Over the past ten years, the Costa Rican dance style known as swing criollo has gone from relative obscurity to acceptance as national heritage. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was considered a dance of the urban working-class chusma, or "riff-raff," because of its associations with the working-class music of cumbia and San José's seedy dance salons. Starting in the early 2000s, however, an active campaign of nationalization and folklorization by dance instructors brought the dance to the status of national patrimony. This was achieved through dance classes, festival performances, the creation of a short video documentary, and the work of the dance company La Cuna del Swing to canonize the dancers and stages of swing criollo. The folklorization of swing criollo at first seems to be a top-down phenomenon that suggests little agency among working-class dancers; they have been personified in the national imaginary as exotic Others, an urban folk from an earlier generation that now exists only to perform and embody that tradition. On further examination, the folklorization of swing criollo represents a new sort of folklore, one that is highly contested and engages in a different discourse of authenticity, some influenced by dancers themselves. Swing criollo as a "modern" and "urban" form has allowed for self-mythmaking among the dancers of the self-proclaimed "old guard" that invented the style. It also legitimizes the dance style in its popular form, as opposed to older projections of folklore that that place tradition in opposition to modernity. I examine discourses surrounding the nationalization of swing criollo as well as the negotiations of spaces of culture through which swing's legitimization unfolded. I conclude by suggesting that ethnomusicologists should continue to theorize folklore's changing nature as it is contested and re-defined to include popular, urban, and modern cultural expressions. / text

Despite the dramatic increase in ecotourism as a sustainable development strategy over the last two decades (Honey 2008; Yunis 2000), theoretical models to interpret and evaluate ecotourism—as well as the broader field of tourism—are lacking (Farrell and Twining-Ward 2003; Weaver and Lawton 2007). Farrell and Twining-Ward (2003) call for a reconceptualization of tourism study that incorporates social-ecological systems (SES) theory. This dissertation responds by assessing ecotourism as an SES in a dryland setting, addressing the question: "What key characteristics of ecotourism increase social-ecological resilience?" The study site is Santa Rosa National Park and surrounding communities in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Higham and Lück (2008) cite sustainability as the "ultimate goal of ecotourism" (Higham and Lück 2008, p 124); however sustainability itself proves to be a difficult concept to measure and evaluate (Cater and Lowman 1994; Dernbach 2002; Weaver 2001a). SES theory recognizes sustainability as a process rather than an end goal and identifies resilience as a key attribute (Berkes, Colding, and Folke 2003). With ecotourism as an economic strategy of nearly every developing country since the early 1990s and an increasing economic strategy in rural areas worldwide (Valaoras, Pistolas, and Sotiropoulou 2002; Honey 2008), this study investigates ecotourism through the lens of social-ecological resilience for increased sustainability. Based on a 12-month survey conducted in Santa Rosa National Park and the surrounding area, this study identifies characteristics of ecotourism that can cause different levels of resilience using indicators of increasing biodiversity, economic diversity and social capital. These relationships are represented by linked and continually changing social and ecological systems, diagramed by Holling‘s adaptive renewal cycle (Berkes, Colding, and Folke 2003; Gunderson and Holling 2002). Three research papers are included as part of this dissertation: 1) Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Parque Nacional Santa Rosa Ecotourism Study: Final Survey Results, Analysis and Recommendations; 2) Ecotourism‘s Contribution to Social-ecological Resilience: A Case Study Analysis of Rural, Dryland Ecotourism in Guanacaste, Costa Rica; and 3) Barrier-free Ecotourism? The Costa Rican Approach. Findings of this study include recommendations for ecotourism programs to increase social-ecological resilience and contribute to the sustainability of linked SESs.

More accurate and authentic performances of Sérgio Assad's (b. 1952) Aquarelle and his Fantasia Carioca can be obtained through insights provided by formal analysis of those pieces, study of the performing traditions of Brazilian traditional music, and the composer's reflections and comments. This document guides readers in recognizing the subtleties that characterize Assad's style and its Brazilian traditional music influences. A select group of styles has been chosen based on their relevance in Assad's work. Characterized by unique accent patterns and melodic/harmonic "clichés," the influences of each Brazilian music genre can be identified in specific measures of the two Assad's pieces included in this study. The correlation between measures and genres provides specific stylistic features that the performer can apply toward an authentic execution.

