Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

El Presidio Hispano-Colonial: Estudio Del Discurso Moderno De Fortificación Del Imperio Español A Traves De Planos Y Mapas, Javier E. Astorga Villarroel Ph.D.

Latin American Studies ETDs

This dissertation project delves into the processes of ideation, design, projection, and knowledge-transfer around the Presidio, an iconoclastic fortification system deployed by the Spanish Empire while projecting its colonial power toward the Transatlantic region. Based on Bruno Latour’s classic theory on the agency of networks of meanings (also known as new materialism) applied to historical cartography, my investigation examines the production of techno-military knowledge around the presidios as they were depicted through plans, maps, and manuals while mapping out border areas over North America and the Caribbean, from the 17th to the 19th centuries. With archival research work performed at …

Rootless - The Body Remembers What The Mind Has Forgotten, Helena Omana-Zapata

Latin American Studies ETDs

In repurposing academic spaces for healing, this project is meant to culminate in an artefact that aligns with decolonial educational practices, focusing on accessibility. In doing so, this project braids multimodality, re-represented history, and testimonio of various genres: personal narrative, Latinx story and resistance, critical examination of history and reproductions of information to depict my experience of detaching from cultural identity through assimilation and acculturation in the United States in education. In what I have called the process of leaving me rootless, I no longer had access to the places, people, identity, or language that established belonging. However, through …

"Un Pedacito De Nuestro Pais": Salvadoran Rootedness In Central Los Angeles, Ericka Arias

Latin American Studies ETDs

How has the Salvadoran Market contributed to a sense of cultural rootedness in Central Los Angeles? This thesis project examines the ways in which an informalized street vendor market has employed Latino Urbanism and Placemaking practices to foster a sense of cultural rootedness and belonging for the local Salvadoran community. Through community- based approaches and analysis, this thesis addresses the sociocultural importance of street vendors for immigrant communities and analyzes the ways in which this Salvadoran market facilitates placemaking practices that (re)unite Salvadorans with their cultural roots. This research contributes to subfields of Latino Urbanism and Informality, within Urban Studies, …

Cautividad: Deconstructing Notions Of Race And Nation In Argentina 1776–1840, Whitney Rue Wagner

Latin American Studies ETDs

This project is an exploration of the construction and contestation of whiteness in Argentina through the lens of women’s captivity in the middle period. This research explores how representations of captive women were used to construct a national identity via gender, race, and ethnicity, exploring some of the foundational work that would lead to the myth of Argentina as a white nation. By focusing on the various roles these captive women played and centering the complex liminal spaces they negotiated this work seeks to challenge elite historical representations of captive women by highlighting their nuanced socio-political role amongst Indigenous, specifically …

Q’Iij Metaphysics: Vico’S Theologia Indorum And The Gods, Ancestors, And Idols Of The 16th Century K’Ichee’ Mayas, Phillip Salazar

Latin American Studies ETDs

Domingo de Vico completed the Theologia Indorum, a K’iche’ Christian manuscript, in Guatemala in 1554. In the manuscript, Vico distinguishes between the idols, ancestors, and gods of the K’iche’s. This paper shows that Vico believed the idols to be inanimate objects, ancestors to be the older generations that have passed away, and gods to be demons. This paper then develops a theory of animist ontology for the K’iche’s. Using that ontological theory, this paper argues that, for the K’iche’s, their idols and gods were indistinguishable and that their ancestors were still alive, present, and active among them.

