The inspiration behind this dissertation research derives from a simple, yet complex question, what makes the materiality of the computer screen you are reading this text different from the nearest wall or window you can look at? Is it the material? its connectivity? The size, or its volume? Are the sole attributes granted to a computer screen, a tablet, cell phone screen or any mobile and digital device that enable you to read this text, any different from to the plaster, paint, or any other material that surrounds you? The application of new technologies has been slow and underdeveloped in construction. In simple terms, building elements and materials have been considered as raw material or a tradeable commodity, but their potential to comprise Facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis is still unexplored, and it’s their data emitting potential what will ultimately make them more valuable. Advances on the internet have enabled the invention of a IoT connected technologies, all of which have evolved thanks to the miniaturisation of devices, but these have not been included in the built components of construction. The Covid-19 Pandemic has placed a great burden over the way in which buildings are occupied, operated and maintained, but crisis provide opportunities, and the global problem seemed to evidence the profound obsolescence and fragility of our built infrastructure and is in the light of this events that could be a turning point for the adoption and development of these technological solutions. This dissertation will revise the existent literature review, extract the clues for the elements and frameworks from the studied authors who used IoT solutions and applications and from that knowledge, conduct a survey to obtain responses and explore in what ways, to apply these parameters as a set of problems or challenges, which will need to be assessed, in the reopening of office facilities and venues to mitigate the impact of Covid-19.

This paper uses microsimulation techniques to estimate the impact of gender discrimination in the labor market on the poverty rates of Colombia. We build four counterfactual household income distributions and poverty rates, each one addressing a particular feature of the inequality present in the Colombian labor market. Then, we compared this poverty rates to the observed one to compute the impact of each scenario on poverty reduction. We use data from the Quality of life survey for the years 2015 and 2003. Our findings show that a reduction of the inequality between women and men in their participation in the labor market is the most important feature, with the highest potential to reduce poverty. Este artículo utiliza técnicas de microsimulación para estimar el impacto de la discriminación de género en el mercado laboral en las tasas de pobreza de Colombia. Construimos cuatro distribuciones contrafactuales del ingreso de los hogares y de las tasas de pobreza, cada una de las cuales aborda una característica particular de la desigualdad presente en el mercado laboral colombiano. Luego, comparamos estas tasas de pobreza con la tasa observada para calcular el impacto de cada escenario en la reducción de la pobreza. Usamos datos de la encuesta de calidad de vida de los años 2015 y 2003. Nuestros hallazgos muestran que la reducción de la desigualdad entre mujeres y hombres en la participación en el mercado laboral es la característica más importante, con el mayor potencial para reducir la pobreza.

In 2007, Mexico City legalized abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. By doing so, it became the first and only state in Mexico where abortion on demand is legal. In this paper, I use this natural experiment to estimate the effects of abortion legalization on child and maternal health. I perform Difference-In-Differences estimates using information from all births and deaths occurred between 2002 and 2012. My findings suggest that the change in the abortion legislation in Mexico City reduced the Infant Mortality Rate and the Under 5 Mortality Rate by approximately 2.3 and 2.4 deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively. Moreover, for the Maternal Mortality Rate I find that the estimations range from -5.49 to -6 deaths per 100,000 live births. These results are validated by the use of a more accurate control group generated by the Synthetic Control Method. To the best of my knowledge, this if the first paper that attempts to examine the effects of abortion legalization in Mexico City on child health. En el 2007, Ciudad de México legalizó el aborto en las 12 primeras semanas de gestación. Al hacerlo, se convirtió en el primero y único estado del país en donde el aborto voluntario es legal. En este artículo utilizo este experimento natural para estimar los efectos de la legalización del aborto en la salud materno infantil. Realizo estimaciones de Diferencias en Diferencias utilizando información de todos los nacimientos y muertes ocurridos entre 2002 y 2012. Mis hallazgos sugieren que el cambio en la legislación relativa el aborto en la Ciudad de México redujo la tasa de mortalidad Infantil y la tasa de mortalidad en menores de 5 años en aproximadamente 2.3 y 2.4 muertes por cada 1.000 nacidos vivos, respectivamente. Además, para la tasa de mortalidad materna, encuentro que las estimaciones oscilan entre -5,49 y -6 muertes por 100.000 nacidos vivos. Estos resultados se validan mediante el uso de un grupo de control más preciso, utilizando la metodología de control sintético. Según mi conocimiento, este es el primer artículo que intenta examinar los efectos de la legalización del aborto en la Ciudad de México sobre la salud infantil.

