[{"id":79,"date":"2018-12-11T12:11:21","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T16:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=79"},"modified":"2018-12-11T12:55:14","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T16:55:14","slug":"final-research-design-presentation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/12\/11\/final-research-design-presentation\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Research Design Presentation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"680\" height=\"383\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TzeG6O9zkzE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":78,"date":"2018-12-07T23:10:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T03:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=78"},"modified":"2018-12-07T23:10:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T03:10:36","slug":"research-portfolio-post-9-mentor-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/12\/07\/research-portfolio-post-9-mentor-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #9: Mentor Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I met with my mentor: Professor Anthony Fontes, again in order to discuss the progress of my research project. We met on Thursday, December 6<sup>th<\/sup>, 2018 for just over half an hour. Since our initial meeting at the beginning of the semester, my project has changed substantially. The general focus of my puzzle has shifted in order to focus solely on political stability, and my research questions has significantly changed. I am now focusing solely on a modern event as opposed to including the influences of historical events. I have also shifted from a small-n case study path, to interpretivist methodology and pursuing discourse analysis.<\/p>\n<p>Moving forward, I need to plan in advance. I believe that I may need to go through the IRB process because I plan to use interviews as supplemental information. Additionally, I am hoping to be able to use contacts within the country in order to be able to assist in finding primary sources that are the most relevant to the current situation. Both of these aspects could potentially require me to complete the IRB process, and as such, I intend to begin that over winter break. Additionally, as I have suddenly shifted the focus of my research, I intend to continue with large quantities of supplemental research in order to have a stronger foundation of knowledge for my research next semester. This will primarily focus on 3 aspects: background information, the hero discourse, and the villain discourse. In order to contribute to my general background information I will read any and all relevant news sources and published articles that I can find. For the hero discourse, I plan to examine government propaganda and the primary sources that were influential in it\u2019s creation. For the villain discourse, I will focus on media which presents those opinions and the reasons for the civil unrest from the perspective of the anti-Ortega groups. Beyond that, I will also do research on the official American anti-Ortega discourses which have been present since his election. This will contribute to my literature review as well because that is one component of it. Doing this reading, along with general reading, will help in further reviewing and rewriting my literature review.<\/p>\n<p>Looking forward towards 306, my questions mostly have to do with the process of conducting the research. I have an understanding of my methodology: discourse analysis, however, in relation to the mechanics of 306, I look forward to understanding the way that the course will function. Additionally, my main concern is about the fact that the event on which I am focusing my research is still ongoing. This means that I will have to remain up-to-date on the information that is relevant to the situation and potentially change my research in response to what is going on. Finally, my concern is that I might have difficulty with finding enough sources in the counter discourse (the villain identity), because of the fact that it has been somewhat suppressed by the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I met with my mentor: Professor Anthony Fontes, again in order to discuss the progress of my research project. We met on Thursday, December 6th, 2018 for just over half an hour. Since our initial meeting at the beginning of the semester, my project has changed substantially. The general focus of my puzzle has shifted in order to focus solely on political stability, and my research questions has significantly changed. I am now focusing solely on a modern event as opposed to including the influences of historical events. I have also shifted from a small-n case study path, to interpretivist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mentor","category-mentorship","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":75,"date":"2018-11-11T23:23:43","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T03:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=75"},"modified":"2018-11-11T23:23:43","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T03:23:43","slug":"research-portfolio-post-8-qualitative-data-sources-for-interpretivist-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/11\/11\/research-portfolio-post-8-qualitative-data-sources-for-interpretivist-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #8: Qualitative Data Sources for Interpretivist Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If I chose to use the interpretivist method, I plan to research the causes of the current outbreak of violence in Nicaragua that started in April of 2018 because I want to find out why there have been repeated outbreaks of civilian unrest and political instability throughout it\u2019s history in order to help my readers understand the root causes of political instability in Nicaragua.<\/p>\n<p>The social practice that I have identified and intend to focus on is political unrest in Nicaragua, as demonstrated by various news articles and recent coverage of the incidents.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> The incident that is the initial anchor point of my research is the unrest which is still ongoing and began in April of 2018.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a> I intend to begin at this point and then examine the discourses surrounding the causes and the reasons for the unrest over time. In the history of Nicaragua there have been a number of instances of civilian unrest, including violent protests in 2005, civil unrest under the Somoza regime and the political instability tied to the Sandinistas.