Indigenous Movements, Democracy, and U.S. Interests in Latin America

Indigenous movements have become increasingly powerful in the last couple of decades and they are now important political actors in some South American countries, such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and, to a lesser extent, Peru and Chile. The rise of indigenous movements has provoked concern among U.S. policymakers and other observers who have feared that these movements will exacerbate ethnic polarization, undermine democracy, and jeopardize U.S. interests in the region. This paper argues that concern over the rise of indigenous movements is greatly exaggerated. It maintains that the rise of indigenous movements has not brought about a market increase in ethnic polarization in the region because most indigenous organizations have been ethnically inclusive and have eschewed violence. Although the indigenous movements have at times demonstrated a lack of regard for democratic institutions and procedures, they have also helped deepen democracy in the Andean region by promoting greater political inclusion and participation and by aggressively combating ethnic discrimination and inequality. Finally, this study suggests that the indigenous population has opposed some U.S. –sponsored initiatives, such as coca eradication and market reform, for legitimate reasons. Such policies have had some negative environmental, cultural, and economic consequences for indigenous people, which U.S. policymakers should try to address. The conclusion provides some specific policy recommendations on how to go about this.

Israel, You Rascals

Mark Steel started doing stand-up in 1982 in England, around the circuit of bizarre gigs, going on after jugglers and escapologists and people that banged nails into their ear. Then came the Comedy Store and Jongleurs and getting bottled off at The Tunnel, and then a regular slot on Radio 4′s Loose Ends, where he met Joseph Heller, Christopher Lee and Gary Glitter. He did 4 series of ‘The Mark Steel Solution’, one for Radio 5 and the others on Radio 4, and a radio series about cricket, which provoked a whole page of fury in the Daily Express. He presented three series of a sports programme called ‘Extra Time’ which he was very proud of, especially as it went out on Tuesday nights on Radio 5 to possibly no listeners whatsoever. Then there was four series of the lectures on Radio 4, a book called ‘It’s Not a Runner Bean’, another one called ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’, and 3 television series of the lectures on BBC 4 and BBC 2. He has done weekly columns in Socialist Worker, the Guardian and the Independent. He has written a book called ‘Vive le Revolution’, and has been on various panel shows like Have I Got News For You and QI, and on Room 101, and on Question Time he says that he “got very confused when I insulted a member of the Tory shadow cabinet, and afterwards he said I was splendid and invited me for a drink.” And he’s spoken at lots of demonstrations and union meetings and protests, and appeared at quite a few benefits. This essay originally appeared on his website: http://marksteelinfo.com/blog/.

O teatro musical enquanto prática pedagógica no meio eclesiástico: ressignificando o fazer artístico na Igreja Batista da Esperança, Natal-RN

The churches in Brazil have shown themselves as a very important space in the musical training of many individuals. However, we perceive in many of them an excluding and merely performatic musical posture. Their argument is the fact that they want to give worship to the Divine Being and, for that, they must always offer their best. Besides that, the culture of the talent and the gift has provoked the selection of people in the ecclesiastical musical practices. The musical theatre, also practiced in this context, has been following the same principles. Understanding that musical practices must be accessible to all people, we have seen, through the studies of Amelia Santa Rosa, 2006 and 2012, the musical theatre, for its various possibilities, as an important tool for the music teaching in this context in an integrating, motivating, interdisciplinary and liberating way. For this reason, through an action research, this work has aimed to investigate the applicability of the musical theatre as a pedagogical practice in the context of the Igreja Batista da Esperanca (Hope Baptist Church), in Natal-RN, verifying the impact of this experience to the ones involved. In order to accomplish this, we carried out the construction of a musical with all of the ones who wanted to be a part of this research, having or not having previous musical experiences. The data collection was made through the field diary, semi-structured interviews with the cast of the musical and pictures and videos of rehearsals and presentations. The main issues highlighted were categorized and properly analyzed, which showed us how much the musical theatre can be used as a musical pedagogical tool also effective in the ecclesiastical context. Thus, another conception of artistic endeavor could be brought to churches, contributing to the inclusion of new participants in their musical practices, expanding the studies on the musical theatre and the presence of music in these spaces a bit more, causing other future studies.

