TACOMA, Wash. – Monica DeHart, a local professor and anthropologist, turns expectations on their head with her new book Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Identity and Development Politics in Latin America (Stanford University Press). The intriguing work reveals how indigenous communities in Latin America and Latino professionals in the United States—two groups that might not seem to have much in common— became important for regional development on the basis of the one thing they shared: ethnic identity. DeHart shows how culture was “put to work for development,” such that even indigenous communities, which some might expect to be obstacles to economic development, provided valuable ideas and practices for Western-style progress.
DeHart, associate professor of anthropology in comparative sociology at University of Puget Sound, writes of her work: “I was especially interested in groups and communities that had been historically criticized for having the ’wrong’ culture for development. During the 1990s this perspective shifted dramatically. One Maya group that I worked with was described by the Guatemalan government and foreign donors alike as a pioneer for new development relations between the state and society.
“Similarly Latino professionals recruited to a United Nations project were celebrated as being ideally suited to help their ‘brethren’ back in Latin America. In both cases, these groups’ culture was seen to provide efficient, effective, and enterprising strategies that superseded previous approaches.”
In looking at these development initiatives, DeHart explores how members of indigenous and Latino communities have dealt with the retreat of the state and the rise of regional free markets as the new model for development in Latin America. Ethnic Entrepreneurs examines what is at stake for these individuals and communities as their ideas are recruited by governments and corporations.
In telling the story, DeHart cuts across multiple disciplines, delving into global developmental politics, neoliberal economics, migration policies, social movements, and ethnic identity. She describes a collaboration between a Mayan organization and Walmart, and explores a United Nations-sponsored program that hoped to connect Latinos in the technology and communications industries to grassroots projects in Latin America through a “digital diaspora.” The book also uncovers surprising parallels between ethnic community businesses and modern corporate social responsibility policies.
“Once the very idea of the Ethic Entrepreneur would have been an oxymoron,” wrote Jean Comaroff, a distinguished service professor at The University of Chicago. “Monica DeHart provides an enlightening account of the ways in which ethnic identity, market forces, and development strategy are reshaping each other in neoliberal times."
Ethnic Entrepreneurs is a product of DeHart’s research and fieldwork with indigenous communities in Guatemala, Latino communities in the United States, and development institutions. An associated faculty of the international political economy program, DeHart was a contributing author to recent editions of the popular textbook Introduction to Political Economy (Prentice Hall). She is also an advisory committee member for Latin American studies and global development studies at University of Puget Sound.
Latin America remains central in DeHart’s research as she prepares to lead the University of Puget Sound-Pacific Lutheran University study abroad program in Oaxaca, Mexico, next fall. Currently she is conducting a collaborative research project on a community development initiative in Tacoma, and commencing a transnational study of how philanthropy, private industry, and China are reshaping ideas and practices of development in Latin America.
Press-quality photos of the Ethnic Entrepreneurs book cover and of Monica DeHart are available on request.
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