Abstract: Water is considered a cross-cutting resource for all the ecosystem services (ES) types, namely: for the provision of drinking water and food; regulation through flood control; guarantee of a suitable habitat for fauna and flora; and inspiration for many cultures and their intangible heritage around the planet. The evaluation of water ecosystem services has drawn much attention both in the political arena and the scientific community. Still, there is not a consensus in the approach of evaluating them. Recent notions suggest that the study of ES cannot be assessed from a single discourse but through comprehensive frameworks. Therefore, the main objective of this thesis was to evaluate the water provision as an ecosystem service of the Conservation Area of Guanacaste (ACG, for its acronym in Spanish) by adapting an Ecosystem Services (ES)-based approach with four core elements: (1) effects on human well-being, (2) bio-physical underpinning of service delivery, (3) transdisciplinarity, and (4) assessment of services for decision-making. I have deepened in core element two by assessing all the physically-based processes involved in the hydrologic cycle, which generates the quantity of water available for the study region. As a result, here I present the first calibrated and validated Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for the entire ACG, including the land use and cover change (LUCC) impact on water availability. I tested seven different climatic and geospatial information resources to establish the best input data to build the SWAT model. The model showed excellent performance for both the calibration period (r2 = 0.81, NSE = 0.75, and br2 = 0.80) and validation period (r2 = 0.85, NSE = 0.82, and br2 = 0.85). I have found that the ACG has a high potential for the provision of water as an ecosystem service. I also identified the spatial and temporal patterns and changes in the water availability in this region between 1980 - 2019. I deepened in the vegetation-water dynamic understanding by evaluating the land use cover change (LUCC), finding that the recovery of forests, and decrease in grasslands and agricultural territories have a positive effect on the water availability also associated with exceptional events in Costa Rica’s history that put in place the conditions for the recovery of natural resources. I also demonstrated the advantages of using spatially explicit and physically-based models, such as SWAT, to quantify water provision as an ecosystem service. Finally, this work complements the baseline for future applications of ES-based approaches in this region.

Abstract: To ensure a sustainable future, climate and biodiversity emergencies must be addressed together. Photovoltaic energy has emerged in the EU as a very attractive alternative to conventional energy production to achieve the objectives of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. However, clean energy sources can also have significant negative impacts on the environment and conflict with other interests in the territory, such as habitat fragmentation and contamination, loss of productive soil and pressure on agricultural uses. We have created and evaluated two contrasting conflict scenarios between the efficiency of photovoltaic production, agricultural uses and biodiversity by using a sensitivity analysis of hotspots and coldspots of conflict. Our results showed that a low efficiency scenario was the one that reduced the incidence of conflicts the most, but also the one that required slightly larger areas that are also more expensive to reach an exploitation target. We consider that the conflict analysis provides a guarantee of the areas suitable for photovoltaic projects in scenarios of low conflict with land uses and conservation interests and it contributes to the sustainable development of society, since it identifies the conflicts generated by the most important productive activities such as the provision of basic services as energy and food. We emphasize this work does not indicate all the areas of opportunities for the installation of photovoltaics, since this work focused on analyzing two extreme scenarios, it is necessary to evaluate new scenarios considering the complexity of the trade-offs.

