Migración internacional, remesas y desarrollo local en América Latina y el Caribe / Rodolfo García Zamora, Manuel Orozco (coordinadores). – México, D.F. : Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, 2009. – 308 p. – ISBN 9789708191166

Call number: 10.0140.GA

Desde el inicio del siglo XXI en que la migración y las remesas familiares adquieren grandes dimensiones en América Latina y el Caribe surge un importante debate sobre el impacto que las remesas tienen sobre el nivel de vida de las familias receptoras y sobre la actividad económica a nivel local y regional. Sin embargo, dicho debate ha tenido una omisión significativa: la capacidad y la voluntad de esas economías para absorber de manera efectiva las remesas dentro de su base productiva. Esta investigación realizada en cinco ciudades de Ecuador, México, Jamaica, El Salvador y Guatemala, pretende ayudar a superar la limitación antes indicada, estudiando la capacidad de esos lugares para absorber el ahorro externo adecuadamente dentro de su estructura productiva.

Peoples of the earth : ethnonationalism, democracy, and the indigenous challenge in "Latin" America / Martin Edwin Andersen ; foreword by Robert A. Pastor. – Lanham, Md. : Lexington Books, c2010. – 296 p. – ISBN 9780739143919

Call number: 10.0810.AN

Peoples of the Earth employs a comparative history of ethno-nationalism to examine Indian activism and its challenges to the political, social and economic status quo in the countries of Central and South America. It explores the intersect between problems of democratic empowerment and security-including the appearance of radical Islam among Indians in two important countries-arising from the re-emergence of dormant forms of ethnic militancy and unprecedented internal challenges to nation-states. The institutions and practices of Indian self-government in the United States and Canada are examined as a means of comparison with contemporary phenomena in Central and South America, suggesting frameworks for the successful democratic incorporation of the region's most disenfranchised peoples. European models emerging from "intermestic" dilemmas are considered, as are those involving the Inuit people (or Eskimos) in the Canadian far north, as policymakers there "think outside the box" in ways that include more robust roles for both sub-national and international bodies. Finally, the work challenges policymakers to broaden the debate about how to approach the issues of political and economic empowerment and regional security concerning Native peoples, to include consideration of new ways of protecting both land rights and the environment, thus avoiding a zero-sum solution between the region's 40 million Indians and the rest of its peoples. Peoples of the Earth has the potential to become a pioneer study addressing ethnic activism, characterized by multiple, small groups pressing for state recognition and democratic participation, while also promoting a defence of the environment and natural resources. Part of its attractiveness is the likelihood that the work will lead to further investigations and will become an authoritative point of departure for the fertile area of ethnonationalism studies in Latin America. Each country chapter provides a succinct but substantial presentation of the basic issues and challenges facing the Native peoples of the country. Overall, the book has an excellent mix of historical and contemporary analysis.

Fin de época : de la integración tradicional al regionalismo estratégico / coordinador: Alfredo Guerra-Borges ; textos de Oscar Ugarteche ... [et al.]. – México, D.F. : Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2009. – 390 p. – ISBN 9786070300769

Call number: 10.7474.GU

Este libro presenta, posiblemente por primera vez en América Latina y el Caribe, no sólo la evolución de los acuerdos de integración económica en los recién pasados años noventa, sino también una convincente selección de acuerdos de integración económica  con potencias comerciales (Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea) de modo que el lector tenga idea de las “integraciones tradicionales”, de la integración que arrancó en la década de 1950 como un esfuerzo por conseguir una presencia internacional más relevante frente a los grandes poderes del mundo con el fin de  aliviar mediante su desarrollo su condición económicamente subordinada y, asimismo, conocer los procesos que vienen proliferando en el siglo XXI para transitar ahora hacia nuevas formas de subordinación a los mismos centros que conocen desde antaño. El lector podrá comprobar el cambio radical que se viene operando en el legado de cincuenta años de integración económica, lo mismo en su forma institucional que en su finalidad profunda, al transitar al regionalismo estratégico de las potencias comerciales, es decir a  “toda forma de política económica internacional que tiene como objetivo establecer una relación de fuerza y desarrollar una ventaja comparativa en los mercados internacionales, apoyándose tras este objetivo en el regionalismo económico”

