Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador (American Encounters/Global Interactions)

Book Description

Ecuador is the third-largest foreign supplier of crude oil to the western United States. As the source of this oil, the Ecuadorian Amazon has borne the far-reaching social and environmental consequences of a growing U.S. demand for petroleum and the dynamics of economic globalization it necessitates. Crude Chronicles traces the emergence during the 1990s of a highly organized indigenous movement and its struggles against a U.S. oil company and Ecuadorian neoliberal policies. Against the backdrop of mounting government attempts to privatize and liberalize the national economy, Suzana Sawyer shows how neoliberal reforms in Ecuador led to a crisis of governance, accountability, and representation that spurred one of twentieth-century Latin America’s strongest indigenous movements.

Through her rich ethnography of indigenous marches, demonstrations, occupations, and negotiations, Sawyer tracks the growing sophistication of indigenous politics as Indians subverted, re-deployed, and, at times, capitulated to the dictates and desires of a transnational neoliberal logic. At the same time, she follows the multiple maneuvers and discourses that the multinational corporation and the Ecuadorian state used to circumscribe and contain indigenous opposition. Ultimately, Sawyer reveals that indigenous struggles over land and oil operations in Ecuador were as much about reconfiguring national and transnational inequalityâthat is, rupturing the silence around racial injustice, exacting spaces of accountability, and rewriting narratives of national belongingâas they were about the material use and extraction of rain-forest resources.

Customer Reviews:

Globalization on the ground in Amazonia.......2007-05-31

This is one of the best books on indigenous politics that has been written. The author's 20 years of experience in the Ecuadoran Amazonia show in the depth of her narrative and in her careful and accessible use of Foucault to draw out the complexities of indigenous identity, conceptions of nation and nationalism, and the impact of global forces. It is also beautifully written. Clearly, a labor of love and conviction by a scholar who has spent hours listening to indigenous activists , oil company officials, state officials, NGO workers, academics, and, most importantly native Ecuadorans of widely diverse political views and fashioned a wonderful book. If you are interested in all the complex political issues surrounding globalization as seen from the Amazon, you don't need a Ph.D to find this a great read

The Atlas of Climate Change: Mapping the World's Greatest Challenge

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Geography of Climate Change Issues
Good effort but misses a major point
Excellent Understandable Information!
Adequate intro/primer on climate change, inadequate and biased view of how to fix it

The Atlas of Climate Change: Mapping the World's Greatest Challenge
Kirstin Dow , and Thomas E. Downing
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Globalization | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Rivers | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Science Magazine's State of the Planet 2006-2007
The Rough Guide to Climate Change 1 (Rough Guide Reference)
The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review
Vital Signs 2006-2007: The Trends that Are Shaping Our Future (Vital Signs)
State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future (State of the World)

ASIN: 0520250230

Book Description

Today's headlines and recent events reflect the gravity of climate change. Heat waves, droughts, and floods are bringing death to vulnerable populations, destroying livelihoods, and driving people from their homes.
Rigorous in its science and insightful in its message, this atlas examines the causes of climate change and considers its possible impact on subsistence, water resources, ecosystems, biodiversity, health, coastal megacities, and cultural treasures. It reviews historical contributions to greenhouse gas levels, progress in meeting international commitments, and local efforts to meet the challenge of climate change.
The atlas covers a wide range of topics, including
warning signs
future scenarios
vulnerable populations
health
renewable energy
emissions reduction
personal and public action
With more than 50 full-color maps and graphics, this is an essential resource for policy makers, environmentalists, students, and everyone concerned with this pressing subject.

Customer Reviews:

Geography of Climate Change Issues.......2007-09-12

This is an excellent book for those wishing to study the issue of climate change from a geographical standpoint. The maps are excellent - they show exactly where evidence is being found to support global warming, what aeas of the world will be most impacted by global warming, and which nations have committed resources to slowing carbon emissions.

It is a visual guide to global warming, giving a very graphic perspective of the earth as a whole. The scientific explanations of the interacting systems of global winds, ocean currents, atmospheric gasses, and how they are being affected by human alterations, are particularly easy to understand because of the clear diagrams and colorful maps.

