Browsing by Subject "Caribbean"
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Item A political ecology approach to investigate the environmental impacts of cattle management in Puerto Rico, 16th to 19th centuries(2018-05-04) Sánchez-Morales, Lara M.; Rosen, Arlene MillerThe nature and scale of environmental impacts due to the introduction of livestock into New World contexts has been the subject of much debate within disciplines concerned with changes of land use and land cover. The introduction of Old World species of herbivores into New World landscapes is often regarded as a catalyst to rapid environmental changes and a prevailing notion associates the presence of cattle with environmental degradation. My research aims to explore the environmental effects of cattle in Puerto Rico following European colonization. In this report, I employ a Political Ecology framework to contextualize the development of cattle management practices in Puerto Rico from the 16th to the 19th centuries. I discuss the potential of using a Political Ecology approach to understand the relationship between Spanish colonialism, cattle management practices, and environmental transformations. Finally, I propose the implementation of a geoarchaeological methodology to answer remaining questions on the impacts of cattle management during the colonial period in Puerto Rico.Item Archival dissonance in the Cuban post-exile historical novel(2009-12) Helmick, Gregory Gierhart; Salgado, Cesar Augusto; Arroyo-Martinez, Jossianna; Lindstrom, Naomi E.; Shumway, Nicolas; Wylie, Harold A.This dissertation investigates a common methodology of staging Cuban and Cuban exile historiography in three novels by Roberto G. Fernández (b. 1950), Antonio Benítez Rojo (1931-2005), and Ana Menéndez (b. 1970). This methodology develops a counterpoint between, first, the diagetic (strictly fictional) stories of characters who attempt to research or write Cuban history from exile and, second, the extradiagetic (extra or non-fictional) use of actual sources and tendencies of Cuban, Caribbean, and U.S. historiography structuring the narrative fiction. Reinforcing the density of the discursive field, the authors additionally incorporate works of Spanish, Latin-American, Caribbean, and/or Cuban literatures as constitutive elements of their fictions’ extradiagetic “noise.” I make the case that Fernández’s, Benítez Rojo’s, and Menéndez’s U.S.-produced historical novels develop a critical and investigative approach to the politics of Cuban exile and diaspora historiography. As such, they participate in the emergence of a post-exile Cuban literature, in dialogue with broader Caribbean and Latin American literatures. I analyze what I call archival dissonance in (1) the first, paradigm-setting novel in the body of historical fiction narrated from the frame of a dystopian future by Roberto G. Fernández, La vida es un special; (2) in Ana Menéndez’s use of reader response and archival research methods to critically recast a history of family division under the Cuban Revolution as popular romance fiction in Loving Che and (3) in the only novel Antonio Benítez Rojo lived to write in the United States, Mujer en traje de batalla (about the accidental arrival to New York City of the “first female Cuban physician” Enriqueta Faber, 1791-1827). Departing from the methodology presented with the narrative structure of each of the novels, in which a diagetic process of a character’s reading and/or writing Cuban history from a site of exile is countered by extradiagetic documentary and metaliterary information, I examine each novel’s metacritical approach to the politics of exile and diaspora historiography, as well as toward Cuban, Caribbean, Latin American, and/or U.S. literary textual economies.Item The artist among ruins: connecting catastrophes in Brazilian and Cuban cinema, painting, sculpture and literature(2013-12) Lopes De Barros Oliveira, Rodrigo; Arroyo, Jossianna; Litvak, Lily, 1938-; Afolabi, Niyi; Davis, Diane; Fierro, Enrique; Salgado, CésarThis work is an attempt to create a constellation. In a constellation, some stars are greatly apart from each other. However, they appear on the same plane to our eyes. This method is derived from Walter Benjamin. Here I have, as my objet petit a, the pictorial, sculptural, cinematic and literary production of Brazil and Cuba from 1959 and beyond. As a barrier for creating meaning of such a vast content, I chose the theme of ruins, expanding when possible to its relatives: decay, catastrophe, debris, death, war, the lost paradise, the garden, intellectual thinking, utopia, dystopia, dreamworlds, rot, hope, human destruction, homelessness, and