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 …