Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Cultural Politics Of Community-Based Conservation In The Buffer Zone Of Chitwan National Park, Nepal, Yogesh Dongol

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation research examines the socio-economic and political effects of community-based conservation initiatives within the Bagmara buffer zone community forests of Chitwan National Park, Nepal. In particular, the study investigates the role of buffer zones creation in structuring the way rural property rights have been defined, negotiated, and contested, in reinforcing or reducing patterns of ethnic dominance and exclusion, and in influencing how cultural identities are constituted and renegotiated. Using a political ecology framework with a specific focus on theoretical concepts of environmentality and territorialization, I conducted 12 months ethnographic and quantitative survey field research in the buffer zone communities …

Resource Nationalism And Energy Integration In Latin America: The Paradox Of Populism, Brian Hollingsworth

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the relationship between resource nationalism and energy integration, and uses Bolivia and Brazil as a test case. Essentially, does resource nationalism affect energy integration? The findings nest within more expansive questions on international political economy and export-driven models of development. Why do populist regimes, historically operating under an economic nationalist cum protectionist paradigm, simultaneously pursue policies of economic integration? What is the relationship between resource nationalists and open markets, especially in the hydrocarbons sector? What is the relationship between populists, who are typically resource nationalists, and their decision to choose policies of energy integration?

The most common …

The Development Of Spatial Vocabulary, Rosalie Odean

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has shown a link between the spatial words children use and their performance on spatial reasoning tasks. There is a dearth of measures of spatial language, especially those that focus on a specific type of word. This dissertation introduces three studies, using two measures of dimensional adjective comprehension, one in English and one in Spanish. Study one found that bilingual children’s knowledge of dimensional adjectives in one language is not predictive of their performance on dimensional adjectives in the other language, but that general vocabulary within a language predicts performance in that language. This study also showed that …