Digital Commons Network^™

Boundary As Borderland: Mexico City’S Central Plaza And The Politics Of Presence, Re'al Christian

Theses and Dissertations

In the postcolonial era, the land surrounding national borders—the borderland—has inherited a specific identity and relationship with those who navigate it. While national borderlands are oft discussed amid conversations on globalization, land disputes, and war, the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw the new establishment of borderlands from within in the form of segregative boundaries that purported to separate Indigenous and European peoples. This thesis concerns the manifestation of the borderland as not only an external entity, but an internal one as well. Using Mexico City, the center of the Spanish colonial empire, as …

The Future For Savanna And Tropical Grasslands: A Latin American Perspective, R. R. Vera

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

The objective of the paper is to briefly review the main trends in the tropical lowlands of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with particular emphasis in the neotropical savannas. These tropical native grasslands cover occupy approximately 210 million hectares, and constitute major portions of the territory of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana and Venezuela. Many analysts consider that intensification of their use is a valid alternative to the expansion of the livestock and crop industries into the rainforest.

The evidence reviewed shows that since the late 1980s, the LAC agricultural sector has shown dynamism not seen for many years. Despite …

Gender-Based Characteristics Of Micro, Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises In An Emerging Country: Is This A Man’S World?, Angelica Maria Sanchez-Riofrio, Nathaniel C. Lupton, Segundo Camino-Mogro, Álvaro Acosta-Ávila

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Purpose: Worldwide, Ecuador is one of the countries with the most entrepreneurial activity from micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). However, the effect of adopting the US dollar (dollarization), over which the central bank has no control, combined with being mainly an exporter of primary products, as well as strategic currency devaluation by neighboring economies, has created a difficult situation, especially for Ecuadorian women’s MSMEs. This paper aims to study the relationship between female ownership and Ecuadorian MSMEs’ financial, economic and social outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors compile a near-population panel of 617,804 firm-year observations representing an unbalanced panel of 112,917 …

Catholicism In Context: Religious Practice In Latin America, Gustavo Morello Sj

Journal of Global Catholicism

A critical problem to study Catholicism in the context of Latin American modernity, is that the conceptual tools we use to study religion were designed to understand the transformations that modernity provoked in European religiosity. Studies on the religion of Latin Americans have largely explored the religiosity of the population through surveys that measure attendance, adherence and affiliation. While some anthropologists have explored religious practices among particular groups, we do not know how ordinary, urban Latin Americans practice religion. To fill this gap, a group of researchers from Boston College, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Catholic University of Córdoba, and …

Editor's Introduction, Mathew N. Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Climate Care: Pathways For Coastal Community Resilience, Jessica Reilly-Moman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Climate change increasingly impacts coasts worldwide. The ability of coastal ecosystems and the human communities who are part of them to absorb disturbance and maintain function or transform, or resilience, is of critical importance to managing these impacts. However, to date, climate resilience largely has focused on biophysical impacts and technocratic solutions, while issues of social and environmental justice and human well-being become more acute and entrenched. Consequently, I ask: How can coastal communities cope with climate change? To answer this question, I leverage traditional, emergent, and novel social research methods in Mexico, Central America, and Maine. Using ethnography, interviews, …

The Power Of Being Present: Lessons From Diplomacy In Latin America And The Caribbean For The Private Sector, Kimberly Breier, Daniel Korn

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

Successful modern diplomacy and private sector engagements require being physically present. Based on the experience of the authors in diplomacy and corporate government affairs, this article argues that the trust that forms the basis of effective diplomacy and corporate engagement with the communities in which they operate is established best through direct physical interaction. With examples from Latin America and the Caribbean, the article explores how both diplomacy and corporate government affairs have evolved into a model of being present that emphasizes seeking to empower local populations. The article delves into how and why the United States carries out its …

Latin American Identities And The American Demonym, Maia S. Schofield

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

Current literature addresses the question of Latin American identity largely in terms of assimilation, language proficiency, generation of immigrant, and political participation, while the American demonym remains an understudied topic. ‘America’ has been popularized in its usage to refer only to the United States and ‘American’ to its nationals. Although Latin Americans are natives of the Americas, they are rarely considered ‘American’. This study examines factors that influence the identity of Latin Americans living in the United States and focuses primarily on the connection between identity and the understanding of ‘America’. To examine this relationship, a questionnaire, offered in Spanish …

Belo Horizonte And Bangalore: A Regional Comparison Of Latin America And South Asia, Emily Morris

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Adverse Reactions Following Covid-19 Vaccination: An Ecuadorian Experience, Emanuel Vanegas, Karla Robles-Velasco, María F. Osorio, María José Farfán Bajaña, Zouina Sarfraz, Azza Sarfraz, Juan Carlos Fernández Cadena, Derly Madeleiny Andrade Molina, Matias Panchana Lascano, Ivan Cherrez-Ojeda

