Latin American Studies Commons^™

Cardiovascular Health Among Us And Argentine University Students: A Comparative Study Of Behaviors And Risk Factors, Gina Fitzgerald, Gabriella Smith

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Cardiovascular disease for some time has been the leading cause of death in the Western world. Primary prevention is the only way to halt the onset of cardiovascular disease, yet there is little information on the prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease in young adults. This study seeks to evaluate students from the Catholic University of Argentina and Pepperdine University of America for the prevalence of CVD risk factors, as well as knowledge of CVD and daily habits that contribute to heart health. Thus we compared two cultures with very different lifestyles and prevalence of risk factors. We hypothesized …

Ressentiment, Violence, And Colonialism, Jose A. Haro

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project attempts a joint reading of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Frantz Fanon. This task, however, is problematic because this body of work is in tension or contradictory. These problems are so acute that a careful reading method is necessary to successfully carry out this reading. In order to facilitate this reading I elaborate and apply a particular philosophical methodology, Mestizaje. The methodology is intended to address works that are contradictory by attempting to read the texts as they are presented while at the same time balancing their positions. The goal is to honestly reflect the thought of …

The Latin-American Laboratory For Assessment Of The Quality Of Education: Measuring And Comparing Educational Quality In Latin America (Superseded Version), Australian Council For Educational Research

Assessment GEMS

The Laboratorio Latinoamericano de Evaluación de la Calidad de la Educación (Latin-American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education or LLECE) is the network of national systems for the assessment of education quality in Latin America, created in 1994, and coordinated by UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC). LLECE’s purpose is to produce data and knowledge that inform educational policy in the region, contribute to capacity building, and serve as a forum for reflection, exchange and generation of new ideas and good practices in education evaluation. LLECE assessments aim to provide information about …

On The Fence, Emily G. Hauck

SURGE

Over a hundred years ago, my great-great grandmother fled Germany by herself to come to the United States to escape the abuse of her father. She had no connections in this country and nowhere to go. That same century my ancestors from Ireland crossed the Atlantic to make a better life in America. They were discriminated against for their religion and for their nationality.

Ana* and her husband, two hardworking Mexicans, paid a coyote to help them cross the Rio Grande into the United States ten years ago. They saw no future for their two young girls in Mexico and …

Leaders, Ideas, National Interests, And Economic Strategies: Explaining The Regional Integration Decisions Of Mexico And Brazil, Roberto Genoves

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Regional integration agreements (RIAs) facilitate economic integration by allowing member countries access to each other's markets and by removing or reducing trade and investment barriers. Their increasing influence on international patterns of trade and investment flows has stimulated substantial academic work. Yet, scholars note that we lack an adequate comprehension of the factors that cause governments to seek RIAs, and why they prefer a particular type of integration arrangement. These are important questions because they speak to the forces that shape cooperation among states, a vital issue in international relations with implications for global governance.

Using an eclectic analytical approach, …

Cadê O Mico? Where Is The Tamarin?: Locating Monkeys In The Politics Of Land And Conservation In Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Analía Villagra

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The golden lion tamarin is a small, endangered monkey found in only a few municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This dissertation explores the project to conserve this rare primate, a project that links together agrarian reform, forest restoration, agroforestry, and conservation biology. Informed by Brazil's social and political history, and drawing from 12 months of fieldwork conducted in 2008 and 2010, this dissertation argues that by looking carefully at and for the tamarin, we discover the interrelated political, social, and animal relationships that weave together to produce conservation in southeastern Brazil.

El Oficio De La Escritura Y La Estetica En La Obra De Roberto Bolano, Ainoa Inigo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims at attaining a general understanding of the aesthetics and philosophy on the practice of writing of Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003), the Chilean poet and writer, through interpretive devices developed by him and by extrinsic means. Bolaño claimed that his works stemmed from a pre-extant poetic universe, so that each work is interrelated thematically with the rest of the oeuvre and individually representative of the totality.

Throughout the works analyzed, our two primary questions--the aesthetical and ethical--intercept while we examine his understanding of the role of the writer and literature itself. Estrella distante (1996), Los detectives salvajes (1998) and …

Roundup Ready Nation: The Political Ecology Of Genetically Modified Soy In Argentina, Amalia Leguizamon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a case study of agrarian transformation in an agro-export society, Argentina. I study the process of adoption of the technological package of genetically modified (GM) soy in the Argentine countryside, its socio-ecological consequences, and Argentines' responses to it. In particular, this research addresses Argentina's unique situation of being a developing country that has positively embraced the biotechnology of GM seeds as a key accumulation strategy without the emergence of major contestation against GM soy monocropping. In order to answer the puzzle of quiescence, I look at how power relations structure access to social and environmental goods and …

"A New Way Of Doing Politics": The Movement Against Cafta In Costa Rica, Jeremy Rayner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In October of 2007, Costa Ricans voted in a referendum to ratify a Free Trade Agreement with the United States (DR-CAFTA, or CAFTA). The first referendum in their nation's history--and the first referendum ever held on a Free Trade Agreement--marked the culmination of a cycle of contention over liberalization that transformed practices and expectations of politics in a country often considered an exemplar of representative democracy. In this dissertation I provide an account of the opposition to CAFTA (the NO), based on two years of ethnographic research with the Patriotic Committees (Comites Patrioticos), the decentralized, grassroots network at the heart …

Fearless: Emily Hauck, Emily G. Hauck

SURGE

Beginning with an interest in Spanish language that led her to Argentina and Spain, Emily decided to use the language skills she acquired during her gap year after high school and time spent studying abroad to get herself connected to the Latino community in Adams County. Volunteering with different organizations and programs like the LIU #12 Migrant Education Programs, Casa de la Cultura, and El Centro, Emily started seeing the big picture—making connections between the immigration stories, people she was meeting, and the greater national dialogue on immigration issues. [excerpt]

