Floods and Extension Plans: discourse and projects in Southern Brazil

This paper focuses on four extension projects on floodable areas in the city of Porto Alegre, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is in the Jacui River delta, which flows into the Guaiba Lake, one of the main waterways in Southern Brazil. Such urban projects – with similar goals amongst themselves, such as integrating housing and industries, for instance – were never implemented. However, as initiatives associated to state economic and strategic development plans (between 1935 and 1960), the study of such projects significantly contributes to the understanding of Porto Alegre’s metropolitan area in its trajectory of expansion. The Jacui delta and its islands limit Northern Porto Alegre. The projects were to be located on such wetlands, given their strategic site in relation to means of external connection, such as waterways, roads and railways. Because this area had always been subject to floods, a solution for overcoming such issue with infrastructure works was always present in the creation of projects for the delta. Porto Alegre, from its foundation to the first half of the 20thcentury, suffered with floods of the Guaiba Lake that caused major damages to the city. Because of that, from 1942, a dam and a wall were built; to this day, they influence the connection between city and Lake, maintaining the collective memory of past floods. Therefore, this work focuses on the different approaches and discourses of the authors of the extension projects for the flood issues, and on their intentions towards making such projects resilient to the recurring floods. While researching the plans, we have observed that the cost of construction work and of the expropriation needed for building the dam have contributed to postponing, deterring and modifying the execution of such projects. In spite of the failure on implementing the projects, their focus on the relation between the city and its surrounding waters became an important resource for the study of the city’s history, given that the wetlands are a significant part of its collective memory

Para além da filiação religiosa: religião, religiosidade e o panorama religioso em Ribeirão das Neves – MG, Brasil

Dossiê: Panorama Religioso BrasileiroO objetivo do artigo é mostrar, através do exemplo de Ribeirão das Neves, MG-Brasil, a importância da religiosidade no panorama religioso. O estudo combina dados do Censo Demográfico de 2000 com informações sobre estudantes do Ensino Médio da rede pública estadual coletados pela Pesquisa Jovem, levando em consideração não apenas a filiação religiosa, mas, também, a frequência às cerimônias e a frequência com que se reza/ora fora das cerimônias religiosas. Os resultados do Censo 2000 sugerem que o município de Ribeirão das Neves é distinto de Minas Gerais e do Brasil no que tange à filiação religiosa. A inclusão da frequência às cerimônias e de medida de religiosidade no âmbito doméstico desvenda outros aspectos relativos à religião, sugerindo que ir além da filiação religiosa pode ajudar a compreender melhor a complexidade do panorama religioso

La “esposa ideal” como “madre ideal”: aspectos del pensamiento eugénico tardío en Argentina

This work explores some aspects of the eugenic paradigm as a hegemonic thinking in Ar-gentina, its cultural penetration and survival. In this way, that biopolitics consolidation is explained from its immanent imbrication with prevailing ideologies of Liberal-Conservative characteristics. The article concentrates on the weak impact generated by the dissociation between sex, gender, genitality and procreation, which was reasserted since the Sexual Revolution of the Second Post-War period; and, at the same time, in the social root of a marriage concept as locus characterized by a monogamous and lifelong sexual entailment. Here, we hold that this place was conditioned by different influences, as the eugenic normalization of sexuality, which occupied an important site in this field.Este trabajo explora aspectos de la penetración cultural y pervivencia del paradigma eugenésico hegemónico en Argentina, cuya consolidación biopolítica se explica a partir de su imbricación inmanente con las ideologías de sesgo liberal-conservador imperantes. El artículo se concentra en el débil impacto generado por la disociación entre sexo, género, genitalidad y procreación reafirmada desde la revolución sexual de la segunda posguerra; y, en paralelo, en el arraigo de un concepto de matrimonio como locus caracterizado por la vinculación sexual monógama y permanente. Se sostiene aquí que este espacio resultó condicionado por diversos influjos, entre los cuales la normalización eugénica de la sexualidad ocupó un lugar preponderante.Fil: Miranda, Marisa Adriana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Learning from 20 Years of Payments for Ecosystem Services in Costa Rica