Congress And The Fall Of Jacobo Arbenz: A Narrative Of Cold War Fears And Redemption, David Erik Lindwall

Latin American Studies ETDs

This thesis will examine the statements and actions of U.S. Congressmen and Senators between 1945 and 1996 to understand how they influenced White House policy towards the regime of Jacobo Árbenz. It will show how legislators equated growing communist influence in the Árbenz regime to Cold War struggles going on in Korea, Indochina and Eastern Europe, and how Congressmen from both parties drew on those fears to pressure Presidents Truman and Eisenhower to "neutralize the threat," leading to Árbenz’s fall. When violence erupted again in Guatemala in 1960-1996, Congress reinterpreted the story of Árbenz as Republicans and Democrats were polarized …

Ecuador’S New Water Legal Framework (Lorhuya, 2014): An Assessement Of The First Five Years Of Implementation Through The Lens Of Plurinationality And Campesino’S Buen Vivir, Martina Nebbiai

Latin American Studies ETDs

A preliminary assessment of the first five years of implementation of Ecuador’s new Ley Organica de Recursos Hidricos, Usos y Aprovechamiento de Agua (LORHUyA, 2014), exlploring its impact on small irrigators communities, through the lens of Buen Vivir. A communication-based action research and political ecology of water in Ecuadorian marginalized Campesino communities, elucidating the repercussions of state-centralized water policy on the customary water management systems, and the disconnect between policy as determined nationally vs implemented locally. This research investigates the gap between Ecuador’s plurinational recognition of cultural rights, epistemic diversity, citizens’ participation and community control outlined by Buen Vivir, …

El Duende: Folktale, Oral History, And The Construction Of Gendered And Racialized Discourses In Quito, Carolina Bucheli Penafiel

Latin American Studies ETDs

El Duende is a popular mythical character featured in written and oral traditions in Latin America and Spain, where it is often described as particularly dangerous for women. In this research project, I focus on this character to explore the cultural and social meanings of these narratives in the Ecuadorian context, specifically in the city of Quito. Applying oral history methodology, I collected nine participants’ narratives about El Duende and conducted a discourse analysis of these stories. In this thesis, I discuss ways in which the stories about El Duende reproduce narratives of traditional gender role expectations and violence against …

How Do Farmers Experience Agroecology In Rural Communities Of Northern Ecuador?, Neil Michael Ayala Ayala

Latin American Studies ETDs

Agroecology, a concept in continuous evolution embraces science, practice and sociopolitical aspects. Its meaning is gaining space of debate and global interest as an alternative for building sustainable food systems and resilient communities, not only from the environmental perspective, but from all the dimensions of sustainability. The Andes region is recognized for its agrodiversity and for its history of agricultural activity; nevertheless, the effects of unsustainable agricultural practices inspired in the principles of the so called “Green Revolution” are evident. Conventional agriculture has decreased the capacity of resilience of the agroecosystems and their associated communities. Agroecology is often perceived as …

Critical Discourse Analysis Of Human Rights Education: Defensoría Del Pueblo Program In Ecuador, Monserrat Fernandez-Vela

Latin American Studies ETDs

This dissertation recognizes Human Rights Education (HRE) discourse as a multifaceted and multimodal construction situated socially and historically. Using a Multimodal Critical Discourse Study (MCDS), the research explores the HRE discourse proposed by the Defensoría del Pueblo de Ecuador (DPE), the National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) in charge of designing, approving and implementing contents, methodologies and resources of HRE initiatives nationwide. I focus on the educational, communicational, and ontological discourse of the DPE, materialized in three books published in 2015-2016. The results addressed the stenghts of the communicational and educative content and design of the books, showing the levels of …

Science For All: Exploring Science Communication For Public Engagement In Culturally Diverse Scenarios In The Americas, Denisse Helena Vasquez-Guevara

Latin American Studies ETDs

Universities in the United States and Ecuador must meet various policy guidelines concerning research and teaching that address the needs of their local communities. In Ecuador, the higher education law requires that universities undertake research and public outreach projects that respond to societal needs. In the United States, Carnegie Research Classifications motivate universities to serve their publics by carrying out community-engaged research. However, evaluations of public outreach projects and community-engaged research have consistently demonstrated that the segments of society that are ostensibly served by these initiatives are not meaningfully engaged in them; members of the public are treated as, and …

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 …

Drinking Our Stories:Food Sovereignty In Ecuador And Amazonian Runa Relations With Manioc And Guayusa, Jacqueline Michelle Kramer

