The Impact of Structural Violence in the Industrial Era: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Institutionalized and Impoverished Populations in the United States
Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: This project explores the biological impact of structural violence in institutionalized and impoverished populations in the late 19 th and early 20 th century United States.A structural violence framework serves as an explanatory framework to deepen bioarchaeologists' understanding of the relationship between identity and risk for different kinds of physiological stress for various segments of the populations included in this study.Two samples, one an institutionalized population from Rome, New York, and the other, a primarily impoverished population from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were used to evaluate the impact of structural violence on those populations.This was assessed by analyzing human skeletal remains for the presence of non-specific indicators of physiological stress, dental disease, and trauma.The prevalence and distributions of these skeletal indicators were recorded and compared within and between populations to assess whether site, status, or biological sex had an impact on risk for physiological stress and/or trauma within and between impoverished and institutionalized populations from industrializing areas from the historic period in the United States.The results indicate that while site and status were significant indicators of risk, biological sex was not.iii This dissertation is dedicated to my strong and beautiful grandmothers, Loretta Beddow and Beatrice Tremblay, who always believed in me; to my uncle, Steven Stoliker, who would have been a brilliant archaeologist; and to my sweet boy, Mencken, who was purest being of love and light I have ever known.While there are many people I would like to name in my acknowledgementsthose who have been there for me in one way or another throughout life and my academic career -due to spatial constraints and sheer exhaustion, I will limit this to those who played important roles during my doctoral studies.If you are not in this list and should be, please accept my apology and probably a beer to make up for it at the next conference.I do, with heartfelt sincerity, acknowledge the following people:Paul Sciulli, my amazing, brilliant, and sometimes confusing advisor.I thank you for your support, your humor, your fun stories, your love of dogs, and your riddles that I still cannot figure out (hence the 'sometimes confusing' referenced in the above sentence).I also thank you for the feedback and support you have given me over the years as well as the letters of recommendation (and the many that will follow because I am on the job market).I am your very last doctoral student, and I hope I did you proudeven if it's only just a little bit.Julie Field, who is literally the bomb diggity, as the kids say (or as they used to say -neither of us knows for sure because we're too old to keep up with that sort of thing).I thank you for EVERYTHING -for your endless and unwavering support, your guidance, your willingness to listen when I needed to vent, your compassion, your continual (and helpful) feedback, and your commitment to being a great committee member.Also, for your friendship and the occasional beer.Of which there will be many more to come!Sam Stout and Clark Larsen, I thank you both for your
Author: Tremblay, Lori A
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology (arts and humanities)
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7066339221