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Viable Ecologies

Conservation and Coexistence on the Galápagos Islands

By Paolo Bocci. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

How humans living amid an abundance of diverse flora and fauna help us rethink conservation

Famous for their geographic isolation and high proportion of endemic species, the Galápagos Islands have long been promoted as the premier...

Kernels of Resistance

Maize, Food Sovereignty, and Collective Power

By Liza Grandia

The story of how Mesoamerican food activists faced down Monsanto . . . and won

Right before the 2014 World Cup, US trade interests pressured Guatemala’s legislature into lifting its national ban on genetically modified (GM) crops and...

Myrlande Constant

The Work of Radiance

By Katherine Smith, Jerry Philogene

Myrlande Constant: The Work of Radiance is the first museum retrospective of a contemporary Haitian female artist who has been creating groundbreaking work for thirty years. Constant's panels build on the drapo Vodou tradition, depicting...

Knowledge for Justice

An Ethnic Studies Reader

By David K. Yoo, Pamela Grieman, Charlene Villaseñor Black, Danielle Dupuy, Arnold Ling-Chuang Pan

Knowledge for Justice is a joint publication of UCLA’s four ethnic studies research centers: American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicana/o Studies, and African American Studies. The book addresses the intersectional intellectual, social, and political...

Shifting Livelihoods

Gold Mining and Subsistence in the Chocó, Colombia

By Daniel Tubb. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

Honorable Mention for the Society for the Anthropology of Work (SAW) Book Prize

The many dimensions of gold in a shadow economy

People employ various methods to extract gold in the rainforests of the Chocó, in northwest...

Barrio Harmonics

Essays on Chicano / Latino Music

By Steven Loza

This collection explores Chicano, Mexican, and Cuban musical forms and styles and their transformation in the United States. Employing musical, historical, and sociocultural analyses, Loza addresses issues such as marginality, identity, intercultural conflict and aesthetics,...

Axé Bahia

The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis

By Patrick A. Polk, Roberto Conduru, Sabrina Gledhill, Randal Johnson

Axé Bahia examines the unique cultural role played by Salvador, the coastal capital of the Brazilian state of Bahia. An internationally renowned center of Afro-Brazilian culture, Salvador has been a vibrant and important hub of...

Conjuring Property

Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon

By Jeremy M. Campbell

Winner of the 2017 James M. Blaut Award from the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers

Honorable Mention for the 2016 Book Prize from the Association for Political and Legal...

Andean Waterways

Resource Politics in Highland Peru

By Mattias Borg Rasmussen

Andean Waterways explores the politics of natural resource use in the Peruvian Andes in the context of climate change and neoliberal expansion. It does so through careful ethnographic analysis of the constitution of waterways, illustrating...

Sinful Saints and Saintly Sinners at the Margins of the Americas

By Patrick A. Polk

The margins of the Americas―borders that are at once physical and societal―engender sacred figures who walk the fine line between sinfulness and sanctity. In worship and artistic representation alike, these entities reflect and impact the...

Dance Lest We All Fall Down

Breaking Cycles of Poverty in Brazil and Beyond

By Margaret Willson

An unexpected detour can change the course of our lives forever, and, for white American anthropologist Margaret Willson, a stopover in Brazil led to immersion in a kaleidoscopic world of street urchins, capoeiristas, drug dealers,...

Ruben Trejo

Beyond Boundaries, Aztlan y mas alla

By Ben Mitchell, Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, John Keeble

“Multiple backgrounds can form such two- and three-dimensional ideas that they take you to the brink of lunacy, but I have used this rich background and ethnic landscape for creating art. As a student at...

Alfredo Arreguin

Patterns of Dreams and Nature / Disenos, Suenos y Naturaleza

By Lauro Flores

Born in Mexico in 1935 and a resident of Washington State for nearly five decades, Alfredo Arreguín has long been recognized as a major force in pattern painting. His canvases are tapestries that mingle diverse...

Brazil's Indians and the Onslaught of Civilization

The Yanomami and the Kayapo

By Linda Rabben

The Yanomami and Kayapó, two indigenous groups of the Amazon rainforest, have become internationally known through their dramatic and highly publicized encounters with “civilization.” Both groups struggle to transcend internal divisions, preserve their traditional culture,...