Jean E

The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. The four books under review address several of the most compelling issues that have arisen following the democratic transitions of the 1980s and 1990s in Latin American counties with indigenous populations. The main concerns shared by the authors, all anthropologists, are indigenous mobilizing, indigenous-state relations, and official multiculturalism. The reforms that sought to bring marginalized indigenous populations into the political process receive particular attention. The paradox of neoliberal multiculturalism, according to Charles R. Hale, " is that a progressive response to past societal ills has a menacing potential to perpetuate the problem in a new guise " (12). The reforms " intended to heal the rift between the state and the populace, " 2 writes Nancy Grey Postero (220), did not work as planned, and these books seek to understand why. Although the books address a number of other topics, I will focus on how they deal with indigenous organizing, neoliberal ideologies and policies, democratization, and the role played by structural racism. The differences between the books are substantial, due to different research sites and the varying interests, methodologies, and scope of research of the authors. Wanting to do research that would benefit Guatemala's indigenous communities, Hale queried his activist Maya friends about what kind of investigation would be most helpful. The response was clear: study nonindigenous Guatemalans (known as ladinos) and how they feel about Maya activism in particular and, more generally, about race, ethnicity, and class. Hale and his family lived in the provincial city of Chimaltenango for two years. His roughly 150 interviews plus many informal conversations revealed deep anxieties about Maya ascendancy, a " racial ambivalence " that is the central concept of his study. It is best expressed as a paradox: " the newfound affirmation that Mayas and ladinos are equal is both constitutive of, and a constant threat to, the dominant racial order in the making " (218). Hale asks why racial hierarchy remains virtually unchanged for the vast majority of Guatemalans, despite a formidable change that affirms indigenous people as equals, and respects and celebrates indigenous culture (216). Clearly, the " image of gradual progress in Guatemala. .. toward intercultural equality " (44) does not reflect reality. Guatemala's recent emergence from a civil war that resulted in 200,000 deaths, mostly indigenous, and a much …