Synopses & Reviews
"There is nothing out there like
Counting the Dead. Drawing on years of firsthand experience with those on the front lines of human rights work in Colombia, Winifred Tate guides the reader through an untold history of brave but quixotic efforts to build a democratic rule of law amid one of the world's most intractable, complicated conflicts. Written in clear, journalistic language and peppered with anecdotes,
Counting the Dead introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters-brave but fractious activists, out-of-touch government officials, wily military officers-all of whom tailor the language of human rights to their own agendas. Anyone who hopes to understand modern Colombia-or indeed, the challenges of human rights advocacy and state building amid conflict anywhere in the twenty-first century-would do well to read this book."and#151;Adam Isacson, Center for International Policy
"How do human rights actually work in situations of ongoing conflict and violence? This wonderfully rich and detailed study of human rights organizations and activists in Colombia offers fascinating insights into the complexity of human rights and their advocates-ranging from leftists to the military. Essential reading for those interested in a sophisticated, historical understanding of human rights, the book is a major contribution to the exciting new anthropological field that examines the practice of human rights."and#151;Sally Engle Merry, New York University
"Counting the Dead is a fascinating portrait of the pathology, pain, and hope of the struggle for human rights in Colombia. Powerfully weaving together personal narratives with historical analysis, this deeply researched, thoughtful, and moving study offers new understanding of the nature of knowledge and power; it is a model of engaged anthropology."and#151;Alison Brysk, University of California, Irvine
"Winifred Tate has written a deeply researched, critically sophisticated, and compelling ethnography of a little-examined, but enormously important and timely subject: human rights discourse and the individuals and institutions that struggle to define and deploy it within the often violent reality of contemporary Colombia. The author's deep familiarity with NGO and human rights-related scholarship and activism enormously enriches this account. By situating the detailed and particular trajectories of the individuals and institutions she examines within a historically contingent framework that takes into account the influence of larger social, political, economic, and ideological currents in shaping the philosophy and objectives of Colombian human rights workers and organizations over time, Tate is able to seamlessly navigate between fine-grained analysis and abstract comparison and extrapolation. This illuminating and lucidly written analysis has path-breaking implications not only for the study of Colombia, but for those interested in exploring the possibilities and limitations of a human rights framework to shape the parameters of conflict resolution and defense of individual rights in situations of conflict across the globe. A definite must read."and#151;Mary Jean Roldan, Cornell University
Review
and#8220;Pine has written a path-breaking book that forms an analytical bridge between the structures of neoliberalism and daily life for the poor who live within its midst.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Contributes significantly to our understanding of how activist institutional culture and identity evolves in a context where traditional labor and religious activists increasingly engage with and become more deeply enmeshed in the larger global activist community.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;A fascinating study of how and why the idea of human rights has gained such currency in Colombian society.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;An ethnographically rich, peopled account of the global economy.and#8221;
Synopsis
Teresa Caldeira's pioneering study of fear, crime, and segregation in Sand#227;o Paulo poses essential questions about citizenship and urban change in contemporary democratic societies. Focusing on Sand#227;o Paulo, and using comparative data on Los Angeles, she identifies new patterns of segregation developing in these cities and suggests that these patterns are appearing in many metropolises.
