Upon winning the 2005 presidential election, Evo Morales became the first indigenous person to lead Bolivia since the arrival of the Spanish more than five hundred years before. Morales's election is the culmination of a striking new kind of activism in Bolivia. Born out of a history of resistance to colonial racism and developed in collective struggles against the post-revolutionary state, this movement crystallized over the last decade as poor and Indian Bolivian citizens engaged with the democratic promises and exclusions of neoliberal multiculturalism. This ethnography of the Guarani Indians of Santa Cruz traces how recent political reforms, most notably the Law of Popular Participation, recast the racist exclusions of the past, and offers a fresh look at neoliberalism. Armed with the language of citizenship and an expectation of the rights citizenship implies, this group is demanding radical changes to the structured inequalities that mark Bolivian society. As the 2005 election proved, even Bolivia's most marginalized people can reform fundamental ideas about the nation, multiculturalism, neoliberalism, and democracy.

The Indian question has come to the forefront of political agendas in contemporary Latin America. In the process, indigenous movements have emerged as important social actors, raising a variety of demands on behalf of native peoples. Regardless of the situation of Indian groups as small minorities or significant sectors, many Latin American states have been forced to consider whether they should have the same status as all citizens or whether they should be granted special citizenship rights as Indians. This book examines the struggle for indigenous rights in eight Latin American countries. Initial studies of indigenous movements celebrated the return of the Indians as relevant political actors, often approaching their struggles as expressions of a common, generic agenda. This collection moves the debate forward by acknowledging the extraordinary diversity among the movements composition, goals, and strategies. By focusing on the factors that shape this diversity, the authors offer a basis for understanding the specificities of converging and diverging patterns across different countries. The case studies examine the ways in which the Indian question arises in each country, with reference to the protagonism of indigenous movements in the context of the threats and opportunities posed by neoliberal policies. The complexities posed by the varying demographic weight of indigenous populations, the interrelation of class and ethnicity, and the interplay between indigenous and popular struggles are discussed.

The Indian question has come to the forefront of political agendas in contemporary Latin America. In the process, indigenous movements have emerged as important social actors, raising a variety of demands on behalf of native peoples. Regardless of the situation of Indian groups as small minorities or significant sectors, many Latin American states have been forced to consider whether they should have the same status as all citizens or whether they should be granted special citizenship rights as Indians. This book examines the struggle for indigenous rights in eight Latin American countries. Initial studies of indigenous movements celebrated the return of the Indians as relevant political actors, often approaching their struggles as expressions of a common, generic agenda. This collection moves the debate forward by acknowledging the extraordinary diversity among the movements composition, goals, and strategies. By focusing on the factors that shape this diversity, the authors offer a basis for understanding the specificities of converging and diverging patterns across different countries. The case studies examine the ways in which the Indian question arises in each country, with reference to the protagonism of indigenous movements in the context of the threats and opportunities posed by neoliberal policies. The complexities posed by the varying demographic weight of indigenous populations, the interrelation of class and ethnicity, and the interplay between indigenous and popular struggles are discussed.

Putting the Barn Before the House features the voices and viewpoints of women born before World War I who lived on family farms in south-central New York. As she did in her previous book, Bonds of Community, for an earlier period in history, Grey Osterud explores the flexible and varied ways that families shared labor and highlights the strategies of mutuality that women adopted to ensure they had a say in family decision making. Sharing and exchanging work also linked neighboring households and knit the community together. Indeed, the culture of cooperation that women espoused laid the basis for the formation of cooperatives that enabled these dairy farmers to contest the power of agribusiness and obtain better returns for their labor. Osterud recounts this story through the words of the women and men who lived it and carefully explores their views about gender, labor, and power, which offered an alternative to the ideas that prevailed in American society.Most women saw "putting the barn before the house" investing capital and labor in productive operations rather than spending money on consumer goods or devoting time to mere housework as a necessary and rational course for families who were determined to make a living on the land and, if possible, to pass on viable farms to the next generation. Some women preferred working outdoors to what seemed to them the thankless tasks of urban housewives, while others worked off the farm to support the family. Husbands and wives, as well as parents and children, debated what was best and negotiated over how to allocate their limited labor and capital and plan for an uncertain future. Osterud tells the story of an agricultural community in transition amid an industrializing age with care and skill."

