La Argentina sufre de una polarización ideológica y socioeconómica con raíces profundos que se extiende a lo largo de la historia del país. Esta tesis analiza la psicología que ayuda a explicar esa polarización. Empieza al examinar las teorías que identifican los aspectos cognitivos y motivacionales de la socialización, incluyendo las teorías que representan una superposición de las dos categorías. Luego, utiliza conocimientos obtenidos a través de entrevistas con ciudadanos de Buenos Aires para mostrar cómo las teorías ayudan a clasificar los comportamientos y sentimientos que contribuyen a la polarización. La tesis concluye por ofrecer cuatro estrategias para tratar de contrarrestar los efectos negativos de la polarización y prevenir a que las tensiones se vuelvan aún peores.

Despite their progressive on-the-books environmental legislation, Ecuador and Argentina have hosted increasing amounts of extraction projections in their borders over the last few decades. Beyond increased environmental degradation, the expansion of extraction economies in these countries has drove mass scale social movements orchestrated by disenfranchised peoples. This thesis investigates the link between social movements and environmental law reformation, and whether such social movements are able to strengthen the national legal and institutional framework for environmental management. To evaluate this inquiry, this thesis explores socials movements in Ecuador in the late twentieth century and in Argentina in the early twenty first century.

abstract: This dissertation examines incidents of conflict and violence amid communities of the Maya Tzotzil Chamula in Chiapas, Mexico. Despite ostensible homogeneity, or more social and cultural resemblances than differences, conflicts arise between many Chamula because of how they acquire desire according to others who mediate what is desirable. These conflicts relate well to Rene Girard's hypothesis that mimetic desire influences identity yet generates conflict as imitation fosters rivalry. Qualitative methods of participant observation, interviews, and document research depict how desire, identity, and conflict interrelate. Ethnographic cases show how conflict emerges "interdividually" as rivals compete to obtain objects imputed desirable. The study begins with how young Tzotzils today appropriate the desires of others, becoming lawyer, spiritual guide, rock and roll singer, or anthropologist. Complex examples exhibit groups struggling for power and privilege within or between members of communities as they vie over "objects of desire" such as status, land, water, or representations of power and pecuniary interests. For some Chamula, mimetic rivalry works to deny resemblances with others despite being alike as neighbor, relative, farmer, carpenter, or member of the same political or religious affiliation. The study also highlights mimetic interactions that have shaped Maya struggles in the past, such as the uprisings of 1712, 1867, and 1911. Interpretive analysis explores how identity formation (structures), imitative desire (motivated interaction), and practice (habitual agency) together galvanize material and psychosocial variables for conflict. Imitative desire is worth observing because of its long-term implications for human adaptation and social change. As a contribution to social conflict theory, this dissertation offers a critical perspective to current research on mimetic desire as a significant force in human relations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2012

abstract: The Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela (FESNOJIV), also known as El Sistema, is an internationally recognized social phenomenon. By promoting social reform and development through music education, El Sistema is enriching the lives of thousands of impoverished youth in Venezuela by providing a nurturing environment for children in government-sponsored orchestras, choirs, and bands. In this thesis, I contend that the relationship between music education and social reform cultivates sociocultural ideas and expectations that are transmitted through FESNOJIV's curriculum to the participating youth and concert attendees. These ideas and El Sistema's live and recorded performances engage both the local Venezuelan community and the world-at-large. Ultimately, I will show that FESNOJIV has been instrumental in creating, promoting, and maintaining a national Venezuelan identity that is associated with pride and musical achievement. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Music 2013

