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Book Reviews
immigration, Latino and Latin American Studies, as well as to policy mak-
ers, and, as Gill hopes, in general to those living in North Carolina.
M. Cristina Alcalde
Department of Gender and Women’s Studies
University of Kentucky
INDELIBLE INEQUALITIES IN LATIN AMERICA:INSIGHTS FROM HISTORY,POLITICS,
AND CULTURE.By Paul Gootenberg and Luis Reygadas (eds.). Durham:
Duke University Press, 2010, 248 pp., $22.95.
The life of Latin Americans is strongly conditioned by their class, gen-
der, ethnicity and birthplace. Someone that is born poor–or rich–is likely to
remain as such for the rest of her life. This inequality has endured through
several generations and strongly conditions Latin Americans´style and
quality of life. Several studies have documented how state-society inter-
actions and economic mechanisms have generated structures and institu-
tions that perpetuate inequality. However, most of this previous research
provides economic or political-economic explanations that tend to over-
look more subtle mechanisms. Indelible Inequalities contributes to filling
this vacuum, tracing processes that reinforce social disparities through
non-evident channels in day-to-day lives.
As a multidimensional phenomenon, inequality is difficult to embrace
analytically. Acknowledging this, the contributors examine inequality by
building on sociologist Charles Tilly’s relational framework. Tilly argues
that groups can be conceptually differentiated through “bounded cate-
gories” that operate through discursive and material mechanisms produc-
ing and reproducing inequality over time. The authors use their expertise
in history, political science, anthropology and cultural studies together
with statistics, ethnographic research and historical and aesthetic analysis
to illustrate how inequality is sustained in the region.
The first two essays set the theoretical framework of the book, provide
a general examination of what is and is not inequality, and explore how
ethnicity and class help to explain the social distance between the elites
and the masses. The other essays trace the continuance of inequality in dif-
ferent settings. One chapter relates how inequality shapes the aspirations
and worldview of the slum dwellers of Pamplona Alta, in the outskirts of
Lima. It reveals how extremely poor people feel and think about them-
selves, and argues that anti-poverty programs do not target the necessities
of the have-nots due to their top-down design. Another chapter discusses
how the deployment of two healthcare systems in Peru divided along so-
cial and cultural categories – one for urban workers and the other for rural
populations – has become a mechanism that reinforces gender and ethnic
inequality. An essay on Brazil shows that political information is asymmet-
rically absorbed according to the neighborhood, income and gender of the
receiver. The evidence provided in this chapter suggests that since poor
191
The Latin Americanist, June 2012
people, blacks and females are less informed and less likely to participate in
politics, their ability to influence public policy is further reduced. A chap-
ter on Cuba adds to the discussion of inequality by analyzing how black
hip-hop singers and a painter express the racism that permeates a society
organized under a government that is proud of its antiracist and egali-
tarian policies. The final chapter traces how Latin American inequality is
projected in upstate New York through undocumented Latino farm work-
ers, who have become a powerless rural underclass in the United States.
Indelible Inequalities is an illuminating volume for scholars interested
in innovative approaches to inequality, or for readers familiar with Latin
American history interested in how inequality is perpetrated through less-
conspicuous means. Readers will gain from both individual chapters and
the volume as a whole.
The collective effort to unify different research methods and approaches
through Tilly´s relational framework, however, has limits. Some contrib-
utors are more skilled than others in using the framework, and in some
essays the framework seems forced. Additionally, the chapters are not
equally compelling. For instance, it is not clear if the artistic production of
a few hip-hop groups and a painter in Cuba are substantial evidence of
the alleged racism on the island.
The case selection also works against the generalizability of the collec-
tive endeavor. The essays only examine three countries–Peru, Brazil, and
Cuba–providing a narrow geographical approach to a work that refers to
a region composed of approximately 20 countries. It is not clear why Peru
deserves two chapters, nor how representative is an essay about one of the
most equal societies in the region (Cuba). Moreover, the essay on the labor
conditions of Latino farmworkers in New York seems misplaced despite
the fact that it is well-written and grounded in solid research.
Indelible Inequalities differs from works that treat inequality in strictly
economic or political terms, providing an innovative fine-grained ap-
proach to a multidimensional concept of high relevance in Latin America.
This book shows that treating inequality as “relational” opens research to a
broader set of analytical strategies. However, it also reminds readers of the
potential limits that an edited volume has when the logic underlying the
case selection is not evident, and when the chapters are not homogenous
regarding their adherence to the theoretical framework.
Ignacio Arana Araya
Department of Political Science
University of Pittsburgh
CONTEMPORARY TRAVEL WRITING OF LATIN AMERICA.By Claire Lindsay.
New York: Routledge, 2010, 176 pp., $125.
Publications like Roberto Gonz´
alez Echevarría’s Myth and Archive and
Marie L. Pratt’s Imperial Eyes conferred to travel writing a visibility it
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