Síntese, estrutura e propriedades de polímeros de coordenação à base de íons lantanídeos e ácidos benzenodicarboxílicos

Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are hybrids materials, often crystalline, consisting of metal or metal clusters, connected by polytopic organic ligands repetitively, leading to structures, usually porous. In this work, MOFs based on lanthanide ions (La3+ and Gd3+) and dicarboxylate type of ligands (isophthalic and terephthalic acids), were synthesized by hydrothermal, solvothermal and hydro(solvo)thermal methods. The effects of the synthetic route as well as the type of heating, conventional or by microwave, on the structure and properties of MOFs were studied. The powder samples obtained were characterized by X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, thermal analysis and scanning electron microscopy. The results suggest that the addition of an organic or inorganic base is needed to promote the deprotonation of the ligand, since in the samples prepared by the hydrothermal method, without the use of a base, no formation of the metalorganic framework was observed. On the other hand, the presence of DMF as solvent or cosolvent, afforded the deprotonation of the ligand with the consequent formation of MOFs. At least two different crystalline structures were identified for the samples prepared with terephthalic acid. These samples are isostructural with those reported for phases Eu(1,3-BDC)DMF, Eu2(1,4-BDC)3 (DMF)2 and Tb(1,4-BDC)H2O. The presence of water in the reaction medium in the hydro(solvo)thermal method, provoked the growth of the structure different from that observed in the absence of water. This can be explained by the difference in the coordination mode of water and DMF to lanthanide ions. Although not identified by XRD, the samples prepared with isophthalic acid, also present metalorganic structures, which was confirmed by the presence of the characteristic displacement of the carbonyl group band in their infrared spectra, compared to the spectrum of the pure ligand. This shift was also observed in the samples prepared with terephthalic acid. Thermal analisys shows that the metal organic frameworks do not collapse occurs at a temperature below 430°C.The analysis of scanning electron microscopy suggests that the morphology of powders is highly dependent on the type of heating used, conventional or by microwave.

Desenvolvimento de marcadores microssatélites e estrutura genética espacial da Copernicia prunifera (Miller) H. E. Moore (Arecaceae)

The present study aimed to develop microsatellite markers (SSR) for Copernicia prunifera; and characterize the demographic pattern and the spatial genetic structure (SGS) in different development stages of C. prunifera in a natural population of Rio Grande do Norte (RN) by using ISSR molecular markers. 17 SSR primers pairs were developed, which were tested by using DNA from samples of different populations. The demographic and genetic spatial structure was assessed in a plot with an area of 0.55 ha, where all individuals were georeferenced. The molecular analyses with the use of microsatellite markers pointed out that all built primers pairs, when submitted to PCR, had amplification. They showed sizes of base pairs ranging between 113 and 250 bp. The demographic analyses showed a clustered standard of spatial distribution in the first distance classes, random between 40 and 50 m and segregated in higher distances. Eight ISSR primers were used, thereby producing a total of 102 loci, with 100 of them being polymorphic. Among the three stages, the young showed the highest Nei’s genetic diversity index (He = 0.37); whilst the lowest index was found in the reproductive adults (He = 0.34). The AMOVA results showed a greater genetic differentiation within the development stages (98.61%) in comparison to the interval among the stages (1.39%). The total population (n = 161) showed a positive and significant relationship of kinship in the first distance class (12.3 m). The young showed a significant kinship up to 10.5 m and negative in the fifth distance class (37.6 m). The non-reproductive adults had a positive relationship of kinship in the first distance class (11.0 m) and random distribution of genotypes in the remaining classes. The reproductive adults showed genotypes spatially distributed in a random way. The values for the genetic bottleneck tests proved that the number of loci with excess observed heterozygosity was greater than expected. The SGS results reflect the restricted dispersion of the species, and the bottleneck tests reflect the reduction genotypes provoked by the anthropization of natural environments of C. prunifera.

Cenários de contra-hegemonia no protestantismo brasileiro no contexto da pós-modernidade

Since long ago that the religious manifestations are considered important items in various social media. In this sense, we are interested in understanding the strong denominational plurality, and the emergence of new movements / events and forms of Christianity in Brazil, which therefore is a reflection of what happens in the rest of the globalized world. Such interest is covered by the assumption that religiosity and social media are built on mutual and interconnected way, which allows us to understand that social cosmology presents itself as a fertile space privileged and to verify the interactions pertaining to the binomial: religion and society. The Protestantism is divided into three main streams: Historical, Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal. Each current of Protestantism emerged to adapt to social cosmology of historical ages, from the Reformation to the present day, forming institutions with certain ethical and moral stances. In this sense, it is necessary to research and understand how the historical Protestant, Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal were implanted in Brazil. From this we believe to be interesting problematize accurately the following: How have the processes of formation of strands / evangelical movements in Brazil? These movements are still holding their "classic robes" or hybreeding their borders? What are the modulations in the religious transit demonstrate that this probable hybridization? If there is, indeed, a hybridization between the Evangelical means, we can put it is provoked only by a logic of "market of symbolic goods of religion" in the world today? Nowadays, we are experiencing a period of change cosmological, from Modern to Postmodern (caosmológic). This last is therefore characterized by secularization, the fracture, the mutilation, the diversity of subjectivities. And thinking about is this "spirit of the times" we take as the main its theoretical references of this study, the Italian philosopher and thinker of postmodernity Gianni Vattimo featuring postmodernity with the cosmology of fragile / pensiero debole Thought and post-metaphysical, that is which enhances the appearance of more plural institutions and non-absolute. To do so, he makes use of the philosophies of German, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Finally, it must be said that this grounded theoretical framework, raise the hypothesis that the Protestantism tends to "injure anymore" by the influence of postmodern social episteme, providing thereby the emergence of a new hybrid framework has not yet nominated and can move between the three major currents of world Protestantism, with features in converged aspects of the same.

