Free Trade Agreements and particularly Asymmetric ones have been discussed controversially for several decades now. The Latin American region has increased their efforts to integrate their economies in the international arena. The Andean Community being a customs union in Latin America signed a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union in 2013. Being an asymmetric trade deal, this thesis examined whether it has resulted in trade creation and trade diversion effects already. Looking at the results, I can clearly reject the notion of negative effects as a consequence of the trade agreement. Considering the entire, but also the agricultural and manufactured economic sectors, I found statistically significant trade creation effects. Concerning trade diversion effects, the results were not statistically significant and additional research in the future seems required. Keywords Gravity Model, Asymmetric Free Trade Agreement, Trade creation, Trade diversion, Andean Community, EU, Panel Econometrics Title Comprehensive Trade Agreement between Asymmetric Partners

<p> It is the purpose of this study to determine empirically the contribution of a set of variables to the observed variation in income per hectare on 100 peasant farms in Ecuador. Specific consideration will be given to the relationship between farm size and farm productivity.</p> <p> Twenty-four characteristics were chosen to describe the structure of peasant agriculture. An examination of the distribution of each characteristic over the 100 farms illustrated the heterogeneous nature of the farm sample. Regression analysis applied to the sample at the aggregate level yielded poor results. Large amounts of variability in the dependent variable remained unexplained, and the standard error of the estimate was relatively large in comparison to the observed mean value of the dependent variable. The model was improved when the sample was disaggregated by region, although the standard error remained high which greatly weakened the potential of the model as a predictor equation.</p> <p> To increase the power of the regression model, and to more effectively analyse the significance of the set of variables to variation in farm income, it was decided to type the farms using factor analysis.</p> <p> Principal axes factor analysis was performed on the matrix of correlation coefficients for the twenty-four standardized characteristics. The factors were then rotated using varimax rotation to obtain a more simplified loading matrix. Eight primary factors were produced which together accounted for 62.25 percent of the variance in the original matrix. Ward's hierarchical grouping algorithm was then applied to the matrix of factor scores for the principal eight factors, and a classification containing fourteen types of farming activity was produced.</p> <p> The relationship between income and farm size was then reconsidered by farming type. There was a slight improvement in the power of the model applied to farm type although the amount of explained variability remained small. Simple regression of income per hectare on farm size, then, failed to explain a large proportion of the variance in the dependent variable even when the sample was considered by farming type.</p> <p> In order to reduce the measure of 'non-explained' variability in the dependent variable, and to increase the potential of the regression model as a predictor equation, income per hectare was regressed on the rotated factors. Multiple step-wise regression was performed on (a) the complete sample, (b) the sample disaggregated by region, and (c) two major farming types. The multiple step-wise regression model greatly increased the amount of explained variability in the dependent variable and indicated the significance of the contribution of each independent variable to variation in income per hectare on the farms. The study is presented in five parts: Chapter 1 introduces the problem to be analysed. Chapter II presents the data base, and a simple linear regression analysis examines the relationship between income and farm size on the 100 farms. The results of the regression performed on the aggregate level are poor. The analysis is then repeated on the sample disaggregated by region. The power of the model is greatly increased when the sample is divided into regional subsets, but large amounts of variability are left unexplained and the standard error of the estimate remains high.</p> <p> Chapter III groups the 100 farms according to a typology based on an analysis of the structural and economic organization of the farming unit. A correlation analysis is performed on the twenty-four characteristics and simple correlations between the data are considered. Factor analysis is then performed on the matrix of correlations, and the major dimensions of variation in the data are enumerated. Finally, a grouping algorithm is applied to the matrix of factor scores on the principal factors, and a classification of the farms is produced.</p> <p> Chapter IV reconsiders the relationship between income and farm size by farming type. Multiple step-wise regression then examines the contribution of a set of variables to variation in income per hectare.</p> <p> Chapter V summarizes the merits and weakness in the methodological approach of the study and enumerates the major findings of the analysis.</p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis is an ethnographic study of Taulli, a “Peruvian peasant community” (PPC) in the highland region of Ayacucho. PPCs are a paradigmatic type of Andean community with distinctive communal features and great historical significance. The thesis offers a detailed case study that contributes to an understanding of the maintenance, current role, and functioning, of these communities in the early Twenty-first Century. Additionally, this case study reassesses key theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of Andean cultures, defending the ongoing validity of community ethnographies and many aspects of 1960s-80s research in the Andean region (particularly its “long-termist” approaches). Specifically, the thesis examines the current role that the community (as a PPC) plays for the Taullinos -such as its respective advantages and disadvantages- in a context where far-reaching social change coexists with rich local traditions. On the one hand, it is argued that the community has become a channel through which Taullinos acquire access to new services and benefits, largely resulting from increased state intervention through unprecedented development-related initiatives. Despite their limitations and mixed results, it is shown how these initiatives partially adapt to and reinforce the local PPC status. The combination of this state intervention and other factors of change, especially emigration, are deepening local integration into national society and have brought remarkable improvements to the quality of life of Taullinos. Nonetheless, such processes are also hampered by severe problems and challenges, largely linked to a legacy of social exclusion and discrimination. On the other hand, it is argued that the community and local traditions continue to offer Taullinos a strong sense of identity and social cohesion, and some important practical advantages, in the context of social change. In particular, through their participation in the local communal organisation and ritual celebrations, which are key foci of this study. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how local traditions are dynamically reinvented to serve as a primary channel through which Taullinos experience and accommodate change. Therefore, although the local communal system is demanding and has many limitations, Taullinos unanimously accept and identify with it, and with the PPC status that guarantees its continuity.