Pueblos fumigados : los efectos de los plaguicidas en las regiones sojeras / Jorge Eduardo Rulli ; [coord.: Tomás Lambré]. – Buenos Aires : Del Nuevo Extremo, 2009. – 399 p. – ISBN 9789876091695

Call number: 16.3615.RU

“Todos los habitantes gozan del derecho a un ambiente sano, equilibrado, apto para el desarrollo humano y para que las actividades productivas satisfagan las necesidades presentes sin comprometer las de las generaciones futuras; tienen el deber de preservarlo. El daño ambiental generará prioritariamente la obligación de recomponer según establezca la ley. Las autoridades proveerán a la protección de este derecho, a la utilización racional de los recursos naturales, a la preservación del patrimonio natural y cultural y de la diversidad biológica, y a la información y educación ambientales” (Art. 41 Constitución de la Nación Argentina). Este trabajo, que expresa la campaña “Paren de Fumigar” desarrollada por el Grupo de Reflexión Rural, se sustenta en los informes suministrados por los pobladores de las localidades afectadas, donde exponen problemas concretos originados por la acción de los plaguicidas. Estos testimonios conviven con exposiciones científicas, declaraciones de funcionarios, crónicas de luchadores y referencias geográficas, que permiten entender mejor el sufrimiento de los pueblos fumigados y hallar una solución. Esta diversidad de voces ha construido un libro contundente y conmovedor en sus propuestas y sus denuncias.

Batallas por la memoria : los usos políticos del pasado reciente en Uruguay / Eugenia Allier Montaño. – México : UNAM, 2010. – 287 p. – ISBN 9789974325302

Call Number: 19.2131.AL

El pasado reciente en Uruguay -violento y desgarrador- dejó tras de sí un cuerpo social gravemente fragmentado, así como profundas heridas abiertas. El saldo de las violaciones a los derechos humanos durante el régimen cívico-militar (1973-1985) fue cruel: miles de prisioneros políticos, cerca de doscientos detenidos-desaparecidos (incluidos menores de edad), más de un centenar de asesinados, miles de exiliados y destituidos por motivos políticos en un país de poco más de tres millones de habitantes. Tras el fin de la dictadura, en marzo de 1985, se desató una batalla por la apropiación del pasado en donde cada uno de los grupos involucrados ha buscado que su versión de la historia prime en el espacio público de discusión. A lo largo de este libro se podrá ver que en Uruguay estas luchas han implicado dos niveles diferentes: por un lado, el enfrentamiento entre distintas memorias que buscan hegemonizar una interpretación en la arena pública y por otro, las batallas entre grupos que apuestan por el «recuerdo del pasado» y grupos que propugnan el «olvido». Es decir, una historia de las encrucijadas de la memoria que ligan el pasado a la discusión del presente y a la apuesta por el futuro.

O alufá Rufino : tráfico, escravidão e liberdade no Atlântico negro (c.1822 - c.1853) / João José Reis, Flávio dos Santos Gomes, Marcus J.M. de Carvalho. – São Paulo : Companhia das Letras, 2010. – 481 p. – ISBN 9788535917369

Call number: 121.3287.RE

Este livro, escrito a seis mãos por especialistas na história da escravidão no Brasil, reconstitui a movimentada biografia de Rufino José Maria e faz uma abrangente análise do contexto histórico do Brasil e da África no século XIX.
Nascido no antigo reino africano de Oyó, escravizado na adolescência por um grupo étnico rival, adquirido por traficantes brasileiros e levado para Salvador da Bahia, o protagonista destas fascinantes páginas da história do Brasil teve sua biografia dividida pelo oceano. A vida de Rufino foi plena de aventuras e desventuras. Após conseguir sua alforria, tornou-se cozinheiro assalariado de navios negreiros e, na maturidade, no Recife, alcançou o posto de alufá, guia espiritual da comunidade de negros muçulmanos.

