El hombre metrosexual como Narciso contemporáneo: el papel del discurso publicitario actual en la construcción de la masculinidad

Existen diferentes definiciones del concepto de masculinidad. Por un lado están las normativas, que la entienden como lo que los hombres deberían ser y, por otro, los enfoques semióticos, que la definen como no-feminidad. Partiendo de este último enfoque y teniendo en cuenta que la feminidad ha evolucionado en los últimos años junto con la sociedad desdibujando la frontera entre lo que forma parte del rol femenino y lo que no, se puede afirmar que han surgido a partir de los renovados modelos de feminidad, diferentes y nuevas masculinidades entre las que se encuentra la del hombre metrosexual. Es en este tipo de masculinidad en concreto en la que se centra la presente investigación y en cómo se construye la narración de dicha masculinidad en el discurso publicitario actual recurriendo a la figura mítica de Narciso. Así, a partir de una revisión bibliográfica y de un análisis de contenido, se pretende analizar la influencia de la publicidad en la aparición del hombre metrosexual como nueva masculinidad en respuesta a la transformación de la feminidad, a la par que confirmar la presencia de la figura de Narciso como recurso en la construcción de la masculinidad en la publicidad actual.

Welfare Regimes and “progressive” governments in Latin America: The cases of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia

Several authors have applied the concept of Welfare Regimens for studying social policy in Latin America (Esping-Andersen, 1993 and 2000). Among others, Martínez Franzoni (2007) develops a typology, with fi eld work is at the turn of the millennium, and establishes three categories: State-productivist regime, state-protectionist and family orientated. Most countries in the region are placed in the latter category. The hypothesis of this article argues that with the emergence of governments considered “left” or “progressive” in several countries of the region from the late ‘90s and, more decisively, in 2000’, the map of welfare regimes models could have mutated substantively. The nationally transformative experiences are different (various socio-economic realities and political action in which they are located exists) but they have several contact points that can be summarized in a greater state intervention in different areas previously closed to their operating and recovery of important functions of welfare and care of the population by the government. The paper discusses with an exploratory and descriptive approach the welfare schemes that would shape in three countries that have constitutionalized the change from the neoliberal paradigm: Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Conditional cash transfer programs and the representations of poverty in Bolivia and Peru

Bolivia and Peru adopted the same instruments of social policy —conditional cash transfer programs— to solve the same public problems under different political regimes. By means of the qualitative methodology of discourse analysis, this paper studies the representations of poverty and State made by key actors of those social programs. Underlying more differences than similarities, one demonstrates that the same social policy is linked to opposite social representations of poverty and the State role in every country. The main explanation for this is, far from being imposed by international organizations, those programs are adopted and adapted by each political regime.

Welfare Effort and Poverty from the Monetary and Capabilities Approach: A Cross-Country Analysis in Latin American and the Caribbean (1990-2010)

There is abundant empirical evidence on the negative relationship between welfare effort and poverty. However, poverty indicators traditionally used have been representative of the monetary approach, excluding its multidimensional reality from the analysis. Using three regression techniques for the period 1990-2010 and controlling for demographic and cyclical factors, this paper examines the relationship between social spending per capita —as the indicator of welfare effort— and poverty in up to 21 countries of the region. The proportion of the population with an income below its national basic basket of goods and services (PM1) and the proportion of population with an income below 50% of the median income per capita (PM2) were the two poverty indicators considered from the monetarist approach to measure poverty. From the capability approach the proportion of the population with food inadequacy (PC1) and the proportion of the population without access to improved water sources or sanitation facilities (PC2) were used. The fi ndings confi rm that social spending is actually useful to explain changes in poverty (PM1, PC1 and PC2), as there is a high negative and signifi cant correlation between the variables before and after controlling for demographic and cyclical factors. In two regression techniques, social spending per capita did not show a negative relationship with the PM2. Countries with greater welfare effort for the period 1990-2010 were not necessarily those with the lowest level of poverty. Ultimately social spending per capita was more useful to explain changes in poverty from the capability approach.

Students with disabilities in a Chilean university

The purpose of this article is to give a report about a research related with the conditions of inclusion of students with disability in a Chilean university. This research is a quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional study. To collect the data required, a survey was developed, which was applied to 38 students with disability. The main results reveal a high retention rate of students, who exhibit a positive perception of their inclusion in their university life and also a high level of satisfaction with most of the services provided. Seven out of ten students surveyed recognize having received some sort of education care from their programs to pursue their studies. However, there still exists a lack of connection between the current initiatives developed at the university to support the enrollment and permanence of students. Added to this fact, there is a lack of protocols and training for teachers and staff. In this study it is proposed that the university must establish a management system that defines objectives, strategies and actions that contribute to improve inclusion of people with disabilities.

Postglacial formation and dynamics of North Patagonian Rainforest in the Chonos Archipelago, Southern Chile

Pollen analysis of continuous sediment cores from two lakes in the northern Chonos Archipelago (44S) in southern Chile shows a complete postglacial record of vegetation change. The fossil records indicate that deglaciation was complete in the northern Chonos by at least 13,600 14Cyr BP. Ericaceous heath and grassland persisted for more than 600 years after deglaciation under the influence of dry/cold climates and frequent burning. Nothofagus-Pilgerodendron-Podocarpus forest, with modern analogues in the southern Chonos Archipelago, was established across the northern islands by 12,400 14Cyr BP under increasingly warm and wet climates. There is no evidence for a return to cooler climates during the Younger Dryas chronozone. The rise of Tepualia stipularis and Weinmannia trichosperma as important forest components between 10,600 and 6000 14Cyr BP may be associated withclimates that were warmer than present. The collapse of Pilgerodendron communities during this time may have been triggered by a combination of factors related to disturbance frequency including tephra deposition events, fire and climate change. After 6000 14Cyr BP Pilgerodendron recovers and Nothofagus-Pilgerodendron-Tepualia forest persists until the present. European logging and burning activity may have increased the susceptibility of North Patagonian Rainforest to invasion by introduced species and to future collapse of the long-lived Pilgerodendron communities.

