Tout au long du XIXe siècle, le Costa Rica a construit son identité nationale sur l’idée de « pureté et de blancheur de la race costaricienne ». C’est dans ce paradigme identitaire qu’une population afro-caribéenne provenant majoritairement de la Jamaïque est arrivée sur la côte caribéenne pour travailler à la construction du chemin de fer et dans les plantations bananières à partir des années 1870. Cette population « noire », qui ne parlait pas l’espagnol, mais l’anglais et un créole à base d’anglais, constituait « un obstacle » au projet d’identité nationale. L’année 2015 marque un tournant, car le Costa Rica vient de se redéfinir comme une « République […] multiethnique et pluriculturelle » par un amendement constitutionnel de l’article premier. Cette thèse retrace le processus complexe d’intégration de la population afro-caribéenne au Costa Rica de 1870 à 2015 et défend l’idée qu’une reconfiguration du paradigme de l’identité nationale costaricienne s’est amorcée depuis la zone la plus périphérique du Costa Rica (la province de Limon) et en grande partie par le biais des revendications sociolinguistiques et identitaires de la population caribéenne. En effet, la politique linguistique concernant l’espagnol et les langues indigènes centrées sur la relation du citoyen à la langue officielle est contrariée par la pratique fortement ancrée du créole de Limon dans la Caraïbe costaricienne. L’apport théorique des linguistes Robert Le Page et Andrée Tabouret-Keller qui ont mis en évidence comment les choix langagiers constituent des « actes d’identités » par lesquels les locuteurs exposent discursivement leur identité personnelle, leurs affiliations à certains groupes et leurs aspirations à certains rôles sociaux a retenu notre attention pour montrer que l’utilisation du créole de Limon avec ses concepts et ses symboles propres dans le contexte plurilinguistique et diglossique de la Caraïbe costaricienne révèle des positionnements identitaires favorisant une reconfiguration de l’identité nationale. En 2010, l’UNESCO a classé le créole de Limon dans son Atlas des langues du monde en danger. Existe-t-il une campagne de revitalisation au Costa Rica ? Dans une perspective intersémiotique de l’étude des reconfigurations identitaires, la littérature et les arts de la Caraïbe costaricienne ont été envisagés comme des espaces privilégiés de représentation des identités plurielles et plurilingues et d’expression des revendications sociolinguistiques et identitaires de la population caribéenne. / Throughout the 20th century, Costa Rica built its own national identity on the “purity and whiteness” of the Costa Rican race. This is the identity paradigm in which the Jamaican population found itself upon arriving on the Caribbean coast in 1870 in order to work on the construction of railways and the banana plantations. This black, non-Spanish-speaking community was a barrier to the Costa Rican national identity project. However, the year 2015, marked a turning point. In virtue of an amendment to the first article of the Constitution, Costa Rica redefined itself as a “multiethnic, multicultural Republic”. This thesis retraces the complex process of integration undergone by the Costa Rican Afro-Caribbean community from 1870 to 2015. This study claims that the existence of this recent reconfiguration of the Costa Rican identity paradigm was in part fostered by one of the country’s most peripheral areas: Limon. The works of linguists such as Robert Le Page and André Tabouret-Keller have proven that linguistic choices can be considered as “identity claims or acts” by means of which a given speaker demonstrates his identity, his background and his aspirations. The people from Limon, by means of their sociolinguistic and identity claims, have thus helped start the aforementioned process of reconfiguration. The well-established use of Creole English clashes with the government’s official policy regarding the use of the official language of Spanish and the indigenous languages. Even though Creole English is spoken in Limon, in 2010 UNESCO classified it in its Atlas of the World’s Endangered Languages. Is there thus a campaign of revitalization in Costa Rica concerning Creole English? In an attempt to analyze the changing identity paradigm from an intersemiotic perspective, this study has chosen to focus on Caribbean literature and art as they both represent powerful mediums through which the expression of the Caribbean identity is portrayed and claimed.

