The Bagua Massacre of 2009 occurred in light of overtly oppressive national discourse as well as the detrimental economic policies present in Alan García's la ley de la selva, which focused on the exploitation of the Peruvian Amazon. These apparatuses of oppression were born largely out of the increase in prevalence of neoliberal economic policies and understandings of natural resources as commodities. This study delves into the shifts in dominant discourses both internationally and domestically in Peru in order to better understand how indigenous resistance can challenge these perceptions of economic prosperity. This resistance allowed the Amazonian people in Peru to take control of their identity and the perceptions of their reality. Through the increase of visibility and access to communication, the inferior pro-indigenous discourse now has a home within the national Peruvian discourse. Although this response has not resulted in all pro-indigenous legislation and the fight to protect the Amazon continues, this study demonstrates why this mobilization and organization of indigenous peoples in Peru should be considered a success. The issue of indigenous land rights is a question filled with contention from nearly every angle. It raises questions of both international and domestic responsibility, anthropological definitions of identity, and the role of outside organizations in the promotion of these ideals. It confronts normalized perceptions of land as a commodity and source of capital while tying the environmental agenda with protection of human rights to the preservation and protection of indigenous land. Most importantly, it challenges the path of development that has become accepted as the correct way to go about economic growth. As we continue to grow as an international community, the lessons learned from movements that go against the accepted structure are significant and should be considered.

The author presents an anthropological analysis of the regulatory technologies that characterize contemporary resource frontiers. He offers an ethnographic portrayal of indigenous rights, resource extraction and environmental politics in the Peruvian Amazon.

Amazonian Spanish: Language contact and evolution explores the unique origins, linguistic features, and geo-political situation of the Spanish that has emerged in the Amazon. While this region boasts much linguistic diversity, many of the indigenous languages found within its limits are now being replaced by Spanish. This situation of language expansion, contact, and bilingualism is reshaping the sociolinguistic landscape of the Amazon by creating a number of Spanish varieties with innovative linguistic features that require closer scholarly attention. The current book documents this situation in detail. The chapters in this volume include work on distinct geographical regions of the Amazon, with primary data collected using different methodologies and language contact situations. The scholars in this volume specialize in an array of fields, including anthropological linguistics, bilingualism, language contact, dialectology, and language acquisition. Their work represents both formal and functional approaches to linguistics.

War of Shadows is the haunting story of a failed uprising in the Peruvian Amazon—told largely by people who were there. Late in 1965, Asháninka Indians, members of one of the Amazon's largest native tribes, joined forces with Marxist revolutionaries who had opened a guerrilla front in Asháninka territory. They fought, and were crushed by, the overwhelming military force of the Peruvian government. Why did the Indians believe this alliance would deliver them from poverty and the depredations of colonization on their rainforest home? With rare insight and eloquence, anthropologists Brown and Fernández write about an Amazonian people whose contacts with outsiders have repeatedly begun in hope and ended in tragedy. The players in this dramatic confrontation included militants of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), the U. S. Embassy, the Peruvian military, a "renegade" American settler, and the Asháninka Indians themselves. Using press reports and archival sources as well as oral histories, the authors weave a vivid tapestry of narratives and counternarratives that challenges the official history of the guerrilla struggle. Central to the story is the Asháninkas' persistent hope that a messiah would lead them to freedom, a belief with roots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century jungle rebellions and religious movements.

With 10,000 years of history, Peru, with its formidable Inca and pre-Inca civilizations and its rich colonial and post-colonial past, formed the very foundations of multi-ethnic South American history and society. It is a country rich in natural and human resources, but has been largely confined to a state of underdevelopment for much of its history. However, since 2000 Peru has shown significant signs of economic and political progress as its economy grew rapidly and it polity democratized. The Historical Dictionary of Peru packages in a unique way the course of Peru’s evolution and recent trajectory, with substantial sections devoted to describing and analyzing the country’s history, politics and social order, combined with shorter entries on the important people and events that have contributed to its current state of affairs. It also includes a comprehensive profile of the country based on an array of data, tables and statistics. In short, PERU will be an indispensable introduction and source for high school, college and graduate students, travelers and tourists and American government and business personnel with Peru as a destination. The Historical Dictionary of Peru contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture.

This work examines the world's indigenous peoples, their cultures, the countries in which they reside, and the issues that impact these groups.