European encounters with the Yamana people of Cape Horn, before and after Darwin / Anne Chapman. – Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2010. – 722 p. – ISBN 9780521513791

Call number: 27.3286.CH

This is a documented narration of dramas played out from 1578 to 2000 in the Cape Horn area, Tierra del Fuego, by the native Yamana and Charles Darwin, explorers, sealers, whalers, Anglican missionaries, and three other famous people who made contact with some of the last Yamana. The narration, based on geographical, historical, and ethnographic sources and Anne Chapman's fieldwork with the last few descendants of the Yamana, describes the Europeans' motives for going to Tierra del Fuego and the Yamana's motives for staying there some 6,000 years, what the outsiders gained, and what the Yamana lost. The main objective of this work is to incorporate the hunting-gathering Yamana into world history by evoking their way of life, especially Jemmy Button and Fuegia Basket in comparison with the outsiders they encountered, especially Drake, Cook, and Darwin in their scientific world in the context of their experiences with the Yamana in Tierra del Fuego and nearby areas.

La casa popular de Quito : "otra" estética, "otra" vida / Inés del Pino Martínez. – Quito : Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, 2010. - 114 p. - ISBN 9789978194058 (UASB) ISBN 9789978229323 (Abya-Yala) ISBN 9789978845196 (Editora Nacional)

Call Number: 35.0450.PI

Esta investigación sobre la casa popular de Quito construida por inmigrantes del campo en las décadas de 1980 y 1990, generalmente en los bordes de la ciudad, combina herramientas de tres áreas del conocimiento: la cultura, la arquitectura y la comunicación. El grupo social estudiado está compuesto principalmente por artesanos de la construcción y empleadas domésticas, quienes en su trabajo cuotidiano se relacionan con diferentes estratos de la sociedad y trasladan a su espacio doméstico fragmentos de la cultura de esos grupos sociales, convirtiéndose así en «mediadores sociales». El conjunto de elementos visuales y su disposición afuera y adentro de la casa popular forman, según la autora, un sistema de comunicación que vincula las prácticas culturales cotidianas y de tradición familiar con un «orden» que expresa una estética y unos valores propios de lo popular. Desde el conjunto arquitectónico hasta el objeto doméstico, se atisba una vocación na tural y creativa por realizar lo que Lévi- Strauss denomina el «bricolage» –en este ca - so cultural–, mediante procesos de ensayo e in vención, re-utilización y resignificación de materiales y objetos que son compartidos, ex hibidos, copiados y reciclados entre quienes practican esta estrategia de supervivencia. Mediante varios ejemplos se pone en evidencia la versatilidad con la que la cultura popular decodifica los cánones culturales de otros grupos sociales para incorporarlos en su vida diaria, como una manera de superar su condición de subalteridad.

Conflict resolution of the Boruca hydro-energy project : renewable energy production in Costa Rica / Jürgen Carls and Warren Haffar. – New York, NY : Continuum, 2010. – 217 p. – ISBN 9781441117557

