{"id":1166,"date":"2024-03-18T11:36:23","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T18:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/?page_id=1166"},"modified":"2025-09-11T14:37:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T21:37:24","slug":"grad-student-spotlight-dissertation-research-2023-24","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/grad-student-spotlight-dissertation-research-2023-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Grad Student Spotlight: Dissertation Research 2023-24 &#8211; Deelan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Grad Student Spotlight: Dissertation Research<\/h1>\n\n\n<div class=\"wsu-row wsu-row--sidebar-right\" >\r\n    \n<div class=\"wsu-column\"  style=\"\">\r\n\t\n\n<p>Evelien Deelen, a PhD candidate from the Netherlands, was awarded fieldwork funding from both the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wenner Gren Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Evelien moved from the Netherlands to Pullman in 2018 to study the anthropology of human-horse relationships. From 2018 to 2021, she researched bucking horse riding and breeding in American rodeo. Her dissertation project is on equine ethnoveterinary care in the Inland Northwest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p>I am Evelien and I am a PhD student in the cultural stream. In 2018, I moved from the Netherlands to Pullman to study the anthropology of human-horse relationships. Until 2021, I researched bucking horse riding and breeding in American rodeo, and I am now working on my dissertation project on equine ethnoveterinary care in the Inland Northwest. I\u2019ve recently received fieldwork funding from both NSF and the Wenner Gren Foundation, and I am super excited about their support.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\r\n\n\n<div class=\"wsu-column\"  style=\"\">\r\n\t\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"316\" height=\"442\" src=\"https:\/\/wpcdn.web.wsu.edu\/wp-cas\/uploads\/sites\/3206\/2024\/03\/Grad-spotlight_Evelien-Deelen.jpg\" alt=\"Evelien Deelen holding a horse by the bridle.\" class=\"wp-image-1173\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\r\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>I am deeply interested in human-animal interactions, and very curious to learn if how people think about animals affects how they treat them. With the bucking horses, for example, I found that rodeo people share this folk theory that explains why these animals buck the way they do. They believe that broncs have a special gene that makes them predisposed to bucking. This belief shapes how rodeo people train these horses, how often they interact with them, and what kinds of athletic expectations they have from the animals. At first, I thought this concept was something unique to rodeo, until I realized that all horse people, including myself, have folk theories about horse behavior, nature, and being that guide what we do with these animals. We just don\u2019t think about it because it is such a subconscious, taken-for-granted aspect of our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For my dissertation project, I\u2019m hoping to develop new insights in the relationship between human culture and animal disease. My field site is in the greater Spokane area, where I\u2019m working with settler-descendant horse owners to elicit the ethnozoological and ethnomedical theories that underlie the veterinary care they provide. I want to learn if Kleinman\u2019s disease-illness distinction also applies to veterinary care, and if we can draw a theoretical parallel between animal sickness (as viewed and responded to by people) and the concept of culture-bound syndromes. I\u2019m grateful that my advisor (Marsha Quinlan) and committee (Ed Hagen, Patricia Pendry) support my curiosity.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Grad Student Spotlight: Dissertation Research I am deeply interested in human-animal interactions, and very curious to learn if how people think about animals affects how they treat them. With the bucking horses, for example, I found that rodeo people share this folk theory that explains why these animals buck the way they do. They believe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"wsuwp_university_location":[],"wsuwp_university_org":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1374,"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1166\/revisions\/1374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthro.wsu.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}