Browsing by Subject "Bolivia"
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Item Analysis of Glacier Recession in the Cordillera Apolobamba, Bolivia 1975-2010(2012-02-14) Latterman, LaDonnaThe tropical glaciers in the Bolivian Andes Mountains are small and respond quickly to changes in their climate. They are also a major source of freshwater year-round for nearby communities. Monitoring the glacial changes taking place in these glaciers has become increasingly important as they have been retreating over the past century. These glaciers are remote and the terrain treacherous making it potentially dangerous to gather data through field work. For this reason and because of advances in remote sensing technologies the use of satellite images has become the primary means to study these tropical glaciers in detail. This research study focuses on the Cordillera Apolobamba range located on the Peruvian-Bolivian border. It is an example of the methodology applied to assess the area covered by glaciers in this and other regions around the world. Using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images from 1985 to 2010, as well as the Glacier Inventory of Bolivia, the glacier extents of the Apolobamba are mapped. From 1975 to 2010 the portion of the range located within Bolivia's border lost 110.76 km^2 of surface ice lowering its total area from 240.36 km^2 to 129.60 km2, a 46.08% reduction. From the 1985 to 2010 the entire Apolobamba range lost 102.72 km^2 of ice lowering its total area from 261.07 km^2 to 158.35 km^2, a 39.35% reduction. An analysis of atmospheric conditions was conducted at the 500 hPa level for various climate variables using NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. Between time period one (1975-1986) and two (1987-1995) the climate variables exhibiting a statistically significant change are air temperature with an increase of .165 degrees C and geopotential height with an increase of 2.967 m. Between time period two and three (1996-2005) the climate variables exhibiting a statistically significant change are freezing level with a 50.017 m increase, precipitation with an 60.604 mm/month decrease and wind velocity with an increase of .373 m/sec. According to the analysis conducted using the Oceanic Nino Index, the monthly sea surface temperatures exhibit no statistically significant change from 1975-2005.Item Bolivian Andean textiles, commercialization and modernity(2013-05) Richardson, Natalie Lila; Speed, Shannon, 1964-In research, we frequently position “modernity” against “tradition” to explain cultural changes within the indigenous realm. Such is the case of Andean textile studies, where commercialization and modernity are frequently attributed to the decline in Andean communities’ production and donning of hand-woven textiles. By doing this, we distance ourselves from the underlying issues causing these changes: poverty, discrimination, ethnic social stratification, etc. Also, by positioning “modernity” outside and against the indigenous realm, we contribute to the notion that modernity belongs to the western world alone and can only be achieved by Western influence. In doing so, we confine Andean textiles to a static notion of identity and ignore and antagonize the creative strategies that weavers’ use, moving outside of this notion. My work questions the “tradition” versus “modernity” binary by analyzing its history and first appearance in Bolivian Andean textile scholarship, and by analyzing changes within Andean textiles between the Inca and Colonial periods. My study also sheds light on the workings of internal colonialism within Andean textiles in the Bolivian regions of Jalq’a and Tarabuco.Item Constructing alternatives to western modernity : CONAMAQ's struggle for indigenous autonomy in the Bolivian Altiplano(2015-05) Footit, Bridget Kelsey; Hale, Charles R., 1957-; Ali, KamranHow are indigenous peoples negotiating their cultural, political, and economic autonomy in twenty-first century Bolivia? This thesis explores one iteration of that struggle, through a case study of the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu (Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu, CONAMAQ). I provide a historical overview of how highland indigenous peoples have resisted centuries of exclusion and forced assimilation through state and non-state avenues in order to create spaces for their autonomy to flourish. In particular, I emphasize CONAMAQ's efforts to revalorize traditional political, juridical, economic, agricultural, and spiritual practices. I frame these efforts within a larger epistemological challenge to hegemonic notions of Western modernity and liberal citizenship. The Plurinational State of Bolivia under president Evo Morales has accomplished profound institutional shifts in an effort to respect indigenous rights. However, I argue that the (neo)liberal understanding of a homogenous indigenous subject continues to drive this Proceso de Cambio (Process of Change). In order to realize the goals of a plurinational state (in practice, not just in title), the Bolivian government, and non-state actors, will need to acknowledge and respect the distinct identities and goals of different subjectivities throughout the country (indigenous/non-indigenous, urban/rural etc.). I demonstrate complex relationships amongst members of CONAMAQ, the