The "Art" of Criticism: Rubén Darío and his Unknown Chronicles of the 1895 Salon for "La Prensa"

With the impetus that has led recent studies on Latin American Modernism to a reevaluation of the sense of cultural fluxes from the modernity capitals to its peripheries –discarding categories such as “influence”, “exotism” and “ivory tower”, stereotypes that have clouded critical understanding of this aesthetics for decades- the present study intends to investigate a persistent practice of the main writers of the movement. This practice is modernist pictorial criticism, a genre that will be approached through the analysis of an unknown corpus: the seven chronicles Rubén Darío published in the journal La Prensa on occasion of the third art exposition of the Ateneo de Buenos Aires. Our hypothesis is that the rare creators of images portrayed by Darío by the end of 1895 work as a visual counterpoint of the eccentric writers’ biographical sketches that a year later will be part of the fundamental volume Los raros (1896). In this early “salon”, which we reproduce in its entirety, accompanied by explanatory notes, the leader of Modernism rehearses and consolidates his transcultural work with the universal tradition –now applied to the Salons (1845-1860) by Charles Baudelaire and to the monumental project by John Ruskin in Modern painters (1843-1860)- to legitimate, from another subgenre of Modernist criticism, a new figure of the critic, in dissent with the Enlightenment model of the writer.

Averroes y las cosas justas por naturaleza

En su comentario a la Ética a Nicómaco, Averroes se ocupó del pasaje donde Aristóteles distingue entre las cosas que son justas por naturaleza y aquéllas que lo son en virtud de la ley (V, 7 1134b18-1135a5). Su comentario es particularmente breve, pero plantea algunas dificultades importantes, como su alusión a un derecho naturale legale, que, según Leo Strauss, vendría a ser simplemente un derecho positivo de aceptación general. En este artículo se busca caracterizar lo justo natural y lo justo positivo en el comentario de Averroes y mostrar el alcance de la variación de los criterios propios de la justicia positiva.

The soundscape as time capsule: A creative project based on the sounds of the first train station of Cuenca

This article reflects on the changing environment through the passage of time and how certain technologies for a creative proposal allow the preservation and transmission of a significant part of that ephemeral heritage for future generations. The general purpose of this particular project is aimed to achieve the sound synthesis of a specific and representative cityscape as the old train station in Cuenca –located in the heart of the city– that could be preserved and reproduced as an unique document of a present time, ascertainable in the future: a memory that interpret sound as a time capsule. This soundscape was made to mark the arrival of the high speed train in 2010 to a brand new station in the outskirts of the city. Therefore, the goal of this research was focused on achieving a synthetic document that provided a sound memory capable of reflecting the significant social, cultural and logistical features, of what was until then the only railway communication symbol in the city of Cuenca from 1883 to the first decade of the 21st century.

The photography and the motion landscape in the urban expressway

A new kind of photographic representation, called movement-image is proposed and discussed to record the visual experience of the journey through urban highways. It consists of performing long exposure photographic shots while the track is traversed, thus registering a time-panorama which includes landscape signs and inner spaces of the ways involved. This proposal is linked to the limitations of representing these expressways, if they are understood as structures of instrumental origin, where the resulting experience comes from moving at high speed through the territory. In al almost all cases the aesthetic approach or urban integration with the city and landscape are excluded. In this sense, although such structures may be an opportunity to collect, build and colonize the urban landscape, the lack of adequate representation of the phenomenon causes a difficulty in its understanding and transformation. The options for representation using photography is assumed, knowing its own particular tradition in the use of long exposures, for the expression of the mobile, and the multiple visual attention, divided or weakened.

The VLT-FLAMES survey of massive stars: observations centered on the Magellanic Cloud clusters NGC 330, NGC 346, NGC 2004, and the N11 region

We present new observations of 470 stars using the Fibre Large Array Multi-Element Spectrograph ( FLAMES) instrument in fields centered on the clusters NGC330 and NGC346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and NGC2004 and the N11 region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). A further 14 stars were observed in the N11 and NGC330 fields using the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) for a separate programme. Spectral classifications and stellar radial velocities are given for each target, with careful attention to checks for binarity. In particular, we have investigated previously unexplored regions around the central LH9/LH10 complex of N11, finding similar to 25 new O-type stars from our spectroscopy. We have observed a relatively large number of Be-type stars that display permitted Fe II emission lines. These are primarily not in the cluster cores and appear to be associated with classical Be-type stars, rather than pre main-sequence objects. The presence of the Fe II emission, as compared to the equivalent width of Ha, is not obviously dependent on metallicity. We have also explored the relative fraction of Be- to normal B-type stars in the field-regions near to NGC330 and NGC2004, finding no strong evidence of a trend with metallicity when compared to Galactic results. A consequence of service observations is that we have reasonable time-sampling in three of our FLAMES fields. We find lower limits to the binary fraction of O- and early B-type stars of 23 to 36%. One of our targets (NGC346-013) is especially interesting with a massive, apparently hotter, less luminous secondary component.