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a> In each of these instances, there are primary sources explaining people\u2019s reasons for participating in the civil unrest, however, it is possible that these are for different and\/or connected reasons, which I intend to explore.<\/p>\n<p>With the current unrest, newspaper articles will be a crucial source. For instance, there is an article from Al-Jazeera that interviewed people in Nicaragua about their perspective on the events and the cause for it.<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a> It is not the article itself, but the abundance of direct quotes from interviews that are within them that I would use for analysis. There are a wide number of representations found in this text, however, they are primarily the people who are at protests, which is frequently younger individuals.<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a> Additionally, there are often statements from leaders and spokespeople in these media outlets. On the other hand, in more historical instances of civil unrest, such as the Sandinista revolution, there are now memoirs of individuals who were involved which discuss their perspectives and motivations. These, as compiled by historians, are primarily focused on identities of leaders and spokespeople of the movements as well, along with groups that were heavily influenced or influenced in a way that was different from the norm of the time.<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a> For instance there are books compiling memoirs of women in the Sandinista movement.<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\">[7]<\/a> These texts, discourses and practices are linked through time and motivation. There are similarities in the motivations which are evident in the texts. For instance, in both 2005 and 2018, people were frequently motivated by their lack of trust in the government.<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[8]<\/a> However, other people had different motivations, such as ideological oppositions to the government or the benefits they would receive from change.<a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\">[9]<\/a> These similarities and differences will be the focus of my research in order to unravel what are the root causes of political instability in Nicaragua through the lenses of the people involved in them at that time.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Gall\u00f3n, Natalie. &#8220;At Least 317 Killed in Ongoing Protests in Nicaragua, Rights Group Says.&#8221; CNN. August 05, 2018. Accessed November 2018. https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/08\/05\/americas\/nicaragua-violent-protests\/index.html.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> BBC. &#8220;Nicaragua Profile &#8211; Timeline.&#8221; BBC News. May 31, 2018. Accessed November 2018. https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-latin-america-19909695.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> BBC. &#8220;Nicaragua Profile &#8211; Timeline.&#8221; BBC News. May 31, 2018. Accessed November 2018. https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-latin-america-19909695.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> Al Jazeera. &#8220;Nicaragua Unrest: What You Should Know.&#8221; GCC News | Al Jazeera. July 17, 2018. Accessed November 2018. https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/05\/nicaragua-protests-180530130717018.html.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> Al Jazeera. &#8220;Nicaragua Unrest: What You Should Know.&#8221; GCC News | Al Jazeera. July 17, 2018. Accessed November 2018. https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/05\/nicaragua-protests-180530130717018.html.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> Hoover Institution. &#8220;Sandinistas and Contras Documented.&#8221; Hoover Institution. February 28, 2011. Accessed November 2018. https:\/\/www.hoover.org\/news\/sandinistas-and-contras-documented.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a> Randall, Margaret.\u00a0<em>Sandino&#8217;s daughters: Testimonies of Nicaraguan women in struggle<\/em>. Rutgers University Press, 1981.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a> BBC. &#8220;Nicaragua Profile &#8211; Timeline.&#8221; BBC News. May 31, 2018. Accessed November 2018. https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-latin-america-19909695.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[9]<\/a> Al Jazeera. &#8220;Nicaragua Unrest: What You Should Know.&#8221; GCC News | Al Jazeera. July 17, 2018. Accessed November 2018. https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/05\/nicaragua-protests-180530130717018.html.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If I chose to use the interpretivist method, I plan to research the causes of the current outbreak of violence in Nicaragua that started in April of 2018 because I want to find out why there have been repeated outbreaks of civilian unrest and political instability throughout it\u2019s history in order to help my readers understand the root causes of political instability in Nicaragua. The social practice that I have identified and intend to focus on is political unrest in Nicaragua, as demonstrated by various news articles and recent coverage of the incidents.[1] The incident that is the initial anchor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":73,"date":"2018-10-28T14:03:13","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T18:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=73"},"modified":"2018-10-29T21:36:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T01:36:41","slug":"research-portfolio-post-7-qualitative-data-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/10\/28\/research-portfolio-post-7-qualitative-data-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #7: Qualitative Data Sources"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the qualitative data sources I would like to use for my dependent variable: economic development, is a presentation given on global and regional outlook during a regional conference for Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic that was given by the IMF.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> This presentation, in combination with other related sources such as transcripts of the conference or reports on what was said (including newspaper coverage), would provide me with information on the current state of Latin American countries.