Synopsis
"This is an extraordinary treatment of a difficult problem. . . . Much more than a conventional comparative study,
City of Walls is a genuinely transcultural, transnational workand#151;the first of its kind that I have read."and#151;George E. Marcus, author of
Ethnography Through Thick and Thin"Caldeira's work is wonderfully ambitious-theoretically bold, ethnographically rich, historically specific. Anyone who cares about the condition and future of cities, of democracy, of human rights should read this book."and#151;Thomas Bender, Director of the Project on Cities and Urban Knowledges
"City of Walls is a brilliant analysis of the dynamics of urban fear. The sophistication of Caldeira's arguments should stimulate new discussion of cities and urban life. Its significance goes far beyond the borders of Brazil."and#151;Margaret Crawford, Professor of Urban Planning and Design Theory, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
"Caldeira's insight illuminates the geography of the city as well as the boundariesand#151;or the lack of boundariesand#151;of violence."and#151;Paul Chevigny, author of Edge of the Knife: Police Violence in the Americas
"An extraordinary account of violence in the city. . . . Caldeira brings to this task a rare depth of knowledge and understanding."and#151;Saskia Sassen, author of Globalization and Its Discontents
"An outstanding contribution to understanding authoritarian continuity under political reform. Caldeira has written a brilliant and bleak analysis on the many challenges and obstacles which government and civil society face in new democracies."and#151;Paulo Sand#233;rgio Pinheiro, Director of the Center for the Study of Violence, University of Sand#227;o Paulo and Member of the United Nations Sub-Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Synopsis
Donna M. Goldstein challenges much of what we think we know about the "culture of poverty." Drawing on more than a decade of experience in Brazil, Goldstein provides an intimate portrait of everyday life among the women of the favelas, or urban shantytowns. These women have created absurdist and black-humor storytelling practices in the face of trauma and tragedy. Goldstein helps us to understand that such joking and laughter is part of an emotional aesthetic that defines the sense of frustration and anomie endemic to the political and economic desperation of the shantytown.
Synopsis
"Goldstein returns anthropology to what it does best while taking the reader on a no-holds-barred ride through the tragicomic world of a Rio favela. She captures the bittersweet laughter of Brazil's vast subterranean underclass of domestic servants who keep their anger and despair at bay by laughing and spitting into the face of chaos, injustice, and premature death. In this affecting and deft 'comedy of manners,' Goldstein emerges as urban anthropology's new Jane Austen."and#151;Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of
Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil"Goldstein takes us right to where anthropology should be: into the blood, sweat, tears of shantytown life. Laughter Out of Place tells the story of a Brazilian family on the edge of survival where women and children struggle, not just to stay alive, but also for joy in the face of poverty, men, and mutual betrayal."and#151;Philippe Bourgois, author of In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
"A stunning ethnographic achievement that should become an urban anthropological classic. Goldstein brings us close to women who under extraordinary circumstances of poverty use humor to reveal the penetrating truth of their relationship to structures of power and the ironies of their raced, classed, and gendered lives. Superb and engaging ethnographic analysis is framed by sophisticated social theory and a comprehensive treatment of the literature on contemporary Brazilian society."and#151;Judith Goode, co-editor of The New Poverty Studies: The Ethnography of Power, Politics and Impoverished People in the United States
Synopsis
Donna M. Goldstein presents a hard-hitting critique of urban poverty and violence and challenges much of what we think we know about the "culture of poverty" in this compelling read. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in Brazil, Goldstein provides an intimate portrait of everyday life among the women of the favelas, or urban shantytowns in Rio de Janeiro, who cope with unbearable suffering, violence and social abandonment. The book offers a clear-eyed view of socially conditioned misery while focusing on the creative responsesand#151;absurdist and black humorand#151;that people generate amid daily conditions of humiliation, anger, and despair. Goldstein helps us to understand that such joking and laughter is part of an emotional aesthetic that defines the sense of frustration and anomie endemic to the political and economic desperation among residents of the shantytown.
Synopsis
"Honduras is violent." Adrienne Pine situates this oft-repeated claim at the center of her vivid and nuanced chronicle of Honduran subjectivity. Through an examination of three major subject areasand#151;violence, alcohol, and the export-processing (maquiladora) industryand#151;Pine explores the daily relationships and routines of urban Hondurans. She views their lives in the context of the vast economic footprint on and ideological domination of the region by the United States, powerfully elucidating the extent of Honduras's dependence. She provides a historically situated ethnographic analysis of this fraught relationship and the effect it has had on Hondurans' understanding of who they are. The result is a rich and visceral portrait of a culture buffeted by the forces of globalization and inequality.
