acase@tulane.edu

Civil-military relations theory stresses the importance of civilian control of the military and clearly defined roles for the military in democratic societies. There are two distinct perspectives regarding military roles. Traditionalist thinkers argue that the military should be restricted solely to its traditional role of national defense. On the other hand, some scholars propose additional, diverse, non-traditional roles for the military such as humanitarian assistance, law enforcement activities, peace-keeping operations, and disaster management, as “new military roles.†Guatemala serves as a case study where a military institution has received much criticism for past political involvement and lack of respect for civil authority. The 1996 Peace Accords stipulated a reduction and new mission for the Guatemalan military, which put new emphasis on disaster management, and serves as the research starting point. This study describes Guatemalan military involvement in disaster management during 1997-2002. In order to determine the nature of Guatemalan military involvement in disaster management, three indicators are examined: 1) organization, 2) training, and 3) participation in disaster response. Analysis of military compliance with Peace Accord directives, and the three indicators, is conducted to assess how well the Guatemalan military respected civil authority during the study period. This dissertation argues that the post-1996 Guatemalan military was involved in disaster management yet stayed within the bounds of civilian control of the military. The implications of these findings will add to the existing literature concerning civil-military relations, disaster management, and the controversial topic of non-traditional roles for the military. / acase@tulane.edu

While researchers have long recognized the disproportionate impact of natural disasters on racial and ethnic communities, research remains incomplete in examining the plight of Gulf Coast Vietnamese residents after Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This study presents a comprehensive, qualitative investigation of three different Vietnamese communities located in New Orleans, Biloxi, and Bayou La Batre and details how residents established and maintained nonprofit community based organizations in a region that previously saw little or no formal mobilization among Vietnamese residents. Existing studies tend to isolate the extent to which variables such as language, culture, social networks, and religious institutions, influence recovery outcomes. In contrast, this study, by drawing upon multiple avenues of data collection, including 54 in-depth interviews, fieldwork, and participant observation, provides an ethnographic analysis of immigrant community building via the unique circumstances of post-crisis community rebuilding. Findings reveal that despite the differences among by the study sites, one overarching theme emerges: new Gulf South Vietnamese organizations struggled to bridge gaps and build relationships as they sought to transition the community of inexperienced, naive, or complacent Vietnamese locals from loose, informal networks to structured organizational forms. This work examines the challenges faced by organizations as they become established and the strategies by which they grow and become sustainable. Suggestions for how ethnic organizations may better serve and perform outreach into Vietnamese enclaves are presented in the form of lessons learned. Ultimately, this study extends the established literature on the Vietnamese experience in the United States and contributes to the overall canon of research regarding Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. / acase@tulane.edu

This study describes the grammar of the Ch’orti’ Maya language as it appears in a collection of oral literature. I collected the stories that form the basis of this study in and around Jocotán, Guatemala, during 2004 and 2005. I worked with bilingual story-tellers to make audio recordings of the original Ch’orti’-language tales, produce textual transcriptions, and Spanish-language translations. Here I have translated the stories into English, and have analyzed the resulting bilingual texts linguistically, producing a description of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the language. / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation argues that an undocumented member of the Defoid language family known as Àhàn should be considered a language in its own right and not a dialect of some other Yoruboid language. This conclusion is based on a comparison of several syntactic categories in Àhàn to those of standard Yoruba. An investigation of the nominal system and functional categories such as markers of tense, aspect, focus, negation and relativization are language internal evidences that support the claims of this thesis. The dissertation has both descriptive and theoretical ambitions. The descriptive part of the dissertation provides basic outline of the grammar of the language and also provides an outline of the various syntactic phenomenon that are language specific to Àhàn. The theoretical side of the dissertation examines aspect of the syntax of the language under the latest theory of generative syntax called the Minimalist Program. The applicability of Àhàn data to the claims of Minimalist syntax (Chomsky 1995, 2001 and Kayne 1994) and the modifications of the theory where necessary are part of the theoretical endeavor of this dissertation. Using the principles of microcomparative syntax (Richard Kayne 1989, 2000 2012), the thesis demonstrate how structural comparison of aspects of the syntax of Àhàn and Yoruba explicate linguistic variation, and how differences that exist between closely related languages provide data for our understanding of the properties of Universal Grammar (Collins 2013). / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

Holt Cemetery is a historic potter's field in New Orleans that has been in active use for several centuries. One of the few below-ground cemeteries in New Orleans, it is one of the most culturally fascinating burial places in the city. In spite of being frequently visited by families (evidenced by the unique votive material left on grave plots) and the final resting place of several historic figures, Holt is threatened by a lack of conservation so extreme that the ground surface is littered with human remains and the cemetery is left unprotected against grave robbing. Many locals have expressed concern that occult rituals take place within Holt, promoting the theft of human bones, while others have expressed concern that the skeletal material is stolen to be sold. Attempts to map and document the cemetery were originally undertaken by archaeologists working in the area who intended to create a searchable database with an interactive GIS map. Additionally, the nonprofit group Save Our Cemeteries, which works to restore New Orleans' cemeteries and educate the public about their importance, has taken part in conservation work. As of today all the projects and preservation efforts involving the cemetery have ceased. This thesis documents and analyzes the skeletal material within the cemetery alongside the votive material and attempts to explain why Holt is allowed to exist in its current state of disrepair while still remaining a place of vivid expressive culture. / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation traces the development, growth, and eventual fall of a white Creole intellectual and literary community in New Orleans, beginning in the 1820s and continuing for a century thereafter. In histories and novels, poetry and prose, the stage and the press, white Creole New Orleanians—those who traced their parentage back to the city’s colonial era—advocated both an intimate connection to France and a desire to be considered citizens of the United States of America. In print, they consciously fostered, mythologized, and promoted the idea that their very bifurcated nature made them inheritors of a singularly special place, possessors of an exceptional history, and keepers of utterly unique bloodlines. In effect, this closely-knit circle of Creole writers, like other Creole literary communities scattered across the Atlantic World, imbued the word Creole as a descriptive identity marker that symbolized social and cultural power. In postcolonial Louisiana, the authors within this white Creole literary circle used the printed word to imagine themselves a unified community of readers and writers. Together, they produced newspapers, literary journals, and art and science-based salons and clubs. Theirs was a postcolonial exercise in articulating a common identity, a push and pull for and against their French and American halves to create a creolized Creole self. Looking to their American brothers and to their French motherland, they participated in idealistic, literary, and wider cultural movements witnessed on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Over the course of the long-nineteenth century, these movements included romantic historicism, religious reformation, pan-linguistic nationalism, racial refashioning, a preoccupation with genealogy, and a social feminization. Though few of these white Creole authors are still read today, their fashioning of a city and state literature continues to resonate in most all literary representations of New Orleans and Louisiana. By the turn of the twentieth century, and the end of their era of prominence, the white Creoles had popularized the idea of a New Orleans centered in the city’s mythologized white, Gallic past. They had imagined the “Creole City.” / acase@tulane.edu