Between Facebook and Boas: Kichwa Indigenous Identity in Alto Napo and Challenges to Multiculturalism in Ecuador

This qualitative study examines contemporary Kichwa indigenous identity formation in the Alto Napo region of Ecuador through Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital. Following an extended-case method, I analyze the articulation of indigenousness (as an idealized expression of tradition) vis-à-vis the power relationships of the actors involved in such process. A combination between participant observation, daily field notes and twelve tape-recorded interviews during a two-month research allowed me to deconstruct essentialist portrayals and stereotypes of Kichwa indigenous peoples in Alto Napo, and confirm that their identity is hybrid, multiple and shifting. A comparative analysis between urban and rural social dynamics in the region further showed that the indigenous construction of the identity is influenced by power dynamics of recognition. Within Kichwa communities, the need to represent imagined traditional indigenous symbols does not surface on a daily basis in order to gain recognition; instead, other types of cultural capital are used to bind its members. These symbols, however, become dominant in contexts where the presence of nonindigenous peoples or State authorities marks the symbolic power they possess. The mechanisms and symbols used to construct the Kichwa identity thus shift according to the diverse power relationships that exist at the time of the representation. In order to gain value as an indigenous ethnicity and to show a symbolic reluctance to acculturation, the representation of an idealized traditional indigeneity becomes a strategy to authenticate their political, economic and cultural demands, which are identity based. This case study helps illustrate the connection between power structures, rights and identity through the analysis of indigenous symbolic capital in an Ecuadorian Amazon region

Exploring the Experiences of Supervisors and Supervisees who engaged in Bilingual Supervision

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the experiences of clinical supervisors and supervisees who engaged in bilingual supervision. Five supervisors and five supervisees were recruited utilizing purposive and snowball sampling strategies and were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. Findings of this study focused primarily on the challenges and benefits associated with engaging in bilingual supervision. Main findings included the lack of formal training in bilingual counseling and supervision. Implications for training programs highlighted the need for continuous support of bilingual training programs, in particular, the development of both multicultural and linguistic competencies

Exploring the Experiences of Supervisors and Supervisees who engaged in Bilingual Supervision

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the experiences of clinical supervisors and supervisees who engaged in bilingual supervision. Five supervisors and five supervisees were recruited utilizing purposive and snowball sampling strategies and were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. Findings of this study focused primarily on the challenges and benefits associated with engaging in bilingual supervision. Main findings included the lack of formal training in bilingual counseling and supervision. Implications for training programs highlighted the need for continuous support of bilingual training programs, in particular, the development of both multicultural and linguistic competencies

Orgull de Baix (Baix Pride): a web documentary dedicated to explore and discober the Baix Llobregat’s landscape and heritage

Orgull de Baix és un documental web, webdoc, que descobreix el tresor ecològic i agrícola de la comarca del Baix Llobregat, i la lluita dels seus habitants per superar les pressions urbanístiques de la gran ciutat que té al costat, Barcelona. Orgull de Baix parla d’agricultura en entorns urbans, de sobirania alimentària, de la tensió entre el centre i la perifèria, entre l’espai urbà i l’espai rural, entre el creixement i la sostenibilitat. El següent article presenta i discuteix les decisions de disseny interactiu que van guiar la seva creació, així com les aproximacions narratives i de llenguatge cinematogràfic traduït al web, que van aflorar durant la realització del projecte.Orgull de Baix (Baix Pride) is a web documentary that invites you to a virtual trip to discover the ecological and agricultural treasure trove that is the Baix Llobregat region, and the struggle by its inhabitants to overcome the urban development pressure exerted by the big city that is its next-door neighbor, Barcelona. Orgull de Baix is a project that deals with farming in urban environments, food sovereignty, the tension between the center and the periphery, between urban and rural spaces, and between growth and sustainability. The following article discusses the interactive design decisions that prevailed in its conception, as well as the narrative and cinematic language translation to the web underlying the project

