At the end of the Thirties and during the following years, we find in Cuba a socio-political and cultural atmosphere very different from that of the previous period. The revolution of the Thirties succeeded in overthrowing Machado, but at the same time the achievement of its deeper social goals was frustrated. A spirit of demoralization dominated the Cuban political scene and a group of writers and artists of the Third Generation of the Republic started to perceive politics as a meaningless comedy in which they did not want to participate. Simultaneously, an increase in the involvement of the United States in Cuban domestic affairs caused those creators to believe that they were experiencing a period of progressive disintegration of their national identity Disappointed with the political options available, they began to conceive of 'culture' as the only feasible way to save national dignity and awareness. For those creators, culture was the only real aspect of an otherwise disheartening socio-political farce. Culture was also a refuge in which the nation could survive until better political circumstances and new incorruptible leaders would emerge. Culture, for them, had an essentially ethical and holistic meaning. Thus, their cultural undertaking could be considered a chapter in the history of Cuban ethics, as Cintio Vitier pointed out in his Ese sol del mundo moral. This ethical perspective is the most appropriate for our understanding of this group, and constitutes the nucleus that gives meaning to the operational structure of the group's various artistic and literary reviews which reveal their conformity as a whole. Another factor in the group's uniformity was the presence of a leader, Jose Lezama Lima, who eventually became an ethical model The group is known as 'Origenes' and includes writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, and art critics. Its reviews are Verbum (1937), Espuela de Plata (1939-1941), Clavileno (1942-1944), Nadie Parecia (1942-1943), Poeta (1943), and Origenes (1944-1956) The object of this dissertation is to bring into the foreground the ethical holistic meaning of the 'Origenes' group, as reflected in its reviews, particularly in Origenes as a culmination of the process begun by Verbum / acase@tulane.edu

Earlier research has shown that improvements in government institutional performance will lead citizens to collectively increase their trust or collective memory toward that institution; as well as leading those citizens to increase their trust or social capital toward other citizens. This study within six District Assemblies in Ghana sought to examine if these same relationships existed. Improvements in performance of the members in these six District Assemblies were defined by increases in District Assembly Common Fund expenditures. Greater collective memory among members within a District Assembly was defined as decreases in the percentage of members believing that corruption was present or increases in the percentage of members believing that social capital was present in other District Assemblies. Greater social capital was defined as increases in the percentage of members reporting working with other members and perceiving that relationship as equal and trusting. Using the permutation test, significant positive correlations were observed between collective memory and social capital but these correlations were not consistent with performance. Rather, performance was either poor for all District Assemblies or increased as social capital and collective memory declined. Unequal patron-client relations and low risks to political actors are discussed as possible factors influencing performance and democratic consolidation / acase@tulane.edu

En la presente disertacion Jorge E. Traslosheros investiga la historia de la audiencia judicial del arzobispado de Mexico, del ano de 1550 al de 1630. En sus dos primeros capitulos estudia la formacion de la jurisdiccion propia de la audiencia eclesiastica. En los subsecuentes examina los aspectos fundamentales que ocuparon los esfuerzos de tan trascendente tribunal, a saber: la defensa de la jurisdiccion de la Iglesia y del arzobispo, la disciplina de la clerecia, la justicia ordinaria civil y criminal, la relacion de la audiencia con los indigenas y los asuntos relacionados con la vida matrimonial. El autor considera relevante destacar que la competencia de la audiencia arzobispal fue mucho mas amplia que la de un simple tribunal de fuero, al grado de constituir lo que hoy en dia podriamos llamar el sistema judicial de la potestad eclesiastica de la epoca novohispana, concomitante al de la potestad civil / acase@tulane.edu