Différents organismes internationaux se sont penchés sur l’école rurale des pays en émergence. La plupart de ces travaux de recherche montrent que ces écoles n’offrent pas une éducation adaptée au milieu dans lesquelles elles sont situées, du fait essentiellement qu’on y a implanté la structure administrative et pédagogique des écoles urbaines sans tenir compte des caractéristiques de la population infantile des zones rurales. Afin de tenter de remédier aux difficultés identifiées, ces organismes ont proposé diverses solutions ou préconisé des politiques adaptées à ce contexte particulier. Le but de cette recherche est d’étudier comment ces recommandations convergent-elles avec les politiques éducatives et dans le quotidien des écoles en milieu rural de deux pays de l’Amérique centrale, le Costa Rica et le Nicaragua. À cette fin, comme cadre d'analyse, nous avons établi six catégories : condition socio-économique, plan d'études et pédagogie, relation école et communauté, enseignants, technologie et finalement, gestion et gouvernance. Pour ce faire, nous analysons les recommandations globales formulées par diverses organisations internationales et d’autres organismes des pays développés à propos de l'éducation rurale. Nous comparons ensuite ces informations avec les décisions politiques prises ces dernières vingt années, dans les deux pays sélectionnés afin de favoriser le développement éducatif des zones rurales. Pour finir, nous observons sur le terrain le quotidien de quelques écoles rurales des deux pays retenus. En partant de l’hypothèse qu’il existe suffisamment d’information et de recommandations permettant l’élaboration des politiques éducatives appropriées pour améliorer les conditions des écoles rurales, le travail présente une analyse multiniveaux (recommandations globales, politiques nationales et pratiques scolaires) en établissant la convergence ou la divergence dans chacune des catégories. Les principaux résultats de la recherche démontrent qu'il existe une convergence entre les pratiques scolaires et les politiques éducatives émises par les pays étudiés, avec quelques exceptions. Quant à la convergence entre les recommandations globales et les politiques émises par ces pays, on ne peut pas parler de convergence de façon générale. La recherche propose l'élaboration de profil de politiques nationales pour chaque pays, en fonction de la manière par laquelle ils abordent la problématique de l'éducation rurale : soit par l’assignation des ressources pour étendre les services éducatifs normalisés pour tous les enfants, ou en produisant des politiques focalisées, créant des programmes spécifiques, faisant remarquer la différence du monde rural. / Various international organizations have studied rural schools in developing countries and the majority of the research shows that these schools do not offer an education adapted to the community in which they are located. This is primarily due to the fact that the schools are integrating administrative and teaching structures of urban schools without taking into consideration the characteristics of child populations in rural zones. In response to the identified difficulties, these organizations proposed various solutions or recommended policies adapted to this particular context. The goal of this research is to study how these recommendations translate into educational policies and their impact on daily life of rural schools in two Central American countries, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. For this purpose, we’ve created an analysis framework with six categories: socio-economic status, curriculum and pedagogy, school and community relationships, teachers, technology, and lastly, management and governance. With this intention, we’ve analyzed the recommendations made by various international organizations and other organizations from developed countries related to rural education. We’ve compared this information to the political decisions on educational development in rural communities made in the last twenty in these two countries. Lastly, we’ve completed the research with field observations, studying the day-to-day work in rural schools. Working from the hypothesis that there exists sufficient valid information and recommendations to issue appropriate policies that improve conditions in rural schools, this work presents a multi-level analysis (global recommendations, national policies and school practices) by determining convergences and divergences in each of these levels. The main results of the research show that there is a convergence between school practices and education policies created by the countries, with some minor exceptions. When it comes to convergence between global recommendations and the countries’ policies, we cannot speak of convergence in general. This research proposes the use of national policy profiles for each country, depending on how they deal with the challenges of rural education: assigning resources to extend standard educational services to all children, or generating targeted policies, creating specific programs that highlight the difference of the rural world.

