This thesis is about exploring and theorizing about the contemporary meanings and (re)production of El Güegüense, a politically charged ancient Nicaraguan dance-drama. The ethnographic affair revolves around the researcher’s experiences learning the Güegüense tradition at the Nicaraguan Academy of Dance in Managua. Utilizing “the apprenticeship” as methodology, which has perhaps most effectively been teased out in Loïc Wacquant’s (2004) Body and Soul, the researcher fleshes out under what circumstances one becomes a practitioner of the Güegüense tradition, what it means to be a cultural performer, and whether this ancient physical tradition still demonstrates and embodies its anti-colonial themes. After conducting interviews with leading practitioners, the author utilizes the performance as a vector of knowledge and speaks not only to how the performance culturally manifests but also to how contested its meanings truly are, as well as the recent depoliticizing of the performance, which it is argued is a direct result of the state becoming involved with this ancient physical tradition. / Thesis (Master, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-21 08:53:02.248

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of History, 2009. / Title from home page (viewed on Jul 7, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-10, Section: A, page: 4009. Adviser: Peter F. Guardino.

<p> This dissertation argues that in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands over the turn of the twentieth century, two <i>curanderos,</i> Teresa Urrea (1873-1906) and Pedro Jaramillo (1829-1907), created alternative projects of nation that did not come from above &ndash; from the state, the church, or professional medicine &ndash; but from below, from a distinct cultural practice that revitalized sick, racially oppressed, and subaltern bodies. The medicine that Urrea and Jaramillo practiced, <i>curanderismo,</i> was, and remains, a hybrid system of healing practiced throughout Mexico and Latin America and in places where ethnic Mexicans have a strong presence, such as the U.S-Mexico borderlands. Through curanderismo Urrea and Jaramillo provided culturally resonant healing and spiritual sustenance to ethnic Mexicans, Indians, Tejanos, and others in the borderlands who faced increasingly oppressive forms of state power deployed by both nations. This dissertation also shows that through their <i>curanderismo</i> practices and politics, Urrea and Jaramillo helped shape national ideologies as well as spiritual and medical practices. They participated in the creation and maintenance of transnational ethnic Mexican communities and identities in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. </p><p> The chapters examine how Teresa Urrea and Pedro Jaramillo crossed the border from Mexico into the United States during the late nineteenth century and practiced what I call the &ldquo;the politics of <i>curanderismo </i>&rdquo; in different regions of the borderlands. Chapter one examines Teresa Urrea&rsquo;s identity as <i>Juana de Arco Mexicana</i> and how she was a threat to the Mexican government because of her work as a healer and advocate for Yaqui and Mayo Indians of northern Mexico in late nineteenth century. Chapter two utilizes a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Don Pedrito&rsquo;s cures from 1890-1907, as well as an examination of South Texas demographics, to demonstrate that Jaramillo&rsquo;s <i> curanderismo</i> drew upon available medical ideologies and strengthened his borderlands community while, at the same time, threatening professional medicine. The third chapter returns to Teresa Urrea and her residence in the city of Los Angeles, California from 1902-1903 and examines the transatlantic world of Spiritism and Spiritualism that she participated in. The fourth and final chapter explores the ways in which <i>curanderismo</i> and corresponding ideas about modernity, science, and spirituality figured into the power dynamics and construction of national identity on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border into the twentieth century.</p>