Morales government, and transnational companies, through a series of land and mining conflicts that ultimately led to CONAMAQ's decision to break away from a historical Unity Pact of civil society organizations in 2012. This discussion helps us understand the complex struggle for indigenous rights in Bolivia, why an indigenous movement has retracted their support of a supposedly pro-indigenous government, and how these struggles are tied to a larger effort to harvest alternatives to Western modernity.Item Extracting identity : universal social policy in post-neoliberal Bolivia(2012-08) Dyer, Zachary Koenig; Weyland, Kurt GerhardExaminations of social policy often focus on their economic and social outcomes without much concern for their political dimensions. Since Evo Morales assumed the presidency of Bolivia in 2006, the Andean country has emerged as a powerful example of how social policy can be leveraged for political purposes beyond clientelism. The government's famous nationalization of natural gas resources along with a hefty hydrocarbon tax funded two major social programs: the Bono Juancito Pinto, an education conditional cash transfer, and Renta Dignidad, a universal old-age pension. Evidence from surveys, key informant interviews, reports, and official documents demonstrated that Bolivia's universal social policy was motivated by more than the goal of efficiently addressing the country's chronic social inequality. The Morales administration's implementation of these programs was a conscious decision to leverage windfall resource rents to build greater national solidarity and advance the MAS' political project to refound the country. Through a universalist approach to social policy, the MAS government has consolidated political hegemony, strengthened national solidarity, and secured the support of the armed forces. This political strategy, however, rests on shaky ground. The rentier model the government depends on to fund universal social policy fuels social conflicts that could destabilize the MAS' recently won hegemony and its attempts at nation building. Bolivia's experience with universal cash transfers lays the foundation for future study of social policy and nation building in the developing world; it is also important to examine how funding sources impact the efficacy of these programs. Considering cash transfers' exploding popularity and dissemination across the world in the last decade, this thesis calls for the more nuanced study of these programs in their political dimensions.Item From Bolivar to Katari : indigenous representations in the legislative assembly of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, 2012(2013-08) Molina, Luciana Natalia; Hale, Charles R., 1957-The purpose of this research is to discover the new symbols and new histories that are being constructed in the Plurinational State of Bolivia on 2012. The Legislature is the main stage where the research takes place and where the new actors interact on a yet unfamiliar zone. Equally important are the tensions that arise in the building of a new discourse that aims at breaking with homogenizing and exclusionary practices of the state. The unprecedented presence of indigenous people in the Legislature has ambivalent effects for the state and the indigenous communities. The thesis aims at uncovering these effects through the analysis of discourse, symbolic representations, and quotidian political practices.Item The (im) possible revolution : ideology, framing and historical events in the making of the Bolivian Popular Assembly of 1971(2012-05) Derpic, Jorge Carlos; Auyero, Javier; Young, Michael P.During June and July of 1971, representatives of Bolivian union and left-wing political organizations from across the nation gathered in the Legislative Palace with the objective of installing the Popular Assembly. In the absence of a democratically elected parliament the newly formed power organ of the proletariat attempted to formulate a strategy that would lead the country towards socialism. President Gen. Juan José Torres, a member of progressive sectors of the army that followed a national-popular agenda, supported the Assembly in a moment of high political instability amidst permanent threats from conservative factions of the army to seize power. With a majority of representatives from labor organizations and a preeminent role of mining workers, the Assembly followed the example of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The 'first soviet of Latin America', as it was called both by supporters and detractors, was the outcome of the particular twenty-five year political trajectory of the labor movement that combined a set of ideological principles and core framing tasks. The Popular Assembly came to a sudden end in 1971 when Gen. Torres’ presidency was cut short by a coup that brought a conservative military to power. Though it was never able to achieve its main political objectives, the case of an abortive social revolution allows a better understanding the role of ideology, collective action frames and historical events in explaining the outcomes of social revolutions and the actions of social movements.Item Institutional constraints on economic nationalism in Latin America(2015-08) Koivumaeki, Riitta-Ilona; Weyland, Kurt Gerhard; Chapman, Terrence; Elkins, Zachary; Lin, Tse-Min; McDonald, PatrickEconomic