BACKGROUND: Uruguay exhibits one of the highest rates of breast cancer in Latin America, similar to those of developed nations, the reasons for which are not completely understood. In this study we investigated the effect that ancestral background has on breast cancer susceptibility among Uruguayan women. METHODS: We carried out a case-control study of 328 (164 cases, 164 controls) women enrolled in public hospitals and private clinics across the country. We estimated ancestral proportions using a panel of nuclear and mitochondrial ancestry informative markers (AIMs) and tested their association with breast cancer risk. RESULTS: Nuclear individual ancestry in cases was (mean ± SD) 9.8 ± 7.6% African, 13.2 ± 10.2% Native American and 77.1 ± 13.1% European, and in controls 9.1 ± 7.5% African, 14.7 ± 11.2% Native American and 76.2 ± 14.2% European. There was no evidence of a difference in nuclear or mitochondrial ancestry between cases and controls. However, European mitochondrial haplogroup H was associated with breast cancer (OR = 2.0; 95% CI 1.1, 3.5). CONCLUSIONS: We have not found evidence that overall genetic ancestry differs between breast cancer patients and controls in Uruguay but we detected an association of the disease with a European mitochondrial lineage, which warrants further investigation.

En Uruguay, pays marqué par une faible densité de population, la relation ville-campagne repose, depuis la conquête, sur l'extraction de la richesse produite par l'activité agricole et sur la mobilité des habitants. Au cours du XXème siècle, les transformations de l'organisation du travail dans les exploitations agricoles ont favorisé la salarisation. Celle-ci a été accompagnée d'une précarisation de l'emploi touchant inégalement les salariés. Parmi eux, les journaliers ont été les plus affectés. Le gouvernement au pouvoir depuis 2005, plus sensible à la question de la pauvreté, se préoccupe de leur situation. La précarité se caractérise par la rotation de l'emploi et la circulation des travailleurs entre les exploitations. La particularité des journaliers uruguayens est de résider en ville, dans les quartiers périphériques. Loin d'être assimilée à un ajustement mécanique entre la localisation de la main-d'œuvre et celle de l'emploi, cette mobilité répond, d'une part, à des stratégies de recrutement et de gestion de la main-d'œuvre par les employeurs et, d'autre part, à une construction individuelle et familiale du mouvement par les journaliers. Cette thèse, qui s'inscrit dans les préoccupations actuelles sur la précarité et la géographie du mouvement, cherche à comprendre, à partir de l'étude des pratiques spatiales du quotidien des journaliers agricoles résidant dans deux villes du pays (Salto et Las Piedras), comment leurs mobilités professionnelles participent de leur territorialité et en quoi elles permettent de préciser les relations ville-campagne en Uruguay.

L'Uruguay est aujourd'hui le seul pays d'Amérique du Sud à ne pas reconnaître d'indiens sur son territoire, et cela bien qu'avant 1830, date de la fondation de l'État, de nombreuses ethnies (guaraníes, charrúas, chanáes, guenoas, yaros, biguaes) fussent présentes sur son territoire. Cependant, depuis1980, des groupes se font entendre qui revendiquent leur ascendance et même leur identité charrúa.Cette ethnie, selon l'Histoire officielle aurait disparu au cours du XIXº siècle. Le massacre de Salsipuedes, qui mit fin à l'existence de ce groupe social, culturel et politique en 1831, fut en effet, la première opération militaire menée par l'Etat-nation uruguayen, une année après son indépendance.Cette thèse se propose d'analyser la relation entre État et Indien, en essayant de comprendre les places respectives de l'oubli et des constructions mémorielles tout à la fois chez les individus (terrain ) etdans l'Histoire officielle (archives). L'image de l'indien s'est construite à la fin du XIX siècle dans l'art, l'histoire et la littérature, à partir de projections européennes et créoles, au service d'un nationalisme qui dénonçait avec force le métissage, et ignorait à la fois les dernières communautés indiennes du territoire national. Une fois l'indien occulté, l'utopie du creuset des races, le melting pot uruguayen, pouvait alors proposer un métissage exclusivement intra-européen, et une nouvelle identité uruguayenne promue par l'État-nation.Avec les années 60, de nouveaux discours identitaires apparurent malgré tout. Passés sous silence pendant la dictature (1973-1985), ils se transformèrent en revendications identitaires ethniques indiennes, profitant alors d'un nouveau contexte politique et mémoriel. A travers l'observation des processus en jeu dans l'irruption des groupes néo-charrúas nous verrons que l'objet de l'occultation historique dépasse les seuls Indiens.

