Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Understanding Adolescent Physical Activity In The Early Nutrition Transitioning Country Of Haiti, Haley V. Becker

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The nutrition transition is underway in Haiti, giving rise to the dual burden of malnutrition. Physical activity (PA) plays an important role in mitigating the negative health consequences of nutrition transition and the dual burden, but heretofore this data has been unavailable for Haiti. This dissertation undertook an exploratory needs assessment providing baseline PA data for Haitian adolescents. It evaluated two different PA data collection methodologies: a cross-sectional survey adapted from the IPAQ long-form and objectively measured PA via Actigraph GT1M accelerometers. Next, it identified initial covariates of self-reported and objectively-assessed PA behaviors; data was operationalized as meeting the World …

A Mother And Son Are Reunited After 18 Years, Comice Johnson

Capstones

Alfonso Xicali López saw his mother for the first time in almost two decades. He is participating in a program called Raíces de Puebla, which means Roots of Puebla in Spanish. The program pays for tourist visas and plane tickets for the relatives of undocumented Mexican immigrants who haven’t seen their family members in a decade or more. The government of Alfonso’s home state, Puebla, funds the program. They aim to maintain family connections and reward immigrants who are active members of their communities.

https://medium.com/@comicejohnson/today-alfonso-xicali-lópez-will-see-his-mom-for-the-first-time-in-18-years-1fc6c27caaa

Colombia's Veneer Of Aid: Hidden Motives, Voiceless Victims, And The Us Trafficking In Persons Report, Michael Middleton

Master's Theses

This study analyzes the Trafficking in Persons report, an annual report from the United States State Department that ranks each country on its ability to meet “minimum standards” for combating human trafficking. Using Colombia as a case study, this paper heavily critiques the traditional human trafficking discourse by applying a transnational intersectional feminist framework to explore the context and development of human trafficking in Colombia. I will first look at the legal framework for anti-trafficking policy in Colombia with a policy analysis of the laws and legislation that arose after the ratification of the Palermo Protocol in 2000. The strengths …

Understanding Women´S Empowerment Through Indigenous Epistemologies: An Alternative Approach To Development?, Melissa Klara Vonimary Søvik

Master's Theses

Development projects that aim at empowering women have gained popularity among many actors and institutions in the field of development for their capacity to contribute in development and economic growth. Nevertheless, the concept of empowerment has also gained critics from various stands claiming it to be too technical, and not taking into account social relations in contexts where other epistemologies exist. It is necessary to adapt these kind of terms taking into account local world-views. This thesis explores the dynamics of women's empowerment in Tzeltal Mayan communities in Chiapas, Mexico. It aims at understanding the way empowerment is manifested in …

Remembering An Invasion: The Panama Intervention In America’S Political Memory, Dave Nagaji

Senior Theses

In December of 1989, the United States launched Operation Just Cause, a military invasion of the country of Panama, capturing Manuel Noriega and overthrowing his government. This research project examines how Colin Powell, Richard Cheney, James Baker, and George H.W. Bush presented Operation Just Cause in their memoirs. It attempts to determine how these senior leaders’ depictions of this invasion incorporated it into the Bush administration’s overall foreign-policy strategy. The research finds that their general approach was to present the Panama intervention as an isolated incident which had no intentional link to other major events at the time, was not …

Divided Agencies: Internal Strife In The Fight Against Castro, Stephanie R. Schmidt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. State Department differed in their approaches to dealing with the Castro regime from 1959 through the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Using declassified documents from the CIA and State Department, I argue that the approaches of the CIA in dealing with the Castro regime were more aggressive than the approaches of the U.S. State Department. Many of the primary sources used in this work were accessed in the CIA electronic reading room and on the office of the historian website. The office of the historian is an …

Intersectional Invisibilization: Black Female Movement Leaders In Mexico And Their Private Sphere Resistance, Lindsay Fasser

Undergraduate Honors Theses

International attention drew to Afro-Mexican individuals in 2015, when the Mexican inter-census survey first allowed Black Mexican people to self-identify as Afro-Mexican. The Black movement in Mexico revolving around recognition rather than liberation had been stirring in Coastal regions for decades prior, fueled by the work of incredible activists across the gender spectrum. However, the representation of such activists in public discourse is largely male. In analyzing this particular movement, the importance of intersectional theory becomes apparent, in unpacking both gendered and racialized forms of hierarchy and invisibility. By exploring the intersections between social movement and social suffering, as well …

Hide And Seek: How And Why Peace Corps Panama Volunteers Conceal And Reveal Parts Of Their Social Identities And Perceived Impacts On Their Cultural Integration, Sara Sweeney