As an instructor of physical geography, I find this to be an excellent book for the non-scientist to undertand the physical processes and the science of global warming. The detailed yet easy-to-understand maps and diagrams add another dimension to an often dry and theoretical topic.

Good effort but misses a major point.......2007-04-19

This book enters the fray with a good overview relative to alternative energy as the answer - but, in my opinion, fails to embrace the "source" of today's dilemma. To precipitate a change in climate - we need a sea-change in the overall interaction of humanity with water. To achieve this, it would be wise for each of us to become conscious of how our daily decisions impact the world within our reach. What products we buy, how we use energy, the examples we set, what we say to others, how we help ease the burden of other life forms we come into contact with - all have an impact on water and the future of life in our biosphere. And, it is the condition of water within our biosphere that will determine the success or failure of our civilization.

Excellent Understandable Information!.......2007-03-21

My title says it all! This book is easy to read, pleasant to the eyes with its use of color and visuals, and food for the mind. At last, someone has taken pity on individuals who hear about climate change problems, but have not had the facts about it. I think this book is useful for everyone, and can be used in church, school, and living room settings.

Jay S. Southwick

Adequate intro/primer on climate change, inadequate and biased view of how to fix it.......2007-02-14

The authors do an adequate job of presenting the crisis of climate change in the first four chapters. The book is touted as being scientifically rigorous while Bo Kjellen, in the forward, states that it 'provides facts enabling readers to form an independent view of the problems.' This is true for the first 4 chapters. But when it comes to solutions, both of these authors are clearly in the anti-nuclear 'camp' for alternative energy policy. On page 11 they make this sweeping negative statement:

"Concerns over safety and long term storage of rad waste remain and it is not clear that its potential as an adaptation to climate change offers sufficiently strong justification to overcome economic barriers."

And so nuclear energy quickly gets buried by these authors, never to return again in this title. No sources are cited for this justification. No maps/statistics of countries with successful nuclear energy programs like France and Japan. No mention of nuclear energy's safety record in the US or worldwide (compared to natural gas, coal, oil). No chapter on the pros and cons of the latest nuclear energy technology. No estimation of energy demands the US will have when we're past the peak of oil and gas (which may have occured). No talk of eliminating dependency on foreign oil or the need for immediate and massive carbon emission reductions that are ONLY possible--in the short run-- w/ nuclear energy. It's that simple...minded.
Why is this bias so prevalent? James Lovelock in the REVENGE OF GAIA treats this uninformed bias(propaganda?)in some detail in his chapter Sources of Energy. The romantic notion that renewable energy (4% of current world totals) will have significant impact on adequately quelling carbon emissions is the modern day techno-barbarism promoted by these authors. Yes, renewables (geothermal tidal, solar, etc.) WILL rise in use world wide, but to put such faith in renewables when a 60-80% reduction of carbon is needed for survival (according to the EU) is tantamount to deception on a personal and public level that only a J. Lovelock could expose, and so vividly. Again, I refer the reader--especially those with strong anti-nuke feelings-- to Lovelock's latest release to get his rationale for what the stakes are at this stage of our climate history.

Lovelock and many others like myself are simply tired of the 'happy talk' babbling on renewables coming from authors like these as exemplified on page 87:

"Reducing carbon emissions to this extent will require massive changes to the world's carbon-based economy and our current inefficient use of energy. The GOOD NEWS is that many of the required technologies, such as geothermal, solar, and wind power, already exist, and there are many opportunities to improve and expand on their use." Really? Again, what place does nuclear energy, which accounts for 20% of the energy production in the U.S., have in all of this? None for these two. This is absurd.

Of course nuclear energy is not an approved or 'required' technology for these two authors. Contrary to any 'economic barriers' cited by Dow and Downing, the real barrier promulgated by these authors--and the uniformed public--has to do with ignorance, which ends up driving a flawed political agenda for addressing climate change. (And don't the oil execs love that!)