Submitted by Matheus Felipe Silva (matheus.f.silva@unesp.br) on 2018-11-22T14:03:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Repositório Matheus Felipe Silva 2018.pdf: 926243 bytes, checksum: a06cd5b5e7282c3dc64b3c354fea0c3f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Milena Maria Rodrigues null (milena@fclar.unesp.br) on 2018-11-22T17:37:01Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_mf_me_arafcl.pdf: 926243 bytes, checksum: a06cd5b5e7282c3dc64b3c354fea0c3f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-22T17:37:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_mf_me_arafcl.pdf: 926243 bytes, checksum: a06cd5b5e7282c3dc64b3c354fea0c3f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-01-22 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / A presente dissertação trata das eleições diretas ao Parlamento Andino e ao Parlamento do Mercosul. Estes estão inseridos, respectivamente, na Comunidade Andina e no Mercosul, dois blocos de integração regional da América do Sul. Ademais, até o momento, ambos são os únicos parlamentos de esquemas de integração na América do Sul. Debatemos as problemáticas da democratização dos fenômenos de integração regional e regionalismo a partir da conformação de parlamentos regionais com representantes eleitos de forma direta pelas populações nacionais. Essas eleições regionais guardam singularidades importantes pela especificidade de eleger representantes da integração, valendo também ressaltar a influência dos processos de integração e regionalismo que afetaram a América Latina e América do Sul. Apoiados nos debates do deficit democrático dos processos de integração regional, de teorias de integração regional e da formação de eleições de segunda ordem nas eleições ao Parlamento Europeu, buscamos compreender, dentro das análises das eleições ao Parlandino e ao Parlasul, as possibilidades e os limites que dessas no sentido de democratizar a integração na Comunidade Andina e no Mercosul e, consequentemente, nos processos de integração da América do Sul. / This dissertation deals with direct elections to the Andean Parliament and the Mercosur Parliament. These are inserted, respectively, in the Andean Community and in the Mercosur, two regional integration blocs of South America. In addition, until this date, both are the only parliaments of integration schemes in South America. We debate the problems on the democratization of the regional integration phenomena and regionalism from the formation of regional parliaments with representatives directly elected by the national populations. These regional elections hold important singularities for the specificity of electing representatives of integration. It is also worth highlighting the influence of the integration and regionalism processes that affected Latin America and South America. Based on the debates about the democratic deficit of the processes of regional integration, theories of regional integration and the formation of second-order elections in the European Parliament elections, we seek to understand, within the analysis of the elections to Andean Parliament and Parlasur, the possibilities and limits of these to democratize integration in the Andean Community and Mercosur and consequently in the South American integration processes.