more. I work with figures of those two geographic regions, in which I think ruins—being inorganic, organic or abstract ones—have a major role in the work of: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Glauber Rocha, Orlando Jiménez Leal, Sabá Cabrera, Nicolás Guillén Landrián, Rogério Sganzerla, Néstor Almendros, Antonio José Ponte, Ramón Alejandro, and Francisco Brennand. This effort led me to reevaluate the classical concept of ruins in Western thought, which I think was relatively in force until World War I and which underwent a radical transformation after the advent of twentieth-century concentration camps, the domination by humans of atomic power, and the establishment of extremely high speeds for travels. I also propose that modern ruins acquire their full significance especially in the Third World. For, to the contrary of the central nations of capitalism, the Third World cannot be turned into ruins. It has already been born as such a thing. The aforementioned events just made this state of existence clearer.Item Bibliography of Geologic References for the Caribbean(Institute for Geophysics, 2018) Rosencrantz, E.Item Caribbean: Some History(2016-08) Chambers, Eddie; Doroba, Mark (photographer)During Fall Semester 2016, the IDEA LAB in GWB Building will be showing This Ground Beneath My Feet – A Chorus of Bush in Rab Lands,an exhibit by Annalee Davis, one of Barbados’ leading artists. In recognition of this, the Fine Arts Library (FAL) is showing a display, assembled by Eddie Chambers, of the Department of Art and Art History, Caribbean: Some History, which contains various publications relating to different aspects of the Caribbean, a region of the world that was, until relatively recently, more commonly referred to as the West Indies. It is a region of the world rich in many different histories. Religion, music, literature, art, and sport are amongst the many fascinating subjects of the books and other publications in this display. The largest countries of the region are those such as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti, followed by comparatively smaller countries such as Jamaica. Caribbean countries such as Haiti and Cuba have renowned and celebrated art histories, and this display includes several publications related to these histories. The display points to some of the ways in which publications related to the Caribbean have changed over the course of a century. Though most people of the region might identify their religion as Christianity, it is perhaps the syncretic belief systems of the region – Santeria, vodũ (voodoo),Rastafari – that the region is better known for. Of the many different types of music emerging from the region, it is perhaps reggae that dominates many people’s associations of the region’s music. Though the Caribbean region is rich in a variety of music traditions, it is certainly reggae that the region is best known for. And within reggae, Bob Marley is the singer whose music is most recognized. A great many books have been written on the late singer, and this display includes several. Despite the extensive scholarship and research coming out of the region and its diaspora, the Caribbean continues to be a misunderstood and somewhat caricatured region of the world, often regarded in the imagination of many as a holiday destination. These publications aim to present a more nuanced understanding of the Caribbean and its fascinating, multiple histories. The pan-Caribbean cricket team of the region is still known as the West Indies cricket team. It has a very distinguished history of cricketing success, particularly during parts of the mid, late 20th and early 21st century. A number of the books and publications in this display are available in FAL, PCL, and in particular, the Benson, which contains extensive material relating to the region. Photos and design by Mark DorobaItem Cenozoic stratigraphic and tectonic history of the Grenada and Tobago basins as determined from marine seismic data, wells, and onland geology(2005) Aitken, Trevor John; Mann, Paul, 1956-This thesis presents an integrated stratigraphic and tectonic evolution of the Grenada and Tobago basins using multi-channel seismic data collected in May, 2004, (BOLIVAR cruise), along with GULFREX seismic data collected by Gulf Oil Company in 1975. These reflection data, combined with UTIG OBS refraction data also collected with the BOLIVAR study in 2004 and with a compilation of previously published, onland geologic data in the southeastern Caribbean, constrain a multi-stage, Cenozoic tectonic history for the southern Lesser Antilles arc and flanking Grenada and Tobago basins. A new tectonic model for