It is clear that unmarried cohabitation is increasing in Chile. It is less clear what unmarried cohabitation is and why is it rising. In Latin America cohabitation is common among low income groups, and has been described as a surrogate marriage for the disadvantaged. Cohabitation in the region entails conventional gender roles and having children. It has been explained by colonial dominance, poverty, kinship, and machismo. The evidence amassed here indicates that although in practice cohabitation is similar to marriage, they are not the same. In fact, cohabitation has decreased social visibility. Cohabitation does not entail any social ceremony or rite. As it is not institutionalised it remains concealed from both social recognition and social scrutiny. Thus it tolerates partners who are dissimilar, or can be sustained despite a higher level of difficulties in a relationship. The findings validate previous research as cohabitation is sparked by pregnancy, parental tolerance - mainly through not enforcing marriage -, a close mother-son bond –which inhibits marriage-, and the material costs of marriage. The research follows a life course perspective. It is based on twenty four qualitative life histories of urban deprived young people, women and men, involved in a consensual union and with children. In Chile from the 1990s onwards cohabitation started to show a sharp increase. Prevalent views explain rising cohabitation as an outcome of processes of individualization, democratization of relationships, and female emancipation. This research suggests that rising cohabitation, among young people from low income groups in Chile, is linked to enhanced autonomy (i.e. declining patriarchy), and to social benefits targeted to single mothers. Young people are gaining autonomy as union formation is increasingly an outcome of romantic love and not of being forced into marriage. Furthermore cohabitation rose right at the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship, at a time of enhanced freedom and autonomy. By contrast, rising cohabitation does not seem to be related to female emancipation. Interviewees themselves reproduce conventional gender roles, and social policies targeted to the single mother are based on conventional views on womanhood.

Brazil’s healthcare system currently offers a wide range of contraception options and emergency contraception (EC) has been among them since the late 1990s. Abortion, however, is severely legally restricted and high rates of both teenage pregnancy and unsafe abortion plague the country. Given this context, levonorgestrel emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) could play a significant role women’s health and lives. This research aimed to examine the journey of this medication in Brazilian society and assess its availability in three cities located in different regions of the country. To address these research objectives, I performed a textual and discourse analysis of written materials as well as a mystery client study. Despite the wide availability of ECPs in retail pharmacies, I found that religious beliefs and conservative values still hinder accessibility. The results suggest that awareness raising campaigns are needed and long overdue. However, there is also a need to employ novel strategies for improving access and engaging healthcare professionals. Further research and advocacy related to women’s reproductive health and rights in general, and EC in particular, appears warranted.

The Latin American market for forest products is evaluated with emphasis on the economic, social, and political aspects influencing demand and trade. Canada's political, cultural and commercial relationships with Latin America are investigated and it is concluded that, currently, among the most important factors restricting a possible increase in trade with the area are: Canadian detachment from the Inter-American System and political isolation; reduced commerce with all countries south of the United States; trade patterns imposed by economic growth and by bilateral cooperation; and economic integration among the countries of the region. Trends indicate that as Latin America increases its financial wealth and income is distributed along more equitable lines, demand for industrial forest products will rise considerably. Estimates of demand for 1965, 1975 and 1985 are given. Emphasis is placed in distinguishing between six types of forest products: sawnwood; plywood and veneer; particle board; and wood pulp and paper. Identical treatment is given to the presentation of future estimates of production and net regional deficits. Net deficits in forest products are anticipated to be, by 1975, 50 thousand m³ of plywood and veneer; 150 thousand m³ of particle board; 400 thousand m³ of fibre board; 192 thousand tons of pulp; and 1.279 million tons of newsprint. The sawnwood sector is expected to supply all domestic demand and hopefully export to other regions of the world. Future import requirements are evaluated under the assumption that all regional producers will sell their production in Latin America, therefore, the trade deficits forecast are minimal. If, however, any producing country sells forest products outside the area, net deficits are expected to increase. Because Chile is the only net exporter of industrial forest products in Latin America, its future capacity for production is evaluated. Considerable, and in some cases total, competition to Canadian forest products in Latin America should be expected from Chilean exports. The Latin American Free Trade Association agreements are the key to the marketing success of such exports. The competitive characteristics of Canadian forest products are appraised and compared to those of other important suppliers to Latin America. Provided that the present trends in production and transportation costs remain unchanged, Canada should find no great difficulty in competing with the United States, the Baltic countries, or the Soviet Union in Latin America. Canada's position relative to Chile is also stressed and special references to the Central American common Market and Latin America Free Trade Association tariff regimes are made. It is concluded that there are excellent opportunities for Canada to increase its trade in forest products with the Latin American countries, particularly with respect to newsprint and other pulp and paper products. In order to realize this potential, however, it would be necessary for the Canadian forest industries to develop a more aggressive sales strategy in the region. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

This thesis examines the case of Mexico as middle power. More precisely, it tries to see what were the limitations and possibilities that Mexico faced in the period 2000-2012, while trying to engage more in the international system and rise its international profile. The PAN governments that were in power at that time devoted much of their energy trying to better international position of Mexico, and implicitly the thesis will answer the question of how successful were their strategies.

