Staying sober is a daily struggle for many men living in Mexico City, one of the world's largest, grittiest urban centers. In this engaging study, Stanley Brandes focuses on a common therapeutic response to alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), which boasts an enormous following throughout Mexico and much of Latin America. Over several years, Brandes observed and participated in an all-men's chapter of A.A. located in a working class district of Mexico City. Employing richly textured ethnography, he analyzes the group's social dynamics, therapeutic effectiveness, and ritual and spiritual life. Brandes demonstrates how recovering alcoholics in Mexico redefine gender roles in order to preserve masculine identity. He also explains how an organization rooted historically in evangelical Protestantism has been able to flourish in Roman Catholic Latin America.

"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 areas—violence, alcohol, and the export-processing (maquiladora) industry—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.

In Intoxicated Identities, Tim Mitchell provides a novel and well-grounded framework for understanding subjective drinking experiences from the Aztecs to the present day in areas as diverse as Chiapas, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Texas and California. Power drinking plays a crucial role in Mexican religion, politics, fine arts and ritual spousal abuse. Mexico ranks number one in deaths from cirrhosis, and Mexican Americans are twice as likely to be arrested for drunken driving as blacks or whites. With methods and concepts derived from an extraordinary range of disciplines, Mitchell explains how Mexican culture reinforces heavy drinking. He analyzes supply (nationalistic marketing strategies) but emphasizes demand (psychocultural motivations unique to Mexico). He chronicles the joys and sorrows of a borrachera, or drinking binge, and explores this altered state of consciousness on its own terms, not from any temperance or anti-alcohol perspective.

Contemporary distinctions between religion and spirituality can often be traced to rebellion against hierarchical institutions with biases towards women and minorities that constrain individual freedom. This opposition is carefully addressed in this volume, with greater attention paid to gender and power in the context of contemporary spirituality and how these relate to the distinction between religion and spirituality.

Will become not only the standard reference on the cultural study of alcoholism in Mexico, but also one of the very best overall social science contributions to the study of Mexican culture

In Collective Biologies, Emily A. Wentzell uses sexual health research participation as a case study for investigating the use of individual health behaviors to aid groups facing crisis and change. Wentzell analyzes couples' experiences of a longitudinal study of HPV occurrence in men in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She observes how their experiences reflected Mexican cultural understandings of group belonging through categories like family and race. For instance, partners drew on collective rather than individualistic understandings of biology to hope that men's performance of “modern” masculinities, marriage, and healthcare via HPV research would aid groups ranging from church congregations to the Mexican populace. Thus, Wentzell challenges the common regulatory view of medical research participation as an individual pursuit. Instead, she demonstrates that medical research is a daily life arena that people might use for fixing embodied societal problems. By identifying forms of group interconnectedness as “collective biologies,” Wentzell investigates how people can use their own actions to enhance collective health and well-being in ways that neoliberal emphasis on individuality obscures.

----STUDENT EDITION---- The first mainstream book to truly integrate coverage of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and age continues to win high praise. One user writes, "" Miller's text offers clarity and an attention to diversity and inequality in human experience that the students really appreciate." " Emphasizing social inequality, this contemporary introductory textbook explains how inequalities affect economy, kinship, politics, religion, and language while still covering the core concepts of cultural anthropology. Special Features: Integrates coverage of contemporary issues suCh. as health systems, migration, and development throughout the text to highlight the practical applications and relevance of cultural anthropological studies. More focus on theory in cultural anthropology with a new section on the history of theory (Ch. 1) and more explicit links to theory in the Critical Thinking boxes in every chapter. Development Anthropology includes new discussions and the latest researCh. on the relationship between development on indigenous peoples, social inequality, and new examples of human resistance in the face of large-scale exogenous development (Ch. 16). Back by popular demand, Miller's migration chapter, " People on the Move" -- unique in this market-- returns as Chapter 15. New layout, larger pages, and attractive design combine to make this Third Edition even more accessible to students! Boxed Features show the interconnection of Anthropology to other disciplines and to career opportunities: Lessons Applied illustrates how anthropological knowledge impacts the" real world" through vital contributions to social projects and policy. Unity and Diversity boxed features present cultural examples from the perspectives of both difference and similarity. While most writings of cultural anthropologists document variation and diversity, it is important to remember that humans everywhere share certain features of life in common. Critical Thinking boxes present a topic, often from two different angles, and then ask questions that provide critical thinking reviews and possible assignments for students. ----EXAM COPY EDITION---- The first mainstream book to truly integrate coverage of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and age continues to win high praise. One user writes, "" Miller's text offers clarity and an attention to diversity and inequality in human experience that the students really appreciate." " Emphasizing social inequality, this contemporary introductory textbook explains how inequalities affect economy, kinship, politics, religion, and language while still covering the core concepts of cultural anthropology. Special Features: Integrates coverage of contemporary issues suCh. as health systems, migration, and development throughout the text to highlight the practical applications and relevance of cultural anthropological studies. More focus on theory in cultural anthropology with a new section on the history of theory (Ch. 1) and more explicit links to theory in the Critical Thinking boxes in every chapter. Development Anthropology includes new discussions and the latest researCh. on the relationship between development on indigenous peoples, social inequality, and new examples of human resistance in the face of large-scale exogenous development (Ch. 16). Back by popular demand, Miller's migration chapter, " People on the Move" -- unique in this market-- returns as Chapter 15. New layout, larger pages, and attractive design combine to make this Third Edition even more accessible to students! Boxed Features show the interconnection of Anthropology to other disciplines and to career opportunities: Lessons Applied illustrates how anthropological knowledge impacts the " real world" through vital contributions to social projects and policy. Unity and Diversity boxed features present cultural examples from the perspectives of both difference and similarity. While most writings of cultural anthropologists document variation and diversity, it is important to remember that humans everywhere share certain features of life in common. Critical Thinking boxes present a topic, often from two different angles, and then ask questions that provide critical thinking reviews and possible assignments for students.

This is a general bibliography on Latin America, covering a wide variety of subjects, from pre-Columbian civilizations, to Columbus, to Castro, to the foreign debt, to pollution, ect. This work will not only be of use to the general, casual reader on Latin America, but also to the more specialized researcher. The book contains over 800 topics, with over 8,000 titles identified.