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Community-Based Participatory And Action Research: Bridging Latin American And Local Perspectives, Latin American And Iberian Institute, Nina Wallerstein, Andreas Hernandez, Andrea Román-Alfaro

LAII Events

Thursday, September 24th and Friday, September 25th.

Join us for a one-and-a-half day conference bringing together scholars, students, and community partners engaged in participatory and community-based research in Latin America, New Mexico, and the Southwest. The conference will feature invited speakers, interactive workshops, World Café-style discussions, and student lightning talks designed to foster dialogue, exchange ideas, and strengthen connections across Latin American and local contexts.

Featured invited speakers:

Anjuli Fahlberg, Tufts University
Nilza Rogéria de Andrade Nunes, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ)
Siegrid Guillaumon Dechandt, University of Brasília

Organized by the Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII) …

Community-Based Participatory And Action Research: Bridging Latin American And Local Perspectives, Latin American And Iberian Institute, Nina Wallerstein, Andreas Hernandez, Andrea Román-Alfaro

LAII Events

Thursday, September 24th and Friday, September 25th.

Join us for a one-and-a-half day conference bringing together scholars, students, and community partners engaged in participatory and community-based research in Latin America, New Mexico, and the Southwest. The conference will feature invited speakers, interactive workshops, World Café-style discussions, and student lightning talks designed to foster dialogue, exchange ideas, and strengthen connections across Latin American and local contexts.

Featured invited speakers:

Anjuli Fahlberg, Tufts University
Nilza Rogéria de Andrade Nunes, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ)
Siegrid Guillaumon Dechandt, University of Brasília

Organized by the Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII) …

From Disaster To Resilience: Developing Smart Settlements In The Himalayas, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepal’s catastrophic 26 August 2026 Bhote Koshi–Trishuli flood should be understood not only as a humanitarian tragedy but also as a potentially major turning point in updating national settlement and reconstruction policy. Engineers and scientists have described the floods as a glacier–bedrock collapse that triggered an ice-rock avalanche and debris flow. As per the live updates on September 7, 2026, the total death toll was 1,355, and 4,996 people were missing (The Hindu, 2026). Indian and Nepali rescuers worked urgently to locate and rescue people buried under hydropower tunnels, buildings, mud, and landslide debris.

UN News reported on September 3, …

From Himalayan Catastrophe To National Resilience: Lessons From The 2026 Bhote Koshi And Trishuli River Floods In Nepal, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

On the morning of 26 August 2026, the mountains above Nepal’s northern frontier delivered a disaster of almost unimaginable speed and scale. A massive mass of ice, rock, and sediment detached in the high Himalayan terrain near the Nepal–Tibet border, descended roughly 1,200 metres, interacted with the Lhende Khola system, and generated a debris-rich flood that surged through the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river corridors, destroying settlements, markets, roads, bridges, hydropower facilities, and an international border crossing and transforming them into fields of mud, boulders, and wreckage within minutes (ICIMOD, 2026b; Reuters, 2026a). Satellite analysis indicates that a substantial section …

Mountain Development In Nepal: Settlements, Infrastructure, And Economic Transformation, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

As Nepal urbanizes, expands infrastructure, strengthens local governments, and explores deeper connectivity with India and China, climate change is increasing floods, landslides, heat, and water insecurity. Rapid internal migration, rising disaster risks, youth outmigration, and dependence on remittances are also revealing the limits of conventional urban development, especially in the mountainous region. The central challenge for Nepal is no longer just to accommodate growing towns and cities, but to build settlements that are safe, productive, environmentally resilient, and capable of sustaining long-term prosperity.

This paper argues that Nepal's urban future must be guided by a new development paradigm centered on …

Lessons From Tanzania’S Ujamaa For Smart Settlements In Nepal: Social Justice And Economic Development, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepal’s constitutional commitment to a “socialism-oriented” state places social justice, equitable access to resources and housing, and protection of marginalized populations at the center of national development discourse. However, persistent landlessness, informal settlements, unemployment, youth outmigration, and unequal access to infrastructure reveal a significant gap between constitutional aspirations and socioeconomic realities.

