Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 272-308.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 286-298).

Using an ecological framework, this study investigated how the resilience-related concepts of competence, adversity, and protective factors were defined by Colombian immigrant youth living in Canada. Ten Colombian immigrant youth, aged 14 to 19 years, were interviewed about their perceptions of ‘doing well’, the main challenges they experienced after arriving in Canada, and the factors that helped them overcome their major challenges. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze the youth’s responses. Youth described how familism played a central role in the perceptions of competence and doing well. It was also found that the main challenges that were reported were general experiences of immigration and the difficulties of adapting into the new cultural environment and not to cultural discrepancies or clashes of values and beliefs. These youth talked about a range of protective factors, which included meaningful relationships (i.e., family, peers, God), individual factors (i.e., coping strategies, change in mindset, personal qualities, previous experiences, setting goals, and language brokering) and environmental factors (i.e., media, school environment, extracurricular activities, and community).

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2009. / Includes booklist (p. 247-249). Adviser: Pat Rushin.

On Oct. 2, 2016, against all predictions, Colombian voters rejected a proposed peace deal with FARC rebels that would have marked the end of a 50-year-old internal conflict. Similar to what happened after the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump's election in the United States that same year, the unexpected results of the Colombian peace referendum resulted in a wave of media criticism. This study examines this body of criticism in the Colombian case through qualitative, critical thematic analysis of published media criticism that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the vote and semi-directed interviews with Colombian journalists who personally covered the referendum. The findings show that a metajournalistic discourse of media failure materialized following the vote, with potential implications for the local journalistic culture. Three dimensions are identified in the journalists' responses to this discourse. They acknowledge that errors and poor journalistic habits were present in the vote's coverage; they push back by identifying external pressures to journalism that caused systemic media failures; and they speak with ambivalence about persisting journalistic practices and norms, showing willingness to revisit some of them in their own practice. A discussion based on the findings links theoretical scholarship on the Brexit and Trump's cases to the Colombian vote by showing that the experience of covering the referendum, and the ensuing criticism that the media sustained, opened the door for journalists to engage in a debate over the merits of objectivity, just like the two other cases did in their respective contexts. A situated analysis that takes into account the local context of Colombia's journalistic culture proposes new angles to this debate. It suggests that internal changes in that culture, such as the demise of an organization that used to champion peace activism in journalism, has resulted in changes to how journalists understand and apply the objectivity norm when covering matters of conflict and peace. This raises the question of whether material conditions in any given journalistic context may influence how journalists understand and apply objectivity, thus contributing new insights to the ongoing debate on the merits of this norm not just in the Colombian context but globally as well.

This dissertation examines the way violence in Colombia, in its multiple forms and manifestations, has shaped the representations about eroticism in three contemporary novels: Héctor Abad Faciolince's Fragmentos de amor furtivo, Fernando Molano's Un beso de Dick and Albalucía Ángel's Misiá Señora. This project specially focuses on the different forms in which violence has become a factor in the way these works represent eroticism and its discourse. Drawing from the theoretical framework of authors such as Slavoj Žižek, Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, the dissertation proposes the existence of an erotic violent space in which three elements intertwine. The first element, evident in Faciolince's work, is the design of a new form of urban space based on the need to be protected in a dangerous city. This form of cartography restricts mobility for the city's inhabitants, opens up new spaces for segregation based on movement and access to space and restricts erotic manifestations to the boundaries of a ghetto-type city. The second element, from Molano's novel, deals with the establishment of gender roles based on homoerotic desire. The violence in this piece is connected to family and school institutions, and the way they determine the creation of public and hidden forms of identity. Finally, Angel's novel deals with the different ways in which the female body can be used as a symbolic battlefield where patriarchal and religious discourses try to impose limitations, promoting the establishment of alienated women.I propose that eroticism is the intimate space where social, discursive and ideological violence is executed, while simultaneously acts as the sphere of individual life where resistance can be enforced. In a country where so much attention is given to the overt, material consequences of violence, such as the number of deaths, massacres and kidnappings, it is easy to overlook the importance of how violence impacts identity and intimacy.

In this thesis I examine the experiences of Colombian women who emigrated from various regions of Colombia to Madrid from 1996-2006. An analysis of this sort requires a preliminary explanation regarding factors that motivate women to emigrate from Colombia and immigrate to Spain. In this project, I reflect upon the paradoxes inherent in the construction of a transnational identity. Though some Colombian women adopt Spanish customs, constructing a transnational identity, the majority maintain a strong and vibrant Colombian identity, particularly through virtual connections with their families back home. A transnational identity is an emotional, personal identity and in the context of this project signifies the adoption of a Spanish identity by Colombian women. I utilize social network theory as the primary conceptual framework to analyze the role and significance of networks in fostering the construction of transnational identities and the maintenance of Colombian identities.

Since 1999 Colombia has experienced dramatic increases in emigration, particularly the emigration of women towards the U.S. as fiancées of U.S. citizens or residents. Parallel to this trend is the increased number of websites facilitating these Colombian-American matches. This dissertation investigates the agency of Colombian women and American men who pursue romantic courtship through the services of International Marriage Brokers (IMBs) from the “Gendered Geographies of Power” (GGP) framework of analysis. It examines how both groups’ social locations, their positioning in multiple axes of differentiation including gender, nationality and social class, affects how and why they exert their agency across and within different geographic scales. Most importantly, it investigates the role the imagination plays (imagination work) in both men and women’s agency, an aspect of the GGP framework that has been under-researched and theorized to date. The research also finds that this imagination work is promoted and cultivated in deeply gendered ways by IMBs seeking to profit off this transnational courtship. Employing data collected via interviews and content analysis of IMBs’ websites, the dissertation analyzes comparatively the expectations each group (women, men and IMBs) bring to their imagination work and experiences of the courtship marketplace. A central question posed and answered in the dissertation is “What do women and men courting each other in cyberspace seek and do they find it?” The dissertation finds that the men seek “traditional” women and the women seek “liberated” less “macho” men. Ironically, the men find Colombian women who are among the most “liberated” women in their homeland but who downplay this aspect of themselves in order to strategically find a more modern man and migrate abroad where they expect to find greater personal and professional opportunities.

This Master‟s thesis is the result of research conducted through field-work which has taken place in Sweden, and additionally text analysis. The aim of this study is to explore the specific case of the Colombian diaspora in Sweden, to discover the reactions, possible involvements, and motivations for involvements and/or un-involvements in relation to their homelands currently ongoing peace negotiation process. This study first seeks to understand the overall reaction and attitudes of the Colombian diaspora members in Sweden towards the peace negotiations, and then looks to provide an understanding over possible influences being exerted from the Colombian diaspora members, and why or why not there is an exert of influence/involvement. The overall understanding of how the Colombian diaspora members in Sweden react to the peace process, are involved/un-involved, and their motivations behind what they do has been discovered through the field-work conducted in this study. This field-work was conducted solely in Sweden, as to provide the specific case of the Colombian diaspora member in Sweden, through qualitative methods and has used semi-structured interviews as well as questionnaires in English and Spanish to collect the information needed to answer the aim of the research presented in this study. Through the field-work, this study has discovered strong hesitations on the Colombian diaspora member behalves to not only be involved in any form of economic, social and political means of influence towards the peace process, but to also take part in this study. The concerns presented by the Colombian diaspora members towards involvements and/or un-involvements are those of political interests, hesitations from the strong bi-polarity of the Colombian society, as well as personal security. Overall, this study has discovered that there is more support from the Colombian diaspora members in Sweden for the ongoing peace negotiations than non-support, but that very few involvements are exerted by this small population of Colombian diaspora members in Sweden.