Synopsis
"A theoretically cutting edge ethnography of neoliberalism as suffered by most poor people across the globe. Pine creatively links macro-structural forces in Honduras to the everyday life of factory workers, shanty town dwellers, gang kids, alcoholics and crack smokers within the context of globalized consumerism and the history of U.S. domination of Central America."and#151;Philippe Bourgois, author of
In Search of Respect"Gutsy fieldwork. A compassionate analysis of the links between work, violence, corporate capitalism, American empire, and self-worth. It will make your blood boil."and#151;Laura Nader, University of California, Berkeley
"Using largely the voices of others, Pine's rigorous but sensitive anthropological approach interweaves gangs, work, religion, drink, politics, and even globalization to show clearly how violence pervades the everyday life of many Hondurans. It is a realistic tour de force!"and#151;Dwight B. Heath, Brown University
Synopsis
At a time when a global consensus on human rights standards seems to be emerging, this rich study steps back to explore how the idea of human rights is actually employed by activists and human rights professionals. Winifred Tate, an anthropologist and activist with extensive experience in Colombia, finds that radically different ideas about human rights have shaped three groups of human rights professionals working there--nongovernmental activists, state representatives, and military officers. Drawing from the life stories of high-profile activists, pioneering interviews with military officials, and research at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Counting the Dead underscores the importance of analyzing and understanding human rights discourses, methodologies, and institutions within the context of broader cultural and political debates.
Synopsis
Cholera, although it can kill an adult through dehydration in half a day, is easily treated. Yet in 1992-93, some five hundred people died from cholera in the Orinoco Delta of eastern Venezuela. In some communities, a third of the adults died in a single night, as anthropologist Charles Briggs and Clara Mantini-Briggs, a Venezuelan public health physician, reveal in their frontline report. Why, they ask in this moving and thought-provoking account, did so many die near the end of the twentieth century from a bacterial infection associated with the premodern past?
It was evident that the number of deaths resulted not only from inadequacies in medical services but also from the failure of public health officials to inform residents that cholera was likely to arrive. Less evident were the ways that scientists, officials, and politicians connected representations of infectious diseases with images of social inequality. In Venezuela, cholera was racialized as officials used anthropological notions of "culture" in deflecting blame away from their institutions and onto the victims themselves. The disease, the space of the Orinoco Delta, and the "indigenous ethnic group" who suffered cholera all came to seem somehow synonymous.
One of the major threats to people's health worldwide is this deadly cycle of passing the blame. Carefully documenting how stigma, stories, and statistics circulate across borders, this first-rate ethnography demonstrates that the process undermines all the efforts of physicians and public health officials and at the same time contributes catastrophically to epidemics not only of cholera but also of tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS, and other killers. The authors have harnessed their own outrage over what took place during the epidemic and its aftermath in order to make clear the political and human stakes involved in the circulation of narratives, resources, and germs.
Synopsis
"Ten years ago, cholera and#145;racedand#8217; through part of eastern Venezuela, moving along social fault lines long in the making. This harrowing and beautifully written account chronicles a complex array of social responses to an epidemic and shows us what an engaged and responsible anthropology can offer those seeking to understand and prevent such plaguesand#151;and the injustices that foster them. Stories in the Time of Cholera is sure to have broad appeal within the social sciences and public health, and it should be required reading for public authorities and the press, whose prejudices clearly compounded the injuries meted out by the microbe itself. This is an exceedingly important book."and#151;Paul Farmer, author of
Infections and Inequalities"Sometimes the historian can only envy the ethnographer's ability to observe and configure complex social and conceptual worlds. This study of cholera constitutes one of those occasions: I can only admire the authors' ability to unravel class, attitudinal, and institutional relationships, using social responses to cholera as their sampling device."and#151;Charles E. Rosenberg, author of Explaining Epidemics
Synopsis
Carolyn Nordstrom explores the pathways of global crime in this stunning work of anthropology that has the power to change the way we think about the world. To write this book, she spent three years traveling to hot spots in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the United States investigating the dynamics of illegal trade around the worldand#151;from blood diamonds and arms to pharmaceuticals, exotica, and staples like food and oil. Global Outlaws peels away the layers of a vast economy that extends from a war orphan in Angola selling Marlboros on the street to powerful transnational networks reaching across continents and oceans. Nordstrom's extraordinary fieldwork includes interviews with scores of informants, including the smugglers, victims, power elite, and profiteers who populate these economic war zones. Her compelling investigation, showing that the sum total of extra-legal activities represents a significant part of the world's economy, provides a new framework for understanding twenty-first-century economics and economic power. Global Outlaws powerfully reveals the illusions and realities of security in all areas of transport and trade and illuminates many of the difficult ethical problems these extra-legal activities pose.
