Contemporary cultures and societies of Latin America : a reader in the social anthropology of Middle and South America and the Caribbean / Edited, with introductions and notes, by Dwight B. Heath , Richard N. Adams.

Includes bibliographies.

Why Latin America? / Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith -- Constructing culture and power in Latin America / Daniel H. Levine -- Anthropology and human rights in Latin America / Ellen Messer -- Relationships among the world system, indigenous peoples, and ecological anthropology in the endangered Amazon / Leslie E. Sponsel -- Retrospective view of the Harvard Chiapas Project / Evon Z. Vogt -- Experiment in cross cultural communications / Kenneth M. Kensinger -- Borders and boundaries of state and self at the end of empire / Michael Kearney -- Handful of ashes : reflections on Tristes tropiques / Harald E.L. Prins -- Contributions of applied anthropology to peasant development / John Durston -- Language preservation and publishing / H. Russell Bernard -- Worms, witchcraft and wild incantations : the case of the chicken soup cure / Jeffrey David Ehrenreich -- Rigoberta menchu and the story of all poor Guatemalans / David M. Stoll -- Indigenous organizations : rising actors in Latin America / Rodolfo Stavenhagen -- Hit and run : the stick and ball game as an integral part of Raramuri culture / Albino Mares -- Fortunes and misfortunes of a field school in the other Cancun/ Alicia Re Cruz -- Market vendors vs. multinationals : David and Goliath revisited / Beverly N. Chinas -- Restructuring ethnicity in Chiapas and the world / George A. Collier -- Dona Flora and the informal sector debate : entrepreneurial strategies in a Bolivian enterprise / Hans Buechler -- Changes in drinking patterns in five Bolivian cultures : a cautionary tale about historical approaches / Dwight B. Health -- Ethnodevelopment and the Yuqui of lowland Bolivia / Allyn MacLean Stearman -- Kuna molas and the global economy / Karin E. Tice -- Ending serfdom in Peru : the struggle for land and freedom in Vicos / Paul L. Doughty -- Jews in Latin America / Judith Laikin Elkin -- No longer invisible : Afro Latin Americans today / Anani Dzidzienyo -- Ethnic artists and the appropriation of fashion : embroidery and identity in Caylloma, Peru / Blenda Femenias -- Gringas, ghouls and Guatemala : fear of North American women and body organ trafficking / Abigail E. Adams -- Family, social insecurity, and the underdevelopment of gay institutions in Latin America / Stephen O. Murray -- Abstinence, antibiotics, and Estar jurado : the manners of drinking in working-class Mexico City / Matthew C. Gutmann -- Day of the dead as Mexican national symbol / Stanley H. Brandes -- Body paint, feathers, and VCRs : aesthetics and authenticity in Amazonian activism / Beth A. Conklin -- Dyadic contract in a Mexican village / George M. Foster -- Local government in Bolivia : public administration and popular participation / Adrianne Aron Schaar -- Touching the air : the cultural force of women in Chile / Catherine M. Boyle -- Women in the transition to democracy : Argentina's mothers of the Plaza de Mayo / Maria del Carman Feijoo and Monica Gogna -- Studying violence : victims, perpetrators, and the ethnographer / Antonius C.G.M. Robben -- God is an American / Bernard Arcand -- Culture of poverty / Oscar Lewis -- Aristocracy in modern Mexico / Hugo G. Nutini -- Aspects of group relations in a complex society : Mexico / Eric R. Wolf.