"The first humanistic portrait of life among southern Ecuador's Saraguros, this work includes a meditative self-reflection on the author's role as anthropologist, the role of cross-cultural understanding in the Andean Highlands and beyond, and the meaning of the good life in different cultural contexts; it further considers how contemporary globalization shapes people's lives and thought"--

This work explores educational and community efforts to revitalize the Quichua language in two indigenous Andean communities of southern Ecuador. Analyzing the linguistic, social, and cultural processes of positive language shift, this book contributes to our understanding of formal and informal educational efforts to revitalize threatened languages.

Defenders of threatened languages all over the world, from advocates of biodiversity to dedicated defenders of their own cultural authenticity, are often humbled by the dimensity of the task that they are faced with when the weak and the few seek to find a safe-harbour against the ravages of the strong and the many. This book provides both practical case studies and theoretical directions from all five continents and advances thereby the collective pursuit of "reversing language shift" for the greater benefit of cultural democracy everywhere.

Circulation is common in Third World countries and involves reciprocal flows of people, goods and ideas. The essays in this volume, first published in1985, discuss concepts associated with circulation in its various forms, and they present empirical evidence based on field work from holistic, ecological, social, and economic points of view. Contributions from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the Pacific come from an international group of authors representing a variety of disciplines in the social sciences. All who are concerned with social and economic development need to recognise the importance of circulation at all levels of society and polity.