Book cover of Intimate Indigeneities: Race, Sex, and History in the Small Spaces of Andean Life

Book description

Drawing on extended ethnographic research conducted over the course of more than two decades, Andrew Canessa explores the multiple identities of a community of people in the Bolivian highlands through their own lived experiences and voices. He examines how gender, race, and ethnic identities manifest themselves in everyday interactions in…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Intimate Indigeneities as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

What does it mean to be “indigenous”? The answer is never simple, and I particularly like the way Andrew Canessa approaches the question by drawing us into people’s lives in an Aymara-speaking community in highland Bolivia and exploring how the people themselves understand different ways of being indigenous in different contexts. In the process he shows how “indigenous” identity is complex and situationally defined.

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On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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