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"Porque Tienen Mucho Derecho" : Parteras, Biomedical Training And The Vernacularization Of Human Rights In Chiapas, Mounia El Kotni

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This doctoral research stems from thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Mexican State of Chiapas. Chiapas is one of the regions with the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. To comply with international development goals to lower maternal mortality rates, indigenous midwives are trained in detecting risk factors in pregnancy and birth, while women are encouraged to give birth in hospitals. This dissertation sheds light on the impact of such policies on poor women's access to reproductive health care and Mayan midwives' practices. Over the course of my research, I utilized the methodology of participant-observation and conducted in-depth …

Locating Gendered Resistance: Interethnic Conflict, Environmental Disaster, And Feminist Leadership In Sri Lanka, Allison A. Donine

Pitzer Senior Theses

In geographically vulnerable and politically unstable regions such as Sri Lanka, I argue that linking natural hazards and climate-induced disasters to existing social issues is more pressing than ever. In the case of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, it was impossible to dissociate the two. Looking though the lens of distress, in conflict and environmental disaster, this thesis explores how women have transformed moments of victimization into opportunities for resistance and agency. This thesis examines the following questions: Within the geo-political context of Sri Lanka, how does social stress (human-made or environmental) produce conflict and resistance to patriarchal traditions along …

Water Sanitation And Waste Management In Latin America, Colombia, And Cartagena: A Study Of The Relationship Between Environment, Health, Poverty, And Policy, Andrea K. Sullivan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The objective of this research is to identify the need for stricter environmental standards and regulations in three areas of study. Organized by their level of analysis, these areas are Latin America (at the System-Level-of Analysis), Colombia (at the State-Level-of-Analysis), and the city of Cartagena (at the Sub-National-Level of Analysis). This research was accomplished in two phases. The first involved conducting an exhaustive literature search of sources, germane to the objective, published in Spanish and English. The second featured a site inspection conducted over a 10-day period during the month of May 2016 to Cartagena, Colombia. The purpose of the …

Estudios Agrarios Críticos: Tierras, Semillas, Soberanía Alimentaria Y Los Derechos De Las Y Los Campesinos, Marc Edelman

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Sustainable Safari Practices: Proximity To Wildlife, Educational Intervention And The Quality Of Experience, Ryan Devine Tarver

All Master's Theses

This research examines the perceived quality of experience for safari tourists in relation to wildlife viewing proximities and the potential of educational interventions as a management strategy to mitigate adverse impacts of safari participant crowding. Crowding emanates from the safari tourist preferences to obtain close proximity to animals, particularly large mammals. Recognizing these preferences and associated impacts to animal behavior defined in previous research, we develop and deliver a survey instrument designed to measure the perceived quality of experience of the safari tourist while controlling for the viewing proximity variable. The survey instrument involves responding to stock photos selected to …

The Giant In A Thousand Years: Tracing Narratives Of Gigantism In The Hebrew Bible And Beyond, Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

"This essay is an attempt to organize the Bible’s giants by category and to continue to elevate these figures as a rightful object of scholarly attention."

Mapuche Resilience: Environmental Justice In Chile, Hannah N. Lussier

ENV 434 Environmental Justice

This paper presents a close analysis of the Mapuche Conflict and its implications from an Environmental Justice perspective. It serves to outline the plight of the Mapuche, a South American indigenous group, in their continued struggle to gain the rights to autonomic control over their ancestral territory from the Chilean government. By utilizing a holistic approach to research, this paper serves to provide a background on the conflict as well as to incorporate claims to justice. It chronicles the depth and breadth of media attention on the issue by incorporating perspectives from scholarly articles, news sources and social media platforms. …

Folk Songs And Popular Music In China: An Examination Of Min’Ge And Its Significance Within Nationalist Frameworks, Belinda Li

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis examines the function of music within different theories of nationalism and the appropriation of folk music within the genre of min’ge. Min’ge, a term in Chinese which directly translates to “folk songs”, has generally been defined as oral musical traditions. However, due to the increased politicization of popular music since the 1930s, the nature folk music has fundamentally changed, reflecting its new significance within Chinese nationalism. Through the years, min’ge has become more useful to promoting the goals of the state than representing the musical traditions of the many different ethnic groups in China. This transformation …

Colombia, The Resilient Survivor: Ddr, Elusive Peace, And The Politics Of Post-Conflict, Laura Pico

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis aims to study Colombia’s post-conflict processes and peacemaking politics. Over the years, the numerous attempts at peace lacked solutions prioritizing a sustainable process for peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction. Yet since 2003, the government has implemented and prioritized a three-pronged policy known as Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) in an attempt to bundle the disparate elements that appear to be necessary components for long-term peace.