Synopsis
"A deeply insightful book that connects the dots of the hidden systems that have subverted democracy and caused the type of desperation and anger that result in a 9/11. A book that opens our awareness."and#151;John Perkins, author of The New York Times bestseller
Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man"Anyone interested in global economic crime should read this book."and#151;Charmian Gooch, a founding director of Global Witness
"Global Outlaws is a revealing book about a global trend whose importance is still far from being fully recognized."and#151;Moises Naim, Editor in Chief of Foreign Policy Magazine and author of Illicit: How Smugglers Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy
"Carolyn Nordstrom's important new book takes us on a dark journey through war-torn landscapes riddled with corruption, violence, and gross inequalities. It is a compelling studyand#151;one guided by the norms of scholarly research but also written out of deeply felt experience. A book infused by anger, compassion, but also hope."and#151;Andrew Mack, University of British Columbia
"This is a fascinating, insightful, and important ethnographic study of the intersection of crime, finance, and power in the illegal, 'informal', or underground economy. I have read all of Carolyn Nordstrom's books, and this is the best one yet."and#151;Jeff Sluka, Massey University
"Carolyn Nordstrom's Global Outlaws is a rare and remarkable fusion of economic anthropology and travel writing. The prose is highly engaging without being sensationalistic. This is a timely and fascinating read for anyone looking for an on-the-ground account of the clandestine underside of globalization."and#151;Peter Andreas, co-author of Policing the Globe: Criminalization and Crime Control in International Relations
"Carolyn Nordstrom is the best fieldworker in anthropology, bar none. Yet again she has pioneered new fieldsites and new forms of ethnography in this book, as well as presented a new framework for viewing economics and economic power. This is undoubtedly a highly important work that sets new frontiers for anthropology."and#151;Monique Skidmore, Australian National University
Synopsis
This highly original work of anthropology combines extensive ethnographic fieldwork and investigative journalism to explain how security is understood, experienced, and constructed along the Triple Frontera, the border region shared by Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. One of the major "hot borders" in the Western Hemisphere, the Triple Fronteraand#160;is associated with drug and human trafficking, contraband, money laundering, and terrorism. It's also a place where residents, particularly on the Argentine side, are subjected to increased governmental control and surveillance.
How does a scholar tell a story about a place characterized by illicit international trading, rampant violence, and governmental militarization? Jusionyte inventively centered her ethnographic fieldwork on a community of journalists who investigate and report on crime and violence in the region. Through them she learned that a fair amount of petty, small-scale illicit trading goes unreportedand#151;a consequence of a community invested in promoting the idea that the border is a secure place that does not warrant militarized attention. The author's work demonstrates that while media is often seen as a powerful tool for spreading a sense of danger and uncertainty, sensationalizing crime and violence, and creating moral panics, journalists can actually do the opposite. Those who selectively report on illegal activities use the news to tell particular types of stories in an attempt to make their communities look and ultimately be more secure.
