Latin American Studies Commons^™

‘Haciendas And Plantations’: History And Limitations Of A 60-Year-Old Taxonomy, Marc Edelman

Publications and Research

In 1957, Eric R Wolf and Sidney W Mintz published ‘Haciendas and Plantations in Middle America and the Antilles’ in the Jamaican journal Social and Economic Studies. This article discusses the production of the Wolf and Mintz article, its analytical framework and the theoretical tensions it contains, and its subsequent influence, mainly though not exclusively on anthropological and historical scholarship about large landed properties in Latin America and the Caribbean. ‘Haciendas and Plantations’ appeared at a time when anthropologists such as Elman Service, Charles Wagley, and Marvin Harris were trying to make sense of agrarian Latin America by developing typologies …

The Constituent Women Of Violence Against Women, Wilmer Morales, Jocelyn Martinez, Samantha Amaro

Violence Against Women conference

The Violence against Women Initiative is a very important framework in a time in which women need a platform to be able to discuss the problems and inequality they face in society. Throughout history women have been demonized, abuse, and treated unfairly, which has affected the way women respond to acts of violence. However, recent events have allowed women to gain the courage to stand against acts including verbal, physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. Society, in general, has to be educated and be made aware of how to respond and meticulously act during events that violate the rights of women, …

La Gota Que Colma La Caguama: How A Brewery Development Sparked Public Participation In Water Decisions, Anthony J. Meluso

Shared Knowledge Conference

Broad and diverse participation of actors is well recognized as a prerequisite for effective and equitable water management. However, scholarship in development and social movement literature in Latin America demonstrates that patterns of participation are shifting to more diverse strategies with non-traditional alliances. This project explores how an internationally owned brewery development sparked renewed participation from various urban and rural groups in the Mexicali Valley. I argue that widespread resistance from different groups was underpinned by neoliberal development tensions that have diminished local agency, but the strong symbolic nature of water, beer and politics provided the catalyst for a social …

Variation Among Populations In The Immune Protein Composition Of Mother's Milk Reflects Subsistence Pattern, Laura D. Klein, Jincui Huang, Elizabeth A. Quinn, Melanie A. Martin, Alicia A. Breakey, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Claudia Valeggia, Grazyna Jasienska, Brooke Scelza, Carlito B. Lebrilla, Katie Hinde

ESI Publications

Lay Summary: Adaptive immune proteins in mothers’ milk are more variable than innate immune proteins across populations and subsistence strategies. These results suggest that the immune defenses in milk are shaped by a mother’s environment throughout her life.

Background and objectives: Mother’s milk contains immune proteins that play critical roles in protecting the infant from infection and priming the infant’s developing immune system during early life. The composition of these molecules in milk, particularly the acquired immune proteins, is thought to reflect a mother’s immunological exposures throughout her life. In this study, we examine the composition of innate …

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. …

Government Roles In Regulating Medical Tourism: Evidence From Guatemala, Ronald Labonté, Valorie A. Crooks, Alejandro Cerón, Vivien Runnels, Jeremy Snyder

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

Background: Regulation of the medical tourism and public health sectors overlap in many instances, raising questions of how patient safety, economic growth, and health equity can be protected. The case of Guatemala is used to explore how the regulatory challenges posed by medical tourism should be dealt with in countries seeking to grow this sector.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative case study of the medical tourism sector in Guatemala, through reviews and analyses of policy documents and media reports, key informant interviews (n = 50), and facility site-visits.

Results: Key informants were critical of the absence of effective public regulation …

Marital Violence And Fertility In A Relatively Egalitarian High-Fertility Population, Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Ultimate and proximate explanations of men’s physical intimate partner violence (IPV) against women have been proposed. An ultimate explanation posits that IPV is used to achieve a selfish fitness-relevant outcome, and predicts that IPV is associated with greater marital fertility. Proximate IPV explanations contain either complementary strategic components (for example, men’s desire for partner control), non-strategic components (for example, men’s self-regulatory failure), or both strategic and non-strategic components involving social learning. Consistent with an expectation from an ultimate IPV explanation, we find that IPV predicts greater marital fertility among Tsimané forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia (n = 133 marriages, 105 women). This …

Correction To: 'Greater Wealth Inequality, Less Polygyny: Rethinking The Polygyny Threshold Model', Cody T. Ross, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Seung-Yun Oh, Samuel Bowles, Bret Beheim, John Bunce, Mark Caudell, Gregory Clark, Heidi Colleran, Carmen Cortez, Patricia Draper, Russell D. Greaves, Michael Gurven, Thomas Headland, Janet Headland, Kim Hill, Barry Hewlett, Hillard Kaplan, Jeremy Koster, Karen Kramer, Frank Marlowe, Richard Mcelereath, David Nolin, Marsha Quinlan, Robert Quinlan, Caissa Revilla-Minaya, Brooke Scelza, Ryan Schacht, Mary Shenk, Ray Uehara, Eckart Voland, Kai Willführ, Bruce Winterhalder, John Ziker, Christopher Von Rueden

ESI Publications

No abstract provided.

