Postwar Guatemala continues to contend with ongoing criminal and state violence, insecurity, racial exclusion and disparity, exacerbated by neoliberal and neocolonial economic policies. These patterns are rooted in centuries of colonial exploitation that intensified in genocide against the Mayan and other indigenous peoples in the early eighties. This thesis explores Maya Achi youth interpretations of the historical and contemporary roots of violence through their interaction with the mandates and practice of the New Hope Foundation Intercultural Bilingual Institute in Rabinal. The institute combines historical memory, a participatory methodology, and cultural revitalization within an intercultural framework. By embracing institute themes of interculturalism, citizenship, leadership and cooperative learning, participants provide insight into the potential to transform structural violence through the promotion of alternative visions of grassroots development and reweaving community in this rural municipality, still impacted by the traumas of armed conflict.

The political significance of portraits of Charlotte of Saxe Coburg Gotha (1840- 1927) has been obscured by her historical liminality and by romantic myths that have prevailed since the late nineteenth century and influenced interpretations of her visual representations. This thesis reassembles a wide range of images of Charlotte and analyzes these as sequential representations of an individual participating, across diverse cultures, in defining episodes of the nineteenth century. Strategies of allegory, programmatic intertextuality, and revisionism are revealed when these images are read within their political circumstances of production and complicate the dominance of a few late, iconic portraits of Charlotte and their entrenched associations. The use of costume, essential in certain portraits commissioned during Charlotte’s childhood in Belgium, is revisited in images depicting her during a brief position as Vicereine of Lombardy- Venetia and in another dating from her role - of equal brevity but indelible historical resonance - as Empress of Mexico. The significance of dress is explored in relation to agency and political influence and as demonstrating compliance with, or negotiation of, gender conventions. Charlotte’s public life was abruptly terminated upon her 1866 return to Europe by a diagnosis of ‘madness.’ Napoleon III was withdrawing troops supporting the Mexican Empire and her journey was made seeking to reverse this decision. I speculate a painting by French artist Edouard Manet allegorically records this episode of Charlotte’s life and that other factors relating to this episode subsequently influenced the erasure of her imperial images until their reappearance in the twentieth century. / Thesis (Ph.D, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2008-11-28

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The overall objective of this thesis is to compare and contrast alternative measures of wellbeing in New Zealand during the 19th -early 20th centuries from a spatial perspective by collecting, collating and analyzing new economic, social and anthropometric data. Provincial data was collected from the Statistics New Zealand Annual Reports and New Zealand Census. Anthropometric data was derived from the personnel records of New Zealanders serving in WWI, which only became available to the public in 2005. Time-series tests for convergence and causality have been applied to analyze New Zealand’s economic history, where appropriate. The last quarter of the 19th century in New Zealand was a period of rapid change both in terms of economic and demographic indicators. Prior to the universal convergence of the existing monetary-based measures of wellbeing across Provinces, there were some apparent disparities in the commodity price and real wage series, as well as urban-rural differences in occupation-specific real wages and infant mortality trends. There was also no single pattern of stature decline across provinces during 1871-1898, or between urban and rural areas, where disparities were particularly apparent. The traditional view of the healthy and wealthy New Zealand could only be established at an aggregate level, during a certain time period and for a certain ethnic group (New Zealand European only). Using Provincial data for the period 1874-1919 I have been able to show that improvements in real wages and a decrease in education inequality (between females and males) corresponded to lower infant deaths and thus better health outcomes, while increased dwelling density created unfavorable conditions for infants’ chances of survival. Anthropometric data was used in conjunction with socio-economic provincial data to establish the relationship between stature, urbanization, real wages and infant mortality. The results showed that dwelling density (overcrowding) and general economic conditions were both important in determining stature outcomes during 1870-1900, while the effect of infant mortality on stature was negligible. Most importantly, it has been demonstrated that in New Zealand stature represents a much more robust measure of living standards than real wages or health indicators on their own, at least during the 1870-1900 period.

Agriculture and the use of arable land have long been assumed to be one of the key drivers behind eutrophication of lakes. However, little is known about how early agriculture has affected lakes in the past. The aims of this study were: i) quantify the within-region variability in historical land use and its linkage to soil cover and ii) test if the sediment geochemistry could be used to reconstruct inputs of phosphorus from early agricultural activities. The within-region variability was determined by digitalizing historical maps covering four centuries from the 18th to the 21st century for six selected regions across Sweden. To assess historical changes in lake-water phosphorus, a 6 m long 14C-dated sediment core from Ekoln was analyzed. The core was analyzed for 24 elements by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) together with the total concentration of nitrogen and carbon and their isotopes (δ13C, δ15N). Results show that there was a statistically significant difference (P<0.05) in agricultural activities between regions with soils rich in fine texture classes compared to soils with a more coarse texture. Agriculture also became less dependent on fine-grained soils due to new technological implements following the industrialization. The reconstructed long term-trend in Ekoln indicate limited inputs of phosphorus from early farming and that the lake had higher concentrations of phosphorus throughout the last millennia. Therefore, early farming was unlikely to be the prime driver of high phosphorus loadings, and that other factors should be considered, e.g. extensive urbanization and inputs of wastewater effluent.

History as a school subject confronts a child with events, motives for action, and moral dilemmas, demanding a high level of abstract reasoning. Before the child reaches the cognitive stage of formal operations (14 years), his abstract reasoning is limited and egocentric in terms of time concept and social consciousness. To supplement this lack of abstraction, it seems necessary to enrich the teaching of history by means of substitute experiences. In an analysis of different teaching methods, it was found that abstract historical facts become more palatable to the pupil when historical novels are used to replace direct experience. The pupil thus identifies with the historical character of his own age group, and encounters history on a human level, because an emotional involvement with the facts has taken place. If a historical novel is to be utilized successfully it must therefore be more than a feebly romanticized, and superficial account of historical facts. Such a novel should capture the exact atmosphere of a specific era. It should attain a delicate balance between fact and fiction, gripping intrigue and real life characters in order to form an emotional bridge between reality and abstract historical facts. In reviewing South African history from 1488 to 1915, it seems that the fiction possibilities of this era have been adequately exploited. Novelists have however given preference to events of a more spectacular nature. More attention and focus has been given to novels for older children and teenagers. There is a great variety of these novels, enabling the pupil of middle childhood and adolescence to identify with the characters, thus experiencing universal needs and universal problems. The natural affinity for fantasy of early childhood has however not been utilized fully. The historical novel concerning the history of indigenous race groups is scantily represented. This jeopardizes the employment of historical novels in promoting positive attitudes towards other races and meaningful co-existence in South Africa. / MBibl, PU vir CHO, 1985

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