A great majority of the intellectuals in the post-independence period in Latin America tend to be preoccupied with distancing themselves from European culture by attempting to answer the question: ques Quienes somos? (Who are we?) and ques Como somos? (How are we?) This was a vital step in the process of decolonization. While national intellectuals attempted to define who they were, they invariably extended their particular reality to mean 'national reality.' This dissertation will investigate the process by which national writers attempted to define their national identity, by looking closely at the case of the Brazilian and Cuban intellectuals from 1930-1964 In forging a national consciousness, dominant intellectuals exploited salient national symbols, which emerged out of the context of the 1930s. Under different historical circumstances, however, challenges to the dominant myths began to emerge in both countries. Black intellectuals and nationalists, in particular, had their own views about their national image In the cases of both Cuba and Brazil, black intellectuals were no less patriotic or nationalistic than their white counterparts. In any case, the national myths were so forceful that they became almost impossible to discredit. The transition to the new political generation in the 1960s and the continued use of the dominant national myths underscored this truth Both Cuba and Brazil, experienced revolutions in the 1960s that were more conservative, from an intellectual perspective, than the revolutions of the 1930s. The effect on the intellectual community was remarkably similar in regards to the issue of national culture This study is interested in the mechanism by which the national state and nationalist intellectuals forged a national cultural identity. With access to the major means of communication, the dominant intellectuals, from the right or the left, succeeded in propagating their idea of culture, which was remarkably similar, through the major mediums of communication. The purpose of this dissertation is to present in a succinct fashion the process by which national inculcation occurs and to point out in a broader context how economic and ethnic minorities are co-opted by patriotism / acase@tulane.edu

The Orisha religion of Trinidad is a complex system of beliefs and practices drawn from a number of cultural traditions. Its beginnings in Trinidad can be traced back to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when Africans were brought to the island to work on the colonial sugar plantations Sometime during the early developmental period of the primarily Yoruba (Nigerian) derived Orisha religion, syncretism involving specific elements of Catholicism occurred. In the early part of this century, the Orisha religion underwent further change as a result of contact with the Spiritual Baptists, an Afro-Protestant religion comprised primarily of worshipers drawn from the same socio-economic and ethnic class as that of the Orisha religion. Since 1950, various elements drawn from Hinduism and the Kabbalah were added to the existing religious system. The result is a highly eclectic system that is so broad ideologically that a number of disparate worship patterns are tolerated. The exploration and utilization of these various patterns often leads to confusion and conflict The present form and structure of the Orisha religion is the result of both centrifugal forces which are tending to further expand the religious system and centripetal forces which are acting to temper this change. Those mechanisms that engender variability include the loose organizational structure of the religion, fiercely independent shrine heads whose success and popularity is often judged by their ability to handle a diverse system of ritual and paraphernalia, and methods of knowledge transmission and enculturation which involve a few passing on information to the many. Those mechanisms which act against the forces of change include the annual feast circuit, which brings together worshipers from all over the island on a weekly basis, and Africanization, an anti-assimilative and anti-syncretic movement that emphasizes the retention of African elements and the expurgation of extraneous elements from the religious system, especially those of Catholicism This symbolically rich and sometimes confusing religion is examined both historically and ethnographically in an attempt to both describe and explain the various processes that have acted to transform it through time / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation examines the articulation of macro and micro processes in relation to the pan-Maya movement in Guatemala. I argue that the form of the pan-Maya movement is not determined solely by its internal structures, as theories of nativism and revitalization would suggest, nor solely by global processes, as a world system approach would predict. Rather, the pan-Maya movement is shaped through the articulation of national, local, and global systems The pan-Maya movement operates at a national level in Guatemala, and the actions of the Guatemalan state, particularly its security forces, restrict the range of pan-Mayanist activism. Nonetheless, pan-Maya activists have taken advantage of changes in the post-Cold War global political economy to colonize a space for themselves in the competitive Guatemalan political arena. Pan-Maya leaders promote an ideology of cultural and ethnic pride, hoping to unite the diverse Maya groups into an effective political constituency. The cultural goals of pan-Mayanists fall outside of the confrontation between the Guatemalan Left and Right, and thus are largely seen by political and military leaders as innocuous The urban-based, educated leaders of the pan-Maya movement have been seen by many analysts as far removed from the realities of daily life in Maya communities. In comparing local cultural forms in Patzun and Tecpan to the national ideology of pan-Mayanism, however, I find many points of convergence. I explain these findings by postulating the existence of certain essential paradigms of Maya culture, shared by urban pan-Mayanists and rural Maya agriculturalists alike. These persistent paradigms provide the foundation for cultural innovation at the local as well as the national level, and result in the pan-Maya ideology being consistent with local cultural strategies The fact that culture can provide the basis for mobilization at various levels of aggregation is particularly relevant to the field of development. The pan-Maya movement shows that cultural issues can act to vertically integrate segments of a population, thus allowing development strategies formulated at a national level to harness cultural energy through grassroots participation / acase@tulane.edu