Greater Wealth Inequality, Less Polygyny: Rethinking The Polygyny Threshold Model, Cody T. Ross, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Seung-Yun Oh, Samuel Bowles, Bret Beheim, John Bunce, Mark Caudell, Gregory Clark, Heidi Colleran, Carmen Cortez, Patricia Draper, Russell D. Greaves, Michael Gurven, Thomas Headland, Janet Headland, Kim Hill, Barry Hewlett, Hillard Kaplan, Jeremy Koster, Karen Kramer, Frank Marlowe, Richard Mcelreath, David Nolin, Marsha Quinlan, Robert Quinlan, Caissa Revilla-Minaya, Brooke Scelza, Ryan Schacht, Mary Shenk, Ray Uehara, Eckart Voland, Kai Willführ, Bruce Winterhalder, John Ziker, Christopher Von Rueden

ESI Publications

Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly unequal agricultural populations that replaced relatively egalitarian horticultural populations, challenging the conventional idea—based on the polygyny threshold model—that polygyny should be positively associated with wealth inequality. To address this polygyny paradox, we generalize the standard polygyny threshold model to a mutual mate choice model predicting the fraction of women married polygynously. We then demonstrate two conditions that are jointly sufficient to make monogamy the predominant marriage form, even in highly unequal societies. We assess if these conditions are satisfied using individual-level data from 29 human …

Book Review-The Battle For Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes On The Disaster Capitalists, Sarah Molinari

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Denial In Other Forms, Paul N. Avakian

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Conventional understandings of denial are rooted in the analysis of language used to negate claims of genocide, and shed little light on the effects of denial beyond words heard or read. Is denying the crime only concerned with refuting its occurrence? Is there more at stake in denying genocide crimes than a lack of mutuality over whether it happened? To deny a crime is to deny what is owed those harmed by the crime, and this involves accountability and restitution according to relevant law. Written or spoken words that reject outright, re-characterize, confuse, or shift blame bring harm on an …

Idrf Book Exchange: Mosquito Trails, Alex Nading, Chris Gratien, Aman Luthra, Alejandro Cerón

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

IDRF fellows discuss Alex Nading’s book Mosquito Trails: Ecology, Health, and the Politics of Entanglement, based on his International Dissertation Research Fellowship research on waste management and disease ecologies in urban Nicaragua.

“Estamos Aquí Con Nuestra Propia Fuerza” Las Mujeres De Amupakin Y Su Lucha Para Preservar El Parto Ancestral En Napo, Ecuador. / "We Are Here With Our Own Strength" The Women Of Amupakin And Their Struggle To Preserve The Ancestral Birth In Napo, Ecuador., Lilian Domenick

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este proyecto documenta mi trabajo con AMUPAKIN (Asociación de Mujeres Parteras Kichwas de Alto Napo)—una organización de mujeres Kichwa que practican la medicina ancestral—y su lucha para preservar los conocimientos y las prácticas de la cultura Kichwa en la provincia de Alto Napo, Ecuador. A través de las conversaciones informales y la participación en las actividades diarias de las parteras de AMUPAKIN, aprendí de la historia y el trabajo actual de la organización y las experiencias de las 10 parteras que forman la asociación. El proyecto documenta como la práctica de la partería ancestral se manifiesta en AMUPAKIN—y examina como …

Pearl Lagoon's White Lobster: The Societal, Economic, Political And Autonomous Effects, Rafely Palacios

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua is home to the greatest number of impoverished individuals in the country. However, the people of Pearl Lagoon - a municipality in the South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region - have found a way to escape their poor economic situations.

Due to the municipality’s close proximity to drug routes utilized by Colombian cartels and to the country itself, community members have turned to the drug trade in hopes of pursuing financial secureness. With the introduction of the “white lobster” or cocaine packets, the community as a whole has transformed its social, economic, and political spheres. In …

The Importance Of Language In Cross-Cultural Interaction, Lacy Norton

Senior Honors Theses

Language and culture are connected. Because of this connection, people have a preferred language with which they have an emotional or cultural connection. In Latin American cultures, it is beneficial to speak to a person in their preferred language. Using a person’s preferred language as opposed to any other language will facilitate a deeper connection with that person, cross cultural barriers that may separate them, and be more effective when attempting to share the gospel.