This article examines lessons Nepal can draw from Tanzania’s experience with Ujamaa, the African socialist development model initiated by President Nyerere in 1967. Using comparative policy analysis, published research, official documents, and exploratory field observations from selected Tanzanian locations, including the capital and villages in the Iringa Region, the …

Opportunities For Leadership In Indigenous And Tribally Engaged Research At The University Of New Mexico, Sharon Hausam

Faculty Publications

This is a working paper produced as part of National Science Foundation project #2115169, “Transforming Rural-Urban Systems: Trajectories for Sustainability in the Intermountain West,” known as the “Intermountain West Transformation Network” (TN), led by the University of New Mexico with institutional partners at three additional universities in New Mexico, two in Arizona, and one each in Utah, Colorado, and Washington. The TN’s Indigenous and Tribal engagement was supported through a contract with Dr. Sharon Hausam, additional work by Aaron M. Canter, coordination with Dr. Lani Tsinnajinnie, and an Advisory Committee on Indigenous Information Needs primarily comprised of Indigenous representatives in …

How To Measure A Carnivore: Understanding The Scaling Of Cranial And Postcranial Elements With Body Mass, Marina Casiano Ruiz

Biology ETDs

Body size is a fundamental predictor of ecological function, life history, and population dynamics in mammals. However, direct measurements of body mass remain unavailable for many rare or extinct species, particularly within the order Carnivora. Allometric relationships between skeletal dimensions and body mass provide a tractable solution; however, previous studies have been limited in their taxonomic scope or trait diversity. Here, we quantify the scaling of 82 cranial and postcranial traits across 97 species from 11 carnivoran families spanning four orders of magnitude in body mass (20g to >500kg). Additionally, we examine the influence of phylogenetic relatedness, dietary specialization, and …

Abiquiú And Georgia O’Keeffe Neighbors In A New Mexico Village, Katherine E. Mccully

History ETDs

This thesis centers the people of Abiquiú, a small town in northern New Mexico, and discusses their history through the twentieth century into the twenty-first century. I have collected oral histories of Abiqueños, their families, and lives in Abiquiú. More specifically, this thesis explores their experiences of residing with a famous person, artist Georgia O’Keeffe, while maintaining their traditions as a Genízaro village. This thesis is not written solely about O’Keeffe, but, as much as possible, emphasizes the perspectives of the Abiqueños and Abiquiú, while O’Keeffe resided in their community. I seek to write the little-told story of O’Keeffe through …

Unbroken Sovereignty: Land, Water, Education, And Nakoda And Oc̣Eti Ṡaḳowiŋ Tribes Of The Fort Peck Indian Reservation, 1850–1935, Richard Joseph Maska

History ETDs

This dissertation explores the intersection of sovereignty and development among the Nakoda (Assiniboine) and Oc̣eti Ṡaḳowiŋ (Sioux) Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Methodologically, it draws on a critical reading of archival sources in conjunction with community input. It traces the emergence of reservation policy, government sponsored education, the imposition of allotment policy and private landownership, and the impact of state-sponsored irrigation and other development projects. I argue that the Tribes forged webs of affiliation and kinship to both assert their nationhood and navigate their involvement in such projects. These expressions …

On Food, Politics, And The Power Of Representation In The American History Museum, Mason A. Bright

Museum Studies Theses

This study explores the political implications of foodways-related interpretation at American history institutions, situating it within current partisan discourse. Using an “Anthropology of Museums” framework, I place literature from the fields of food history, human geography, and museum studies in conversation with interviews with three curatorial professionals from the National Museum of American History, the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, and the New Mexico History Museum. I understand the ways these professionals navigate politically engaged interpretation through the lens of ethnographic refusal, a phenomenon drawn from the anthropology subfield of resistance studies. I argue that the connections between food …

Gradients Of Abandonment, William Tatman

Geography ETDs

As urban-rural disparities drive depopulation in rural areas worldwide, local strategies emerge as pathways for resilience. Research on Ojika, a Japanese island that has lost 75% of its population since the 1960s, reveals an Abandonment Gradient: a nuanced pattern of disuse adapted to modern polycrises. Extending the concept of "lying fallow" to homes and infrastructure, this thesis focuses on abandonment practices that reflect complex realities of labor, capital, and climate uncertainty. Rather than viewing depopulating communities as passive victims of out-migration, this paper argues they are critical sites for generating crisis response. Communally crafted attitudes toward unused space and more-than-human …

Who Bears The Burden: Tax Incidence And Water Governance In The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (Mrgcd) Within Bernalillo County, Michael W. Wilson

Economics ETDs

This study examines how property-value-based assessments within a large western irrigation and flood-control district distribute fiscal burdens across property owners. The empirical analysis is restricted to Bernalillo County within the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD), using parcel-level administrative data from fiscal year 2025 merged with 2021 irrigation service records and geospatial information. The analysis classifies 34,397 parcels by irrigation status, agricultural valuation enrollment, and primary use to evaluate whether non-irrigating residential and commercial parcels, including renter-occupied properties that lack direct irrigation access, bear a disproportionate share of financial responsibility for a district whose first listed priority under their primary …

