Museumercanary: a title fitting for Borys Malkin (1917-2009), owing to the dualistic nature of his occupation: on one side he is remembered as an anthropologist, who for 40 years (1960s-90s)...Show moreMuseumercanary: a title fitting for Borys Malkin (1917-2009), owing to the dualistic nature of his occupation: on one side he is remembered as an anthropologist, who for 40 years (1960s-90s) conducted fieldwork amongst over 46 Indigenous groups in South America. On the other side, however, he was a full-time private collector, dealer, and smuggler of Indigenous material culture, who sold ethnographic (and some archaeological) collections to more than 40 museums in Europe and North America. In this thesis, I investigate Malkin’s work process in both of his occupations, in order to establish his true motivations and intentions for creating and selling Indigenous South American collections. I do so through a combination of literature review and archival research, involving the analysis of Malkin’s private correspondences with 8 of his museum clients. His letters not only contain his stories from collecting in the field, full of his personal views, opinions and commentary on Indigenous life and culture and South American politics, but also his collection documentation and invoices. The two museums, which corresponded with Malkin the most, were the Museum of Cultures in Basel (Switzerland) and the National Museum of the American Indian in New York (USA). While Malkin’s interest in Indigenous material culture was mostly financial, his methods of collecting and documenting material culture influenced the way Indigenous South American people were perceived by both Western scholars and the public. Therefore, it is important to uncover the details of his oeuvre and add them to our knowledge of the history of displacement of Indigenous material culture and its transformation into museum collections. Most importantly, we must make that history available to the Indigenous, and allow them to be reunited with knowledge about their own objects, lost to them due to the activities of collectors and dealers, such as Borys Malkin.Show less
Peru along with most other countries in Latin America has a history of authoritarian rule and repression. Since 2000, the country has undergone democratic reforms which prove to be slow in progress...Show morePeru along with most other countries in Latin America has a history of authoritarian rule and repression. Since 2000, the country has undergone democratic reforms which prove to be slow in progress and obstructed by the legacy left behind by Fujimori and Montesinos’ regime in the 1990s. With the purpose of contributing to a currently scarce pool of literature on intelligence studies in Latin America, this paper seeks to assess to which extent these authoritarian legacies continue to persist in Peru’s intelligence services after its official transition to democracy in 2000. Using press material, official documents, academic literature and further secondary sources, this paper collected information on scandals and controversies involving the intelligence services and its practices. By drawing comparisons to aspects mentioned in the historical context and conceptual framework, this paper was able to illustrate the extent to which authoritarianism still remains within the intelligence apparatus. Based on the results that show instability in combination with a general lack of interest in reform and hence a continuation of intelligence practices deemed undemocratic, illegitimate, disorganized, and highly politicized, it can be concluded that authoritarian legacies still remain in today’s intelligence services to a large extent. Furthermore, the paper reflects on its reliability and validity in regards to its research design and data, stating that due to Peru’s lack of legal frameworks concerning intelligence agencies, it remains challenging to clearly outline their structure and functions.Show less
This study seeks to explore the linkages between organised crime and environmental change in the Amazon region, specifically zooming in on the Brazilian Amazonas. This study focuses on two aspects...Show moreThis study seeks to explore the linkages between organised crime and environmental change in the Amazon region, specifically zooming in on the Brazilian Amazonas. This study focuses on two aspects of this relationship. First, the relationship between state-making and crime, in particular the Brazilian state and crime, to show how ‘organised crime’ emerges as an important constituent of state-making rather than as an anomaly to it. To understand how organized crime and environmental change tie together, the analysis of state-making and governance in the Amazon region is needed. Thereafter, a systematic approach will be adopted to answer this question of the relationship between organised crime and environmental change, breaking the findings down into four categories of, Type, Method, Location, and Consequence. In the thesis, I examine how each of these shapes the relationship between organised crime and environmental change in the Amazon.Show less
Around the world, rock art has long been studied in efforts to decode its meaning and thereby understand the minds and realities of its hunter-gatherer artists. In Argentina, rupestrian art was...Show moreAround the world, rock art has long been studied in efforts to decode its meaning and thereby understand the minds and realities of its hunter-gatherer artists. In Argentina, rupestrian art was first mentioned on the record by Jesuit missionaries from the 16th century, but the first true documentation of these ‘sacred rocks’ was completed by Moreno in 1877 in northern Patagonia. Rock art has been conceived as many things, as territorial markers, evidence of contact between groups, indication of group mobility, transmission of information, and as domestic/non-domestic symbolic creations. The question is, however, what happened to the study of hunter-gatherer rock art outside of these complexes? What can an ontological approach to these pictographs tell us about the cosmologies of the communities from the far-reaching past? The aim of this study is to add to, or rather to spark up again, the discussion of early hunter-gatherer cosmologies as seen through the lens of hunter-gatherer rock art assemblages from several different sites in the central plateau of Santa Cruz, Patagonia. This is accomplished by adopting an interdisciplinary stance combining archaeology and anthropology with an ontological approach that uses ethnographic data as a means of conceptualizing new interpretations. This is all done through a bibliographical position in which previous research is re-evaluated. To this end, the thesis is guided by the following research question: Could an ontological approach to hunter-gatherer rock art from the