This Master's Degree Thesis is devoted to the study of Foreign Trade Development between the Czech Republic and those Latin American countries to which the CR attributes territorial preferences, i.e. Brazil and Mexico. International trade has gained a lot on importance in the past century, distances became shorter and the world globalized. Businesses search for new markets, new challenges and new clients. Czech companies are following the same trends. Mexico and Brazil are becoming important partners. Over the years of existence of the CR the mutual exchange with these two countries increased eight times and there are still a lot of unexploited possibilities. Brazil and Mexico are two fast growing countries with more than 100 million inhabitants. Even though they rank among poorer countries, the level of life of their inhabitants is rising and the effective demand as well. Czech products have a very good reputation in these areas, still leveraging the advantage of the well-perceived label "Made in Czechoslovakia", which has always been considered a guarantee of quality. Currently Czech products are considered as having good price-quality rapport, the best combination the client can wish. In this thesis, I am characterizing the political and economical situation of Brazil and Mexico, taking insight into the development of trade exchange between the CR and these two countries, mentioning fairs and other actions to support Czech products in the Brazilian and Mexican markets, introducing the reader to the culture of those regions and describing the situation of actual Czech companies present on the Brazilian market. I am convinced that the possibilities of collaboration between the CR and these two countries aren't yet fully exploited and that there will be a continuous growth in mutual trade exchange.

"Reading the Narcosphere: A Queer Hemispheric Critique of Narco Cultural Production," analyzes the emergence of contemporary drug politics (drug trade and drug war) as a dominant cultural narrative of the public sphere, producing what I call the narco-sphere. Drawing from theories on sexuality, subjectivity and biopolitics, I examine the intractability and interconnectedness of social relations of race, gender, and class in narco cultural production by building on critical work in social and political theory as well as narco studies. Rather than merely reflecting on the effects of the ongoing drug war, narco cultural texts about Colombia, Mexico, and the U.S.-Mexico border produce relations of power that while intending to critique drug culture and neoliberalism, reify complicit social hierarchies through discourses of difference that promote marginalization and exclusion of vulnerable subjects. Through readings of cultural texts such as Jorge Franco's Rosario Tijeras, Lourdes Portillo’s Señorita Extraviada, Fernando Vallejo's Our Lady of the Assassins, and Luis Estrada’s film El Infierno, I further demonstrate how the social relations portrayed are not simply endemic to the drug trade and the drug war but instead are deployments of power in accordance with neoliberalism and neocolonialism. Through my notion of the narco-sphere and a queer critique, I offer a more incisive way to read difference within western hemispheric cultural politics.

Peronism has been one of the most widely used terms in the context of Argentinean politics, history and culture over the last 60 years. In spite of the fact that there is no official definition of the term, many different political strategies in Argentina are referred to as Peronist. Why is it so complicated to define the concept of Peronism? What does it really mean when Argentinean presidents claim to be Peronists? This thesis is based on the hypothesis that Peronism is primarily brand of political populist projects. The first chapter classifies the concept of populism, the second chapter deals with the particular populism in Latin America and the third chapter analyzes the individual mandates of Peronist presidents. The analysis strongly supports the working hypothesis.

This thesis concerns the marketing, appropriation and consumption of affect in contemporary Cuban tourism. Since its rapid development to generate hard currency during the economic crisis of the 1990s, tourism has become the centre of the Cuban economy. More recently, following the radical reforms brought in under Raúl Castro, changes in private enterprise ventures have expanded touristic contact spaces beyond the previous controls of the formal sector. A range of services has emerged, responding to tourists’ demands to have an intimate, authentic experience of Cuba. Using the lens of affective capital, this study combines a consideration of this complex, rapidly-changing context with two further facets of the phenomenon: an analysis of the affective dimensions of Cuba’s representation in touristic texts, such as marketing, guidebooks, travel literature and online forums, and a discussion of the affective negotiations between host and guest on the ground. The strategic appropriation of affective capital identified in this thesis offers an original perspective on revolutionary Cuba’s tourism development. The resurgence of sex tourism since the resurrection of the tourism industry has been the dominant focus of previous scholarship, ignoring the wider ‘market of feelings’ that operates through tourism. In particular, approaches have been quick to emphasise the incongruity of prostitution in the context of revolutionary socialism, offering one-dimensional analyses of the state and the Cuban population. In addition, approaches from Tourism Studies have tended to be tourist-centric. This thesis draws together these actors with a dialogic approach in order to reveal some key complexities. The mixed methods approach combines textual analysis with some participative methods, carried out during a fieldwork trip in 2012, to address the connections between the lived realities of affective capital in Cuban tourism, the discourses that constitute it, and the social context. The findings reveal that Cuba is cast as a site of affective wealth through certain discourses and practices of tourism. Firstly, in describing the ways that Cuba is articulated through affective codes in touristic texts, this research reconfigures approaches to tourism’s world-making function through the framework of symbolic capital; it challenges the idea that revolutionary tourism policy is one-dimensional. Secondly, in looking at the lived realities of these discourses, the thesis critically addresses the kinds of negotiations relating to emotional work, bad feelings, and currency by both parties of the tourist encounter; this perspective extends important scholarship on tourism and affect in new directions based on the specificity of the Cuban context.