Chapter one evaluates the turbulent history of peacemaking, focusing on the factors rendering peace elusive, examining the failed peace attempts, and chronologically arriving at DDR. Chapter two provides an in-depth analysis of the “R” …

Women In The Machinery Of War: Gender, Identity & Resistance Within Contemporary Middle Eastern Conflict, Nana-Korantema A. Koranteng

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis seeks to explore the ways in which gender and identity are imagined in times of war especially in the cases of women who participate in armed struggle within the Middle East. I focus particularly on how US and UK media's framing of these women's lives and experiences distort the ways in which we understand conflict within the contemporary Middle East. Through the case studies of female militants or supports of militancy in Palestine and the Islamic State I seek to highlight women's stories and lived realities in an attempt to understand what drives them to use particular model's …

Embera Drua: The Impact Of Tourism On Indigenous Village Life In Panama, Amy Lethbridge

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This case study examines the experience of residents of the Indigenous village of Embera Drua, Panama with 20 years of tourism. It addresses the lack of Indigenous voices in tourism literature by telling the story of Embera Drua through the lens of the villagers themselves. The study uses a mix of ethnographic observation and narrative inquiry and finds that the experience of Embera Drua mirrors the experience of other Indigenous villages offering tourism around the globe, particularly the impact of lack of community capacity on management and growth of such tourism initiatives. Findings of this study are relevant to the …

Individual Criminal Accountability After Civil Wars: Enforced Disappearances In Algeria And Turkey, Jessica Mecellem

Dissertations

Increasingly, around the world, individuals are being held criminally accountable for human rights violations (Olsen, Payne and Reiter 2010; Sikkink 2011; Kim & Sikkink 2010, 2012; Kim 2010, 2012; Sriram 2005; Lutz & Reiger 2009). Katherine Sikkink

(2011) characterized this change as a normative shift toward individual criminal accountability, which has resulted in a “justice cascade”, or a “revolution in accountability” (Sriram 2005). Much of the justice cascade literature has focused on the role of trials in democratizing countries. In contrast, this dissertation examines the impact of the norm of individual criminal accountability in two non-democratizing post-conflict contexts: Algeria and …

The Future Of Arabic Music: No Sound Without Silence, Nesma Magdy Khodier Vcuq

Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, Arabic music has been intrinsically linked to Arab culture and by extension bonded to the environmental landscape of the region, reflecting their emotions, moods, and behaviors. Numerous technological advancements in the latter half of the twentieth century, have greatly affected the rich legacy of Arabic music, significantly impacting the natural progression of traditional Arabic musical genres, scales, and instrumentation.

This thesis serves as an introduction to generative methods of music production, specifically music generated through gestures. Through generative music, and its unique ability to map gestures to different musical parameters, music can be produced using computer algorithms.

The …

Social Justice And Human Rights In Education Policy Discourse: Assessing Nelson Mandela's Legacy, Abrehet Gebremedhin, Devin Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Twenty years after South Africa's democratisation, Nelson Mandela's passing has prompted scholars to examine his legacy in various domains. Here we take a look at his legacy in education discourse. Tracing Mandela's thoughts and pronouncements on education we find two major emphases: a view of education as a practical means to economic development, and education as a means to social justice, human rights, and democracy. Assessing the legacy of these twin emphases, we conducted qualitative and quantitative content analysis of turning point documents in education policy and annual reports from the respective South African ministries of education over the last …

Indigenous Rights Policy And Terrorist Discourse: A Strategy To Stifle Mapuche Self-Determination In Chile, Reyna Mckinnon

Scripps Senior Theses

When President Sebastián Piñera entered office in 2010 the Mapuche indigenous people were receiving two contrasting messages from the Chilean State. On the one hand, the government ratified ILO Convention 169, pledging to protect the indigenous right to prior consultation in programs that affect their communities. On the other hand, the government was involved in the oppression of Mapuche communities in the region of the Araucanía through militarisation and the application of the Anti-Terrorist Law to punish radical Mapuche activists that protest corporate encroachment on their land. While Piñera had the opportunity to legitimize the Mapuche demand for self-determination by …