the Grenada and Tobago basins is based on three seismic megasequences. The striking similarity in the two basins' half-graben structure, smooth basement character, deep-marine seismic facies, and similar Paleogene sediment thickness suggest that the two basins formed as a single, Paleogene forearc basin related to the now dormant Aves Ridge. This single forearc basin continued to open through flexural subsidence during the early to middle Eocene probably because of slow rollback of the subducting Atlantic slab. The Grenada and Tobago basins began to be divided during the early to middle Miocene, when the thinned crust of the forearc was inverted as a result of: 1) oblique convergence between the Caribbean plate and the passive margin of South America; and 2) intrusion of the Neogene Lesser Antilles arc. Observed transpressional shortening of the basins decreases from southwest to northeast. Total shortening in the southern Grenada basin varies from 5 km in the southern part of the study area to 1 km in the northern part of the study area. Shortening structures include inverted Paleogene normal faults, folds, and shale diapirism. The late Miocene to Recent period is characterized by divided depositional histories of the Grenada and Tobago basins. The Tobago basin is characterized by a 4-km-thick wedge of Plio-Pleistocene clastic sediments inferred to represent the distal progradation of the proto-Orinoco River. The Grenada basin becomes increasingly isolated from further continental sediment input by uplift of coastal Venezuelan ranges and the Neogene Lesser Antilles volcanic ridgeItem Crossings / Cruces / Cruzamentos : assessing the potential for twenty first century performing arts international exchanges between the Américas(2017-05-04) Rivera-Negrón, Verónica; Bonin-Rodriguez, Paul; Gutiérrez, Laura G.; Canning, Charlotte M.This thesis project assesses the potential for increased performing arts international exchanges between the Américas through a research and analysis of past efforts and current resources available. I propose that despite the decrease in financial and infrastructural support in the last fifteen years, international exchanges can happen, but will take a different form from past experiences. I have undertaken this work to prepare myself to contribute to public scholarship on this topic. Therefore, I end this thesis project by proposing a body of public scholarship to continue preserving, sharing, and discussing the work of performing arts international exchanges. My method for this research was three-fold. First, between October 2014 and December 2016, I organized two international events focused on the Américas at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). These events were the Hemispheric Institute Graduate Student Initiative (Hemi GSI) Convergence 2015 and Staging Hemispheric Crossings. Second, I interviewed a total of twelve art professionals—arts administrators and artists—from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Perú, Puerto Rico, and the U.S., all of whom have extensive experience staging international exchanges across the Américas. Their experiences reveal their skills at continuing this work during a time of decreased resources, as well as the potentials for increased exchanges over time. Third, I conducted an extensive literature review on the history of such exchanges and arts policy documents to deepen my understanding of their accomplishments, as well as my knowledge of the field. Through this thesis, I model performance as public practice by recontextualizing the role of international performing arts in culture, case-making and agenda-setting for exchanges in the Américas, practicing arts administration and curatorial work, working in public programming between higher education institutions and non-profits, and promoting performing arts-based cross-cultural dialogue and understandings.Item Destabilizing racialized geographies : the temporality of Blackness in Puerto Rico(2016-05) Machicote, Michaela Andrea; Arroyo, Jossianna; Leu, LorraineIn this thesis I analyze the way in which the de-colonial construction of Puerto Rico, and subsequent acquisition by the US as a territory, came to inform and create a whitened identity through the confinement, historicization of African influence, and erasure of Puerto Rico's Black population/heritage component via the narrative of mestizaje and mulataje. I look specifically at Loíza; Loíza is a city celebrated by Puerto Rico as a site of authentic Blackness and exemplifies efforts by the state to commodify and restrict the movements of Black Bodies. It is in these marginalized and racialized spaces that I explore the