Upon winning the 2005 presidential election, Evo Morales became the first indigenous person to lead Bolivia since the arrival of the Spanish more than five hundred years before. Morales's election is the culmination of a striking new kind of activism in Bolivia. Born out of a history of resistance to colonial racism and developed in collective struggles against the post-revolutionary state, this movement crystallized over the last decade as poor and Indian Bolivian citizens engaged with the democratic promises and exclusions of neoliberal multiculturalism. This ethnography of the Guarani Indians of Santa Cruz traces how recent political reforms, most notably the Law of Popular Participation, recast the racist exclusions of the past, and offers a fresh look at neoliberalism. Armed with the language of citizenship and an expectation of the rights citizenship implies, this group is demanding radical changes to the structured inequalities that mark Bolivian society. As the 2005 election proved, even Bolivia's most marginalized people can reform fundamental ideas about the nation, multiculturalism, neoliberalism, and democracy.

Putting the Barn Before the House features the voices and viewpoints of women born before World War I who lived on family farms in south-central New York. As she did in her previous book, Bonds of Community, for an earlier period in history, Grey Osterud explores the flexible and varied ways that families shared labor and highlights the strategies of mutuality that women adopted to ensure they had a say in family decision making. Sharing and exchanging work also linked neighboring households and knit the community together. Indeed, the culture of cooperation that women espoused laid the basis for the formation of cooperatives that enabled these dairy farmers to contest the power of agribusiness and obtain better returns for their labor. Osterud recounts this story through the words of the women and men who lived it and carefully explores their views about gender, labor, and power, which offered an alternative to the ideas that prevailed in American society.Most women saw "putting the barn before the house" investing capital and labor in productive operations rather than spending money on consumer goods or devoting time to mere housework as a necessary and rational course for families who were determined to make a living on the land and, if possible, to pass on viable farms to the next generation. Some women preferred working outdoors to what seemed to them the thankless tasks of urban housewives, while others worked off the farm to support the family. Husbands and wives, as well as parents and children, debated what was best and negotiated over how to allocate their limited labor and capital and plan for an uncertain future. Osterud tells the story of an agricultural community in transition amid an industrializing age with care and skill."

UPDATE: Finalist, 2012 Readers' Choice Awards, in its category. Going to College or University? First Year? Want to know what to expect? A quick search on Google or Amazon will reveal plenty of material, mostly written by profs, or deans, or counselors, or trusted experts, or graduating students. Not this book. Here, you'll find hundreds of students, mostly in their first year, telling stories about how it feels, as it happens. Some wise, some crazy. Some funny, some serious. Some sad, some scary. Advice: well yes, but like everything in this book, actually written by students for students, from their own experiences. Hundreds of stories in their own words. More than 200 voices. A worthwhile read for students, parents, teachers, counselors. The accompanying website has 130 more pieces, accessible from inside the book.

Women held a central place in long-settled rural communities like the Nanticoke Valley in upstate New York during the late nineteenth century. Their lives were limited by the bonds of kinship and labor, but farm women found strength in these bonds as well. Although they lacked control over land and were second-class citizens, these rural women did not occupy a "separate sphere." Individually and collectively, they responded to inequality by actively enlarging the dimensions of sharing in their relationships with men. Nancy Grey Osterud uses a rich store of diaries, letters, and other first-person documents, in addition to public and organizational records, to reconstruct the everyday lives of ordinary women of the past. Exploring large questions within the confines of a single community, she analyzes the ways in which notions of gender structured women's interactions with their families and neighbors, their place in the farm family economy, and their participation in organized community activities. Rare turn-of-the-century photographs of the rural landscape, formal and informal family portraits, and scenes of daily life and labor add a special dimension to Bonds of Community. It should find a ready audience among women's historians, labor historians, rural historians, and historians of New York State.