Capstone Collection

Hide and Seekexplores Peace Corps’ role in Panama and details the unique opportunities that Peace Corps Volunteers have to integrate and experience remote communities of the Indigenous tribe known as the Ngäbe Bugle. The main research question of this paper is derived from the challenges that Volunteers in Panama commonly face upon arriving to their communities and presenting themselves to their community members. I will discuss how Volunteers process the cultural differences they experience in their communities, how they respond to them, and whether they choose to conceal or reveal parts of their social identities to their community members. …

Translating Global Nature: Territoriality, Environmental Discourses, And Ecocultural Identities, José R. Castro-Sotomayor

Communication ETDs

In this study, I explore environmental discourses circulating among Indigenous transboundary organizations working on environmental initiatives at the border between Ecuador and Colombia. I focus on three global environmental discourses –sustainability, development, and climate change– as they are at the core of the global environmental governance vernacular. La Gran Familia Awá Binacional (GFAB), one of the few transboundary Indigenous organizations working along the binational border, utilizes these global concepts to frame their environmental initiatives and projects. I use a critical and interpretive qualitative approach to investigate, deconstruct, and rearticulate global environmental discourses circulating among and translated by two of the …

Ya No Tengo Vecinos: Local Understandings Of Neighborhood Change In Cusco, Peru, Kalyn Finnell

Architecture and Planning ETDs

This thesis involves the San Blas neighborhood in the Historic Center of Cusco, Peru. It aims to better understand local effects of the changes that San Blas has undergone since the 1990s and to explore possibilities related to improving the qualities of life of long-term residents (vecinos) who have lived in San Blas for at least two generations. It has two principal objectives: 1) Make recommendations to present to various public and private entities who have a presence and influence over the San Blas neighborhood to improve the likelihood that vecino demands are heard, 2) Illuminate the ways that vecinos …

Resisting Essentialism In Cultural Research: A Participatory Action Research Study Of Parent Involvement In Education Among Spanish-Speaking Students And Families, Michael J. Frank

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study aimed to investigate a locally-driven action research project to improve connections between Spanish-speaking Latinx parents and the high school that their children attend. Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), the study sought to create a collaborative research agenda that would empower the participants to study their own culture and practices at the school, and how the two combined to create a home-school partnership. Six parents and two members of the school’s bilingual staff comprised the PAR team, with a total of nine members including the principal investigator. The project began with the creation of a public sphere in …

De Mestizas A Indígenas: Reindigenization As A Political Strategy In Ecuador, Pamela X. Pareja

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The 1990s were a period of intense socio-economic upheaval in Ecuador, in part due to the numerous protests that would come to be known as the Levantamiento Indígena. Notoriously disenfranchised since the bloody conquest of the Americas, peoples of various Indigenous nationalities that reside within Ecuador fought for the constitutional recognition of the nation as both plurinational and multicultural, in order to secure intercultural public policies that would affect patterns of agrarian distribution, indigenous education, health, and overall representation. The prominence of the Indigenous movement and the revalorization of the Indigenous identity throughout Ecuador became an attractive vehicle for which …

Indigenous Tribes In The Brazilian Amazon: Finding A Balance Between Sustainability And Economic Development, Bernadette R. O'Donnell

Honors College Theses

The number of isolated indigenous tribes in Brazil is dropping due to a multitude of factors, including resource extraction. If these factors continue, there will be further reduction of the population of indigenous tribes which causes the loss of culture of the world’s oldest societies. This research establishes the roles that the Brazilian government, NGOs, and the international community should play to preserve indigenous tribes. The research question is: How can Brazil sustain isolated indigenous tribes in the Amazon without compromising its own economic development? The research method is the modified Delphi method which results in a consensus of experts …

The Rhetoric Is On The Wall: A Multimodal Study Of The U.S. – Mexico Border Through Image Narratives, Kristoffer Mason

Global Honors Theses

This paper applied social semiotics and systemic functional theory to study visual narratives related to President Trump’s border wall project and U.S. immigration policy. The images were selected by new articles posted by The New York Times using search parameters “border wall” and “undocumented immigration” between the dates of March 13 – April 13, 2018. Images were selected and categorized based on visual themes related to the border wall and policy enforcement. Of these categories, two images were selected for vertical perspective, vector patterns, and gestures to discover the narratives. Analysis of the images showed that social power and hierarchical …

Do Climate Shocks Affect Smallholder Farmers’ Conservation Practices? Evidence From Peru, Heleene Tambet

Master's Theses

Peruvian agriculture is estimated to be subject to the greatest impacts of climate change in South America. Resulting shifts in rainfall patterns and extreme temperature realizations impose more frequent abnormal weather shocks on farmers and their production decisions. I study the impact of such shocks on agricultural practice choices of farmers growing two main staples, maize and potato; namely, I analyze adoption of practices reducing soil degradation, practices aimed towards water conservation, and application of inorganic fertilizer. I utilize unique cross-sectional data from Peru National Agricultural Survey over the years 2014 to 2016 in conjunction with long-term climate data, and …

