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Pablo Neruda said that "I Need the Sea Because It Teaches Me" and after time, science proved him right. Oceans are of great importance in ecological (climate regulation, biodiversity) and societal (economic activities, environmental services, and residence) terms. Healthy oceans are therefore fundamental to achieving global sustainability. The European Union has identified 'blue growth', or the sustainable use of the oceans, as a core societal challenge for its research programmes (e.g. Horizon 2020). However, at present, we still have a challenge to promote ocean literacy in order to help citizens understand the influence of the oceans on our lives and the impacts of our behaviour on it. Following this approach, an educational movement, called Ocean Literacy, started over 10 years ago in the USA. The main stimulus for this stream was the recognition of a clear absence of marine knowledge within the general population (Aqua TT, 2015). In this sense, given our dependence on the health of the ocean for a wide range of ecosystem services, the 'meaning' and 'attachment' to the largest ecosystem on Earth must be assumed extensively by various sectors. As a key interface, marine tourism has a key role to play in achieving this. Tourism research of twenty first century is defined by the motivations, behaviours and choices of the travellers due to the fact that recreation, at present, is based on the experience (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982; Álvarez Sousa, 2004). As a result, within the context of the Experience Economy (Pine & Gilmore, 1998), 'place meaning' contributes to the value and significance of the setting through the cognitive concepts or/and beliefs of the individual (Stedman, 2002). Concurrently, the 'place attachment' reflects the degree of bond to the setting (Kyle et al., 2003). Regarding this, the present study asks, how can underwater marine ecotourism contribute towards the place-based marine environmental awareness through Ocean Literacy? To answer this main question, an ethnographic study with emic perspective was implemented in a case study in Mallorca (The Balearic Islands, Spain). The fieldwork was conducted during six months (during the tourist season of 2016), using participant observation and semi-structured and unstructured interviews with divers, staff and the potential stakeholders network (science, government, NGO's, and professional associations). The scenario identified was an industry involved in a transitional period. It is suggested that this is due to the fact the activity is still conducted as a 'sport' but where the tourism is now the main client. At the same time, the experience is based on 'what you see' but without a systematic transfer of knowledge, and where the staff are poorly trained in heritage interpretation and communication skills. Consequently, the entire structure loses the opportunity to connect the divers to Mediterranean Sea through a 'sense of place'. Nevertheless, suitable conditions for further development are present: motivated staff; a clear demand of ocean knowledge from tourists; proper facilities; and an active network of knowledge production close to them. As a result, the study suggests a structure to put in place an Ocean Literacy stream in the current recreational diving industry in order to contribute to the aspiration of improved global ocean citizenship.

This dissertation uses Jenni Rivera’s music, performances, and fandom to examine the Chicana and Mexicana immigrant experience in the 21st century United States and Mexico. A particular focus is placed on how working-class women negotiate class, gender, race, motherhood, sexuality, and body-image through the reception of her music. Chicana singer Jenni Rivera passed away in an airplane crash on December 9th, 2012 and was the first female singer from Southern California to achieve international stardom in the genre of Banda Sinaloense. She sold more than 20 million records worldwide and garnered a working-class girl and women fan base that admired her for being a proud single-mother who took ownership of her sexuality, survived domestic violence, and fought for the rights of immigrants and poor women. Through participant observation, fan interviews, and analysis of music, performance, and fan cultural production, I argue that Rivera and her fans created an intergenerational women-centered space that transmitted sonic pedagogies of deviance– lessons that center “erotic sovereignty” and a refusal of heteronormative respectable femininity. Similar to Cathy Cohen’s argument that we should look at marginal figures like punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens – to understand deviance as resistance – Intoxicated by Jenni centers three marginal tropes of Rivera’s fandom that destabilize normative categories of womanhood, sexual identity, and body politics – 1) The Malandrina, the Chicana party girl who is viewed as promiscuous, hypersexual and deviant for drinking; 2) The Madre Soltera, the queer single mother who is constantly viewed as broken, damaged, and shamed for breaking the heteronormative household; and 3) La Dama Divina, the fat working-class Latina who is marked as visually disgusting for not having proper “Latina curves.” I show how the radical disruption of respectability that Rivera and her fans engaged in enriches our understandings of moral panics around Chicana/Mexicana sex-positive cultures.

Abstract: Verotoxigenic Escherichia coli (VTEC) pose a risk for foodborne illness that can lead to death. Thermal food preservation to inactivate VTEC also alters food quality. High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) processing has been adopted by the food industry as an alternative to thermal preservation. However, E. coli exhibits great variability in resistance to pressure. This research evaluated the pressure resistance of VTEC and non-VTEC E. coli in laboratory media and ground beef. A strain cocktail of non-pathogenic E. coli was developed to match the pressure resistance of VTEC. The strain cocktail was validated by pressure treatments in ground beef and vegetable products. Pressure resistance of E. coli is affected by the food matrix. Therefore, the effect of the food matrix and food constituents on pressure resistance of E. coli was determined. Ground beef showed a baro-protective effect on E. coli when compared to treatments in bruschetta and tzatziki at the same pH (5.5). Divalent cations (Ca2+) exerted a baroprotective effect and may partially explain the relative resistance of E. coli in ground beef. To further elucidate mechanisms of pressure resistance, four extremely pressure resistant strains of E. coli, including one VTEC, were generated and cross-resistance to other stressors was evaluated. All four strains of E. coli evolved as extremely pressure resistant strains when treated with consecutive cycles of increasing pressure. Derivative E. coli AW1.7 became sensitive to low pH (2.5) and derivative E. coli AW1.3 exhibited increased resistance to heat and osmotic stress. Comparative analysis of the genome sequence of 3 wild type strains to the respective pressure-resistant revealed that derivative strains exhibited deletion of genetic elements. However, deletions were different without apparent consistency among the strains. In conclusion, the species E. coli contains extremely pressure resistant strains that are not readily inactivated by pressure treatment of food. Knowledge on the strain/matrix interaction during and after pressure treatment will facilitate the design, adoption, and/or combination of different intervention methods to warrant food safety.