<p> Food security and food sovereignty are being integrated into policy frameworks around the world, predominantly in the countries of Latin America. In 2013, Peru was on the cusp of approving a national policy and national law relating to food security and food sovereignty. Engaging food regime analysis as introduced by Harriet Friedmann and Philip McMichael to historicize the political economy of the global food system, I document how food sovereignty challenges the neoliberal policy paradigm in Peru and simultaneously risks cooptation into the neoliberal food regime, arguing that the final result of food sovereignty being excluded from any officially approved law in Peru represents the preservation of food sovereignty's radical nature and resistance to cooptation. Using the theory of "neoliberal multiculturalism" by Charles Hale, I show that the strategies of participation and construction used in the Peruvian food policy-making process open new alternatives beyond the assumed binary of cooptation or resistance in the institutionalization of a social movement platform. This thesis, developed in the midst of the policy debate in Peru, is a timely and relevant study that has implications for food policy processes around the world. With the emergence of more initiatives in Latin America and beyond to institutionalize the food sovereignty framework into national policy, careful analysis of the risks, challenges, and opportunities of doing so will inform future efforts. </p>

<p> This dissertation investigates the relationship between community structure and social dynamics and farmers' livelihood and land-use decisions in settlements of land reform in the Brazilian Amazon. Using social capital theory, it addresses the following questions: How can social capital be conceptualized in areas of land reform in the Amazon region and how does it change over time? What is the role of local organizations in community formation and development in colonization areas of the Amazon region? How has settlement design influenced farmers' participation in local organizations? How does social capital within rural communities influence the dynamics of household economy in the Amazon region? How does social capital, in the form of norms of reciprocity and boundaries, affect land-use/land-cover change at farm and community levels? To answer these questions, this dissertation combines ethnographic data, social-network analyses, linear regression analyses, multi-temporal remote sensing, and Geographic Information Systems. This is a unique, in-depth study of social capital &mdash;in the form of social networks, participation in local organizations, and norms of reciprocity&mdash; taking into consideration the particularities of areas of land reform organized around a regime of private property. Three communities were chosen for this study: Nova Alian&ccedil;a, Po&ccedil;o Branco, and Serra Grande. The arrival of more capitalized farmers in Nova Alian&ccedil;a and Po&ccedil;o Branco, who tend to invest in a more diversified agriculture, has led to high incidence of land turnover, resulting in higher rates of deforestation. Conversely, Serra Grande has developed a system of boundary norms that has limited land turnover, resulting in lower rates of deforestation. In these communities, networks based on trust provide for the households' immediate needs, furthering their access to community organizations. Although settlement design is not a hindrance to interaction and trust, it results in differential participation in some local organizations, such as the farmers' associations. The latter contribute to the upward mobility of poor farmers by providing access to credit, though benefits are not equally shared among the residents. However, these associations' heavy dependence on governmental assistance jeopardize the positive outcomes they intend, limiting their effectiveness and undermining trust and cooperation among farmers. These findings will help small farmers in the Amazon and elsewhere recognize the intrinsic value of local organization and collective action, and how these intertwine in influencing their quality of life, sociocultural identity, sense of belonging, and perspectives towards the future.</p>

<p> This dissertation explores the obstacles for US formal military bases in Latin America. While in the past, the United States managed to establish bases in several countries in the region, despite Washington's efforts every negotiation to open new bases has failed since 2000, and older bases have been terminated, as in the case of Ecuador. Using evidence from Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, and other countries in the region, the dissertation finds that shifts in government preferences do not explain this failure. Instead, domestic challenges to host governments in Latin America systematically appear as blocking mechanisms that impede the establishment of foreign military bases, even when leaders support them. </p><p> The dissertation builds on the work of Alexander Cooley and others and develops a model of base politics to explain how domestic political calculations affect foreign basing negotiations. Furthermore, the dissertation finds that when formal bases have not succeeded, interested governments have worked around domestic constrains to establish alternative and informal arrangements that allow US military presence and operations in their countries. These alternative arrangements, or quasi-bases, have advanced US security interests in Latin America even in the absence of formal base leases, while at the same time their secrecy and informality protects Latin American leaders from domestic contestation.</p>

