Advertising and Consumption : anthropological studies in Brazil
by
This book argues for the study of consumption and its relationship with media images, particularly advertising, from a cultural perspective. Focused on Brazil, it draws on decades of research by the author and engages with theory and concepts from a range of classic anthropological works. The chapters examine how advertising professionals view their craft, the resistance to capitalism amongst native Brazilians, images of women and their bodies in magazines, and the case of the first soccer player to become a national media celebrity. Rocha supports the study of consumption as a classification system that materializes culture and creates relations between people and goods. The book presents advertising as a mode of magical thinking that mediates the passage from the machine-driven sphere of production to the humanized sphere of consumption, converting meaningless impersonal things into goods that have name, origin, identity and purpose. It will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists and others working on advertising, marketing, communications, and consumer research.
The Canela : bonding through kinship, ritual, and sex
by
This ethnology follows the lives of the Canela Indians of Barra do Corda, Maranhao, Brazil from the 1890's to the present. Based on more than five collective years of fieldwork since 1957, the book relates how this surviving nation of the Timbira group has retained its traditional culture, including an elaborate bonding system of kinship, ritual - including daily meetings and complex festivals and sex. This case study challenges Western conceptions of socialization for sex as well as adult sexual behavior.
Capoeira Connections : a memoir in motion
by
This ethnographic memoir weaves together the history ofcapoeira, recent transformations in the practice, and personal insights fromauthor Katya Wesolowski's thirty years of experience as a capoeirista.
The Hold Life Has : coca and cultural identity in an Andean community
by
This second edition of Catherine J. Allen's distinctive ethnography of the Quechua-speaking people of the Andes brings their story into the present. She has added an extensive afterword based on her visits to Sonqo in 1995 and 2000 and has updated and revised parts of the original text. The book focuses on the very real problem of cultural continuity in a changing world, and Allen finds that the hold life has in 2002 is not the same as it was in 1985.
Laughter out of place : race, class, violence, and sexuality in a Rio shantytown
by
Donna M. Goldstein challenges much of what we think we know about the "culture of poverty." Drawing on more than a decade of experience in Brazil, Goldstein provides an intimate portrait of everyday life among the women of the favelas, or urban shantytowns. These women have created absurdist and black-humor storytelling practices in the face of trauma and tragedy. Goldstein helps us to understand that such joking and laughter is part of an emotional aesthetic that defines the sense of frustration and anomie endemic to the political and economic desperation of the shantytown.
Locating Zika: social change and governance in an age of mosquito pandemics
by
The emergence of Zika virus in 2015 challenged conventional ideas of mosquito-borne diseases, tested the resilience of health systems and embedded itself within local sociocultural worlds, with major implications for environmental, sexual, reproductive and paediatric health. This book explores this complex viral epidemic and situates it within its broader social, epidemiological and historical context in Latin America and the Caribbean. The chapters include a diverse set of case studies from scholars and health practitioners working across the region, from Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, the United States and Haiti. The book explores how mosquito-borne disease epidemics (not only Zika but also chikungunya, dengue and malaria) intersect with social change and health governance. By doing so, the authors reflect on the ways in which situated knowledge and social science approaches can contribute to more effective health policy and practice for mosquito-borne disease threats in a changing world. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com , has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Owners of the Sidewalk : security and survival in the informal city
by
Many of Bolivia's poorest and most vulnerable citizens work as vendors in the Cancha mega-market in the city of Cochabamba, where they must navigate systems of informality and illegality in order to survive. In Owners of the Sidewalk Daniel M. Goldstein examines the ways these systems correlate in the marginal spaces of the Latin American city. Collaborating with the Cancha's legal and permanent stall vendors (fijos) and its illegal and itinerant street and sidewalk vendors (ambulantes), Goldstein shows how the state's deliberate neglect and criminalization of the Cancha's poor--a practice common to neoliberal modern cities--makes the poor exploitable, governable, and consigns them to an insecure existence. Goldstein's collaborative and engaged approach to ethnographic field research also opens up critical questions about what ethical scholarship entails.
Policing the Amazon: why the rule of law is crucial for the future
by
This edited collection discusses the rule of law in the Amazon and the capabilities of the region's sovereign states to police their territory considering security matters. Comprised of nine countries, including a European Union member, the Amazon region features states facing political instability, poverty, social inequalities, high levels of corruption, and lack of trust by their populations. This context is aggravated by the presence of criminal organizations operating there and shaping transnational bonds. Notably, the world's foremost cocaine-producing countries -- Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia -- are located in the region, presenting related turmoil and instability. Moreover, as home to the largest rainforest on Earth and the widest biodiversity, the region is an object of concern due to environmental reasons. The protection of these natural resources as well as the traditional peoples living there is intertwined with issues of development, security, and policing. The book delves into questions on the international agenda, such as: How is it possible to sustain the rule of law in the Amazon? What are the states' capabilities for controlling the territory and enforcing the law? How do these states deal with the growing urban violence in the region? What are the capabilities of public authorities for proposing law and policies, and judicial systems to process, prevent, and suppress different crimes such as drug dealing, smuggling, human trafficking, terrorism, and environmental crimes? The book fills a gap in English-language scholarship exploring the context of the rule of law in the Amazon and the impact on policing activities. It is ideal for a wide range of audiences, including policing scholars, law enforcement and community leaders, and students focusing on criminal justice and the Amazon.
The School of the Americas: military training and political violence in the Americas
by
Located at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, the School of the Americas (soa) is a U.S. Army center that has trained more than sixty thousand soldiers and police, mostly from Latin America, in counterinsurgency and combat-related skills since it was founded in 1946. So widely documented is the participation of the School's graduates in torture, murder, and political repression throughout Latin America that in 2001 the School officially changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Lesley Gill goes behind the façade and presents a comprehensive portrait of the School of the Americas. Talking to a retired Colombian general accused by international human rights organizations of terrible crimes, sitting in on classes, accompanying soa students and their families to an upscale local mall, listening to coca farmers in Colombia and Bolivia, conversing with anti-soa activists in the cramped office of the School of the Americas Watch--Gill exposes the School's institutionalization of state-sponsored violence, the havoc it has wrought in Latin America, and the strategies used by activists seeking to curtail it. Based on her unprecedented level of access to the School of the Americas, Gill describes the School's mission and training methods and reveals how its students, alumni, and officers perceive themselves in relation to the dirty wars that have raged across Latin America. Assessing the School's role in U.S. empire-building, she shows how Latin America's brightest and most ambitious military officers are indoctrinated into a stark good-versus-evil worldview, seduced by consumer society and the "American dream," and enlisted as proxies in Washington's war against drugs and "subversion."
The Yanomamo
by
Based on the author's extensive fieldwork, this classic ethnography, now in its fifth edition, focuses on the Yanomamo. These truly remarkable South American people are one of the few primitive sovereign tribal societies left on earth. This new edition includes events and changes that have occurred since 1992, including a recent trip by the author to the Brazilian Yanomamo in 1995.
Yuqui : forest nomads in a changing world
by
This book examines the effects of 20th century social and cultural changes on the Yuqui, a group of fewer than 100 nomadic foragers who�ve survived without houses or the ability to produce fire. Recently contacted by missionaries, the Yuqui now face enormous pressures from outside developers and other forces of modernization.