Agriculture was the engine of growth for a more established communities, a symbol of progress that became an important step forward to a civilization. However, the growth of cities has been weakened the reciprocal relationships that existed between human settlements and farming. In Beijing’s green belt for instance, the urbanization phenomena colonized productive landscapes where farmland and nature areas have been replaced by dense cityscapes. Caochangdi village in northeast Beijing, illustrates a condition of a place which needs physical and social integration with the green belt where it is located. In this sense, this thesis describes a proposal that take advantage of Urban farming, bringing community together around food production, ecological practices and the capacity of environment transformation through the strategy based on The Continuous productive urban landscapes (CPULs). From this perspective, farming practice wherein an urban fringe context, pretends improve environmental and living conditions of their residents by recovering and adapting existing open areas that will work as a productive public spaces for them and also for people from metropolitan area, finding an alternative space to interact with agriculture but at the same time with people’s neighborhood. CPULs implementation will have the potential to be replicated along the green belt area through an agricultural infrastructure highly adaptive formed by scaffolding, integrating other settlements and recovering its former function towards a sustainable area. This will be part of dynamic of daily resident’s life, with the aim of building community identity and raising social cohesion among them and metropolitan people that visit and use the new area improved by urban farming. La agricultura fue el motor de crecimiento para comunidades más consolidadas, un símbolo de progreso que se convirtió en un gran paso hacia la civilización. Sin embargo, el crecimiento de las ciudades ha debilitado la relación reciproca que existía entre los asentamientos humanos y la agricultura. En el cinturón verde de Beijing por ejemplo, el fenómeno de la urbanización colonizó paisajes productivos donde áreas naturales y de cultivo han sido reemplazados por paisajes densos de ciudad. Villa Caochangdi al noreste de Beijing, ilustra la condición de un lugar que necesita una integración física y social al cinturón verde donde se encuentra ubicada. En este sentido, la esta tesis describe una propuesta que se aprovecha de la agricultura urbana, reuniendo a la comunidad alrededor de la producción de alimento, prácticas ecológicas y la capacidad de transformación del medio ambiente a través de la estrategia basada en Paisajes productivos continuos urbanos (CPULs). Desde está perspectiva, la practica de la agricultura en los limites urbanos, pretende mejorar las condiciones ambientales y de vida de sus residentes, recuperando y adaptando espacios abiertos existentes que servirían como espacios públicos productivos para ellos y para las personas del área metropolitana que visitarían y usarían las nuevas zonas mejoradas por la agricultura urbana.

Abstract: This study on Venezuelan migration to post-conflict Colombia aims to explain how the reconstruction from conflict and forced migration processes have impacted women. It poses the question of how reconstruction approaches of Colombian and other Latin American civil society groups of women apply to Venezuelan migrant women in the border. Colombia hosts roughly 2 million Venezuelan migrants who have stayed despite the persistent violence caused partially by the turmoil of its politics in the post- conflict aftermath. Using testimonial accounts, the dissertation examines the distinct experiences of Venezuelan migrant women in the borderlands of Colombia. It reveals a blending of crises as the source of support networks. The imminent need to provide humanitarian assistance transformed in the creation of a system that opens the way to integration. From the emergency declaration, addendums to the law for Venezuelans to access the health care system to the adaptation for economic dynamics, women migrants find in Colombia a space for restart. Feasible peace processes in the region have gendered roots. This study claims that despite the recrudescence of violence in Colombia, Venezuelan migrants have an immaterial connection based on historic social, cultural roots that make it their country of preference over other border countries. Findings demonstrate there was an empirical gap in identifying one of the major triggers of the migration crisis. The binational tensions of August 2015 marked the starting point of one of the largest diasporas of the 21st Century.

