Among government officials, urban planners, and development workers, Africa's burgeoning metropolises are frequently understood as failed cities, unable to provide even basic services. Whatever resourcefulness does exist is regarded as only temporary compensation for fundamental failure. In For the City Yet to Come, AbdouMaliq Simone argues that by overlooking all that does work in Africa's cities, this perspective forecloses opportunities to capitalize on existing informal economies and structures in development efforts within Africa and to apply lessons drawn from them to rapidly growing urban areas around the world. Simone contends that Africa's cities do work on some level and to the extent that they do, they function largely through fluid, makeshift collective actions running parallel to proliferating decentralized local authorities, small-scale enterprises, and community associations.Drawing on his nearly fifteen years of work in African cities-as an activist, teacher, development worker, researcher, and advisor to ngos and local governments-Simone provides a series of case studies illuminating the provisional networks through which most of Africa's urban dwellers procure basic goods and services. He examines informal economies and social networks in Pikine, a large suburb of Dakar, Senegal; in Winterveld, a neighborhood on the edge of Pretoria, South Africa; in Douala, Cameroon; and among Africans seeking work in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He contextualizes these particular cases through an analysis of the broad social, economic, and historical conditions that created present-day urban Africa. For the City Yet to Come is a powerful argument that any serious attempt to reinvent African urban centers must acknowledge the particular history of these cities and incorporate the local knowledge reflected in already existing informal urban economic and social systems.

On the little-known and darker side of shamanism there exists an ancient form of sorcery called kanaimà, a practice still observed among the Amerindians of the highlands of Guyana, Venezuela, and Brazil that involves the ritual stalking, mutilation, lingering death, and consumption of human victims. At once a memoir of cultural encounter and an ethnographic and historical investigation, this book offers a sustained, intimate look at kanaimà, its practitioners, their victims, and the reasons they give for their actions. Neil L. Whitehead tells of his own involvement with kanaimà—including an attempt to kill him with poison—and relates the personal testimonies of kanaimà shamans, their potential victims, and the victims’ families. He then goes on to discuss the historical emergence of kanaimà, describing how, in the face of successive modern colonizing forces—missionaries, rubber gatherers, miners, and development agencies—the practice has become an assertion of native autonomy. His analysis explores the ways in which kanaimà mediates both national and international impacts on native peoples in the region and considers the significance of kanaimà for current accounts of shamanism and religious belief and for theories of war and violence. Kanaimà appears here as part of the wider lexicon of rebellious terror and exotic horror—alongside the cannibal, vampire, and zombie—that haunts the western imagination. Dark Shamans broadens discussions of violence and of the representation of primitive savagery by recasting both in the light of current debates on modernity and globalization.

From the author of the award-winning bestseller The Content of Our Character comes a new essay collection that tells the untold story behind the polarized racial politics in America today. In A Dream Deferred Shelby Steele argues that a second betrayal of black freedom in the United States--the first one being segregation--emerged from the civil rights era when the country was overtaken by a powerful impulse to redeem itself from racial shame. According to Steele,1960s liberalism had as its first and all-consuming goal the expiation of America guilt rather than the careful development of true equality between the races. This "culture of preference" betrayed America's best principles in order to give whites and America institutions an iconography of racial virtue they could use against the stigma of racial shame. In four densely argued essays, Steele takes on the familiar questions of affirmative action, multiculturalism, diversity, Afro-centrism, group preferences, victimization--and what he deems to be the atavistic powers of race, ethnicity, and gender, the original causes of oppression. A Dream Deferred is an honest, courageous look at the perplexing dilemma of race and democracy in the United States--and what we might do to resolve it.

After long weeks of boring, perhaps spoiled sea rations, one of the first things Spaniards sought in the New World was undoubtedly fresh food. Probably they found the local cuisine strange at first, but soon they were sending American plants and animals around the world, eventually enriching the cuisine of many cultures.

Drawing on original accounts by Europeans and native Americans, this pioneering work offers the first detailed description of the cuisines of the Aztecs, the Maya, and the Inca. Sophie Coe begins with the basic foodstuffs, including maize, potatoes, beans, peanuts, squash, avocados, tomatoes, chocolate, and chiles, and explores their early history and domestication. She then describes how these foods were prepared, served, and preserved, giving many insights into the cultural and ritual practices that surrounded eating in these cultures. Coe also points out the similarities and differences among the three cuisines and compares them to Spanish cooking of the period, which, as she usefully reminds us, would seem as foreign to our tastes as the American foods seemed to theirs. Written in easily digested prose, America's First Cuisines will appeal to food enthusiasts as well as scholars.

