Rituals of Marginality
Subtitle
Politics, Process, and Culture Change in Central Urban Mexico, 1969-1974
In this political ethnography of the "marginalized" population of Netzahuacoyotl Izcalli, the fourth largest city in Mexico, Carlos Vélez-Ibañez shows that although marginalized groups seldom emerge the clear winners of political struggles, they gain a sense of autonomy and social power that can never be erased.
Bio
Carlos Velez-Ibanez is a Regents' Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the founding director emeritus in the School of Transborder Studies. His academic fields include applied anthropology, culture and education, ethno-class relations in complex social systems, migration and adaptation of human populations, political ecology and qualitative methodology.
Praise for this book
A truly remarkable book ... The analysis is sophisticated and the ethnography readable and compelling ... Persons interested in Mexican social structure at all levels will find resonances and permutations throughout this analysis, and political anthropologists will find this work theoretically profitable.
Dan Bauer Anthropology
"'Rituals of Marginality' documents how organizations of the poor may generate consequences unanticipated both 'from above' and 'from below' [and] highlights the inadequacies of behaviorist, 'vulgar' Marxist and male- biased modernization theory."
Susan Eckstein Contemporary Sociology
