Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 239-256).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-170). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-170). Also available on the Internet.

In the belief that the disappointing rate of growth of Argentina since the 1930s was the consequence of excessive government meddling in the economy, in the mid-1970s the military government took the decision to attempt a radical change in the development strategy: the model of industrialisation based on import substitution was replaced by one based on the conviction that faster economic growth would result if market forces were given free rein, with the State taking a back seat. The de-regulation of the repressed financial system and the opening up of the economy to the world capital markets following the neo-classical principles in vogue at that time was the cornerstone of the new model of accumulation. It was believed that this would lead to higher rates of savings and investment coupled with a more efficient allocation of resources. This study uses the new information economics approach to explain why this experiment culminated in a dramatic financial collapse and generated a severe economic downturn with long-term consequences for the country.

In addition to labor market factors, the informal economy in Latin America is explained as a product of a weak state capacity to enforce regulation and a networked and resourceful community that enables self-sustained economic activities. Theoretically,informal self-employment flourishes where these conditions prevail. However, as urban renewal advances and business chains expand thorough the city, street trade, one of the most typical informal occupations is persecuted more aggressively, questioning its legitimacy as a spatial practice and source of employment for the urban poor. This dissertation examines the changes in the conception of street trade as a subject of policy, by analyzing closely how current transformations in the urban structure, ideologies of urban development and planning have impacted in the way policy makers intervene in public space and have redefined practices of street trade. It compares the cities of Bogotá and Lima, contributing respectively, to the understanding of progressive and neoliberal styles of urban planning. Using a mixed methods research design, it articulates citywide trends with local conditions and individual experiences, following three stages of analysis: (1) A comparative policy analysis based on a descriptive analysis of its evolution across scales and a spatial analysis of the local variability of enforcement patterns, identifying not only vendors’ agglomeration factors but also where enforcement matches the expansion of large retailers; (2) a comparative analysis based on public officials interviews of current rationales behind placemaking strategies at the city and local level; and (3) a comparative analysis of street vendors spatial practices as well as economic and political choices given the different city policy frameworks and their exposure to distinctive enforcement patterns as identified in the spatial analysis. The findings of this study provide a baseline for further theorization of the role of spatial dimension as it relates to the informal sector. The systematic comprehension of the relationship between city regulation of space and its actual use aims to contribute to a more integrative approach to policy making seeking to ensure that regulation and commercial growth complement and do not burden opportunities for self-employment among the urban poor. / text

This dissertation analyzes the pluralist religious claims that ethnically and racially diverse Muslim American communities make on the public and political culture of Hamtramck, Michigan. These claims include appeals for recognition, such as in a campaign for municipal approval to issue the call to prayer. They involve bids for resources, such as the use of public funds to establish alternative Muslim-majority public education institutions. They entail struggles for representation, such as political interventions into LGBTQ-rights debates to safeguard a “traditional” moral order in the city. The study also examines how transnational Islamic frameworks for organizing gender and public space influence the civic engagement strategies of South Asian and Arab American Muslim women respectively, in ways that sometimes challenge dominant gendered spatial norms. With this, the study explores women’s leadership in mosques and religious study circles, examining how gender and generation shape female religious authority, and also present opportunities for women to cross racial, class, and ethnic lines within the city. Postulating a charged, dynamic and mutually constitutive connection between the development of religious, racial, and ethnic identities and the production urban space, the study analyzes how individual and collective forms of minority identity find expression in urban public and political projects, and how liberal secular frameworks in turn condition the production of minority religious sensibilities, affiliations, and practices in American cities. In analyzing how these dynamics shape civic life and local politics, the study approaches Hamtramck as a "post-secular city," or a zone of interchange and heterogeneity in which religious, secular, and humanistic frames of reference converge to configure new possibilities for urban change. This work advances interdisciplinary scholarship on how religion impacts the civic engagement of immigrants and minorities; on how gender systems are preserved, challenged, or transformed in migration; and on how diverse communities living in close proximity negotiate conflicting ideas about the common good. / text

Map-making is viewed among many planners, geographers, and anthropologists as a necessary first step in achieving land claims for indigenous communities in Latin America. However, map-making has yet to result in a land claim for any indigenous group, but the effects of establishing boundaries and claiming territories that have been traditionally shared are contentious. Through a literature review and interviews with three practitioners, this paper will critically examine the role of participatory ethnomapping on indigenous communities in Latin America, specifically their efforts to demarcate territory, procure land claims, and use these land claims to plan for social and economic development. / text

