The farm workers who diligently tend and harvest the US fields and produce is a major component of the agriculture industry. This research explores the current issues and challenges that domestic, seasonal farm workers face through the lenses of embodiment and habitus theory. Narratives and insights from interviews were integrated with current literature to present a complete picture of the cyclical life of the domestic farm worker in San Luis, Arizona. This thesis argues that farm work is a unique profession which has left its mark on the body and the behavior. Those in the border region have added agency due to the opportunities the border presents. As this research highlights, additional attention and research is needed to redesign policies and initiatives to adequately assist and provide for a population that provides so much.

Background: Historically, US immigration policy, including border enforcement, has served to define national belonging and through this process, has constructed particular groups as undesirable or threatening to the nation. Such political-economic strategies contribute to oppression through gender, ethnic, and class discrimination and economic and political exclusion. This dissertation is based on three studies that collectivity explored these issues as structural determinants of health (SDH) and forms of structural and everyday violence. Objectives: These studies aimed to (1) examine the relations between immigration related mistreatment and practices of ethno-racial profiling by immigration officials on health of Mexican immigrants of the Arizona border (2) contextualize the structural and everyday violence of such institutional practices through mistreatment narratives and (3) evaluate the impact of an intensive Border Health Service Learning Institute (BHSLI) on public health students' ability to locate such forms of violence and identify the role of public health advocacy. Methods: Study one and two are a secondary analysis of quantitative and qualitative data drawn from a random household sample of 299 Mexican-origin farmworkers. Study three is a qualitative analysis of 25 BHSLI student reflection journals from 2010-2012. Results: Farmworkers were US permanent residents and citizens, employed in US agriculture for 20 years. Approximately 25% reported immigration related mistreatment, more than 50% were personally victimized and 75% of mistreatment episodes occurred in a community location while residents engaged in routine activities. Immigration mistreatment was associated with a 2.3-increased risk for stress in adjusted models (OR 2.3, CI 1.2, 4.1). After a week at the US-Mexico border, BHSLI students articulated aspects of immigration and economic policy impacting health. Students framed economic and immigration policies as health policy and found the role of public health to convene stakeholders toward multi-institutional policy solutions. Conclusion: Immigration related mistreatment and ethno-racial profiling are historically embedded at institutional and individual levels and reproduce inequality overtime. Such institutional practices of discrimination are SDH and forms of structural and everyday violence. Academic public health programs, engaged in service learning strengthen students' abilities to learn and act on such SDH and contribute to campus-community engagement on related ethno-racial health disparities.

This dissertation explores the cultural and intellectual factors in the remaking of US-Japan relations which transformed as the two countries transitioned from enemies to allies after 1945. Diverging from the traditional approaches of diplomatic and political history that, focusing on state actors, describe policymaking processes, I comparatively study public discourses in 1940s-early 1950s America and Japan where various groups and actors - politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, scholars, and intellectuals - participated and created. Both peoples shared a similar discourse concerning modernization and, indeed, developed parallel ideas about modern Japanese history and the causes of Japanese militarism, the postwar democratization of Japan, and the making of a postwar Asian peace. They believed in the European progressive view of history, variously interpreted, and judged Japan to be "underdeveloped," compared with the "advanced West," having become an unlawful aggressor nation in the 1930s. Such views of a "failed" modernity and subsequent war rationalized Allied occupation and democratization reforms in post-surrender Japan. The more influenced by Marxian theories, the more critical they were of Japan's incomplete modernization, and the more enthusiastic for Allied - or American - intervention in postwar reforms. American and Japanese discourses on the reform of Japan's political organization, namely constitutional revision, show similar reformist plans from reconstruction of the constitutional monarchy to republican options. Those adopting Marxist analyses found the root cause of Japan's undemocratic and aggressive nature in the emperor system called for its elimination; those who did not believe that democratization required the overthrow of monarchy suggested reforming Japan's imperial institution to make democratic government function better. In addition, both Americans and Japanese shared the Wilsonian idea of internationalism, and they expected Japan to reenter the postwar Asia-Pacific as a totally demilitarized, democratic, and pacifist country that could contribute to peace and development of the region. With the Cold War, the US policies for Asia and Japan altered. So did the internationalist visions, causing political debates in the United States and Japan. My work ultimately shows such parallel and intersecting cultures where US-Japan relations were rehabilitated in the immediate-postwar years.

