Latin American Studies Commons^™

Framing The Border: Liminality In The Network Narratives Of Alejandro González Iñárritu, Muhammad Muzammal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores liminality conveyed as displacement before death in the network narrative films of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. Due to their depiction of existential crises and possibly fatal scenarios of several characters in different countries and regions, these network narrative films are colloquially referred to as the “Death Trilogy.” Therefore, rearranging the many strands of death-related abstractions and notions in these films around liminality becomes a jumping-off point to explore deeper layers of these works. Through interdisciplinary yet markedly film studies excavations, this thesis projects the liminal spaces of Iñárritu’s films onto border spaces. With borders considered as sites of …

Auto®Ficción Latinx De Nueva York (1999–2020), Jacqueline Herranz Brooks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research on the intersection of Literary Criticism, Latino Studies, Persona Studies, and Performance Studies has led me to question the accepted definitions of autoficción (Doubrovsky, Gasparini, Alberca, Casas, Schlikers) and expand that definition into a more multifaceted and operational term. Hence, I created auto®ficción, a new term describing the hybrid creations of a group of underrepresented contemporary Latinx authors living/producing/circulating their work in New York City, during the first two decades of the 21^st Century. For these authors, their life experiences and quotidian uses of this city’s spaces are the subjects of their work. Auto®ficción draws attention …

Do The Tactics Of Armed Groups Affect Organizational Behavior? The Case Of Kidnap For Ransom, Tyler Young

Theses and Dissertations

N/A

Archives Of Human Rights And Historical Memory: An Analysis Of Archival Practices ‘From Below’ In Four Ngos In Colombia, Claire L. Taylor, Lucia Brandi, Cecilia A. Acosta Sánchez, Marcelo Díaz Vallejo

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article centres on four Colombian NGOs who focus on victims of conflict, paying particular attention to the substantial body of material which they collect and curate related to their work, their activities, and the victims that they represent, and which thus comprise a form of unofficial, grassroots archives of the Colombian conflict. The article details the process undertaken by the research team in engaging with the NGOs to examine the current state of their archives, and the problems and issues they have encountered. Firstly, we provide an overview of the context in which the four selected NGOs are working, …

Healthcare Of Indigenous Amazonian Peoples In Response To Covid-19: Marginality, Discrimination And Revaluation Of Ancestral Knowledge In Ucayali, Peru, Doreen Montag, Marco Barboza, Lizardo Cauper, Ivan Brehaut, Isaac Alva, Aoife Bennett, José Sanchez-Choy, Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti, Pilar Valenzuela, José Manuyama, Italo García Murayari, Miguel Guimaraes Vásquez, Celso Aguirre Panduro, Angela Giattino, Edwin Julio Palomino Cadenas, Rodrigo Lazo, Carlos A. Delgado, Alfonso Nino, Elaine C. Flores, Maria Amalia Pesantes, Juan Pablo Murillo, Luisa Elvira Belaunde, Sergio Recuenco, Robert Chuquimbalqui, Carol Zavaleta-Cortijo

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Articles and Research

"Systematic and persistent discrimination against Indigenous Peoples translates into differential health outcomes when analysed through ethnicity and/or mother tongue.1 In Peru, morbidity and mortality rates among Indigenous Peoples for COVID-19 appear to confirm this.2 The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the historical structural violence against Indigenous Peoples that currently takes a disproportionate toll in the Peruvian Amazon. This equally applies to Indigenous Andean Peoples and Afro Peruvians. Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation and those in initial contact are at highest health risk in this pandemic as they have no previous immunity against common infectious diseases, and lack access to public healthcare …

The Villas Boas Brothers And Anthropologists, John Hemming

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

This paper describes the history of the Villas Boas brothers of Brazil and their role in establishing and administering the 26,000-square-kilometer Xingu Indigenous Park in the Amazonian state of Mato Grosso. Many anthropologists came to work in the Park during the Villas Boas brothers’ decades-long residence there. The paper details some of the unique features of the Park that shaped fieldwork conditions and describes the relations between anthropologists and the brothers. Despite some skeptics, the great majority of anthropologists expressed a positive assessment of the brothers’ work. The article includes an appendix listing the anthropologists who worked in the Park …

Reverence And Reliance: Informing An Environmental Ethic, Malik Geraci

Charles Rice Post-Graduate Research Fellowship

This research fellowship studies the relationship between introduced religious identity and traditional cultural identity within indigenous communities as it relates to environmental conservation practices in Peru.