<\/p>\n<p>In analyzing this presentation, I would examine not only the numbers, but also the sections focused on explaining the risks of taking certain actions or maintaining the current trajectory. This, if combined with information about the subsequent action of the leaders would provide me with information about the current state of affairs as well as that in the immediate past. In order to operationalize it, I could categorize the actions into: riskier action taken, less risky action taken or no action taken. This categorization would be done by looking at the presentation slides. There are sections which show the \u201cbalance of risks\u201d; whether a particular decision would be more or less risky, as well as others which show recommended actions. By then looking at the subsequent decisions of the leaders given that knowledge and seeing which category it falls into, it would be possible to operationalize this data.<\/p>\n<p>Examining the levels of optimism events can also be done through the presentation by looking at the language and information within it. For instance, in the section comparing the region to the world as well as the particular countries, it is possible to see which countries the presenter believes are in a better current state of affairs. In order to operationalize this, I would also use a 5-point scale of pessimism and optimism ranging from very pessimistic, moderately pessimistic, neutral, moderately optimistic to very optimistic. It would be based on the method of presentation from the author. \u00a0I would examine the word choice in the presentation to do this as well as the visuals and graphics. This is because they also show the speaker\u2019s perspective and create a visual image on the issue.<\/p>\n<p>I do currently have some existing information about this data, for instance, I would argue that the speaker feels more optimistic about Panama as opposed to Honduras. This can be seen throughout a number of places in the presentation, but particularly when looking at a graphic where he clearly shows that the IMF believes Panama has more production potential given their current conditions. This would put his perspective on Panama at very optimistic when compared to other countries, as opposed to Honduras which would be categorized as moderately pessimistic. In relation to the more or less risky course of action, the Dominican Republic would be seen as riskier. This is because the recommendation for action was to increase their arm of fiscal policy, while the action that was taken only moved interests as opposed to actually increasing investment according to the OECD.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Alleyne, Trevor.\u00a0<em>Presentation on Global and Regional Outlook<\/em>. July 26, 2018. IMF Conference for Central America, Panama and Dominican Republic, Tegucigalpa.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. &#8220;Fiscal Policy for Development in the Dominican Republic.&#8221; News release, 2013. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Accessed October 2018. https:\/\/www.oecd.org\/dev\/americas\/Fiscal policy for development in the Dominican Republic.E-Book.pdf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the qualitative data sources I would like to use for my dependent variable: economic development, is a presentation given on global and regional outlook during a regional conference for Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic that was given by the IMF.[1] This presentation, in combination with other related sources such as transcripts of the conference or reports on what was said (including newspaper coverage), would provide me with information on the current state of Latin American countries. In analyzing this presentation, I would examine not only the numbers, but also the sections focused on explaining the risks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":68,"date":"2018-10-14T11:50:03","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T15:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=68"},"modified":"2018-10-15T00:11:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T04:11:41","slug":"research-portfolio-post-6-quantitative-data-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/10\/14\/research-portfolio-post-6-quantitative-data-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #6: Quantitative Data Sources"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As a note before I begin, I have decided to make modern day development my sole independent variable and removed stability as a variable, due to concerns about the scope of my research.<\/p>\n<p>When examining various data sets, I found that the source World Development Indicators contained a number of data sets that I would be able to use in my research.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> This then led me to focusing on the different aspects of development. I am attempting to determine how I am going to define development: for instance, whether I should focus on economic or social factors, or whether it would be possible to focus on multiple. For this reason, I examined a number of data sets which focused on each of those factors. One data set which I would like to discuss for my research sketch is the GDP per capita growth for Latin America.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a> This is dataset provides data for the economic development of Latin American countries. The level of measurement is the annual %, making it an interval ratio variable because the data gives precise measurements which can be tied back to real world values.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a><a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a> As discussed in class, this is the type of data that we should use, particularly for our dependent variable, which is a benefit of this dataset.<\/p>\n<p>However, this dataset also has limitations. For instance, it only addresses one aspect of economic development, which does not encompass the entirety of my dependent variable. This means, I would need to include other datasets in my operationalization, such as a different dataset that I found in the World Development Indicators: Share of youth not in education, employment or training, which could address other types of development, which addresses social development.