Latin American Studies ETDs

Food sovereignty and the role of the state, international organizations, and social movements in its defense have been deeply researched. However, the role of small-scale farmers who continue traditional agricultural methods reflecting tenets of the food sovereignty movement, has been neglected in its relation to food sovereignty. This work aims to connect the plant-based ecological relationships with small-scale farmers using food sovereignty as an analytical discourse. Specifically, this thesis explores the relationship between Ecuadorian Amazonian Quichua people and two staple crops: manioc and guayusa. Through a gendered and epistemological analysis of food sovereignty, it argues that under the politics of …

Changing Relationship With The Land And One Another In Pindoyú, Paraguay, Kathryn E. Peters

Latin American Studies ETDs

This thesis is about agricultural transition in the face of globalization in the community of Pindoyú, Paraguay. Utilizing the extended case study method, the experiences of people of Pindoyú are documented through partcipant observation, individual and household interviews, and auto-ethnographies in order to illuminate theory on the articulation of modes of production, moral economy, and Marxist ecology. Rooted in Meillassouxs understanding of the domestic mode of production and Wolpe's extended view of the articulated modes of production, it argues that people in Pindoyú are participating in the capitalist mode of production while also practicing values incongruent with capitalist production. Findings …

Gold, Water, And Governance: The Stakes In The Santurbán Páramo Debate, Amanda Hooker

Latin American Studies ETDs

Currently in Santander, Colombia, a contentious debate over the demarcation of a protective boundary of the Santurbán Páramo is underway. For the approximately 9000 páramo residents, the collateral effects of the outcome could result in dispossession of lands and livelihoods. This paper will argue that status quo Colombian territorial zoning, at the service of Canadian mining interests cast domestically as the principal 'locomotora' (driving force) of national development, allows different expressions of state and civil society actors to either bypass or use environmental protections as means of personal gain and/or capitalist expansion. Mobilizing under a discourse of conservation, down-stream urban …

Natural Resource Revolutions: Mexico And Cuba Within The Sphere Of U.S. Hegemony, Joseph J. García

Latin American Studies ETDs

The improbable trajectories of Mexico and Cuba give rise to compelling questions: in what ways have the revolutionary governments of Mexico and Cuba been able to practice successful defiance of the United States hegemon of the twentieth century? And how has that defiance helped to define U.S. foreign policy in Latin America? This dissertation presents a detailed examination of the contexts surrounding both the Mexican and Cuban Revolutions and their struggle against imperialist-driven interventions by the United States in Latin America and the Caribbean. I argue that through strategic decisions, the Mexican and Cuban revolutionary governments were able to ward …

Process Of Definition And Development Of The Haitian-Dominican Borderland, Carolina Bonilla Elvira

Latin American Studies ETDs

The borderline that currently divides the island of Hispaniola has undergone a complicated process of definition. Since colonial times, central authorities have claimed the area while contradictorily ignoring the societies that developed in the region. It was not until the first decades of the twentieth century that the two countries were officially divided and a borderline was enforced. The massacre of approximately 15,000 Haitians ordered by the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1937 is the event that brought attention to the border nationalization process. In my research I argue that the conflict between the two countries had both an economic …

"God Must Have Been A Feminist To Make Me": Writings From The Girls Of El Hogar La Buena Esperanza, Anna Lapera

Latin American Studies ETDs

My thesis, 'God Must Have Been a Feminist to Make Me': Writings From the Girls of El Hogar la Buena Esperanza is a feminist ethnography of a poetry workshop I conducted over three months in el Hogar la Buena Esperanza, a home for under-privileged indigenous girls located within a cloistered Carmelite Convent in the northeastern Peruvian Amazon. Based on seventeen girls and over fourteen different creative writing activities, I explore how their writings reveal particular life histories in Latin America. From reimagining and re-writing stories and memories of their long departed hometowns, re-writing small-town histories; from exploring the cultural borders …

Identity Politics In Search Of Community-Based Development: A Case Study Of The Indigenous Movement In Costa Rica, Susanna Francesca Schaller

Latin American Studies ETDs

Since the early 1980's the Indigenous Movement in Costa Rica has made extraordinary strides toward resolving its demands for political, economic and cultural autonomy. The leadership that has emerged at the forefront of the Movement has been adept at recognizing political opportunities and at utilizing the national and international system in order to build a national movement that maintains its base within the local and regional setting.