nationalism has made an unexpected comeback in Latin America. This return is particularly surprising when one considers the institutional safeguards that the countries in the region adopted in the neoliberal 1980s and 1990s with the goal of protecting the property rights of private investors and preventing nationalization of multinational corporations in the future. My dissertation analyzes what role these safeguards, bilateral investment treaties (BITs), have - or have not - played in expropriation of foreign firms. A quantitative analysis of state takeovers in the region in 1985-2012 shows that the treaties have proven to be surprisingly toothless: they have not constrained nationalistic executives from attacking multinational investors. The second part of the dissertation explores the causal mechanisms behind the treaties' weak deterrent power. Case studies of Venezuelan and Bolivian hydrocarbon nationalization under Presidents Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales, respectively, show that the treaties are the weakest precisely when investors most need them. When a commodity boom increases profits in the sector, the host government is motivated to expropriate multinationals. Ironically, the price increase also enables governments to bear the treaties’ costs by accepting international arbitration and paying any resulting compensation. While previous research argues that leaders' leftist ideology has driven oil and gas expropriation in Latin America, my research shows that the politicians’ strategic calculations, not their commitments to leftism, better explain the causes and the timing of the nationalization processes, and the way the presidents pursued their nationalistic plans.Item Lights and shadows of the education reform process in Bolivia and Guatemala(2014-05) Xum Palacios, Brenda Estela; Hale, Charles R., 1957-Bolivia and Guatemala experienced a process of education reform in late 90's. Even though both countries had great international support to eliminate inequalities, especially among indigenous peoples, the domestic political contexts determined to what extent such changes were possible to make. In Bolivia the process started in 1994 with the signing of the Reform Law of Education, and in Guatemala in 1996 with the signing of the Peace Agreements. After more than two decades Bolivia and Guatemala present very different outcomes derived from their respective education reforms. This study is a comparison of them, an attempt to unveil the reasons why Bolivia has moved forward in terms of diversity, indigenous languages, and inclusion while Guatemala has apparently nullified the education reform process and remains in authoritarianism.Item The MAS presidential victory in Bolivia : a call for political renewal and the changing role of the media(2007-05) Bush, Sarah Katherine, 1978-; Madrid, Raul L.The economic and political models in Bolivia have failed to respond to the continuing economic need of impoverished Bolivians and to provide Bolivians with meaningful representative democracy. Evo Morales’ ability to garner nearly 54 percent of the popular vote in the 2005 presidential elections demonstrated a clear mandate and a demand for political and economic renewal. Morales won due to a combined loss of faith in the political parties’ ability to create economic opportunities within the neoliberal model imposed in 1985 and disillusion with endemic corruption and clientelism. The ethnic question also weighed heavily in Morales’ victory. This thesis will examine the combination combination of factors that led to the surprising outcome to the elections, as well as the changing role of the press in Bolivia. Calls for improved ethical standards and press freedoms have occurred alongside the political openings that led to Morales’ victory. The country still struggles to ensure a free press in the face of increasing incidences of attacks and intimidation against reporters, yet with the recent political renewal there are signs of progress towards higher journalistic standards.Item Noncontributory pensions, cash transfers, and documentation in Brazil and Latin America(2013-05) Brill, Robert Jeffrey; Stolp, ChandlerSince 1997, fully noncontributory minimum pensions have been established in many Latin American countries, and have more recently been encouraged as a "zero pillar" of social security by the World Bank and other IFIs. These policies came into being under diverse political regimes and display a range of levels of generosity and universality. Becuase these policies are generally part of a modern bureaucratic welfare state project, they require identity documents, something that many low-income citizens do not possess. States have lowered barriers to the supply of identity documents, and new social policies, like noncontributory pensions and conditional or unconditional cash transfers, have stimulated demand for identity documents among those who do not currently have them. Brazils noncontributory pension, the BPC, has a means test and a large benefit (equivalent to the minimum wage), but requires providing identity documents for all household members. This report discusses the propagation of noncontributory pensions, then examines Brazilian government records to determine the size of the incentive to demand documents in Brazil using a logit model and a more novel