Resumen: La crisis mundial causada por la pandemia puso sobre la mesa cuestiones acerca de lo que es esencial y no para nosotros como especie humana. Encuestas realizadas durante la pandemia evidenciaban que si bien el consumo de producciones culturales había aumentado a través de plataformas digitales, las personas catalogaban como no esencial el trabajo del artista. Si bien el arte y la cultura estaban más presentes que nunca en el centro de nuestras vidas aun cuando todo había parado, una especie de disonancia en la percepción de la gente se veía reflejada en las encuestas. Con un título inspirado en las canciones más escuchadas en Spotify durante los primeros meses de la pandemia, (Dance Monkey de Tones and I y The Box de Roddy Rich); Monos danzantes en una caja, alude a lo que fuimos durante el confinamiento: Monos danzantes encerrados en cuatro paredes, y hace un recorrido por el papel del arte en tiempos de crisis. Cuando consideramos el artista como una profesión no esencial, la pregunta que surge es, ¿que entendemos por arte? Acaso ¿quiénes componían las canciones que escuchábamos en Spotify, los guiones o las bandas sonoras de las películas que veíamos en Netflix? ¿Qué factores sociales, económicos, políticos, tecnológicos y sociales influencian nuestra percepción y como damos valor al arte y la cultura? Dentro de la civilización occidental (y esto incluye a una Latinoamérica altamente influenciada por la tradición cultural europea) cultura es entendida entre la tensión del concepto antropológico (cultura como forma de vida), y cultura equiparada al arte: el conocimiento de una serie de objetos culturales privilegiados, un sistema creado en el siglo XVIII ligado a disciplinas como historia del arte, estética y mercado. Este ha sido el discurso dominante durante siglos que ha conceptualizado el arte como algo elitista producido por genios y asequible solo a unos cuantos. A esto se contrapone la visión de la antropología y el psicoanálisis que nos muestran como el arte es una dimensión fundamental en el ser humano. La separación del arte en una esfera aparte de la vida cotidiana, hace además que constantemente se tenga que abogar por el valor de este. En Reino Unido anualmente se realizan decenas de investigaciones acerca del valor del arte y la cultura en un esfuerzo por instrumentalizarlos y para justificar la adjudicación presupuestal. El arte entonces se utiliza para satisfacer intereses externos generalmente políticos como bienestar de la comunidad, diplomacia cultural (soft power), creación de identidad nacional o como una herramienta de transformación social. Otros de los factores que han influenciado nuestra relación con el arte, es por un lado la apropiación de la cultura por parte del capitalismo, quien la utiliza para transmitir sus ideologías y por otro lado la forma en la que consumimos, en donde las producciones culturales son simplemente un medio para sumar clicks y reproducciones, permitiendo que mucho del contenido se vuelva “gratis”, e invisibilizando y trayendo a menos el trabajo de los creadores y artistas. (Recordemos que el verdadero producto es el consumidor y su atención). Después de exponer este panorama general, hago un llamado a volver a entender el arte desde su esencia particular como vector fundamental en el ser humano. ¿Que pasaría en un mundo sin arte? Geertz nos da luces: “No ocurriría nada especialmente destacable (...) De hecho, la sociedad no se desmoronaría; algunas de las cosas que experimentaron simplemente no podrían expresadas -y quizás, después de algún tiempo, tampoco podrían ser experimentadas y, por tanto, la vida sería más gris”. El arte nos devuelve la humanidad cuando solo somos monos danzantes en una caja, experimentando la vida a través de luces enceguecedoras. (pantallas de ordenadores, teléfonos móviles, televisores e Ipads).

Abstract: This paper aims to show the partial and general equilibrium (GE) effects of the free trade agreement (FTA) between the European Union, Colombia and Peru, which entered into force in 2013. The structural gravity theoretical framework, combined with the Fast Poisson estimation with high dimensional fixed effects (PPMLHDFE), provides robust evidence favouring international trade. The main findings reveal welfare gains for the agreement members and a disproportionally larger volume of exports for the Andean countries. Based upon the WTO methodology "An Advanced Guide To Trade Policy Analysis: The Structural Gravity Model", the calculation of the general equilibrium impacts of regional trade agreements (RTAs) explains that due to trade liberalization consumers and producers benefit contrary to the solid protectionism. Resumen: Este artículo tiene como objetivo mostrar los efectos de equilibrio parcial y general (EG) del tratado de libre comercio (TLC) entre la Unión Europea, Colombia y Perú, los cuales entraron en vigencia en 2013. El marco teórico del modelo de gravedad estructural, combinado con las estimación rápida de Poisson con efectos fijos de alta dimensión (PPMLHDFE), proporciona pruebas sólidas que favorecen el comercio internacional. Los principales hallazgos revelan ganancias en términos de bienestar para los miembros del acuerdo y un volumen de exportaciones desproporcionadamente mayor para los países andinos. Con base en la metodología de la OMC " Una guía avanzada para el análisis de las políticas comerciales: el modelo de gravedad estructural", el cálculo de los impactos de equilibrio general de los acuerdos comerciales regionales (ACR) explica que debido a la liberalización comercial los consumidores y productores se benefician contrariamente al proteccionismo sólido.