This thesis examines the processes by which the Indigenous Movement has begun to transform the inequitable political, social and economic relations that have historically marginalized and oppressed indigenous peoples. The Movement represents an …

Excavating Mexican American Voices In California History: The California Testimonials, Michelle E. Morton

Latin American Studies ETDs

In the 1870s, a series of interviews were taken of Hispanic native Californians, or Californios as they call themselves, by the assistants of Anglo American historian Hubert Howe Bancroft. Many of these interviews, or testimonials as they are commonly referred to, have never been published in their entirety and have received little scholarly attention. This thesis focuses on Hispanic women in particular, the Californias, and the insight they provide into the day to day life of early Spanish, Mexican and American California.

After the Mexican-American War of 1846 many Californio families lost their properties to American settlers. Throughout the …

Silver Mining And Social Conflict In Seventeenth-Century Peru: The War Of The Nations In Laicacota, 1665-1667, Meredith Dunham Dodge

Latin American Studies ETDs

In the mid-seventeenth century, there occurred in Laicacota, site of a rich silver strike in the Viceroyalty of Peru, a wave of social conflict. The violence arose from traditional peninsular regional animosities, known as the war of the nations, and pitted Basques against Andalusians, who were led by Gaspar de Salcedo. The unrest was exacerbated by Salcedo's drive to make access to the mines an Andalusian monopoly.

The Santiesteban administration was unable to halt the conflict, which it inadvertently encouraged by the appointment of a corregidor sympathetic to the Basques, Angelo de Peredo. After Santiesteban's death, violence increased. The Andalusians, …

The Argentine Historical Novel: Trajectory And Panorama, Garth Muirbrook Hansen

Latin American Studies ETDs

This study is an initial survey of the Argentine historical novel (1840-1970). Although Argentina has a rich literary tradition, no previous analysis has considered the trajectory and persistence of such fiction throughout a century and a half of multiple literary influences and changing tastes. The human experience recreated through historical research is as legitimate a matter for literary treatment as that observed first hand by an author and not only provided the form for Argentina's first novels but has proved to be a favorite genre with both readers and writers. The characteristics of historical fiction are identified through an examination …

Fictional Treatment Of Politics By Argentine Female Novelists, Bradley M. Class

Latin American Studies ETDs

Between the ouster of Colonel Juan Domingo Perón from the Presidency of Argentina in September 1955 and his return to power in the Fall of 1973, Argentine women began to write political novels, a new phenomenon in the Argentine literary scene, since few, if any, novels had been created by female novelists prior to 1955. The basic goals of this study are to determine what type(s) of politics these writers possess and to evaluate how they interpret their political ambience through their literary craft. After two historical chapters describing political events from World War I to 1970 and their general …

Agrarian Reform And The Modernization Of Agriculture In Latin America: A Study Of The Mid-Twentieth Century Agrarian Reform Programs In Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba, Venezuela, Chile And Peru, Andrew J. Hogan

Latin American Studies ETDs

After discussing the issues of large-farming units vs. small farming units, labor-intensive vs. mechanized agriculture, the Green Revolution and its effects on, employment and food consumption, the author sets forth a "theory" of agrarian reform. Agrarian reform programs in Latin America are implemented after a specific set of his­torical circumstances and in response to a particular set of economic and political pressures. The 'historical process consists of the follow­ing steps: the disequilibrating event, the precursor legislation, the reaction, the reform period. Upon entering the last stage (the reform period), the political system typically falls into the hands of an emerging, …

