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by Paperbacks: Anthropology (General)

By Area: Latin America and the Caribbean

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eBook available Forthcoming October 2026
Between the Forest and the Road

The Waorani Struggle for Living Well in the Ecuadorian Oil Circuit

Bravo Díaz, A.

During the past two decades Ecuadorians have engaged in a national debate around Buen Vivir (living well). This ethnography discusses one of the ways in which people experience well-being or aspire to live well in Ecuadorian Amazonia. Waponi Kewemonipa (living well) is a Waorani notion that embraces ideas of good conviviality, health and certain ecological relations.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Political and Economic Anthropology Environmental Studies (General) Sustainable Development Goals
eBook available Published July 2023
Romani Chronicles of COVID-19

Testimonies of Harm and Resilience

Blasco, P. G. y & Fotta, M. (eds)

A ground-breaking volume that gathers the testimonies of NGO workers, street vendors, activists, scholars, health professionals, and creative writers to chronicle the devastating impact of COVID-19 on Romani communities globally.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Sociology Medical Anthropology

Pb
Published October 2024
Living on a Time Bomb

Local Negotiations of Oil Extraction in a Mexican Community

Schöneich, S.

Providing a holistic understanding of extensive oil extraction in rural Mexico, this book focuses on a campesino community, where oil extraction is deeply inscribed into the daily lives of the community members. The book shows how oil shapes the space where it is extracted in every aspect and produces multiple uncertainties.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Environmental Studies (General) Sustainable Development Goals
eBook available Published January 2026
Good Enough Mothers

Practicing Nurture and Motherhood in Chiapas, Mexico

López, JM

Motherhood in Mexico is profoundly shaped by the legacy of colonialism. This ethnography situates motherhood in a critical global health analysis of maternal health inequalities and interventions in the southeast state of Chiapas.

Subjects: Gender Studies and Sexuality Anthropology (General)

Pb
Published March 2020
After the Pink Tide

Corporate State Formation and New Egalitarianisms in Latin America

Gold, M. & Zagato, A. (eds)

The left-wing Pink Tide movement that swept across Latin America seems to now be overturned, as a new wave of free-market thinkers emerge across the continent. This book analyses the emergence of corporate power within Latin America and the response of egalitarian movements across the continent trying to break open the constraints of the state.

Subjects: Political and Economic Anthropology Anthropology (General)
eBook available Published August 2024
On the Nervous Edge of an Impossible Paradise

Affect, Tourism, Belize

Little, K.

On the Nervous Edge of an Impossible Paradise is a collection of seven stories about local lives in the fictional village of Wallaceville. They turn rogue in the face of runaway forces that take the form and figure of a Belize beast-time, which can appear as a comic mishap, social ruin, tragic excess, or wild guesses.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Literary Studies

Pb
eBook available Published August 2023
Fifty Years of Peasant Wars in Latin America

Binford, L., Gill, L., & Striffler, S. (eds)

Informed by Eric Wolf’s Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, published in 1969, this book examines selected peasant struggles in seven Latin American countries during the last fifty years and suggests the continuing relevance of Wolf’s approach.

Subjects: Political and Economic Anthropology Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published June 2022
Non-Humans in Amerindian South America

Ethnographies of Indigenous Cosmologies, Rituals and Songs

Rivera Andía, J. J. (ed)

Drawing on fieldwork from diverse Amerindian societies, and presenting ethnographies of non-human entities emerging in ritual, oral tradition, cosmology, shamanism and music, this book offers new insights into the indigenous constitutions of humanity, personhood, and environment characteristic of the South American highlands and lowlands.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Cultural Studies (General)

Pb
eBook available Forthcoming July 2026
Edges, Fringes, Frontiers

Integral Ecology, Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainability in Guyana

Henfrey, T. B.

Based on an ethnographic account of subsistence forest use by Wapishana people in Guyana and developing an original analytical framework, Edges, Frontiers, Fringes examines the social, cultural and behavioral bases for sustainability and resilience in indigenous resource use.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Environmental Studies (General)
eBook available Published October 2021
Barter and Social Regeneration in the Argentinean Andes

Angé, O.

Drawing on ethnographic data from fairs in the Southern Andes involving highland herders and lowland cultivators, Barter and Social Regeneration in the Argentinean Andesadvances an anthropology of the practice of barter, contributing to a fuller understanding of how social groups create themselves through material circulation.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Political and Economic Anthropology

Pb
eBook available Published April 2025
Island Historical Ecology

Socionatural Landscapes of the Eastern and Southern Caribbean

Siegel, P. (ed)

Island Historical Ecology addresses Caribbean island ecologies from the perspective of social and cultural intervention, focusing on selected islands between Venezuela and Puerto Rico. This volume goes on to compare these ecologies with well-documented patterns in the Mediterranean and Pacific islands, placing the Caribbean into a larger context of island historical ecology.