survival time regression discontinuity design, raising questions of the relationships between benefit size, universality, document requirements, and poverty.Item The other side : an alternate approach to the narconarratives of Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil(2015-05) Jackson, Dorian Lee; Leu, Lorraine; Polit Dueñas, Gabriela; Afolabi, Ominiyi; Domínguez-Ruvalcaba, HéctorThe dissertation examines novels that represent new spaces and agents of the drug trade, that re-map the trade across Latin America, and that raise questions regarding how narcotrafficking creates moral and ethical crises among people from different social classes. The corpus of literature examined includes the works of ten authors from the three countries. Juan de Recacoechea, José Wolfango Montes Vanucci, Homero Carvalho Oliva, and Tito Gutiérrez Vargas are Bolivians and write from three regions in the country. Alison Spedding is the only foreign-born author writing novels about the Bolivian drug trade included in the analysis. Darío Jaramillo Agudelo and Juan Gabriel Vásquez represent the Antioquia and Bogotá departments of Colombia. Rubem Fonseca, Patrícia Melo, and Marçal Aquino write from the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil. Within these novels, I examine mid-level roles of the illegal drug trade, those that have remained invisible in the mainstream representations. The levels of participation portrayed in the works range from urban, middle and upper class workers to land owners of the Bolivian countryside. My emphasis on the implications of these less spectacular roles shows that the moral decay, lack of values, and the consumer frenzy are not exclusive of the poor. The upper classes are driven by the same ambitions to access the money of the drug trade. In order to reconsider the use of narcofiction as an effective tool for narrating the realities of the illegal drug trade, I propose a reading of how the power and influence of narcotrafficking expose a lack of scruples in the search for financial gain on the part of what I call mid-level participants. Such a term helps me give visibility to the actions of these characters that are so needed in the business: money launderers, corrupt police officers, drug mules. This reading makes it possible to also consider the issues of culpability and impunity and the social and political divisions which are created to maintain these structures.Item A political analysis of the TIPNIS conflicts(2012-05) Andrade Camacho, Alan; Hooker, Juliet; Speed, ShannonThe conflicts happening around the Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS) in Bolivia among the multiple and diverse stakeholders within it, cannot be reduced to a simple confrontation between conflicting interests regarding a highway. A political analysis of the TIPNIS conflicts should be an analysis of how Modernity responds to different, opposed and complementary civilizational projects, stressing the relation between indigenous peoples, and the plurinational state in Bolivia; the present locus of the conflict. The plurinational state in Bolivia was formed with the express intention of dismantling the colonial and its civilizational order through the reformulation of the Bolivian State. By contrasting, comparing, dissecting and analyzing how notions of citizenship, nationhood, and civilization are deployed in Modernity, in one geographical place, the TIPNIS in Bolivia, and through different historical eras, we can elucidate how those notions were and are enforced. The civilization/nation/citizen membership and non-membership, who fits and who doesn’t fit those categories, and how the movement between them is managed, throw light on how Modernity’s project is carried away in everyday life, and under what costs.Item Settler colonialism, knowledge articulation, and the politics of development in the TIPNIS indigenous territory and national park in Amazonian Bolivia(2015-12) Beveridge, James Michael; Speed, Shannon, 1964-; TallBear, KimberlyThis thesis examines how the dispute over the Bolivian government’s plan to construct a highway through the TIPNIS indigenous territory and national park in Amazonian Bolivia crystallizes the divergent visions and politics at play in realizing development projects in the TIPNIS. While progressive indigenous and environmental rights were inscribed in the 2009 Bolivian constitution, I argue that the government’s plan to impose the TIPNIS highway is a settler colonial project to dispossess the TIPNIS communities of their lands. This is facilitated by a national government—civilian colonist complicity that undermines the TIPNIS sovereignty and brings the TIPNIS territory under increasing governance and regulation under a post-frontier governance regime. I furthermore employ a framework I call knowledge articulation to examine the struggles of different actors to resist and/or implement varying development visions, which sometimes overlap and at other times compete with each other, in the TIPNIS. All of these projects demonstrate that the Bolivian decolonial path is fundamentally an amalgam: articulated knowledges, hybrid economies, and development outcomes that are resisted, contested, and negotiated configurations of various actors’ uneven authority, expertise and power.Item Structural model and fracture analyses for a major gas emplacement in