Hostility, terrorism, and capital crime still corrupt man's quality of life. In trying to analyze, or even reconcile, the aggressive or hostile behavior of one person to another, or of one group to another, investigators and authors have cast their findings and arguments into the sphere of objectivity--only to find that subjectivity itself infuses nebulous terminology, a reliance on 'judgment,' and validation only in outcome and not in process. The quest here is to show that hatred is a legitimate emotion for study, that it has historical and philosophical grounds for that legitimacy, and that its study is important to the furtherance of the quality of life. Behavior itself can be measured and analyzed objectively; the motivation behind that behavior, however, whether of terrorism, child abuse, or the setting of policy for international relations, rests in the subjective sphere and thus necessitates newer approaches to analysis / acase@tulane.edu

Ethnographic interviews (n = 62) in the congregations of Huntsville, Texas provide a basis to interpret religious statements in a small American community. These statements were found to contain coding devices which function primarily to distinguish denominational groups from one another rather than functioning to represent what a group 'believes.' Analysis of the interview tape recordings revealed 28 rhetorical coding devices which were used on 14 binary continua. Each rhetorical coding device had an opposite coding device which occurred in a group with a different denominational identity. The most prevalent coding devices related to baptism. The 14 coding device continua used tangible symbolic distinctions related to the human body, including gender, or group customs much more often than they used abstract theological distinctions. The coding devices functioned to maintained community social solidarity to support the institutional aims of the local law enforcement sub-culture operating eight area prison units / acase@tulane.edu

This study analyzes government development, promotion, and patronage of the three largest festivals in Mexico City from the 1530s to Independence, although particular emphasis is placed on the 17th century. The three festivals--the inaugural entrance of the viceroy, the oath of allegiance to the king and the celebration of Corpus Christi--were utilized as tools of hegemonic control. Diverse groups were captivated and entertained by the State in order to combat dissent and violence and to reaffirm institutional legitimacy in a time of demographic change, economic stagnation and rebellion. Spectacle was propagandistic and directed toward a multitude of anonymous yet potentially disruptive individuals i.e. Native Americans and castas Government sponsorship of these three festivals reflected elite perception of political realities and local concerns in the capital, and, the change in the ruling philosophies of the two reigning dynasties, the Habsburgs and the Bourbons. The Habsburgs viewed the festivals as a duty, an essential part of governing. Festival patronage kept the people happy and enhanced the image of the State by demonstrating its generosity even at the expense of sound fiscal policy. Government sponsorship of the spectacle created a symbolic social contract whereby hosting a festival the State maintained its right to rule. This perception was not shared by the Bourbon authorities who charged that certain festivals were merely excuses for subversive and licentious behavior. In addition, eighteenth-century officials sponsored festivals in accordance with a renewed emphasis on the monarch compatible with Enlightened despotism This study discusses the evolution of each festival from its beginnings in the 16th century to its festive apogee in the late 17th century and to alterations made by 18th-century authorities. Thus this study examines the specifics of official Habsburg and Bourbon policy regarding the three festivals presented and the myriad of symbols utilized to convey the message of acceptance, loyalty, and legitimacy to the populace. The significance of iconography, ritual, pomp and circumstance, costuming, ephemeral architecture, religious devotion and even fireworks constitute the bulk of this study. All were marshalled to paint an image of a sumptuous powerful State / acase@tulane.edu

Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted among the Vietnamese refugees of New Orleans from 1983 to 1986. That fieldwork focused on Vietnamese values and community life. The fieldwork was designed to question certain prevailing, rather monolithic understandings of culture and values and to provide an alternative model for the study of culture and values Vietnamese culture, and any culture for that matter, can be fruitfully understood and studied as a 'library' of conflicting values 'texts.' Values are 'texts' for desirable behavior, feeling, thinking, and relating within a culture or community; values are expressions of what a culture thinks it means to be human and what the goal of human life is. Values texts can and do conflict because a culture, far from being a monolithic entity, is historical and in process; a culture is a conversation of texts, a dialogue, as to what it means to be human, not the conclusion of a syllogism The fieldwork revealed that the Vietnamese cultural library contains three significant sets of texts: Confucian, Catholic, and American. The Confucian texts are essentially concerned with proper relationships in the family and community. The Catholic texts are essentially concerned with the proper relationship to the supernatural. And the American texts are more concerned with individual freedom and self-determination. Conflict among sets of texts does exist but, more importantly, conflict exists within each set of texts as well. Vietnamese culture may be understood as a series of conflicts among values associated with the cultural domains of religion, kinship, ethics, aesthetics, gender, and economics / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation examines the ways in which childhood is exploited and explored in a number of Latin American literary works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We return repeatedly to the manner in which authors connect the nation to childhood. They often do this on a rhetorical level, equating the child's potentiality with that of the nation, or drawing an analogy between the parent-child and state-citizen relationships. Chapter one examines two nineteenth-century works in which childhood is emphasized in an effort to privilege horizontal, fraternal relationships over biological families. In these works by positivist authors, parents are easily replaced by father-like figures. Chapter two traces the battle for the mind of the child between the family and the state in mid- to late-twentieth-century works. The state utilizes familial rhetoric and sees itself as a replacement for the biological family, seeking the allegiance of children, even as it claims to protect the family. The third chapter is an exploration of the child as representative of marginalized sectors of society in the mid-twentieth century. These authors utilize children to represent the effects of racism, industrialization, sexism and civil war on the marginalized. Often, a protagonist's recapitulation of his or her childhood, or the author's exploration of the characters' childhoods, is meant to parallel--indeed to inspire--a reexamination of the current situation of the nation as a whole, or the plight of a particular sector of society. Finally, in chapter four we examine works in which the status of the artist in society is equated with that of the child. While the myth of the child as medium for the artist persists in some of these works, in others it is the vulnerable status of the child which is emphasized. The artist and the child are endangered and pursued precisely because their creativity threatens the established order. We conclude that such a utilization of childhood is a dehumanization of the Latin American child, not unlike that performed on literary Amerindian figures in the name of constructing a national identity / acase@tulane.edu

In recent decades, national governments and international authorities have increasingly emphasized the role of legal institutions in restoring order after political violence. This study explores how, following the 1994 genocide, the Rwandan government created new decentralized grassroots legal forums that aimed to produce community out of a divided population. The legal institutions were designed to enable Rwandans to resolve disputes with the help of locally-elected mediators, based on principles that prioritized collective cohesion over individual rights, combined with state-backed punishment. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic research in Rwanda between 2004 and 2008 with genocide courts (inkiko gacaca), mediation committees (comite y'abunzi) and a legal aid clinic, this study shows how the discourse of mediation in courts derived from national and transnational processes, and how it shaped people's experiences across a wide range of disputes. People used the courts' flexible proceedings both to rebuild inclusive relationships, and to contest belonging and reinforce divisions. The study suggests that state-backed legal forums embedded in daily life can facilitate social rebuilding in the aftermath of violence, while it examines what differences are created as "community" is brought into being through politicized processes, and shows how customary law as a tool of state development can both empower and curtail rights.

The dissertation is based on over one-and-a-half years of ethnographic field research conducted in Athens, Greece, among various diverse populations practicing unconventional modes of citizenship, that is, citizenship imagined and practiced in contradiction to traditional, prescribed, or sanctioned civil identities. I focus specifically on newcomer undocumented migrant populations from Africa, the broadly segregated and disenfranchised Roma (Gypsy) community, and the rapidly growing antiestablishment youth population. The work maps the shifting narrative, physical, and ideological topographies these communities occupy separately, and during times when they coalesce. I posit that, both in their everyday struggles and at times when their actions spill into public spheres, be it for economic, social, political, or other reasons, these communities influence how the broader population perceives and practices modern citizenship. To outline the wider socio-political and economic context of this work, an ethnographic account of each of these communities is provided separately, exploring both their contemporary circumstances and the historical trajectories and conditions that brought them about. This is followed by a closer examination of two cases in which these communities come together. The first case concerns the cooperation of members of the undocumented African migrant and Roma communities in the transportation and selling of various illegal and gray-market goods. The second case concerns the spontaneous coalescence of anti-establishment youth, undocumented migrants, and the Roma during the December 2008 civil unrest in Athens. Through these ethnographic accounts and case studies I develop the conceptual and theoretical framework that supports the central arguments of this work. In conclusion I demonstrate that citizens are turning away from state-sanctioned discourses descriptive/prescriptive of a nation-centered citizenship and, crucially, are beginning to reconsider modern civic identity and democratic engagement in relation to the influence unconventional citizens are having on the various public and private spaces where these are negotiated and enacted.