Abstract: The urgent need to assure access to animal protein and to protect the food security worldwide has led the animal production and fishery sector to a huge problem around the decisions they made based on the ethical perception. That is why, since the beginning, the science of animal welfare is concerned about the ideal conditions for animals in production systems. In aquaculture, for example, the operational welfare indicators have been used to establish the level of welfare that fishes have when they are cultured. Nevertheless, currently there is a knowledge gap regarding many fish farming species. For European sea bass and Gilthead sea bream there is not a list of indicators to determine the welfare conditions in intensive culture. This thesis was based on the review of scientific literature about indicators in commercial species, such as salmon. Also, the implementation of semi structured interviews in Culmarex, an aquaculture intensive company, make possible the selection and feedback about the application of operational welfare indicators in farms for European sea bass and Gilthead sea bream take into account biological, ethological and physiological aspects. To improve the work at farms, the traffic light approach was applied, expecting it to make it easier for the detection of indicators and to monitor the application of corrective measures in case of need. As a result, the production process as well as fish welfare will be improved. Resumen: La necesidad de garantizar el suministro de proteína de origen animal y de salvaguardar la seguridad alimentaria mundial, ha llevado a que las producciones agropecuarias y el sector acuícola hayan tenido que recurrir a grandes dilemas éticos al momento de priorizar sus decisiones; es por esto qué, desde el inicio de la ciencia del bienestar animal se han discutido las condiciones de crianza de los animales en producción. En el caso de la acuicultura, se ha recurrido al uso de los indicadores operacionales de bienestar para establecer el grado de “bien-estar” con el que están siendo criados los peces; sin embargo, en el caso de la lubina y la dorada, hasta el momento no se tiene un listado que permita cumplir con esta finalidad. Este trabajo consistió en la revisión bibliográfica de los indicadores usados en algunas especies de interés comercial como el salmón. Además de la selección de los parámetros adecuados para la lubina y la dorada, en función de su biología, etología y fisiología mediante la aplicación de entrevistas semiestructuradas al personal de Culmarex, una empresa de cría intensiva, en donde se pudo obtener información sobre la viabilidad de aplicación en granja. Todo esto, además de permitir la determinación de los indicadores operacionales de bienestar para las especies objeto de este trabajo, llevó a la elaboración de varias matrices siguiendo el método de “traffic lights”, el cual facilitará la monitorización y seguimiento de los indicadores y sus medidas correctivas, redundado en un mejoramiento de las condiciones de crianza de ambas especies.

Abstract: Law 160 of 1994 in Colombia marks a point of transit between the sterile attempts for agrarian reform in the 20th century and a series of market-based land policies. However, this law also marks the end of a cycle of peasant mobilization, especially in border areas, and with it a partial recognition of the peasant settlers is achieved, through what the law named Peasant Reserve Zones (PRZ). These zones allow basically three main things to the inhabitants of frontier zones: the titling of the land that the settlers have transformed and that they informally possess, the closure of the agricultural frontier through a control of the amount of land that can be owned inside the zone, and the peasant governance of the zone. The peasant governance is manifested through processes of territorial ordering, in which the peasant associations that impulse each zone regulates the social and economic activities of it. The majority of the academic literature that has analyzed the PRZ in the last 25 years has focused its attention in particular zones treating them as case studies. Through these cases, this literature has presented the PRZ as a reaction of the peasant communities to the processes of capital accumulation and capital penetration in the Colombian countryside. Nevertheless, this literature has done this analysis without considering in depth the variation in the strategies the PRZ have used in developing a repertoire of contention against the implementation of land policies before the law 160 was issued and after it, and focusing mainly in the critical geography discussion of the dynamics of territorialization. Through a sociological and historical analysis, this paper offers an initial exploration of the dynamic process of formation of a repertoire of contention of the Colombian PRZ. This paper analyzes in a parallel way the formation of the Colombian state and the formation of a peasant social movement. It concludes arguing that the PRZ have developed two repertoires of contention through which they have at the same time resist and create the Colombian state, and 5 strategies that have enabled them a margin of maneuver between the two repertoires.