The views in this book express an unscientific bias that fails to even consider the science, risks, and refined technology of current nuclear energy that one finds in Nuttall's book THE NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE (2005). The dramatic carbon decrease from nuclear energy would certainly be the greatest benefit to human kind and planetary survival. Presenting the challenges of addressing climate climate with THEIR "facts" on nuclear energy, Dow and Downing do a disservice to the concerned reader seeking a comprehensive solution. Would these authors support supplanting China's dependence on coal(75% of their total energy pie) with nuclear? Of course not.
I believe, like Lovelock, that the denial of nuclear energy as a player at the table--and the subtle squashing of ANY debate-- will probably lead to the detriment of all life on this planet. That may sound dramatic, but I believe the stakes are truly that high. We should not let authors like Dow and Downing attempt to rationalize away a technology that, apparently, they have little familiarity with.

RATING: 2 1/2 stars. Time for a revision. And a rapid paradigm shift.

Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in Contemporary India

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Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in Contemporary India
William Mazzarella , and William Mazzarella
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy: Women, Work, and Pink-Collar Identities in the Caribbean
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Maid to Order in Hong Kong: An Ethnography of Filipina Workers
Suitably Modern: Making Middle-Class Culture in a New Consumer Society

ASIN: 0822331454

Book Description

A leading Bombay advertising agency justifies as traditionally Indian the highly eroticized images it produces to promote the KamaSutra condom brand. Another agency struggles to reconcile the global ambitions of a cellular-phone service provider with the ambivalently local connotations of the client’s corporate brand. When the dream of the 250 million-strong âIndian middle classâ goes sour, Indian advertising and marketing professionals search for new ways to market âthe Indian consumerâânow with added cultural differenceâto multinational clients.

An examination of the complex cultural politics of mass consumerism in a globalized marketplace, Shoveling Smoke is a pathbreaking and detailed ethnography of the contemporary Indian advertising industry. It is also a critical and innovative intervention into current theoretical debates on the intersection of consumerist globalization, aesthetic politics, and visual culture. William Mazzarella traces the rise in India during the 1980s of mass consumption as a self-consciously sensuous challenge to the austerities of state-led developmentalism. He shows how the decisive opening of Indian markets to foreign brands in the 1990s refigured established models of the relationship between the local and the global and, ironically, turned advertising professionals into custodians of cultural integrity.

Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle from Bolivia's War on Globalization

Average customer rating:

Important true-life on environmental front lines
Informative book on an important topic.
Great book on environmental efforts, relationships in Bolivia
An Era of a Revolution Encompassing the Whole Planet
Simply a must-read

Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle from Bolivia's War on Globalization
William Powers
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Globalization | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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The Price of Fire: Resource Wars And Social Movements in Bolivia
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¡Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia
Impasse in Bolivia: Neoliberal Hegemony and Popular Resistance
The Rough Guide to Bolivia

ASIN: 1596911034
Release Date: 2006-05-16

Book Description

An intimate and powerful account of living in Bolivia during a time of crisis and change.

Long the obscure “Tibet of South America,” Bolivia emerged as a world flashpoint during the four years William Powers lived there as an aid worker. CNN and the New York Times have shown images of Aymara women in bowler hats standing down tanks; citizen protests have ousted multinationals and two pro-globalization presidents. In A Natural Nation, Powers breathes life into the recent struggles of the Bolivian people. When he arrives in the rainforest, he meets an extraordinary Chiquitano Indian named Salvador who is fighting the extinction of his people. At the same time, the clock ticks for three multinational energy companies forced to curb global warming. Both goals depend upon the survival of a stretch of pristine jungle. But as Indians and oil giants join to launch the world’s largest Kyoto Protocol project—using forests to absorb dangerous planetary greenhouse gasses—Salvador’s life is threatened by loggers collaborating with a racist Bolivian oligarchy. The quest for a single rainforest is subsumed in a movement of national liberation. A Natural Nation goes beneath the headlines, gracefully weaving memoir, travel, history and reportage into an unforgettable chronicle of a “poor little rich country” attempting to engage the world without losing its soul.

Customer Reviews:

Important true-life on environmental front lines.......2007-08-05

So much good writing is being done about the need to develop sustainable life styles that it's difficult to sort out the best. This is a very important and readable book in that context. William Powers was there in Bolivia struggling with the tension between an indigenous Amazon tribe and the attempt of apparently well-meaning nonprofits and industrialists to change the natives. For those who think we can go back to living in the pre-industrial world, and for those who are looking for a better answer, this is an engaging story of great importance.