possibility of self-making and Black identity in Loíza, Puerto Rico.Item Empire’s angst : the politics of race, migration, and sex work in Panama, 1903-1945(2013-08) Parker, Jeffrey Wayne; Guridy, Frank Andre; Levine, Philippa; Makalani, Minkah; Mckiernan-González, John; Twinam, AnnThis dissertation explores the negotiations and conflicts over race, sex, and disease that shaped the changing contours of the nightlife in Panama from 1903 to 1945. It investigates why sexual commerce on the isthmus evoked an array of masculine anxieties from various historical actors, including U.S. officials, Panamanian authorities, and Afro-Caribbean activists. I argue that the conflicting cultural encounters over sex work remained at the heart of U.S. imperial designs, Panamanian nationalism and state-building efforts, and Afro-Caribbean visions of racial advancement during the first half of the twentieth century. Moreover, these global visions of manliness generated at the local level also took shape in dialogue with each other. This interconnected discourse on manliness highlights the intertwined histories of the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean in the early twentieth century. Migrant women at the center of the drama, however, became particularly adept at navigating the multiple structures of patriarchal control. They manipulated the legal system, resisted abuses of power, participated in labor organizations, pursued economic opportunities, pressed moral claims, demanded respect, and highlighted injustices. Women embroiled in controversy selected from an array of ideas circulating the region. They also played off competing understandings of manhood in order to achieve their own ends. Often these various strategies of negotiation had contradictory outcomes. Active engagement with patriarchal institutions could simultaneously reinforce gender and racial norms while challenging the material reality of daily life. Nevertheless, the failure by the U.S. and Panamanian governments to curtail sexual deviancy and venereal disease underscored the limits of imperial power at a key global crossroads in the Americas.Item Exit over voice in Dominican ethnoracial politics(2015-12) Contreras, Danilo Antonio; Madrid, Raúl L.,; Philpot, Tasha; Dietz, Henry; Brinks, Daniel; Mahon, JimWhat explains why ethnoracial identity is of low salience in elections in Latin America, particularly in Afro-Latin America? Marginalized individuals in ethnoracially diverse societies, especially stratified ones, would seem most likely to mobilize politically along ethnoracial lines. I argue that, under certain conditions, individuals will deal with ethnoracial discrimination and stratification through exit rather than voice. That is, they will reclassify their way out of marginalized ethnosomatic categories instead of voting for candidates and parties that share their ethnoracial identities. This tends to be the case where ethnoracial group identity is inchoate and group boundaries are permeable. High levels of stratification combined with low degrees of ethnoracial group consolidation will typically prevent the activation of ethnoracial identity in elections. Whereas ethnoracial stratification provides the incentive structure for individuals to switch ethnoracial categories, inchoate ethnoracial group identity and permeable ethnoracial boundaries lower the transaction costs to doing so. I also argue that individuals may emphasize national origin over race or ethnicity where ethnoracial group loyalties are weak and immigration is widespread. I test my argument against competing approaches using quantitative, qualitative, and experimental evidence from the Dominican Republic. The evidence suggests that the confluence of stratification and inchoate ethnoracial group identity indeed has prevented the activation of ethnoracial cleavages in elections in the DR. This same combination, however, has not impeded the activation of national origin in elections. Rather than strengthening the salience of ethnoracial cleavages in elections, nationalism has helped to redirect those cleavages.Item Fragments of carceral memory : abolitionist narrative work in literature and penal heritage commemoration(2020-08-17) Reyes, Michael; Wilks, Jennifer M., 1973-; Salgado, César A; Wettlaufer, Alexandra K; Arroyo, JossiannaFragments of Carceral Memory weaves through interconnections between race, colonialism, and criminalization. I use a twofold approach to studying African-American, Caribbean, and French carceral narratives alongside penal heritage commemoration practices, with a primary focus on Guyane’s penal colony. Firstly, my analyses of anti-carceral literary texts includes