When "A History of the Mexican-American People" was first published in 1977 it was greeted with enthusiasm for its straightforward, objective account of the Mexican-American role in US history. Since that time the text has been used in high school and university courses such as United States History, Chicano History and the history of the American southwest. This new, revised edition of the book brings up to date the history of these little known people and their continuing struggle for social justice. The opening section covers the years of exploration and northward Spanish expansion into what is the present-day United States. The book then scans the North American continent in the 19th century, highlighting Mexico's achievement of independence from Spain and consequent loss of its northernmost territories to the US. Samora examines the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War, US violations of the treaty, and contemporary repercussions. The third part of the book evaluates the impact of the Mexican Revolution on both sides of the border and the effect of mass migrations from Mexico. Samora then tackles the complex and decisive events from the mid-1950s to the present such as the problems of transition from rural to urban life, the question of discrimination and the search for civil rights. This new edition contains a revised chapter on Chicano contributions to art, literature, music and theatre, and a completely new chapter on the religious life of Mexican-Americans. A bibliography of Chicano literature covering the past 50 years is also included.

Rodriguez's acclaimed first book, Hunger of Memory raised a fierce controversy with its views on bilingualism and alternative action. Now, in a series of intelligent and candid essays, Rodriguez ranges over five centuries to consider the moral and spiritual landscapes of Mexico and the US and their impact on his soul.

Like Race Matters and Playing in the Dark, The House That Race Built is a cutting-edge work that confronts, honestly and passionately, the most critical issues facing American culture today along the fissure of race. In these essays, brought together by the scholar Wahneema Lubiano, some of today's most respected intellectuals share their ideas on race, power, gender, and society.

The authors, including Cornel West, Angela Y. Davis, and Toni Morrison, argue that we have reached a crisis of democracy represented by an ominous shift toward a renewed white nationalism in which racism is operating in coded, quasi-respectable new forms. They urge us to recognize this fact and to work toward destroying the old, destructive patterns of racial dominion forever.

"AmongUS" presents readings from individuals whose intercultural experiences give insights on how to achieve a fair multicultural society where cultural identities are celebrated and maintained. The essays provide a rich source of materials to teach a broad array of interpersonal, sociological, and psychological concepts that apply to educational, business, and cultural settings. The authors have arranged the book around four themes: Identity, Negotiating Intercultural Competence, Racism and Prejudice, and Belonging to Multiple Cultures.

New to the 2nd Edition A new text organization -- rearrangement of the sections and of the essays within each section -- provides a better depiction of the processes when living in an intercultural world. 10 new essays enhance and broaden the text's range of intercultural voices and experiences. Included among these new essays are "second" essays from authors (Mei Lin Swanson Kroll, Alfred J. Guillame, Jr., Vickie Marie, and Tadasu "Todd" Imahori) who describe an ongoing intercultural journey in which the author continues to learn and to live. "Culture Concepts" boxes provide more explicit links to the theory that underlies the lived experiences that are depicted. Each essay concludes with exercises and discussion questions, "Learning AmongUS," that encourage students to analyze and reflect on the essay. The new edition contains more direct and straightforward links with the authors' other intercultural text, "Intercultural Competence," allowing easier use for instructors who teach with both texts in their course. Praise for "AmongUS"

"The fact that the text is a reader makes it stand out among the rest. Its first-person narrative style is soengaging. We slip into another's skin for a moment. We feel what they feel and then slip out again changed. The text truly has this kind of impact on many of my students. It offers the understanding of intercultural issues that are less accessible in the traditional textbook."
--"Desiree C. Duff, Cornerstone University"

This book unravels the ethnic history of California since the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American conquest and institutionalization of "white supremacy" in the state. Almaguer comparatively assesses the struggles for control of resources, status, and political legitimacy between the European American and the Native American, Mexican, African-American, Chinese, and Japanese populations. Drawing from an array of primary and secondary sources, he weaves a detailed, disturbing portrait of ethnic, racial, and class relationships during this tumultuous time.
The U.S. annexation of California in 1848 and the simultaneous discovery of gold sparked rapid and diverse waves of immigration westward, displacing the already established pastoral Mexican society. Almaguer shows how the confrontation between white immigrants and the Mexican "ranchero" and working class populations was also a contestation over racial status in which racialization influenced and was in turn influenced by class position in the changing economic order. Partly because of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which granted U.S. citizenship and other rights, parts of the Mexican population were integrated into the emerging Anglo society more easily than other racialized groups. A case study of Ventura County highlights declining political and economic fortunes of the Mexican elite while showing how Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian populations were permanently relegated to the bottom of the class structure as unskilled manual workers.
The fate of the Native American population provides perhaps the most extreme example of white supremacy during the period. Popular conceptions of Native Americans as "uncivilized and "heathen," justified the killing of more than 8,000 men, women, and children between 1848 and 1870. Many survivors were incorporated at the periphery of Anglo society, often as indentured laborers and virtual slaves.
Underpinning the institutional structuring of white supremacy were notions such as "manifest destiny," the inherent good of the capitalist wage-system, and the superiority of Christianity and Euro-American culture, all of which helped to marginalize non white groups in California and justify Anglo-American class dominance. As other racialized groups assumed new roles, Almaguer assesses the complex interplay between economic forces and racial attitudes that simultaneously structured and allocated "group position" in the new social hierarchy.
California remains a contested racial frontier, as political struggles over the rights and opportunities of different groups continue to reverberate along racial lines. "Racial Fault Lines" is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of ethnicity and class in America, and the social construction of "race" in the Far West.