<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a> Another limitation is the number of cases this dataset covers. It has data from the last 5 years for Latin America, and while it has data for all years for some countries, such as Argentina, other countries like Cuba had only partial data provided. In particular, Venezuela only had data for the years 2013 and 2014, which was specifically concerning. For this reason, while technically my data covers all 20 countries that I am examining, it only completely covers 17 of my countries. This is of note because I noticed that the countries which are not covered are frequently those who have had more development issues, which could skew my data and analysis.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a>World Bank. &#8220;World development indicators database.&#8221; (2010).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> World Bank national accounts data, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development National Account data files. <em>GDP per capita growth (annual %). <\/em>2015-2017. Distributed by World Development Indicators. <a href=\"http:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/data\/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators#\">http:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/data\/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators#<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> World Bank national accounts data, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development National Account data files. <em>GDP per capita growth (annual %). <\/em>2015-2017. Distributed by World Development Indicators. <a href=\"http:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/data\/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators\">http:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/data\/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators#<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> Pollock III, Philip H. \u201cMeasuring and Describing Variables\u201d. In\u00a0<em>The essentials of political. <\/em>35-40. Cq Press, 2015.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> International Labor Organization, ILOSTAT database. <em>Share of youth not in education, employment or training<\/em><em> (% of youth population).<\/em> Sept. 2017. Distributed by World Development Indicators. <a href=\"http:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/data\/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators#\">http:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/data\/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators#<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a note before I begin, I have decided to make modern day development my sole independent variable and removed stability as a variable, due to concerns about the scope of my research. When examining various data sets, I found that the source World Development Indicators contained a number of data sets that I would be able to use in my research.[1] This then led me to focusing on the different aspects of development. I am attempting to determine how I am going to define development: for instance, whether I should focus on economic or social factors, or whether it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":66,"date":"2018-09-30T23:55:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T03:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=66"},"modified":"2018-09-30T23:56:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T03:56:27","slug":"research-portfolio-post-5-research-topic-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/09\/30\/research-portfolio-post-5-research-topic-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #5: Research Topic Post"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am proposing to research historical levels of violence in independence movements in Latin America because I want to find out what explains postcolonial development trends in order to help my reader\u2019s understand why there is a variation in modern day levels of development and stability in those countries.<\/p>\n<p>According to the UNDP Human Development Reports for 2018, there is a significant variation in the Human Development Index (HDI) rankings for Latin American Countries.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> For instance: Chile ranks 44 with an HDI value of 0.843.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a> They also have a life expectancy of 79.7 years and a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of $21,910.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a> The expected years of schooling is 16.4 and the mean years of schooling is 10.3. <a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a>\u00a0 In contrast, Honduras ranks 133 for the 2018 HDI rankings. They have a score of 0.617, a life expectancy of 73.8 years, 10.2 expected years of learning but a mean years of learning of 6.5.<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a> Additionally, the GNI per capita is $4,215.<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a> Among Latin American countries there is a variation in their development rankings of 89, which is considerable variation in a group of 189 countries. I believe that there are consistent factors which influence this disparity.<\/p>\n<p>There are a number of scholarly sources which have attempted to explain this both in Latin America and other regions. However, they disagree as to the causes of development and the disparity between different countries. For instance, in an article in the African Development Review, the authors concluded that international aid promotes economic growth in countries in Africa if it is in the correct proportions so that the aid to GDP ration is less than 70%.<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\">[7]<\/a> In addition, they found that if countries lack political stability then it limits the effectiveness of aid in their economic development.<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[8]<\/a> Other scholars have come to different conclusions as to the factors that impact countries\u2019 stability and development. J.M. Colmer argues that there is a relationship between the institutional regulations that govern voting rights and the levels of political stability.<a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\">[9]<\/a> While Melo, Andreson and Matias focus on the application of social disorganization theory in relation to the levels and geography of crime in Brazil.<\/p>\n<p>However, for my own research, I am interested in addressing the impact of violence in independence movements on future development and stability of countries. There is also other research that supports this idea. For instance, J. Mahoney addresses the impacts of colonialism on future development in his article: Colonialism and Postcolonial Development: Spanish America in Comparative Perspective, and P. Bourgois who discusses the impact of violence on future development.