A Sediment-Based Reconstruction Of Caribbean Effective Precipitation During The ‘Little Ice Age’ From Freshwater Pond, Barbuda, Michael J. Burn, Jonathan Holmes, Lisa M. Kennedy, Allison Bain, Jim D. Marshall, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Contemporary climate dynamics of the circum-Caribbean Region are characterized by significant precipitation variability on interannual and interdecadal timescales controlled primarily by El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). However, our understanding of pre-industrial climate variability in the region is hampered by the sparse geographic distribution of paleoclimate archives. Here, we present a high-resolution reconstruction of effective precipitation for Barbuda since the mid-16th Century, based on biostratigraphic and stable isotope analyses of fossil ostracods and gastropods recovered from lake sediment cores from Freshwater Pond, the only freshwater lake on the island. We interpret episodic fluctuations in shell …

Dama Dentition: A New Tooth Eruption And Wear Method For Assessing The Age Of Fallow Deer (Dama Dama), Frazer Bowen, Ruth F. Carden, Julie Daujat, Sandrine Grouard, Holly Miller, Sophia Perdikaris, Naomi Sykes

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Reliable aging techniques for wild animals are notoriously challenging to develop because of the scarcity of sizeable collections of known-age specimens. Without such techniques it is difficult to reconstruct hunting patterns, which is a significant problem for the examination of assemblages from pre-farming cultures. This paper presents a new method, based on mandibular tooth eruption and wear, for assessing the age of fallow deer. The method was developed from a large collection (n = 156) of known-age Dama dama specimens, has been blind tested by members of the zooarchaeological community and represents a user-friendly system with the potential to …

Notes From The Editors, Erin Mccarthy, Lisa Trivedi, Tami Blumenfield

Asian Studies Publications

It gives us great pleasure to publish our first issue of ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal of Asian Studies for the Liberal Arts as a part of the Open Library of the Humanities (OLH)!

Socioethical Challenge And Its Impact On The Bilateral Dialogue Between The Evangelical Lutheran Church Of Finland And The Russian Orthodox Church 1970-2014, Heta Hurskainen

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Strangers In Their Own Lands: A Story Of Japanese Brazilians, Ken Aragaki

Capstones

Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan. Since the first dispatch of Japanese immigrants in 1908, more than 240,000 people moved from Japan to Brazil between the early 1900s and the 1970s. Many of them settled outside the city of São Paulo and started working as coffee farmers under unfamiliar and harsh conditions. Today, according to some estimates, more than 1.6 million people of Japanese descent live in Brazil.

As Japan became the world’s economic power, it sought foreign workers to fill its booming labor market. The government turned to Japanese Brazilians and started granting them …

Dislocation And Adjustment Of International Student-Athletes, Thiago Brito Lopes

Master's Theses

One reason that attracts international student-athletes to American universities could be the interest in earning high quality education with the possibility of playing high performance sports. However, when compared to other international students, differences are seen: Other foreign students who look for a degree in the US desire not only an international education, but also potentially staying in the country. The University of San Francisco, where a cosmopolitan city meets education, fits it best. At USF, 82 countries are represented, reaching a number of 1708 students. Approximately ¼ of the whole student population is international. The ratio with student-athletes is …

Power, Subjectivity, And Life In Spain: A Continuation Of Elite Power, Matthew Mason

Master's Theses

On December 20, Spain will hold national elections to determine the new prime minister and national and local parliaments. These elections will be another crossroads in the long history of Spain. The elections come about in a political and social atmosphere of ‘change’ and ‘regeneration,’ marked by the rise of two new political parties, Podemos and Ciudanos. These parties are the new forces in the political scene in Spain. This atmosphere of change is the result of the 2008 economic crisis. The economic crisis of 2008 was not only an economic crisis in Spain, but it provoked a political and …

Europe’S Refugee Crisis: Assessing The Factors Preventing A Coordinated Eu Response, Ali Albassam

Master's Theses

In order to escape increasing political violence in the Middle East and Africa, many refugees are fleeing by sea to seek asylum in Europe. As a result, Europe has witnessed the highest influx of refugees since World War Two. European Union member states have scrambled for a solution, seemingly unable to form a collective response. The reemergence of nationalism amid the arrival of thousands of refugees not only clouds Europe’s moral compass, but also weakens the EU and its founding principles. In an effort to contribute to the protection of refugees and the EU and its values, this thesis aims …

Making Sense Of The Distrust Of The Chinese Government In Light Of China’S Successes In Economic Modernization, Rachel L. Neuhauser

