Using ethnographic research methods, I worked with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) to conduct an exploratory study about developer perspectives on video game preservation. I conducted in-depth interviews with independent developers in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, a hub for Texas game development. These interviews explored developers' knowledge and awareness of game preservation as a topic of concern, archival culture and practices in the industry, and the IGDA's potential role in addressing issues related to preservation work. This research contributes to a growing body of literature on game preservation, urgently needed as many gaming technologies face obsolescence in the near future. I use Ellen Cushman's concept of "perseverance" to examine the difference between simply preserving video games for the future, and the perseverance of game development as a professional trade and artistic craft.

Anthropological research conducted in a local Texas hospital provides data to analyze cultural competency. Increasing health equity is a key aspect of cultural competency literature, hospital, and national goals. Examining the local context allows for the analysis of how one hospital can affect public health in the area by using patient-centered care. Using observational and interview data to create the ideal of the patient journey shows how patient families experience cultural competency. Overall, the patient families felt they experienced culturally competent healthcare, however from the hospital structure perspective there could more goals to attain.

Has years of citizen-based nutrient sampling and baseline water quality monitoring efforts only had a "trivial" impact on natural resource management decisions? This thesis will explore this and other findings from a qualitative evaluation of the Rock River Coalition (RRC) citizen-based stream monitoring project in Dane County, Wisconsin, USA. These findings are the culmination of 47 semi-structured interviews with decision-makers from seven client-identified categories and participant observations of board meetings and other watershed groups. Interview questions focused on current strategies of data design and dissemination with the goal of constructing a clearer picture of existing data usage by Dane County decision-makers. In the wider picture of citizen science and community-based research, this case study aims to highlight barriers to data use and potential solutions. The results of this case study were understood through four key frames: (1) Bourdieu's concept of symbolic capital, (2) Barzilai‐Nahon's theory of network gatekeeping, (3) Newman et al.'s framework for leveraging the power of place, and (4) a Foucauldian approach to the production of scientific knowledge. The findings of this study highlight the presence of gatekeeping mechanisms within the scientific field as well as government institutions, problematize the practice of placemaking, assert there is untapped symbolic …

Many communities are promoting physical activity and active transportation as ways to combat childhood obesity and change sedentary lifestyles of school-age children. Safe Routes to School Youth Voices is a mixed methods approach to understanding the experiences and perceptions of middle school students surrounding the use of active transportation. Student experiences are explored both independently and in comparison to parental perspectives of barriers to actives transportation. Data were collected in the form of parent surveys, observations, student interviews, and student focus groups. This study aims to answer the following primary research questions: (1) What are the conditions experienced along the route? (2) What are the students' perceptions of barriers to active transportation? (3) What are the compensation practices that students take to overcome barriers? and (4) How do the students' perceptions compare with their parents? Interviews and focus groups were transcribed and coded using in-vivo, descriptive, structural and pattern methods. Primary themes which emerged include how conditions of walking to school, personal safety, compensation practices, and systematic barriers all affect the perceptions of active transportation of the student. Findings highlight the difficulties many students face when considering active transportation, and discuss the inconsistencies between student experience, parental perceptions, and intervention …

School-based health clinics are on the rise while telemedicine is increasingly used to provide communities access to health care. Incorporating the two together poses to create healthier school communities. Parker County Hospital District collaborated with Weatherford Independent School District (WISD) to implement the district's first telemedicine school-based health clinic. This project is in partnership with Parker County Hospital District to explore parent perceptions and desires of telemedicine and school-based health clinics to facilitate utilization among the WISD community.

I conducted a mixed-methods collaborative ethnography using the lens of relational coordination theory. This included a qualitative survey using an established tool to analyze the relational dimensions of multidisciplinary teamwork, participant observation, interviews, and narrative surveys. Findings were presented to clinicians in working groups for further interpretation and to facilitate co-creation of targeted interventions designed to improve team relationships and performance. I engaged a complex multidisciplinary network of ~500 care providers dispersed across seven core interdependent clinical disciplines. Initial findings highlighted the importance of each dimension of relational coordination in trauma care. Narrative survey and ethnographic findings further highlighted the centrality of team briefings and a translational simulation program in contributing positively to team culture and relational ties. A range of 16 interventions – focusing on structural, process and relational dimensions – were co-created with participants after reflecting on findings and are now being implemented and evaluated by various trauma care providers. Relational coordination theory is a valuable way to conceptualize the coordination of trauma care. Collaborative reflection on quantitative and narrative data through this lens can be used as a community-based quality improvement tool.

