraduate Anthropology Conference Organising Committee 2013

Becky Hamilton Chris Akiki Diana Vonnak Emily Rankin Michelle Tetla Rei Shimoda Steph Morris

Timetable
9:00-9:30 Coffee and registration 9:30-9:45 Welcome Session 1
1. 2. 3. 4. 9:45-10:05 10:10-10:30 10:30-10:50 10:55-11:15 Beth Allen Elise Gayraud Yvonne Hornby-Turner Caroline Walters

11:15-11:45 Coffee break Session 2

5. 6. 7. 11:45-12:05 12:05-12:25 12:25-12:45 Kim Webb Natasha Constant Frances Thirlway

12:45-13:30 Lunch Session 3

8. 9. 10. 13:30-13:50 13:50-14:10 14:10-14:30 Nikola Bala Jamie-Leigh Ruse Elena Burgos-Martnez

14:30-15:00 Coffee break

o Informal question time for oral and poster presenters

Session 4
11. 12. 13. 15.00-15:20 15:20-15:40 15:40-16.00 Shona Jane Lee Maria Kouvarou Marius Kempe

16.00-16:15 Coffee break o

Informal question time for oral and poster presenters

16:15 Prizes and Closing

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Session 1: 9:45-10:05

Beth Allen

Opening Doors, Unlocking Resilience : Building resilience with social housing tenants

This presentation will explore the initial findings of a longitudinal qualitative study aiming to develop a deeper understanding of family resilience in poor neighbourhoods with a geographical focus on Kingston-Upon-Hull. The research is examining the potential of the

sustainable livelihoods approach as a means of enhancing resilience within families. Through periodic face-to-face interviews incorporating visual tools, the research takes an in depth look at the actual experiences of families living in poor neighbourhoods, exploring the concept of resilience and providing a rich source of qualitative data at a household level. A pilot study

has been undertaken with a number of social housing tenants using participatory tools associated with the sustainable livelihoods approach to offer support and advice in light of the proposed Welfare Reforms, due to be phased in by the government over the coming months. Sustainable Livelihoods is a recently developed holistic, asset-based framework for anti-poverty research and practice. It diverts from the traditional perspective of viewing those living in

poverty as a vulnerable, passive and homogenous group and instead aims to build up a picture of peoples everyday lived experiences, taking the assets and strengths of those living in poverty as its starting point. The approach takes a broad perspective and does not focus exclusively on

financial assets, but looks at other assets, strengths and resources that are currently available to those experiencing poverty. Based on this approach, the researcher, also a practitioner with a

Hull-based charity, has developed a unique strategy involving individually tailored support delivered in the family home. This presentation will highlight the key findings at this stage of

the research, focusing on the primary research themes and the tools used in data collection. It will also reflect on the challenges and ethical issues of adopting a practitioner/researcher role in undertaking participatory research with vulnerable families.

Session 1: 10:10-10:30

Elise Gayraud

The evolution of social interaction in contemporary folk music making in England

Even though the transmission of folk music in the modern world and the lack of involvement of young people in traditional music can be seen as an issue, as the traditional way of transmission seems obsolete and not adapted to the youth in the modern world, some cultures have managed to adapt their teaching to the globalised world. The methods for transmitting folk musical culture in England have changed substantially from interactions in close communities at regular pub session gathering a small number of local folk musicians, to the creation of folk and world music festivals attracting thousands of enthusiasts. These modifications have had a dramatic impact not only on interaction between the musicians and their audience, but to a wider extent on perceptions of folk music across society. Moreover, new organisations, such as Ethno World, and Folkworks in Gateshead, have been created to promote folk music to a wider audience, offering new dynamic teaching and learning structures, while greatly influencing repertoires, playing techniques, interpretation, and encouraging certain types of hybridisation. Nonetheless, certain factions within the folk scene question the compatibility of these recent developments with the folk "way of life" and what they consider to be the defining aspects of their tradition. For them, "the way of learning the tunes" lies at the heart of the tradition. This paper explores the differing practices and conflicting views of contemporary folk musicians regarding cultural transmission. It is based on interviews with professional and amateur musicians, including students specialising in folk music, but also draws from academic publications and collections of folk tunes.

