Description: Amazonian Caboclo Society is concerned with peasant society in Brazilian Amazonia. Most anthropological work in Amazonia has focused on Indian groups, and caboclos (peasants of mixed ancestry) have generally been regarded as relics of the haphazard development of Amazonia and have received little serious attention.
Brief description: Stephen Nugent is the head of the Anthropology Department at Goldsmiths College, University of London, a song writer (with Ian Dury) and the author (with Humphrey Ocean) of Big Mouth: The Amazon Speaks (Fourth Estate, 1990).
Review Quotes: "Stephen Nugent's brilliant book explores the changing nature of the invisibility of Amazonian caboclo society...should be required reading for anyone interested in Amazonia, contemporary peasant formations, and debates surrounding development and under-development. - American Anthropologist ...always intelligent, often witty, and at times acerbic. Amazonianists will enjoy Nugent's trenchant, often unconventional, treatment of the accepted wisdom of diverse fields. Other anthropologists will appreciate his willingness to discuss Amazonian ethnography in the context of wider social theory. - MAN"