<p> Studies have shown that Latina/os may experience discomfort in regards to acculturation and assimilation into mainstream American culture. For Latina/o adolescents this struggle may be more pronounced. Adolescence can be a time when one is developing an understanding of how one fits within the context of community. Previous research shows how adolescents with a strong ethnic identity may experience greater resiliency against stressful life events. Studies have also shown how the arts can have a positive effect on adolescent identity development. Cultural arts aid in selfdiscovery plus a connection with peers and the greater community. This study examines the correlation between culturally-relevant art activities, labeled in this study as the LIAC (Latina/o Identity-based Art Curriculum) and Latina/o adolescent ethnic identity exploration and affirmation. This study consisted of 15 Latina/ o students, ages 13-18, enrolled in an after-school program. Ethnic identity was analyzed using the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM). Students reflected on their art projects and other members' art projects, which were based on topics ofLatina/o ethnicity and culture. Findings correlate to previous studies which show how cultural art activities can help strengthen Latinalo adolescent identity. Data from this study showed significance increases in ethnic identity exploration and affirmation, respectively. Although the current results are informative, they are also preliminary. More research is needed to fully understand how culturally-relevant art groups can help Latina/o adolescents gain a stronger ethnic and overall identity.</p>

<p> This dissertation examines the academic life of part-time professors at the five biggest universities in Chile. By examining part-timers' academic life, including both who the part-time professors are and what their academic work is, this study sheds light on the complexity and diversity of the part-time world. </p><p> Based on a qualitative methodology, this study looks at part-time professors' individual characteristics, job experiences, and aspirations for academic careers. It also looks at how part-time professors interact with structures in relation to the tasks and activities they perform in higher education. Data come from 70 interviews: 44 with part-time professors and 26 with university administrators including department chairs, ex-deans, provosts, and human resource directors. </p><p> This dissertation challenges the widespread view that part-time professors basically comprise one overarching entity. To be sure, the study also discovers significant commonalities, some encompassing all part-timers, others an extensive share but with exceptions. Chilean part-time professors share a teaching vocation and teaching is nearly the totality of what they do. Most of this teaching is classroom teaching. Only a few part-timers aspire to full-time academic careers. </p><p> Mostly, however, the study finds a part-time world that is diverse and complex. As it maps out dimensions of this diversity and complexity, the study discovers significant patterns within the wide-ranging terrain. Moreover, the study probes the logic of much of the variation. It develops a typology of part-time professors and their academic work. The typology first identifies the two major kinds of part-time professors: Higher Education Teachers (HET) and Outsider Professionals (OP). HET have their main work experience in higher education, OP chiefly outside higher education. Beyond that, the typology maps out multiple sub-types within each of these two major types. Exploration of the types and sub-types unearths much information about matters such as heterogeneous reasons to teach part-time and contrasting employment profiles. Even within teaching, always part-timers' main endeavor, the study finds variation on multiple activities such as evaluation of students and development of curriculum.</p>

<p> In recent years, U.S. colleges and universities have begun to extend their international presence through different models of cross-border higher education. This research explores three models of U.S. higher education in Panama City, Panama: a branch campus, a franchise model and merger/acquisition models. Using a qualitative approach, this study included a year of document analysis, classroom observations, interviews, and focus groups. Using the lens of academic capitalism, the findings place the different models along a continuum of neoliberalism and the public good.</p>