Honors College Theses

This paper explores the contrast of China’s spectacular economic development and the low scores of trust for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) legitimacy among the Chinese people. The sharp contrast may reflect flaws in the shaping of de facto authority of the Chinese government. The de facto authority is examined in connection to the notion of the Mandate of Heaven from the Confucian tradition. The severe imbalance of economic growth and lack of political reform is discussed against the backgrounds of the domestic and international political circumstances. This paper argues that, in spite of the phenomenal economic development of the …

Rebuilding Houses, Rebuilding Ukraine: Peacebuilding Through Youth Service-Learning, Katherine Tremont

Capstone Collection

In order to successfully transform conflict in a complex situation such as Ukraine, it is critical to examine projects designed by Ukrainians themselves that support and reflect Ukrainian attitudes towards conflict and peace. Lviv Education Foundation is one such Ukrainian-run organization developing and implementing peacebuilding projects between the east and west of Ukraine. From interviews with Lviv Education Foundation personnel, this paper examines the feasibility of two important peacebuilding interventions through the lenses of positive and negative peace, basic human needs, and conflict transformation through ritual. This project finds that Lviv Education Foundation’s programs encourage peacebuilding in all three of …

The Taphonomic Factors On Human Remains Inside Chullpas: Marcajirca, Peru, Samantha Lauren Lininger

Masters Theses

This study explored the taphonomic factors that contributed to the preservation of human skeletal remains inside ancient above-ground tomb in Marcajirca, Peru. This study incorporated one hundred and eighteen bones from three chullpas. Five taphonomic factors were examined: bone type, plant activity, root presence, weathering, and cultural factors. Surface layers inside each chullpa were analyzed using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Chi-square tests were employed to investigate preservation and taphonomic factors. The results from the statistical tests indicated that there was a significant difference in the taphonomic factors on different bone types. Chullpa 6 was significant because it was unique …

Consumer Assessment Of New Creative Products Across China And The United States, Eva Teruzzi

Creative Studies Graduate Student Master's Theses

This cross-cultural research investigates how consumers assess creativity in new products and if their assessment impacts desire to own. Implicit and explicit scale-based measures were tested in China and the U.S. in online consumer samples and were positively correlated. Novelty, affect and importance dimensions of creative products were tested through Horn and Salvendy’s (2006, 2009) Product Creativity Measurement (PCM) scale. Findings point to a different role of novelty in determining desirability of creative new products across-cultures.In fact, novelty and affect are key to explain desire to own in China, while affect and importance are the drivers in the U.S. Affect, …

The Painted Motifs Of Cypriot Ceramic Art: A Study Of Iconography & Identity, Paige Bockman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The aim of this master’s thesis is to explore the iconography of Chalcolithic (c. 3900-2300 cal. BC) Cyprus using ceramic motifs and identify their potential use in revealing differences between the cultural identity present at archaeological sites, as well as the possible causes of such variation. By exploring the existence and origins of subtle differences between the iconographic repertoires of related sites, the study seeks a better understanding of the movement of both ideas and symbols, and how the meaning of symbols developed within the context of a site.

Currently, Cypriot Chalcolithic sites are believed to be largely homogeneous in …

Picrolite And The Cypriot Neolithic: An Experimental Study, Forrest Dayton Jarvi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Picrolite, a fibrous green stone originating in the Troodos mountains on the island of Cyprus, appears in the archaeological record almost from the very earliest sites on the island. Thus far, few publications have addressed the material from anything but a descriptive perspective. Research at the Aceramic Neolithic site of Kritou Marottou Ais Giorkis has uncovered a wide variety of picrolite artifacts since excavations began in 1997. Preliminary experimental studies have begun to explore the ease of both obtaining and manipulating the material using only local materials and unassisted manpower. This thesis presents a three-part investigation into the place of …

Authentically African : Arts And The Transnational Politics Of Congolese Culture, Sarah Van Beurden

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Together, the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, and the Institut des Musées Nationaux du Zaire (IMNZ) in the Congo have defined and marketed Congolese art and culture. In Authentically African, Sarah Van Beurden traces the relationship between the possession, definition, and display of art and the construction of cultural authenticity and political legitimacy from the late colonial until the postcolonial era. Her study of the interconnected histories of these two institutions is the first history of an art museum in Africa, and the only work of its kind in English.
Drawing on Flemish-language sources other scholars have …