Grassroots social resistance to neoliberal reforms of urban water and sanitation has taken a dynamic trajectory in the past decade, especially in Latin America. The thesis' proposition is that these struggles have undergone qualitative changes. Their previously defensive strategies are developing into propositional strategies that increasingly focus on public and community alternatives to privatisation. This politicisation and movementisation of urban WATSAN is hardly discussed by academic literature, despite it being an emerging opportunity for propublic sector reform. Thus, the inquiry concerns the role of social movements in the exploration of alternatives to privatisation and looks at transnational networks and localnational struggles. This thesis employs critical ethnographic, participant research methodology. Empirical research took place from 2004 to 2008 and developed an emergent practice of politicised social movement research. As conceptual framework, the role of social movement in urban water and sanitation is considered as a process of radical reformism and social appropriation. On this basis, the global water justice movement's emergent discursive frame is analysed and found to centre on the democratisation of public water. By means of a comparative typology theory I then analyse local and national-level social struggles and develop the concept of pro-public challenge. Two case studies further elaborate on this type of political process of sector reform. These are the Uruguayan sector reform after a national referendum in 2004; and the case of Peru, where the embedded case of the city of Huancayo developed a public-public partnership as alternative to a planned water utility privatisation. The thesis develops a meso-level qualitative analysis of the political process of movementisation of sector reform in form of matrices, contingent pathways and contingent generalisations. The central finding is that social movements at transnational and local level develop new roles in pro-public sector reform. Despite substantive impacts, their power to implement alternative paths of development was found to be limited. They run the risk of not meeting all the resulting new challenges posed by politicised participation in sector reform, failing to develop adequate strategies, resources, organisational capacity and expert knowledge.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

I analyze the causes of highly skilled emigration, otherwise known as Brain Drain, in the three countries of the Southern Cone: Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. These three upper-middle income countries have similarities in culture and level of economic development, which serve as the grounds for an effective comparison. I find that Chile has been especially successful in combatting Brain Drain while Argentina has been especially unsuccessful. Uruguay has been neither successful nor unsuccessful, but still faces a significant Brain Drain problem due to uncontrollable factors (for example, its small population). I recommend that the Argentine and Uruguayan governments broaden their current anti-Brain Drain policies, with the aims of (a) reducing the emigration rate of highly skilled workers, (b) promoting return migration among highly skilled workers in all sectors, and (c) maintaining connections with members of their respective diasporas. I find that the policies that directly address the issue of highly skilled migration are not necessarily the most effective. Thus, I emphasize potential policies to reduce Brain Drain that address economic issues that indirectly cause Brain Drain, in addition to addressing migration directly.

Tesis para optar al grado de Doctor en Estudios Latinoamericanos / Este trabajo investiga, a través de bibliografía especializada, testimonios y documentos partidarios, cómo fue la militancia femenina en el MIR de chile y el MLN-T de Uruguay en el periodo 1965-1987, desde una perspectiva feminista y con enfoque de género, centrándose en tres aspectos principales: sus posiciones dentro de las organizaciones, las relaciones de pareja y las maternidades, en contextos militantes que mantuvieron la dicotomía patriarcal de los espacios público-colectivo y privado-individual y eran normados por mandatos militantes específicos y rigurosos evidenciados en la moral militante revolucionaria. Así, si bien las mujeres accedieron a estos espacios de lucha política-armada y se las llegó a considerar en el discurso “una más” en relación a sus compañeros, en la experiencia las diferencias y desigualdades de sexo género se evidenciaron sobre todo en la cotidianidad, permitiéndoseles un tránsito entre la feminidad hegemónica de la madresposa hacia la combatiente que, dadas las contrucciones dominantes del sistema sexo género, las ubicaron en un No Lugar, espacio fronterizo en el que lograron ubicarse a cambio de adaptarse ellas al entorno, sin que el entorno fuera transformado.

