Seeing Indians :A Study of Race, Nation, and Power in El Salvador
Seeing Indians :A Study of Race, Nation, and Power in El Salvador
paperback
Published:
30 December, 2005
paperback
Published:
30 December, 2005
Standard worldwide delivery by
Thu, July 23 - Tue, July 28
Order within
0
Popular Books by Virginia Q. Tilley
View All Books by Virginia Q. Tilley
Description
Since the 1930s, government claims and popular thought within El Salvador have held that the country no longer holds any Indian population. This book explores why this claim has endured despite the existence of substantial indigenous communities within the country's territory. Drawing on history, anthropology, and archaeology, Virginia Tilley delves into the history of Salvadoran racial thought and nation-building to illuminate the political motives for eradicating Indians from the country's national consciousness. Part I draws from the author's own ethnographic research in El Salvador and Guatemala to show how 'Indian-ness' has persisted, in contested forms, within El Salvador. Part II traces how the Salvadoran definition of being Indian has been altered to fit within the country's desired image as a racially unified society -- and to erase Indians from public records after 1932. The author explains in Part III the motives driving the myth of Indian disappearance and ends with a look at the debate that raged in the 1990s regarding El Salvador's indigenous peoples' attempts to express themselves politically. As Tilley notes, the transnational indigenous rights movement, translated into potent funding leverage by non-indigenous donor agencies, has ""actually generated new difficulties for the Salvador indigenous communities and their movements for national recognition by erecting new standards for 'being Indian' that clash with older ideas and local experience.
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9780826339256 |
| ISBN10 | 0826339255 |
| Number Of Pages | 297 |
| Item Weight | 538 g |
| Product Dimensions | 146 x 234 x 24 mm |
| Publisher / Reseller | University of New Mexico Press |
| Format | paperback |
See More +
Author's Bio
Virginia Q Tilley is associate professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York. Among her specialisations are ethnic conflict and indigenous peoples and race relations in Latin America.