abstract: This research focuses upon the intersection of social complexity and leadership among commoners in complex societies as expressed through mortuary ritual. I study how ideology, materialized through treatment of the deceased body, was a potential source of power among commoners in ancient Maya society and how this materialization changed through time. Mortuary data are drawn from mid-level settlements of the Belize River Valley, located in western Belize within the eastern Maya lowlands. The primary research question addresses whether mid-level leaders in the Belize River Valley targeted certain human bodies for ancestral veneration through tomb re-entry and ritual interaction with skeletal remains. The ritual-political strategy of mid-level leaders is measured using archaeothanatology, an analysis of grave taphonomy based on forensic data, to reconstruct cultural beliefs about death based on treatment of deceased bodies, radiogenic strontium isotope analysis to reconstruct residential history, and analysis of dental metrics to assess biological kinship. While preservation of osseous material was poor, results indicate that the frequency of disarticulated and secondary burials was higher in eastern structures than in other locales, although eastern structures were not the only loci of these types of deposits. Overall, it does not seem like secondary burials were regularly and purposefully created for use as ritual objects or display. Radiogenic strontium isotope data enrich this analysis by showing that eastern structures were not a burial locale exclusive to individuals who spent their childhood in the Belize Valley. Data from upper-level eastern structures also suggests that within that part of society local birth did not guarantee interment in a local manner; perhaps the social network created during one's life shaped treatment in death more than residential origin. Biological distance analyses were inconclusive due to missing data. Comparison of mortuary practices to nearby regions shows distinct mortuary patterning across space and time. This is consistent with reconstructions of ancient Maya sociopolitical organization as regionally diverse and moderately integrated. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2015

<p> The Spanish-American War of 1898 ended Spain&rsquo;s colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere, and represented the symbolic pinnacle of U.S. imperialism throughout the Caribbean and the Pacific. During this historical juncture, the U.S. launched the invasion of Puerto Rico and established itself as the governing power. My analysis of this defining event in Puerto Rico&rsquo;s history focuses on the &lsquo;discursive&rsquo; and &lsquo;representational&rsquo; practices through which the dominant representations and interpretations of the Puerto Rican campaign were constructed. In revisiting the U.S. &lsquo;imperial texts&rsquo; of &rsquo;98, most of which have not been studied extensively, it is my intent to approach these narratives critically, studying their ideological and political significance regarding the U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico as a colony. </p><p> The &lsquo;War of &rsquo;98&rsquo; has been typically represented as an inter-metropolitan conflict, thus relegating to a secondary place the contestatory discourses produced within the colonies. It is the purpose of my dissertation to examine &lsquo;dialectically&rsquo; the cultural counter-discourse produced by the Puerto Rican Creole elite alongside the U.S. official discourses on Puerto Rico, concerning its colonial past under Spanish domination, the military occupation of the island, and its political and economical future under the American flag. With this purpose in mind, I chose to study four post-1898 Puerto Rican novels, specifically Jos&eacute; P&eacute;rez Losada&rsquo;s <i> La patulea</i> (1906) and <i>El manglar</i> (1907), and Ram&oacute;n Juli&aacute; Mar&iacute;n&rsquo;s <i>Tierra adentro</i> (1912) and <i> La gleba</i> (1913), all of which have been underestimated and understudied by literary scholars. </p><p> As a gesture of resistance in the face of the disruption of the old social order (that is, the old patterns of life, customs, traditions and standards of value) caused by the U.S. invasion and occupation of Puerto Rico in 1898, the island&rsquo;s intellectual elite&mdash;most of which were descendant of the displaced coffee <i>hacendado</i> families&mdash;responded by fabricating an ideology-driven national imaginary and iconography that proposed a hispanophile, nostalgic, and romanticized rendering of the late-19th century coffee landscape (i.e. the pre-invasion period) as an idyllic <i> locus amoenus</i>, thus becoming an emblem of national and cultural identity and values against American capitalist imperialism, the &lsquo;Americanization&rsquo; of Puerto Rico&rsquo;s economy and political system, and the rapid expansion of U.S. corporate sugar interests. </p><p> This dissertation has two distinct yet complementary purposes: first, it examines critically the imperial/colonial power relations between the United States and Puerto Rico since 1898, while questioning the hegemonic discourses both by the Americans and the Puerto Rican cultural elite regarding Puerto Rico&rsquo;s historical and political paths; secondly, it is an attempt to do justice to the literary works of two overlooked Puerto Rican novelists, approaching them critically on several levels (historical, literary, and ideological) and bringing their works out of the shadows and into today&rsquo;s renewed debates around Puerto Rico&rsquo;s unresolved colonial status and U.S. colonial practices still prevalent today.</p><p>