The rapid growth of the internet over the last ten years has led many people to question the social implications of this new technology. Using nationally representative data collected by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in October and November of 2004, I investigated how gender influences the ways American teenagers use the internet. I used quantitative analysis to document the scope of the gender gap and identify the individual-level social factors that perpetuate the gender gap. I focused on five different areas of internet use, and found that, overall, gender matters. First, my analysis focused on the frequency and intensity of girls' and boys' internet use. Results suggest that girls are more likely to go online than boys, although I found no difference between teens' intensity of internet use. Second, my analysis focused on the types of skills teens use on the internet and found that girls are more likely to use the internet for communicating with others while boys are more likely to use the internet in ways that demand some advanced skills. Third, I focused on the technical means of access through which teens go online, but I found no differences between girls and boys. Fourth, I analyzed teens' autonomy of use of the internet and found that parents are more likely to monitor boy's internet use than girl's use. Lastly, I looked at social support networks of teens who go online and found that girls are more likely than boys to have friends who go online. Overall, my study contributes to the sociological body of knowledge in three important ways. First, it extends the debate about the digital divide by refining our understanding of digital inequalities beyond simple access. Second, it investigates a social group, teens, that has been overlooked by social scientists studying new media and the internet. Third, and most importantly, it extends our understanding of the social organization of internet use in terms of gender / acase@tulane.edu

Although societies have increasingly embraced policies to enforce international human rights norms and greater demand for accountability when confronted with internal mass violence, war or transition from repressive rulings (Licklider 2001), population-based research have rarely been used to inform the design, implementation and the evaluation of such policies. Yet, after over a decade of applied transitional justice, program developers, scholars and policymakers are still exploring what contributions such mechanisms make to the process of building a lasting peace. Against this background, this study introduces a quantitative approach to explore, from a population perspective, the relation between peace and justice in the aftermath of mass violence using empirical evidences from Northern Uganda A victim-based model of peace and justice is proposed to explore associations between victimization, views on the mechanisms that can achieve peace and support for selected transitional justice policies. The findings of this study show that support for trials is associated with psychological trauma and views that negative mechanisms, such as waging a war, can achieve peace. This suggests that support for trials is associated with desire for revenge and punishment. It is therefore possible that trials contribute to building peace by providing an alternative to the use of violence as a means of revenge. This further implies that, in the eyes of victims, there is a contradiction in pursuing trials (associated with negative means to achieve peace) while at the same time negotiating peace. Support for amnesty was associated with peace talks and other positive mechanism to achieve peace and absence of psychological trauma, suggesting that among this group, returning to normal life is the priority Psychological trauma impacts views on peace and justice. Addressing the psycho-social impact of the conflict should therefore become part of any transitional justice mechanisms. The way forward in Northern Uganda must therefore be driven by a comprehensive strategy that addresses the psycho-social component influencing support for specific mechanisms. With that in mind, a strategy taking advantage of all the mechanisms and the needs of the victims can be developed and receive support from the population / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation documents and analyzes compadrazgo choice patterns in a spontaneous frontier community, Nu Pyajhu Guazu, in the interior of eastern Paraguay. The results of this work indicate that although families in Nu Pyajhu Guazu might have been expected to be making vertical fictive kin ties outside of the community, in fact, they are not. Nevertheless, individuals in Nu Pyajhu Guazu are intent upon 'maximizing' their choices economically and socially. The history of Nu Pyajhu Guazu makes this clear on an economic level. An analysis of compadrazgo choice patterns indicates this to be true socially, as well. The reasons for not making vertical fictive kin ties are linked with the history of the frontier zone and the uncertainties that are inherent in the lives of the people who inhabit the area--socially, politically, economically, and environmentally. These basic uncertainties have led to a type of behavior that has been termed 'risk-adverse' in peasant agricultural economies and I argue the same principles are also involved in compadrazgo choice practices. I also argue that there is an element of verticality in the horizontal, intra-community fictive kin preferences that are based primarily on prestige gained through proper moral behavior, personal generosity, and working for the betterment of the community as a whole, although an element of perceived economic wealth is also involved / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation presents an archaeological investigation into prehistoric Maya social and political organization. I took as a general problem the typological placement of ancient Maya society in cultural evolutionary schemes. The specific issue was whether prehistoric Yucatec Maya government was a segmentary or unitary state. To apply ethnohistorical data directly to the prehistoric problem, I chose to investigate a late prehistoric archaeological site: Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico. I proposed four hypotheses relating settlement patterns and artifact style and function to social groups and the kinship system. At Mayapan, I mapped several areas of residential settlement. The settlement pattern consisted of a nested hierarchy of self-similar units. Dwellings clustered into house groups; two or more house groups sometimes clustered within a houselot; two or more houselots sometimes aggregated to create a cluster of houselots. The Mayapan settlement pattern exhibits fractal geometry: it is statistically self-similar and has a fractional dimension. The fractal settlement pattern neatly matches those models of Maya social structure, like Evon Vogt's, that propose a self-similar hierarchical nesting of social units. To collect artifact samples from different social groups, I excavated and made surface collections in three clusters of houselots and in one large houselot that contained two house groups. The style of the ceramics exhibited spatial patterning, both within and among clusters of houselots. Correspondence analysis differentiated the clusters of houselots statistically using the frequencies of ceramic varieties. Stylistic ceramic modes, like lip forms, also exhibited statistically significant variation among clusters of houselots. Analysis of the lithic artifacts suggested that economic functions and activities varied among houselots or clusters of houselots. Evaluation of the hypotheses implied that clusters of houselots represented important social groups. Ethnohistorical analysis indicated that the Yucatec Maya possessed patrilineal, patrilocal lineages that formed the basis of the political system. I found persuasive evidence for the existence of matrilines that not only helped regulate marriage patterns, but also had economic functions. The research indicated that Late Postclassic Mayapan government was more segmentary than unitary, but that those categories were inadequate to describe the variability inherent in early states.* *Originally published in DAI Vol. 60, No. 10. Reprinted here with corrected title / acase@tulane.edu

