LAS 470 Homework and Reflections

In 2016, I had the opportunity to travel to Managua on a trip with my church (it was kind of voluntourism, but kind of a missions trip) and the first day we saw the more scenic parts of the capital. On the way, we passed this: a crazy colorful and weird array of metal statutes with trees and a traffic circle featuring none other than Hugo Chavez. At the time, I didn't who Hugo Chavez was aside from the late-night ramblings of Sean Hannity in middle school through my door (thanks, dad.) I certainly had no idea what these statutes were for and how they were so interconnected to political alliances. So, I wanted to investigate the past, present and future of these odd pieces of art: why they were created, what the public thinks about them and what (if any) plans the city or the country has for them in the future. Here is a disjunct summary of everything I found. There was a blog that are clearly from a tourist recounting the "weirdest places to visit in Managua" and ...

This piece explores an issue that is important but one that I haven't really thought about: tourism for the purposes of sex. I found the most interesting parts of the article to be her discussions on Cuban identities, state sponsorship and control of certain representations, and how her status as a researcher limited her ability to follow "the book" of research methods. On page 15, Daigle provides four roles that Cubans are allowed to play in society: "the black/animalistic man, the white/masculine man, the white/virtuous woman, and the black/sensualized woman. The culture of jineterisma and jinteras  stereotypically, by Daigle's account, fall into the fourth category, but that concept is much more fluid. She does call the division of these social dynamics into quadrants an oversimplification, since the nature of "sexual-affective relationships" is quite hard to categorize. The spectrum could include everything from prostitution to long-lasting romant...