Publisher's Synopsis
The 1990s brought major shifts in theoretical understandings of Latin American culture and politics - from the emergence of new fields (such as cultural studies) and novel analyses of globalization from a Latin American perspective, to exploration of how new technologies, such as video cameras and the Internet, have had an impact on grassroots activism. This volume aims to provide students with an overview of how scholars have conceptualized changing grassroots strategies, nationalist projects and popular culture as well as provide reflections on future directions for research.;A resource designed for teaching, this volume is divided into four major sections. Each section is organized as a series of intellectual debates on central issues that are of crucial importance to the study of Latin American anthropology. Each section includes an introduction by the editor outlining the major elements of each debate; the centerpiece: two or three articles by renowned scholars facing off on a chosen issue; and, finally, a brief "reflection" on the nature of the debate - written by another scholar - allowing the student to understand better the historical and social relevance of these debates and themes.