Costa Rica's Payments for Ecosystems Services (PES) programme has become something of an icon in the world of conservation. Its innovative blend of economic and regulatory instruments - and its hitches and successes - provide a valuable source of inspiration for other countries that are looking for effective ways to conserve and regenerate ecosystems. Since 1997, nearly one million hectares of forest in Costa Rica have been part of the PES programme at one time or another, and forest cover has now returned to over 50 per cent of the country's land area, from a low of just 20 per cent in the 1980s. What lessons can be learnt from the 20 years since it was founded? Also published in Spanish, this paper is for local practitioners, international researchers and donors who are interested in the Costa Rican experience

Challenging performances of hegemony in Tango: liberation through pedagogy

Research Report required for the completion of Master of Arts – Applied Drama (MAAD) Drama for Life - Wits School of Arts - Wits University March 2015This study aims to explore ideas of liberation in relation to the present tendencies of gender representation in Tango. I argue that the traditional pedagogic model, observed in Johannesburg, tends to perpetuate hegemonic discourses mainly through terminology in which gender binaries, codes and subjectivities are normalized. Such representations reduce, or even reject, plurality and diversity by sustaining specific power dynamics, necessarily related to the role of men and women. Tango is characterized by certain aesthetic elements described in this thesis, and here I prioritize the analysis of its role as a social dance, in the category of couples’ dances. I argue that couples’ dances are embedded in historically and socially constructed stereotypes; thus, the dynamics observed in balls are not capable of reflecting present gender complexities and identities. To do so, I first present a critical reflection of the history of couples’ dances and Tango, along with my own lived experience as a movement facilitator. Then, I present descriptions of the first phase of the research, the Performance as Research (PAR) project in which I aimed to deconstruct hegemony by challenging gender fixities. The PAR included creative processes, interviews, performance, media and textual production, and the main outcome was related to the pedagogy of dance, presenting the DE-GENDERED MODEL of teaching-learning. In the second phase of research, or what I call the fieldwork, I engaged with different methods, such as dance meetings based on investigative approaches, body mapping, micro-performance, group discussions and questionnaires to collect data together with a group of 9 participants. I made sense of all the information collected during PAR, and, given by participants during fieldwork, by correlating theories of performance, critical pedagogy, gender and queer studies, with the purpose of including collaborative pathways of embodiment

JUNB regulatory functions in lymphangiogenesis: from mESCs to zebrafish

In higher vertebrates, the development of a functional circulatory system based on blood and lymphatic vessels is a basic step in order to generate a full organism. The formation of the vasculature involves the generation of mesodermal-derived angioblasts and their subsequent differentiation into blood endothelial or lymphatic endothelial cell lineages. The switch between the undifferentiated and cell-specific genetic programs during cell differentiation requires an orchestrated spatiotemporal coordination of gene expression. JUNB, a member of the AP-1 family, is a context-dependent transcription factor that exerts both positive and negative functions. Loss of function studies in mice revealed that JUNB is a key regulator of vascular development in embryos. Hence, JUNB transactivates pro-angiogenic molecules such as Vegfa, Cbfβ and Hmox1. Recently, Junb was described to regulate the development of lymphatic vessels in zebrafish via its target miR182. However, it remained unclear whether activator functions of JUNB are relevant for lymphangiogenesis. Therefore, I aimed to investigate whether JUNB is necessary for the formation of lymphatics and if so, to unravel in which specific step of the lymphatic vascular development JUNB is implicated. For this purpose, I used a dual approach of in vitro differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells into lymphatic endothelial cells and an in vivo approach by generating junb mutant zebrafish in the background of the transgenic reporter line Tg(fli:EGFP)y1 to evaluate the development of the vasculature. The study of the JUNB kinetics during the LEC differentiation process revealed that JUNB is strongly induced at the RNA and protein level during the angioblast formation until the formation of the LEC-like cells. Strikingly, Junb-/- mESCs failed to form proper LECs due to considerable cell death during the angioblast formation. This increased apoptosis could be associated to a failure to initiate the induction of VEGFR1 and VEGFR2 expression. In the parallel in vivo approach, novel zebrafish mutants with ablated junba and junbb expression were generated using CRISPR-Cas9 technology. Successful mutations resulted in a premature end of the reading frame. Homozygous junba-/- embryos could not be identified and the Mendelian ration of wildtype and heterozygous offspring suggests a recessive lethal phenotype. By contrast, junbb mutants were detected according to expected Mendelian ratio, reached adulthood and were fertile. Albeit the mutant embryos exhibited an allele-dependent decrease in the number of parachordal cells present at 3 days post fertilization; almost all the analyzed embryos displayed a complete thoracic duct at 5 dpf. Surprisingly, the mutants developed ectopic sprouts at the dorsal side of the trunk from 3 dpf until 5 dpf recapitulating the phenotype previously observed upon neuronal loss of soluble vegfr1 in zebrafish. In summary, these data underscore the role of JUNB not only in lymphangiogenesis but also at an earlier developmental stage, namely the angioblast formation and suggest a JUNB-dependent regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor receptors during development

