Description: Utilizing rich ethnographic accounts and first-person narratives, the contributors to this work examine how ordinary people are responding to the complexities of living in today's world. Among the issues discussed are counseling, surrogate motherhood, the abortion debate, and cultural and economic domination in Jamaica and on the U.S.-Mexican border.
Review Quotes:
"...conceptually brilliant, well organized, readable, refreshing and most importantly in this age of post-post-modern pseudo-social scientific babble understandable. Social Science and MEdicine, 52, 2001, pg. 493, Norah A. Schwartz."
"With this pathbreaking new volume, Lamphere, Ragoné and Zavella have gone a long way to putting anthropology back together again. Its twenty-six essays take up the local impacts of global capitalism and post-colonial social structures on women's and men's bodies, their families, and work lives. The essays retain anthropology's traditional focus on those far from the centers of wealth and power, foreground the creativity of their struggles in a generally hostile global climate, and deal thoughtfully with the relationships anthropologists have to the people we write about." -- Karen Brodkin, UCLA
"The ethnographic studies in this volume liven up and add a specificity that is often lacking to theoretical analysis. The book is a valuable resource, integrating and demonstrating the insights of sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and political economy. Sampling its diverse contents can only enhance our understanding of the materiality of cultures and the individuals who shape and are shaped by them. Isis, Volume 91, Number 2, June 2000 The breadth of this work makes it particularly beneficial for introductory courses on women's issues." -- Journal of Women's history
"With this pathbreaking new volume, Lamphere, Ragoné and Zavella have gone a long way to putting anthropology back together again. Its twenty-six essays take up the local impacts of global capitalism and post-colonial social structures on women's and men's bodies, their families, and work lives. The essays retain anthropology's traditional focus on those far from the centers of wealth and power, foreground the creativity of their struggles in a generally hostile global climate, and deal thoughtfully with the relationships anthropologists have to the people we write about." -- Karen Brodkin, UCLA
"The breadth of this work makes it particularly beneficial for introductory courses on women's issues." -- Journalof Women's history