Informative book on an important topic........2007-03-09

I learned of the concept of carbon credits when I read Big Coal. It seemed like an interesting idea, but I was curious about investigating it from the perspective of those countries participating on the other side of things. Whispering in the Giant's Ear was an excellent choice to reveal the conseqenses of our exploitation of non-renewable resources on "less developed" nations. Powers does an outstanding job of providing an interesting narrative with which to educate the reader about the role carbon credits are playing in the struggle of indigenous people to gain political power in a nation that is caught up in the process of globalization. The number of characters is not so many as to cause confusion, but enough to provide insight into several segments of Bolivian society. A sympathetic portrait of the indigenous peoples of the poorest of South American nations.

Great book on environmental efforts, relationships in Bolivia.......2006-09-12

I have to say, I'm envious of Bill Powers' writing abilities and his experience in Bolivia. Thanks to his detailed descriptions of character conversations, speeches, emotions, reactions, etc., I feel like I could easily recognize any of his Conservation International colleagues - Salvador, Smithers, Len - if I saw any one of them on the street...or deep in the Bolivian jungle. I did wonder whatever happened to the author's relationships with Daniel and Anaí - two of the author's close friends - but at the same time both side-stories were pleasantly left open to the possibilities. This book provides a highly readable, history of Bolivia and it's current political and environmental challenges. In addition, it provides a detailed look into the relationships between a "gringo" do-gooder and his Bolivian counterparts.

An Era of a Revolution Encompassing the Whole Planet.......2006-06-16

Now I have a better appreciation of Bolivia-its geography and culture. WHISPERING IN THE ELEPHANT'S EAR extends my understanding of globilization beyond our Western concerns of the East. It makes me equate the impact of globilization similar to that of the Industrial Revolution. In retrospect, the progress of that revolution ultimately involved all nations without particular attention to geography and culture. Now we hope to integrate the two without paying the price environmentally.

Powers' descriptive writing is powerful. I could have used a glossary of Spanish words. Although his personal anecdotes are entertaining they seem secondary in a book of such importance. Perhaps more anecdotes on indiginous people would have been more significant.

WHISPERING IN THE ELEPHANT'S EAR is a must read for those interested in our complex planet.

Simply a must-read.......2006-06-02

I thought I'd just grab a primer on Bolivia, but got a whole lot more when I picked this book up. This guy is so multi-faceted, you never know what he's going to write next. Nearly every passage in his work make you angry, make you take sides, make you pause with a sense of befuddlement. Sometimes I folded it in front of me just to let a particularly beautiful revelation or moment sink in.

For anyone who is eager (or compelled) to learn about the actualities of Bolivia's incredible past five years, its "war on globalization", this is the book to read. Powers, who was one of the few "there", talking and sharing with those involved and wholly understands what occurred. This is apparent in his telling of the Indian road-blocks, impending rain-forest catastrophe, and the stories of real people that you can relate to.

After reading William Powers, the world becomes a far stranger, grander, mythical, more intriguing--and puzzling-- place than ever before.

Transnational America: Feminisms, Diasporas, Neoliberalisms (Next Wave: New Directions in Womens Studies)

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Transnational America: Feminisms, Diasporas, Neoliberalisms (Next Wave: New Directions in Womens Studies)
Inderpal Grewal
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Emigration & Immigration | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Feminist Theory | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity
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Between Woman and Nation: Nationalisms, Transnational Feminisms, and the State
Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty
Just Advocacy?: Women's Human Rights, Transnational Feminisms, and the Politics of Representation

ASIN: 0822335441

Book Description

In Transnational America, Inderpal Grewal examines how the circulation of people, goods, social movements, and rights discourses during the 1990s created transnational subjects shaped by a global American culture. Rather than simply frame the United States as an imperialist nation-state that imposes unilateral political power in the world, Grewal analyzes how the concept of âAmericaâ functions as a nationalist discourse beyond the boundaries of the United States by disseminating an ideal of democratic citizenship through consumer practices. She develops her argument by focusing on South Asians in India and the United States.