Cenários de contra-hegemonia no protestantismo brasileiro no contexto da pós-modernidade

Since long ago that the religious manifestations are considered important items in various social media. In this sense, we are interested in understanding the strong denominational plurality, and the emergence of new movements / events and forms of Christianity in Brazil, which therefore is a reflection of what happens in the rest of the globalized world. Such interest is covered by the assumption that religiosity and social media are built on mutual and interconnected way, which allows us to understand that social cosmology presents itself as a fertile space privileged and to verify the interactions pertaining to the binomial: religion and society. The Protestantism is divided into three main streams: Historical, Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal. Each current of Protestantism emerged to adapt to social cosmology of historical ages, from the Reformation to the present day, forming institutions with certain ethical and moral stances. In this sense, it is necessary to research and understand how the historical Protestant, Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal were implanted in Brazil. From this we believe to be interesting problematize accurately the following: How have the processes of formation of strands / evangelical movements in Brazil? These movements are still holding their "classic robes" or hybreeding their borders? What are the modulations in the religious transit demonstrate that this probable hybridization? If there is, indeed, a hybridization between the Evangelical means, we can put it is provoked only by a logic of "market of symbolic goods of religion" in the world today? Nowadays, we are experiencing a period of change cosmological, from Modern to Postmodern (caosmológic). This last is therefore characterized by secularization, the fracture, the mutilation, the diversity of subjectivities. And thinking about is this "spirit of the times" we take as the main its theoretical references of this study, the Italian philosopher and thinker of postmodernity Gianni Vattimo featuring postmodernity with the cosmology of fragile / pensiero debole Thought and post-metaphysical, that is which enhances the appearance of more plural institutions and non-absolute. To do so, he makes use of the philosophies of German, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Finally, it must be said that this grounded theoretical framework, raise the hypothesis that the Protestantism tends to "injure anymore" by the influence of postmodern social episteme, providing thereby the emergence of a new hybrid framework has not yet nominated and can move between the three major currents of world Protestantism, with features in converged aspects of the same.

Caracterização e avaliação da atividade fotocatalítica de catalisadores baseados no TiO2, sintetizados mediante hidrólise em uma mistura de solventes

This study involved the synthesis of photocatalysts based on titanium dioxide (TiO2). The photocatalysts were synthesized by the sol-gel method using three different proportions of acetone (25%, 50% and 75% v/v) in water/acetone mixtures, in order to control the hydrolysis of the precursor of titanium (titanium tetraisopropoxide). Aiming to investigate the structural, morphological and electronic changes provoked by the use of the solvent mixtures, different methodologies were used to characterize the oxides, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), RAMAN spectroscopy, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, and measurements of specific surface area (BET). XRD combined to RAMAN analyses revealed that the products are two-phase highly crystalline oxides involving anatase as main phase and brookite. Besides, the refined XRD using the method of Rietveld demonstrated that the presence of acetone during the synthesis influenced in the composition of the crystalline phases, increasing the proportion of the brookite phase between 13 and 22%. The band gap energy of these oxides practically did not suffer changes as function of the synthesis conditions. As shown by the isotherm, these photocatalysts are mesoporous materials with mean diameter of pores of 7 nm and approximately 20% of porosity. The surface area of the oxides prepared by hydrolysis in presence of acetone was 12% higher compared to the bare oxide. After characterized, these oxides had their photocatalytic activities evaluated by photodegradation of the azo dyes Ponceau 4R (P4R), Tartrazine (TTZ) and Reactive Red 120 (RR120), and also by the ability to mediate the photocatalytic production of hydrogen. Using the most efficient photocatalyst, the mineralization achieved for the dyes P4R, RR120 and TTZ was of respectively 83%, 79% and 56% in 120 minutes of reaction, while the discoloration of P4R e RR120 reached 100% and 94% for TTZ. In addition, the same photocatalyst in the presence of 0.5% w/w of Platinum and suspended in a 5:1 v/v water/methanol mixture, produced 56 mmol of gaseous hydrogen in five hours of experiment, corresponding to a specific rate of hydrogen production of 139.5 mmol h-1 g-1.