The relationships between the United States and Argentina, traditionally complicated by diplomatic rivalry in the sphere of inter-American relations and by commercial difficulties derived from the non-complementary and often competitive nature of their economies, had reached their lowest level during World War II. However, in the aftermath of the war, a combination of international and domestic developments would lead Argentina to seek a rapprochement with the United States. The breakdown of Argentina's long commercial and financial relationship with Britain combined with its growing dependence on the United States as a source of capital goods, technology and financial capital, provided a powerful incentive for the Southern country to seek an alliance with Washington. On the other hand, the opportunity to exert a closer influence on the policies adopted by Argentina was welcomed by Washington since, although Argentina was a country of only peripheral strategic and economic importance for the United States, the course it followed acquired larger significance for Washington in the context of its impact on the development of inter-American relationships. However, although the circumstances seemed to be favorable for an improved relationship, the path toward rapprochement would be slow, difficult and uneven, as a combination of cultural misunderstandings, persisting stereotypes and structural economic constraints complicated the efforts made by both sides to find satisfactory solutions to the problems that stood between them. This dissertation is the first systematic study of the relationships between Argentina and the United States in the 1950s based on extensive archival research of recently opened documents. It focuses on the strategies adopted by three different Administrations led respectively by Juan D. Peron, the military and Arturo Frondizi to lead Argentina through the transition to a more autonomous and diversified industrial economy and on their efforts to enlist the collaboration of U.S. private and public capital in this process. It analyzes the ways in which the Eisenhower Administration responded to the new opportunities and challenges offered by these developments in Argentina within the context of inter-American relations in the Cold War.

This dissertation is a critical re-assessment of Latin American philosophical tradition and its quest for an authentic philosophical identity. This re-evaluation is brought about through s distinct reading of the writings of the Peruvian Marxist, Jose Carlos Mariategui (1896-1930). The analysis which is exercised in this inquiry proposes that its philosophical production should not be considered as an obscure or secondary form of European philosophy, or in the most unfortunate case, as a radical denial of the latter's philosophical heritage. In attention to the central question concerning this dissertation it is claimed that a hermeneutic strategy of devising a re-interpretation of a single theorist could yield preferable and more illuminating results than just an extensive survey of the numerous philosophers who belong to the Latin American philosophical tradition. The "case study" which has been performed is that of the Peruvian Marxist Jose Carlos Mariategui (1895-1930). This dissertation argues that regardless of the broad range of studies on the writings of this Peruvian revolutionary thinker, there is still much to say about his idiosyncratic interpretation of the Peruvian society of his times and about his eminently anti-dogmatic conception of Marxism. In his own discursive practice he unveiled a critical response to the inherent and rigid determinism of the Marxist dogmatic orthodoxy widely accepted in Latin America and the rest of the world during his lifetime. His self-education and theoretical practice is described as a virtual "ingestion" of the 1920s Marxism and many other non-Marxist philosophical and theoretical notions which were critically transformed into an innovative and effectual thought replete with revolutionary relevance. The purpose in stressing this point in Mariategui's critical "adaptation" of Marxism is to accentuate the undeniable Eurocentric core of Marxism with which the Peruvian thinker had to contend. The reading of Mariategui which has been suggested, characterizes his theoretical practice as an immanent critique of Eurocentric Marxism. The relevance that Mariategui's writings bear for the problem of Latin American philosophy can be posited as a critique by practice of the traditional discourses of legitimation imposed on non-Eurocentric forms of thought.