The space of phylogenetic mixtures for equivariant models

The selection of the most suitable evolutionary model to analyze the given molecular data is usually left to biologist's choice. In his famous book, J Felsenstein suggested that certain linear equations satisfied by the expected probabilities of patterns observed at the leaves of a phylogenetic tree could be used for model selection. It remained open the question regarding whether these equations were enough for characterizing the evolutionary model. Here we prove that, for equivariant models of evolution, the space of distributions satisfying these linear equations coincides with the space of distributions arising from mixtures of trees on a set of taxa. In other words, we prove that an alignment is produced from a mixture of phylogenetic trees under an equivariant evolutionary model if and only if its distribution of column patterns satisfies the linear equations mentioned above. Moreover, for each equivariant model and for any number of taxa, we provide a set of linearly independent equations defining this space of phylogenetic mixtures. This is a powerful tool that has already been successfully used in model selection. We also use the results obtained to study identifiability issues for phylogenetic mixtures.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figure; to appear in Algorithms for Molecular Biolog

Whose Data Is It Anyway? Lessons in Data Management and Sharing from Resurrecting and Repurposing Lidar Data for Archaeology Research in Honduras

As a response to Hurricane Mitch and the resulting widespread loss of life and destruction of Honduran infrastructure in 1998, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) conducted the first wide-area airborne lidar topographic mapping project in Central America. The survey was executed by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin (BEG) in 2000, and it was intended to cover 240 square kilometers distributed among 15 flood-prone communities throughout Honduras. The original data processing produced basic digital elevation models at 1.5-meter grid spacing which were used as inputs for hydrological modeling. The USGS published the results in a series of technical reports in 2002. The authors became interested in this dataset in 2013 while searching for geospatial data that would provide additional context and comparative references for an archaeological lidar project conducted in 2012 in the Honduran Mosquitia. After multiple requests to representatives from the USGS and BEG, we found various types of processed data in personal and institutional archives, culminating in the identification of 8-mm magnetic tapes that contained the original point clouds. Point clouds for the 15 communities plus a test area centered on the Maya site of Copán were recovered from the tapes (16 areas totaling 700 km2). These point clouds have been reprocessed by the authors using contemporary software and methods into higher resolution and fidelity products. Within these new products, we have identified and mapped multiple archaeological sites in proximity to modern cities, many of which are not part of the official Honduran site registry. Besides improving our understanding of ancient Honduras, our experiences dealing with issues of data management and access, ethics, and international collaboration have been informative. This paper summarizes our experiences in the hope that they will contribute to the discussion and development of best practices for handling geospatial datasets of archaeological value

‘E-TAP’ CURRICULUM FOR VIRTUE EDUCATION: A FIT ANALYSIS TO THE ‘SKOLA-2030’ CURRICULUM

The virtue education curriculum ‘e-TAP’ is one of the recent efforts for improving character and virtue education at school in Latvia from preschool till grade nine. The objective of this research was to provide evidence regarding whether this curriculum is appropriate (‘fits’) to the Latvian context, in particular in reference to the Skola-2030 curriculum. Based on fit and feasibility theory, this work addressed the research question: “How does the treatment of virtues of the e-TAP curriculum fit to the treatment of virtues of the new Skola-2030 curriculum?”. The analysis used statistical descriptive frequency analysis of the virtues of each programme and comparative analysis between the two document sets included in each of them, using Excel software. The results show that Skola-2030 programme stresses performance and civic virtues, while the e-TAP programme underlines moral and intellectual virtues. Performance virtues are the most important ones in Skola-2030 (38 %), but account only for 17 % in the e-TAP curriculum. In addition, in Skola-2030 curriculum civic virtues account for 23 %, while in e-TAP they are only 8 %. In the e-TAP curriculum, moral virtues account for half of all the mentions (50 %) and intellectual virtues for 25 %, whereas in Skola-2030 those virtue groups account for 22 % and 18 %, respectively. The high ‘complementarity fit’ of both programmes suggests that the e-TAP curriculum could considerably enrich the Skola-2030 educational offer. Suggestions for e-TAP programme improvement and further research are put forward.