Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Interviews In Global Catholic Studies: Richard Wood, Mathew N. Schmalz, Richard Wood

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Cooking In The Past And For The Future In Latin America, Clare A. Sammells

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Idiosyncrasy Of The State And God: An Analysis On Religiosity And Ideology In Latin America, James D. Fiorenza

Culture, Society, and Praxis

In this research paper, I will be analyzing the relationship between the religiosity of Latin America in terms of popular religion and religiosity of its followers, and how it has impacted and continues to impact the political systems of Latin America in terms of ideology. I will be conducting this research by conducting three case studies following the development of my hypothesis, my research of my case nations and the collecting of all needed data. After this, I will compare all my data and establish a well-developed conclusion which accurately conveys and demonstrates this data. My research will focus on …

Un País Invertido: The Current Immigration Regime Of Colombia, Magdalena Hendrickson

Honors Theses

Throughout its turbulent history, Colombia has seen drastic changes in structure and administration. From military coups to shaky coalitions, the country’s infamous instability has long forced its citizens to find better prospects elsewhere. However, with the rise of the Maduro administration in Venezuela, Colombia faced a massive new flow of migrants and was forced to rectify current circumstances without properly addressing its internal issues beforehand. Despite its historical status as a nation of emigrants, Colombia marks a new norm for the rest of the globe. As new issues like climate change and increased armed conflict grow worldwide, countries on the …

Teaching Abortion As A Historical Construct: The Case Of Early Twentieth-Century Brazil And Beyond, Cassia Roth

Feminist Pedagogy

Using open-access primary sources available online, this activity teaches abortion as an unstable category through a specific case study, early twentieth-century Brazil. The one-week module, although specific to one geographic region and chronological period, can serve as a lesson plan for undergraduate history courses, for disciplines that use genealogy methods, and for interdisciplinary courses. The lesson plan helps undergraduates think critically about what we think we know about abortion, and how our current understandings are not fixed but rather contingent on the society in which we live and on who is practicing abortion. Changing understandings of what constitutes an abortion …

Para Cima Y Pa’ Abajo: Building Bridges Between Hci Research In Latin America And In The Global North, Pedro Reynolds-Cuéllar, Marisol Wong-Villacres, Karla A. Badillo-Urquiola, Mayra Donaji Barrera-Machuca, Franceli L. Cibrian, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Carolina Fuentes, Laura Sanely Gaytán-Lugo, Vivian Genaro Motti, Monica Perusquía-Hernández, Oscar A. Lemus

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

The Human-computer Interaction (HCI) community has the opportunity to foster the integration of research practices across the Global South and North to begin overcoming colonial relationships. In this paper, we focus on the case of Latin America (LATAM), where initiatives to increase the representation of HCI practitioners lack a consolidated understanding of the practices they employ, the factors that influence them, and the challenges that practitioners face. To address this knowledge gap, we employ a mixed-methods approach, comprising a survey (66 respondents) and in-depth interviews (19 interviewees). Our analyses characterize a set of research perspectives on how HCI is practiced …

Ya Llegamos | We Are Here, Audrey Hermila Salgado

Senior Projects Spring 2023

ya llegamos | we are here, a Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College, is piece on gender and migration. It is a play that explores how family dynamics, class issues, education, and gender play a role in why people leave their home country. It explores the journey and relationship of Saturnina and Francisco as they travel across the Mexico/U.S. border.

Democracy In Latin America, Democracy Everywhere, Jamie L. Mantilla Vale

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The obstacles that hinder democracy in Latin America are the topics of interest of this research. Loopholes within Latin American democratic systems of governance are a cause for concern, but also intrigue. In this research the specific loopholes and strengths of democracies in Latin America will be spotted and explained. More specifically, this research features a series quantitative method to help explain and evaluate the characteristics of strong democracies in Latin America as well as the characteristics of weak democracies in Latin America. A series of regression models show a causal relationship between rule of law and the overall democratic …

Uninvited Guests In The Backyard: Dangers And Risks Of Terrorist And Anti-American Activity In Latin America, Santiago Spadiliero

MSU Graduate Theses

The international security environment has changed. In the last two decades, new challengers to the American liberal order arose, with China being the most defiant one, in political and military terms. Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative opened the doors to these extra-continental powers, as their loans provided an alternative source of funding for Latin America, walking these countries away from American-led lending institutions. In this new context, Latin America becomes a desirable piece of land in which these new challengers can safely create trade routes while decreasing American influence. Russia and Iran also want to project power in America’s backyard. …

The Erasure Of Sex: The Global Capture Of Policies On Sex By Gender Identity Activists And The Effects On The Rights Of Women And Girls, Feminists From Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, And Africa