The spread of democracy is one of the most important and impressive occurrences in Latin American politics in the last two decades. However, scholars may, and do, question the degree to which democratization has truly occurred and been institutionalized. This dissertation examines the quality of citizenship for Afro-Dominicans and Afro-Brazilians, groups that have been traditionally considered marginalized, with the belief that an analysis of the quality of citizenship for these peoples will make visible the depth of democratization in these two countries. The dissertation examines the citizenship of Afro-Dominicans and Afro-Brazilians by using two distinct models of citizenship: the first is a Liberal model which focuses on individual rights and negative freedoms that are protected by a state; the second is a Republican model which emphasizes positive rights, political activity and community. Combining empirical research and observations, secondary sources and statistics (when available), the dissertation finds that neither Liberal nor Republican versions of citizenship are adequately institutionalized for Afro-Dominicans and Afro-Brazilians. In an attempt to examine what sort of citizenship does exist for Afro-Dominicans and Afro-Brazilians, the dissertation finds that citizenship is ‘privatized’ and that this privatization is deepened by political culture and the adoption of neo-liberal economic programs. This privatization takes place on three fronts: first, power is largely extra-institutional and, despite democratization, political agendas and decisions are often orchestrated in private space; second, citizenship is considered an exclusive status, related to one's socio-economic identity, rather than an inclusive and universal political identity; third, services traditionally associated with the state have become cut as the state “down-sizes,” and NGOs and organs of civil society are now taking the place of the state on a micro-political level, in some areas.

The contribution of this dissertation is the empirical understanding of the effectiveness of Puerto Rico's investment incentive program. In 1978 the local government enacted a tax incentive law, in an effort to decentralize the location of firms. The goal is to encourage firms to locate in rural/less developed areas outside the San Juan/Metro area. The government divided the island into three industrial zones. In the high industrial zone of the San Juan area, tax exemptions are available for only 10 years, in the intermediate industrial zone for 15 years, and in the low industrial zone tax exemptions are available for 20 years. The focus of the dissertation is to measure the impact of this program in four areas: (1) location of firms; (2) job expansion; (3) forgone revenues, and (4) a comparison of forgone revenues and job expansion benefits. Traditionally, Conditional Logit (CL) has been the methodology used for firm location analysis. However, CL confronts several limitations, and for that reason, I perform a Poisson Regression analysis. This methodology will give the same results as the CL model and, in certain cases related to location decisions, is a better approach since it handles more properly the limitations inherent in the CL methodology. Using Poisson Regression I find that firms tend to locate in a statistically significant fashion at both the intermediate and low zones. I analyze job expansion through Shift-Share (SS) analysis. One feature of SS analysis is its descriptive power when explaining the change in regional employment over time. Based on the Shift-Share analysis, I find that job expansion at both the intermediate and low zones is significantly higher than what would have occurred if these zone would have grown at the same rate of the high industrial zone. Finally, the program has a statistically significant negative impact on government revenues. In general, revenues naturally decline because firms are exempted from paying taxes through the program. This impact is greater within firms locating at both the intermediate and low zones. Nonetheless, forgone revenues are more than compensated, by salaries and wages earned in jobs created by firms.

Land restitution is acclaimed as a political-economic strategy to mend land dispossession. However, land restitution policies lacking an understanding of the history of land property rights and the conditions of inequality under which it is distributed may produce new forms of uprooting, and reconfigure dimensions of class, gender and racial inequality. This research explores how current loss of territories of Afrocolombian community councils is grounded in a long history of exploitation, racism, (hetero) patriarchy, and deracination. I study the persistent mechanisms that account for the uprooting of Afrocolombian rural populations, and the strategies of resistance people pursue. I use a qualitative methods approach. I analyze archival documents such as letters of freedom, alcabalas , and receipts of manumission, land reform, and manumission laws; conduct interviews, make short term immersions in the disputed territories; and scrutinize testaments, maps, and public policy documents. I investigate the ways in which land has been distributed since 1851, when slavery came to an end in Colombia, and the extent to which restorative justice can occur with the 1448/2011 Colombian victims' reparation, and land restitution law without addressing land distribution inequality.