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In 2013, the Dominican Republic’s highest court ruled to revoke birthright citizenship for over 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent. Ruling TC 168-13 prompted dialogue about race and racism in the country, breaking the racial silence that accompanies mestizaje (racial mixture). Scholars viewed this ruling through the lens of “Black denial” whereby Dominicans’ failure to adopt Black identities, despite being largely afrodescendant, fuels the racialization of Haitians as Black. Less evident in examinations of Dominican racial politics are anti-racist and anti-xenophobic organizing. Addressing the gap in scholarship on Dominican blackness, this dissertation project adopts an ethnographic approach to examine how Domicans of Haitian descent, most notably through Reconoci.do, a movement of denationalized youth, as well as the natural hair movement, engage with race. As one of the few well-articulated areas of Dominican society engaged with blackness, the natural hair movement provides a useful counterpoint for examining the intersections between blackness and Haitianess. In this work, I propose that natural hair has the potential to destabilize Haitian racialization yet, concurrently threatens to decouple the anti-racist movement from Dominico-Haitian struggles. These intersections illuminate the complex relationships within the heterogenous anti-racist movement. Through a historically rooted examination of constructions of race and nation in immigration policies, censuses, and national identity cards, this dissertation asserts that immigration policies were designed to benefit the dominant sugarcane economy at the expense of migrants and thus state efforts in 2014 to address indocumentation continued earlier discriminatory patterns, disproportionately impacting the Haitian diaspora. These practices are best understood as spectacles (De Genova 2013) that produce migrant illegality and, in particular, an inherited illegality for Dominican-born children that violates their constitutional rights to citizenship. Furthermore, the state constructs the population as non-black while publicly undermining anti-racist organizing and this research finds that activists draw on transnational images of blackness to challenge national representations of a modern blackness. Identifying mestizaje and the color continuum as obstacles to organizing, many activists conceptualize blackness as hypodescent, whereby any African ancestry engenders a Black identity. I argue that, while essentialist, this strategy broadens identification with Dominico-Haitians.

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Ecuador codified participatory democracy and food sovereignty in its 2008 constitution. It also called for the creation of a food sovereignty bill to expand and detail legal protections for these valued practices. In 2009, legislators proposed a bill to the president. It called for indigenous and peasant farmers' increased access to state agricultural resources, such as land and loans, and the ability to direct national government agricultural policy. In essence, legislators wanted to democratize Ecuador's agricultural economic model, one that had long marginalized peasant farmers who grow traditional crops for local markets, and had favored the production of large-scale commodities for export. To accomplish this, they also included within the bill the creation of a power-sharing participatory institution, the National Council for Food Sovereignty, an institution first proposed by the food sovereignty-focused organizations Mesa Agraria and Colectivo Agrario. The institution would comprise a council of representatives from small-scale producer and indigenous organizations as well as state actors who would jointly create national agricultural policy and ensure its implementation. Legislators wanted the council to increase peasant farmer authority in agricultural policy, to establish policy that would enable more egalitarian agricultural production and consumption systems, and to oversee the state's completion of such policy. Legislators and civic groups anticipated that President Rafael Correa, who in his 2006 campaign promoted citizen participation and equitable distribution of agricultural resources, would support such a participatory council. He did not. Instead, Correa partially vetoed the bill. He restructured the institution into a temporary committee and later a permanent state agency, Plurinational and Multicultural National Conference for Food Sovereignty (COPISA), which was mandated to create supplemental food sovereignty bills with citizen participation. COPISA completed the task in 2012, but their bills have yet to become laws. COPISA claims to be a leader in creating food sovereignty policy with citizen participants and to enable their implementation; however, findings show differently. COPISA is a relatively weak state agency. The agency has yet to redistribute power or resources regarding food sovereignty or oversight of existing food sovereignty legislation. Instead, the Correa administration (2007-present) has monopolized agricultural policy decisions and exponentially increased government investment in commodity crops, to the exclusion and detriment of peasant farmers. Indeed, the Correa administration seems to monopolize several supposedly state-sponsored "participatory" platforms, to the detriment of Ecuador's democracy. This text investigates why and how COPISA was restructured into a weak state agency, the perils of COPISA's claim of being a participatory organization, and the ways that its status as a weak state agency impacts and reflects Ecuador's participatory politics, democracy, and agricultural economies.

<p> The so called price control policies have traditionally been understood in terms of concerns about (a) the role and size of the bureaucracy implied (Taussig, 1919, Grayson and Neeb, 1974; Clinard, 1969; Rockoff, 1984; Galbraith, 1941 and 1946); (b) the (potential) short term effectiveness and medium/long term ineffectiveness of controls (Rockoff, 1984, Grayson and Neeb, 1974; Bienen and Gersovitz, 1986, FIEL, 1990); (c) the tax evasion and creation of black markets (Clinard, 1969); (d) the eventual emerging violence following the dismantling of controls or subsidies on consumer goods (Bienen and Gersovitz, 1986; van Wijnberger, 1992); (e) the potential impact on the government coalition (Ag&eacute;ndor and Asilis, 1997); (f) the levels of delivery, fill rates or even any breaks in supply chains (Grayson and Neeb, 1974; Clinard, 1969); (g) the incentives/distortions in the distribution of resources, as a result of the alteration of the price system (Galbraith, 1941, 1946, 1951, 2001; Friedman, 1990; Colander, 1984; Dunn and Pressman, 2005); (h) the search for focused or selftargeted alternatives in order to optimize the use of limited resources and prevent freeriding (Adams, s / f; Alderman, 2002; Gutner, 2002); and (k) its historical development as a political response to rising prices (Schuettinger and Butler, 1978). </p><p> However, little has been studied its contribution to the development of state capacities as well as the role of entrepreneurship in the acceptance of price controls. </p><p> In this sense, this thesis analyzes the first year of the "Precios Cuidados" program in force in Argentina since January 2014, in order to address two interrelated questions: (a) To what extent the &ldquo;Precios Cuidados&rdquo; Program, as a particular and specific form of joint coordination between public and private sector, favored the development and expansion of state capacities? (b) If it is true, as it will be argued, that this new form of joint articulation between the public and private sector contributes to expand state capacities, why did the retail community agree to take part of a voluntary agreement to freeze prices and markups that in the end would help to increase the relative powers of the agencies by which they are controlled without effective guarantees of limits to its exercise? A public policy, in a word, that will give us the unique opportunity to analyze the link between state, market and society and its effect on market regulation and the improvement of state capacities. </p>