Sex Differences In Political Leadership In An Egalitarian Society, Christopher Von Rueden, Sarah Alami, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

We test the contribution of sex differences in physical formidability, education, and cooperation to the acquisition of political leadership in a small-scale society. Among forager-farmers from the Bolivian Amazon, we find that men are more likely to exercise different forms of political leadership, including verbal influence during community meetings, coordination of community projects, and dispute resolution. We show that these differences in leadership are not due to gender per se but are associated with men’s greater number of cooperation partners, greater access to schooling, and greater body size and physical strength. Men’s advantage in cooperation partner number is tied to …

Low Perceived Control Over Health Is Associated With Lower Treatment Uptake In A High Mortality Population Of Bolivian Forager-Farmers, Sarah Alami, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Indigenous people worldwide suffer from higher rates of morbidity and mortality than neighboring populations. In addition to having limited access to public health infrastructure, indigenous people may also have priorities and health perceptions that deter them from seeking adequate modern healthcare. Here we propose that living in a harsh and unpredictable environment reduces motivation to pursue deliberate, costly action to improve health outcomes. We assess whether variation in Health Locus of Control (HLC), a psychological construct designed to capture self-efficacy with respect to health, explains variation in treatment uptake behavior among Tsimane Amerindians (N=690; age range: 40–89 years; 55.8% female; …

Trauma In Guatemala And Postville, Iowa, Jessica J. Lechtenberg

Latin American Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

This study uses a historical understanding of Guatemala to explain the significant trauma following the largest immigration raid in U.S. history which primarily deported Guatemalan residents who had been working at the Agriprocessors meat processing plant without documentation. Through an analysis of literature detailing the immigration raid, Guatemala's history of violence, and court proceedings, I have found that high levels of trauma exist for the individuals who were deported following the raid and for their families and friends. Personal communication with the current Dean of Students at Postville's public school lends a hand in gaining a deeper understanding of the …

Reflections Of A “Pitiyanqui”: My History With Latcrit, Roberto L. Corrada

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

One of our longtime LatCrit leaders in progressive and emancipatory pedagogy, Roberto Corrada (Denver), reflects on LatCrit’s role in awakening and developing his interest in critical scholarship and critical, community-based, pedagogy. In doing so, he also puts on display how our programmatic work, again, twines the personal with the collective, and the human with the intellectual. He reminds us, again, that our work is rooted in difference, and in learning from it.

Una Ventana Hacia La Antropología Amazónica En El Perú (1997–2017), Jean-Pierre Chaumeil

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Luchadoras: Resistencias Contra La Violencia De Género Por Las Mujeres En La Región De San Ramón, Olivia "Livey" Beha

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This qualitative study describes the dynamic resiliency-building process against gender-based violence in two rural coffee-producing communities in the region of San Ramon, Nicaragua. It examines the methods and efficacy of economic empowerment and educational interventions facilitated by the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives Augusto Cesar Sandino (UCA San Ramón) in addressing gender inequality, preventing gender-based violence, and increasing access to resources for women in the cooperatives of El Privilegio and Danilo Gonzales. This complex ecology, comprised of the interactions between women, their communities, available resources, and institutions, is assessed through the lens of women’s individual perspectives as they engage in three …

“El Negro Sin La Oreja”: A Dialectical Approach To The Blackness In Dominican Identity, Kevin E. Nicholes

Institute for the Humanities Theses

This master’s thesis examines ideologies of whiteness through the erasure and denial of blackness in the Dominican Republic and explores the manner in which racial identity has been reinforced and contested. A dialectical approach is utilized to analyze the discourse around the history of the Dominican Republic and a textual analysis is also employed to assist in supporting the findings. The rationale for this study is to access how whiteness became synonymous with Dominicanness and to resuscitate the blackness of Dominican identity which has been relegated to the classification of the “other”. Therefore, drawing conclusions as to how Dominicans

negotiate …

Amazonia In The Anthropocene: Peoples, Soils, Plants, Forests, John Ben Soileau

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

A Few Days With Bill Vickers: Quietly Advancing Indigenous Rights, Ted Macdonald

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

The Political Man As A Sick Animal: On The “Ideology Of Kisêdjê Political Leadership”, André Drago

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Eloquent, wise, generous; in short, “exemplary,” Kisêdjê political leaders are also said to be “animal-like” dangerous beings. For Anthony Seeger, this “ideological ambivalence” expresses the contradiction which constitutes the leader’s position-function, whose “political power” working at the center of the village derives from peripheral kinship affiliations. Moreover, supposed to withhold the group’s “norms”, he is surprisingly entitled to violate them–primarily, he is exempted from uxorilocality. I try to demonstrate that the inflections the leader subjects patterns of kinship-making process alter his body and agency, rendering him more or less human and, therefore, capable of mediating between the Kisêdjê and their …

“Don Guillermo” Or William Vickers Among The Secoya, María Susana Cipolletti

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Upper Perené Arawak Narratives Of History, Landscape, And Ritual, Fernando Santos-Granero

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Images Of Public Wealth Or The Anatomy Of Well-Being In Indigenous Amazonia, Michael Chibnik

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

William Vickers And Gender Studies Of The 1970s, E. Jean Langdon

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Bill Vickers’ Modern Political Transformation, Robert Wasserstrom

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.