Abstract: This paper synthesizes a Cooperative Inquiry conducted in collaboration with Colombian Deaf women to question mainstream and monolithic definitions of Inclusion. Through facilitated dialogues and creative methodologies, the study aimed to explore alternatives and new understandings of inclusion that recognises different experiences of gender, disability, and Deafhood. Throughout six chapters, it addresses the question of how the notion of inclusion can better recognize and embrace the experiences of these Deaf women, delving simultaneously into unexpected findings concerning methodological considerations while conducting action research (AR) with this population. Overall, this process sheds light on experiences of intersectional exclusion and inclusion, while also discussing the effectiveness of AR methods employed to foster conscientisation within this population. Resumen: Este artículo sintetiza una Investigación Cooperativa llevada a cabo en colaboración con mujeres Sordas colombianas con el propósito de cuestionar definiciones convencionales y monolíticas de inclusión. A través de diálogos facilitados y metodologías creativas, este estudio tuvo como objetivo explorar concepciones nuevas y alternativas de la inclusión que reconozcan diversas experiencias de género, discapacidad y Sordedad. A lo largo de seis capítulos, aborda la pregunta de cómo la noción de inclusión puede reconocer y abrazar mejor las vivencias de estas mujeres, adentrándose al mismo tiempo en hallazgos inesperados relacionados con consideraciones metodológicas del llevar a cabo investigación-acción participativa (IAP) con esta población. Este proceso, resalta experiencias de exclusión e inclusión interseccional, a la vez que discute la efectividad de los métodos IAP empleados para fomentar la concientización dentro de esta población.

Abstract: This MA thesis researches collective memory and the way it is archived. Starting from the idea of Colombia as a country without memory, the inquiry questions history as a discipline that linearly presents events, leaving important realities aside, and explores folklore as a more complete alternative to remembering past knowledge. As a timeless, anonymous, and non-institutionalized form of cultural expression, folklore can be seen as a living archive of beliefs and memories. Its form of archiving knowledge and memory is presented as an embodied tool to access and keep passing on the history of a nation. Resumen: Esta tesis de maestría investiga la memoria colectiva y la forma en que es archivada. Partiendo de la idea de Colombia como un país sin memoria, en esta investigación se cuestiona la Historia como una disciplina que presenta linealmente los acontecimientos, dejando de lado realidades importantes, y explora el folclore como una alternativa más completa de reconocer conocimientos del pasado. Como forma de expresión cultural atemporal, anónima y no institucionalizada, el folclore puede verse como un archivo vivo de creencias y recuerdos. Su forma de recolectar y traspasar conocimiento y memoria se presenta como una herramienta encarnada para acceder y transmitir la historia de una nación.

Abstract: The mountain and inland areas of the Italian peninsula offer forms of rural life deeply rooted in their topographic conformation. At the same time, today they are characterized by dynamics of strong marginalization, processes established starting from the economic boom after the Second World War, and which have not yet been reversed. The Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, and the specific case of Monte Cimone, are structured through a constellation of towns, villages, small hamlets, and borgate which for centuries have constituted their social-cultural, regional, and national backbone. The Apennines today would not exist, or they would remain a mere memory if the horizontal connections present between the plain and the mountain belt were missing. The underlying question during the entire research was: in these fragile contexts, what can and what should be the role of landscape architecture? And how can the physical design of a place be the means for the consolidation of sociocultural and economic dynamics capable of bringing out positive and sustainable development trends? In this sense, the thesis path tries to configure plausible possibilities in which communities support the landscape, and at the same time how the landscape can support the communities. The structure of the thesis brings out how it was developed. The composition started with the chapter Fragile Mountains, which includes the literature studied to support the research. Continuing, there is the Cartographic framework, which consists of the graphic designs developed for understanding the area under study and refers to the numerous site visits carried out over the last year through the construction of a photographic atlas. Then, the project definition of Communities supporting Landscape is developed, which contains the explanation of the project proposal defined through two pilot projects: Socio-Cultural Infrastructures and Re-Inhabited Heritage. Through the recognition and enhancement of the existing, the thesis project elaborates on the basic conditions for the consolidation of the habitability and infrastructure of the landscape of Monte Cimone. A research approach based on sustainable territorial regeneration is recognized. The developed scenario makes specific reference to the cooperative mountain community, a place for socio-cultural innovations. The intentions declared in the pilot projects answer in terms of the offer of services and new job opportunities. The strategies and motivations materialize in a punctual landscape project. The work carried out wants to be perceived as a starting point, research capable of generating indirect positive effects, both in the academic panorama and on the reference mountain communities.

