Daniella Gandolfo
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226280974
- eISBN:
- 9780226280998
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226280998.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
In 1996, against the backdrop of Alberto Fujimori's increasingly corrupt national politics, an older woman in Lima, Peru—part of a group of women street sweepers protesting the privatization of the ...
More
In 1996, against the backdrop of Alberto Fujimori's increasingly corrupt national politics, an older woman in Lima, Peru—part of a group of women street sweepers protesting the privatization of the city's cleaning services—stripped to the waist in full view of the crowd that surrounded her. Lima had just launched a campaign to revitalize its historic districts, and this shockingly transgressive act was just one of a series of events that challenged the norms of order, cleanliness, and beauty that the renewal effort promoted. In this book, the author employs an interweaving of essays and field diary entries as she analyzes the ramifications of this act within the city's conflicted history and across its class divisions. She builds on the work of Georges Bataille to explore the relation between taboo and transgression, while Peruvian novelist and anthropologist José María Arguedas's writings inspire her to reflect on her return to her native city in movingly intimate detail. With its multiple perspectives—personal, sociological, historical, and theoretical—this book is a pioneering work on the cutting edge of ethnography.Less
In 1996, against the backdrop of Alberto Fujimori's increasingly corrupt national politics, an older woman in Lima, Peru—part of a group of women street sweepers protesting the privatization of the city's cleaning services—stripped to the waist in full view of the crowd that surrounded her. Lima had just launched a campaign to revitalize its historic districts, and this shockingly transgressive act was just one of a series of events that challenged the norms of order, cleanliness, and beauty that the renewal effort promoted. In this book, the author employs an interweaving of essays and field diary entries as she analyzes the ramifications of this act within the city's conflicted history and across its class divisions. She builds on the work of Georges Bataille to explore the relation between taboo and transgression, while Peruvian novelist and anthropologist José María Arguedas's writings inspire her to reflect on her return to her native city in movingly intimate detail. With its multiple perspectives—personal, sociological, historical, and theoretical—this book is a pioneering work on the cutting edge of ethnography.
Rihan Yeh
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226511887
- eISBN:
- 9780226512075
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226512075.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
Tijuana is the largest of Mexico’s northern border cities, and despite the US’s dramatic escalation of border enforcement, it remains deeply connected with California by one of the busiest ...
More
Tijuana is the largest of Mexico’s northern border cities, and despite the US’s dramatic escalation of border enforcement, it remains deeply connected with California by one of the busiest international ports of entry in the world. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, Passing probes the US-Mexico border’s influence on senses of self and collectivity here. Two publics, it argues, take shape in the shadow of the border. The clase media or “middle class” strives to enact the ideals of liberal publicity: informed, rational debate grounded in an upstanding “I.” The border, however, destabilizes this public profoundly, for as middle-class subjects seek confirmation of their status in the form of a US visa, they expose themselves to suspicions that reduce their projects of selfhood to interested attempts to pass inspection. In contrast, the pueblo, or “the people” as paradigmatically plebeian, imagines itself as composed of actual and potential “illegal aliens.” Instead of the “we” of liberal publicity, this public takes shape via the third person of hearsay: communication framed as what “they say,” what “everyone” knows and repeats. Passing tracks Tijuana’s two publics as they both face off and intertwine in demonstrations, internet forums, popular music, dinner table discussions, workplace banter, personal interviews, and more. Through close attention to everyday talk and interaction, it reveals how the promise of passage and the threat of prohibition together shape Tijuana’s public sphere, throwing into relief the conundrums of self and collectivity born of an age of at once increased transnational flows and fortified borders.Less
Tijuana is the largest of Mexico’s northern border cities, and despite the US’s dramatic escalation of border enforcement, it remains deeply connected with California by one of the busiest international ports of entry in the world. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, Passing probes the US-Mexico border’s influence on senses of self and collectivity here. Two publics, it argues, take shape in the shadow of the border. The clase media or “middle class” strives to enact the ideals of liberal publicity: informed, rational debate grounded in an upstanding “I.” The border, however, destabilizes this public profoundly, for as middle-class subjects seek confirmation of their status in the form of a US visa, they expose themselves to suspicions that reduce their projects of selfhood to interested attempts to pass inspection. In contrast, the pueblo, or “the people” as paradigmatically plebeian, imagines itself as composed of actual and potential “illegal aliens.” Instead of the “we” of liberal publicity, this public takes shape via the third person of hearsay: communication framed as what “they say,” what “everyone” knows and repeats. Passing tracks Tijuana’s two publics as they both face off and intertwine in demonstrations, internet forums, popular music, dinner table discussions, workplace banter, personal interviews, and more. Through close attention to everyday talk and interaction, it reveals how the promise of passage and the threat of prohibition together shape Tijuana’s public sphere, throwing into relief the conundrums of self and collectivity born of an age of at once increased transnational flows and fortified borders.