The Economy Of Divorce: Pensions In Latin America, The Effects On Women, And The Decision To Divorce, Mary Walsh

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis addresses the gender inequalities produced in pension systems in Latin America, discusses pension reform, and specifically describes gender inequalities that exist for divorced women, and the relationship between divorce and pensions.This topic is important in the discussion in analyzing pension reform in Latin America, as well as analyzing the nuanced degrees of inequalities present for women in Latin America. It is crucial to understand this relationship, in order to address gender inequality as divorce rates continue to rise . To analyze this relationship,I looked at both qualitative and quantitative data.To start I examined the inequalities present within systems …

The Life Of A Marimba Master: Zeferino Nandayapa Ralda; Composer, Band Leader, Soloist, Lindsay Michelle Whelan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Zeferino Nandayapa Ralda was the greatest Mexican marimba artist of the twentieth century. Born in Chiapas, Mexico, Zeferino was the youngest son of Norberto Nandayapa, the most well respected Mexican marimba builder of his time. Throughout Zeferino’s lifetime, he

cultivated a career that made him well-known in Mexico and firmly established the name Nandayapa as being synonymous with the word marimba. Zeferino’s career consisted of appearances as a solo artist, as a featured soloist with symphony orchestras around Mexico, as leader of marimba bands, and, many appearances abroad. He wrote many arrangements of standard Mexican folk songs, classical literature, as …

El Viaje Desde Centroamérica A Los Estados Unidos: How Us Foreign Policy Impacts Migration From Central America To The United States, Cecilia Cerja

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

In the face of ever increasing civil conflict in Central America, the United States is attempting to grapple with immigration reform as the number of refugees continues to rise. Though the dominant narrative seems to indicate that people are flocking to the United States for economic opportunity, upon further analysis it seems that there are a variety of push and pull factors for migration to the United States. In this thesis three case studies of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala are analyzed to determine the push and pull factors causing migration to the United States. After examining the push and …

The Salvadoran Struggle: A Transnational Resistance Against Imperialism, Erik Villalobos

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Honors Program

No abstract provided.

Guatemalan Youth And Education: Family, Environment, And Dropping Out, Katie Grasso

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Honors Program

Guatemalan education, in rural and urban areas throughout the 21^st century, has gone through various fluctuations and has been studied by numerous scholars including Adelman Ainsworth, Bassi et. al, Behrman, Crane, Davis, Rogers, Tumen, and Yount who all study different aspects of education including parental investment, neighborhood life, family life, parental migration, poverty and class issues, and other interdisciplinary aspects of these issues. This project focuses on how sociocultural aspects, like family and environment, effect middle and secondary school dropout rates in both rural and urban Guatemala throughout the 21^st century for children ages 13 to 18. In …

Free Trade Does Not Free People, Ernesto Porcari

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Honors Program

The following paper is in attempt reveal, analyze and explain the effects the North American Free Trade Agreement specifically along the US-Mexican border region. Starting with the agreement itself, the ratification, and the elements surrounding its implementation, this paper will then move through analyzing the quantitative and qualitative effects NAFTA has had along the border region of the United States and Mexico. Taking those effects, the comparison enshrined in the title: whether free trade frees people (free as in a better life) will be tested and analyzed for a possible grading the results of NAFTA has had. Finally, the future …

“We Were The Outsiders And Treated As Such:” Community Activism And The Intersections Of Ethnicity, Gender, Class, And Race Among Latinas In Milwaukee, Patricia Torres Nájera

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the activism of Latinas in Milwaukee during the 1970s and 1980s. I interviewed women involved in community organizing in that time and place; they shared with me their experiences, and their motivations related to community organizing campaigns. This dissertation explores how members of this group understood themselves to be outsiders, and how the shared outsider status among the Milwaukee Latinas and some white community organizers created solidarity to build Milwaukee’s Latin community. Drawing on in-depth interviews and archival research, I analyze the content of these stories, recognizing common issues of how each woman negotiated family, organizing campaigns, …

Education In Post-Conflict Colombia, Juliana Cabrera Pena

Master's Theses

After 52 years of civil war, Colombia now enters a period of precarious peace. The Colombian government and the largest guerrilla group, the FARC, signed a monumental peace agreement which ushered a period of change in a country which has yet to have sustained peace. Utilizing the power of civil society and social services, the Colombian government has the authority to maintain peace. Education, with its stabilizing power, has the capability of cultivating a society of peace. Thus, this thesis explores the level of value and importance the Colombian government is placing on the expansion of quality education to …

Venezuela: Oil And Madness. Politics, Propaganda, And Realities Of The Chavista Era, Alvaro E. De Prat

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is an interdisciplinary exploration of Venezuela’s political paradoxes and their consequences during the Chavista years. On a concrete level, in this work I propose how the manner in which Hugo Chávez implemented his at first apparently benign redistributive politics in fact precipitated the country's current humanitarian crisis and what I will argue are the times of starkest inequality in modern Venezuelan history. Integral to this, although on a more philosophical level, here I also offer a theory of how and why Chávez’s representations might have been so misinterpreted.