Resumen: Esta publicación hace un recorrido y se sumerge en el fascinante mundo de los festivales de música en vivo. Para cualquier persona interesada en producir un festival de música como el "Festival Estéreo Picnic", esta tesis es una guía con recomendaciones claras sobre los principales elementos a tener en cuenta para producir un festival de música enfocado en música Latina y sus diferentes variaciones musicales. Las recomendaciones pueden ser aplicadas y adaptadas a cualquier ciudad del mundo. La tesis analiza los festivales de música más importantes del mundo y hace un listado de elementos y características que deben ser tomados en cuenta por el productor para lograr un evento exitoso. La publicación incluye un estudio demográfico de la población latina en la ciudad de Nueva York, ciudad donde proponga hacer el evento.

Abstract: From an ‘Amerindian Perspectivist’ methodology, I propose to unveil the epistemology of shamanism towards a new resolution of Western artificiality. Departing from the counteranthropological approach traversing Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s work in Cannibal Metaphysics, addressing the necessity for a constant decolonization of thought as todays ontological anarchism, the direction I will pursue entangles the necessity to put into question two foundational aspects of modern Western dialectics: the constitution of selfhood, and the inherent consequence of that process as objectification of otherness, including the mineral ecosystem, and by extension: the artificial. Through a subtle process of weaving theoretical references, I will create a set of conversations between shamanism, decoloniality, neurology, and automation, that questioning the imperative paradigm of the symbolical as extension of the anthropocentric meta-projection of the human project, locates the potentiality of ‘the return to earth by the modern subject’ as a movement (the return to earth) Indigenous communities have always been inhabiting through the opposite operation of Western dialectics: personification, and the potential landscape to come from the consequential ‘Indigenization of the Modern imperative’. To unpack Amerindian Perspectivism as methodological approach, the task consists in resolving as structural direction; the entanglement deployed from Viveiros de Castro to his own discipline: anthropology , to resolve a counter-anthropology; in the case of this investigation, directed towards the intuition of a question not yet answered, that question being: how the artificial could be resolved through and after Indigenous Perspectivism? For that matter, quoting the Brazilian Anthropologist, who’s thesis will be the fundamental matrix to pursue the constellation I will be knitting, I will concentrate in ‘the who of things’ to inhabit what the Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa calls ‘the far-away thinking’ in his book The falling sky, a bio-semiotical entanglement signaling as non dissociated rationalization, to direct as departing point the deformation of our European conceptual apparatus, towards a different resolution of the artificial, question involving a different resolution of the computational mega-structure, question for a possible self in automation from a counter-development artificiality, but also, a different resolution of the methodological approach towards the construction of a Western thesis. Basically, in the encounter with Amerindian myth as another form of anthropology, we will open the construction of the Western dialectical frame as myth, and far away from a grotesque simplification, we will merge into Amerindian perspectivism to bring from that space, the primordial matrix to question the construction of our Western epistemic methods, the construction of our disciplines, and in that extension, another resolution of the artificial. For that matter, as weekly dynamic, I will be meeting in Ancestral territory; todays Colombia, the traditional doctors: Luis Yunda from the NASA community, Eduard Gil Jimenez from the Yanakuna community, Misael Tumbo from the NASA community, Joaquin Viluche from the NASA community, Julio Caldón from the Kokonuko community, and Manuel Sisco from the NASA community, looking in those conversations with the shamans, to open the transitional state of an epistemology of relation, looking to envision a resolution towards a shamanic epistemology of Western artificiality, and from this matrix of relations; another artificiality to come.

