Description
Book SynopsisHighlights an urgent problem for indigenous communities around the world--repeated displacement from their lands
Trade Review"Insightful, comprehensive, and authoritative . . . Grandia has made a significant contribution to environmental anthropology and to our understanding of neoliberalism and contemporary land and labor issues in Latin America."
-- Molly Doane * Anthropological Quarterly *
"This is a passionately written and often angry book, and the conclusion reaches a crescendo of critical outrage. Grandia is personally engaged in working with Q’eqchi’ groups seeking to resist the policies and processes that alienate people from the land and the independent livelihoods of small-farming or peasantry. [This book is a] powerful means to those ends."
-- Bonnie J. McCay * PoLAR: Political & Legal Anthropology Review *
"The book is well crafted and clearly written . . . a significant contribution to environmental anthropology and as an important ethnography about the Q’eqchi’."
-- Sean S. Downey * Current Anthropology *
"Enclosed would be so useful for undergrad and graduate classes in anthropology, geography, history, and sociology….Grandia and the press should be congratulated for producing this important work that will be of great utility for many years to come."
-- Sterling Evans * Environmental History *
"A rich anthropological account of continuity, change, and contestation over vital material and social resources…[with] thought-provoking contributions to debates over the roles and applications of anthropology and anthropologists in the processes they study."
-- Sophie Haines * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
"Enclosed provides a timely and invaluable contribution to our understanding of the contemporary land grab…Grandia’s multifaceted and ‘historically and geographically situated’ analysis is a welcome addition to a literature characterized by varying degrees of depth and vigor….Enclosed is a fascinating and inspiring book whose relevance transcends the Guatemalan and Belizean borders."
-- Alberto Alonso-Fradejas * Journal of Peasant Studies *
"Grandia revela cómo la historia de las luchas de los q’eqchi’s contra el cercamiento de sus tierras puede contribuir a una mayor comprensión de los cercamientos de las tierras comunales a favor de las empresas en todo el mundo."
-- Kurt Holder * Mesoamerica *
"This is a passionately written and often angry book, and the conclusion reaches a crescendo of critical outrage. . . . She insists, ‘erosion of the commons is never inevitable;’ it can always be defended and it can be rebuilt. This book and its Spanish version are powerful means to those ends."
* PoLAR: Political & Legal Anthropology Review *
"[Grandia] insists, 'erosion of the commons is never inevitable'; it can always be defended and it can be rebuilt. This book and its Spanish version are powerful means to those ends."
-- Bonnie McCay * Polar Book reviews *
Table of ContentsForeword by K. Sivaramakrishnan
Preface
Acknowledgements
Q'eqchi' Language and Orthography
Notes on Measurements
Maps
Introduction: Commons Past
1. Liberal Plunder: A Recurring Q'eqchi' History
2. Maya Gringos: Q'eqchi' Lowland Migration and Territorial Expansion
3. Commons, Customs, and Carrying Capacities: The Property and Population Traps of the Peten Frontier
4. Speculating: The World Bank's Market-Assisted Land Reform
5. From Colonial to Corporate Capitalism: Expanding Cattle Frontiers
6. The Neoliberal Auction: The PPP and the DR-CAFTA
Conclusion: Common Features
Glossary
Acronyms
Notes
Bibliography
Index