Grewal combines a postcolonial perspective with social and cultural theory to argue that contemporary notions of gender, race, class, and nationality are linked to earlier histories of colonization. Through an analysis of Mattel’s sales of Barbie dolls in India, she discusses the consumption of American products by middle-class Indian women newly empowered with financial means created by India’s market liberalization. Considering the fate of asylum-seekers, Grewal looks at how a global feminism in which female refugees are figured as human rights victims emerged from a distinctly Western perspective. She reveals in the work of three novelists who emigrated from India to the United StatesâBharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and Amitav Ghoshâa concept of Americanness linked to cosmopolitanism. In Transnational America Grewal makes a powerful, nuanced case that the United States must be understoodâand studiedâas a dynamic entity produced and transformed both within and far beyond its territorial boundaries.

What's This India Business?: Offshoring, Outsourcing, and the Global Services Revolution

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Kinda Ironic Isn't It
Davies has good arguments
Lonely Planet for CIOs
Read your reviews carefully
Complete with pungent anecdotes

What's This India Business?: Offshoring, Outsourcing, and the Global Services Revolution
Paul Davies
Manufacturer: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Black Book of Outsourcing: How to Manage the Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities
Doing Business in India
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Rising Elephant: The Growing Clash With India Over White- Collar Jobs and its Challenge to America and the World

ASIN: 1904838006

Book Description

A global services revolution is taking the business world by storm, as India becomes the world's back office provider. From call centers and claims processing to human resources, accounting and even legal operations, service jobs are migrating from the West to India by the thousand each year. While cost reduction is often the initial goal of "offshoring," What's This India Business? clearly demonstrates its real value: increased quality and greater effectiveness. Rich in examples and expert advice, this nuts-and-bolts guide shows what it takes to surge ahead of market trends, build a sustainable new business model, and unleash the power of Indian businesspeople to gain an advantage. This is a practical guide to a dynamic country of a billion people with a complex culture and vibrant business environment, offering proven strategies for working positively with Indian businesses. Paul Davies takes you behind the scenes to show you how to select the right business partner from the myriad of Indian companies that all seem to present a similar face to the West. He takes you step-by-step through the planning and implementation stages, exposing the hidden costs and benefits, and carefully steering you away from the inherent dangers in offshoring. This straightforward insider's guide is an entertaining introduction to the dynamic cultures of India as well as a challenging book for the new century.

Customer Reviews:

Kinda Ironic Isn't It.......2007-01-18

It is kind of ironic that Amazon lists this book. Obviously they have not read it. Since 2000 they have outsourced almost all of their customer service. And not exactly done a bang up job of it.

Notice that there are no contact phone numbers even listed on the site anymore? You have to have them call you. I had a problem with my last order (and I do mean my last order ever with Amazon) today. While unfailingly polite, the customer service rep took 5 minutes to locate my order ( the computer kept giving him the wrong one) and could not resolve my problem. At least I think that's what happened. I could hardly understand a word he said.

What has happened to this one proud company? What has happened to this one proud nation?

Davies has good arguments.......2005-09-01

Mr Paul Davies gives a good assessment of my country. His guide to cultural do's and dont's is spot on. No Indian should quarrel with those. He also does not hide the many problems in Indian society, as he talks about the benefits of offshoring to Westerners.

On offshoring, I hope you will seriously consider his assessment that this trend will continue and grow. Americans might be undrstandably uneasy about their jobs. But they never seem to question how natural it is that Hollywood should dominate the world film industry, and that their chipmakers and software firms do also in those industries. To Indians, the U.S. still has immense strengths in technology.