Call number: 51.4660.CA

Conflict Resolution of the Boruca Hydro-Energy Project is a case study that aims to profile best practices for sustainable development, indigenous human rights, and conflict resolution. In 2003, a joint project was developed between the United Nations University of Peace and the International Peace and Conflict Resolution program at Arcadia University to study the Boruca hydroelectrical conflict in Costa Rica. The aim was to bring together theory and practice and to reveal the link between peace and conflict resolution and sustainable development. Through partnerships with the Kan Tan Ecological Project and the indigenous communities in the region, and field studies to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and local Civil Society Organizations, faculty and students utilized the mediation framework to identify the needs and interests of the primary conflict stakeholders. Conflict Resolution of the Boruca Hydro-Energy Project represents the culmination of this fieldwork and tests the mediation framework as suitable model for the resolution of environmental conflicts in Latin America. The Boruca project, proposed in the 1970s by the state-run corporation Instituto Costarricense De Electridad (ICE), will build a dam in the Boruca Canyon, changing the flow of the Térraba River and creating an artificial lake of 25.000 hectares. The largest of its kind in Central America, this project will generate approximately 1,500 megawatts and increase Costa Rica’s energy production capability by as much as 50%. For ICE, not only will the project satisfy national electrical demand, it will also stimulate economic growth, assist in the development of new technological corridors and new tourism projects, increase employment opportunities, and improve the quality of life for indigenous peoples living in Boruca area. For the indigenous population, however, the project represents a violation of their fundamental human rights since it will force the relocation of 2,000 to 3,000 indigenous peoples, flood areas of archeological and cultural significance to them, and affect their livelihood due to the resulting changes in the biodiversity. They also fear the social and environmental impacts of more tourism in the area. The increasingly dysfunctional communication between the Boruca people and ICE over the past 30 years has led to a breakdown of trust and a stalling of the project’s development. Conflict Resolution of the Boruca Hydro-Energy Project follows these conflicts and the process by which the government-owned utility tried to find common ground between all stakeholders. Ultimately, it tests the mediation framework as an appropriate approach to the resolution of development conflicts, exploring the transferability of this approach to other countries in Latin America. This case study provides unique insights into Latin American environmental and development politics and will be of interest to any student, faculty, or policymaker looking to assess the mediation framework.

Houses in a landscape : memory and everyday life in Mesoamerica / Julia A. Hendon. – Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 2010. – 292 p. – ISBN 9780822346937 (hbk)

Call number: 56.3240.HE

In Houses in a Landscape, Julia A. Hendon examines the connections between social identity and social memory using archaeological research on indigenous societies that existed more than one thousand years ago in what is now Honduras. While these societies left behind monumental buildings, the remains of their dead, remnants of their daily life, intricate works of art, and fine examples of craftsmanship such as pottery and stone tools, they left only a small body of written records. Despite this paucity of written information, Hendon contends that an archaeological study of memory in such societies is possible and worthwhile. It is possible because memory is not just a faculty of the individual mind operating in isolation, but a social process embedded in the materiality of human existence. Intimately bound up in the relations people develop with one another and with the world around them through what they do, where and how they do it, and with whom or what, memory leaves material traces. Hendon conducted research on three contemporaneous Native American civilizations that flourished from the seventh century through the eleventh CE: the Maya kingdom of Copan, the hilltop center of Cerro Palenque, and the dispersed settlement of the Cuyumapa valley. She analyzes domestic life in these societies, from cooking to crafting, as well as public and private ritual events including the ballgame. Combining her findings with a rich body of theory from anthropology, history, and geography, she explores how objects—the things people build, make, use, exchange, and discard—help people remember. In so doing, she demonstrates how everyday life becomes part of the social processes of remembering and forgetting, and how “memory communities” assert connections between the past and the present.

The war for Mexico’s west : Indians and Spaniards in New Galicia, 1524-1550 / Ida Altman. – Albuquerque, [NM] : University of New Mexico Press, 2010. – 340 p. – ISBN 9780826344939

Call number: 60.3250.AL

The War for Mexico's West examines a dramatic, complex episode in the early history of New Spain that stands as an instructive counterpoint to the much more familiar, triumphalist narrative of Spanish daring, resilience, and victory embodied in the oft-told tale of the conquest of central Mexico. As Spaniards consolidated their hold over central Mexico they fanned out in several directions, first entering western Mexico--the future New Galicia--in 1524. A full-fledged expedition of conquest followed several years later. Among the loosely organized, ethnically and linguistically diverse societies of New Galicia, however, neither the Spaniards’ usual stratagems of conquest nor their attempts to settle and impose their institutions met with much success. An uprising against Spanish rule, today known as the Mixton war, erupted in 1540, attracting thousands of people from many different indigenous communities and bringing Spanish failure in the region into sharp relief. Set within the context of the complex politics of early New Spain in which such prominent figures as Hernando Cortés, Nuño de Guzmán, Pedro de Alvarado, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, and don Antonio de Mendoza vied to fulfill their ambitions in the west and incorporating accounts and testimony reflecting indigenous perspectives, Altman's treatment of the prolonged conquest of New Galicia provides the first full-length account in English of these little-known events and their consequences for Indians and Spaniards.