Browsing by Subject "Honduras"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Electricity, Marginalization, and Empowerment: For Whom? And Who Decides? Evaluating Participatory Mapping in Río Negro, Honduras
    (2015-08) DeGrave, Jeff
    Participatory mapping's ability to empower its users has come under severe reproach by many scholars. Drawing on these critiques, this ex-post mapping study of the mountain village of Rio Negro, Honduras that employed participatory mapping to prioritize access to electricity through hydro-microturbines echoes and extends these critiques. However, prevailing power structures within the community impacted the decision-making processes, affecting the outcomes of the participatory mapping project. Through various political and social interventions, village elites were able to influence the distribution of the microturbines, further enhancing differences in marginalization and empowerment within the community. Elites successfully directed the participatory mapping exercise toward their interests and continue today to reap the multiple benefits of electrical access. This dissertation assesses how participatory mapping in this exemplary case reinforced existing conditions of marginalization and empowerment over the long term.
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    From tragedy to opportunity: long-term development in post-disaster intentional communities in Honduras.
    (2012-06) Alaniz, Ryan Chelese
    With 2010 witnessing the second highest number of global disasters in history, climate change has spurred interest concerning how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should respond with long-term development strategies in post-disaster communities, especially those in fragile states. This comparative case study examines how two intentional Honduran communities built for survivors (comprised of traumatized and displaced poor people) of Hurricane Mitch (1998), Divina Providencia and Ciudad España, developed since the disaster. Although initially similar based on demographics, the communities are dramatically different today in social health (defined as low crime, social capital, social cohesion, vision, sustainability, and community participation). My doctoral research combines household surveys (N=1,918), 74 interviews, nine months of ethnography, and archival research in an analysis of what mechanisms shaped the social health trajectory of each community. I found that both communities have had varying degrees of success and conflict due in large part to the Honduran context and decisions and practices implemented by sponsoring non-governmental organization including: time horizons/long-term commitment, organizational resources, spatial design, community size, and coercive mechanisms by the organizations. Although both communities faced similar constraints, such as trauma and broken social networks, Divina overcame many hurdles with the help of a strong NGO presence, organizational resources, a long-term commitment, and coercive means. It was able to foster cultural structures that created a healthier community than resident pre-Mitch neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa. Certain emergent norms of community life prevented the Divina community from falling back upon old structures and norms (which were inequitable and socially unhealthy). However, its top-down paternalist approach led to protests by community residents, the creation of dependency on the NGO, and issues of possible long-term sustainability without organizational support. While Ciudad España did have better social health than the former communities in Tegucigalpa, its partnership approach failed to establish emergent norms that would have promoted stronger social health indicators. There was less NGO influence, fewer organizational resources over time, shorter time commitment, and almost no coercive means. Although España has lower social health than Divina, the community has had less conflict and is more independent.
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    'Tomar decisiones es el futuro de uno' [To make decisions is one's future]: The gendering of youth agency within two Honduran communities
    (2013-12) McCleary, Kathryn S.
    This dissertation focuses on the ways that young women and young men from two peri-urban communities outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras conceptualized and enacted their agency vis-à-vis non-formal education programs. The study examines the ways in which nineteen focal participants' gender identities were re-produced and/or transgressed in how they confronted, negotiated, and asserted influence, choice, and action. Furthermore, the research explores the ways participants' demonstrated agency in relation to cultural constructs of femininity and masculinity. This six-month comparative case study additionally examines the role of a non-formal education program in cultivating youth agency. One of the communities in this study was home to a youth program run by the Education Unit of CARE Honduras. The CARE Education Unit encouraged participants to be self-reflexive through participatory action research, which further informs the way CARE cultivated youths' understanding of choice and influence. Findings from the study indicate that social discourses and interventions across local community and national spaces are influential in the ways that youths cultivate, construct, and enact their agency both in response to and reaction against local gender norms.