Chaos From Order: A Network Analysis Of In-Fighting Before And After El Chapo's Arrest, Darren Colby

Independent Student Projects and Publications

The effect of leadership decapitation—the capture or killing of the leader of an armed group—on future violence has been studied with competing conclusions. In Mexico, leadership decapitation has been found to increase violence and in-fighting among drug cartels. However, the causal pathways between leadership decapitation and in-fighting are unclear. In this article, it is hypothesized that leadership decapitation will weaken alliances between armed actors, lead to greater preferential attachment in networks of cartels and militias, and result in greater transitive closure as cartels seek to expand their power. These hypotheses are tested with a stochastic actor oriented model on a …

Murals In Motion: Mexican Muralism On The Silver Screen And Its Place In Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, Angela Michelle Sherman

Wayne State University Dissertations

This research focuses on Mexican Muralism as a part of an educational initiative introduced following the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Functioning as a didactic art form, the intention of the murals was to educate the masses about its history, new national identity and promising modern future. This work not only examines Mexican Muralism and its recurring themes and representation of Indigenous subjects, but also tracks the appearance of these images from mural walls to movie screens in Mexican film of the Golden age. Using the 21st century theory developed by Django Paris and Samy Alim, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, this work …

The Political Impact Of Evangelical Churches In Latin America: Case Studies Of Brazil And Venezuela, Isabella Castro

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis analyzes the impact of the Evangelical movement on politics in Latin America, through case studies on of revolutionary leftist Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and far right Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Both the Chávez and Bolsonaro political machineries reached out to the Evangelical movement and aligned themselves with new social and political actors associated with this movement. Though these two leaders promised very different programs, they both successfully sought the support of leaders and members of the Evangelical movement. The contradictory context of these two cases in terms of political platforms, their shared association with the Evangelical church, generates …

Documenting The Undocumented: Understanding Identity And Displacement Through U.S. Latinx Experiences, Thelma B. Quintanilla

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Undocumented migrants are a part of our daily lives, yet we rarely hear their stories or know who they really are; the word "undocumented" can have a negative connotation both within and outside the Latinx community and is often associated with criminals and various other negative stereotypes. This study aims to understand how identity is affected by documentation status and how that affects the undocumented and documented Latinx community, the experiences of Latinx people of different documentation status with connections to illegal immigration, and how they navigate through those experiences in the United States of America knowing that they are …

The Spanish Inquisitorial Process In Latin America And Racial Profiling Today: A Comparative Legal Study, Samantha M. Miller

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis analyzes the profiling practices of the Spanish Inquisition and explores how comparing these to present manifestations provides us a lens for understanding the phenomenon of racial profiling today. Irene Silverblatt notes that with reference to the Spanish Inquisition in colonial Peru, certain practices of the Inquisition constituted what could be called "racial profiling" in today's terminology. This thesis revisits Silverblatt's seminal observation and extends it to current questions of racial profiling, its nature, parameters, and the most notable differences and similarities between profiling during the Inquisition and racial profiling today, even as the enforcement in question shifts from …

Disrupted Identities And Forced Nomads: A Post-Disaster Legacy Of Neocolonialism In The Island Of Barbuda, Lesser Antilles, Sophia Perdikaris, Rebecca Boger, Edith Gonzalez, Emira Ibrahimpašić, Jennifer D. Adams

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

In the aftermath of the forced evacuation of the island of Barbuda due to Hurricane Irma, the Barbudan people have experienced an exile and return to a ‘new’ geographical, political, and economic context, albeit on the same island. With the specter of climate change and the potential impacts on island communities and nations, we use Barbuda, sister island of Antigua in the Lesser Antilles, to examine the trajectory of nomadic identities as they navigate changes that threaten contemporary land relationships and culture. Since its first permanent settlement in the 17th Century, the island geography of Barbuda has been fundamental to …

Visa Fraud In The Commercial Sex Market In The United States: An Overview, Youngbee Dale