News media consumption is vital to understanding democracy in Latin America. Democracy in the region lacks consolidation that may be encouraged by the ability of news media to shape individuals' political attitudes and behaviors. Yet, we know very little about how citizens of Latin American countries consume news media or how that consumption affects attitudes and behavior. This study offers a region-wide examination of the factors that shape news media consumption and the effects of that consumption on individuals in the region. To explore this topic, I examine survey data from the 2008 Latin American Public Opinion Project in 18 Latin American countries. I argue that news media promote democratic attitudes and political behavior by increasing the symbolic value of democracy and by supplementing those symbols with information that further encourages democratic attitudes and political participation. Additionally, political behavior is not temporally proximate to political behaviors such as voting. This necessitates a mediated path for news media consumption to influence participation through political interest, civil society participation and democratic attitudes. My findings illustrate that each news medium type (TV, radio, newspaper) must be considered separately from each other type. I find that news media consumption has little effect on attitudes. The effect of news media consumption on behavior is best understood as mediated paths through political interest and civil society participation. An additional analysis examines the state of internet use in the region. In total, this project offers a broad understanding of how news media consumption affects individual-level democracy in Latin America.

Latin American film comedies, from the early sound period until the beginnings of the aesthetic and political New Cinemas (1930-1960), mediated modernity in diverse national contexts through affective and aesthetic tactics that shifted the spectator position in the narrative. These film comedies functioned in a mode of "critical realism" that produced historical self-awareness and foregrounded the geopolitical extension and uneven development of modernity. The comedian comedies of Mario "Cantinflas" Moreno (Mexico), Niní Marshall and Luis Sandrini (Argentina), and Oscarito and Grande Otelo (Brazil) demonstrate not only what kind of "peripheral humor" operated within - and traveled beyond - the national context, but also what this kind of humorous social critique reveals about the capacity of film to move viewers, by means of affect, into positions of critical opposition in the public sphere. By examining the linguistic play of these comedians, this study demonstrates four aspects of Latin American comedy that operate via embodiment and spatio-temporal location. First, Cantinflismo had as its basis not merely word play and non-sense, but misdirection, an evasive spatial practice which positioned the viewer to resist social hierarchies within and beyond the nation. Second, Marshall's multiple radio and film characters and her vocal stardom constituted an auditory map of Buenos Aires that created a different spatial intelligibility for her auditors. Third, Sandrini's stutter produced multiple temporalities that, in turn, positioned the audience itself to do a double take regarding its relation to the film text and its location within the standardized time of modernity. Fourth, the palimpsestic parody of the Brazilian chanchanda by Oscarito and Grande Otelo produced an awareness of historicity in a critically realist vein. Taken together, these four parallel examples of comedic practice demonstrate how Latin American film comedies produced a critically proximate spectator capable of perceiving and organizing space and time differently. Affirming that the study of popular film genres should be seen neither as derivate of foreign models nor as defensive authentic cultural expression, the thesis argues that articulating Miriam Hansen's concept of vernacular modernism to Angel Rama's concept of transculturation yields an understanding of popular cinema as a cultural practice of embodiment that foregrounds the differentiated responses to modernization. Furthermore, by re-reading the theories of realism of Gyorgy Lukács and Siegfried Kracauer and the theories of mimesis and innervation of Walter Benjamin through the critical lenses of Henri Bergson and debates about realism in the Latin American literary boom, this study demonstrates how the humor is contingent on thinking within a particular historical context and becoming part of a located collective body. These film comedies produce a critically proximate humorous spectator moved in laughter to examine his/her relation to the film text and his/her historical and geopolitical location within a cultural landscape marked by economic dependency.