Lonely Planet for CIOs.......2005-08-20

English is not my first language (even though I scored 720 in my SAT verbal), but I still must say I feel there is an undertone in this book of how on earth did we lose the Raj. There is a grudging acknowledgment of India's excellence but as a fait accompli rather than to understand the organic strengths of India, interrupted for what in its long history, was a short 150-year spell of playing host to the Burra Sahib.
An interesting work as a handbook of the hows and whats of this undeniably violent element of globalization. Like a Lonely Planet for CIOs.
In other words, interesting, but not good for those seeking the whys - in India and abroad.
By far, I prefer Rising Elephant, by Ashutosh Sheshabalaya. This goes to the core of what India was, could have been, and in case we forget, is becoming. And what this means (and could mean) for the West.
Do not forget to note his dedication note. Grandparents Rai Bahadur and a university professor. Parents educated in Oxford, Harvard, Columbia. A different perspective from an Indian aristocrat, but married I believe from the name, to a European or American (and also part of a local motorcycling band in Europe).
In other words, hard to place. Maybe the Burra Sahibs should speak with him. But my feeling is this is a good book for Western CEOs, but all Indians (and Western IT workers) would understand more if they read Rising Elephant.

Read your reviews carefully.......2005-05-11

Notice that almost all the negative reviews of this book do not actually review the book, but go off on a personal rant about something else. Davies' book is terrifically well-written and clear. The first section deals with the hard business aspects of outsourcing to India. The middle is an informative and very amusingly candid explanation of Indian culture and business manners that I would recommend to cultural trainers as well as to business people. The third portion of the book explains more business considerations. Contrary to what you might think from some of the non-review reviews, Davies does do a good job explaining what can go wrong when outsourcing corporate functions to India, and he encourages scepticism and close monitoring throughout the process. While he tells a lot of success stories, any alert person reading the book will also come away knowing that failure is possible and how it may be prevented. He does deal to some degree with the ethics of the whole issue, but from the point of view of someone who considers the whole outsourcing trend to be inevitable. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the issue of Indian outsourcing, even if, like me, you have no part in it.

Complete with pungent anecdotes.......2005-01-18

This next decade will certainly see an extraordinary and painful reorganization of the social, cultural and economic orders, first because of the increasing free movement of labor across borders, and secondly, and much harder to manage, the free movement of work via telecommunications and information technology. Both create both new hopes and significant disruptions in the populations affected and the organizations that conduct them. Paul Davies, now MD of a consultancy for Onshore-Offshore, previously was responsible for transferring business processes to Unisys India. The fact that working for the Indian part of the organization is currently spoken of in Unisys in the USA as "joining the dark side" is a good indicator of the pain in this process.

What's This India Business? is about two things. Firstly, it unabashedly advocates offshoring as not only a given, but as a evolutionary inevitability for successful enterprises in the now and future global economy. Secondly, it is about India and its business culture, currently the outstanding example of the global trend to offshoring work in the service sector. As Davies puts it in his introduction, his book aims to help the reader "comprehend the scale of the change and what India can do for your business" and to help the reader be more on a par with the more extensive knowledge that his or her Indian counterpart is likely to have of Western business people and practices.

Davies starts with the basics of Indian economy, history and geography, what the business traveler can expect to find there. He follows this with a picture of the educational level of the people he or she will deal with. This is followed by a "primer of offshoring," spelling out which business functions are suitable for offshoring and how one can to do this as safely as possible. Given the high failure rate of outsourcing projects, this is much needed advice.

The focus then turns to India's role in the services revolution and the advantages which widespread English language competence and engineering education have given it in the IT marketplace. He answers questions about how one should approach this resource, align objectives, and structure relationships to do business together.

The second part of the book is a well-focused cultural briefing that concerns itself with what the eager entrepreneur is faced with having set foot in India. Like one who learns a foreign language to the point of being able to share humor and take pleasure in foreign company, Davies has learned to enjoy the differences and convert irritation into delight. Insights are shored by pungent anecdotes largely from the author's first-hand experiences.

That being said, whatever the author's personal successes in navigating the Indian business environment-and they appear considerable-this section tends to drift into imperially British wit, full of off-the-cuff judgments at the expense of Indian culture. While Brits may snigger at and lampoon the things that don't work or work for them in Indian culture, this is at the expense of the host culture, and appears arrogant and somewhat off-putting to this reader. One only has to think of Peter Mayle whose Year In Provence and subsequent books regale British tourists and attract settlers with while leaving a trail of resentiment locally.

Once surviving on the ground in India, it is decision time. A solid cost-benefit analysis is needed and Davies stimulates the process of preparing a business plan that fits this new environment and the particular risks it brings to the business arrangement.

