UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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2007 - 200912020 - 20211

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    BUILDING RESILIENCE OR BUILDING FRAGILITY? UNDERSTANDING DISASTER RESILIENCE PATTERNS IN GUATEMALA THROUGH THE ANALYSIS OF DISASTER DATASETS IN CONNECTION WITH POPULATION AND HOUSING DATA
    (2021) García Mejía, Sergio Arnoldo; Bensi, Michelle T; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Guatemala is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world due to its exposure to social and systemic vulnerabilities that often exacerbate the occurrences of multiple natural hazards and their interactions. While some research has been carried out on the physical characteristics of the natural hazards, few empirical investigations have explored how disasters have impacted and changed the social landscape and built environments at a national, departmental scale (provinces). This study sought to use archival methods to obtain data related to disaster losses, population, housing characteristics, and household resources from database archives and organizational records to compile it into a unique database and perform spatial and longitudinal analysis methods for the period between 1973 and 2018. This study has identified correlation patterns between disasters and human population rates of growth, as well as roof and wall construction materials of housing. However, correlations were not observed between disasters and essential household utilities such as drinking water supply or toilet types. The findings of this research provide insights for reducing the impact of future disasters by improving the understanding of how population and housing vulnerabilities evolve through time and may be related to the impacts of one or many disasters.
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    The Body in Pieces: Representations of Organ Trafficking in the Literatures and Film of the Americas
    (2007-04-24) Dix, Jennifer; Peres, Phyllis; Comparative Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation explores the use of the trope of organ trafficking to critique neoliberal globalization in the Americas. Each chapter addresses a different genre and analyzes texts articulated in response to conditions grounded in different locations. The texts studied include print media from Guatemala and Brazil, Mexican popular film and detective fiction from the U.S. (Tony Chiu's Positive Match and Linda Howard's Cry No More) and Mexico (Miriam Laurini's Morena en rojo, Gabriel Trujillo Muñoz's Loverboy, and Paco Ignacio Taibo II's La bicicleta de Leonardo). Comparative analyses also address Francisco Goldman's The Long Night of White Chickens, Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange, and Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead. These analyses are linked by their critique of neoliberal globalization and their representation of the human body's commodification. Together, they outline the contradictions of a mobility-dependent regime and establish the inescapable scope of economic changes that alter the relationship between the nation-state and its inhabitants. Neoliberalism also causes changes in the representation of the body. Bodies are represented outside the social structures and institutions that previously gave them meaning. The body's economic value replaces socially ascribed identities. Representations of the commodified body in these texts selectively erase gender and race. This dissertation also explores the construction of a new set of identities grounded in the body. These competing identities of medical and corporeal citizenship demonstrate the problems of establishing identities in market-driven terms of production and consumption. This dissertation also engages in a investigation of the relation of literary genre to content. As my discussion of popular culture demonstrates, generic form partially constrains or shapes the content of these works. In contrast, when literary works are positioned outside of genre constraints, the scope of the meanings attributed to organ trafficking expands, accompanied by formal innovations. My dissertation produces an interrogation of American cultural spaces--understood in the broadest sense--that acknowledges the work of both spatial and cultural forces in the construction of this hemispheric imaginary.