KONSTANTINOS ZORBAS, while a student at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, was awarded a grant in March 2003 to aid research on interactions between shamans and clients in a Siberian city, under the supervision of Dr. Piers G. Vitebsky. Zorbas studied episodes of illness and performances of shamanic healing in the city Kyzyl, Republic of Tyva, Russia.

JENNIFER M. ZOVAR, while a student at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, was awarded a grant in May 2008 to aid research on 'Post-Collapse Formations of Community, Memory, and Identity: The Archaeology of Pukara de Khonkho, Bolivia,' supervised by Dr. John W. Janusek. The goal of the investigation was to use the large, densely populated settlement of Pukara de Khonkho as a test case to examine community development following the collapse of the Tiwanaku state, specifically considering the roles of population movement and intercommunity interaction.

MICHAEL L. ZUKOSKY, then a student at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was awarded a grant in May 2004 to aid research on 'Transforming Environmentality: Subjectivity and Development in China's Altai Mountains,' supervised by Dr. Sydney D. White. This research project, through participant observation with Kazakh pastoralists and the collection of various official and expert narratives of grassland science and pastoral development, demonstrated the way that a local political context transformed the efforts of grassland science experts to create viable political subjects.

JIANGANG ZHU, while a student at Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, P.R. China, was awarded a grant in August 2001 to aid research on 'Shanghai Lilong Nieghborhood: An Ethnography of Civil Associations and Social Movements,' supervised by Dr. Joseph Bosco. This research explored the civil associations and community movements in a lilong neighborhood in Shanghai since the 1980s. The central question was how these civil associations and social movements interact with neighborhood residents and with the local government in Shanghai.

YIJIE ZHUANG, then a student at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, received funding in April 2011, to aid research on 'Landscape Change and its Interaction with Prehistoric Human Activities: Geoarchaeological Investigation in North China,' supervised by Dr. Charles A.I. French. This study conducts geoarchaeological investigation on four early Neolithic sites in middle and lower Yellow River of North China.

ATHER ZIA, then a student at University of California, Irvine, California, was awarded funding in April 2011 to aid research on 'Politics of Absence: Women Searching for the Disappeared in Kashmir,' supervised by Dr. Victoria Bernal. Since 1989 Kashmir has been engulfed in an anti-India armed militancy. Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 men have disappeared in the Indian counter-insurgency actions. Kashmiri women have assumed the task of caring for families in the absence of men.

LAL ZIMMAN, then a student at University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, received a grant in October 2010 to aid research on 'Talking like a Man: Identity, Socialization, Biology, and the Gendered Voice among Female-to-Male Transsexuals,' supervised by Dr. Kira Hall. As a window into the relationship between gender and the voice, this study combines methods from linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics to analyze the changing voices of female-to-male transgender people.

Preliminary abstract: The discovery of ochre at African Middle Stone Age sites has been widely interpreted as relating to the onset of modern human symbolic behavior. Dependence on symbolism to communicate information and strengthen group identities is an essential attribute of our species. Although significant quantities of modified ochre have been recovered which date to before the oldest Homo sapiens fossils (~195,000 years ago), the first unambiguous evidence of symbolism does not appear until 80-105 thousand years ago.

ANGELINA IONE ZONTINE, then a student at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, received a grant in October 2008 to aid research on 'Remaking the Political in 'Fortress Europe:' Cultural and Political Practice In Italian Social Centers,' supervised by Dr. Jacqueline L. Urla. This research project investigates the political activism and creation of culture being carried out at collectively run social centers in Bologna, Italy.

Preliminary abstract: China's post-reform cities have transformed from centers of production to centers of consumption, and large urban centers like Guangzhou and Beijing currently face a mounting waste crisis as official treatment facilities near capacity.