The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of Klawock's Tribal Citizens' relationship to harvesting what is colloquially known as customary and traditional foods and/or native foods. The state and federal governments categorize these culturally specific goods as subsistence foods. An unearthed, 5,360-year-old basket potentially links modern day Klawock Tribal Citizens with their ancestral ties to the region. Throughout this time, families in this region of Southeast Alaska have been participating in a form of indigenous fishery. Despite access to multiple grocery stores and fish canneries, tribal citizens choose to expend their family's efforts to harvest their own sockeye out of the Klawock watershed. Oral history and ethnography and methodologies were employed to record personal relationships with the harvest of these resources while also documenting a context in which these relationships exist. Klawock Cooperative Association's staff worked alongside the student researcher and participants to analyze the data and produce findings. Engaging in customary and traditional activities rewards participants with intrinsic facets of their identity. Alongside reinforcing identities, these activities teach participants about family dynamics and working as a team, as well as the responsibilities that come with. These responsibilities are formed through the assignment of roles and provide …

During the 2013/16 Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa, numerous restrictions were placed on the movement and public gathering of local people, regardless of if the area had active Ebola cases or not. Specifically, the district of Koinadugu, Sierra Leone, preemptively enforced movement regulations before there were any cases within the district. This research demonstrates that ongoing regulations on movement and public gathering affected the livelihoods of those involved in agricultural markets in the short-term, while the outbreak was active, and in the long-term. The forthcoming thesis details the ways in which the Ebola outbreak international and national response affected locals involved in agricultural value chains in Koinadugu, Sierra Leone.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Texas in Dallas, Texas offers an array of services and programs to residents in southern Dallas and other areas. However, interest in the state of access to veterinary care has been questioned for southern Dallas residents. In an area that faces certain compounding stressors, such as food deserts and transportation difficulties, a lack of access to veterinary care for pet owners is considered an additional possible stressor. Pet owners in southern Dallas, along with the SPCA of Texas, contemplate how to best provide medical care for local pets. In this body of work, I describe community access to veterinary services in southern Dallas. I provide a resident-centered explanation based on in-depth interviews with locals that discuss the current state of access to veterinary services while simultaneously analyzing the links between access to veterinary care, the area of southern Dallas itself, and ongoing issues with roaming and stray dogs.

As a nonprofit located in a nonprofit-dense region in Roanoke, Virginia, Blue Ridge Literacy is among many other organizations competing for similar funding. This qualitative research project explores the reasons why donors give, why they support Blue Ridge Literacy, and what they think their future priorities for giving might be. By examining data from 15 qualitative interviews, this research is able to examine what BRL donors care about and offer suggestions for donor engagement strategies.

Research with local farmers and local food consumers in the North Texas area which captures a contemporary understanding of the challenges and successes present in North Texas local farm-and-food networks. Through ethnographic research methods, including participant-observation and semi-structured interviews, the network of producers and consumers around several farmers' markets were evaluated to understand where the strengths of local food lie, and where networks need development to promote a more stable local food environment. Texas is newer to the trend of farmers' market development, with the local food system developed to foster community, educate, and promote the advantages of locally sourced goods. This research led to the academic discovery of climate adaptive ecological knowledge and farm commodification strategies; which are tools that farmers may use to build greater defense against threats to a farm's livelihood.

This study explored the lived experience of Gen Z adults in a liminal life-stage crisis where the symbolic meaning of health, identity and brands are in transition. Sixteen ethnographic in-home interviews with college students were conducted and analyzed using Geertz's interpretive and Turner's symbolic anthropology. A hermeneutic textual analysis was used to interpret three types of phenomenological data: text, pictures and collages. An "incubation" step was key in the creative interpretation process where the leap from data to abstract themes was made. Environmental circumstances like money, time, resources and social networks change the quality of health, but the fundamental health explanatory system of a young person is a reflection of their family of origin experiences. Women associate health with mental health-independence and empowerment. Men define health as physical health-food and cooking. Skills such as cooking and shopping as well as the consumption of water, cannabis and other complementary products impact health and identity. Three health worldview themes emerged: health as negotiating identity; creating home; and taking responsibility. Implications for branding and public information campaigns to change the health beliefs and practices of young adults are offered. This thesis closes with a reflection on the "research study," the dominant symbol in …