Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Race and Ethnicity in Latin America by Peter Wade ISBN: 0-7453-0987-9 Publisher: Pluto Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: A useful resource for the study of race in Latin America
Comment: This is an excellent short book. I recommend it to all my students as it is cheap, readable and relatively well-argued. Wade discusses the ways in which racial and ethnic systems of classification have developed and work currently in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Guatemala. Brazil and Colombia are treated most thoroughly, although there are useful sections on Mexico as well. The material on the other countries is pretty skimpy however, so be warned. In addition, Wade's discussion is primarily centered on African-descended groups and Native American groups. There is little discussion of the interior dimensions of whiteness in Latin America (although he does discuss class to some extent) except in his (nicely-presented) discussion of mestizaje in Brazil and Mexico. That (and my other reservations discussed below) aside, I thoroughly recommend this book as a general introduction to the ways in which race is used and understood in Latin America. It does an excellent job in this regard.
Theoretically Wade presents a very satisfying argument that race and ethnicity (while grading into one another) are opposite ends of a spectrum where race is articulated in terms of phenotype while ethnicity is articulated in terms of place. In both cases, these categories are malleable, open to challenge or re-definition and historically constituted. His introductory chapter is one of the best summary introductions to theoretical questions of race and ethnicity that I know of.
Wade problematizes the way in which black and Indian populations have been separated analytically from one another by means of the disciplinary division between sociology and anthropology and this is also one of the more important contributions of his book. Unfortunately, he does not provide a clearly articulated vision of the way in which a more integrated understanding of black and indian groups would add more to social analysis.
The main weakness of this book lies in the absence of integration of Wade's ideas with specific examples in depth. Having made an argument for more contextual understandings of race and ethnicity, Wade abandons context for simple illustration. This is probably a fucntion of the length of the book rather than any specific intent on Wade's part: His other books do seem far more tightly focussed and contextualized. However, an absence of specific coverage makes the last two chapters of the book rather disappointing and the final chapter is far too thin on key details to make anything like a coherent case for the stance that Wade advocates.
Wade's discussion of the role of gender in Latin American views of race and ethnicity is also disappointingly cursory. This is a field in which a great deal of good literature has been produced (M.J. Weismantel's wonderful book on gender, food and ethnicity: "Food Gender and Poverty in Ecuador", and Lynn Stephen's "Zapotec Women" and France Winndance Twine's "Racism in a Racial Democracy). And while it is always nice to see people citing bell hooks in an anthropology text, the section on gender is much too limited in both discussion of previous work and in theorizing from his own analysis especially when compared with the sections on history, nationalism and disciplinarity.
Overall, however, this book is a very useful and worthwhile book to have in one's collection.
 |
Title: The Idea of Race in Latin America : 1870-1940 by Richard Graham ISBN: 0292738579 Publisher: Univ of Texas Press Pub. Date: 1990 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
 |
Title: Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia (Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture) by Peter Wade ISBN: 080185251X Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
 |
Title: Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil by Michael Hanchard ISBN: 0822322722 Publisher: Duke Univ Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil by France Winddance Twine, Frances Winddance Twine ISBN: 0813523656 Publisher: Rutgers University Press Pub. Date: December, 1997 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: Teetering on the Rim by Lesley Gill ISBN: 0231118058 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