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article reviews the goals, history, and impact of the new gender identity politics. Based on the Yogyakarta Principles, these new ideas and policies will profoundly affect the rights of women and girls worldwide. The Principles are a document from an international meeting about sexual orientation and gender identity in 2006. In 2017, the document was updated to the Yogyakarta Principles Plus 10. The Principles recommend legal changes by states worldwide, resulting in the erasure of sex as a legal and cultural category. These principles have been widely used to lobby for legal changes resulting in profound structural …

Book Review: Michela Coletta. Decadent Modernity: Civilization And ‘Latinidad’ In Spanish America, 1880-1920, Jeremy Smith

Comparative Civilizations Review

There are too few perspectives in civilizational analysis that examine Latin America. One exception is found in the work of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt on multiple modernities and the Americas. Eisenstadt’s research is a point of departure for Michela Coletta’s Decadent Modernity: Civilization and ‘Latinidad’ in Spanish America, 1880-1920. Through chapters on the so-called Latin Race, rural and metropolitan identities, national education, and what Coletta calls the ‘aesthetics of regeneration’, the author explores cultural, sociological, and political trends in Southern Cone countries Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina in the fin de siècle era of European and American modernities. This is a …

Elements Of Social Disorganization And Environmental Criminology: A Spatial Analysis Of Homicides In Villa Nueva, Guatemala, David J. Topel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study seeks to integrate the main spatial theories of crime, social disorganization, and routine activities theories while investigating the spatial dimension of homicides in Villa Nueva, Guatemala. Empirical relationships at a small unit of analysis, the natural cadaster blocks as defined by the municipality offer a more appropriate unit of analysis for the context of the city. While there is a robust body of work in developed nations synthetizing social disorganization and routine activities theories, the exploration of criminological theory integration and the use of the smallest unit of analysis still needs the addition of empirical research in Latin …

Consequences Of U.S. Intervention In Socialist Latin America, William Chao

Senior Theses

This thesis seeks to show the harmful effects of contemporary interventionist attempts by the United States on socialist Latin American countries such as Cuba and Venezuela. The United States continues to meddle with the politics and economies of various countries with the goal of establishing a new government that is favorable to the capitalist practices of the United States. By looking at two key moments: the Covid-19 outbreak in Cuba and the aftermath of the 2018 Venezuelan presidential elections, it becomes clear to see the damage done by harsh embargoes and U.S. support of use for military violence against the …

Life Insurance Access And Financial Resilience: Fostering Sustainable And Inclusive Growth In Latin America, Nicolas Thompsen

Honors Program Theses

Existing literature has documented an increasing focus on financial resilience to better address the issue of multidimensional poverty in developing regions. The move to financial resilience is a part of a long process that has examined the relationship between poverty and financial access. Yet because financial resilience is a relatively new topic, the specifics of how financial resilience can be fostered using specific financial products has yet to be substantiated. Thus, this study offers an examination of the relationship between life insurance access and financial resilience in a sample of 16 middle-income Latin American countries, the first study of its …

"We're Like Ghosts, But We Have To Be." Invisibility & Liminality Among Kentuckiana's Undocumented Population, Sophie Amaya

Undergraduate Theses

The controversial topic of illegal immigration has repeatedly and deeply divided the United States. There has been, in recent years, a spotlight on immigrants from Latin America, and impersonal claims are being spread in news articles everywhere. For this research, survey questionnaires and ethnographic interviews were used to facilitate a sample of undocumented immigrants from the Louisville, Kentucky, and Southern Indiana (An area known as “Kentuckiana”) to provide insight on their experiences. This thesis aims to examine the effects of this uncertain status on the well-being of Latin American immigrants in this region, where not much research is done on …

Debe Ser Dirigida: Theories Of Community Organizing For Research Management In The Context Of Rural Ecuador, Meghan Edwards

Student Symposium

This research analysis and literature review discusses the factors that mobilize individuals to take an active role in community-led resource management. After reviewing major contemporary theories of resource management such as Elinor Ostrom's polycentric theory, CPR theories, and Arnstein's ladder, the essay then applies these theories to the context of the Quijos Valley in Ecuador, where the author conducted informal interviews with community members both involved and not-involved in managing fragile soil ecosystems. The literature review considers the idea that individuals are more likely to take an active role in research management when there are strong community bonds, and highlights …

Compulsory Voting And Corruption In Latin America, Jonathan Dumdei

Senior Honors Theses

Among modern democracies, compulsory voting (CV) is institutionalized most prevalently in Latin America. Latin American politics have a long, turbulent history, and governments in the region have some of the highest rates of political corruption in the world among democracies, especially electoral fraud. This study investigates the connection between these two phenomena. Secondary empirical quantitative and qualitative research of political and cultural behavior are analyzed according to a rational choice theory decision paradigm. Demographic, experimental, and theoretical data regarding the effects of CV laws are considered in light of possible incentives and disincentives for engaging in vote-buying. This study inductively …