I'Ve Seen The Promised Land: A Letter To Amelia Boynton Robinson, Mauricio E. Novoa

SURGE

You asked if I had any thoughts or comments at the end of our visit, and I stood and said nothing. I opened my mouth, but instead of giving you words my throat was sealed by a dam of speechlessness while my eyes wept out all the emotions and heartache that I wanted to share with you. The others in my group were able to express their admiration, so I wanted to do the same. [excerpt]

Unintended Consequences: Reverberations Of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Lauren Heidbrink

Faculty Publications

This paper details the socio-legal factors that shape the relationship between the child, the family, and the state, and the ways unaccompanied migrant children’s lives have come to be defined and contested. The legal identity of migrant children is socially situated within a history that intertwines social movements of helping professionals, legal jurisdictions characterized by increasingly intolerant approaches to juveniles, and shifts in the treatment of unauthorized migrant youth under immigration law over time. In a globalized world, this triangular relationship between children, families, and the state becomes increasingly complex and dynamic. Social policies and legal norms often lag far …

Meaningful International Service Learning Experiences: Looking At The Reciprocal Nature Of Reflection And Group Connection, Emily M. Neer

VA Engage Journal

International service learning trips can provide meaningful and deep experiences where students are impacted and challenged by these experiences. In order to maximize the experience, one must understand the reciprocal relationship between reflection and group connection. In this critical reflection I will explore the ways in which reflection and group connection reciprocate each other in an international service-learning context. I discuss three concepts that I believe play crucial roles in this reciprocal relationship and their roles in three different contexts of the service immersion experience. These three concepts are reflection, stability, and vulnerability. They are explained within the contexts of …

El Salvador At A Crossroads: Salvadorans Speak Out About The War, Repatriation, And Their Hopes For The Future, Ralph L. Corrigan

Sacred Heart University Press Books

Day-by-day account of a faculty mission from Sacred Heart University (Fairfield, CT) to El Salvador in 1992 after the signing of the peace accords that ended the civil war. Provides a well-documented glimpse of a moment in time when the Salvadorans began to reclaim their lives, rebuild their communities, and look to the future --Amazon.com.

Subjugated Bodies, Normalized Subjects: Representations Of Power In The Panamanian Literature Of Roberto Díaz Herrera, Rose Marie Tapia And Mauro Zúñiga Araúz, Sara Escobar-Wiercinski

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation examines the dissemination of power represented in the works of Panamanian writers Roberto Díaz Herrera, Rose Marie Tapia and Mauro Zúñiga Araúz. My work focuses on two important periods in Panama's history: the repressive dictatorial era of Manuel Noriega and the post-dictatorial era during which subjugation and power operate in subtle ways, through institutions, mechanisms of civil society, and globalization. The primary sources are Díaz Herrera's testimony, and the novels of Tapia and Zúñiga Araúz. In my analysis, I draw upon the notions of power, subjugation and normalization developed by the French philosoher Michel Foucault. I also draw …

The Belizean Environment, Lauren Marie Bach

Service-Learning

Lauren Bach's 2014 service-learning presentation on the environment in Belize.

Que No Te Eduque La Rosa De Guadalupe - Stereotypes In Telenovelas, Ana Gomez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Gender-based discrimination and gender-based violence prevail in cultures where sexism and violence are usual. According to feminist organizations our best solution is education from an early age. However, in places where means of formal education are scarce, we may turn to alternative solutions such as television. Television has been examined in multiple studies for its role in the formation of gender, and other type of stereotypes. But also it has been considered a useful tool in challenging traditional notions about gender and in helping to promote social change. For this reason, a textual analysis was conducted on La Rosa de …

In Search Of Refuge: Mexican Refugees And Asylum Seekers To The U.S. From 1980 To The Present, Taylor Kristine Levy

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

An estimated 130,000 Mexicans have been murdered since 2006, with another 27,000 having been officially "disappeared;" approximately 2-3% of the adult Mexican population has been forced to leave their homes due to this violence, many of whom have entered the United States seeking refuge (Molloy, 2013; Olivares, 2012). These refugees have emigrated using a variety of both authorized and unauthorized channels, with a significant (and increasing) number applying for political asylum in the United States (Lyst, 2013). This Thesis seeks to provide a historic background and comprehensive analysis of the identity and struggles of the four types of modern Mexican …

The Evolutionary Fitness Of Personality Traits In A Small-Scale Subsistence Society, Michael Gurven, Christopher Von Rueden, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan, Daniel Eid Rodriguez

ESI Publications

"Personality, or “behavioral syndromes”, are relatively stable dispositional traits and behaviors that have now been identified in a myriad of social species (Gosling, 2001; Sih et al., 2004), and with clear consequences on fitness (Smith & Blumstein, 2008). The canalization of personality during development and relative stability thereafter, despite varying circumstances over the life course that might otherwise favor greater plasticity, is an important problem attracting much theoretical and empirical attention (Dall et al., 2004; Dingemanse et al., 2010). Further, personality is highly heritable, yet how heritable genetic variation in personality traits is maintained over generations remains another conundrum (Buss …

A Paradox In Development: Exploring The Obesity Pandemic In Latin America, Laila G. Heid

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to explain the obesity pandemic in Latin America and identify the factors of development contributing to the pandemic. The paper uses the framework of the nutrition transition as presented by Barry Popkin to trace consumption patterns and changes in dietary habits in the region. The paper looks at three case studies: Mexico and Chile, two countries with high obesity rates, and Peru, the country with the lowest obesity rate in South America. This comparative framework is intended to determine which conditions are necessary for obesity, which conditions are sufficient for obesity, and any conditions …