Session 1: 10:30-10:50

Yvonne Hornby-Turner

Differences between 9-11 year old British Pakistani and White British girls physical activity and sedentary behaviour

British South Asians are less physically active and may have a diet higher in fat compared with their White British counterparts. There is self-report evidence suggesting that physical activity levels of British Pakistani girls are particularly low. This mixed-method study aimed to provide, objective measurements of physical activity and sedentary time, and self-reported activity behaviour and dietary intake of British Pakistani and White British girls aged 9 to 11 years. Eighty-two British Pakistani and 82 White British girls were recruited from seven primary schools in North-East England. Accelerometry was used to collect objective measurements of physical activity and sedentary time for four days. Three previous day activity recalls and multiple pass diet recalls were used to collect self-reported activity behaviour and dietary intake. British Pakistani girls accumulated: 148 (95% CI: 95, 201) fewer counts per minute, per day; 19 (95% CI: 11, 26) fewer minutes in moderate-to vigorous physical activity and 5% (95% CI: 3, 7) more sedentary time, compared with White British girls. According to activity recalls British Pakistani girls accumulated: 14 (95% CI: 0.4, 28) fewer minutes, per day, in sport and exercise; 24 (95% CI: 13, 37) fewer minutes in outdoor play and 4 (95% CI: 0.1, 8.3) fewer minutes in active modes of school transport. There was no significant difference in screen time. British

Pakistani girls gained an additional 1.7 (95% CI: 0.4, 3.3) per cent of their overall energy intake from fat, compared with White British girls. According to dietary recalls a greater proportion of British Pakistani girls consumed fast-food as an evening meal (p=0.034) and were more likely to consume food that had been deep fried (p=0.04) or shallow fried (<0.001) during cooking. British Pakistani girls were less physically active, more sedentary, and had a diet higher in fat compared with White British girls. These differences in physical activity and dietary intake may contribute to the greater risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in British Pakistani women. Interventions are needed to address this ethnic group difference.

Session 1: 10:55-11:15

Caroline Walters

Models of cultural evolution: A mathropologists perspective

Mathematical reasoning is a very powerful tool which can be employed to aid our understanding of complex systems which surround us. By creating a mathematical representation of the world it is often possible to yield definite solutions to the problems posed which may not have been apparent otherwise. Yet analysing a problem mathematically and reaching a solution often requires the model constructed to be a vast over-simplification of a very complex system and hence the results obtained may have reduced validity in the real-world context. By presenting mathematical models for the spread of cultural traits via social learning mechanisms I will discuss how mathematical methods can offer an insight into human behavioural dynamics at a population level. I will discuss models of health-related behaviours, such as smoking or binge drinking, and also models of competing languages which originally stem from biological models of infectious disease spread and predator-prey models respectively.

Session 2: 11:45-12:05

Kim Webb

Battling with their past and fighting for their future: a study of the experiences and identities of military personnel in higher education

Research in the fields of higher education policy and practice show that students who have served in the British armed forces are a marginalised and excluded group within United Kingdom (UK) institutions of higher education. Despite a significant number of military

personnel currently studying in universities accounts of their experiences are absent from academic literature. This researcher investigated the socio-cultural learning experiences of British armed forces personnel in UK higher education. Two purposes framed this research: 1. To gain an in-depth

understanding of the opportunities and challenges that British armed forces personnel encounter during their studies and 2. To ascertain what particular identities these students possess and how particular experiences influence their construction. The study is framed within a critical and emancipatory methodology that theoretically draws on the transformative paradigm aligned to a mixed methods research design. Data sources

comprise of an internet based survey and biographical interviews conducted by telephone, face to face and Skype. Preliminary findings challenge hegemonic discourses that situate under-represented students within a deficit model and reveal that for these military students their particular ideals and values strongly influence their higher education experiences and identities.