Department of Paediatrics and Child Health

Background: Limited large-scale studies have been conducted to investigate the adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccine in Latin America, particularly among the healthcare worker (HCW) population in Ecuador. The objective of this study was to assess a cohort of Ecuadorian healthcare workers for adverse reactions following vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Methods: We conducted an observational cross-sectional study to assess the potential adverse reactions to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine among a sample of healthcare workers (HCWs) in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, from March to May 2021.
Results: The sample comprised 1291 patients, with a mean age of 39.3 years (SD, …

The Rebels' Credibility Dilemma: A New Approach To The Search For Credibility Towards The International Community And The Population, Theò Bajon

Peace and Conflict Studies

By being part into the theory of the rebels' credibility dilemma, this research takes its framework in a historical analysis of relations between rebel groups and governments, in order to better understand the mechanisms of demands and negotiations between these two actors. In this paper, we propose to test the validity of the theory of the rebels' credibility dilemma in Latin America, and to provide specific precision to this geographical area. For that, our approach proposes an historical and political study on data going from 1945 to 2019. The study is characterized by the creation of specific classifications and a …

Vatican Ii, Liberation Theology, And Vernacular Masses For The Family Of God In Central America, Bernard J. Gordillo

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) instituted reforms in the Catholic Church that included changes in language and music employed in the liturgy, inspiring a proliferation of sung vernacular masses throughout Latin America. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research undertaken in Nicaragua and the United States, this article examines three Central American vernacular masses—Misa típica panameña de San Miguelito (1967), Misa popular nicaragüense (1969), and Misa campesina nicaragüense (1975). Each mass emanated from communities founded as part of the transnational Familia de Dios (Family of God) movement, which established programs of religious education, leadership training, and community building among impoverished …

How Democratic Is Democracy? A History Of Political Corruption In Peru, Kaitlyn Selzler

Graduate Review

With the emergence of revisionist scholarship beginning in the 1960’s and 1970’s, scholars have taken terms which had absolute definitions, such as totalitarianism or democracy, and introduced different perspectives and methods which questioned the absolute authority of historical terminology. As a case study into these new historical methodologies, this essay seeks to answer the question: How democratic is Peru’s democracy? To answer this question, this research explores the deep seeded corruption in Latin America, specifically Peru, beginning in 1985 with the election of Alan Garcia, continuing through the presidency of Alberto Fujimori, and eventually ending with the current state of …

Frontotemporal Dementias In Latin America: History, Epidemiology, Genetics, And Clinical Research, Jorge J. Llibre-Guerra, Maria Isabel Behrens, Mirna Lie Hosogi, Lucia Montero, Teresa Torralva, Nilton Custodio, Erika Mariana Longoria-Ibarrola, Margarita Giraldo-Chica, David Aguillón, Gladys E. Maestre

School of Medicine Publications and Presentations

Introduction: The historical development, frequency, and impact of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are less clear in Latin America than in high-income countries. Although there is a growing number of dementia studies in Latin America, little is known collectively about FTD prevalence studies by country, clinical heterogeneity, risk factors, and genetics in Latin American countries.

Methods: A systematic review was completed, aimed at identifying the frequency, clinical heterogeneity, and genetics studies of FTD in Latin American populations. The search strategies used a combination of standardized terms for FTD and related disorders. In addition, at least one author per Latin American country summarized …

Does Market Digitalization Always Benefit Firms? The Latin American Case, Angelica M. Sanchez-Riofrio, Nathaniel C. Lupton, John Gabriel Rodríguez-Vásquez

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Purpose

Prior research has found that firms' adoption of digital technologies (i.e. digitalization) enhances transaction efficiency and improves firm performance. However, this finding is based on the assumption that firms respond to consumers' adoption of digital technology (market digitalization) in a timely fashion. The study investigates the impact of market digitalization on firm performance in Latin America, where resistance to change is often higher, despite the positive impact on performance when companies respond to the environmental shock of digitalization by restructuring.