For decades LGBTQ rights have been approached purely by a legal strategy, in particular advocating for the legalization of same-sex marriage. However, discrimination and violence against the LGBTQ community continues to be a major issue in Latin America because of cultural values such as Catholicism and machismo that uphold a standard of and, in turn, have control over people’s sexuality. Using a human rights approach towards the politics of sexuality, LGBTI activists in Costa Rican and Nicaragua have been successful in transforming public opinion about sexuality and more importantly, sexual diversity. As a result of their egalitarian framework and efforts to educate people about sexual diversity, they have made great advancements toward achieving acceptance and equality for LGBTI people. This study focuses on how Costa Rican and Nicaraguan LGBTI activists have worked around traditional cultural values such as Catholicism and machismo that prevent people from accepting and tolerating LGBTI people. The examples of LGBTI activists in these two countries have important implications for other LGBTI activists and the strategies they use to try to achieve full equality (social and legal) for people whose sexual identity differs from the conventional.

This PhD thesis explores the migration dynamics between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Rather than just describing the main characteristics of the contemporary migration relations between the two countries, however, it also evaluates the historical and regional contexts within which they have been produced. This has implied the incorporation of a historicised and multi-scale analytical perspective which has been adopted throughout the research. The research therefore explores both expelling and attracting factors in both the origin (with a particular focus upon rural communities in distinct regions of Nicaragua) and the destination. It has also been important to analyse in some detail the continuities and ruptures of the migration history between the two countries in order to understand the current migration dynamics more profoundly. The research stresses that the Nicaraguan Costa Rican migration dynamic should not be seen as as isolated bilateral relationship but as part of a wider dynamic that involves the whole Central American region and that, in general terms, migration should be seen not as an isolated pattern but as a wider process of social transformation.

1. A longstanding goal of ecology and conservation biology is to understand the environmental and biological controls of forest succession. However, the patterns and mechanisms that guide successional trajectories, especially within tropical forests, remain unclear. 2. We collected leaf functional trait and abiotic data across a 110-year chronosequence within a tropical dry forest in Costa Rica. Focusing on six key leaf functional traits related to resource acquisition and competition, along with measures of forest stand structure, we propose a mechanistic framework to link species composition, community trait distributions and forest structure. We quantified the community-weighted trait distributions for specific leaf area, leaf dry matter concentration, leaf phosphorus concentration, leaf carbon to nitrogen ratio and leaf stable isotopic carbon and nitrogen. We assessed several prominent hypotheses for how these functional measures shift in response to changing environmental variables (soil water content, bulk density and pH) across the chronosequence. 3. Increasingly, older forests differed significantly from younger forests in species composition, above-ground biomass and shifted trait distributions. Early stages of succession were uniformly characterized by lower values of community-weighted mean specific leaf area, leaf stable nitrogen isotope and leaf phosphorus concentration. Leaf dry matter concentration and leaf carbon to nitrogen ratio were lower during earlier stages of succession, and each trait reached an optimum during intermediate stages of succession. The leaf carbon isotope ratio was the only trait to decrease linearly with increasing stand age indicating reduced water use efficiency in older forests. However, in contrast with expectations, community-weighted trait variances did not generally change through succession, and when compared to null expectations were lower than expected. 4. The observed directional shift in community-weighted mean trait values is consistent with the 'productivity filtering' hypothesis where a directional shift in water and light availability shifts physiological strategies from 'slow' to 'fast'. In contrast with expectations arising from niche based ecology, none of the community trait distributions were over-dispersed. Instead, patterns of trait dispersion are consistent with the abiotic filtering and/or competitive hierarchy hypotheses.