Synopsis
and#147;
Savage Frontier is a fascinating study of the entanglement of those who make news and those who make security in the allegedly and#145;lawlessand#8217; Triple Frontier. In a zone of clandestine practices, public secrets, and camouflage statecraft, Ieva Jusionyte explores in vivid detail how journalists navigate illegal practices, codes of silence, and global and local discourses on (il)legality.and#8221;and#151;Dominic Boyer, Rice University
and#147;Jusionyte combines her experience as a professional journalist and anthropologist to examine local media production in the under-studied tri-border area. Through extensive fieldwork and a fresh ethnographic approach, Jusionyte fills a critical need for the study of Latin American media production, while also contributing to the growing field of security studies.and#8221;and#151;Winifred Tate, author of Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats: U.S. Policymaking in Colombia
and#147;Savage Frontier explores how mass media are shaped by but also constitute borders. With a sharp ethnographic approach, Jusionyte explores how global, national, and local media form our conception of the Triple Frontier of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.and#8221;and#151; Josiah Heyman, University of Texas at El Paso
and#160;
About the Author
Charles L. Briggs is the Alan Dundes Distinguished Professor and Professor and Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and most recently coauthored Voices of Modernity (with Richard Bauman, 2003). Clara Mantini-Briggs, M.D. M.P.H., is an Associate Researcher in the Department of Demography and is affiliated with the PhD Program in Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley and the Director of Fundaciand#243;n para las Investigaciones Aplicadas Orinoco, which conducts research and initiates programs aimed at improving health conditions in Delta Amacuro, Venezuela.
Table of Contents
List of Maps, Illustrations, and Tables
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: Anthropology with an Accent
PART ONE: The Talk of Crime
1. Talking of Crime and Ordering the World
Crime as a Disorganizing Experience and an Organizing Symbol
Violence and Signification
From Progress to Economic Crisis, from Authoritarianism to Democracy
2. Crisis, Criminals, and the Spread of Evil
Limits to Modernization
Going Down Socially and Despising the Poor
The Experiences of Violence
Dilemmas of Classification and Discrimination
Evil and Authority
PART TWO: Violent Crime and the Failure of the Rule of Law
3. The Increase in Violent Crime
Tailoring the Statistics
Crime Trends, 1973-1996
Looking for Explanations
4. The Police: A Long History of Abuses
A Critique of the Incomplete Modernity Model
Organization of the Police Forces
A Tradition of Transgressions
5. Police Violence under Democracy
Escalating Police Violence
Promoting a and#147;Toughand#8221; Police
The Massacre at the Casa de Detenand#231;and#227;o
The Police from the Citizensand#8217; Point of View
Security as a Private Matter
The Cycle of Violence
PART THREE: Urban Segregation, Fortified Enclaves, and Public Space
6. Sand#227;o Paulo: Three Patterns of Spatial Segregation
The Concentrated City of Early Industrialization
Center-Periphery: The Dispersed City
Proximity and Walls in the 198s and 199s
7. Fortified Enclaves: Building Up Walls and Creating a New Private Order
Private Worlds for the Elite
From Cortiand#231;os to Luxury Enclaves
A Total Way of Life: Advertising Residential Enclaves for the Rich
Keeping Order inside the Walls
Resisting the Enclaves
An Aesthetic of Security
8. The Implosion of Modern Public Life
The Modern Ideal of Public Space and City Life
Garden City and Modernism: The Lineage of the Fortified Enclave
Street Life: Incivility and Aggression
Experiencing the Public
The Neo-international Style: Sand#227;o Paulo and Los Angeles
Contradictory Public Space
PART FOUR: Violence, Civil Rights, and the Body
9. Violence, the Unbounded Body, and the Disregard for Rights in Brazilian Democracy
Human Rights as and#147;Privileges for Banditsand#8221;
Debating Capital Punishment
Punishment as Private and Painful Vengeance
Body and Rights
Appendix
Notes
References
Index