Good Impressions At Work: Exploring Gendered Labor In The Middle Rio Grande, Nm Ad 1100-1500, William F. Marquardt

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation investigates changes in the gendered division of labor among potters in the Middle Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico (MRG) between A.D. 1100 and 1500. During this time, diverse groups coalesced into some of the largest communities seen in the region until the industrial era. New architectural, technological, religious, and trade practices emerged to help knit these communities together during a dynamic period of change. Pottery making practices changed alongside other developments transforming from manufacture for local consumption to surplus production for exchange. Previous research on gendered divisions of labor have largely portrayed gendered labor as static rather than …

Understanding The Long-Run Effect Of Historical Redlining Practices, Yujian Lu

Geography ETDs

Historical redlining practices initiated by Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s have produced enduring persistent socioeconomic and environmental disparities in U.S. cities. This dissertation examines their long-term impacts on social vulnerability, urban flood risk, along with public discourse about redlining practices. Results indicate that neighborhoods with HOLC grade A (greenlined) exhibit the lowest overall social vulnerability, while those graded D (redlined) face the highest across U.S. cities. In Chicago, associations between redlining practices and flood risk disparities are stronger than in Los Angeles, reflecting place-specific characteristics among environmental, socioeconomic, and demographic factors shaping flood risk disparities in long …

How Forest Structure And Climate Influence Snowpack For Water Resources In The Southwestern United States, Lindsey L. Rotche

Geography ETDs

Climate change, declining snowpack, and increasing wildfire risk have profound impacts on water availability in the southwestern United States. Because the southwestern United States is a global hotspot for freshwater vulnerability, and snowpack provides much of the region’s freshwater, understanding how climate and forest structure influence snowpack dynamics is increasingly important. In this dissertation I aim to better understand and communicate these dynamics through empirical data collection and the development of a simple vegetation driven temperature-index snow model: SNOW-17(VEG). I then implement the model at a watershed scale using remotely sensed imagery to create vegetation zones and climate simulations to …

Dispossession, Environmental Degradation, And Youth Migration Among The Pijao Of Southern Tolima, Neider Devia Merchan

LAII Events

This presentation examines how land dispossession, environmental degradation, and capitalist economic transformations shape youth migration among the Indigenous Pijao people of Southern Tolima, Colombia. Based on semi-structured interviews with Pijao community members from different generations, the talk explores how limited economic opportunities, environmental degradation, and unequal access to land make it increasingly difficult for young people to remain in their territories. At the same time, youth migration affects the transmission of Indigenous knowledge, including oral histories, agricultural practices, language, and community memory. Rather than treating migration as an individual decision, the presentation frames it as part of a broader structural …

Trial By Fire: Disaster Justice And Lessons Learned, Clifford Villa

Faculty Scholarship

Disaster Justice reflects the intersection of environmental justice and disaster law. The study of disaster justice is becoming increasingly essential as disasters become more frequent and devastating in the face of accelerating climate change. Disaster law is marked by statutes such as the federal Stafford Act and by theory such as the “disaster cycle” of readiness, response, and recovery. Environmental justice recognizes that the distribution of harms such as bad air or water quality may be distributed inequitably among groups such as low-income populations or racial minorities. In similar fashion, the adverse impacts of disasters may also be distributed inequitably …

Notas Críticas (Reseñas), Yandrey Lay, Marzia Dessi

Intersecciones Hispánicas: Revista de Cultura, Literatura y Lingüística

No abstract provided.

Intersecciones Hispánicas Número Completo 3

Intersecciones Hispánicas: Revista de Cultura, Literatura y Lingüística

No abstract provided.

Poemas, Aurélia Gervasoni, Direne Esperanza, Anamaría F. León Barrios

Intersecciones Hispánicas: Revista de Cultura, Literatura y Lingüística

No abstract provided.

Introducción A Intersecciones Hispánicas N.3, Sydney Wilson, Alessio Piras

Intersecciones Hispánicas: Revista de Cultura, Literatura y Lingüística

No abstract provided.