Late Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene periods (c. 9000–3500 BP) in southern Patagonia (Argentina) help us come up with the beginnings of their cosmology? Three possible interpretations are discussed in this thesis regarding rock art and hunter-gatherer cosmologies. The first relates to the importance of the hunt and identifies handprints motifs as part of an initiation ritual into the hunting tradition. Additionally, I posit that hunter-gatherers used the depictions of hunting scenes as a means of understanding the ecological relationships in their environment and to keep track of hunting strategies, thereby ensuring the continuation of the tradition by possibly using the pictographs to teach their children. Lastly, I suggest that the iconic images of large felines and their accompanying bodily remains in situ were part of a process of symbiosis in which the animal’s favourable traits and capabilities as a prime hunter were taken on by hunter-gatherers themselves. These theories are then conceptualized by ethnographic accounts of the Aónik’enk, their mythology and traditions.Show less
The reassessment of Global South contribution to International Relations both in the past and present time, is a crucial challenge for academic research nowadays, constituting an issue that is...Show moreThe reassessment of Global South contribution to International Relations both in the past and present time, is a crucial challenge for academic research nowadays, constituting an issue that is worthy of interest and analysis for its implications on History and International Relations. This work aims to decentralize International Relations and make it less Eurocentric. To do so, the author reassessed the role of Latin American thinkers and diplomats in Human Rights theorization in the 1940s, to show that crucial theoretical developments were made outside the Global North. In detail, this thesis argues that the region has actively participated in the construction of the language of human rights instead of simply receiving ideas and concepts from the Global North. It focuses on the Larreta Doctrine, a doctrine developed in Uruguay that tackled multilateralism, sovereignty and the violation of human rights. Eduardo Rodriguez Larreta, then Uruguayan Foreign Minister, theorized this Doctrine in 1945, in response to the dualism between sovereignty and international Rights protection hardly felt in the Latin American Region. So, Larreta thought that the idea that non-intervention in states’ domestic affairs is conditional to the respect for citizens’ fundamental rights. Moreover, the Uruguayan Foreign Minister stated that a precommitment regime and collective intervention are not a violation of sovereignty.Show less
In this thesis, I discuss the range of numerals in South American languages, the strategies that languages use to form their numerals, and what cultural and historical causes can be given to the...Show moreIn this thesis, I discuss the range of numerals in South American languages, the strategies that languages use to form their numerals, and what cultural and historical causes can be given to the range of the numerals. The Quechuan languages consistently possess an infinite decimal system. This could be the result of the preservation of the high numerals after colonization that were used to keep track of administration in the extended Inca Empire. In the Arawakan family, both the range and the internal structure of the numerals differ. Just as for the Quechuan, the Arawakan people were involved in trade and war which could indicate a need of high numerals. However, unlike for the Quechuan numerals, they have not been preserved. During colonization, Arawakan groups fled from their original settlements and adopted other groups into their communities, which indicates substratum influence and explains the diversity of the Arawakan numerals. In the Guaporé-Mamoré linguistic area, numerals are mostly concentrated around a maximum of 20. The body-part system and a connection to company or loneliness are common in the numerals in this area.Show less
This thesis is focussing on the experiences and memories of the Chilean exiles created by the Pinochet regime and how they are represented in the memory culture and national story of Pinochet’s...Show moreThis thesis is focussing on the experiences and memories of the Chilean exiles created by the Pinochet regime and how they are represented in the memory culture and national story of Pinochet’s Chile from 1989 till 2017.Show less
Advanced master thesis | Political Science (Advanced Master)
open access
UNASUR currently represents one of the most promising regionalization projects currently taking place. One of its unique characteristics is the high level of security sector integration that has...Show moreUNASUR currently represents one of the most promising regionalization projects currently taking place. One of its unique characteristics is the high level of security sector integration that has already taken place in the short few years since its inception. This is particularly interesting as it is in stark contrast with the security sector regionalization of Europe. Despite its much longer history of regionalization, European security sector integration is still fragmented into many different organizations with overlapping goals, and whose members often include countries outside the European boarder. In the face of this apparent success in its regionalist ambitions, one can not help but question: What is the logic behind South American security sector regionalism under UNASUR? Furthermore, how and why does its regionalists efforts differ from those of the EU? Through an analysis of how Regional Security Complex Theory, New Regionalism Approach, and Post-Hegemonic Regionalism interpret both the genesis and functionality of UNASUR, one is able to find some important insights with regards to South America’s security sector integration. Geographically contingent security concerns, intensified by the impacts of globalization, has lead South American states to pursuit a unique security arrangement, which rejects the neoliberal orthodoxy and the hegemonic presence of the United States. Unlike Europe, South America’s security complex does not overlap with other regions and, most importantly, does not include the presence of the United Sates. Furthermore, Europe has carried over many of its Cold War era security mechanisms, in large part due to its embrace of the Washington Consensus and the neoliberal economic orthodoxy. This analysis addresses the broader issues regarding the transferability of theoretical approaches across different regions, but perhaps more interestingly it hints at the potential for the wider security regionalization of the Americas, and whether it will seek to align with, or reject the presence of the US hegemon.Show less
