Nico Tassi

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. What can anthropological thinking contribute to the study of revolutions? The first book-length attempt to develop an anthropological approach to revolutions, Anthropologies of Revolution proposes that revolutions should be seen as concerted attempts to radically reconstitute the worlds people inhabit. Viewing revolutions as all-embracing, world-creating projects, the authors ask readers to move beyond the idea of revolutions as acts of violent political rupture, and instead view them as processes of societal transformation that penetrate deeply into the fabric of people’s lives, unfolding and refolding the coordinates of human existence.

Based on years of fieldwork, this ethnography of the Bolivian Aymara trading system and its networks and economic strategies examines one of the most up-and-coming forms of indigenous entrepreneurship on the American continent, in a region where the indigenous population is still stigmatized for being associated with poverty and backward ways. In doing so, it illuminates a critical dynamic of globalization that is taking place behind the scenes. By analyzing Aymara economic institutions and networks and their concepts and practices of business management, The Native World-System describes a system in which indigenous sociopolitical structures and religious values and beliefs are interwoven with an advanced economic practice, specialized technological know-how, and global networks. The Native World-System is a volume in the ISSUES OF GLOBALIZATION: CASE STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY series, which examines the experiences of individual communities in our contemporary world. Each volume offers a brief and engaging exploration of a particular issue arising from globalization and its cultural, political, and economic effects on certain peoples or groups.