Residents of the region just north of the U.S.-Mexico border experience migration and smuggling activities through constantly changing found objects on the desert landscape--a pair of shoes neatly arranged on a trail; a cross hung in a tree; a can of food balanced on a rock. Consideration of some found objects as placed objects, set down with apparent care by travelers unseen and unmet, demonstrates how the objects uniquely inform the perceptions and practices of residents who find them. Such finders speculate about the lives and movements of others by utilizing the objects as metaphoric figures of practice, tools that uniquely but only partially help them bridge knowledge gaps among multiple constantly changing variables in their everyday lives. The finding-speculating dynamic confounds a direct and easy association of found items with trash, of migrants with threat, and of a border wall with hopelessness. Residents instead craft a sophisticated and practical cultural memory of place in a region that is inhabited differently by day than by night, where tragedy, grace, danger, and hope fuse in unexpected ways. The objects and events that erupt into rural border life inspire a poetics that matches the territory. In a landscape of uncertainty, placed objects secure and extend situational understandings beyond common conceptual frames of epidemic, normalized patterns of violence and collateral damage that are often considered necessary conditions of life in the region.

The dryland ecosystems of the US Desert Southwest (SW) are dependent on soil moisture for aboveground productivity; the generation of soil moisture in the SW is dependent on both soil physical properties and climate forcing. This study is one of the first regional point-scale analyses that explores the role of soil physical properties in modulating aboveground vegetation dynamics in response to climate forcing in the SW. Soil texture accounted for significant differences in average aboveground primary productivity across the SW. However, soil texture could not account for differences in inter-annual aboveground productivity variation across the SW. Subsurface soil texture was tightly coupled with precipitation seasonality in accounting for differences in long-term average seasonal aboveground productivity in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. The results of this study indicate that the subsurface is a significant factor in modulating aboveground primary productivity, and needs to be included in future modeling exercises of dryland ecosystem response to climate forcing and change.

This dissertation combines theories of nationalism and discourse analysis modeled on Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha with Kenneth Burke's dramatism to demonstrate that political states are constituted as meaningful, exclusionary communities through legislative discourses, literary representations, and practices of historiography. Although a number of scholars have acknowledged the importance of state identifications in the complex of cultural and symbolic nationalism, there has been limited examination of the composition of what I call "statist"-- as related to but distinct from "nationalist"-- identities in their own right. Using Wyoming as a case study, this project examines the unique and deeply significant affiliations formed within individual states in the United States of America. Wyoming provides an interesting lens for this discussion for several reasons. First, Wyoming's attainment of statehood in 1890 marks an important figurative closing of the frontier acknowledged in the census of that year and remarked upon as significant among many scholars of Western history. This coincidence of timing also places Wyoming's territorial period and attempts to articulate the state as an independent cultural and political entity during the period of colonialism. Many scholars, including Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha as well as Ernest Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm, consider this the period during which modern nationalism flowered. Finally, Wyoming presents a useful template for this analysis precisely because of its unremarkableness in legislative terms; the language of its constitution draws heavily on the models provided by earlier states as well as the US Constitution and is quite similar in this respect to many that followed. Although the symbols and narratives that circumscribe the Wyoming imaginary are unique, the process by which they are constituted is not and could be observed in some form in any state in the Union.