This thesis aims to study Colombia’s post-conflict processes and peacemaking politics. Over the years, the numerous attempts at peace lacked solutions prioritizing a sustainable process for peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction. Yet since 2003, the government has implemented and prioritized a three-pronged policy known as Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) in an attempt to bundle the disparate elements that appear to be necessary components for long-term peace. Chapter one evaluates the turbulent history of peacemaking, focusing on the factors rendering peace elusive, examining the failed peace attempts, and chronologically arriving at DDR. Chapter two provides an in-depth analysis of the “R” in DDR through a theoretical framework of cooperation, its dimensions and logistics, and a compilation of narratives. It insists that Reintegration be more than a word or a theoretical concept. Chapter three analyzes the current peace negotiations and the winding road to a failed deadline through current events and political scandals. Taking into account the sociopolitical atmosphere into which DDR policies need to be implemented, the final chapter analyzes future scenarios and concludes: DDR processes are key to transition to peace; Reintegration is the most difficult and important aspect, as it
involves the cooperation from all segments of society and leads to a long-lasting peace; DDR must consider the nation’s politics to be successfully implemented; and finally, whether the peace attempt with the FARC is yet another elusive peace attempt or 
whether it initiates a road to peace, Colombia will be able to achieve peace through community archipelagos of peace.

Anti-racist legislation and education reforms for the past two decades in Brazil have required that curriculum in all basic education combat prejudice and racism and promote critical thinking of the nation's past and current ethnic-racial relations in an effort to construct a society that is more democratic, equal, and just. In response to the reforms, textbooks have been rewritten. This study analyzes one high school history textbook series that was approved by Brazil in 2012, and asks: How, and to what extent, do these new high school history textbooks address critical reflection on race and racism in Brazil? Using qualitative content analysis, I coded the above series for its attention in these matters. My findings reflect that though there are a number of cases where racism in Brazil was admitted, more explanation on the content on racism is needed, the content was too vague, or it lacked necessary details to make its analysis more informed for student reflection.

<p> This dissertation examines the dissemination of power represented in the works of Panamanian writers Roberto D&iacute;az Herrera, Rose Marie Tapia and Mauro Z&uacute;&ntilde;iga Ara&uacute;z. My work focuses on two important periods in Panama's history: the repressive dictatorial era of Manuel Noriega and the post-dictatorial era during which subjugation and power operate in subtle ways, through institutions, mechanisms of civil society, and globalization. The primary sources are D&iacute;az Herrera's testimony, and the novels of Tapia and Z&uacute;&ntilde;iga Ara&uacute;z. In my analysis, I draw upon the notions of power, subjugation and normalization developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. I also draw upon the thoughts of Mikhail Bahktin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Beatriz Sarlo.</p><p> Chapter one presents the historical overview of Panamanian history and its literature. It shows how power, subjugation and normalization have operated in Panama at different points of its history. Chapter Two analyses the political terror of Noriega through D&iacute;az Herrera's <i>Estrellas clandestinas </i> and Z&uacute;&ntilde;iga Ara&uacute;z's <i>El chacal del general. </i> Both narratives are challenges against Noriega, using scenes of actual persecutions, disappearances and tortures. Chapter Three explains how Tapia uses <i>Roberto por el buen camino</i> to denounce a wide range of inequalities existing in the post-dictatorial society. She focuses specifically on the culture of violence perpetrated by the underclass. Chapter four analyses how Z&uacute;&ntilde;iga Ara&uacute;z's <i>Espejo de miserias </i> takes the reader to a deep journey through a diverse range of social problems affecting women in Latin America, focusing on the subjugation and control of women's bodies through prostitution. This chapter uses Foucault's notion of biopower to illustrate how subjugation operates through globalization and the sex trade market. Chapter five uses Tapia's <i>Mujeres en fuga </i> to show globalization and the global market&mdash;through casinos and shopping malls&mdash;manipulating society, and contributing to Panama's socio-economic fragmentation. In addition to bringing attention to the literature of a country that is often ignored in contemporary Latin American Studies, my analysis demonstrates how these writers examine problems and questions concerning the use and dissemination of power that remain vitally important not only in Panama, but also throughout Latin America.</p>

This thesis examines the ways that Brazilians are evaluated for their privileges in qualification for the affirmative action program. It critically examines the existing policies, how they function, and how they affect ideas of race in Brazil for both black and non-black Brazilians. Additionally, it proposes that the policies prioritize phenotype as a primary condition for qualifying for a quota in order to accomplish their initial objectives of fighting racial inequalities, compensating for historical injustices, contributing to the diversity of experiences and perspectives on campuses and in federal offices, and raising understanding of what it means to be black in Brazil.