In this title, first published in 1984, the author examines the social and political forces surrounding the practice of anthropology at different periods in the history of Mexico since 1917. She does this by analysing and tracing the development of competing anthropological perspectives, from ethnographic particularism and functionalism through indigenismo, cultural ecology, Marxism and the dependency paradigm, to the historical structuralism of the 1970s. This book provides the basis for a systematic analysis of peasant studies in Mexico, and discusses in stimulating terms the theoretical and empirical difficulties of the profession of anthropology itself.
This book explores major shifts and reorientations in the recent history of American Anthropology, reflecting the author's vision of what anthropology is and what it has the potential to become. The title phrase 'changing fields' can be read in two ways: One meaning refers to how, since the mid-1960s, the larger national and global social, intellectual, and political fields within which American anthropology is situated have profoundly changed. The second meaning refers to how, in response to these changing fields, the author, like many other anthropologists, changed the locations of his fieldwork along with his research problems and theoretical perspectives. The book engages three fundamental intellectual-political challenges that American anthropology is destined to confront (or at its peril, avoid): becoming more self-reflexive, achieving theoretical and methodological holism, and defense of universal human rights.
Unable to secure a full livelihood in either Mexico or the United States, migrants from the rural village of Napizaro in central Mexico must extend their families, and their community, across the border. The lives of Napizarenos demonstrate the difficulties of reproduction in a transnational context, calling into question the way we think about households, families, and communities. La Casa de Mis Sueños examines the efforts of villagers from Napízaro to build their dream houses in Mexico through participation in transnational migration. New house designs reshape the spatial ordering of everyday life and are part of the recreation of social space in a changing economic and moral landscape. These changes have engendered conflict as migration usurps traditional routes to prosperity and success and as migrant houses become both the locus of growing consumerism and a site for heavily charged and contested ideas about family and community. This book is more than an engaging account of the realities that pervade one small community. It is an examination of the ways in which global processes penetrate the local, the daily, and the personal in rural Mexico. Above all, it asserts the power of place as constitutive of the ways in which people create meaning in their lives.
In this book, John Monaghan explores the culture of the Mixtecs, today one of the largest Native American groups in Mexico. Focusing on the community of Santiago Nuyoo, located in the mountainous Mixteca Alta region, he describes Nuyooteco marriage practices, gift exchange, kinship systems, land tenure, cosmology, ritual, and feasting.
For an additional chapter on health and human security: Click Here. For suggested resources for each chapter in the book: Click Here. For additional resources on ecological and social issues: Click Here. For additional resources on indigenous peoples: Click Here. Comprehensive and interdisciplinary, this thoroughly updated and revised second edition is an engaging critical analysis of the major political, economic, social, and ecological conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean. Genuinely regional in scope, this textbook examines the hemispheric and global context of these conditions as well as the relations among Latin American and Caribbean states and their relations with the United States. Expert contributors describe and analyze the economies and trading relations, politics and state policies, social inequalities and social injustices, indigenous communities, gender relations, influence of religion, wide array of social movements, and social ecology of the societies in this important region of the world. Harris and Nef have assembled a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate courses and all readers concerned with understanding the past, present, and future development of contemporary Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Americas as a whole. Contributions by: Guido Pascual Galafassi, Richard L. Harris, Judith Adler Hellman, Cristóbal Kay, Michael Kearney, Francesca Miller, Jorge Nef, Viviana Patroni, Wilder Robles, and Stefano Varese.
In part due to the recent Yanomami controversy, which has rocked anthropology to its very core, there is renewed interest in the discipline's history and intellectual roots, especially amongst anthropologists themselves. The cutting edge of anthropological research today is a product of earlier questions and answers, previous ambitions, preoccupations and adventures, stretching back one hundred years or more. This book is the first comprehensive history of American anthropology. Crucially, Patterson relates the development of anthropology in the United States to wider historical currents in society. American anthropologists over the years have worked through shifting social and economic conditions, changes in institutional organization, developing class structures, world politics, and conflicts both at home and abroad. How has anthropology been linked to colonial, commercial and territorial expansion in the States? How have the changing forms of race, power, ethnic identity and politics shaped the questions anthropologists ask, both past and present? Anthropology as a discipline has always developed in a close relationship with other social sciences, but this relationship has rarely been scrutinized. This book details and explains the complex interplay of forces and conditions that have made anthropology in America what it is today. Furthermore, it explores how anthropologists themselves have contributed and propagated powerful images and ideas about the different cultures and societies that make up our world. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the roots and reasons behind American anthropology at the turn of the twenty-first century. Intellectual historians, social scientists, and anyone intrigued by the growth and development of institutional politics and practices should read this book.
To read some sample entries, or to view the Readers Guide click on "Sample Chapters/Additional Materials" in the left column under "About This Book" "This monumental encyclopedia makes an astonishing contribution to our understanding of human evolution, human culture, and human reality through an inclusive global lens." - From the Foreword, Biruté Mary F. Galdikas, Camp Leakey, Borneo, Indonesia This five-volume Encyclopedia of Anthropology is a unique collection of over 1,000 entries that focuses on topics in physical/biological anthropology, archaeology, cultural/social anthropology, linguistics, and applied anthropology. Also included are relevant articles on geology, paleontology, biology, evolution, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and theology. The contributions are authored by 300 internationally renowned experts, professors, and scholars from some of the most distinguished universities, institutes, and museums in the world. Special attention is given to hominid evolution, primate behavior, genetics, ancient civilizations, cross-cultural studies, social theories, and the value of human language for symbolic communication. This groundbreaking Encyclopedia is a must-have reference work for libraries with collections in anthropology, as well as the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. It will provide students, educators, and a wide array of interested readers with a greater understanding of and deeper appreciation for those facts, concepts, methods, hypotheses, and perspectives that make up modern anthropology and related disciplines.
The Maya of the Yucatán have long been drawn into the Mexican state's attempt to create modern Mexican citizens (mestizos). At the same time, they have contended with globalization pressures, first with hemp production and more recently with increased tourism and the fast-growing influence of American-based evangelical Protestantism. Despite these pressures to turn Maya into mestizo, the citizens of the small town of Maxcanú have used subtle forms of resistance—humor, satire, and language—to maintain aspects of their traditional identity. Loewe offers a contemporary look at a Maya community caught between tradition and modernity. He skilfully weaves the history of Mexico and this particular community into the analysis, offering a unique understanding of how one local community has faced the onslaught of modernization.
Exploring issues of migration, medicine, religion, and gender, this work analyses everyday practices of urban living in Guadalajara, Mexico. Drawing on fieldwork over a ten-year period, Valentina Napolitano paints a vibrant picture of daily life in a low-income neighbourhood of Guadalajara.--(Source of description unspecified.)