On The Securitization Of Residential Real Property, Luke Maher

New Mexico Law Review

This article aims to reframe the scholarly discussion about securitizations—transactions in which multiple passive investors use a special purpose entity to take passive fractional ownership shares in one or more assets—in the context of residential real property interests. Residential real property securitizations (including mortgage-backed securities and real estate investment trusts) are relatively modern financial instruments and so are relatively underexamined from a policy perspective, and this article seeks to evaluate whether residential real property interests are amenable to securitization at all, concluding that they are not. In so doing, this article uses the principles of property law to present a …

Theorizing Rural Cosmopolitanism: Modern Economic History, Urban Elites, And The Political Economy Of Disaster Recovery, Manuel Montoya

Natural Resources Journal

A heavily understated dimension of cosmopolitanism is the urban rural divide. This is particularly true in the context of modern economics, which emerged at the same time that the notion of cosmopolitanism was gaining renewed political significance. This paper examines how economic thought of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries directly influenced the socio-literary interactions of a “World Republic of Letters” and how writers such as Goethe used terms like “universal spiritual commerce” to valorize the role of the city in the making of a new modern world. The paper also describes how the rural was left behind in …

The Role Of Anticipatory, Preparatory, And Transformative Governance In Wildfire And Watershed Resilience Strategies, Robin Kundis Craig, Melinda Morgan

Natural Resources Journal

Wildfire is a game-changer for both communities and ecosystems throughout the West, including in New Mexico. Building resilience to increasing numbers of wildfire events, especially when wildfires can shift communities, ecosystems, and combined social ecological systems (“SESs”) past tipping points and into new regimes requires new approaches to governance. Focusing on the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fire and New Mexico residents’ ongoing response, this Article examines post-fire needs before surveying new modes of governance that can help to address those needs in a climate change era. It ends with a summary of our engagement with the participants in the “Life After …

Trial By Fire: Disaster Justice And Lessons Learned, Clifford J. Villa

Natural Resources Journal

Disaster Justice reflects the intersection of environmental justice and disaster law. The study of disaster justice is becoming increasingly essential as disasters become more frequent and devastating in the face of accelerating climate change. Disaster law is marked by statutes such as the federal Stafford Act and by theory such as the “disaster cycle” of readiness, response, and recovery. Environmental justice recognizes that the distribution of harms such as bad air or water quality may be distributed inequitably among groups such as low-income populations or racial minorities. In similar fashion, the adverse impacts of disasters may also be distributed inequitably …

Corazones Urbanos: Literary Cartographies And Southwest Cities In The Mexican American Spatial Imaginary, Jorge A. Hernández Jr.

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Corazones Urbanos: Literary Cartographies and Southwest Cities in the Mexican American Spatial Imaginary examines how Mexican American writers from Tucson, San Antonio, and Albuquerque narrate, critique, and reimagine urban space across the U.S. Southwest in the twentieth century. Integrating literary studies, cultural geography, urban history, and critical regionalism, the project analyzes responses to racialized development, urban renewal, and gentrification that have displaced Mexican American communities from historic downtowns. Moving beyond borderlands and transnational models, it advances a critically regional approach attentive to local histories, municipal policies, and community pressures shaping urban life. Through close readings of creative and nonfiction texts …

La Raza In The U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: A Comparative Regional Study Of Mexican American Elite Identity-Making From Texan Independence To The Mexican Revolution, Davis Diego Massey

History ETDs

After the U.S. annexed much of Mexico following the Mexican-American War, Mexicans in  the incorporated regions began to think of themselves as a racial group within the U.S. rather  than a distinctive nationality. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promised citizenship  rights to all Mexicans in the area. The Treaty promises rarely were put into practice, as they  were left up to the enforcement of territories and states. Even where enforced, the rights of  citizenship were restricted and defined on the basis of race. Local laws excluded  Afro-Mexicans and Mexican Natives from exercising the rights promised by the Treaty. This …

La Raza In The U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: A Comparative Regional Study Of Mexican American Elite Identity-Making From Texan Independence To The Mexican Revolution, Davis Diego Massey

History ETDs

After the U.S. annexed much of Mexico following the Mexican-American War, Mexicans in the incorporated regions began to think of themselves as a racial group within the U.S. rather than a distinctive nationality. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promised citizenship rights to all Mexicans in the area. The Treaty promises rarely were put into practice, as they were left up to the enforcement of territories and states. Even where enforced, the rights of citizenship were restricted and defined on the basis of race. Local laws excluded Afro-Mexicans and Mexican Natives from exercising the rights promised by the Treaty. This …

Shelter From The Storm: Public Library Value And Community Adaptive Capacities, Margo Gustina

Economics ETDs

This dissertation contributes to theoretical framing within the discipline of library science, while building out empirical methods for quantitatively valuing broadly loved public libraries. Chapter 1 lays the foundation for understanding how analysis public libraries must always be set within regional contexts. Chapter 2 demonstrates that positive voter valuation of public libraries is driven by proximity to a library building by using data from public funding referendum events. Chapter 3 estimates a reduction of 0.75 percentage point (p=0.002) in graduation rates where public libraries were closed (but school instruction was in-person) from COVID closures. Chapter 4 builds on the previous …