Session 2: 12:05-12:25

Natasha Constant

Governance, participation and perceptions towards protected areas for conservation in the Blouberg Mountain Range, South Africa

In the Blouberg Mountain Range, South Africa, African communities experiences of conservation have been shaped by the establishment of protected areas (PAs). To understand the root causes of behaviours and perceptions towards conservation, as well as the limitations of current and future conservation initiatives, it is necessary to investigate peoples relationships, with how PAs govern nature. The study first investigates the impact of socio-economic and institutional conditions on the provision of benefits to local people and their degree of participation in PA management. Secondly, the study discusses how peoples environmental discourses and experiences of conservation have been shaped by historical and recent governmental regimes. Semi-structured interviews and participant observation techniques were employed with 30 community members from 6 villages and 10 governmental officials working for the provincial wildlife authorities and private sector, to discuss the management of PAs and the relationship between surrounding communities and wildlife authorities. Ethnographic data reveals that poor socio-economic conditions constrain the ability for PAs to meet basic infrastructural development, employment opportunities and provide tangible economic benefits for local people. Current institutional conditions fail to identify clear definitions of the beneficiaries of the reserves, creating ambiguity and poor provisioning of benefits. A lack of communication between wildlife authorities and neighbouring communities and an inability to understand tribal institutions excludes local people from participating in PA activities. Top-down governing structures fail to accommodate the needs of local people, because decisions are governed by distant governmental actors that have a poor understanding of local conditions, nor are communities given full capacity to engage in PA management. Peoples perceptions towards PAs are influenced by historical and recent experiences with governmental regimes over conflicts of land and resource use that promote legacies of disempowerment, marginalisation and stigmatisation, indicative of a theory of traumatic nature. The impacts of 9

protected area establishment have manifested in differential forms; local peoples conservation discourses, conflict between different user groups and resistance to PA establishment. Potential strategies for improving relations between rural African communities and PAs in the future are discussed.

Session 2: 12:25-12:45

Frances Thirlway

Identity, class and community in a former mining village in the North East of England

Tim Strangleman et al (1999) described miners and mining communities as read dualistically on the one hand seen as heroic and positive, and on the other regressive and backward. Similarly, Joanne Bourke suggests that the term working class community is used within two separate discourses backward-looking romanticism and forward-looking socialism (Bourke 1993). I will suggest that these stereotypes are just one element of a wider literature which judges working class communities in moral terms, usually relating to the presence or lack of aspirations (and other narratives of lack (Lawler 2008)), and the predominance of collective versus individual values (Hoggart 1966; Sennett and Cobb 1972; Steedman 1987; Skeggs 1997). I will relate these characterisations of mining settlements to my ethnographic fieldwork and historical research in the village of Sleetburn, exploring collective versus individual values both now and historically, the thesis of decline of community, increasing individualisation (Goldthorpe 1969; Beck 1992; Bauman 2000) and the decline of class identity (Heath 1981). I will argue that whilst there is not and probably never was a monolithic working-class identity in Sleetburn, collective values continue to have currency. In the words of Beverley Skeggs, the project of the self is a Western bourgeois concept and one which finds limited resonance in Sleetburn (Skeggs 1994 p. 164).

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Session 3: 13:30-13:50

Nikola Bala

Mythology Past and Present

Modern people can and do live well without mythology. Some would even go so far as to say that living without mythology is a necessary condition of the modern world. Nonetheless, at the outset of the twentieth century, emerging social sciences developed an interesting framework for an analysis of mythology. Although such frameworks were to be applied to study native cultures, social scientists used some similes from modern societies. Once fully developed, their conceptual frameworks can be used to study mythologies within modern societies as well. But what constitutes modern mythology and myths? What can be described as a manifestation of mythological experience of modern humans? Can we actually live without myths? In this paper, I will attempt to present satisfactory answers to these questions using some ethnographic examples from my own fieldwork.

Session 3: 13:50-14:10

Jamie-Leigh Ruse

The (dis)embodiment of displaced death and the (dis)engaged experience of counting the dead in Menos Das Aqu, a civilian-led count of the dead of Mexicos drugs war.