abstract: The &ldquoMormon; Colonies” in Chihuahua, northern Mexico, boast a sizable population of women originally from the United States who have immigrated to these small Mexican towns. This ethnographic study of the immigrant women in the area focuses on questions of citizenship and belonging, and bolsters the scholarship on U.S. American immigrants in Mexico. Using data from 15 unstructured interviews, the women&rsquos; experiences of migration provide a portrait of U.S. American immigrants in a Mexican religious community. Analysis of this data using grounded theory has revealed that these U.S. American women have created a third social space for themselves, to a large degree retaining their original culture, language, and political loyalty. Their stories contribute to the literature on transnational migration, providing an account of the way migrants of privilege interact with their society of settlement. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Communication Studies 2013

abstract: This master's thesis examines negative stereotypes of blackness in mainstream media in the Dominican Republic, and analyzes the manner in which racial identity has been reinforced and contested. Discourse analysis is utilized to analyze the language and rhetoric of editorials from Listin Diario. The rationale for this study is to assess how Dominicans have learned about blackness through the depictions in media and popular music, and therefore draw conclusions as to how Dominicans view their own racial identity. Considerable attention will be paid to the years between 2010-2013, using the Haitian earthquake disaster of 2010 and Verdict TC 0168-13 of the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal of 2013 as major historical events to frame the study. To these assumptions, this inquiry addresses the following questions: How have Haitians been portrayed in the mainstream newspaper of Listin Diario between the period of 2010-2013? How do the pedagogies in media and popular music educate Dominicans about portrayals of blackness during this period? What are the historiographical roots of these portrayals, particularly regarding the dynamics of race and citizenship? I will demonstrate that the prevailing depictions of Haitians adhere to a historically oriented construction of Dominican identity, known as "Dominicanidad" or "Dominicanness," and that these depictions largely omit African heritage as a contributor to national identity. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social and Cultural Pedagogy 2014

Progress Village in Tampa Florida was developed in the late 1950s in response to the dislocation of black families during the construction of Interstate-4. Furthermore this community became an opportunity for many black and more specifically, African American families, to live in a community devoid of racist attitudes and tensions rampant in inner city Tampa at the time. For over thirty years this community’s residential population was overwhelmingly (90 percent) black or African American. In the 1990s though this community would begin to experience the first wave of Latino residents and by 2000 this group would comprise over 2 percent of the population. Moreover by 2010 this community’s Latino population would soar to over 14 percent of the total population. This project is a case study of Latino migration into a small historically Black residential community. This work examines a plethora of sources ranging from newspaper articles (New York Times, Sun Sentinel, Progress Village Pioneer, etc.), scholarly articles, government data (U.S. Census), and primary research in the form of survey data and interviews from current Latino residents. All these sources are incorporated to argue that evolving federal immigration policies, shifting migration patterns, and economic factors (affordable housing and employment) all played a vital role in this recent and ongoing influx. This research adds to the existing scholarship of Latino migration in the U.S. by demonstrating how small predominantly African American communities like Progress Village are diversified by all these factors.

This dissertation explores a cross-cultural analysis of the dietary signatures of four coastal cultures of prehistoric Peru. A combination of elemental analysis based on portable x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF), testing trace elements presented in 209 individuals’ skulls representing the Nazca (38), Cañete (33), Lima (40), and Moche (98) valleys and/or cultures of the first millennium AD, is weighed in conjunction with isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) to analyze human bone collagen and bone apatite derived from a portion of the individuals represented in the Nazca, Cañete, and Lima cranial samples. Evidence from the results of both tests are weighed using descriptive statistics supported with bivariate correlations and linear regression to determine that the pXRF data on the trace elements strontium (Sr), barium (Ba), and iron (Fe) from the Moche collection do present potential for accurately portraying diet of those individuals represented in this sample. Additional hypotheses tested include potential for preferential diets based on sex, age, and status as well as attempting to place the valley of Cañete in the cultural sphere of either Lima or Nasca during the Early Intermediate Period. While there was no significant statistical difference in diet based on age in any of the individual valley datasets, there was one valley, Nazca, which showed a considerable variation in diet based on sex. From data derived from this particular sample set, there are mixed results in attempting to apply status to a diet of preferential high nitrogen sources such as marine mammals and large fish. In attempting to place Cañete in the cultural sphere of either Lima or Nasca, it was determined that cultural remains appear to be linked predominately to artifacts and practices of the Lima Culture, but the dietary difference in both stable isotope and trace elements signatures combined with the samples which instead aligned more closely with the Nasca Culture suggests that perhaps Cañete was a marginal space which allowed for the settlement and interaction of peoples from both neighboring cultures without prejudice. Overall, results indicate it would be premature to suggest pXRF replace destructive analysis in determination of diet. Due to the small sample size of stable isotopes deemed viable in testing, it is suggested that a larger sample of stable isotopes should be considered in similar testing and that the major elements from pXRF should also be used before a suggestion that destructive analysis was no longer warranted in many cases for deducing diet in ancient populations.