dramas by Jean Genet and Lorraine Hansberry, an epic poem by Reinaldo Arenas, photo-texts by Eduardo Lalo and Patrick Chamoiseau, and a James Baldwin novel. Secondly, I address a discursive gap between colonial era prison tropes that characterize penal heritage sites and contemporary social movements aimed at abolishing prisons. This research conjoins a broad range of narrative work being created at individual, collective, and institutional levels—from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first—to explain how stories (both personal and imperial) must undergird public understanding of what I term a “colonial-carceral nexus.” Using disciplinary conventions in comparative literature to place Caribbean studies and carceral studies in dialogue, I trace how histories of targeted criminalization and pervasive imprisonment are recalled in literature, re-imagined through memory, and relived through legal systems. My research finds that institutional practices of penal heritage commemoration, in contrast to anti-carceral narratives authored by writers who have either been imprisoned or subjected to prolonged targeted surveillance, tend to view imprisonment in a favorable light. I propose some solutions to bridging this discursive gap and shifting the tenor of institutionally narrativized discourse. In conclusion, I contest the presumed incompatibility of carceral commemoration and prison abolition by raising a parting question: What if a tour in a former prison could become an educational opportunity for encouraging abolitionism?Item Large Scale Species Distribution Modeling: A Case Study of the Endangered Anegada Iguana in the British Virgin Islands(2012) Townsend, Andrew T.; Young, Kenneth R.Habitat suitability models using species distributions are used to determine probable species habitats and distributions and advise policy makers on the implementation of conservation strategies. This thesis utilizes MaxEnt software to construct a habitat suitability model for the Anegada ground iguana (Cyclura pinguis) from presence only data collected over the past 12 years. The modeling showed that the species is confined to limited habitat types and areas on the island, namely areas that have yet to be developed by humans. At a minimum, to preserve the species for the future, the environmental integrity of key iguana habitats, such as the northwestern shore and island interior along the cays, must be preserved.Item Let the waters flow : (trans)locating Afro-Latina feminist thought(2013-12) Zamora, Omaris Zunilda; Arroyo, JossiannaWhen thinking specifically of transnationalism, African diaspora and the fluidity of identity: Where do we locate Afro-Latina women? The answer for this question would seem to come from a Black or Chicano feminist thought, nonetheless, these theoretical frameworks have static spaces where fluid subjectivities like that of Afro-Latina women are not recognized. This report frames a theoretical conversation between these two frameworks through a dialectic discussion of their empty spaces or limits and proposes a new approach to Afro-Latina feminism based on the processes and intersections of Black consciousness, sexuality, and the knowledges that are created through the body and its fluidity. More importantly, paying close attention to the roles of translocation, transformation, and the fluidity of identity. In furthering this theoretical conversation, under the theme of Afro-Latina women, this report takes on the case of Dominican women’s transnational experiences and their different dimensions as represented in novels like, Nelly Rosario’s Song of the Water Saints and Ana Lara’s Erzulie’s Skirt. Looking specifically at the relationships between women and women, and women and their bodies as being transformed through the sacred, this report concludes that the centrality of Afro-Latina women’s experience is in recognizing that the body as an archive, is a place from where knowledges are re-created and disseminated creating a feminist epistemology for themselves.Item Letter to F.W. Mueller from H.B. Stenzel on 1938-03-31(1938-03-31) Stenzel, H.B.Item Letter to H.B. Stenzel from Wendell P. Woodring on 1953-01-07(1953-01-07) Woodring, Wendell P.Item Letter to Norman L. Thomas from H.B. Stenzel on 1944-12-09(1944-12-09) Stenzel, Henryk B.Item Letter to R.Tucker Abbott from H.B. Stenzel on 1961-06-13(1961-06-13) Stenzel, Henryk B.Item Letter to S.P. Ellison from H.B. Stenzel on 1952-09-10(1952-09-10) Stenzel, Henryk B.Item Letter to Wendell P. Woodring from H.B. Stenzel on 1967-02-18(1967-02-18) Stenzel, Henryk B.Item Letter to William G. Lyons from H.B. Stenzel on 1969-09-24(1969-09-24) Stenzel, H.B.