Amphibian diversity has declined, in part, due to the infectious disease chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Andean water frogs in the genus Telmatobius are particularly vulnerable to the disease and the genus has been extirpated from Ecuador and in Andean cloud forests, yet populations of species persist in the high Andes of Peru and Bolivia. The Alpaca Water Frog (Telmatobius intermedius), endemic to the Peruvian Andes, can be found infected with Bd. Alpaca Water Frogs inhabit high elevation open canopy freshwater systems. My overall goal was to study the effect of chytrid infection on the trophic ecology of Telmatobius tadpoles. I used stable isotope ratios of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) to characterize the the trophic structure and energy flow in this system. I observed the values of δ15N were higher for tadpoles than algal material (t-test, t= -8.60, df= 34, p< 0.01), mayfly nymphs (t-test, t= 5.25, df= 30, p< 0.01), and predatory aquatic invertebrates (t-test, t= -4.18, df= 47, p< 0.01). In regard to the δ15N values of tadpoles and frogs, tadpoles had a lower value (t-test, t= -3.0, df= 31, p< 0.01). Values of δ15N in tadpoles were relatively high, signaling the presence of animal tissue in their diet. I also investigated changes in tadpole diet associated with mouthpart deformities caused by the fungal pathogen Bd. There was a positive association between the extent of mouthpart deformity and Bd infection (Fisher’s Exact test, p<0.001). The relative proportions of diatom morphotaxa groups found in the foregut of T. intermedius tadpoles varied in association with the degree of mouthpart deformity, as indicated by an ANOSIM analysis (R=0.875, p<0.001). Finally, in addition to Bd prevalence in adult aquatic frogs, I investigated whether Alpaca Water Frogs and other Andean Water Frogs tested positive for the antifungal bacterium Janthinobacterium lividum (Jliv). My results show that 57% of the sampled frogs were infected with Bd, 12.5% of frogs hosted both Jliv and Bd, while 7.2% hosted just Jliv. We found that the probability of an individual being infected with Bd was independent of the presence of Jliv; however, we did detect a protective effect of Jliv with respect to intensity of infection. My findings demonstrate that the fungal pathogen Bd influences the trophic ecology of tadpoles of Andean water frogs.

The present work explores the presence of Andean textile imagery in the poetry and the visual art of Jorge Eduardo Eielson and Cecilia Vicuña with the goal of illustrating how these woven aesthetics enrich the content of the written word and other artistic media by supplementing them with non-verbal, visual and tactile planes of meaning. Through the discourse of the thread, Eielson and Vicuña generate an alternative means of expression that dialogues with the conventionality of human language, the creation of cultural memory and the connection between intercultural groups. To prove this thesis, I approach the authors’ poetry and visual art based on theoretical and cultural studies regarding the materiality and the visuality of the text and other media in combination with a comparative analysis of the structural and the design properties of Andean and indigenous cloth products, namely the tejido and the khipu. In addition to close readings of poems that illustrate how the presence of the textile augments the meaning of the written text, I also illustrate how Andean weaving aesthetics provide the metaphorical springboard of comparison upon which a critical analysis of their visual art is based. / text

This dissertation is an in-depth investigation of the manner in which Peruvian Andean identities are represented and constructed in Cusqueñan literature after José María Arguedas’s posthumous publication of El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo (1971). In this text, fragmented language reconstructs itself in the form of a new community for the future that can be seen as the symbolic “body” of a possible nation, a “utopia under construction.” Peruvian Andean authors after Arguedas echo his perspective on language through their literary production: they pick up the fragments of the Andean past to recreate and reformulate a new Andean identity through language. Subsequently, they transform their perceived marginality into the “new center” of Peruvian contemporary identity by positing choledad (a term originating in the Colonial era used to negatively denote a person’s Andean or indigenous characteristics) as a defining trait of all Peruvians. / text

In research, we frequently position “modernity” against “tradition” to explain cultural changes within the indigenous realm. Such is the case of Andean textile studies, where commercialization and modernity are frequently attributed to the decline in Andean communities’ production and donning of hand-woven textiles. By doing this, we distance ourselves from the underlying issues causing these changes: poverty, discrimination, ethnic social stratification, etc. Also, by positioning “modernity” outside and against the indigenous realm, we contribute to the notion that modernity belongs to the western world alone and can only be achieved by Western influence. In doing so, we confine Andean textiles to a static notion of identity and ignore and antagonize the creative strategies that weavers’ use, moving outside of this notion. My work questions the “tradition” versus “modernity” binary by analyzing its history and first appearance in Bolivian Andean textile scholarship, and by analyzing changes within Andean textiles between the Inca and Colonial periods. My study also sheds light on the workings of internal colonialism within Andean textiles in the Bolivian regions of Jalq’a and Tarabuco. / text