Abstract: In an effort to improve coverage of the school system at the primary and secondary education levels, schools in various countries have introduced partial school days. This policy is supposed to allow two or more shifts of students to use the same infrastructure and be instructed by the same teachers, but reduces the amount of time children spend in school. Despite some positive effects on coverage, two-shift schooling has negative impacts on various learning outcomes, such as students’ performance on standardized tests. Using longitudinal data from Pruebas Saber in Colombia, this paper explores the impact of a full day of school on performance in the mathematics and language scores. Initial OLS regression results are contrasted with fixed effects models. Some effect heterogeneity is explored as well. Positive and statistically significant effects are found across all models. However, there are considerable variations in the size of the effect. First, effects on the mathematics scores are consistently larger than effects on language. Second, full-day schooling is found to make more of a difference in contexts where resources outside the classroom are less available, such as public schools which tend to be underfunded, rural areas that tend to be underserved by public services, and in children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Differences in school quality have surprising interaction effects with the length of the school day. Additional instruction time is shown to make the most difference at both ends of the quality spectrum.

Abstract: The following text explores the potential business opportunities of international performing arts markets for an emerging Colombian producing company, Media Naranja (MN), which I founded, and currently manage. This research document begins with the definition of four key terms which have been essential for my development as a professional producer and are the foundation for the conceptual framework of Entrepreneurship, Strategic Planning, Funding Models, and Networking; examined concepts from scholars such as Tom Aegeson, Lidia Varbanova, Ivan Misner and Octavio Arbeláez. In the second part of this text, I discuss key learning points through the master's degree and how they have led me to frame my practice as a producer in an international environment. Then, the third is a glance at the cultural landscape of performing arts markets, its definition and purpose, emphasising the Performing Arts Market of the Atlantic South (Mercado de las Artes Performativas del Atlántico Sur –MAPAS). The fourth part is a SWOT analysis on a proposed project to participate in MAPAS 2020, on behalf of MN, as a producer and tour booker of one Colombian theatre piece. Based on the above, I conclude with a professional and personal plan that encompasses twelve months. This plan has been shaped by the experience along the course, the development of my company and my personal goals. Resumen: El siguiente texto explora las oportunidades comerciales potenciales de los mercados internacionales de las artes escénicas para una productora colombiana emergente como lo es Media Naranja (MN), la cual fundé y actualmente administro. Este documento de investigación comienza con la definición de cuatro términos clave que han sido fundamentales para mi desarrollo como productora profesional y son la base del marco conceptual: Emprendimiento, Planificación Estratégica, Modelos de Financiamiento y Networking; conceptos examinados por académicos como Tom Aegeson, Lidia Varbanova, Ivan Misner y Octavio Arbeláez. En la segunda parte de este texto, se analizan los conceptos claves de aprendizaje a través del máster y cómo me han llevado a enmarcar mi práctica como productora en un entorno internacional. Luego, el tercero es una mirada al panorama cultural de los mercados de las artes escénicas, su definición y propósito, haciendo énfasis en el Mercado de las Artes Escénicas del Atlántico Sur (MAPAS). La cuarta parte es un análisis DOFA sobre una propuesta de proyecto para participar en MAPAS 2020, en representación de MN, como productora y gestora de una gira de una obra de teatro colombiano. Con base en lo anterior, concluyo con un plan profesional y personal que abarca doce meses. Este plan ha sido moldeado por la experiencia a lo largo de la maestría, el desarrollo de mi empresa y mis objetivos personales.