Surviving Globalization in Three Latin American Communities

Globalization has reached even the most remote areas of Latin America, pushing traditional peoples and habitats to the brink of extinction and offering a stark choice: adapt or perish. Local communities are scrambling to adjust to new market and social realities while trying to hold on to those cultural values that they regard as non-negotiable.

This book tells the important story of three Latin American communities experiencing globalization at the point of contact between tradition and modernity: Brazil's rubber tappers, Bolivia's Guaraní Indians, and Nicaragua's women cooperativists. Through exclusive, in-depth interviews, Heyck describes globalization and development in the words of people who are experiencing these forces at the grassroots level. The result is a multifaceted understanding of local and global connections and of the human, cultural, and religious dimensions of globalization.

Denis Lynn Daly Heyck is a professor at Loyola University Chicago, and is author of Tradicion y cambio: lecturas sobre la cultura latinoamericana contemporanea, 2nd ed. (McGraw-Hill, 1997); Barrios and Borderlands: Cultures of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (Routledge, 1994); and Life Stories of the Nicaraguan Revolution (Routledge, 1990).