Since 2006 there have been at least 100,000 homicides in Mexico, around 300,000 people have been disappeared and over 250,000 people have been displaced as a result of the drugs war. In this paper, by looking at the work of the Barcelona-based association for peace in Mexico, Nuestra Aparente Rendicin (Our Apparent Surrender), I will explore how people participating in a project which carries out a civilian-led national count of the dead in Mexico, Menos Das Aqu, experience counting the dead as an interplay between embodiment and detachment, engagement and distanciation. The alternation between these states affects how counters relate to and empathise with the dead, how they comprehend the violence and seek to protect themselves from 11

too much emotional hurt, and for these volunteers, form an essential way of managing the way in which they experience their activism, and deal with the realities they encounter as a result of counting. This paper will be an exploration of how people understand and relate to the violence occurring in Mexico through empathetic embodiment and perspectival detachment.

Session 3: 14:10-14:30

Elena E Burgos-Martnez

'Hilang Bersama Angin: a journey through the intertwining nature of environmental change and language development among two Bajau Tribes of the Celebes Sea.

Indonesia is a region of the world with the highest linguistic and biological diversity. After the 2005 tsunami a wide range of international attention was brought to the Sea Nomads throughout Indonesia, resulting in the settlement of some groups of sea-faring Bajau by erecting pile-houses over the shallow of the bay along the coast of Indonesia. This research aims to offer a detailed portrait of how two different groups of Bajau (the sedentary Sama-Bajau and the nomadic Bajau Pelao) perceive, understand and face constant changes in their environment. And to do so, I will be focusing on their linguistics practices and how they have developed through different generations of Bajau. Within the extensive range of language units, I will be focusing on the oral and lexical aspects of their languages, particularly the words used to identify the different seasons and the social function of these units within their community; each of these seasonal words relates to specific fish species. In addition, I will attempt to provide a relevant analysis of different accounts and discourses through which their environment is constantly constructed and re-shaped, and the agency of the Bajau in all this. In order to achieve this goal and due to the life-style of the communities I target, I will be conducting multi-sited and mobile ethnographic research during the course of 14 months; initially aiming to stay with both Sama-Baja and Bajau Pelao and also observe their defining interactions and in terms of language development. The geographical focus of this research will be the coast of North Sulawesi and the area of the Celebes Sea that borders the region. 12

Session 4: 15:00-15:20

Shona Jane Lee

Lifecourse Determinants of Age at Menopause in the Newcastle Thousand Families Study

Understanding determinants of age at menopause is clinically important for several reasons, given the association of earlier menopause with higher mortality risk profiles and a number of post-menopausal health problems, while late menopause is associated with an increased risk of ovarian and breast cancer. The factors which influence variations of age at menopause exert their effects at various points throughout the lifespan prior to cessation of ovulation, therefore such variations in age at menopause are best understood from a lifecourse perspective.

This study uses data from female participants in the longitudinal Newcastle Thousand Families Study to investigate potential lifecourse factors determining age at menopause, calculated retrospectively from over 200 individuals. Statistical analyses were carried out in order to investigate correlations between age at menopause and a range of variables including birth weight, age at menarche, parity, smoking behaviour, alcohol consumption, marital status, and use of hormonal birth control. Linear regression analysis revealed some significant effects of smoking and low socio-economic status at birth; however these associations were confounded

after adjusting for the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), hysterectomy and sterilisation, by which a large proportion of the sample were affected. However, Cox regression analyses (whereby women falling into these categories were censored) revealed smoking status to have a significant association with earlier menopause. Owing to the unusually high frequency of HRT, hysterectomy, and sterilisation cases in this particular cohort of women, it cannot be definitively concluded whether age at menopause is determined by the factors in question in this particular sample.