The list of eminent political thinkers who have vouched for …

Out Of The Shadows: Women Of The Fmln Guerrilla Army In El Salvador’S Civil War, 1979–1992, Erica Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the course of a century, revolutionary movements have emerged every few years across the region of Central America, movements that fought for overturning dictatorships and confronting socio-economic inequalities. Women experience higher levels of poverty, human rights violations and discrimination due to gender inequalities. Representing 30% of the FMLN guerrilla army, women in El Salvador took a quantum leap into one of the most horrific and violent armed conflicts in the history of the country (Montgomery 123). Theorists have sought to explain why women became involved in the war. Experts of insurgent collective action agree that women's participation played a …

Degrowth Lessons From Cuba, Claire S. Bayler

Sustainability and Social Justice

Cuba is the global leader in practicing agroecology, but agroecology is just one component of a larger climate-ready socio-economic system. Degrowth economics address the need to constrain our total global metabolism to within biophysical limits, while allowing opportunity and resources for "underdeveloped" countries to rebuild themselves under new terms. Degrowth recognizes the role of overdeveloped countries in surpassing the ecological limits of our planet at the cost of wellbeing for billions of dispossessed people within and between countries. Cuba's circumstances during and following the Special Period exemplify both sides of the degrowth scenario, as well as demonstrating policy and grassroots …

Los Matices Varios Del Feminismo En Las Comunidades Indígenas De América Latina: Yorkín, Costa Rica Y Santa Anita, Guatemala, Roseangela G. Hartford

Spanish Honors Papers

This project investigates gender constructs and the complex assigned gender roles in settings of female indigenous leadership in Latin America. It examines two distinct indigenous communities, including the BriBri society in Yorkín, Costa Rica and the Maya peoples in Santa Anita, Guatemala that demonstrate the circumstantial spectrum in which women can obtain leadership roles and what actors directly influence this process. Each case study explores the fluidity of gender identities in which concepts of masculinity and femininity often guide female empowerment and liberation. Costa Rica and Guatemala offer contrasting experiences in terms of governmental stability, as Costa Rica abolished its …

The Predictors Of Juvenile Recidivism: Testimonies Of Adult Students 18 Years And Older Exiting From Alternative Education, La Toshia Palmer

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this descriptive, qualitative study was to identify and describe the importance of the predictors of juvenile recidivism and the effectiveness of efforts to prevent/avoid juvenile recidivism as perceived by previously detained, arrested, convicted, and/or incarcerated adult students 18 years of age and older exiting from alternative education in Northern California. A second purpose was to explore the types of support provided by alternative schools and the perceived importance of the support to avoid recidivism according to adult students 18 years of age and older exiting from alternative education.

Methodology: This qualitative, descriptive research design identified …

Knowledge Sharing As A Means For Capacity Building In International Non-Governmental Organizations In Ecuador, Yolanda E. Ledesma Silva

Latin American Studies ETDs

The purpose of this research was to study factors that facilitate technical knowledge sharing internally in international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in Ecuador. Using a qualitative design, and semi-structured interviews this study examined knowledge sharing practices in four INGOS located in Quito, capital of Ecuador.

The findings supported nine factors identified in the literature as influencing knowledge sharing practices. These factors included (1) organizational culture, (2) role in organization, (3) procedures for managing knowledge, (4) perceived value of knowledge sharing, (5) media used for sharing information, (6) management practices, (7) organizational structure, (8) mission and strategy, and (9) organizational climate and …

Spatial Effects Of Foreign Direct Investment (Fdi) On Poverty Reduction In Colombia: A Mixed Methods Approach, Mayra Alejandra Yat Aguilar

Masters Theses

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been identified as an important factor in stimulating economic growth and decreasing poverty. In particular, the relationship between FDI and economic growth has been extensively debated in the academic literature but with mixed results. Meanwhile, considerably less work has been done towards investigating the effects of FDI on poverty reduction. Evidence from the limited research linking on FDI and poverty levels is also mixed. Through a more comprehensive survey-based multi-scale method of assessing poverty, this empirical study investigates the contribution of FDI with respect to concurrent quantitative and qualitative assessment of changes in living standards …