The development impact of remittances in Mexico at all scales if of particular interest for government and development institutions given the growing influence these financial flows have on the macro economy as well as on communities and households. The existing literature frames migrants use of remittances as primarily focused on consumption, although there are strong voices arguing that expenditure on health care, education, and housing contribute to economic productivity. Based on a framework that examines the individual, household, community and macroeconomic factors associated with the use of remittances, this study utilizes development paradigms to examine how these factors influence Mexican migrant remittance investment. Utilizing survey data from 3395 migrant heads of households from the Mexican Migration Project 107 (MMP107), this study developed three different random effects logit models based on three definitions of productive use, stratified into urban and rural cases. The dependent variables were based on the literature's productive use definition as well as the basic needs and sustainable development paradigms. The findings from this study highlight that migrants invest their remittances in basic needs such as health care, housing and education rather than consumption. There were important differences between the factors that influenced migrants from rural vs. urban areas. The rural model for productive investment of remittances for example highlighted a strong positive association with the level of education in the community. The primary factors associated with the investment of remittances were economic assets, wealth, and marital status. However, social networks, education, and community participation also influenced remittances investment. The study findings have important implications for both future research and policymaking. The findings suggest that in order for remittances to be a catalyst for economic growth, addressing the recipients' basic needs is an essential prerequisite / acase@tulane.edu

Children born into poverty in the United States are at greater risk for a number of negative outcomes, including high school drop-out, teen pregnancy, drug use, and exposure to crime. Despite the negative statistics, many poor children advance socioeconomic status by adulthood. Although there is an extensive body of research identifying the causes and consequences of poverty, there is much less on socioeconomic advancement. The current study argues that in the absence of this latter group, the analysis of poverty, and particularly how to help more people advance out of poverty, is incomplete. Through life-history interviews this study considers the educational trajectories of 52 first-generation college students, half of whom were still in college and half had graduated and had middle-class earnings at the time of their research interviews. Respondents qualified for the study if they were the first in their family to attend a four-year college and had qualified for any form of governmental public assistance as children. The middle-class cohort additionally had to be earning a minimum of $34,000 annually. This study adds to the literature by identifying the relationships, events, and other factors that facilitated respondents' advancement in socioeconomic status. Additionally, it considers the durability of the narrative of the American Dream and its impact on poverty policy, arguing that an accurate detailing of the structures of inequality at earlier levels of education than are currently in place is necessary to move society in the direction of poverty policy that would effectively address American inequality / acase@tulane.edu

This thesis seeks to define liberation theology, its evolution and its relevance in economically advanced and poor or emerging societies The focus is on Paulo Freire, the lay theologian, whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed, outlines the quest for conscienticao or critical consciousness through transformational education Freire, once considered a radical, developed a rapid method of teaching both literary and critical thinking skills to the poor and oppressed people of his native Brazil. His dialogical method, called co-intentional education, provides the skills needed for participation in destiny and in the democratic process unlike banking education that indoctrinates to continue the 'culture of silence' thus avoiding change, power sharing or threats to the prevailing cultural elite Also discussed are the anti-dialogic actions Freire warns about that prevent conscientization or transformation and are prevalent in developed and modern societies as well as poor and emerging ones / acase@tulane.edu