Sobre un caso emblemático de violencia intragénero en Madrid y su impacto en la Argentina de los años ‘30 : El filicidio contra Hildegart Rodríguez

El trabajo presenta en nuestro medio un emblemático caso de violencia intrafamiliar e intragenérica, acaecido en España de la década de 1930, así como sus vinculaciones con la cuestión de la percepción del eje salud/enfermedad mental de la homicida en el ámbito argentino. En efecto, analizaremos aquí el filicidio cometido en 1933 contra Carmen Rodríguez Carballeira, o, mejor aún, Hildegart Rodríguez, “uno de los grandes nombres del feminismo español”, a manos de su madre, Aurora Rodríguez Carballeira, quien luego de haberse propuesto engendrar a su hija como un producto eugénico, le dio muerte -a los 18 años de edad- mientras dormía, entregándose de inmediato a las autoridades judiciales para confesar su delito, sin mayores inhibiciones, al diputado de la izquierda radical socialista, Juan Botella Asensi. De esta manera, cabe pensar una serie infinita de preguntas que, aún hoy día, rondan los trabajos que se han venido ocupando del tema, aunque ninguno de ellos desde la recepción de la vida y pensamiento de la joven en la Argentina. Así, entre los interrogantes que surgen sobre la cuestión, resultan quizás más fascinantes aquellos que se inmiscuyen en las profundidades de una relación madre-hija, atravesada por la violencia y la locura. Y, en este sentido, se nos ocurre pensar respecto al origen íntimo de esta tragedia, seguramente conocido con certeza sólo por sus protagonistas; cerrando nuestro aporte con una pregunta “clave” cuya respuesta buscaremos delinear desde un análisis en perspectiva biopolítica: el porqué de la invisibilización del caso en el medio argentino de entonces y de ahora.Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociale

"Civilizar la libido": estrategias ambientales de la eugenesia en la Argentina

El trabajo aborda el rol de la eugenesia en Argentina a partir de 1930, cuando se consolidó en el país a través de la impronta dada por una biotipología italiana íntimamente vinculada a la Iglesia católica. Esa versión eugénica permitió canalizar la reacción de las élites ante una tendencia liberalizadora de la moral sexual, procurando un disciplinado acatamiento a los roles de género.This work approaches the eugenics’ role in Argentina from 1930, moment when the Italian biotipology –intimately linked with the Catholic Church– was consolidated in this country. That eugenics version canalized the elites’ reaction to a trend of the sexual free morality and it tried a disciplined obeisance to roles of gender.Fil: Vallejo, Gustavo Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Miranda, Marisa Adriana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin