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The objective of this study was to better understand promising pathways to realizing human rights norms in the context of rapidly developing cities, and the role that the courts play in this process. Scholars have already started to ask these larger questions of social transformation; however, there continues to be a need for further research since the answers are vast and context-dependent. In order to contribute to these larger conversations, this project examined a key social right in Delhi \u2014 the right to housing. This study relied on interviews with key actors in Delhi's housing sector as well as a review of housing rights cases in the Delhi High Court in order to understand what mechanisms various actors utilize in the context of Delhi to realize the human right to housing on the ground. These two types of data were compared and contrasted to past research on human rights scholarship, law and social literature, and studies on urbanization. Two frameworks from these bodies of knowledge, the MAPs framework developed by Haglund and Aggarwal (2011) and the triangular framework created by Gauri and Brinks (2008), were utilized in particular to analyze interview and court data. Overall, this study found that the courts in India are advocates for housing rights, but that their advocacy is often limited, cautious, and influenced by a pattern of bias against populations without legal title to land. This study also found that communities and their allies are often more successful in realizing the right to housing when they combine litigation with other non-legal social change mechanisms. Consequently, it appears that the role of the courts in realizing ESR in Delhi is both complicated and limited, which means that pathways toward ESR realization are more promising when they incorporate non-legal mechanisms alongside court action.
ContributorsHale, Nicole (Author) / Haglund, LaDawn (Thesis director) / Aggarwal, Rimjhim (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Protest has been both a practice of citizenship rights as well as a means of social pressure for change in the context of Mexico City's water system. This paper explores the role that citizen protest plays in the city's response to its water challenges. We use media reports of water protests to examine where protests happen and the causes associated with them. We analyze this information to illuminate socio-political issues associated with the city's water problems, such as political corruption, gentrification, as well as general power dynamics and lack of transparency between citizens, governments, and the private businesses which interact with them. We use text analysis of newspaper reports to analyze protest events in terms of the primary stimuli of water conflict, the areas within the city more prone to conflict, and the ways in which conflict and protest are used to initiate improved water management and to influence decision making to address water inequities. We found that water scarcity is the primary source of conflict, and that water scarcity is tied to new housing and commercial construction. These new constructions often disrupt water supplies and displace of minority or marginalized groups, which we denote as gentrification. The project demonstrates the intimate ties between inequities in housing and water in urban development. Key words: Conflict, protest, Mexico City, scarcity, new construction
ContributorsFlores, Shalae Alena (Author) / Eakin, Hallie C. (Thesis director) / Baeza-Castro, Andres (Committee member) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Committee member) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
This paper explores multidisciplinary curricula, services, and experiential learning in higher education on sustainability. Researchers attempt to understand sustainability as a formalized degree program, what frameworks and techniques are used to improve new disciplines, and how Arizona State University's School of Sustainability (SOS) improves sustainability education in higher learning. Secondary research includes a discussion on the history of sustainability as a discipline, the university as a social system, the role of university administration, the roles of professors and students, benchmarking and process improvement for curriculum development, and methods to bridge epistemologies in SOS. The paper presents findings from a study of the SOS undergraduate student experience that used focus groups to gather qualitative data and statistical analysis to analyze that data quantitatively. Study findings indicate that that measuring student perception of SOS's academic services, and understanding the social system of the university, helps administration, faculty, and students collaborate more effectively to enhance learning experiences.
ContributorsTom, Sharyn Paige (Author) / Haglund, LaDawn (Thesis director) / Ankeny, Casey (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Changes in Latino neighborhoods in Tucson, Arizona that occurred between 1990 and 2010 were studied. The overall Latino population increased substantially within the larger metropolitan area during the target time period. Neighborhoods were selected that had changed to become predominantly Latino during the target time period based on maps measuring ethnic clusters. Research was designed to characterize Latino neighborhoods in Tucson in terms of transformation. Methodology for comparison between changed and unchanged neighborhoods was developed. Observations were made in the three new neighborhoods, as well as in three historically Latino neighborhoods that experienced little change during the same time period. Interviews were conducted with residents from each neighborhood. Exploratory findings were made regarding the transformation of the neighborhoods with increased Latino populations. Findings showed that two areas of transformation increased largely because of the rise of higher density rental housing while one area transformed because two new affordable subdivisions were created within the studied time period. One new neighborhood's physical domain changed from an undeveloped land to a neighborhood with tract style houses. The historical areas have transformed in different ways including a decrease in crime and an increase in the younger population. The historical areas have experienced little change in the physical domain. All neighborhoods studied had evidences of a Spanish speaking population, and have businesses that cater to the surrounding Hispanic population.
ContributorsLeavitt, Isabella Maish (Author) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Thesis director) / Velez-Ibanez, Carlos (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Transborder Studies (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This honors thesis examines community gardens from throughout Phoenix, Arizona. It shows that community gardens have the potential to both support and hinder sustainability efforts, encourage community development, and increase food access. By measuring the temperature at various community gardens throughout Phoenix, AZ, community gardens were shown to minimize local effects of the urban heat island. Because they use water to survive and Phoenix, AZ is in a desert, this contributes to a depleting water supply. Interviews of gardeners from community gardens throughout Phoenix depicted that community gardens can provide sites for community development as well as promoting food access.
ContributorsBowersox, Diane Kathleen (Author) / Haglund, LaDawn (Thesis director) / Lyon, Mich (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
In the aftermath of the Second World War and global atrocities that occurred during the Nazi Holocaust, the international community established the United Nations and developed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UN legally defined the term genocide with the development of the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in an attempt to deter future genocides from occurring. These are now the governing documents for international human rights law and genocide prevention. Since the development of these documents, however, human rights violations and genocides have continued to occur around the world. In 1994, Rwandan Hutus murdered more than one million Tutsis in the span of one hundred days. Following the genocide, the United Nations developed the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in which the conviction of Jean-Paul Akayesu established the first trial where an international tribunal was called upon to interpret the definition of genocide as defined in the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Although the human rights movement has created greater deterrence for human rights crimes, punished perpetrators for their crimes, and established norms for the treatment of human beings, global human rights violations and genocides continue to occur. This project attempts to explore the presence of possible factors in pre-genocidal nations that may predict whether a nation could spiral into genocide and what mechanisms could counter their presence.
ContributorsBabos, Kristina Rose (Author) / Haglund, LaDawn (Thesis director) / Rothenberg, Daniel (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
In Mexico, the female adolescent population is made up from two groups, single women and married or cohabitating women. Throughout the past decade there has been an increase in the fertility rate amongst the adolescent population in the state of Sonora. Several factors were analyzed to determine their impact on adolescent fertility rate and unplanned pregnancies but ultimately it was found that sexual education was the most influential factor. Comprehensive sexual education has been found to decrease the number of adolescent pregnancies in schools or cities where that curriculum is taught. Many experts believe that this occurs because adolescents are better educated in the proper usage of contraception. Increased contraceptive use directly causes a decrease in unplanned pregnancy rate. With respect to Mexico, it was found that comprehensive sexual education is taught in Sonora but there is no standardized program. Few institutions provide comprehensive sexual education and the programs range between a level 0 and level 3 with respect to the strictness of the abstinence only curricula. Four interviews were conducted between December of 2013 and March of 2014. The purpose of the interviews was to gain a better understanding about how sexual education is perceived in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico and what sort of programs are available to adolescents. The questions that comprised the interview consisted of three general parts: background, demographics and sexual education. The interviewees were selected based on their level of expertise reproductive health among adolescents. Two programs were selected for research: Programa Gente Joven (PGJ) and Vive Prevenido. Based on research and data analysis several conclusions were reached. The average age a Mexican woman first has sex, gets married and has her first child within less than 5 years starting in their adolescence. Many years pass between the age of a woman's first childbirth and when she first uses contraception. This is caused by an unmet or unsatisfied need for contraception where the national level is higher than that of Sonora. With respect to sexual education the Guttmacher Institute data suggests that comprehensive sexual education is more effective than abstinence only education. And finally, the experts interviewed all agreed that comprehensive sexual education is what should be taught on a state wide level. The views and opinions of these four interviewees do not reflect those of all who work with adolescents. To gain a more generalized idea on the situation surrounding unplanned pregnancies in adolescents more interviews would need to be conducted. This project was purely exploratory and does not aim to analyze or evaluate either program.
ContributorsGalaz, Mayra Alejandra (Author) / Garcia Perez, Maria (Thesis director) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This study examines the social construction of the border by researching how frequently select issues are written about by the media of both countries, and in what light two different groups of actors (Mexico and the US) are portrayed. The Dallas-based The Dallas Morning News, and the Monterrey-based, El Norte are the two newspapers chosen to perform the content analysis. Furthermore, this study seeks to examine differences in the way both newspapers portray the US-Mexico border in 1994, or the year NAFTA began, and 2012, the most recent year for which data is available. A major find of this study is the discovery of how even though the frequency that select issues are brought up in the border vary drastically by year and newspaper, portrayals of the actors around the border stay fairly consistent. More specifically, with the exception of NAFTA in 1994, border issues outside of crime, illegal immigration, drug violence, and the economy, are rarely mentioned by the two selected newspapers a significant amount of the time. Also, issues at the border such as crime, drug violence, and national security are often portrayed as the fault of Mexico and Mexican actors, while immigration issues at the border are often blamed exclusively on each newspaper's host countries.
ContributorsCelis-Aguirre, Ignacio (Author) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Thesis director) / Diaz McConnell, Eileen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
As happiness research has begun to examine trends outside of Western countries, Latin America has been characterized as a challenging region to reconcile with global trends. However, some recent research has suggested that maybe happiness predictors in Latin America are more like those of fully industrialized nations in the West than originally thought. This thesis examines the case of two Latin American nations, Argentina and Chile, that closely resemble the economic and social realities of Western countries that have been thoroughly examined in the literature. I found that with a few exceptions, Argentine and Chilean happiness indicators resemble those of industrialized nations described in past studies . Additionally, this paper found that the most significant predictors of happiness were subjective assessments of personal health and satisfaction with one's financial status. In both countries, we also see an increase in levels of happiness over time.
ContributorsJones, Darby Niccole (Author) / Martin, Nathan (Thesis director) / Haglund, LaDawn (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
The project follows a recent issue between the U.S. and Mexico concerning the shared use of the transborder Santa Cruz River. The situation remains unresolved and the long-term sustainability of the river is unknown. The study is based on an analysis of scholarly research and interviews pulling from three fields: Law, social science, and the environment. The project explores potential solutions from multiple levels of governance, and contextualizes the issue in terms of the people affected on both sides of the border.
ContributorsSimons, Amelie Christine (Author) / Haglund, LaDawn (Thesis director) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Committee member) / Sass, Sherry (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor)
Created2013-05