Geóloga / Este trabajo consiste en el estudio de la tectónica activa en el margen costero de la localidad de Pisagua, en el norte de Chile. Este sector corresponde a la parte central de la brecha sísmica del norte del país. A través de este estudio, se intenta develar de la naturaleza de la deformación activa en el bloque costero y su interrelación con la mecánica de acoplamiento de placas. Para esto se realizaron análisis morfotectónicos, en torno a características como pedimentos, drenajes y escarpes, así como también se utilizaron datos de sismicidad y modelos tomográficos de velocidades de onda, que se correlacionaron con los análisis anteriores. Además, se realizó una estimación de la capacidad sísmica de las fallas estudiadas. Se definieron y agruparon 4 pedimentos separados por los frentes topográficos principales (sierras), quebradas mayores y las estructuras presentes, evidenciando así la zona de estudio una morfología escalonada con un rejuvenecimiento de la superficie hacia el margen Oeste, a través de los escarpes mayores. Los escarpes principales fueron interpretados como fallas, y atribuidas a un sistema de fallas mayor, el cual es asociado a una estructura de orden orogénico responsable del Sistema de Fallas Acantilado, que comprende fallas normales con descenso de los bloques oeste, y sería el factor de primer orden responsable de la génesis del Acantilado Costero en el norte de Chile, teniendo a la vez como consecuencia el alzamiento del bloque costero. También, a partir de la información de sismicidad y modelos tomográficos proporcionados por el proyecto FONDECYT 1130071 es posible relacionar los patrones alineados de la sismicidad cortical a las fallas principales en la zona de estudio; así como también a partir de la tomografía sísmica 3D. Se definieron relaciones temporales entre las distintas estructuras, definiendo que las fallas Tiliviche y Pisagua presentan actividades más recientes, mientras que la falla Junín se encuentra inactiva, con un escarpe con bastante retroceso e incisiones de drenajes inactivas. Las fallas en la zona de estudio muestran antecedentes de actividad neotectónica de largo plazo, deformando superficies y depósitos de edad neógena. Se obtuvo a la vez, velocidades mínimas de deslizamiento, estimadas sobre la base de indicadores estratigráficos y cronológicos indirectos, mostrando valores que varían entre 0,18 0.03 mm/año. Así, la edad de la deformación fue acotada a partir de datos de los pedimentos desplazados, las incisiones mayores, el alzamiento del margen costero, y dataciones directas del escarpe Pisagua, obteniendo una edad para la deformación en la zona de estudio entre el Mioceno superior- Pleistoceno. De acuerdo a las edades de los pedimentos (siendo más jóvenes hacia el Oeste) y la edad de la deformación, se propuso la evolución tectónica de la zona, asociando las fallas NS al rejuvenecimiento de los pedimentos, mientras que las fallas E-O corresponderían a un gradiente de acomodo paralelo a la fosa. Finalmente se determinó la capacidad sísmica de las fallas, pudiendo estas generar terremotos superficiales, con epicentros someros <20-15 km, y magnitudes cercanas a Mw=7.

El agua cántara es una historiografía apócrifa de la literatura. Esta compilación incluye versiones paródicas del realismo, el romanticismo, el costumbrismo y el posthumanismo, entre otros discursos, géneros y movimientos (los cuales, desde la óptica del absurdo, bien pueden ser una misma cosa). Además de realizar un recorrido por algunas de las principales formas textuales de Occidente, esta antología elabora y rastrea su propio mito de origen de la literatura: el sonido como máximo valor estético.

El principal problema es la migración de arena de la Playa Nº 3 del Club Regatas, ya que debido a la erosión permanente de las playas en la zona por causas diversas, tanto naturales como provocadas por la acción del hombre, esta se está perdiendo. Para ello se debe analizar distintos problemas, y los factores o elementos que provocan erosión en la Playa N°3 del Club Regatas. Además, es necesario tener en cuenta las expectativas de los socios, siendo estas, aumentar la capacidad de las áreas recreacionales y de esparcimiento en el club. Finalmente, como aplicación práctica de la ingeniería civil se dispondrá de un proyecto en el cual se dará a conocer una propuesta compatible al entorno y las recomendaciones para mejorar las condiciones locales en el litoral que dispone el Club. Objetivos Generales • Identificar el sistema hidromorfológico del sector que contiene a la playa del Club Regatas. • Recomendar la solución al problema costero. Objetivos específicos: • Recopilación de información respecto al oleaje, corrientes, mareas y transporte de sedimentos, y sus efectos. • Estudio y planteamiento para la colocación de la obra definida con la información y el análisis conceptual de la especialidad de ingeniería de costas.

This paper argues that a State can reconstruct it’s own politics in such a way that allows for more reliance on conflict resolving international organizations and institutions and can reduce the need for military force and/or power politics. Accordingly, the complexities of the security dilemma can be reduced or eliminated. I utilize a single case study approach that analyzes the 2010 territorial conflict known as the ‘Isla Calero’ dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Using both an inductive approach and semistructured interviews, this paper analyzes how the dispute was settled without the use of power politics. It is argued that Costa Rica was able to halt the cycle of the security dilemma through their decision to demilitarize. Moreover, I argue that Costa Rica’s approach is relevant and applicable to other states and could contribute to successful conflict resolution between States without the use of power politics.