Design/methodology/approach

Using data from seven Latin American countries from 1997 to 2018 (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and …

Neutrosophic Analytic Hierarchy Process For The Analysis Of Innovation In Latin America, Rosa Evelyn Chuga Quemac, Manases Esaud Gaspar Santos, Laura Alicia Colcha Ramos, Cinthya Paulina Cisneros Zúñiga

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

This paper analyzes the factors that are influencing the stagnation of innovation indicators in the Latin American region. To do this, an analysis is carried out to explore the existence of different groups of countries characterized by different levels of technological capacity and innovation. The elements to be analyzed during the study are obtained through the indicators evaluated in the Global Innovation Index, its 2020 edition, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The results show the existence of three groups of countries characterized by a different capacity for technological innovation, both in terms of technology policy and generation of technology and …

Use Of Allied-Health Services And Medication Among Adults With Asd In Latin America, Andy Torres, Denise Lecusay, Daniel Valdez, Analía Rosoli, Gabriela Garrido, Sebastián Cukier, Cristiane Silvestre Paula, Ricardo Garcia, Alexia Rattazzi, Cecilia Montiel-Nava

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Abstract

ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects people across the entire lifespan, yet most of the research identifying the health and medical needs for autistic individuals have been among minors. As individuals with ASD transition to emerging adulthood, the services, already limited, become less available. This study aimed to identify the use of services for Latin American adults on the spectrum. We surveyed 295 caregivers of adults with ASD from six Latin American countries. Comparing the results for all the possible services observed in this study, the adults in our sample were primarily underserved: 84.4%–95.9% were receiving zero hours …

Foot-Ball! Turning Colombian Boys Into Patriotic Men: How Sport And Education Developed With Early Twentieth-Century Colombian Nationalism, Brandon Todd Blakeslee

History Dissertations

In 1948 a collection of ten football (soccer) teams from across Colombia joined together to form the División Mayor (Major League) the culmination of a thirty-year-long process to form a national league. Colombian sports enthusiasts were not motivated by their love of the game, but rather saw football, and sports in general, as a means to modernize their country. Journalists and enthusiasts wrote that the practice of sport, as part of physical education programs or participating in the spectacle of a match were essential to the “modern man” and “modern women.” Colombian nationalists also embraced sport, and a national league, …

Popular Feminism(S) Reconsidered: Popular, Racialized, And Decolonial Subjectivities In Contention, Janet M. Conway, Nathalie Lebon

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

This issue is concerned with the salience of “popular feminism” as an analytic category for naming the myriad contemporary forms of gendered awareness and agency appearing among Latin America’s poor, working-class and racialized communities. Although we have an analytic agenda, our underlying concern here is with the politics of feminism—the construction of intersectional feminist praxes of gender, race, and economic justice and their relation to other projects for social justice. Our focus on popular feminism addresses the relationship between the subaltern subjectivities of marginalized women, their relation to feminist political agency, and the relation of both to mixed-gender efforts for …

Our Representative On This Island: Local Belonging And Transnational Citizenship Among Syrian And Lebanese Cubans, 1880-1980, John T. Ermer Jr

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Émigrés from Ottoman Syria and Cuba who, beginning in the late-nineteenth century, traveled not unidirectionally, from one nation to another, but between and within multiethnic, polycentric empires. Tracing their history opens a route to better understanding global legal regimes of citizenship. Weaving government records from Cuba, France, and the United States with associational records and oral history interviews, this dissertation reveals how vernacular understandings of citizenship in Cuba and the Levant, based on locally derived conceptions of belonging, but over time contended with liberalizing legal reforms meant to redefine citizenship as a state-focused and legible status. As a mobile population …

Implementation Of Childhood Obesity Prevention And Control Policies In The United States And Latin America: Lessons For Cross-Border Research And Practice, Rafael Perez-Escamilla, Mireya Vilar-Compte, Elizabeth Rhodes, Olga L. Sarmiento, Camila Corvalan, Rachel Sturke, Susan Vorkoper

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Progress has been made in the development and widespread implementation of effective interventions to address childhood obesity, yet important challenges remain. To understand how the United States and Latin American countries achieved success in implementing obesity policies and programs (PAPs) and identify improvement opportunities using implementation science principles. We identified three comparative case studies: (1) front-of-food package labeling (Mexico and Chile); (2) Open Streets/play streets (Colombia and the United States); and (3) the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (Brazil and the United States). Information from multiple sources (e.g., scientific and gray literature and key informant interviews) was synthesized to describe barriers, facilitators, …

Ecoturismo Y Empoderamiento: La Ecoinnovación De Las Mujeres Indígenas En América Latina, Kathleen Sinatra

Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on the role of indigenous women in relation to ecotourism efforts and ecoinnovation. Through an analysis of three case studies, I discuss the need to account for both indigenous people and gender when engaging in ecotourism efforts. I first engage in a literature review that develops the complex relationship between the identity factors of indigeneity and gender. I then look at a case study of the hotel Taselotzin in Cuetzalan del Progreso, Mexico in which a cooperative group of indigenous women founded a hotel. I then turn to the Kichwa community in Ecuador and the organization Amukishmi …

The Role Of International Factors In Electoral Volatility In Latin America: An Examination Of Structural Adjustment, Michelle Kuenzi, Hafthor B. Erlingsson, John P. Tuman