This essay analyzes in a comparative manner, the cases of Argentina and Uruguay regarding the amnesty laws that both issued to members of the armed forces after the transition to democracy from the authoritarian regime, for violations of human rights committed during the military dictatorship. The research seeks to understand the causes that have made the amnesty law in Argentina from 1986 and 1987, together with the presidential pardoning of 1989 to be declared unconstitutional in 2005 and 2007 by the Argentinian Supreme Court, while the Uruguayan amnesty law issued in 1986 is at the time when this research was made still in force. The focus of this study relies on four main actors that have made an impact on this issue: the Executive; the Supreme Court; the Inter-American system of Human Rights; and the human rights movement. Our research intakes a qualitative nature that is the most appropriate method for this kind of study. A comparative methodology is developed studying the cases of Argentina and Uruguay in order to outline similarities and differences between them both, which let us see the different variables that both cases have in an effort to better understand the causes that led to different outcomes regarding the present legal status of the amnesty laws. This essay utilizes as its theoretical framework, theories of Transitional Justice and Human Rights from below, which are applied to the material presented in both cases. In Argentina, the Supreme Court, the Executive, the human rights movement and the Inter-American system of Human Rights, have worked together in the last decade to abolish the amnesty laws and the pardoning in the country. The Supreme Court in Uruguay acting against the Executive power in the last time is seen as a keen factor to why the amnesty law is still in force today. Here, the referendums in 1989 and 2009 supporting the further upholding of the law influenced the decision of the Supreme Court, and also made a negative impact in the human rights movement.

According to a lot of experts presidential systems under conditions of multipartism are leading to instability, because there is peril of executive-legislative deadlocks. This thesis is focusing on three stable countries under these conditions (Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay). The main goal of this thesis is to find out the sources of system stability of these three countries. The thesis analyzes them on the basis of four criteria (number of parties, ideological distance, party system institutionalization and simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections together with electoral system). This thesis analyzes election results of these countries since their transition to democracy. The thesis demonstrated, that party system format is not crucial for stability. More important is his stability together with the same actors and unchangeable ties between them.

As populações de Heptapterus mustelinus do rio Uruguai, sistema da Laguna dos Patos e os rios dos sistemas costeiros do sul do Brasil e Uruguai foram revisados com dados morfológicos e moleculares. Duas novas espécies de Heptapterus foram reconhecidas. Heptapterus sp.n.A com distribuição restrita para o rio Pelotas na bacia do alto rio Uruguai. Heptapterus sp.n.B endêmica de tributários do rio Ibicuí na bacia do baixo rio Uruguai. As novas espécies distinguem-se do seu congênere mais próximo H. mustelinus pelo menor número de vértebras. Dados morfométricos e moleculares são congruentes no reconhecimento das duas espécies novas. / The populations of Heptapterus mustelinus from the Uruguay River, laguna dos Patos system and the coastal streams of southern Brazil were reviewed with morphological and molecular data. Two new species of Heptapterus were recognized. Heptapterus sp.n.A with a restricted distribution to rio Pelotas, in the upper Uruguay River basin. Heptapterus sp.n.B endemic to tributaries of rio Ibicuí, in the lower Uruguay River basin. The new species are distinguished from its closest congener H. mustelinus by the lower number of vertebrae. Morphometric and molecular data are congruent to recognize the two new species.