Subjects: Archaeology Environmental Studies (General) Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published October 2023
Vital Diplomacy

The Ritual Everyday on a Dammed River in Amazonia

Nahum-Claudel. C.

Focusing on the major ceremonial cycle of the Enawene-nawe people, Vital Diplomacy sheds new light on classic Amazonian themes such as manioc cultivation and cuisine, predatory relations with non-humans, and the interplay of myth and practice, and to consider dynamics of kin, clan, and gender relations, the meaning of productive work, and practices of foreign diplomacy.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Cultural Studies (General)

Pb
eBook available Published September 2017
House of the Waterlily

A Novel of the Ancient Maya World

Carmean, K.

House of the Waterlily is a historical novel set in the world of the Late Classic Period Maya of the Southern Lowlands. Through the story of Lady Winik, a young Maya noble girl, the reader is immersed in the everyday world of the Maya

Subjects: Archaeology Literary Studies Memory Studies Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published January 2022
A Goddess in Motion

Visual Creativity in the Cult of María Lionza

Canals, R.

Shedding light on the role of visual creativity in religion, Canals explores the current practice of the cult of María Lionza, one of the most important and yet unexplored religious practices in Venezuela.

Subjects: Anthropology of Religion Anthropology (General) Cultural Studies (General)

Pb
eBook available Published February 2021
Transborder Media Spaces

Ayuujk Videomaking between Mexico and the US

Kummels, I.

Transborder Media Spaces offers a new perspective on how various media forms have been appropriated by Mexican indigenous people in the light of transnational migration and ethnopolitical movements. Within new media spaces, the Ayuujk people carve out their own visions of development, modernity, gender, and indigeneity in the twenty-first century.

Subjects: Media Studies Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published June 2019
Indigeneity and the Sacred

Indigenous Revival and the Conservation of Sacred Natural Sites in the Americas

Sarmiento, F. & Hitchner, S. (eds)

This important contribution presents current research in the political ecology of indigenous revival and its role in nature conservation of sacred natural sites in the Americas. The book explores how struggles for land, rights, and political power are embedded within physical landscapes, and how indigenous identity is reformed as globalizing forces simultaneously threaten and promote the notion of indigeneity.

Subjects: Environmental Studies (General) Development Studies Anthropology (General) Heritage Studies

Pb
eBook available Published January 2020
The Imbalance of Power

Leadership, Masculinity and Wealth in the Amazon

Brightman, M

The Imbalance of Power demonstrates that the indigenous societies of the Guiana region of Amazonia do not fit conventional characterizations of ‘simple’ political units with ‘egalitarian’ political ideologies and ‘harmonious’ relationships with nature.

Subject: Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published February 2020
Ownership and Nurture

Studies in Native Amazonian Property Relations

Brightman, M., Fausto, C. & Grotti, V. (eds)

Through ethnography of the Amazonia region, Ownership and Nurture sets new and challenging terms for debates about the classic anthropological theme of property. This volume demonstrates that property relations are of central importance in Amazonia despite portrayals of the region as the antithesis of Western, property-based, civilization.

Subject: Anthropology (General)

Pb
Published April 2018
Tourism and Informal Encounters in Cuba

Simoni, V.

Based on a detailed ethnography, this book explores tourism in Cuba, drawing attention to challenges that tourists and local people face in establishing meaningful connections with each other. Comparing a wide array of these experiences, the author uses tourism to offer a new understanding of how relationships across difference and inequality are imagined and understood.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Travel and Tourism

Pb
eBook available Published August 2021
In Search of Legitimacy

How Outsiders Become Part of the Afro-Brazilian Capoeira Tradition

Griffith, L. M.

Every year, young adults from Western nations travel to Brazil to train in the dance/martial art of capoeira. This ethnography uses the concept of apprenticeship pilgrimage—studying with a local master at a historical point of origin—to explore how non-Brazilians learn their art and claim legitimacy within capoeira communities.

Subjects: Performance Studies Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published July 2020
The Living Ancestors

Shamanism, Cosmos and Cultural Change among the Yanomami of the Upper Orinoco

Jokic, Z.