Sarah Lynn Lopez
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226105130
- eISBN:
- 9780226202952
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226202952.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
While so-called transnational migration has occurred between Mexico and the U.S. for over a hundred years, at the turn of the twenty-first century the spaces produced by migration are increasingly ...
More
While so-called transnational migration has occurred between Mexico and the U.S. for over a hundred years, at the turn of the twenty-first century the spaces produced by migration are increasingly defining—and linking—Mexican pueblos and U.S. cities. The movement of people across borders has been paralleled by the flow of capital; money sent from migrants in the U.S. to families in their homelands—remittances—constitutes the largest remittance corridor in the world. Using remittances as a lens to both contribute to and critique contemporary migration discourse, this book unearths the spatial and material practices that define endemic migration as a way of life. Arguing that the physical and social environment produced by migration constitutes a “remittance landscape,” a formal analysis of migrant architecture (homes, public buildings, and infrastructure) is coupled with ethnography to explore how rapidly changing built environments shape migrant experiences. At the state level, countries like Mexico have recognized the importance of this economic flow, harnessing it through formal channels such as the Tres Por Uno (3x1) program. Such government supported migrant development projects comprise a remittance development model that repositions economic migrants as boosters of emigrant villages and towns. Paradoxically, this model demonstrates newfound independence and agency for migrants amid the institutionalization of the distances, ambiguities and ambivalences associated with the geographic and social fragmentation of families and communities. The book concludes with an analysis of migrants’ transborder spatial practices in Chicago, showing how urbanism north of the border is actually composed of, and produced by, processes that span international boundaries.Less
While so-called transnational migration has occurred between Mexico and the U.S. for over a hundred years, at the turn of the twenty-first century the spaces produced by migration are increasingly defining—and linking—Mexican pueblos and U.S. cities. The movement of people across borders has been paralleled by the flow of capital; money sent from migrants in the U.S. to families in their homelands—remittances—constitutes the largest remittance corridor in the world. Using remittances as a lens to both contribute to and critique contemporary migration discourse, this book unearths the spatial and material practices that define endemic migration as a way of life. Arguing that the physical and social environment produced by migration constitutes a “remittance landscape,” a formal analysis of migrant architecture (homes, public buildings, and infrastructure) is coupled with ethnography to explore how rapidly changing built environments shape migrant experiences. At the state level, countries like Mexico have recognized the importance of this economic flow, harnessing it through formal channels such as the Tres Por Uno (3x1) program. Such government supported migrant development projects comprise a remittance development model that repositions economic migrants as boosters of emigrant villages and towns. Paradoxically, this model demonstrates newfound independence and agency for migrants amid the institutionalization of the distances, ambiguities and ambivalences associated with the geographic and social fragmentation of families and communities. The book concludes with an analysis of migrants’ transborder spatial practices in Chicago, showing how urbanism north of the border is actually composed of, and produced by, processes that span international boundaries.
Abigail and John Adams
Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era
Abysmal
Accelerating Energy Innovation
Accident Prone
The Accompaniment
Accounting for Taste
The Adventure of the Real
Aesthetics of Renewal