El crecimiento exponencial del volumen de datos disponibles hoy en día, ha generado la necesidad de integrar y clasificar dichos datos, posibilitando su publicación de tal manera que se facilite su posterior consumo. En este escenario de datos masivos (“big data”), tener en cuenta esta dicotomía publicación-consumo es de gran importancia para poder obtener valor económico y social a partir de la reutilización de datos. De hecho, ésta es la clave del concepto de datos abiertos (“open data”), que consiste en publicar datos de manera organizada con el fin de potenciar su consumo. La publicación de estos datos se lleva a cabo mediante el desarrollo de portales de datos abiertos, con el fin de propiciar que puedan estar disponibles con un nivel de calidad adecuado para los consumidores de datos. Cuando estos datos abiertos provienen del sector público, se emplea el término datos públicos (“public data”), concepto que está relacionado directamente con la información de carácter gubernamental generada por instituciones públicas, puesta a disposición de la ciudadanía con el afán de fortalecer principalmente la transparencia y la rendición de cuentas, dos conceptos que – políticamente hablando – tienen alta relevancia en los gobiernos actuales. Además del impacto social que ello representa, también es posible obtener de los datos públicos un impacto económico si se cumple con ciertas características o criterios de calidad que aseguren la madurez del portal de datos abiertos en el que están publicados, garantizando que se permita una adecuada reutilización de los datos con el fin de obtener productos y servicios de valor añadido. Queda patente entonces la importancia de definir mecanismos adecuados para evaluar la madurez de un portal de datos abiertos. Por tanto, la hipótesis de partida de la investigación desarrollada en esta tesis doctoral plantea que, a partir de ciertos criterios de calidad del portal de datos abiertos se puede determinar su madurez, lo que permitirá determinar el cumplimiento de sus objetivos. Estos criterios de calidad de un portal de datos abiertos deben contemplar aspectos tanto de la calidad de los datos como de la calidad del portal en sí, es decir, de las características y herramientas de las que éste dispone para gestionar los conjuntos de datos que en él están publicados. Partiendo de esta hipótesis, esta investigación tuvo como objetivo primordial la definición de un modelo de madurez para portales de datos abiertos, valorando y definiendo para ello diferentes medidas de calidad hasta lograr establecer los criterios finales que conforman dicho modelo. Concretamente, se presenta como contribución un modelo de madurez cualitativo con varios criterios de calidad aplicables a portales de datos abiertos, considerando aspectos que no habían sido profundamente considerados en estudios o trabajos anteriores y que ameritan ser incluidos dentro de un instrumento para la medición de la madurez. Cabe destacar que las contribuciones del trabajo de investigación desarrollado en esta tesis están siendo consideradas como parte del Programa de Gobierno Abierto que está llevando a cabo actualmente el Gobierno de Costa Rica. Al considerarse el valor agregado de contar con un modelo de madurez para portales de datos abiertos, la propuesta desarrollada en esta tesis fue utilizada como uno de los principales insumos en la creación de la norma técnica nacional INTE 27-02-02:2015 para portales de datos abiertos de Costa Rica por parte del Instituto de Normas Técnicas de Costa Rica (INTECO). Esta norma permite evaluar portales de datos abiertos costarricenses para ubicarlos en un nivel de madurez concreto, siendo muy necesaria en el contexto nacional por lo que ha sido fundamental la incorporación del modelo generado a partir de esta investigación. Finalmente, se debe señalar que una parte importante de este trabajo fue la aplicación piloto tanto del modelo de madurez propuesto como de la norma técnica nacional – antes mencionada – en diversos portales de datos abiertos costarricenses existentes. Como parte de las conclusiones, al final de este documento se presentan los resultados de la aplicación hecha tanto del modelo como de la norma, con el fin de dar al lector un insumo más para valorar lo presentado en esta tesis.

Observers of neo-liberal persuasion claim that a financial system free of government regulation can lead to better allocation of resources and if the actual process of deregulation is done properly, the results can benefit society as a whole. Deregulation requires dismantling those state-based banking structures that are perceived as economically inefficient. This approach sets up a dichotomy between financial deregulation, which is portrayed as an intrinsic part of economic progress, and state regulation, which is seen as a force that interferes with entrepreneurial freedom and efficiency. This thesis argues that such a dichotomy can only be possible within the dominant neo-liberal discourses on the economy that have displaced Keynesian style economic management in core and peripheral areas of the world. Following Marxist structural approaches I also argue that financial deregulation is a class-based project that opens up profit sites and reflects the crisis in capitalist accumulation occurring in the latter part of the 20th century. Unlike neo-liberal followers I contend that the role of the state in maintaining and/or transforming capitalist structures in order to achieve certain outcomes (whatever they might be) is crucial in nation-building strategies in peripheral countries such as Costa Rica. As in many other countries, credit allocation was actively used in this country, for some thirty years in order to achieve high levels of investment, economic planning and re-distributive policies. However, the once fully nationalised banking system, as one of the few mechanisms available to the state to regulate savings and offer credit to different socio-economic groups, has gone through dramatic changes in the period from 1980-2000. Using a modified version of Hirschman's exit/voice framework for financial systems and available institutional data, I suggest that Costa Rica has moved from having a financial system that was predominantly owned by the state (public) and whose institutional arrangements were elite-led to one whose ownership is mixed but still led by elites. However if the trend persists I anticipate that it will become a predominantly privately owned system with an equal mixture of elite-voice and exit institutions.

