Diversity characterises the people of Oaxaca, Mexico. Within this city of half a million, residents are rising against traditional barriers of race and class, defining new gender roles, and expanding access for the disabled. In this rich ethnography of the city, Michael Higgins and Tanya Coen explore how these activities fit into the ordinary daily lives of the people of Oaxaca. Higgins and Coen focus their attention on groups that are often marginalised - the urban poor, transvestite and female prostitutes, discapacitados (the physically challenged), gays and lesbians, and artists and intellectuals.Blending portraits of and comments by group members with their own ethnographic observations, the authors reveal how such issues as racism, sexism, sexuality, spirituality, and class struggle play out in the people's daily lives and in grassroots political activism. By doing so, they translate the abstract concepts of social action and identity formation into the actual lived experiences of real people. Michael James Higgins is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Northern Colorado. Tanya L. Coen is Co-Director of Zocalero Creative Cultural Productions in San Francisco. Together they also wrote "Oigame! Oigame!: Struggle and Social Change in a Nicaraguan Urban Community".
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Higgins (anthropology, Univ. of Northern Colorado) and Coen (an anthropologist and codirector of Zacalero Creative Cultural Productions, San Francisco) present portraits of several cultural and social groups in the city of Oaxaca, Mexico. This metropolitan area of 500,000 people contains a wide variety of residents. The authors interviewed the urban poor, transvestite and female prostitutes, the disabled, gays and lesbians, and AIDS activists in order to demonstrate the diversity of customs in this Mexican metropolis. They contrast these ondas, or "lifestyles," with one another and those of the average Mexican. The text mixes excerpts from interviews with anthropological analysis. The ethnographic detail and complex terminology make this book most appropriate for academic libraries.DGwen Gregory, New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"What is remarkably powerful about this book is the fantastic humanity of its descriptions, feelings, characters, relationships, etc... At certain occasions it was amazingly impossible for me to put the book down: I could not help but want to know more." -Jean Muteba Rahier, Associate Professor of Anthropology and African-New World Studies, Florida International University
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
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This review is from: Streets, Bedrooms, and Patios: The Ordinariness of Diversity in Urban Oaxaca: Ethnographic Portraits of the Urban Poor, Transvestites, Discapacitados, and Other Popular Cultures (Paperback)
This is a great book and very interesting to read. I loved the first hand information on the sub-culture of Mexico. The book gives a realistic take on what is happening and is put together well. The authors do a good job with guilding the reader in understand why they make the point that they do and give much evidence. I recommend this book to anyone that is interested in reading about sub-culture in Mexico.
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