This ethnography focuses on Yanomami shamanism, especially in the context of cultural change. The author interweaves ethnographic material with theoretical components of a holographic principle, or the “part is equal to the whole.” This book fills a gap in the study of Yanomami people and enriches understanding of this ancient phenomenon.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Anthropology of Religion

Pb
eBook available Published October 2016
Intellectuals and (Counter-) Politics

Essays in Historical Realism

Smith, G.

“A cutting edge discussion between anthropology and the disciplines of history and geography, all through the lens of the politics of intellectual work. A paradigm of sensitive ethnographic work fused with broadly social/political theory, this book will pull in a lot of people looking to find their way out of a certain rabbit hole of recent academia.” · Neil Smith, Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Gavin Smith suggests a research agenda designed to maximize the political leverage of ordinary people faced with ever more remote states and technologies that make capitalism increasingly rapacious. He tackles the political conundrums of our times and asks what roles intellectuals might play therein.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Political and Economic Anthropology

Pb
eBook available Published May 2014
Playing with Languages

Children and Change in a Caribbean Village

Paugh, A. L.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Educational Studies Sociology

Pb
eBook available Published February 2014
Animism in Rainforest and Tundra

Personhood, Animals, Plants and Things in Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia

Brightman, M., Grotti, V. E., & Ulturgasheva, O. (eds)

Subjects: Anthropology of Religion Environmental Studies (General) Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published January 2015
Environment and Citizenship in Latin America

Natures, Subjects and Struggles

Latta, A. & Wittman, H. (eds)

Subjects: Environmental Studies (General) Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published April 2013
Crude Domination

An Anthropology of Oil

Behrends, A., Reyna, S. P. & Schlee, G. (eds)

Subjects: Peace and Conflict Studies Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published December 2012
Unsafe Motherhood

Mayan Maternal Mortality and Subjectivity in Post-War Guatemala

Berry, N.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Medical Anthropology

Pb
eBook available Published December 2012
Virtualism, Governance and Practice

Vision and Execution in Environmental Conservation

Carrier, J. C. & West, P. (eds)

Subjects: Environmental Studies (General) Development Studies Anthropology (General) Applied Anthropology

Pb
eBook available Published November 2011
A Walk to the River in Amazonia

Ordinary Reality for the Mehinaku Indians

Stang, C. D.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Cultural Studies (General) Sociology

Pb
eBook available Published December 2012
Mobility and Migration in Indigenous Amazonia

Contemporary Ethnoecological Perspectives

Alexiades, M. N. (ed)

Subjects: Environmental Studies (General) Refugee and Migration Studies Mobility Studies Anthropology (General)

Pb
eBook available Published October 2008
Indigenous Peoples, Civil Society, and the Neo-liberal State in Latin America

Fischer, E. F. (ed)

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Sociology Political and Economic Anthropology

Pb
eBook available Published December 2009
Fetishes and Monuments

Afro-Brazilian Art and Culture in the 20^th Century

Sansi, R.

Subjects: Heritage Studies Museum Studies Anthropology (General)

Pb
Published December 2007
Green Encounters

Shaping and Contesting Environmentalism in Rural Costa Rica

Vivanco, L. A.

Subjects: Environmental Studies (General) Anthropology (General) Development Studies Sustainable Development Goals

Pb
Published December 2004
Day of the Dead

When Two Worlds Meet in Oaxaca

Haley, S. & Fukuda, C.

Subjects: Anthropology of Religion Anthropology (General)

Pb
Published March 2004
An Earth-colored Sea

'Race', Culture and the Politics of Identity in the Post-Colonial Portuguese-Speaking World

Vale de Almeida, M.

Subjects: Colonial History Anthropology (General) Sociology

Pb
Published January 2001
Ethnoarchaeology of Andean South America

Contributions to Archaeological Method and Theory

Kuznar, L. A. (ed)

The papers in this volume present detailed studies of highland and lowland pastoralists and horticulturalists in Andean South America, including taphonomy and sacred landscapes. This volume will be of use to anyone who studies human adaptations to highland or arid environments, and to those interested in pastoral societies, as well as Andean South America.

Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General)

Pb
Published July 2003
Indigenous Rights and Development

Self-Determination in an Amazonian Community

Gray, A.

Subjects: Development Studies Anthropology (General)

Pb
Published August 2003
The Last Shaman

Change in an Amazonian Community

Gray, A.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Anthropology of Religion Development Studies Literary Studies

Pb
Published August 2003
Mythology, Spirituality, and History

Gray, A.

Subjects: Anthropology (General) Anthropology of Religion Development Studies Literary Studies

Pb