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This paper describes various fraudulent visas used by criminals operating in the U.S. sex market. Studies show that many foreign women exploited through commercial sex rely on visa brokers to enter the U.S. However, scholars have not investigated various visa brokers and the techniques they use to bring foreign women into U.S. prostitution as a whole. Therefore, this paper aims to provide an overview of the different types of fraudulent visas and criminal techniques used in the U.S. sex market. In doing so, this paper relies on both primary and secondary sources, such as interviews with both survivors and U.S. …

La Voz Winter 2021, El Instituto: Institute Of Latina/O, Caribbean, And Latin American Studies

La Voz

In this issue you will find:

• MA Student Researches Takeover in Providence Schools
• Indigenous Language Survival in Colombian Amazon
• "Rise of the Latinx Vote"
• La Colectiva Virtual Conversation
• Mark Healey Wins SCHARP Award

Assimilating The Dominican Tourist: What Maps Tell Tourists In Puerto Plata About The Processes Of Capitalism And Imperialism, Amy Duncan

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The tourism industry in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic is dominated by foreign enterprise. Given the history of colonization in the Dominican Republic, the social dynamics in the tourism industry are imperialist by nature. This thesis seeks to understand how tourist maps are used to assimilate tourists into the social dynamics of Puerto Plata. To do this, it unravels existing literature on tourism in the Caribbean, the nature of the tourism industry in the Dominican Republic as well as its foreign benefactors, and foundational works on the sociological aspects of tourism.

The findings of this paper are that tourist maps seek …

Hollywood Imagines Revolutionary Haiti: The Forgotten Film Lydia Bailey (1952), Judith E. Smith

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

This essay explores the history of Lydia Bailey, the only US studio-made film to depict the Haitian Revolutionary period. It asks why, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, such an unlikely project might have seemed commercially promising enough to justify a significant production budget. The essay draws on private studio memos as well as public press discussions to shed light on the high stakes in debates over racial representation and colonialism/decolonization in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and to illuminate everyday assumptions of white supremacy as these shaped the making of the film and its promotion. Production files …

Redefiniendo La Protesta Indígena En Los Andes: Representaciones En (Y A Través De) La Literatura Y Los Medios Audiovisuales, Adriana Milena Rojas Castro

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The following thesis is a study of the Andean Region and the representation of Indigenous protest movements in novels and audiovisual productions from the twentieth century. Mainly, I focus on Indigenista novels (Raza de Bronce, El Mundo es Ancho y Ajeno, Huasipungo, and José Tombé), Oralitura (Oral literature traditions) from Indigenous authors like Fredy Chikangana and Elvira Espejo, and audiovisual productions from white/mestizos with collaboration and guide of Indigenous communities. This thesis discusses how audiovisual productions from white mestizos reinforce stereotypes about Indigenous protest movements established in Indigenista novels. In contrast, decolonization and redefinition of Indigenous protest movements occur in …

A Cultural Political Economy Of Corporate Social Responsibility : The Case Of C.I. Uniban S.A. And The Colombian Banana Industry, 1987-2017, David H. Uzzell Jr

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation concentrates on the banana sector in Urabá, Colombia from 1987 to 2017, paying particular attention to C.I. Uniban S.A., the largest and oldest banana marketing and export company in the country, its social foundation, Fundauniban, its marketing subsidiary Turbana Corporation, Agricola Sara Palma S.A. banana producers, and local communities in the region. Through an in-depth, qualitative case-study supported with insights from cultural political economy (CPE), it documents the local and global pressures that forced these actors to adopt and deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) to upgrade to compete in the global banana market. It makes the case that …

El Cyborg En El Papel : Virtualidad Digital En La Novela Hispanoamericana Contemporánea (2000-2018), Jaime Mundo

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

El propósito de esta disertación es explorar cómo la narrativa contemporánea hispanoamericana representa la virtualidad digital. La noción de virtualidad está influenciada por la teoría de la crítica cultural y literaria Katherine Hayles que argumenta que la virtualidad es la percepción cultural de que los objetos materiales están interpenetrados por patrones de información. La noción de virtualidad digital en esta tesis no apunta a un mundo alternativo, sino que está ligada a lo que sucede en el espacio de interacción entre el individuo y el dispositivo tecnológico. Las novelas analizadas en esta disertación crean una visión de sistemas y dispositivos …