Un Enfoque Comparado Sobre Los Regímenes De Bienestar Para El Estudio De Las Políticas Sociales Globales, Geof Wood, Ian Gough

Gobernar: The Journal of Latin American Public Policy and Governance

Beginning from the framework of welfare state regimes in rich capitalist countries, this article radically redefines it and applies the new model to regions and countries which experience problematic states as well as imperfect markets. A broader, comparative typology of regimes (welfare state, informal security, insecurity) is proposed, which captures the essential relationships between social and cultural conditions, institutional performance, welfare outcomes, and path dependence. Using this model, different regions of the world (East Asia, South Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa) are compared. For many poorer, partially capitalized societies, people’s security relies informally upon various clientelist relationships. Formalizing rights …

Re-Imagining Design For Affordable Housing In Mexico, Kenza Fernandez Dominguez

Scripps Senior Theses

Since the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, affordable housing developments in Mexico have been produced in a massive, unsustainable scale. The speed at which these developments are produced equates to the carelessness that goes into their planning. At large, the developments’ monotonous design is aesthetically dehumanizing and fails to promote a sense of community. These developments lack basic infrastructure, and their residents have abandoned them, which has incentivized increased criminal activity.

In this paper, I will be looking at successful models of affordable housing globally, exploring the histories of communal living, and function of architectural collages. Based on my findings …

Re-Imagining Design For Affordable Housing In Mexico, Kenza Fernandez Dominguez

Scripps Senior Theses

Since the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, affordable housing developments in Mexico have been produced in a massive, unsustainable scale. The speed at which these developments are produced equates to the carelessness that goes into their planning. At large, the developments’ monotonous design is aesthetically dehumanizing and fails to promote a sense of community. These developments lack basic infrastructure, and their residents have abandoned them, which has incentivized increased criminal activity.

In this paper, I will be looking at successful models of affordable housing globally, exploring the histories of communal living, and function of architectural collages. Based on my findings, …

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, …

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.

Online Perceptions Of Panamanian Prisons And Incarcerated Persons: An Analysis Of Youtube User Comments, Mahaleth J. Sotelo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore and understand the frameworks in which prisons and incarcerated persons are discussed amongst commenters under YouTube videos displaying media on Panamanian prisons. The study incorporates a mixed methods approach by conducting a general content analysis of YouTuber comments to address themes within the discussion. Additionally, these themes were quantified and modeled using predictive variables collected such as number of comment likes, number of comment dislikes, and number of comment replies, alias type (screen name or name-like), presence of profile picture, and profile picture type. The themes found were 1) punitive, 2) justifying …

China’S Geopolinomic Goals In Argentina, Chile, And Ecuador: How Chinese Resource Extraction Is Reinvigorating The Debate On Dependency, Eric Stephen Cruz

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to identify signs of economic dependency China creates in South America. The study builds on dependency theory by challenging China's self-categorization as a periphery nation. Using the mixed-methods case study approach, this study explores the effects of China's going out policy in South America. Specifically, the focus in the study is on asymmetric trade, increased debt, and economic dependency in the context of Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador. One of the study's significant findings is that dependency begins with access. China is efficient at securing access to natural resources through its trade arrangements, which seem …

Towards A Governance Model Of Ungovernable Prisons: How Recognition Of Inmate Organizations, Dialogue, And Mutual Respect Can Transform Violent Prisons In Latin America, José Luis Pérez Guadalupe, James Cavallaro, Lucia Nuñovero

Catholic University Law Review

Study of informal organizations in prisons in Latin America focuses on the exercise of control over daily life inside detention centers, including the extreme example of ‘self-government’ of and by those incarcerated. In Latin America, self-government occurs in the dangerous context of severe overcrowding, limited resources and poor services, aggravated by high levels of violence and illicit markets within prisons. The combination is highly volatile and poses grave dangers to the lives and wellbeing of detainees, authorities and often the larger society beyond prisons. This article considers one pioneering effort to overcome the unfettered control of prison by detainees: the …

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 …

From Rulay To Rules: Perceptions Of Prison Life And Reforms In The Dominican Republic’S Traditional And New Prisons, Jennifer Peirce

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project explores the implementation of reforms to the prison system in the Dominican Republic, with an emphasis on how incarcerated people perceive their conditions and daily life in confinement. In 2003, the Dominican Republic established a New Prison Management Model, focused on international human rights standards and rehabilitation. This model now manages over half of the prison facilities and a third of the incarcerated population, while the previous, “traditional” model continues to operate in tandem. The “new” and reformed facilities (Centers for Correction and Rehabilitation) feature new buildings, programs, and correctional officer staff with multi-disciplinary training. In contrast, the …