Chapter 12 carefully explores the rhythm of Indian style negotiation and provides valuable insights both into the processes one may encounter and into the need to control ones impulses when entering into the local rhythm of give and take. This negotiation does not end with the decision to hire or partner with an Indian firm. The following chapters are about how to manage in order to get the results you need from the arrangement, and how to leverage the advantages your Indian collaborators can bring to you, even opening doors in the Indian market itself.

Most of us have already been consciously or unconsciously impacted by the services we receive from offshore agents of the many companies we deal with. Recently I had the occasion to ask for customer service for a crisis with my laptop software while I was working in Europe. Idled by the situation, I waited for the better part of the business day be able to connect the supplier during their posted Silicon Valley office hours-8:00AM to 6:00PM PST, only to speak to a Mumbai technical support professional on night shift. Not only did the US company try to dissimulate its offshoring activity, but it could have easily have offered better service hours to their customers given their multiple service locations.

In a final chapter on "Corporate Social Responsibility" Davies identifies some of the public relations risks and a few of ethical dimensions that offshoring is bringing about both in the home workforce as well as in the society of the offshore workforce. There are some suggestions but few solutions to the disturbing social disruptions that are now beginning to surface.

Perhaps the directness of What's This India Business? will serve not only as a handbook to offshoring to India, but as a wake-up call to reflective readers to the fact that few practical suggestions are being offered to help us cope with the social impact of what seems to the new economic offshoring imperative for Western enterprises. The energy of the new economic giants, India and China, will not be repressed. We all need better theories for managing our human planet than the worn version of Darwinian selection that seems to be capital's anachronistic mode of thinking.

Blackness Without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil

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challenges previous epistemologies
Attention grabbing title ..

Blackness Without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil
Livio Sansone
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil
Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000
Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil
Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought
Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil

ASIN: 0312293755

Book Description

Drawing on 15 years of research in Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Suriname, and the Netherlands, Livio Sansone explores the very different ways that race and ethnicity are constructed in Brazil and the rest of Latin America. He compares Latin American conceptions of race to US and European notions of race that are defined by clearly identifiable black-white ethnicities. Sansone argues that understanding more complex, ambiguous notions of culture and identity will expand international discourse on race and move it away from American definitions unable to describe racial difference. He also explores the effects of globalization on constructions of race.

Customer Reviews:

challenges previous epistemologies.......2007-03-18

Sansone's book should resonate with students and academics interested in identity studies in general, but especially identity studies in Brazil and in a transnational/diasporan frame. However, the underlying significance of the work is in its historiographical contributions, so readers might not catch any "breakthrough in intellectual thinking and debate on the matter" without having read 15-20 other works on race in Brazil. Much of the studies on Afro-Brazilian identity have been done by North American scholars who brought with them their own ideas of what "blackness" should mean. Sansone is among the first to suggest that such methodologies and assumptions are wrong and have skewed those earlier studies, and then he goes on demonstrating how/why throughout the book.

Attention grabbing title .........2007-01-18

but I didn't get much out of this book. It seems to stray too often from the subject title. Also the book seems to be lacking in anything that might be considered a breakthrough in intellectual thinking and debate on the matter. It also seems a bit jumbled. For general reading on the subject I am not sure if I would recommend it, however if you are a researcher of academic type looking for information that you can quote you may just gleen something useful out of it.

Reproductive Rights in a Global Context: South Africa, Uganda, Peru, Denmark, the United States, Vietnam, Jordan

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Reproductive Rights in a Global Context: South Africa, Uganda, Peru, Denmark, the United States, Vietnam, Jordan
Lara M. Knudsen
Manufacturer: Vanderbilt University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Abortion & Birth Control | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Globalization | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Human Rights | Constitutional Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Health Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
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Infertility around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies
Families at Work: Expanding the Bounds
Queer Families, Queer Politics
Small Wars: The Cultural Politics of Childhood
Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics

ASIN: 0826515282

Book Description

Traveling alone when she was between 17 and 22, with no institutional affiliation and no financial assistance, the author visited five developing countries and two developed ones on five continents. Her goal was to extend her own experience in an abortion clinic in Portland, Oregon. Lara Knudsen interviewed over 90 women's rights activists, health professionals, NGO workers, and government officials, gaining a sense of both official policies and the actual delivery of services in local clinics. The book places the experiences of women within the global context of how international population control agendas have influenced women's reproductive rights in the past, and how the changing international discourse on reproductive health continues to influence those rights today.