Devonian sandstones of the Subandes(2009-12) Iñigo, Juan Francisco Pedro, 1980-; Laubach, Stephen E. (Stephen Ernest), 1955-; Cloos, Mark; Horton, Brian K.The fold and thrust belt of the Subandean Ranges (central and southern Bolivia, and northern Argentina) contains both gas and condensate production and reserves in Devonian quartzose sandstones within deep structures. Reservoir sandstones present values of permeability close to 0.01 mD, implying that reservoir drainage must be controlled by a fracture system that enhances permeability. Hydrocarbon production in naturally fractured reservoirs is affected by fracture quality (degree of openness), spatial arrangement, size distribution (including aperture, height and length), fracture abundance, and arrangement with respect to stratigraphic and macro-structural features. Systematic study of fractures in the subsurface is complicated by the small probability that a well will intersect sufficient fractures for direct analysis of their attributes. Because of this fracture data obtained from logging and coring must be complemented with alternative methodologies. In my study I performed a workflow that includes geologic mapping of outcrop analogs of subsurface units, fracture characterization in outcrops and thin sections, the construction of kinematic structural model using algorithms for 3D analysis, petrographic description of composition and diagenesis, and statistical multivariate analyses in order to define how structural, lithologic and diagenetic features affect fracture distribution. From the construction of a structural model and the analyses of its properties, I generated semi-quantitative models of fracture attributes based on classic fold-related fracture concepts. This model was tested with direct fracture observations from core and outcrop, coupled with microstructural imaging using SEM-CL, to document fracture attributes. The models all show high curvature and strain values homogeneously distributed along the azimuth and close to the hinge of the anticline, which implies this domain should be most fractured. On the other hand, microfracture studies reveal that although highest strain values are found in the hinge, low strains also are found along the hinge even for samples with similar lithologies. The study of macro and microfractures in outcrop and core samples allowed me to clearly identify two opening mode fracture sets for the Devonian sandstones. These present an orthogonal arrangement and variable cross cutting relations. The dominant set (defined as Set I) has a WNW strike and is perpendicular to the structural trend of the Subandean Ranges; the subordinate set (defines as Set II) has a NNE strike, and is parallel to the previously mentioned structural trend. Set I has higher strain accumulation, log-normal spacing distribution, and is strongly controlled by the primary quartz content of the rocks. Set II also has a log-normal spacing distribution, and presents structural control.Item Understanding and Mapping Land-Use and Land-Cover Change along Bolivia's Corredor Bioceancio(2011-08-08) Redo, Daniel J.The Corredor Bioceanico is a major transportation project connecting the agricultural heartlands of South America to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The final link is in southeastern Bolivia - an underdeveloped area that is home to two indigenous groups and globally-significant woodlands and wetlands. Infrastructure developments - comprising a major highway upgrade, revitalized railway services and increased flows along gas pipelines to Brazil - pose major threats to livelihoods and the region's ecological integrity. There are two broad objectives: (i) to map and quantify the spatial patterns of land change using a time-series of coarse and medium resolution satellite imagery; and (ii) to understand the socio-economic and political drivers of change by linking household surveys and interviews with farmers; environmental, climatic, and political data; and classified satellite imagery. Overall, large-scale deforestation has occurred along the Corredor Bioceanico for mechanized commercial production of oil-seed crops such as soybeans and sunflower. The significance of these findings is that agriculture-driven deforestation is pushing into sensitive areas threatening world-renowned ecosystems such as the Chaco, Chiquitano and Pantanal as well as noteworthy national parks. Though quantity remains relatively small compared to other parts of South America, rates of forest loss match or exceed those of more publicized regions such as Rondonia or Mato Grosso, Brazil. Moreover, rates of forest loss are accelerating linearly with time due to policies implemented by incumbent president Evo Morales. Results also show that in the first years of cultivation, pasture is the dominant land-use, but it quickly gives way to intensively cropped farmland. The main findings in terms of percentage area cleared according to forest type is that farmers appear to be favoring transitional forest types on deep and poorly drained soils of alluvial plains. Semi-structured interviews with farmers and representatives of key institutions illustrate that price determined by the global market is not proportionally the most dominant motive driving LULCC in the lowlands of Santa Cruz, Bolivia - an area seen as a quintessential neoliberal frontier.