Sacred-Secular Complementarity In Al Filo Del Agua And Pedro Paramo: An Inquiry Into Mythmaking, Floyd F. Merrell

Latin American Studies ETDs

Structuralism is the methodological approach employed in this study of two contemporary Mexican novels. The technique, including logico-mathematical relationships, schemata, and terminology, consists generally of an adaptation of Claude Lévi-Strauss' structural studies in anthropology and particularly in his interpretation of myth. The "deep-structure-surface-structure" dichotomization, a fundamental methodological premise we have adopted, is from Noam Chomsky by way of Ferdinand de Saussure's theory of linguistics. And the notion of "equilibrium," a dynamic interplay allowing for a genetic, developmental approach to structuralism, has been borrowed from the psychologist Jean Piaget.

Our initial objective was to formulate eclectically a method of structural analysis. …

El Periodismo Paraguayo Y Su Actitud Frente A La Guerra De La Triple Alianza Y Francisco Solano LóPez., Gladis Fois Maresma

Latin American Studies ETDs

La Guerra de la Triple Alianza contra el Paraguay provocó desde sus comienzos apasionadas controversias. Hoy, no obstante el tiempo transcurrido, continúa siendo tema de interés para los estudiosos y quizás el análisis de la misma está aún lejos de_ser completamente agotado. La mayor parte de los trabajos realizados son de carácter general y con pocas excepciones todos ellos tienden a hacer resaltar ciertas facetas y sobre todo, ciertos personajes centrales con el fin de llenar un interés puramente nacional o polemico.

The Argentine Labor Movement In Comparative And Historical Perspective, Robert F. Robinson

Latin American Studies ETDs

The political alienation of peronism has been a major obstacle to social integration in Argentina since 1955. This paper traces the historical causes of that conflict and offers a comparison of the growth of peronism with the political development of labor in three modern integrated societies, England, Russia, and the United States. The politicization of labor is viewed as one universal consequence of the industrialization process. In each of these societies the political drive of labor was met with both public and private opposition, making it for a time an alienated political interest group in the society. Each country witnessed …

The Impact Of Highland Migrations On The Socio-Spatial Residential Structure Of Lima, Peru From The 1930'S To The Present, David E. Stinson

Latin American Studies ETDs

In Peru, as in most other South American countries, intensified internal migration—an important but largely unstudied aspect of population dynamics—has stimulated the population growth of one inordinately large city. Metropolitan Lima, Peru’s “primate” city, has increased greatly in size since the 1930’s, and a considerable proportion of this increment is attributable to the absorption of internal migrants coming mostly from the highlands. Within the migrant stream settling in Lima, this distinguishable highland component significantly has affected the city’s residential structure. Existing data do not allow a precise quantitative description of highland migrants entering Lima. Moreover, the terms “highlander” or “serrano” …

The Fall Of PeróN, Earl D. Souligny

Latin American Studies ETDs

The revolt which overthrew Perón exceeded the scope of an ordinary military coup so common in Latin America; it brought an end to an important era in Argentine history. Perón’s government had, for the first time in Argentine history, attempted to give to the masses the social legislation which had become common in the more developed countries. He had based his government on the country's military, religious, and labor institutions. Of these three, Perón succeeded in alienating the first two and had serious disagreements with the latter. By aiding and cooperating with the opposition, the Church and military influentially precipitated …

The Christian Democratic Movement In Nicaragua, Thomas W. Walker

Latin American Studies ETDs

The major concern of the present report is the Christian Democratic movement in Nicaragua. For this reason, this paper treats such matters as Nicaraguan Christian Democratic ideology, history, and leadership, and the nature and function of the autonomous “Christian” interest-articulating organizations. The principal conclusions made in this study fall into two categories: (1) the future of the Christian Democratic movement in Nicaragua and (2) the significance and implications of the Nicaraguan case in relation to Latin American Christian Democracy in general. As regards the former, it appears that the Christian Democratic movement has become a permanent element in Nicaraguan politics. …