Rural communities have, for much of history, been left with inadequate or no water service. This is because the traditional state/private dichotomy of water provision is inadequate for addressing the unique needs of small, isolated communities. Drawing from the Common-Pool Resource literature, co-management arose in recent decades as a solution to address this pandemic of rural water exclusion. In Costa Rica, co-management takes the form of community water associations known as ASADAS. This thesis explores the successes and challenges of ASADAS through the use of three case study communities. Using interviews, surveys, water sampling and national legislation in addition to secondary sources, this thesis seeks to understand the possibilities and limits of employing co-management as a tool for achieving the human right to water in Costa Rica and around the globe.

The contamination of seafood with methylmercury (MeHg) is a global health issue, as MeHg is a well known neurotoxin. Since dietary nutrients may interact with MeHg toxicity, and oxidative stress is one of the primary mechanisms underlying MeHg neurotoxicity, we characterized dietary antioxidant-MeHg interactions. Firstly, we used an ethnobotanical study to confirm the antioxidant activity of Northern Labrador Tea, Rhododendron tomentosum ssp. subarcticum (Tea), for the Canadian Inuit, a population with elevated MeHg exposure. Secondly, we determined the ability of Tea to ameliorate MeHg-induced toxicity in a rat perinatal exposure study. MeHg exposure (2 mg/KgBW/d) was associated with perturbed development and behaviour, elevated brain N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors, and serum lipid peroxidation. Surprisingly, Tea co-exposure (100 mg/KgBW/d) modulated MeHg’s effects on brain NMDA-R levels and lipid peroxidation, but also increased mercury serum concentrations. Thirdly, using a toxicogenomics approach we determined that MeHg exposure caused the down-regulation of Nr4a2 and its protein product Nurr1. These novel MeHg targets are implicated in developmental learning functions and were corrected with MeHg + Tea co-exposure. Lastly, we conducted a risk assessment survey and cross-sectional dietary epidemiology study in Costa Rica to further investigate dietary nutrient-MeHg interactions. Costa Rica is a Central American country with multiple sources of Hg and a high per capital fish consumption. Here, 5 of the 14 populations we studied exceeded the recommended MeHg provisional tolerable daily intake (pTDI) of 0.2 µg/KgBW/d. In Heredia the pTDI was exceeded by 34% of woman participants, primarily associated with canned tuna consumption. Interestingly, we detected that Hg body burden was significantly reduced by the consumption of antioxidant-rich dietary items. Considering our collective results, we hypothesized that MeHg toxicokinetics may be altered by dietary nutrients at the site of intestinal absorption from the disruption of gut flora, or at the site of cellular demethylation in tissues from the improvement of cellular redox state. The interaction of dietary nutrients on MeHg outcomes has a large impact on risk assessment and may provide a public health approach for managing the risk associated with MeHg exposure without reducing local fish consumption.

This essay argues that social entrepreneurship is the most efficient means to generate lasting social change and permanently reduce poverty. Using the support of scholarly research, interviews with experts in the field, and my own qualitative observations, I conclude that traditional aid models that are economically dependent on outside funding, as well as those that simply provide monetary and product contributions in order to sustain the poor or marginalized communities they serve are inherently structured in a way that prevents them from resolving social ills. Despite the influx of aid organizations over past decades, chronic poverty and other serious social problems persist, and have not been significantly impacted on a global scale. Traditional aid models merely treat the fundamental issues that perpetuate global poverty. Ironically, these methods of aid actually sustain the inherent problems. Social entrepreneurship is one of the only models that has successfully initiated wide scale social development through promoting the economic independence and self-sustainability of the communities influenced by their initiatives. It has proven to incorporate the necessary tactics that, if implemented internationally and on a wide scale, has the potential to permanently and significantly impact global poverty.