<p> Latinas/os are one of the immigrant and ethnic groups with the lowest percentages of educational attainment (Lopez &amp; Fry, 2013) and financial mobility (Erisman &amp; Looney, 2007) in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to develop a better understanding of the perceptions and experiences of Latina/o parents who have college-age children who have moved away from home to college to pursue a higher education degree. While parents have been identified as an important influence for Latina/o student academic success in college; there is little knowledge about their experiences and perceptions related to education and the education of their children. What we know about parents of Latina/o students and their relationships with their college-age children has mainly been inferred from the voices of teachers, administrators, and students. A basic qualitative research design was used for this investigation. Ten 90-minute participant interviews were the main source of data collection. The conceptual framework was guided by a sociocultural approach (John-Steiner &amp; Mahn, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1993), as well as the concepts of social capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Ceja, 2006; Stanton-Salazar, 1997; Stanton-Salazar &amp; Dornbusch, 1995), and autonomy development (Arnstein, 1980; Blos, 1979; Carney-Hall, 2008; Chickering, 1969; Chickering &amp; Reisser, 1993; Cullaty, 2011; Domenech Rodriguez, Donovick, &amp; Crowley, 2009; Fox, Spooner, Utterback, &amp; Barbieri, 1996; Kegan, 1982; Levinson, 1978; Rothbaum &amp; Trommsdorff, 2007; Taub, 1995; Taub &amp; McEwen, 1992). This conceptual framework was used to help develop the research questions and to analyze the data. </p><p> Two main themes emerged from the analysis of the data collected. First, the participants played a role as generational bridge builders for both educational attainment and financial mobility between their parents and their children. They were able to build upon their parents&rsquo; educational and financial accomplishments and they were purposeful about making sure their children would build upon their accomplishments. Second, this particular group of Latina/o participants were actively involved in their children&rsquo;s academic development and engaged in parental involvement practices that resemble typical middle-class parental involvement. When their children departed from home to attend college, the participants experienced feelings of emptiness and sadness for having one less family member in the home. They struggled with losing control over their children and with the autonomy that is typically given to children in the United States culture once they leave home to go to college. The findings of this study can help researchers and practitioners better understand Latina/o parents and college students and develop effective resources/interventions that contribute to Latina/o college student success. </p><p>

While the National Park Service is charged with interpreting and preserving areas designated as park resources, they must also manage environmental issues such as erosion resulting from climate change. This research sets out to narrate how Palo Seco, Puerto Rico, a neighboring community of the San Juan National Historic Site, perceives similar environmental conditions and motivations for addressing these issues. My research sits at the intersection between the park’s charter and understanding community implications of environmental changes that affect local heritage. Using Authorized Heritage Discourse and environmental justice as theoretical frameworks, I suggest that the National Park Service should include the observations of climate change from Palo Seco community to broaden Park Service’s understanding and preservation policies. I also recommend the National Park Service utilize cultural resource management guidelines to develop programs that facilitate collaborative research projects with the Palo Seco community to not only address mutual issues of climate changes but also document local heritage knowledge that can enhance the Park’s interpretation and preservation efforts.