Description
Book Synopsis Willem Assies died in 2010 at the age of 55. The various stages of his career as a political anthropologist of Latin American illustrate how astute a researcher he was. He had a keen eye for the contradictions he observed during his fieldwork but also enjoyed theoretical debate. A distrust of power led him not only to attempt to understand “people without voice” but to work alongside them so they could discover and find their own voice. Willem Assies explored the messy, often untidy daily lives of people, with their inconsistencies, irrationalities, and passions, but also with their hopes, sense of beauty, solidarity, and quest for dignity. This collection brings together some of Willem Assies’s best, most fascinating, and still highly relevant writings.
Trade Review “This is a fascinating body of work…I was most impressed by his balance of "hard" political-science analysis and the softer socio-cultural interpretations and by the balance of theory and applied work (scholarship speaking to real world contemporary problems).” · Edward Fischer, Vanderbilt University
Table of Contents Foreword
Geert Banck
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Introduction
Gemma van der Haar, Salvador Martí i Puig, Ton Salman
PART I: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA
Introduction
Geert Banck
Chapter 1. Of Structured Moves and Moving Structures: An Overview of Theoretical Perspectives on Social Movements
Chapter 2. Urban Social Movements, Democratization and Democracy in Brazil
PART II: AGRARIAN ISSUES
Introduction
Cristobal Kay
Chapter 3. The Agrarian Question in Peru: Some Observations on the Roads of Capital
Chapter 4. From Rubber Estate to Simple Commodity Production: Agrarian Struggles in the Northern Bolivian Amazon
PART III: INDIGENOUS (LAND) RIGHTS
Introduction
André Hoekema
Chapter 5. Self-Determination and the “New Partnership”; the Politics of Indigenous Peoples and States
Chapter 6. Indian Justice in the Andes: Re-rooting or Re-routing?
PART IV: ETHNICITY AND CITIZENSHIP
Introduction
Salvador Martí i Puig
Chapter 7. The Limits of State Reform and Multiculturalism in Latin America: Contemporary Illustrations
Chapter 8. Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Indigenous Peoples and Autonomies in Latin America
PART V: POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN BOLIVIA
Introduction
Ton Salman
Chapter 9. David versus Goliath in Cochabamba: Water Rights, Neoliberalism and the Revival of Social Protest in Bolivia
Chapter 10. Neoliberalism and the Re-Emergence of Ethnopolitics in Bolivia
Bibliography Willem Assies
