International studies – Central and South America

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/36883

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Saúde Coletiva in a time of pandemics: Syndemics, Zika, and Democracy in Brazil
(2023-08-14) White, Lisa Michelle; Lucero, José A
The emergence of Zika in 2015 represented a novel social health risk embedded within a trifecta of ongoing public health crises, shaped by gendered, racialized historical practices of sanitation reform with differential impacts. The expansion of health and social integration in Brazil are political projects in solidarity that demand a conceptual and geographical bridging of the scales of body, home, and state. Drawing on connections between community health and local organizing practices in Recife and Rio de Janeiro as case studies, I demonstrate the distinctive practices of SaÃºde Coletiva that reveal Brazil in transformation amidst a pivotal political moment and important flashpoint for gender equality in Brazil. Local community health workers and civil organizations continue their work in the aftermath of the 2016 Zika PHEIC in addressing the eco-social determinations – or trajectories of health as a dynamic process in SaÃºde Coletiva, where community health workers and organizers were activated by Zika-related gendered risks in generating new spatial practices and forms of collectivity in ongoing struggles for SaÃºde Coletiva.
The Longue Durée of Chilean Exceptionalism: Settler Colonialism, Political Violence, and Popular Culture
(2022-07-14) Cole, Josef; Lucero, José Antonio
The nationwide protests that began in Santiago in October 2019 laid bare the tensions churning underneath the narrative of Chilean economic prosperity, democracy, and stability known as Chilean exceptionalism. Protestors carrying signs stating “it’s not about 30 pesos, it’s about 30 years” exhibited the public’s understanding that the triumphalist discourse of the democratic transition from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1990 was not as complete as advertised. However, even the slogan’s transformed understanding of the transition does not consider the continuity of settler-colonial logics of elimination and counter-insurgent violence that started with the dispossession of Indigenous land. I argue that the roots of the tensions that boiled over in October 2019 are not 30 but rather 500 years old. Through a dialogue between an archive of “high politics” comprised of official documents and an archive of “low data,” the 2017 docudrama series Una historia necessaria, I demonstrate how settler-colonial violence is an essential to Chilean statecraft. Finally, I contend that the fallout from the protests has provided an opening for new forms of justice that can address the settler-colonial sources of violence.
Conservation, Territory, and Knowledge in Western ParÃ¡
(2020-10-26) Kantner, Benjamin; Warren, Jonathan
This thesis evaluates two case studies from western ParÃ¡ state in the Brazilian Amazon: ribeirinhos living on the border of SaracÃ¡-Taquera National Forest and the MarÃ³ indigenous group fighting for demarcation of their territory on the Arapiuns River. Both cases consider the presence of Conservation in the region including the Brazilian state and international NGOs. Local communities push back against conservation interventions, contesting Conservation’s ability to ensure their ancestral territories as well as respect traditional knowledges. The ribeirinhos and MarÃ³ articulate alternative worlds to both conservation and development through the relationality they experience with the forest as Place-based peoples.
Affective Action and Delayed Dissent: Why Colombia’s Referendum Opponents Tweeted Their Outrage a Year After the Theft of Their Vote
(2019-10-15) Wilson, Katherine; Porter, Deborah
This interdisciplinary thesis explores the reasons behind a delayed response from Colombia’s peace deal opponents following the government’s overturning of their referendum victory. Existing literature failed to explain why a group of individuals would not immediately respond to a significant event, and why an eventual response would take place on Twitter, rather than in the form of a physical demonstration. This thesis develops an innovative methodology from the fields of communications and political and social psychology to draw nuanced significance from a population of tweets. This research finds that deeply rooted psychological predispositions explain both the timing of the peace deal opponents’ response and the virtual form in which it took place. The research here advances the uses of Twitter data in the social sciences, particularly for the study of social movements and human behavior.
Rhythms of Resilience: Transcending Legacies of Indigenous Loss in Wallmapu
(2019-08-14) Kallestad, Nicole; Lucero, Jose Antonio
Current reparation and strategies of political recognition towards Indigenous populations obfuscate resonant histories of oppression through a rhetoric of multicultural inclusion. Chile is no exception to this phenomenon with regard to the Mapuche. Despite state rhetoric promoting Indigenous rights through identity-focused development, a pervasive sense of loss continues to impact Mapuche communities. This work utilizes interviews and conversations with Mapuche individuals to demonstrate what the author terms, rhythms of localized resilience, in the face of a rising collective concern regarding loss of Indigenous knowledge in everyday practice among Mapuche. The work examines how loss operates as a space which galvanizes resurgence strategies and individual agency towards recovery and rehabilitation. I offer an analysis of loss—examining the kinds of losses (material, political and affective) experienced by Mapuche individuals and communities, to argue that loss is in fact, paradoxically, a productive component within revitalization efforts. This work will examine one Mapuche practice, trueque, which emphasizes reciprocity as a mechanism for social wellbeing, as a lens for understanding Mapuche resilience and empowerment in six local communities in southern Chile. This work will contribute to the discussion of Indigenous revitalization efforts and knowledge production by examining the localized actions of resurgence taking place in response to state-imposed conceptions of Indigenous peoples’ needs. I suggest that the forms through which Native peoples interact on a daily basis as a method of intentional resistance against the colonial conceptions of indigeneity matter, they operate as rhythms of resilience, fostering long-term transformation stirring personal responsibility and collective commitment.
Coffee and Climate Change: A Comparative Analysis of Civil Society and Indigenous Politics in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico
(2019-08-14) Reyes, Jacqueline Suzanne; Curran, Sara
Coffee is an important commodity not only for the consumer but also for producers. However, climate change is threatening the future of coffee and is driving it out of places where it was historically grown. In Mexico, Chiapas and Oaxaca are two of the largest coffee producing states and have become victim to the impacts of climate change as it is altering the coffee production landscape, and creating an environment that may be unsuitable for coffee in the future. In a comparison of these two states, there are many similarities in terms of the coffee sector and demographics, but upon closer examination, starkly different patterns of civil society and political actions have been taken for climate change. For example, Chiapas passed a climate change law three years before Oaxaca. Focusing specifically on coffee, both local and international organizations in Chiapas are investing in coffee conservation projects, whereas in Oaxaca only international NGOs have been active in the coffee sector. In this comparative analysis of civil society dynamics, coffee, and indigenous politics, I offer plausible explanations for why there is a major difference in political and programmatic action within these two states. I argue that in Chiapas, a state that has been historically more democratic has created a space to engender bottom-up or grass-roots initiatives, giving rise to more progressive and community-based actions on climate change as a whole thus resulting in being more responsive and adaptive actions for the coffee sector.
The Mestizo State: Violence and State Formation in Peru (1980 – 2000)
(2016-07-14) Turin Sanchez, Fernando E.; Lucero, Jose A
The research I present in this thesis will analyze Peru’s statecraft process in the late 20th century (1980–2000). ). Scholars agree that the Peruvian state was about to fail due to the internal conflict that deepened the deterioration of the state capacity. The idea of failure was also associated with the explosive slum growth in the capital. Ironically the Peruvian state at a moment of ostensible weakness gained strength, and the negative attitudes toward the slums changed within that context. This paradox is what my research aims to address. This research builds on previous empirical studies and explores archival records from the Peruvian government regarding Lima’s slums growth, and the civil war. I also make the case for an alternative approach to state formation that can articulate both elite-centered and popular approaches. I argue that the Peruvian state approach toward the slums changed during the 1980s, because the slums of Lima had already acquired political agency. The long frictional urban progression of the slums of Lima changed the conversation of power and percolated social pressures in a time when “informality” had been incorporated into the neoliberal agenda and international developments trends. The change of attitude was due to a combination of these trends. Domestically the slum growth changed social practices and power dynamics that became visible during the internal conflict between the Peruvian government and Shining Path. These dynamics came at the time in which international narratives had incorporated “informality” into their global discourse.
Selective Listening: Why U.S. Policymakers De-Securitized Colombia's Internal Displacement Crisis
(2016-07-14) Fones, Isaac; Lucero, Jose Antonio
This thesis examines the U.S. foreign policy known as “Plan Colombia” and asks why it has not allocated greater resources toward Colombia’s decades-long internal displacement crisis. By analyzing primary sources connected to the policy such as White House press releases and speeches from State Department officials, and comparing them with the apportionment of congressional funding for Plan Colombia, I identified significant discrepancies between the official statements regarding internal displacement and the types and quantities of aid given to Colombia by the United States. I employed interviews with policy experts, humanitarian advocates, and NGO workers to add depth to my own understanding of Plan Colombia and its constitutive elements. Looking through a lens of Securitization Theory, my research suggests that U.S. policymakers habitually avoid any substantial commitment to helping Colombia solve its internal displacement crisis because doing so would obligate the United States to prefer a humanitarian-focused relationship with Colombia rather than maintain its long-standing and mutually reinforcing emphasis on state security.
Brazil's Emerging Roadmap for Internet Governance
(2014-10-13) Arnaudo, Daniel; Warren, Jonathan
This thesis is an examination of the roadmap Brazil is drawing to govern the Internet domestically, and potentially extend to other countries and the international system as a whole. This map includes the development of institutions and regulations to govern the infrastructure and information communications technology (ICT) used collectively and individually by Brazilian citizens. The principal means of depicting this roadmap are an exploration of the Marco Civil da Internet, a Bill of Rights for the Internet, and the Comitê Gestor da Internet, an Internet Steering Committee that governs and administers aspects of the country's national network. Through this examination of two principal examples and a number of secondary ones, Brazil's shows how to connect technical codes with political ideals to govern the new realities of the information age. To explain how this coexistence of political and technical ideals translates to policy objectives, this thesis will examine the legal code and history of the Marco Civil, the membership and objectives of the CGI, and the tenets created by the CGI instilled in the bill that now governs Brazil's Internet today. It also integrates the work of scholars that have developed theories to explain how governments collaborate with citizens through democratic, multistakeholder models that manage these new systems through technical means, such as the coordination and assignment of root level domains or the changeover to IPv6. The Internet is a revolutionary new mechanism to achieve objectives such as to innovate and develop economies, ensure security, network neutrality, freedom of expression, privacy and human rights. By constructing and administering ICT infrastructure through a revolutionary democratic model enabled by the strongest network possible, the Marco Civil contains both technical and political elements to build and maintain a stronger civil society, democratic system and economy simultaneously. This is what makes these new Brazilian regulations and institutions revolutionary, pioneering examples of how to approach our new reality.

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