<a href=\"#_ftn10\" name=\"_ftnref10\">[10]<\/a> <a href=\"#_ftn11\" name=\"_ftnref11\">[11]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>After the colonial independence movements, there were a variety of ideologies towards the development of the new countries. These were articulated in a number of documents from the time. Simon Bol\u00edvar wrote \u201cA Letter from Jamaica\u201d, which articulated his desire for a democracy, but also explaining his belief that the general population lacked the education for a democracy to function, and suggesting that in the interim a more autocratic government would serve as more effective in educating the public and running the country until the population reached a collective place where they would be able to function as a democracy.<a href=\"#_ftn12\" name=\"_ftnref12\">[12]<\/a> In contrast, Jose Mart\u00ed argued in his writings \u201cOur America\u201d that in his vision for Cuba, that the democracy should be established and that that government would further educate the people.<a href=\"#_ftn13\" name=\"_ftnref13\">[13]<\/a> These differences in ideology came out of different contexts and independence movements. However, it was factors within the independence movements themselves which created these contexts, most notably, the different levels of violence. Brazil, for instance, achieved independence with much less violence than the Spanish colonies. I aim to investigate the role that this difference may have played in their postcolonial development and stability.<\/p>\n<p>This research is important because it works to explain the disparity in development and stability in various countries. One of the goals of the international community is to work towards development in all countries and to bridge the \u201cdevelopment gap\u201d. By understanding the conditions that led to this point, it can become possible to better understand the factors that need to be addressed when attempting to further develop or stabilize said countries. This research puzzle endeavors to better understand the connection between the past and the present.<\/p>\n<p>As I move forward with my research, I have a number of potential ways to articulate my research project. One such way is: Why is there a disparity in the modern day stability and development in Latin American countries?. However, I could also articulate it more narrowly, such as: \u201cWhat explains the differences in modern day levels of stability and development in Honduras as opposed to Brazil?\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> UNDP. \u201cHuman Development Reports.\u201d Human Development Data (2018). Human Development Reports. Accessed September 2018. <a href=\"http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update\">http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> UNDP. \u201cHuman Development Reports.\u201d Human Development Data (2018). Human Development Reports. Accessed September 2018. <a href=\"http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update\">http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> UNDP. \u201cHuman Development Reports.\u201d Human Development Data (2018). Human Development Reports. Accessed September 2018. <a href=\"http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update\">http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> UNDP. \u201cHuman Development Reports.\u201d Human Development Data (2018). Human Development Reports. Accessed September 2018. <a href=\"http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update\">http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> UNDP. \u201cHuman Development Reports.\u201d Human Development Data (2018). Human Development Reports. Accessed September 2018. <a href=\"http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update\">http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> UNDP. \u201cHuman Development Reports.\u201d Human Development Data (2018). Human Development Reports. Accessed September 2018. <a href=\"http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update\">http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/2018-update<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a> \u201cHas International Aid Promoted Economic Growth in Africa?\u201d\u00a0African development review = Revue africaine de developpement.\u00a030, no. 3 (n.d.): 239\u2013251.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a> \u201cHas International Aid Promoted Economic Growth in Africa?\u201d\u00a0African development review = Revue africaine de developpement.\u00a030, no. 3 (n.d.): 239\u2013251.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[9]<\/a> Colomer, Josep M. &#8220;Taming the tiger: Voting rights and political instability in latin america.&#8221;\u00a0Latin American Politics and Society\u00a046, no. 2 (2004): 29-58.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref10\" name=\"_ftn10\">[10]<\/a> Mahoney, James.\u00a0Colonialism and postcolonial development: Spanish America in comparative perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref11\" name=\"_ftn11\">[11]<\/a> Bourgois, Philippe. &#8220;The power of violence in war and peace: post-Cold War lessons from El Salvador.&#8221;\u00a0Ethnography\u00a02, no. 1 (2001): 5-34.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref12\" name=\"_ftn12\">[12]<\/a> Bol\u00edvar, Sim\u00f3n.\u00a0The Jamaica Letter. Ministerio de Educati\u00f3n, Departamento de Publicaciones, 1977.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref13\" name=\"_ftn13\">[13]<\/a> Mart\u00ed, Jos\u00e9.\u00a0Nuestra Am\u00e9rica. Fundacion Biblioteca Ayacuch, 1973.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am proposing to research historical levels of violence in independence movements in Latin America because I want to find out what explains postcolonial development trends in order to help my reader\u2019s understand why there is a variation in modern day levels of development and stability in those countries. According to the UNDP Human Development Reports for 2018, there is a significant variation in the Human Development Index (HDI) rankings for Latin American Countries.[1] For instance: Chile ranks 44 with an HDI value of 0.843.