Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2019, Spanish

This thesis explains how three forms of contemporary Mayan art--music, weavings and murals--form part of the larger effort in Guatemala to revitalize Mayan languages and culture, known as the Mayan Movement. This movement began in the 1990's after the end of Guatemala's 36-year long genocidal and ethnocidal civil war. The research focuses on three case studies: 1) a Mayan hip hop group that retells ancient myths through Spanish and Mayan-language lyrics, 2) a Mayan weaving cooperative that has taken advantage of the often culturally damaging tourism industry to raise awareness about the lasting effects of the civil war, and 3) a mural painted by a Mayan art collective depicting the people's history of Mayans in Guatemala from the genesis of the first human beings to present day. Each chapter analyzes the symbolism and cultural knowledge communicated by a different form of artwork, often relating them back to ancient Mayan myths, and concludes that each form of art constitutes a form of survivance, a combination of “survival” and “endurance” that refers to the active presence of indigenous peoples, worldviews, and ways of life in the world today, that inherently defies the historical and contemporary attempts to erase them.

Committee: Betsy Partyka Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Fine Arts; History; Language; Latin American History; Latin American Studies; Modern History; Native American Studies; Native Studies; Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Spanish and Portuguese

There has been some discussion about minority academics, the acceptance of the diversity of ideas, and the promotion of these ideas in an already set-up and strict colonial academic world. In order to better understand language production and the proposed writing strategies for Imbabura Kichwa, I analyze my positionality as an Indigenous academic and as a linguistic activist and speaker of the language of study. In this dissertation, I investigate language production in Imbabura Kichwa, the distinct ideologies of speakers of this language, and the effects of such ideologies in the writing process of Imbabura Kichwa from an insider perspective. There have been discussions of maintaining a pure and rigorous academic and scientific analysis of linguistic phenomena that does not allow space for a more ideological and insightful activism perspective. I argue that for minority scholars, such as myself, there is a (very) high probability that academic studies and activism can go hand in hand or that they cannot, in fact, be detached from the person or the research when discussing pivotal issues for the survival of the language I speak. In this specific situation, being an Indigenous scholar and speaker of Imbabura Kichwa, this analysis connects the data collected from speakers of Imbabura Kichwa, the language production in casual speech, variation according to sociolinguistic variables, and the goals as a community of speakers' desire for the language regarding the promotion of writing skills for a traditionally oral Indigenous language, connected to an activist, academic framework. This dissertation provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Imbabura Kichwa's current situation and its speakers' ideologies. The i data for this dissertation comes from three different sources: Personal experiences in the academic field and experiences in social spaces and working with community members, 50 semistructured sociolinguistic interviews, the ALEQ-3 language background q (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Grinstead (Committee Co-Chair); Anna Babel (Advisor); Peter Sayer (Committee Member); Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza (Committee Member) Subjects: Ethnic Studies; Foreign Language; Language; Linguistics; Sociolinguistics

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2023, English: Composition and Rhetoric

In this dissertation, I articulate and reclaim African rhetorical traditions and apply an African rhetorical lens for examining how contemporary Ga communities can use digital communications to further cultural practices. I examine ancient Egyptian African rhetorical traditions, exploring the theories and practices of Maat so as to articulate themes and characteristics of African rhetoric. I focus on African rhetoric from Ancient Egypt and then highlight some of its practices in contemporary Ghana, including Akan and Ga rhetoric. This dissertation centers and attempts a practice of rhetoric to a local/Indigenous people, The Gas of Ghana, whose cultural and linguistic survival might depend on how they use the Internet and digital technologies to share and celebrate their rhetorics. The Gas, Indigenous to Greater Accra, the capital city of Ghana, have a rich culture similar to the Akans. However, their dwindling population, cycles of poverty, lack of education, and exclusion of their language (Ga) education in the teaching curriculum by successive governments have all contributed to a near-loss of a rich Indigenous cultural heritage. Drawing from interviews with cultural preservationists in Ghana and Ga leaders, I examine how the Gas have used and could use the internet to engage in rhetorical acts of survivance. Some of the research questions shaping this study are: (1) How might minority Indigenous peoples (specifically in this study the Gas of Ghana) use the digital to assert their cultural practices and achieve visibility and survivance? And (2) In what ways can we Africans contribute to the cultural design and decolonizing of our material and digital rhetorics? I apply a combination of local methodological frameworks to understand how local research works with Indigenous communities. These include Indigenous concepts like Sankofa, which means return to the past and fetch from it, Ga samai (symbols), decoloniality, Indigenous storytelling. Finally, I close my diss (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Heidi McKee (Advisor) Subjects: Rhetoric; Technical Communication

Master of Computer Science, Miami University, 2022, Computer Science and Software Engineering

Databases are integral parts of many software systems. An increasing number of database systems have unique capabilities and trade-offs with other systems; choosing the right database system for a given application is a challenging problem. In such cases, the input from the end-users about which use cases should be supported is crucial so that database switch, which is not a trivial task, provides the most value. The Indigenous Languages Digital Archive (ILDA) is a web-based system to gather digital copies of different indigenous language documents under one virtual repository. The system provides a reliable framework for organizing, storing, searching, and evaluating archived linguistic materials over the web. The primary objective of ILDA is to support the revitalization of indigenous languages and culture education among tribal communities. This thesis conducts evaluation of database systems for ILDA by analyzing features of different database systems to select the best system to support ILDA use cases. Feedback from end-users and analysis of system features contributes to the development of use cases. Selected database systems are tested in terms of functionality and usability feedback from ILDA users. Even though this methodology is tested only for the ILDA scenario, it can be applied to similar projects.

Committee: Karen Davis PhD (Advisor); Daniela Inclezan PhD (Committee Member); Douglas Troy PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Engineering; Computer Science

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2006, History

“From the Ashes” explores one chapter in the life of the Miami Indian village of Pinkwi Mihtohseeniaki, which was located along the banks Great Miami River near the current city of Piqua, Ohio. This thesis attempts to add new depth to our understanding of the village, which was settled in 1747 and purportedly depopulated in 1752, by centering the analysis on the local level. With an intense focus on the cultural and ecological landscapes of Pinkwi Mihtohseeniaki a more nuanced story surfaces. This one local story has the potential to transform our knowledge of the world of Miami-Illinois speaking peoples and the larger region of the Great Lakes in the eighteenth century.

Committee: Andrew Cayton (Advisor) Subjects: