Why read To Defend Ourselves?

Book cover of To Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in an Andean Village

Book description

The result of ten years of studying the Quechua peasants of Chuschi in south-central Peru, this work is a structuralist attempt to uncover the mechanisms whereby the people of this Andean society struggle to protect the social and economic independence of their community from the outside world. The ethnographic strength…

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Why read it?

1 author picked To Defend Ourselves as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Catherine J. Allen

Author

This was a foundational book for me as I completed my first fieldwork and wrote my dissertation. Isbell draws the reader into life in a highland village in the Ayacucho region of Peru shortly before it was upended by guerilla warfare, describing strategies villagers used to relate to, and maintain independence from, outside social forces. With vivid examples she provides in-depth analyses of social organization and ritual life, as well as a chapter on urban migration and a postscript about impending violence.

From Catherine's list on Andean life, landscape, and personhood.