"A fine collection . . . this is a volume every person with interests in the social sciences and/or Latin America should read." American Anthropologist "Outlines in impressive detail the dimensions of women's powerlessness and shows the rich array of strategies women use to survive the oppression of their daily lives." Women's Review of Books

In this powerful anthropological study of a Bolivian tin mining town, Nash explores the influence of modern industrialization on the traditional culture of Quechua-and-Aymara-speaking Indians.

Elizabeth Emma Ferry explores how members of Guanajuato's Santa Fe Cooperative, Mexico's only remaining cooperatively owned silver mine, give meaning to their labor in an era of rampant globalization and neoliberalism. Ferry analyzes the cooperative's practices and the importance of "patrimonio" (patrimony) in their understanding of work, kinship, and morality. More specifically, she argues that patrimonio, a belief that certain resources are inalienable possessions of a local collective passed down to subsequent generations, shapes and sustains the cooperative's sense of identity.

In addition to descriptions of the miners' lives and views, Ferry examines patrimonio's influence on other aspects of Mexican life. Patrimonio, which both challenges and coexists with contemporary capitalist practices, draws close connections between collective identities, rights to resources, and social obligations throughout Mexican society. Ferry's ambitious, groundbreaking study opens up new ways of understanding modern Mexican history, the idea of property, value, and exchange in capitalist society, and current debates in Mexico over the ownership of resources, land, and historical artifacts.

From reviews of the first edition: "This intriguing study of women's role in household, town, and regional economic activity is a very revealing and important contribution to the growing literature on women and social change in Latin America.... Scholars and undergraduates interested in the Indians of Mesoamerica, and, more generally, in the changing relations of men and women everywhere, will welcome this book." -- Choice "Ehlers clearly shows the differential impact of capital penetration on women's survival strategies by social class, showing how options for some are limited, for others expanded, but changed for all. Silent Looms would be...an important book to include in courses on women in Latin America, women in development, and feminist methodologies." -- Association for Women in Development Newsletter "Ehlers weaves a lively tale as colorful as the huipiles worn by the women she studies. She embroiders the small details that bring to life a whole town of women and children." -- Latin American Research Review

Based on new fieldwork in 1997, Tracy Bachrach Ehlers has updated her classic study of the effects of economic development on the women weavers of San Pedro Sacatepe quez. Revisiting many of the women she interviewed in the 1970s and 1980s and revising her earlier hopeful assessment of women's entrepreneurial opportunities, Ehlers convincingly demonstrates that development and commercial growth in the region have benefited men at the expense of women.

"Outlines in impressive detail the dimensions of women's powerlessness and shows the rich array of strategies women use to survive the oppression of their daily lives." Women's Review of Books "A fine collection. . . . This is a volume every person with interests in the social sciences or Latin America should read." American Anthropologist