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Session 4: 15:20-15:40

Maria Kouvarou

What do you mean there is no such thing as Greek rock? The development of national rock music and the future of popular music scenes; the case of Greece

It comes as no surprise nowadays to hear a song of any popular music genre and consider this as a product of our indigenous popular music scene. People find it natural to hear, lets say, a Greek band playing a heavy metal song and consider this as authentic Greek popular music production, or a DJ playing a set of techno music of exclusively French production and consider this as a product of the French national popular music scene. And indeed, both of the examples are Greek and French popular music respectively. However, these musical developments are parts of a larger process which needs further discussion; they represent a dialogue between local musical idioms and certain international musical idioms (derived primarily from the USA and Britain) that have, through the years, gained a standard place in the popular music repertoire of many countries. Understanding the process requires the observation of the interaction of the local with the international, and the acknowledgment that this interaction does not operate only superficially, but local cultures (for the sake of my argument, nations) assimilate the foreign idioms in ways that express their culture authentically. Thus, their use should be considered in the light of national musical authenticity. Music, as many argue, is a cultural force that defines and is defined by localities, or, for my purposes, nationalities. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate Greek popular musics gradual transformation from the time of being a (debatably) pure Greek popular music, to its current state, after almost sixty years of influence from and constant dialogue with rock musical idioms. The observation that a major factor for this process had been the technological development and the advancements of the communications media will lead to some assumptions about where the popular music of Greece might be heading to now, a time when the Internet revolution and the excessive availabilities of information defy any kind of geographical boundaries on the one hand, while on the other hand the current state of the world nurtures growing nationalistic sentiments.

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Session 4: 15:40-16:00

Marius Kempe

An experimental test of the effect of group size on cultural accumulation

Henrich proposed the hypothesis that in larger populations, more complex technologies can be maintained. I report the results of an experiment designed to test this hypothesis. Students did jigsaw puzzles in transmission chains, with two conditions: groups of three, or individuals. In the individual condition there was no improvement, but in the group condition there was. I will discuss the implications of this result for human evolution and technological change.

We would like to thank all of the presenters for their hard work and for making today possible!

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Poster Presentations

Please take the time to question the presenters during the breaks and remember use your voting slip to vote for your favourite posters! You can also provide anonymous feedback via our feedback forms.

1 Amanda Deakin: Identifying prosocial motivations in lion tamarins and spider monkeys using the group service method 2 Chris Howe: Investigating experiences of stress in medical students 3 Dalia Iskander: Adolescents as malaria health promoting actors in Bataraza: a school-based health education project using Photovoice. 4 Gene Buchanan: To win or to conform. Why elite athletes take performance enhancing drugs 5 Jane Herron: Past, Present...What Future? 6 Kayleigh Carr: Investigating success-variable environments as contexts for childhood innovation 7 Laura Juan Arroyo: Evolutionary Driving Forces: Sexual dimorphism and geographic variation in primate species and estimation of sex from craniofacial measures 8 Lucy Frost: Stretching beyond words: An ethnographic study of practice and professionalisation of medical interpreters in the North-East 9 Megan Wainwright : Breathing And Breathlessness: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) In Uruguay 10 Michelle Tetla: Ethnicity and birth weight: correlating BMI and gestational weight gain 11 Nikolas Drummond: Investigating the Social and Ecological Basis of Cognitive Ability Relating to the Neocortex, Hippocampus and Cerebellum 12 Parveen Herar: Everyday Evolutionary Medicine 13 Rob Flanagan: Power and prestige amongst internet file sharers - applying traditional theories of gift exchange in the study of peer-to-peer computer networks

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Thank you for attending the 6th Annual Postgraduate Anthropology Conference!
We hope you enjoyed the day!

We would really appreciate it if you could take 2-3 minutes to fill out a feedback questionnaire. It is a very quick multiple choice questionnaire and completing it would be really helpful both for us and for future conference organisers. Link and QR code below: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZYKY8TH

Thank you!

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following people for their contribution to the conference:

Kate Hampshire, Bob Simpson, Sandra Bell and Helen Ball for their time, participation and providing valuable feedback to the presenters.

Collingwood College for the use of their room and catering services. All of the staff from Collingwood College, Event Durham, and the University Staff for their assistance.

Previous committee members for their advice and guidance. Everyone who has attended the conference for providing insightful comments and questions. 17

http://anthropologi.st/conference/index.html Email: durhampganthconf@gmail.com

Department of Anthropology Durham University Dawson Building South Road Durham, DH1 3LE
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