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An eye-opener
Forced Trade in the WTO

Views from the South

Manufacturer: Food First
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Policy & Current Events | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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The Future in the Balance
Promises Not Kept: Poverty And the Betrayal of Third World Development
The World Trade Organization: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
Essentials of Comparative Politics, Second Edition
The New Imperialism (Clarendon Lectures in Geography and Environmental Studies)

ASIN: 093502882X

Book Description

In December 1999, thousands of protestors took to the streets in the "Battle in Seattle." Their target was a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). For all its talk of being dedicated to the welfare of the Third World and the global poor, WTO rules and agreements actually further a "new colonialism" and directly subvert the power and voice of the Third World. This results in damage to local and national economies, and destruction of natural resources, livelihoods, jobs, and culture. Views from the South is a rare collection of essays by Third World activists and scholars who describe in pointed detail the effects of the WTO and other Bretton Woods institutions. They demand profound changes of these bureaucracies if they are permitted to survive.

Customer Reviews:

An eye-opener.......2002-05-02

I had always wondered the strong cause that ordinary people felt whent hey demonstrated/ got injured and even died during the WTO conferences in Seattle, Italy and New York. That led me to this book, which contains research papers from 4-5 authors, mainly from the 3rd world.

I found it amazing to note how the Transnational Corporations (TNC) of the first-world, browbeat the third world in guise of opening up to competition from outside. Some important points:
- How gloabalization is changing the world's food patterns
- How huge corporations like Monsanto and Cargill have created huge monopolies, whereby they could hold the world population to ransom, a.k.a. the OPEC countries (who individually hardly yield as much power though).
- How in the guise of Intellectual Property Rights, huge corporations patent herbs, plants and crop types, which otherwise have been used in the third world for several hundreds of years.
- How lending institutions like IMF, WB control the destiny of so many poor nations in the world.
- How TNC-led globalization (and thereby greed) has supported tyranny and dictatoships in Africa and South America, and has resulted in the dealths of hundreds of thousands of people over several years.
- How many of the WTO countries, are so poor that they can't even afford to send their diplomats to discuss WTO issues. Also, they don't possess the legal talent by themselves, or hire talent from outside to fight for their cause. Several times they put signatures on documents, not knowing how exactly it would impact them.
- Perhaps the biggest fraud perpetrated by the first world is in the way resolutions are adopted "by consensus" - and NEVER put to vote. The first world has resources and techniques of setting up several working teams which discuss issues with the top 15-20 countries in the world, arrive at a conclusion, and present "the consensus".
- Also, important is the role of leading countries of the third world, like India, South Africa, Malaysia etc., who refused to be beated into submission. This, of course results in a lot of flak in the West-controlled press and television.
- How, even within any first world country, there is a north side and south side, where workers keep losing jobs to globalization. How this has resulted in falling incomes and standard sof living.
- I also agree to a large extent the conclusion reached by the books authors - that the almighty dollar should not drive globalization, but the culture, and life-styles of various countries should also play a huge part in determining global trade policies.

Forced Trade in the WTO.......2001-12-21

This book contains papers from several authors from different countries. They all explain the problems with the World Trade Organization, how it is essentially run by powerful companies interested in making a profit off the farmers of the third world. The best thing about this book is that it offers different perspectives, different solutions to the same problems. Everyone should read it because it is an excellent book and it covers topics that most of us are ignorant of, while the 75% of the world's population who are farmers are affected by the policies and injustice of this organization every day.

The Global Tourism System: Governance, Development And Lessons from South Africa (New Directions in Tourism Analysis)

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The Global Tourism System: Governance, Development And Lessons from South Africa (New Directions in Tourism Analysis)
Scarlett Cornelissen
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Hospitality, Travel & Tourism | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 075464250X

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