The politics of ethnicity

"Professor Maybury-Lewis and his colleagues provide the reader with a valuable analysis and a useful tool for the understanding of ongoing conflicts between indigenous peoples and states in various Latin American countries. A broad overview of the issues ranges from the local level to their international implications. This volume presents a clear picture of one of the least well known yet most significant developments in the recent history of a number of Latin American societies." -- Rodolfo Stavenhagen, Colegio de México, Mexico, UN Human Rights Commission, special rapporteur on the rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people. "This timely book is a sweeping anthropological vision of contemporary relations between the indigenous peoples of Latin America and the states that contain them. The resulting picture is an indictment for most Latin American nation-states except for specific governments that have been able to respond to well-organized indigenous social and political movements. However, one central fact remains undisputed: the Latin American indigenous movement has provoked a most radical questioning of the models of nation-state, democracy, and development since the expansion of anarchistic and socialist theories in the late 19th century." -- Sefano Varese, Professor of Native American Studies, University of California Davis, Director of the Indigenous Research Center of the Americas.