Angola’s civil war in the mid-1970s has an important role to play in the ongoing debate within the diplomatic history community over how best to explain American foreign policy. As such, this dissertation uses the Angolan crisis as a case study to investigate and unravel the reasons for the American covert intervention on behalf of two pro-Western liberation movements: the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto, and Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. That Angola is a late 20th century example of foreign intervention is not disputed. However, the more significant and difficult questions surrounding this Cold War episode, which are still debated and which directly relate to the purpose of this study, are first, “Why did the United States involve itself in Angola when it had previously ignored Portugal’s African colonies, preferring to side with its NATO partner and to maintain its distance from Angola’s national liberation movements?” Was it really, as the Ford Administration asserted, a case of the United States belatedly responding to Soviet expansionism and Kremlin-supported aggression by Agostinho Neto’s leftist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). Secondly, “Exactly when did the United States intervene, and was this intervention largely responsible for the ensuing escalation of violence and external involvement in Angola affairs?” In other words, as suggested by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, was the Soviet Union’s intervention in response to the American decision to allocate $300,000 to Holden Roberto’s National Front in January 1975? If so, then contrary to the Ford Administration’s official account of the crisis, the United States - and not the Soviet Union - was the initial provocateur in the conflict that left the resource-rich West African nation in a ruinous, perpetual state of warfare into the early 21st century.

Goodwill har sedan länge varit ett kontroversiellt ämne. Genom införandet av det nya internationella regelverket IFRS kom hanteringen av goodwill att förändras. Istället för att göra årliga nedskrivningar ska nu goodwillposten hos börsnoterade företag på minst årlig basis genomgå en nedskrivningsprövning, för att se om ett nedskrivningsbehov föreligger. Detta har emellertid mottagit viss kritik, då det anses vara subjektiva bedömningar som ligger till grund. En följd av detta skulle således kunna vara att företag medvetet undviker nedskrivningar.  Kritik riktas även mot de höga goodwillposter som svenska företag redovisar. Trots den globala kris som världen har befunnit sig i sedan 2007 förefaller det som att goodwill hos svenska företag inte har påverkats i en negativ riktning. Detta kritiseras öppet av praktiserande ekonomer, samt strider mot tidigare forskning inom ämnet. Studier har funnit att makroekonomiska faktorer såsom lågkonjunktur bör leda till sänkta nivåer av goodwill, då en nedskrivning sannolikt bör vara aktuell.  För att kunna studera de fulla effekterna av en lågkonjunktur bör vidare, enligt forskning, en viss tidsfördröjning ha ägt rum. Detta åskådliggjorde ett forskningsgap över svensk ekonomi, och således något som denna uppsats ämnar fylla. Genom att studera årsredovisningar från 36 stycken svenska företag noterade på Large Cap-listan, granskades företagens andel goodwill av eget kapital. En jämförelse av goodwillposten innan lågkonjunkturen samt efter lågkonjunkturens början exekverades. För att kunna ta en eventuell effekt av en tidsfördröjning i beaktande, studerades goodwill år 2011. Ytterligare jämförelser utfördes för år 2010, 2009, 2008 och 2007 med året innan konjunkturförsämringen (som här representeras av år 2006). Detta för att undersöka om andelen goodwill i förhållande till eget kapitel minskade i ett tidigare skede av konjunkturförsämringen. Studiens resultat indikerar att de undersökta företagen inte uppvisar en lägre andel goodwill efter lågkonjunkturens början. Data visar att goodwillposten de facto var högre efter lågkonjunkturens början än innan. Detta strider mot tidigare forskning, samt är avvikande mot den trend som kan observeras i andra länder som exempelvis USA. Då även länder som USA tillämpar ett regelverk som anses vara ekvivalent med IFRS, är måhända subjektiva bedömningar av goodwillpostens värde otillräckligt för att förklara de höga goodwillposterna som förekommer i Sverige. En förklaring som eventuellt kan anses ligga bakom denna diskrepens av erhållna resultat för svenska företag och tidigare forskning om lågkonjunktur, är den svenska ekonomin. Begreppet tigerekonomi har använts för att beskriva den styrka och beständighet som har illustrerats i den svenska återhämtningen från finanskrisen.

