Education, Population, and Culture

In learning about education, education systems and student mobility in Brazil; I am constantly finding connections between the people, the language and the culture. What does it mean to be a mobile student in Brazil? How does culture and language shape the experiences of students who establish mobility in Brazil? With an official language that is not English, in what ways is the Brazilian education system facilitating the integration of international students as they establish a new home in Brazil? These are some of the questions I explore in my research. Between all my findings and those to come, one of the beautiful things about this particular research project is how it connects every aspect of the essence Brazil.Ope

The retention of highly skilled returnees in Mozambique : an institutional approach

This research combines Institutional Rational Choice (IRC), the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, Return Migration theories and International Development theories to understand how Mozambican highly skilled returnees (HSRs) interact with the institutional setting in the home country while pursuing their personal aspirations. Institutional setting in this context is defined as a multidimensional space of factors – institutions plus other contextual variables co-evolving as they interact with each other – in which HSRs try to mobilize resources over time towards their personal goals. Factors impose elements of order in the context where they operate and they affect the distribution of preferences, incentives, and outcomes. A better understanding of the constraints imposed by these factors/elements on HSRs’ behavior and personal satisfaction could allow governments in extremely poor countries to prioritize interventions for institutional development given the very scarce resources available. These could have the interacting effect of increasing the capacity of HSRs to contribute to the development of Mozambique and provide positive signals to encourage the return of more. Hypotheses around three specific types of factors/domains – professional opportunities, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and governmental programs – are tested. The methodology applied includes (i) a cross-sectional purposive sample ofMozambicanswhorecently returned to the homecountry after obtaining post-secondary education abroad; (ii) an online survey complemented with field interviews; (iii) bivariate analysis; and (iv) multivariate model-building. The results demonstrate, first, that all three factors tested are associated with retention. This finding supports the IAD’s argument that new policies and institutions can be devised to shape those other contextual variables. Second, this research demonstrates that the degree of this association differs across factors. Third, this research shows that the degree of association also differs from urban to rural settings. Moreover, the first and foremost role played by professional-related elements in the capacity of a country to retain some of its most well-educated citizens supports previous literature. Further, this research supports the argument that institutional development precedes economic development. Also, this research does not find empirical support for the hypothesis that Mozambique has been facing increasing levels of the brain drain. In addition, the “Satisfaction With Life Scale” (SWLS) proxy for retention is among all proxies tested the one mostly associated with the institutional setting in the home country. More specifically, the possibility of achieving personal goals is the most important component of one’s overall life satisfaction. Finally, there is a temporal “ripple-effect” on the association (i.e., progressively weaker) of the current institutional setting both with past and with the possibility of future behavior. The implications resulting from these findings are discussed and classified into three categories: (i) theoretical; (ii) practical for policy; and (iii) for future research. Key Words: Highly Skilled migration, brain drain inversion, patterns of reintegration, institutional development,Mozambiqu

From Jokun to Onnagata: Performance, Aesthetics, and the Cultivation of Femininity during the Edo Period.

M.A. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

Double exposure on the northern coast of the São Paulo State, Brazil

This paper examines how double exposure to both socio-economic and environmental stressors and the interaction between the two affect the population of the Northern coast of the São Paulo State, Brazil based on the conceptual and analytical framework developed by R. Leichenko and K.L. O’Brien. It provides a useful way to examine the multiple and overlapping processes of global change and, in particular, the places and the ways in which the economic and the non-economic interact. Interactions between economic and environmental change shape local landscapes of vulnerability and a major challenge for understanding vulnerability involves identifying how economic and environmental processes interact in particular places and how these interactions shape the effects of some global change processes and drive others. Pathways to increased vulnerability are multidimensional, so that socio-economic conditions may mediate the impacts of environmental change, but changing environmental conditions may also alter socio-economic capacities to maintain particular livelihood strategies. By analysing case studies of four municipalities that compound the region we found that people’s resilience, in general, are largely determined by the socio-economic context and the social vulnerability. Our finding indicate that socio-economic change brought about in the last three decades due to intense urbanization, tourism exploitation and increasingly economic activities have altered people’s livelihood and deepened social problems. We argue that the cross-scale nature of the problem and the cross-level interactions of these processes pose significant challenges for governance structures and institutions in place in the region that fail to address the roots of vulnerability and consequences of a changing environment.draft versio

Fair trade practices in the Northwest Brazilian Amazon

This paper describes and analyzes the Arte Baniwa project, a sustainable development project based on the production and commercialization of Baniwa indigenous basketwork with the support of the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), a major NGO in Brazil. The project seeks to enhance the value of the Baniwa basket-making tradition, increase production within the limits of the sustainable use of natural resources, generate income for indigenous producers and their political associations, and train indigenous leadership in the skills of business management. The methodology encompasses a literature review on fair trade and builds upon ethnographic and participative research methods. The narrative and analysis of the case study comprise a framework that is two-fold: first, it looks at existing inter-organizational tiers between actors and identifies the presence of two different logics within the project; second, it encompasses the reality of many emerging fair trade initiatives in Brazil which harness market forces to pursue local sustainable development. The paper argues that ISA has acted as a boundary organization by communicating, translating and mediating between traditional (indigenous) knowledge and Western culture. By doing so, it was able to mobilize the project's capacity to promote sustainable development.412432Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES