In Women’s Place in the Andes Florence E. Babb draws on four decades of anthropological research to reexamine the complex interworkings of gender, race, and indigeneity in Peru and beyond. She deftly interweaves five new analytical chapters with six of her previously published works that exemplify currents in feminist anthropology and activism. Babb argues that decolonizing feminism and engaging more fully with interlocutors from the South will lead to a deeper understanding of the iconic Andean women who are subjects of both national pride and everyday scorn. This book’s novel approach goes on to set forth a collaborative methodology for rethinking gender and race in the Americas.

From reviews of the first edition: "Between Field and Cooking Pot offers details of the daily lives of marketwomen in the central Andean departmental capital of Huaraz.... A welcome addition to studies of women and international development, this book contains a wealth of firsthand material, collected through informal participant-observation as well as formal interviews and analysis of statistical data.... The book encourages us to imagine how the dynamic culture of marketwomen might intersect with the construction, representation, and effects of class and gender." —American Anthropologist "The book has a clear and readable style, moving easily between vignettes of marketwomen's lives, descriptions of the markets themselves, and surveys of the theoretical literature. Babb's long, close involvement with the Huaraz markets is apparent. As someone who has spent a lot of time in Andean markets, I found the book pleasurable to read, because it recreated the experience of the marketplace so well." —American Ethnologist This revised edition of Between Field and Cooking Pot offers an updated appraisal of what neoliberal politics and economics mean in the lives of marketwomen in the nineties, based on new fieldwork conducted in 1997. Babb also reflects on how recent currents in feminist and anthropological studies have caused her to rethink some aspects of Andean marketers in Peruvian culture and society.

Modern contraception implemented in the health posts of the Peruvian highlands has not been readily accepted. The goal of this paper is to report on the contraceptive practices of the Quechua-speaking Indians living in a small rural community near Cuzco, Peru. The attitudes of husbands and wives toward contraception and the control of family size are analyzed in relation to their internalized values about fertility and their cultural role. Women's subordinate position in the society and vis-à-vis their husbands is reinforced by cultural taboos concerning menstruation. Men's involvement in contraception and their preference for periodic abstinence suggests both that they fear menstrual blood, and that they do not wish to lose control over their wives' sexual lives. Couples' behavior about the control of family size reveals that within the context of the society, gender identity perpetuates men's dominant role and women's subordination. Suggestions for improving the delivery of family planning services emphasize educational workshops given separately to husbands and wives. Women's economic coalition through the marketing of crafts would enhance their social position and would increase their participation in reproductive decisions.

In 1952, Professor Allan Holmberg arranged for Cornell University to lease the Hacienda Vicos, an agricultural estate in the central Peruvian highlands on which some 1800 Quechua-speaking highland peasants resided. Between 1952 and 1957 Holmberg, with colleagues and students, initiated a set of social, economic, and agrarian changes, and nurtured mechanisms for community-based management of the estate by the resident peasants. By the end of a second lease in 1962, sufficient political pressure had been brought to bear on a reluctant national government to force the sale of Vicos to its people. Holmberg's twin goals for the Vicos Project were to bring about community possession of their land base and to study the process as it unfolded, advancing anthropological understanding of cultural change. To describe the process of doing both, he invented the term 'participant intervention.' Despite the large corpus of existing Vicos publications, this book contains much information that here reaches print for the first time. The chapter authors do not entirely agree on various key points regarding the nature of the Vicos Project, the intentions of project personnel and community actors, and what interpretive framework is most valid; in part, these disagreements reflect the relevance and importance of the Vicos Project to contemporary applied anthropologists and the contrasting ways in which any historical event can be explained. Some chapters contrast Vicos with other projects in the southern Andean highlands; others examine new developments at Vicos itself. The conclusion suggests how those changes should be understood, within Andean anthropology and within anthropology more generally.

DIVCollection of essays on issues of women and development, attempting to bridge theory and practice in the post-9/11 era to reflect debates in various realms, from the environment, land rights, and identity to information technology, employment, and poverty/div

Most early approaches to encouraging social development focused on economic and technical issues. This volume begins from the premise that economic and technical patterns are embedded in cultural patterns. These patterns of custom and belief are sometimes elaborate, and they can act as barriers to technical or economic change. This volume presents case studies of social change, developing a model for analysis and action. An analytic guide is presented for each case history, and the editor points out factors that influenced the outcome of the project. The volume ais designed for people in the field, and is intended to be of practical usefulness. From hundreds of case histories, Arthur H. Niehoff selected nineteen that most clearly exemplify the technique of the innovator, the motivations of potential recipients and the reactions of these recipients due to local cultural patterns and values. These case histories of efforts at innovation in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia illustrate the specific problems facing American change agents abroad and define the basic ingredients of socio-economic change. Covering the types of problems innovators most frequently encounter in developing nations, Niehoff's compendium of successful and unsuccessful attempts at change demonstrates concretely the theoretical principles set forth. Prospective change agents gain fruitful insights into many problems by studying the practical examples of the programs of change agents in a wide variety of situations. Each of the case-histories is analyzed in the context of a socio-cultural concept of change, emphasizing the principles and factors of change. This book presents essential guidelines for perceiving and dealing with the cultural aspects of a change situation for all students of applied anthropology and social change.

This comprehensive reference offers an authoritative overview of Andean lifeways. It provides valuable historical context, and demonstrates the relevance of learning about the Andes in light of contemporary events and debates. The volume covers the ecology and pre-Columbian history of the region, and addresses key themes such as cosmology, aesthetics, gender and household relations, modes of economic production, exchange, and consumption, postcolonial legacies, identities, political organization and movements, and transnational interconnections. With over 40 essays by expert contributors that highlight the breadth and depth of Andean worlds, this is an essential resource for students and scholars alike.

Traditionally, class analysis has exaggerated the role of economic differentiation, particularly that of the informal economy, and has underestimated the degree of common consciousness amongst the `labouring class'. In Divisions and Solidarities, Alison MacEwen Scott examines class analysis and the inter-relationship between gender and class which creates a shared interest between men and women in some contexts and a divergence of interest in others. Using case studies of the urban population in Latin America, she presents a major critique of existing class theories and presents a new theoretical treatment on class formation, the orthodoxy of the informal economy, class consciousness and political participation.