Amazonian Caboclo Society is concerned with peasant society in Brazilian Amazonia. Most anthropological work in Amazonia has focused on Indian groups, and caboclos (peasants of mixed ancestry) have generally been regarded as relics of the haphazard development of Amazonia and have received little serious attention. This volume aims to analyze the reasons for the relative 'invisibility' of caboclo society. It traces the development of caboclo societies and argues that much of the current discussion of 'sustainable development' fails to recognize the important legacy of historical caboclo society.

In this engaging book, Stephen Nugent offers an in-depth historical anthropology of a widely recognised feature of the Amazon region, examining the dramatic rise and fall of the rubber industry. He considers rubber in the Amazon from the perspective of a long-term extractive industry that linked remote forest tappers to technical innovations central to the industrial transformation of Europe and North America, emphasizing the links between the social landscape of Amazonia and the global economy. Through a critical examination focused on the rubber industry, Nugent addresses myths that continue to influence perceptions of Amazonia. The book challenges widely held assumptions about the hyper-naturalism of the 'lost world' of the Amazon where 'the challenge of the tropics' is still to be faced and the 'frontiers of development' are still to be settled. It is relevant for students and scholars of anthropology, Latin American studies, history, political ecology, geography and development studies.

In this engaging book, Stephen Nugent offers an in-depth historical anthropology of a widely recognised feature of the Amazon region, examining the dramatic rise and fall of the rubber industry. He considers rubber in the Amazon from the perspective of a long-term extractive industry that linked remote forest tappers to technical innovations central to the industrial transformation of Europe and North America, emphasizing the links between the social landscape of Amazonia and the global economy. Through a critical examination focused on the rubber industry, Nugent addresses myths that continue to influence perceptions of Amazonia. The book challenges widely held assumptions about the hyper-naturalism of the 'lost world' of the Amazon where 'the challenge of the tropics' is still to be faced and the 'frontiers of development' are still to be settled. It is relevant for students and scholars of anthropology, Latin American studies, history, political ecology, geography and development studies.

Critical anthropology has had a major influence on the discipline, shifting it away from concepts of bounded societies with evolutionary trajectories to complex analyses of interconnected economic, political, and social processes. This book brings together some of critical anthropology's most influential writings, collecting classic articles and spirited rebuttals by major scholars such as Eric Wolf, Marshall Sahlins, Sidney Mintz, Andre Gunder Frank, and Michael Taussig. Editor Stephen Nugent positions these key debates, originally published in the journal Critique of Anthropology, with new introductions that detail the lasting influence of these articles on anthropology over four decades, showing how critical anthropology is relevant today more than ever. An ideal supplementary text, this book is a rich exploration of intellectual history that will continue to shape anthropology for decades to come.

The anthropological study of elites has gained increasing prominence with the issues of power, prestige and ststus in the societies of of anthropologists themselves. However, our understanding of elites is often partial, obscured as it is by the theoretical weaknesses of Western models on the one hand and, on the other, by the difficulties in studying elites from the 'inside'. Drawing on a diverse, comparative ethnographic literature, this new volume examines the intimate spaces and cultural practices of those elites who occupy positions of power and authority across a variety of different settings.

Drawing on a diverse, comparative ethnographic literature, this new volume examines the intimate spaces and cultural practices of those elites who occupy positions of power and authority across a variety of different settings.
Using ethnographic case studies from a wide range of geographical areas, including Mexico, Peru, Amazonia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Europe, North America and Africa, the contributors explore the inner worlds of meaning and practice that define and sustain elite identities. They also provide insights into the cultural mechanisms that maintain elite status, and into the complex ways that elite groups relate to, and are embedded within, wider social and historical processes.

The Amazon Indian is an icon that straddles the world between the professional anthropologist and the popular media. Presented alternately as the noble primitive, the savior of the environment, and as a savage, dissolute, cannibalistic half-human, it is an image well worth examining. Stephen Nugent does just that, critiquing the claims of authoritativeness inherent in visual images presented by anthropologists of Amazon life in the early 20th century and comparing them with the images found in popular books, movies, and posters. The book depicts the field of anthropology as its own form of culture industry and contrasts it to other similar industries, past and present. For visual anthropologists, ethnographers, Amazon specialists, and popular culture researchers, Nugent's book will be enlightening, entertaining reading.

Traditionally, Non-Indian societies in Brazilian Amazonia - 'caboclo' - are treated by anthropologists as relics of the haphazard development of Amazonia - leftovers of the colonial enterprise and have therefore received little serious attention. This volume attempts to redress this imbalance by looking closely at the encompassing nature of peasant society in Brazilian Amazonia. The first part of the book is concerned with the concept of caboclo as it emerges in anthropological and Amazonianist disclosure. The second examines a historical 'caboclo' society (in Santarem, Para) from a broadly ethnographic viewpoint. Three different modes of peasant livelihood and their relation to the impact of the Transamazon Highway are then fully discussed, followed by a detailed examination of the 'sustainable- development' thesis using research from another part of Amazonia - the Guama River. Overall, this volume aims to examine the reasons for the relative 'invisibility' of caboclo society and to place it in a historical perspective.