Publisher's Synopsis
Nicaraguaâ??s Sandinista revolution (1979â??1990) initiated a broad program of social transformation to improve the situation of the working class and poor, women, and other non-elite groups through agrarian reform, restructured urban employment, and wide access to health care, education, and social services. This book explores how Nicaraguaâ??s least powerful citizens have fared in the years since the Sandinista revolution, as neo-liberal governments have rolled back these state-supported reforms and introduced measures to promote the development of a market-driven economy. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted throughout the 1990s, Florence Babb describes the negative consequences that have followed the return to a capitalist path, especially for women and low-income citizens. In addition, she charts the growth of womenâ??s and other social movements (neighbourhood, lesbian and gay, indigenous, youth, peace, and environmental) that have taken advantage of new openings for political mobilisation. Her ethnographic portraits of a low-income barrio and of womenâ??s craft co-operatives powerfully link local, cultural responses to national and global processes. Florence E. Babb is Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Professor of Anthropology and Womenâ??s Studies at the University of Iowa.