While the Cold War in Latin America has been examined from a variety of angles, the scholarship on Soviet-Latin American relations is thin, outdated, and based almost totally on published sources. Moreover, much of the literature is replete with misconceptions about the nature of the Soviet approach to the Western Hemisphere and the relationship between Moscow and its regional allies. Using a case study approach, and based on substantial research in the archives of the former Soviet Union, this dissertation argues that Moscow’s approach to Latin America was more cautious and pragmatic than ideological and messianic. Rather than attempting to extend their control over the region, the Soviets instead sought to pry Latin American regimes away from dependence on the United States and to encourage the region to adopt a non-aligned foreign policy. To a degree heretofore not sufficiently appreciated, this approach involved the clever use of international organizations, particularly the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement. Moreover, Latin American communists and Soviet sympathizers were hugely influential in shaping Moscow’s perceptions of the region and its relationship to the United States, and in pressuring Soviet leaders to provide more support to their regional allies. / text

This thesis defines and offers explanations for the distribution, range, and behavior of Striated Caracaras, coastal raptors of far southern South America. Like other caracara species, Striated Caracaras are relatively social, nest in dense aggregations where food is abundant, and feed largely by scavenging and opportunism. Unlike other caracaras, however, their distribution and range are severely restricted; they live only on the outermost islands of the Falklands/Malvinas archipelago and the Fuego-Patagonian islands of southernmost Argentina and Chile. Striated Caracaras' morphological differences from their closest relatives in the genus Phalcoboenus (which inhabit alpine habitats in the Andes) suggest a period of isolation from their sister species, resulting in speciation by vicariance. A possible mechanism for this isolation is the Patagonian Ice Sheet, which spread over much of southern South America during glacial epochs. During these periods, the sub-Antarctic Falkland archipelago and islands to the south and east of Tierra del Fuego appear to have remained largely ice-free, and probably acted as glacial refuges for colonial seabirds and pinnipeds, as well as for the ancestors of Striated Caracaras. On these islands, Striated Caracaras developed a dependence on the food resources that seabird and pinniped colonies provide, and a preference for their habitat - seacoasts fringed with the giant grass Paradiochloa flabellata. In these coastal environments, selection probably favored the tools that Striated Caracaras use today to exploit the seabird colonies' resources. These tools include large size (to handle large prey species), strong talons and bills, ease of movement on the ground (both for foraging in seabird colonies and precise mobility in near-constant strong winds), and good night vision (to capture burrowing petrels as they return to colonies at night). The caracaras' curious, opportunistic nature (to which they are ancestrally disposed) would have been preserved and perhaps enhanced, due to the necessity of investigating any potential resource during winter months when seabird colonies are vacant. A philopatric tendency might also have developed, as outside of seabird colonies food is scarce and chances of breeding are slim. Isolation in the islands' relatively simple ecosystems probably had another evolutionary effect, typical among island species - it deprived caracaras of defensive adaptations they might have once possessed, including wariness toward potential predators and nesting in inaccessible locations. The result was "ecological naivete", a phenomenon in which species that evolve in simple ecosystems lose (or simply lack) behavioral and morphological traits necessary for survival in more complex environments. Striated Caracaras demonstrated this naivete in encounters with humans in the 19th and 20th centuries, whom the birds approached without fear and by whom they were heavily persecuted. Even after decades of persecution by farmers in the Falklands, Striated Caracaras "had not learnt that man is dangerous" (J Hamilton 1922). They remain so today. A tourist guidebook refers to the birds as "charmingly tame"; islanders are more likely to call them "cheeky" but are increasingly tolerant of them, as wildlife tourism has become a major source of income. The caracaras' ecological naivete also probably restricts them from the more complex South American mainland, where mammalian predators (including humans) and other caracara species are common and food sources are not as concentrated or dependable as the coastal seabirds and pinnipeds. Thus, Striated Caracaras' preference for a habitat and resource set to which they are well-adapted, combined with the loss of defensive behaviors that might protect them from the hazards of the mainland, may leave them essentially "trapped" within their current range. Present-day threats to Striated Caracaras include habitat destruction due to exotic predators and browsers, threats from fisheries and global climate change to the seabirds and marine ecosystems on which the caracaras depend, and the intrinsic genetic pressures of the caracaras' small population size.