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Ethnohistory 49.4 (2002) 900-903



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From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America. By Alison Brysk. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000. xxv + 370 pp., glossary, introduction, tables, references, index. $65.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.)
Peasants against Globalization: Rural Social Movements in Costa Rica. By Marc Edelman. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999. xxii + 308 pp., glossary, introduction, tables, map, illustrations, index. $65.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.)

Globalization has been a subject of considerable popular and scholarly interest in recent years, one that has often been characterized more by political platitudes than informed debate. These two books, though by no means withdrawn from the serious issues raised by globalization, make positive strides toward understanding questions of political culture in the interplay between international forces and local Latin American societies. Both authors are writing on the margins between political science and anthropology, in the context of recent Latin American history.

From Tribal Village to Global Village, Alison Brysk's broadly comparative analysis of indigenous movements in selected Latin American countries, chronicles the emergence of native peoples "from sub-human to political subjects" (26). Brysk shifts between several countries, some with significant indigenous populations (Ecuador, Bolivia, Mexico) and others with fewer Indians but with active political discussion concerning the native population (Nicaragua, Brazil). The movements are examined [End Page 900] from the perspectives of state power, economic penetration of global capitalism, and shifting notions of cultural identity. Brysk uses the metaphor of the global village to emphasize the international connections made between each country's indigenous movements and supportive activists in Europe and North America.

To her credit, Brysk is not retelling the stale tale of native peoples becoming hopelessly tangled in the long tentacles of global capitalism. Globalization works in both directions: states and markets certainly exploit native labor and resources, but indigenous peoples have appropriated technological advances to press their case. Bolivian peasants used "identity politics" to confront the U.S.-backed campaign against cocaine, as they successfully "demanded state accountability for their cultural rights against foreign influences" (112). Ecuadoran Indians occupied Quito's main cathedral in 1990 to protest neoliberal adjustments required by international bankers; they responded (in Brysk's terms) to "a ‘moral economy' of protest for traditional rights and local power" (155). In each country, the indigenous rights movements have succeeded in using a moral bully pulpit in the modern political arena. Tribal identities are reinvented to accommodate these new realities.

Brysk's notion of the global village is steeped in her own unabashed "normative" (read: political) commitments. Her final chapter especially borders on the polemical, as she suggests methods of supporting these movements. The pan-indigenous movement is presented in a hopeful light, though one suspects that the connections are still rather tenuous. While the road from tribal to global village may not be as predictable as the book's analytical tables indicate, the various national movements are shown to succeed according to their involvement with new communication technologies and forums.

By definition, comparative studies spark curiosity and a desire for deeper investigation of local realities. This call has been ably answered by Marc Edelman in Peasants against Globalization. Edelman focuses on peasant movements in Costa Rica that have arisen in the wake of increased political pressure by international lending agencies in the past twenty years. After a questionably lengthy theoretical chapter, Edelman sets the tone with a historically grounded explanation of how Costa Rica, known as the most peaceful of Latin American republics, could be the site of vigorous opposition to globalization. The stage for confrontation was set by Costa Rica's moratorium on repaying its foreign debt in 1981. The International Monetary Fund (imf), the World Bank, and other lenders responded with structural adjustment loans, demanding as they have in other arenas that Costa Rica dismantle parts of its cherished social welfare state. [End Page 901]

In subsequent chapters, Edelman outlines the "rise and demise of a tropical welfare state" and...

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