The Land of the Savior: Óscar Romero and the Reform of Agriculture

This study approaches Óscar Romero by attending to his intimate involvement in and concern for the problematic surrounding the reform of Salvadoran agriculture and the conflict over property and possession underlying it. In this study, I situate Romero in relation to the concentration of landholding and the production of landlessness in El Salvador over the course of the twentieth century, and I examine his participation in the longstanding societal and ecclesial debate about agrarian reform provoked by these realities. I try to show how close attention to agrarian reform and what was at stake in it can illumine not only the conflict that occasioned Romero’s martyrdom but the meaning of the martyrdom itself.

Understanding Romero’s involvement in the debate about agrarian reform requires sustained attention to how it takes its bearings from the line of thinking about property and possession for which Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum stands as a new beginning. The enclyclical tradition developing out of Leo’s pontificate is commonly referred to as Catholic social doctrine or Catholic social teaching. Romero’s and the Church’s participation in the debate about agrarian reform in El Salvador is unintelligible apart from it.

What Romero and the encyclical tradition share, I argue, is an understanding of creation as a common gift, from which follows a distinctive construal of property and the demands of justice with respect to possessing it. On this view, property does not name, as it is often taken to mean, the enclosure of what is common for the exclusive use of its possessors—something to be held by them over and against others. Rather, property and everything related to its holding derive from the claim that creation is a gift given to human creatures in common. The acknowledgement of creation as a common gift gives rise to what I describe in this study as a politics of common use, of which agrarian reform is one expression.

In Romero’s El Salvador, those who took the truth of creation as common gift seriously—those who spoke out against or opposed the ubiquity of the concentration of land and who clamored for agrarian reform so that the landless and land-poor could have access to land to cultivate for subsistence—suffered greatly as a consequence. I argue that, among other things, their suffering shows how, under the conditions of sin and violence, those who work to ensure that others have access to what is theirs in justice often risk laying down their lives in charity. In other words, they witness to the way that God’s work to restore creation has a cruciform shape. Therefore, while the advocacy for agrarian reform begins with the understanding of creation as common gift, the testimony to this truth in word and in deed points to the telos of the gift and the common life in the crucified and risen Lord in which it participates

Geografia emocional d'un exode: La retirada republicana de 1939

This thesis proposes to trace and explore an emotional geography and cartography of the republican withdrawal at the end of the Spanish Civil War in Catalonia during the months of January and February 1939. Thus, it complements existing historiographical scholarship on the Spanish Civil War and Spanish Republican Exile, especially with regard to what was experienced in Catalan territory. However, its main purpose is not that of the historian, to reveal and explain unexplored stories, but to locate existing narratives, memoirs, journals and testimonies carefully in the landscape in which they took place, exposing their emotional bonds with the places and spaces of the withdrawal of the protagonists of the Republican exodus of 1939. Whilst there has been significant work in recent years to “recover” spaces associated with violent of traumatic memories of conflict and displacement, including the creation of a network of “Democratic Memory” places in Catalonia, the spaces explored in this thesis have not so far been construed as places of memory. In part, this is because of the diversity of emotions and affective responses they provoked and continue to evoke, but also because the geography of the Retirada is characterized by mobility and multiplicity. So instead of an historical approach, despite being influenced by Walter Benjamin's concept of history, this thesis draws on existing methods and approaches related to cultural geography, in particular, the emerging interdisciplinary field known as emotional geographies. In order to create a vision of La Retirada that is sensitive to its mobility and multiplicity, the primary methodology used has been that of interdisciplinary assemblage, juxtaposing images, documents and stories of past and present, in a process redolent of that which Marianne Hirsch calls "post-memory".

Queering Apartheid: The National Party’s 1987 ‘Gay Rights’ Election Campaign in Hillbrow

This article investigates the anomaly in apartheid history of the ruling National Party's (NP) fielding a ‘pro-gay rights’ candidate in the Hillbrow constituency during the 1987 whites-only election in South Africa. The NP was aided in its Hillbrow campaign by the gay magazine Exit, which encouraged its readership to ‘vote gay’ in the election and published a list of candidates who were favourable to gay rights in South Africa. The Hillbrow campaign is intelligible when the intersections between race and sexuality are analysed and the discourses wielded by the NP and Exit are spatially and historically situated. The Hillbrow/Exit gay rights campaign articulated discourses about the reform of apartheid in white self-interest and conflated white minority and gay minority rights, thereby contributing to the NP's justification for apartheid. The NP candidate's defeat of the incumbent Progressive Federal Party (PFP) MP for Hillbrow, Alf Widman, was trumpeted by Exit as a powerful victory and advance for gay rights in South Africa, but the result provoked a sharp backlash among many white gay men and lesbian women who organised to openly identify with the liberation movement. The Exit/Hillbrow campaign problematises the singular assumptions that are often made about race and sexuality in apartheid South Africa, and illustrates how political, social and economic crisis can provoke reconfigurations of identities vis-à-vis the status quo.

