Search results for ""Author Bryan R. Roberts""

Bryan Roberts’ study of two poor neighborhoods of Guatemala City is an important contribution to the understanding of the urban social and power organization of underdeveloped countries. It is the first major study of any Central American urban population. Organizing Strangers gives an account of how poor people cope with an unstable and mobile urban environment, and case material is provided on the emergence of collective action among them. Several themes that are crucial to understanding the significance of urban growth in the underdeveloped world are explored: the impact of city life on rural migrants, the relationship between living in cities and the development of class consciousness, and the changing significance of personal relationships as a means of organizing social and economic life. Guatemala City’s rapid growth and low level of industrialization created a keen competition for jobs and available living space and inhibited the development of cohesive residential groupings. Thus the poor found themselves living and working with people who were mostly strangers. Trust is difficult to create in such an environment, and the absence of trust affected the capacity of the poor to organize themselves. While the poor were integrated into city life, the manner of their integration exposed them to greater exploitation than if they were truly socially isolated or marginal. Bryan Roberts analyzes a variety of formally organized voluntary associations involving the poor and concludes that such associations are essentially means by which middle- and upper-status groups seek to negotiate order among the poor. The problems faced by these poor families are due less to their own incapacities or inactivity than to the effects of economic and political relationships that exploit them locally, nationally, and even internationally. A major conclusion of this study is that the uncertainties in the relationships among poor people and between them and other social groups are the underlying causes of a general political and economic instability.

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Mexico is becoming increasingly important as a focus of U.S. immigration policy, and the movement of people across the U.S.-Mexico border is a subject of intense interest and controversy. The U.S. approach to cross-border flows is in flux, the economic climate in Mexico is uncertain, and relations between the two neighbors have entered a new stage with the launching of NAFTA. This volume draws together original essays by distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplines and both sides of the border to examine current impetuses to migration and policy options for Mexico and the U.S.

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This new authoritative two-volume set contains a selection of the most important articles and papers spanning over 30 years on the sociology of development. It is divided under 14 succinct headings covering the main areas of the field, including: Antecedents, Modernization Theory, Dependency, the Global Economy, the Urban and the Rural, Gender and Ethnicity, Environment and Sustainable Development.The first volume features a comprehensive collection by authors whose work has shaped academic thought and public policy on the economic development of third world nations. Contemporary scholarship on economic development is explored in the second volume which addresses today's major research issues: class, gender, ethnic and race inequality, the informal economy, population growth, migration, worker remittances, politics and the state, planning and development, and the state and sustainable development.The editors do not limit their selection of articles on the sociology of development to just one country - papers are included on Africa, Latin America, China, Mexico as well as more general articles on the developing world. The editors have also written an introduction to accompany the piece, explaining their selection of articles chosen.

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