<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>

<p> This dissertation analyzes the unprecedented eruption of organized criminal violence in Mexico. To understand the dynamics of drug violence, this dissertation addresses three questions. What explains the onset of the war on drugs in Mexico? Once the conflict starts, why does drug violence escalate so rapidly? And lastly, why is there subnational variation in the concentration of violence? </p><p> Based on a game theoretic model, the central argument indicates that democratization erodes the peaceful configurations between the state and criminal organizations and motivates authorities to fight crime, thus triggering a wave of violence between the state and organized criminals and among rival criminal groups fighting to control strategic territories. In this account, state action is not neutral: law enforcement against a criminal group generates the opportunity for a rival criminal organization to invade its territory, thus leading to violent interactions among rival criminal groups. These dynamics of violence tend to concentrate in territories favorable for the reception, production and distribution of drugs. In this way, the disrupting effect of law enforcement unleashes a massive wave of violence of all-against-all resembling a Hobbesian state of war. </p><p> To test the observable implications of the theory, the empirical assessment relies on a novel database of geo-referenced daily event data at municipal level providing detailed information on who did what to whom, when and where in the Mexican war on drugs. This database covers all municipalities of the country between 2000 and 2010, thus comprising about 9.8 million observations. The creation of this fine-grained database required the development of <i> Eventus ID</i>, a novel software for automated coding of event data from text in Spanish. The statistical assessment relies on quasi-experimental identification strategies and time-series analysis to overcome problems of causal inference associated with analyzing the distinct - yet overlapping - processes of violence between government authorities and organized criminals and among rival criminal groups. In addition, the statistical analysis is complemented with insights from fieldwork and historical process tracing. Results provide strong support for the empirical implications derived from the theoretical model.</p>

abstract: Desde los textos más tempranos, la literatura de Latinoamérica ha sido marcada por la presencia de sus comunidades indígenas, la representación de las cuales siempre está cambiando. A lo largo del siglo XIX vemos que esos textos tienden a dar una perspectiva de esas culturas desde afuera. No es hasta después de la emergencia del realismo mágico en el siglo XX que conseguimos una mirada a esas culturas desde adentro. De los tempranos mágicorrealistas, tal vez ninguno de ellos haya captado la realidad social del indígena mejor que el guatemalteco Miguel Ángel Asturias. Sin embargo, a pesar de sus buenas intenciones de representar la realidad indígena, sacar a luz los desafíos que enfrentan y mejorar las condiciones en que viven, muchos críticos han cuestionado la representación asturiana de las culturas indígenas, acusándole a Asturias hasta de ser racista. En aquellas criticas, el modelo teórico que ha sido aplicado a la relectura de las obras de Asturias ha sido sin duda el de los estudios poscoloniales. Pero, ¿se presta esa literatura a aquel tipo de análisis? ¿Son aplicables esas teorías a las realidades sociales de Guatemala? Otros investigadores creen que hacer eso es una simplificación y tomar las cosas fuera de su contexto histórico. Es a base de este último argumento que esta tesina se inicia. Los objetivos de este estudio son de examinar la propiedad de aplicar esas teorías a las obras de Asturias y también de analizar la imagen del indígena creada en su literatura a través del uso de la imaginación, mitología y lenguaje maya. Este estudio se centra en algunos de los textos más tempranos de Asturias tales como su tesis de abogado, producción periodística y obras de ficción para analizar cómo él ha representado la población indígena de Guatemala. Este análisis concluye que lejos del racismo de que Asturias ha sido acusado, él está completamente comprometido con el proyecto de mejorar las condiciones en las que los indígenas de Guatemala viven. Además, concluye que Asturias ha representado esas comunidades de una manera positiva a través del uso del imaginario, mitología, sintaxis, léxico y organización literaria maya. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2011

<p> The aim of the study was to examine discrimination in healthcare and psychological distress among non-immigrant and immigrant Latinos. The current study is quantitative study that utilized secondary data that was retrieved from the 2015 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). The total sample included 5,165 Latino adults, including 2,226 (43.1%) males and 2,939 (56.9%) females. The results revealed associations between gender and poverty level on psychological distress. There were associations found on needing help from someone to understand the doctor, unfair treatment when getting medical care, and English proficiency on psychological distress. There was no significant association between citizenship status and psychological distress. Research on Latinos and discrimination continues to be limited, thus more research could help to create programming for consumers and trainings for staff to reduce health disparities for Latinos.</p><p>