In a new project, I trace the fortunes of three interrelated communities across four northern Andean cities.  Indigenous Otavaleño traders, mestizo apparel producers in the manufacturing cluster of Atuntaqui, and the Chinese diasporic community of Ibarra and Tulcan found their … Read more

I am currently drafting a chapter on the purpose of and problems with community studies.  It is for a volume being put together by the anthropologists Billie Jean Isbel and Francisco Ferriera,“A Return to the Village: Community Ethnographies and the … Read more

At the Zumbagua parish fiesta, July 5, 2014, the members of the tourist trade association of Quilotoa accompanied a lady, a fox, a ram and a four man band to the join the parade in Zumbagua. They were a hit … Read more

Are residents of Zumbagua parish barley-eaters or potato farmers? Does it matter? I wondered about this when I saw the difference between what men and women in Quilotoa, a community on the northern edge of the parish, said they planted compared to … Read more