This dissertation examines Moche (A.D. 300-900) sociopolitical organization in northern Peru at the previously unexplored site of Licapa II, a mid-sized ceremonial center in the Chicama Valley. Moche’s distinct archaeological signatures, chiefly, ceramics and architecture, have long been seen as emblematic of an ethnic and political reality and defined as evidence for the first South American state although recent scholarship has begun to view Moche as a more complex mosaic of interacting settlements across a landscape. My research at Licapa II is the first study of a site of its size and kind, thus constituting a novel contribution to the paradigm shift in Moche research. My excavations, surface collections, and geophysical surveys contributed to understanding the nature of the site and the activities performed there. Licapa II consists of two pyramids (huacas), a canal, and other buildings. I show that the two major structures, Huaca A and Huaca B, are characterized by different material culture, are different in form, and date to different time periods. Huaca A has local ceramics and was mainly used before A.D. 600. Huaca B has Moche IV and V style ceramics and was in use after A.D. 600. Based on my evaluation of radiocarbon dates, the changes in buildings and ceramics seen at Licapa II around A.D. 600 also occurred throughout the Moche world and included the adoption of Moche IV ceramics and soon after, in some places, Moche V. I also show that the Moche V style likely originated in the northern Chicama Valley and spread from there circa A.D. 650. I also argue that political organization in Moche times may have been similar to colonial era organization, based on nested moieties organized around the irrigation system. Overall, in this dissertation I demonstrate that Licapa II was an independent center intimately connected to a dynamic landscape of interconnected nodes in an ever- changing and complex network of sites. Simplistic models based on the concept of large Moche states thus should be discarded. / Anthropology

The major focus of this dissertation is the ancestor worship that is inferred to have been practiced in the multiethnic Middle Sicán theocratic state (AD 950-1100) that prospered on the northern North Coast of Peru. The major objective is twofold: (1) demonstrating by archaeological means that ancestors were indeed worshipped in the Middle Sicán society and (2) elucidating the nature and role of the inferred ancestor cult and associated rituals and ceremonies. Ancestor (and the veneration of it) is one of the themes that have the deepest roots in the anthropological thoughts; nevertheless, many archaeologists have uncritically invoked ancestor veneration without sufficient theoretical underpinning and empirical support, to the point that James Whitley (2002) decried "too many ancestors." This dissertation thus begins with a review of the earlier anthropological discoveries and theoretical debates on what ancestor is and who becomes an ancestor, including the cases in the Andes. Based on this review of previous studies, it is hypothesized that the select members of deceased Middle Sicán elites were transformed into an ancestor through a series of prescribed processes. This hypothesis is examined in terms of the five possible material correlates of the inferred Sicán ancestors extracted from the regional archaeological database of the study area accumulated by the Sicán Archaeological Project (SAP) for the last three decades. The role of the inferred Middle Sicán ancestor cult is approached from the ideological perspective. It is inferred that the ancestor cult was employed by the ruling group as an ideological and political means to justify the existence and extension of social hierarchies and inequalities and thus targeted at wider populations different in genealogical origins as opposed to family or lineage members. This study focuses attention on the food preparations and consumptions documented by a test excavation at the principle plaza of the Sicán capital, "Great Plaza," adjacent to the inferred ancestral tombs and hypothesizes that the commensality among the living and the dead during feasts there served not only to commemorate the inferred ancestors, but also to bring together people in different social tiers and to consolidate the highly stratified, multiethnic Middle Sicán society. Two excavations at the ceremonial core of the Middle Sicán state capital, one at the Huaca Loro West Cemetery in 2006 and the other at the Great Plaza in 2008, provide varied lines of evidence that support the above two hypotheses. The results suggest that ancestor worship was indeed practiced during the Middle Sicán Period. By maintaining and monopolizing the ritual access to the Sicán Deity through their ancestors, the Sicán elites reproduced their religious and political power and retained the legitimacy of their social status. Concurrently, the Sicán elites consciously employed their ancestor cult for social integration. After the Middle Sicán Period, these ancestors seem to have retained their spiritual viability even after the later Chimú Empire took the control of this region. If not recognized as the Sicán anymore, they were remembered and honored by the living for over four centuries. On the basis of the merits of traditional approach (e.g., the study of architecture, iconography, bioarchaeology, and ethnohistory and ethnography in the Andes), this study gives primacy to the direct focus on the material residues and relational contexts and patterns of ritual activities and studies their change and stability through time in relation to other historical contingencies. The merit of focusing on the trajectories of ritual activities themselves in a long and wide perspective is that it sheds light on the regional peculiarities and contingent nature of the inferred ancestor veneration, which may be overlooked in cross-cultural, ethnological arguments about the nature, role, and capacity of ancestors. It also provides a wealth of information not only to determine what types of activities took place, but also to explore the intangible symbolic significance behind those activities. As a result, this approach provides a practical solution to the justified criticism by Whitley (2002) and demonstrates how we should approach ancestor veneration and what evidence we would need in order to appropriately define it in archaeological record.