Synopses & Reviews
Latin America comprises varied biophysical environments and diverse populations living in widely disparate economic circumstances. Endangered Peoples of Latin America: Struggles to Survive and Thrive includes peoples hit hardest by the current globalization trend. Each chapter profiles a specific people or peoples with a cultural overview of their history, subsistence strategies, social and political organization, and religion and world view; threats to their survival; and responses to these threats. A section entitled Food for Thought provides questions that encourage a personal engagement with the experiences of these peoples, and a resource guide suggests further reading and lists films and videos and pertinent organizations and web sites. As the curriculum expands to include more multicultural and indigenous peoples, this unique volume will be valuable to both students and teachers.
Review
...this textbook format publication provides an intriguing look at specific challenges for cultural survival by different segments of the population in Latin America.Human Rights Quarterly
Review
This volume includes groups not easily found in other sources, such as the Mayans of Central Quintana Roo, the rural people of Mexico's Northwest Coast and the villagers at the edge of Mexico City. Other groups are from Central and South America. The essays are well written and researched, are current, and contain country maps. They are interesting enough for a high school student to read, and they provide an appropriate background when contrasted with other cultures. Recommended.Blanche Woolls &David Loertscher
Synopsis
Endangered Peoples of Latin America: Struggles to Survive and Thrive offers rare insight into indigenous and marginalized groups in Mexico, Central America, and South America. This volume focuses on more than 13 endangered peoples, from the Mayans of Central Quintana Roo, in Mexico, to the Quechua of the Peruvian Andes. Globalization has had negative effects on local economies and environments, on health and nutrition, and on control of land and other natural resources, and students and other interested readers will learn how these groups have responded to the various threats. The chapters are written by anthropologists based on their recent fieldwork, which guarantees unparalleled accuracy and immediacy.
About the Author
SUSAN C. STONICH is Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Table of Contents
Series Foreword
Introduction by Susan C. Stonich
Mexicans
The Mayans of Central Quintana Roo by David Barton Bray
The Rural People of Mexico's Northwest Coast by Maria L. Cruz-Torres
Villagers at the Edge of Mexico City by Scott S. Robinson
Central Americans
Artisanal Fisherfolk of the Gulf of Fonseca by Jorge Varela Marquez, Kate Cissna, and Susan C. Stonich
The English-Speaking Bay Islanders by Susan C. Stonich
The Miskito of Honduras and Nicaragua by David J. Dodds
Indigenous and Latino Peoples of the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, Honduras by Peter H. Herlihy
The Ngobe of Western Panama by John R. Bort and Philip D. Young
The Kuna of Panama by James Howe
The Tz'utujil Maya of Guatemala by James Loucky
South Americans
The Awa of Ecuador by Janet M. Chernela
The Otavalenos of the Ecuadorian Highlands by Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld
The Quechua of the Peruvian Andes by Paul H. Gelles
Index