[2] They also have a life expectancy of 79.7 years and a Gross National Income (GNI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":63,"date":"2018-09-25T21:15:39","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T01:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=63"},"modified":"2018-09-25T21:15:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T01:15:39","slug":"research-portfolio-post-4-article-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/09\/25\/research-portfolio-post-4-article-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #4: Article Comparison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cDecolonization and State Building in South Asia\u201d by Sumantra Bose is a small-n case study which analyzes the political development of multiple South Asian countries: India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It concludes that in the initial postcolonial development, trends are established which ensures the future of their political development. These are factors such as a network of elites, \u201cwell-rooted indigenous agency\u201d and international support.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, \u201cColonialism and postcolonial development: Spanish America in comparative perspective\u201d by James Mahoney focuses on the economic and social development of postcolonial countries. Similarly, it establishes that the colonial period set trends for the country\u2019s future development. The section of the book I\u2019m analyzing also uses a small-n case study focused on countries that were previously Spanish colonies, in particular; Costa Rica, Chile and Paraguay. This section argues that the development of these countries is contingent on the avoidance of warfare or being able to \u201c[emerge] victorious from fighting on their own terms\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>These articles both are aspects of the conversation on postcolonial development. They agree on the importance of the colonial period and initial postcolonial period in the country\u2019s future development. However, they focus on different aspects of development and state-building: economic and social as opposed to political.<\/p>\n<p>Both are also placed within the context of a larger conversation: belief that development trend is established in the colonial\/postcolonial period as opposed to other external factors being more influential, such as the impacts of the Cold War or access to technology.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This relates to my own research because it provides an understanding of the existing analysis of development, and a basis for my own analysis of countries\u2019 development. In addition, the second article connects the violence and warfare to countries\u2019 development, which is an important aspect of my own research. I\u2019m interested in extending and merging some of the variables presented here. The first article informs my postcolonial economic development analysis while the second both informs the political development and provides a starting point for the connection between violence levels in the colonial period and counties\u2019 development.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Bose, Sumantra. &#8220;DECOLONIZATION AND STATE BUILDING IN SOUTH ASIA.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Journal of International Affairs<\/em>\u00a058, no. 1 (2004): 95-113. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/24357937.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Mahoney, James.\u00a02010.\u00a0<em>Colonialism and Postcolonial Development: Spanish America In Comparative Perspective.<\/em>\u00a0Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> Levitsky, Steven. \u201cCompetitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the cold war.\u201d\u00a0<em>Competitive authoritarianism hybrid regimes after the Cold War \/<\/em>(n.d.): 1\u2013517.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cDecolonization and State Building in South Asia\u201d by Sumantra Bose is a small-n case study which analyzes the political development of multiple South Asian countries: India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It concludes that in the initial postcolonial development, trends are established which ensures the future of their political development. These are factors such as a network of elites, \u201cwell-rooted indigenous agency\u201d and international support.[1] On the other hand, \u201cColonialism and postcolonial development: Spanish America in comparative perspective\u201d by James Mahoney focuses on the economic and social development of postcolonial countries. Similarly, it establishes that the colonial period set trends for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":62,"date":"2018-09-25T21:12:50","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T01:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=62"},"modified":"2018-09-25T21:12:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T01:12:50","slug":"research-portfolio-post-3-philosophical-wagers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/09\/25\/research-portfolio-post-3-philosophical-wagers\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #3: Philosophical Wagers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I understand the concept of ontology as the way of thinking about approaching research through understanding the way in which you view the world and larger aspects of your personal philosophy. While it\u2019s the way of understanding what constitutes a fact, this is influenced by individuals\u2019 larger world perception and approach towards knowledge. It\u2019s the way of thinking about the ideas in general that inform how we go about research. This is why I connect ontology beyond the more constrained idea of \u201cwhat constitutes a fact\u201d. While I agree with this definition, in my own personal thinking, I relate it beyond that. I believe this is important because of something we talked about in the first class: the idea of \u201cWriting as Thinking\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> This is because if you\u2019re writing to \u201cexplore, expand, combine and understand [ideas] more fully\u201d, then it\u2019s important to consider the role of your wider beliefs about the acquisition and processing of knowledge.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Methodology is the manner of conducting research. This ranges from large-n case studies to discourse analysis. It\u2019s the way you move forward with your puzzle in order to analyze your data and determine conclusions, regardless of the methodology that you choose. Methodology can also be thought of operationalizing your ontology within a specific setting because the way you determine what constitutes a fact and how you approach the idea of knowledge impacts how you approach your methodology, such as choosing a neopositivist or interpretive approach.