Abstract: The objective of this thesis is to demonstrate that resilience is not a neutral and apolitical concept. For this, I focus on deconstructing the representations, values, meanings, rationalities, and references of desire embedded in discourses, images and development projects promoting resilience in the Cauca, Colombia. Based on ethnographic evidence, I argue that resilience is a discursive mechanism attached to a cultural project - modernity/coloniality- that seeks to maintain structures of power through the reproduction of colonial sociocultural hierarchies between those who are resilient, located in ‘developed’ countries, and those who are vulnerable, living in the poor periphery. Although the promotion of resilience capacities has been enhanced by the increasing feeling of risk exposure, I found that the Misak and Nasa communities have Other forms of understanding and facing crises. Based on their own cosmologies and worldviews, these communities developed the concept of pervivencia aiming to recognise their capacity and right to construct the conditions and strategies to face uncertainties and risks outside modern Eurocentric epistemology. Ignoring the existence of Other forms of thinking and being has lead development organisations to misinterpret how people face uncertainties and crises in rural areas of the Cauca. It is for this reason that I suggest that the concept of resilience does not offer the best analytical tool to analyse Misak and Nasa practices for facing risks as it cannot incorporate Other possible worlds and logics. Resumen: El objetivo de esta tesis es demostrar que la resiliencia no es un concepto neutro y apolítico. Para ello, me centro en deconstruir las representaciones, valores, significados, racionalidades y referentes del deseo incrustados en discursos, imágenes y proyectos de desarrollo que promueven la resiliencia en el Cauca, Colombia. Con base en evidencia etnográfica, sostengo que la resiliencia es un mecanismo discursivo adscrito a un proyecto cultural -modernidad/colonialidad- que busca mantener estructuras de poder a través de la reproducción de jerarquías socioculturales coloniales entre quienes son resilientes, ubicados en países ""desarrollados"", y quienes son vulnerables, que viven en la periferia pobre. Aunque la promoción de las capacidades de resiliencia se ha visto reforzada por la creciente sensación de exposición al riesgo, descubrí que las comunidades misak y nasa tienen otras formas de entender y afrontar las crisis. Basándose en sus propias cosmologías y cosmovisiones, estas comunidades desarrollaron el concepto de pervivencia con el objetivo de reconocer su capacidad y derecho a construir las condiciones y estrategias para afrontar las incertidumbres y los riesgos al margen de la epistemología eurocéntrica moderna. Ignorar la existencia de Otras formas de pensar y de ser ha llevado a las organizaciones de desarrollo a malinterpretar la forma como la gente enfrenta las incertidumbres y las crisis en las zonas rurales del Cauca. Es por esta razón que sugiero que el concepto de resiliencia no ofrece la mejor herramienta analítica para analizar las prácticas Misak y Nasa para enfrentar los riesgos, ya que no puede incorporar Otros mundos y lógicas posibles.

Abstract: This dissertation examines an unusual case of policy transfer of Social Impact Bonds in Colombia, which on this occasion was at the forefront of adopting a social policy innovation in the Latin American region. The theoretical accounts of diffusion mechanisms, often used in the scholarship for explaining diffusion waves of social policies, are assessed to identify the causal mechanisms driving the adoption of this policy. The dissertation employed a within-case study method to trace the causal mechanisms and how they play out within the SIBs adoption process in Colombia. The dissertation finds that the adoption of this social policy for a recent innovator in the region was pushed by various causal mechanisms of external and normative pressures and bounded learning, where cognitive heuristics that shaped the diffusion of social policies in the region did not work as theorized. Moreover, to variable degrees, domestic interest groups' involvement is traced along these diffusion mechanisms. These organizations, therefore, can be agents of policy transfer by influencing and advocating policy choices, carrying out the learning process of social policy innovations, and influencing the design and delivery of social services linked to such innovations. Resumen: Esta disertación examina un caso inusual de transferencia de políticas de Bonos de Impacto Social en Colombia, que en esta ocasión estuvo a la vanguardia de la adopción de una innovación de política social en la región latinoamericana. Para identificar los mecanismos causales que impulsaron la adopción de esta política, se evalúan los relatos teóricos de los mecanismos de difusión, a menudo utilizados en el ámbito académico para explicar las olas de difusión de las políticas sociales. La tesis emplea un método de estudio de caso para rastrear los mecanismos causales y cómo se desarrollan en el proceso de adopción de los BIS en Colombia. La tesis concluye que la adopción de esta política social por un innovador reciente en la región se vio impulsada por varios mecanismos causales de presiones externas y normativas y aprendizaje limitado, en los que la heurística cognitiva que dio forma a la difusión de las políticas sociales en la región no funcionó como se había teorizado. Además, en grados variables, la participación de los grupos de interés nacionales se rastrea a lo largo de estos mecanismos de difusión. Estas organizaciones, por lo tanto, pueden ser agentes de transferencia de políticas al influir y defender las opciones políticas, llevar a cabo el proceso de aprendizaje de las innovaciones de política social e influir en el diseño y la prestación de los servicios sociales vinculados a dichas innovaciones.