The Devils Lake defection of 2005 demands a re-evaluation of the venerable Boundary Waters Treaty (BWT) between Canada and the United States. Why was the long-successful water agreement unable to solve this relatively minor dispute? More importantly, given irregularities between theoretical assertions and institutional history, what theory of international relations best explains a cooperative agreement that spans a near-century? Due to the complexities of shared river systems, any theory that seeks to explain international cooperation must adequately encompass three separate sources of state motivation. First, it must explain the technical, basin-position-driven realities that affect state attitudes towards negotiations. Second, it must explain the longer-term strategic factors that can inspire states to accept immediate losses for subsequent gains. Finally, it must acknowledge domestic sources of influence and understand how these forces constrain the state vis-à-vis others. This paper argues that liberalism, as defined by Andrew Moravcsik, is the best theoretical candidate. This is proven by comparing interpretations of the BWT history through realist, neoliberal, constructivist, and liberal lenses. After identifying and examining each theory's strengths and weaknesses, liberalism emerges as the most holistic view and should be favoured as a primary explanatory theory. Liberalism's theoretical underpinnings – interest group politics – best handles the technical, strategic, and domestic influences that affect Canada-US water relations. Whether examining what prompted efforts to initiate a water-sharing agreement, explaining the agreement's final structure, determining the impetus for continued cooperation, or identifying the incentives to finally break from treaty obligations, liberalism provides the most satisfying solutions. Though derived from the Canada-US border relationship, liberalism's superiority is not limited to the North American watershed. Because the factors examined are common to all shared international river systems and the paper's results are scalable, this suggests that liberalism will continue to be the appropriate primary IR theory to employ when examining state decision-making regarding water-sharing agreements.

Tarptautinei sistemai esant anarchiškai, dominuoja šalys turinčios didžiausią galią ir Lietuvos, kaip mažos ir turinčios mažai galios, šliejimasis prie supervalstybės JAV yra visiškai logiškas elgesys. Tuo pačiu Lietuvą su JAV sieja ir bendras identitetas, susiformavęs JAV nuosekliai nepripažįstant Lietuvos okupacijos 1940 ir 1944 metais, remiant Lietuvos nepriklausomybės atgavimą, puoselėjant ir padedant lietuvių emigrantus. Todėl Lietuvos atveju reiktų taikyti abi šias teorijas norint nagrinėti paramą JAV, NATO ir dalyvavimą jų rengiamose karinėse užsienio misijose. Kadangi po šaltojo karo pasaulis iš bipoliarinio, vienų autorių nuomone tapo multipoliariniu, o kitų – unipoliariniu (jame dominuoja JAV), todėl toks Lietuvos šliejimasis prie didžiausią galia turinčio polio (abiem atvejais tai yra JAV) tampa suprantamu ir atspindinčiu neorealizmo idėjas, todėl iš daugelio egzistuojančių tarptautinių santykių teorijų mano manymu tinkamiausios paaiškinti Lietuvos dalyvavimą tarptautinėse misijose yra Neorealizmas ir Konstruktyvizmas. Nors jos savo pagrindinėmis koncepcijomis prieštarauja viena kitai, bet Lietuvos atveju papildo viena kitą. Lietuvos šliejimasis prie JAV galios yra Neorealizmo teorijos veikimo lauke, o bendra vertybių sistema su Vakarų šalimis (labiausiai su JAV) – konstruktyvizmo ir istorinės patirties santykiuose su Rusija. Nagrinėjant karines Lietuvos užsienio misijas negalima apsiriboti tik tarptautinių santykių teorijomis, taip pat reikia suvokti geopolitinį... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / It has been known for several decades that a constantly growing asymmetry of the military power between the US and their NATO allies complicates transatlantic security relations. If allies cannot communicate in military terms, the risk of political split appears. Therefore one of the main priorities is the necessity to ensure that the allies are able to make their substantial military contribution. Lithuania also contributes to it by taking part in missions together with its allies. Missions are of military (using weapons, executing military operations and performing police functions) and civil character (providing help in case of natural disasters, sending humanitarian aid to voluntary soldiers). This paper focuses mainly on military missions. The subject of the paper: The participation of Lithuania in foreign military missions. The relevance of the topic: More and more often articles appear in Lithuania and abroad criticising the participation of the Western countries in peace missions, including Afghanistan; casualties, moral validity of these missions and heavy expenses are questioned; a more and more prevailing idea of Neorealism is mentioned. The goals of the paper: • To introduce the main trends of the theories of international relations; • To analyse the participation of Lithuania in foreign military missions with reference to the theories; • To introduce a geopolitical context of the participation of Lithuania in foreign missions; • To review Lithuanian foreign... [to full text]