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Does structural adjustment increase party system instability in Latin America? We employ the Latin American Presidential and Legislative Elections (LAPALE) database (http://www.lapaledata.com) and our own original data set for structural adjustment to assess the effects of structural adjustment and other economic, social, and political variables on legislative volatility in 18 Latin American countries during the period of 1982 to 2016. The results of our study indicate that structural adjustment results in higher levels of within-system electoral volatility and support a broad version of economic voting theory. Extra-system electoral volatility is driven primarily by institutional and demographic factors. Our …

Global Journey To Post-Pandemic Normalcy And Revival, Andrzej Sankowski

Journal of Global Awareness

After a year of COVID-19, countries, societies, and individuals are longing for normalcy and beginning to consider what life will be like post-pandemic. Efforts and experiences of countries in the European Union, Asia, Asia-Pacific, Australia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States are examined as they face challenges to end the pandemic and prepare for the post-pandemic reality. What will be the post-pandemic "new normalcy"? What changes caused by the pandemic are permanent in societies and the world? What are the necessary reforms that have to take place as part of normalcy? Reflections on the impacts of vaccinations, …

Gender, Sexuality And Human Rights: A Comparative Analysis Of The Role Of Civil Society Organizations In Hiv/Aids Responses In Brazil And Nigeria, Emma Stefania Schoppmeyer

Senior Theses

A global epidemic that has affected lives around the world, AIDS has accentuated inequalities across class, race, gender and sexual orientation. In many developing countries, women are disproportionately affected by the epidemic and are more vulnerable than men to HIV infection. The objective of this paper is to address the cultural and social norms surrounding gender and sexuality that have allowed and perpetuated women’s susceptibility to AIDS. I examine the gender constructs and inequities in Brazil and Nigeria to demonstrate how gender affects transmission in sexual relationships as well as the role it plays in creating differential experiences with HIV …

Yankee Go Home: Roci In Latin America, Vitoria Hadba

Theses and Dissertations

In 1984, at an event hosted by the United Nations, American artist Robert Rauschenberg announced his most ambitious and controversial project to date: the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange—or ROCI. Blending primary source documents with social art history, I retrace the artist’s steps—and missteps—during the first leg of his tour through Mexico, Chile, and Venezuela. This thesis investigates the convoluted political implications of ROCI in Latin America during the transitional period in which binary Cold War politics were ebbing amidst the rise of a global free-market economy.

Colombia's Judicial Reform: What Now?, Maya Smith

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

A current body of research examines Colombia’s judicial institutions and focuses on the successes and failures of past reforms. While the literature is overwhelmingly negative, scholars have managed to put forward pieces of a potential solution. I draw on these analyses to answer the question, “what is the best possible course of action for Colombia’s future judicial reform projects?” Throughout this paper, I draw on Colombian newspapers, think-tank reports, survey research, and academic studies to formulate a cohesive answer. This existing literature identifies that Colombia’s weak judiciary stems from Spanish colonialism’s lasting influence, the reactive and defensive nature of judges, …

Seeking Asylum In A Modern Society: Global Responses To Latin American Migration, Rebecca Dickinson

Senior Honors Projects

The United States is no stranger to asylum seekers and refugees. The most famous seaport in the country houses a 305-foot-tall statue of a woman bearing a torch with words from the poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus etched at her feet: “‘Give me your tired, your poor, /Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’”^[1] The Statue of Liberty is a symbolic representation of open arms to immigrants from all walks of life. But if everyone is welcome, why do so few actually gain entrance?

US interventionism policies in the 20th century have defined the lives of millions …

Terrorism And Counter-Terrorism In Latin America: A Comparative Study Of Peru And Colombia, Reagan Shane

Global Tides

This paper investigates the counter-terrorism strategies employed against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Colombia and the Shining Path (SL) in Peru and analyzes the effectiveness of those strategies. It begins by exploring the foundation of each organization and its respective goals, organization and tactics. Using this information, it then explores the counter-terrorism strategies employed by the government of each country in which the organizations were operating to determine the effectiveness of those strategies and how the structure of the terrorist organization might change that effectiveness. The paper concludes that military strategies have only been somewhat effective in …

2014 Health Demographics Of A Rural Nicaraguan Community, Andrew Guymon, Brianna Mcgowen, Emma Foster

Research Symposium

In December 2014, a team of church members and associated healthcare workers from Owasso First Assembly in Owasso, Oklahoma, provided a free, two-day clinic and health assessment to the rural community of La Ceiba Dudu in Nicaragua. Services included medical exams, basic medications, dental extractions, and over the counter reading glasses. This report is a retrospective review of the patient records documented at that clinic. We analyzed the prevalence of parasites across five age cohorts and searched for correlations between parasite diagnosis and various patient metrics, including BMI, age, and gender. We searched for a relationship between occupants per household …