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I think that it\u2019s impossible to be an objective observer. Everyone has their own biases and it\u2019s incredibly difficult to separate themselves from that. The traditional idea of the researcher as a completely objective individual whose sole affiliation is to the research, is simply untrue. It\u2019s for this reason that it is important to understand and confront our own biases. It is only through doing so that we can increase the validity of our research. This means that inevitably we are each a co-producer of the reality in which we exist. Through each of our actions we are impacting our environment, changing the way that we both interact it and others interact. This impacts my research because I need to understand the way in which I myself play a role in the formation of knowledge that is part of my research.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I believe we are able to make valid knowledge claims about things beyond that which are visible. This is incredibly important for research because frequently the subject of our research is not \u201cvisible\u201d to the researcher. Even if there\u2019s something a scholar is researching that they can see, the thing which they are actually researching; such as the causes or effects, are unlikely to be \u201cvisible\u201d to them. These can include social norms, infrastructure, customs and traditions, mechanisms of government and more. Even if the person were to look at an aspect that\u2019s also individually \u201cvisible\u201d, the connection to their initial event will likely not be, meaning that even then the subject of their research isn\u2019t entirely \u201cvisible\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> \u00a0Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Jospeh M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. <em>The Craft of Research.<\/em> Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 14.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Jospeh M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. <em>The Craft of Research.<\/em> Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 14.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I understand the concept of ontology as the way of thinking about approaching research through understanding the way in which you view the world and larger aspects of your personal philosophy. While it\u2019s the way of understanding what constitutes a fact, this is influenced by individuals\u2019 larger world perception and approach towards knowledge. It\u2019s the way of thinking about the ideas in general that inform how we go about research. This is why I connect ontology beyond the more constrained idea of \u201cwhat constitutes a fact\u201d. While I agree with this definition, in my own personal thinking, I relate it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":61,"date":"2018-09-25T21:10:32","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T01:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=61"},"modified":"2018-09-25T21:10:32","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T01:10:32","slug":"research-portfolio-post-2-mentor-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/09\/25\/research-portfolio-post-2-mentor-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #2: Mentor Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I \u00a0have met with my mentor: Professor Fontes, twice over the course of the semester. I met with him once on the 31<sup>st<\/sup> of August and once on September 7<sup>th<\/sup>. During the 1<sup>st<\/sup> meeting we discussed my general idea for my research project, as well as the perspective that he comes from as an ethnographer. He also gave me provided me with the course syllabus for the course that he teaches on the impacts of the cold war on modern day Latin America as reading material. After that meeting I had a new perspective as well as my concerns; such as separating the impact of the Cold War in Latin America. The second time we met, I had been thinking about the future of my project based on what we had discussed in class. When discussing the various methods of presenting research depending on your approach, I began to think about how I was currently picturing aspects of my own research. After discussing the ideas that I had with Professor Fontes, we considered where I should think about my research going in the future. We were in agreement that a small-n case study was most likely where this was headed based on our conversations. I need to examine an extended period of time, which limits the feasibility of choosing too many countries, making a large-n case study less feasible. I have generally been leaning towards the small-n case study. When considering the 3 articles for next class, Lisa Wedeen\u2019s<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> approach to writing is personally intriguing, but the small-n case study; \u201cIslamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a>, feels like a more functional format for my research. That being said, I have and continue to be open to whatever option I end up discovering is the best model for my research project in the future and have not yet made a decision. In addition, we discussed the different factors that could be beneficial to consider when choosing the countries for case studies. These were factors ranging from who they were colonized by to whether or not they are more or less developed in the modern day. We also discussed the possibility of me creating a \u201csnapshot\u201d of the countries that I chose at different points in time. As I move forward, I know that I need to continue reading and expanding my understanding of the broad scholarship on the subject, and intend to do so. However, I do have some questions and concerns I am trying to address. My mentor tod me that I should start trying to choose my countries, while Professor Boesenecker believes that I should remain broad and focus on the general scholarship In an attempt to follow both of their advice, I\u2019m remaining broad in my general research but also considering how different countries would fit into my research without making the specific decisions. I also am trying to figure out how I would want to go about articulating my research question.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Wedeen, Lisa. &#8220;Acting &#8220;As If&#8221;: Symbolic Politics and Social Control in Syria.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Comparative Studies in Society and History<\/em>\u00a040, no. 3 (1998): 503-23. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/179273.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Wiktorowicz, Quintan, ed. Islamic Activism : A Social Movement Theory Approach. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. Accessed September 9, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I \u00a0have met with my mentor: Professor Fontes, twice over the course of the semester. I met with him once on the 31st of August and once on September 7th. During the 1st meeting we discussed my general idea for my research project, as well as the perspective that he comes from as an ethnographer. He also gave me provided me with the course syllabus for the course that he teaches on the impacts of the cold war on modern day Latin America as reading material. After that meeting I had a new perspective as well as my concerns; such<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mentor","category-mentorship","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":54,"date":"2018-09-02T23:33:47","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T03:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/?p=54"},"modified":"2018-09-10T21:48:02","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T01:48:02","slug":"research-portfolio-post-1-research-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/2018\/09\/02\/research-portfolio-post-1-research-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #1: Research Interests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My topic area of interest is how the level of violence in Latin American Independence movements impacts the modern levels of stability and development in those countries. I originally became interested in this topic while in my History class in high school. Because I lived in Panama, some of our studies in history particularly focused on Latin American Independence movements. During that time, I became interested in the differences between the various movements, as well as the development of the various new countries after that time. Since then, I have continued to become increasingly interested in this. I have examined various articles about the different impacts of events that occurred throughout Latin American History. This ranges from articles such as <em>Lost Decades: Lessons from Post-Independence Latin America for Today\u2019s Africa<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\"><strong>[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> to <em>The Treatment of Children in the &#8220;Dirty War\u201d; Ideology, State Terrorism and the Abuse of Children in Argentina<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\"><strong>[2]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. This has shown me the different impacts of various events, however, I haven\u2019t found anything connecting it all the way from independence movements to the modern day; which is why that is the focus of my intended research.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Now that I am beginning my research, one of my puzzles that I have found is how to ensure that I can trust the data that I find. As I go back in history, accounts are increasingly likely to be more biased and less trustworthy, particularly in the case of quantitative data. For this reason, I intend to focus more on qualitative data for my research. However, this has raised another concern, how to ensure that the impacts I can see from independence movements are not being more impacted by other events. Or, due to the fact that I believe that later events will most likely impact the development and stability of these countries, how to determine the limit of where the impact of other events might overwhelm the impacts that I am originally tracking. This is a puzzle that I will have to answer in order to move forward in my research. For instance, I know that the Cold War is known to have a significant impact on the future development of Latin America.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a> The puzzle then becomes whether or not the events of the independence movements were significant enough in the further development of the governments to still be considered causational in the modern day levels of stability and development.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Another puzzle that I could examine later, beyond the bounds of this course, is the extent to which this applies to countries that are not in Latin America. I would be interested in determining if this is a more globally applicable phenomenon, especially since one of the articles I previously referenced was suggesting that lessons learned in Latin America could be applied to Africa as well.<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Bates, Robert, John Coatsworth, and Jeffrey Williamson. &#8220;Lost Decades: Lessons from Post-Independence Latin America for Todays Africa.&#8221;\u00a0National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2006. doi:10.3386\/w12610.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Suarez-Orozco, Marcelo M. &#8220;The Treatment of Children in the \u201cDirty War\u201d: Ideology, State Terrorism and the Abuse of Children in Argentina.&#8221;\u00a0Culture, Illness and Healing\u00a011 (1987): 227-46. doi:10.1007\/978-94-009-3393-4_12.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> Casta\u00f1eda, Jorge G. &#8220;Latin America and the End of the Cold War.&#8221;\u00a0World Policy Journal\u00a07, no. 3 (1990): 469-92. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/40209157.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> Bates, Robert, John Coatsworth, and Jeffrey Williamson. &#8220;Lost Decades: Lessons from Post-Independence Latin America for Todays Africa.&#8221;\u00a0National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2006. doi:10.3386\/w12610.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My topic area of interest is how the level of violence in Latin American Independence movements impacts the modern levels of stability and development in those countries. I originally became interested in this topic while in my History class in high school. Because I lived in Panama, some of our studies in history particularly focused on Latin American Independence movements. During that time, I became interested in the differences between the various movements, as well as the development of the various new countries after that time. Since then, I have continued to become increasingly interested in this. I have examined<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/katherineolsson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]