Creating Context in Andean Cultures

A major concern in current anthropological thinking is that the method of recording or translating into writing a society''s cultural expressions--dance rituals pottery the social use of space et al--cannot help but fundamentally alter the meaning of the living words and deeds of the culture in question. Consequently recent researchers have developed more dialogic methods for collecting interpreting and presenting data. These new techniques have yielded much success for anthropologists working in Latin America especially in their efforts to understand how economically politically and socially subordinated groups use culture and language to resist the dominant national culture and to assert a distinct historical identity. This collection addresses these issues of texts and textuality as it explores various Latin American languages and cultures.