Motion Sickness

Over 2000 years ago the Greek physician Hippocrates wrote, “sailing on the sea proves that motion disorders the body.” Indeed, the word “nausea” derives from the Greek root word naus, hence “nautical,” meaning a ship. The primary signs and symptoms of motion sickness are nausea and vomiting. Motion sickness can be provoked by a wide variety of transport environments, including land, sea, air, and space. The recent introduction of new visual technologies may expose more of the population to visually induced motion sickness. This chapter describes the signs and symptoms of motion sickness and different types of provocative stimuli. The “how” of motion sickness (i.e., the mechanism) is generally accepted to involve sensory conflict, for which the evidence is reviewed. New observations concern the identification of putative “sensory conflict” neurons and the underlying brain mechanisms. But what reason or purpose does motion sickness serve, if any? This is the “why” of motion sickness, which is analyzed from both evolutionary and nonfunctional maladaptive theoretic perspectives. Individual differences in susceptibility are great in the normal population and predictors are reviewed. Motion sickness susceptibility also varies dramatically between special groups of patients, including those with different types of vestibular disease and in migraineurs. Finally, the efficacy and relative advantages and disadvantages of various behavioral and pharmacologic countermeasures are evaluated.

Censura preventiva o repressiva? Note di Pasquale Galluppi sulla legge del 26 luglio 1820 del Regno di Sicilia

Se examina en el presente trabajo la difusión y reacciones provocadas por un escrito aparecido en los convulsos años 1820-1821 para el Reino de las Dos Sicilias, en donde se pone de manifiesto la necesidad de la libertad de prensa (el Opuscolo de P. Galluppi es el hilo conductor del trabajo), texto elaborado a propósito de la ley reguladora de esa libertad indispensable para la construcción del Estado liberal y para el surgimiento de la opinión pública al mismo tiempo que dicho escrito activa la labor de la censura en su doble papel de represión y punición, en unos tiempos en donde el Liberalismo no había acabado de asentarse y el Absolutismo se negaba a desaparecer.

“Animanazo”. Song and memories. Cultural expressions and movements in the reconstruction of the past inside a north Argentinian town

This article analyses the context of production and local situations of appropriation and resignification related to the folk song “Fire on Animaná” as well as the request and mobilization (“The animanazo”) provoked by this song in order to examine different mechanisms and foundations by which a population connect with an event from its community past, identifying with this and taking it in a specific way. In this article we combine discourse analysis of the song and of interviews to participants in this event with the reconstruction —through ethnographic observation— of how to use this song.

Aproximación al clítico 的 de en chino

Debido a las características intrínsecas de la lengua china, los clíticos juegan un papel imprescindible en la estructura sintáctica del idioma. Sin ellos, las oraciones no llegan a construirse, ya que son estos, entre otros recursos, los que cargan las informaciones gramaticales; es más, cada clítico en chino ocupa un hueco en la gramática, por lo que es difícil remplazarlos sin cambiar el sentido de la oración. De todos los clíticos, la palabra «的» es la que se presenta con mayor frecuencia. Esta palabra, como muchas otras “palabras vacías”, desempeña diversas funciones gramaticales, por lo que constituye un punto de investigación muy interesante en la gramática china. Desde los años 20 del siglo pasado, generaciones de eruditos se han dedicado a su estudio, entre otros, figuran Li Jinxi（黎锦熙), Gao Mingkai（高名凯),Chen Qiongzan（陈琼瓒), Fan Jiyan（范继淹）y Zhu Dexi（朱德熙). Un artículo de este último Sobre “的 (De)” ha provocado una amplia reacción y una profunda influencia en las investigaciones posteriores. A pesar de todo y hasta hoy en día, el uso de esta palabra sigue siendo un escollo tanto para los profesores de chino como para sus alumnos. Las ambigüedades que puede causar y la diferencia semántica y pragmática de su uso y desuso han sido un rompecabezas no sólo para los extranjeros, sino también para los nativos. En este artículo, intentaremos delimitar sus usos y analizar sus valores semánticos y pragmáticos.