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Life is Hard - Machismo, Danger, and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua (Paperback, Revised)
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Life is Hard - Machismo, Danger, and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua (Paperback, Revised)
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"Rambo took the barrios by storm: Spanish videotapes of the movie
were widely available, and nearly all the boys and young men had
seen it, usually on the VCRs of their family's more affluent
friends. . . . As one young Sandinista commented, 'Rambo is like
the Nicaraguan soldier. He's a superman. And if the United States
invades, we'll cut the marines down like Rambo did.' And then he
mimicked Rambo's famous war howl and mimed his arc of machine gun
fire. We both laughed."--from the book
There is a Nicaragua that Americans have rarely seen or heard
about, a nation of jarring political paradoxes and staggering
social and cultural flux. In this Nicaragua, the culture of
machismo still governs most relationships, insidious racism belies
official declarations of ethnic harmony, sexual relationships
between men differ starkly from American conceptions of
homosexuality, and fascination with all things American is rampant.
Roger Lancaster reveals the enduring character of Nicaraguan
society as he records the experiences of three families and their
community through times of war, hyperinflation, dire shortages, and
political turmoil.
Life is hard for the inhabitants of working class barrios like Dona
Flora, who expects little from men and who has reared her four
children with the help of a constant female companion; and life is
hard for Miguel, undersized and vulnerable, stigmatized as a
"cochon"--a "faggot"--until he learned to fight back against his
brutalizers.
Through candid discussions with young and old Nicaraguans, men and
women, Lancaster constructs an account of the successes and
failures of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, documenting the effects
of war and embargo on thecultural and economic fabric of Nicaraguan
society. He tracks the break up of families, surveys informal
networks that allow female-headed households to survive, explores
the gradual transformation of the culture of machismo, and reveals
a world where heroic efforts have been stymied and the best hopes
deferred. This vast chronicle is sustained by a rich theoretical
interpretation of the meanings of ideology, power, and the family
in a revolutionary setting.
Played out against a backdrop of political travail and social
dislocation, this work is a story of survival and resistance but
also of humor and happiness. Roger Lancaster shows us that life is
hard, but then too, life goes on.
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