Territories of Difference

[A] wonderful, demanding, and courageous book. . . . It offers a theoretically informed perspective on social movements in the global South, anchored in questions specific to these actors and in dialogue with them. With his book, Escobar contributes an innovative method to the study of social movements. - Pierre Hamel, American Journal of Sociology This book, magisterial in its command of an impressive range of theory and literature, is a provocative and cutting-edge guide to thinking about place, capital, nature, development, identity, and networks. . . . [I]n the sheer power, depth, and complexity of the analysis and in the authors ethical engagement and belief in the possibility of worlds and knowledges otherwise, the book is a superb achievement. - Peter Wade, Hispanic American Historical Review Territories of Difference will become a classic . . . . [I]t is a mesmerizingly ambitious and provocative inquiry into social, cultural, biological, and economic life in the 21st century. It is also a highly original approach to the study of contemporary forms of domination and resistance that challenges Eurocentric conceptions of capitalist globalization and calls for alternatives to modernity. - Ulrich Oslender, American Ethnologist A wonderful, massive tour de force by one of todays leading anthropologists. Arturo Escobar links his ethnography to a series of larger pressing debates about globalization and development, biology and nature, and social movements and network theory. The result is a book of astonishing virtuosity, range, and insight. It is nothing less than a model for the dense, interdisciplinary, polyglot theoretical analysis needed to understand experience anywhere in the world today.Orin Starn, author of Ishis Brain: In Search of Americas Last Wild Indian and co-editor of The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics Books, like wines, take time to mature and develop their full strength. Then they are a delight, and not just for specialists. Arturo Escobars eloquent, engaged, and extremely well informed narrative of the Afro-Colombian movements in their struggles to defend their territories and ways of life is, to my mind, the best book on social movements to have appeared in years. It combines, in a unique way, the minutely traced complexity of the struggles and their evolving contexts with much broader issues that appeal to and impact all of us, such as biodiversity, alternatives to development, sustainability of life on earth, and social and cognitive justice. We, academics, students, activists of social movements, cannot but be powerfully interpellated by this landmark book, and can only honor it by reading it attentively, as one savors a good wine.Boaventura de Sousa Santos, editor of Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies Books, like wines, take time to mature and develop their full strength. Then they are a delight, and not just for specialists. Arturo Escobars eloquent, engaged, and extremely well informed narrative of the Afro-Colombian movements in their struggles to defend their territories and ways of life is, to my mind, the best book on social movements to have appeared in years. It combines, in a unique way, the minutely traced complexity of the struggles and their evolving contexts with much broader issues that appeal to and impact all of us, such as biodiversity, alternatives to development, sustainability of life on earth, and social and cognitive justice. We, academics, students, activists of social movements, cannot but be powerfully interpellated by this landmark book, and can only honor it by reading it attentively, as one savors a good wine.Boaventura de Sousa Santos, editor of Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies The product of a lifetime of work on the pitfalls of development, Arturo Escobars new book is an engaging and engaged effort to bring together knowledge fr

Arturo Escobar is the Kenan Distinguished Teaching Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, winner of the Best Book Award from the New England Council of Latin American Studies, and Ms All del Tercer Mundo: Globalizacin y Diferencia. He is a co-editor of World Anthropologies: Disciplinary Transformations within Systems of Power; Women and the Politics of Place; The World Social Forum: Challenging Empires; and Cultures of Politics/Politics of Cultures: Revisioning Latin American Social Movements.

About the Series vii Preface ix Acknolwedgments xiii Introduction 1 1. Place 27 2. Capital 69 3. Nature 111 4. Development 156 5. Identity 200 6. Networks 254 Conclusion 299 Notes 313 References Cited 381 Index 417