The contamination of seafood with methylmercury (MeHg) is a global health issue, as MeHg is a well known neurotoxin. Since dietary nutrients may interact with MeHg toxicity, and oxidative stress is one of the primary mechanisms underlying MeHg neurotoxicity, we characterized dietary antioxidant-MeHg interactions. Firstly, we used an ethnobotanical study to confirm the antioxidant activity of Northern Labrador Tea, Rhododendron tomentosum ssp. subarcticum (Tea), for the Canadian Inuit, a population with elevated MeHg exposure. Secondly, we determined the ability of Tea to ameliorate MeHg-induced toxicity in a rat perinatal exposure study. MeHg exposure (2 mg/KgBW/d) was associated with perturbed development and behaviour, elevated brain N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors, and serum lipid peroxidation. Surprisingly, Tea co-exposure (100 mg/KgBW/d) modulated MeHg’s effects on brain NMDA-R levels and lipid peroxidation, but also increased mercury serum concentrations. Thirdly, using a toxicogenomics approach we determined that MeHg exposure caused the down-regulation of Nr4a2 and its protein product Nurr1. These novel MeHg targets are implicated in developmental learning functions and were corrected with MeHg + Tea co-exposure. Lastly, we conducted a risk assessment survey and cross-sectional dietary epidemiology study in Costa Rica to further investigate dietary nutrient-MeHg interactions. Costa Rica is a Central American country with multiple sources of Hg and a high per capital fish consumption. Here, 5 of the 14 populations we studied exceeded the recommended MeHg provisional tolerable daily intake (pTDI) of 0.2 µg/KgBW/d. In Heredia the pTDI was exceeded by 34% of woman participants, primarily associated with canned tuna consumption. Interestingly, we detected that Hg body burden was significantly reduced by the consumption of antioxidant-rich dietary items. Considering our collective results, we hypothesized that MeHg toxicokinetics may be altered by dietary nutrients at the site of intestinal absorption from the disruption of gut flora, or at the site of cellular demethylation in tissues from the improvement of cellular redox state. The interaction of dietary nutrients on MeHg outcomes has a large impact on risk assessment and may provide a public health approach for managing the risk associated with MeHg exposure without reducing local fish consumption.

During the debate over the ratification of the United States-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Bush Administration argued that implementation of a free trade agreement would help strengthen the nascent democracies in Central America. As a bilateral agreement, CAFTA would not only foment greater trade liberalization by expanding market access and eliminating trade barriers, but also help transform the entire commercial frameworks in Central America and promote economic development. These implications are not just economic – in particular, its provisions on intellectual property and investment rights, government procurement and labor standards affect the political institutions underpinning democracy and rule of law. This thesis assesses the role in which CAFTA has affected democratic institutions in Central America. It employs a methodology known as the Democratic Audit to evaluate consequences to four dimensions of democracy - the electoral processes, open and accountable institutions, civil and political liberties, and civil society. It demonstrates the value of using the Democratic Audit to assess a trade agreement’s political effects with an application to Mexico after NAFTA. Then this work considers the case studies of El Salvador and Costa Rica, the most salient examples of democratic institutional change after CAFTA, by drawing on original research especially into the electoral politics and civil society development in these countries. Ultimately, the thesis argues that the most significant institutional effects of CAFTA have been its role as a political issue, rather than its content, in galvanizing popular opinion and reinvigorating electoral politics and civil society - ironically, not the consequences that the Administration originally had in mind. The research demonstrates that, even if some conclusions cannot be drawn due to the recency of CAFTA, the framework it has employed will be an invaluable tool for assessing future trade agreements.

Climate change is putting the Earth’s biodiversity in serious jeopardy. UBC’S Biodiversity Research Centre is aiming to understand the impact of this shift.