In Bolivia today, the ability to speak an indigenous language is highly valued among educated urbanites as a useful job skill, but a rural person who speaks a native language is branded with lower social status. Likewise, chewing coca in the countryside spells “inferior indian,” but in La Paz jazz bars it’s decidedly cool. In the Andes and elsewhere, the commodification of indianness has impacted urban lifestyles as people co-opt indigenous cultures for qualities that emphasize the uniqueness of their national culture.

This volume looks at how metropolitan ideas of nation employed by politicians, the media and education are produced, reproduced, and contested by people of the rural Andes—people who have long been regarded as ethnically and racially distinct from more culturally European urban citizens. Yet these peripheral “natives” are shown to be actively engaged with the idea of the nation in their own communities, forcing us to re-think the ways in which indigeneity is defined by its marginality.

The contributors examine the ways in which numerous identities—racial, generational, ethnic, regional, national, gender, and sexual—are both mutually informing and contradictory among subaltern Andean people who are more likely now to claim an allegiance to a nation than ever before. Although indians are less often confronted with crude assimilationist policies, they continue to face racism and discrimination as they struggle to assert an identity that is more than a mere refraction of the dominant culture. Yet despite the language of multiculturalism employed even in constitutional reform, any assertion of indian identity is likely to be resisted. By exploring topics as varied as nation-building in the 1930s or the chuqila dance, these authors expose a paradox in the relation between indians and the nation: that the nation can be claimed as a source of power and distinct identity while simultaneously making some types of national imaginings unattainable.

Whether dancing together or simply talking to one another, the people described in these essays are shown creating identity through processes that are inherently social and interactive. To sing, to eat, to weave . . . In the performance of these simple acts, bodies move in particular spaces and contexts and do so within certain understandings of gender, race and nation. Through its presentation of this rich variety of ethnographic and historical contexts, Natives Making Nation provides a finely nuanced view of contemporary Andean life.

Best known for its cactus-studded deserts and the awe-inspiring Grand Canyon, Arizona boasts even more natural features that surprise visitors and continue to amaze longtime residents. Using C. H. Merriam’s turn-of-the-twentieth-century descriptions of Arizona’s life zones, Charles Lowe first defined those biotic communities in his 1964 book Arizona’s Natural Environment. Now ten experts on Arizona’s natural setting build on that classic to reflect our increased knowledge of basic physical and biological processes and the impact of both natural and man-made disturbances on these environments.

Natural Environments of Arizona bridges the gap between coffee-table volumes and scientific literature, offering a nontechnical, single-volume overview that introduces readers to a myriad of topics and provides pointers toward deeper reading. It’s all here: climate, geology, soil and water resources, an amazing variety of flora and fauna—and of course human impacts on the state’s fragile ecosystems.

These chapters show the extent to which Arizona’s natural environments have changed since Lowe first set the stage for their study. They consider changes in forests and grasslands, the effects of soil erosion, questions about water quality, and the evolving status of rivers and wildlife communities. And while the common thread of environments makes the book a complete introduction to the subject, each chapter stands alone as an authoritative synopsis of its particular topic.

Ranging widely over the impacts of drought, floods, and wildfires, this practical guide clearly shows that nature is more than picturesque landscapes, vegetation, and wildlife. For anyone with a dog-eared copy of Lowe, this book will serve as the new standard on the subject—a valuable tool for resource managers, students, and general readers alike.

Gladwell "Toney" Richardson came from a long line of Indian traders and published nearly three hundred western novels under pseudonyms like "Maurice Kildare." His forty years of managing trading posts on the Navajo Reservation are now recalled in this colorful memoir.

Arizona’s art history is emblematic of the story of the modern West, and few periods in that history were more significant than the era of the New Deal. From Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams to painters and muralists including Native American Gerald Nailor, the artists working in Arizona under New Deal programs were a notable group whose art served a distinctly public purpose. Their photography, paintings, and sculptures remain significant exemplars of federal art patronage and offer telling lessons positioned at the intersection of community history and culture.

Art is a powerful instrument of historical record and cultural construction, and many of the issues captured by the Farm Security Administration photographers remain significant issues today: migratory labor, the economic volatility of the mining industry, tourism, and water usage. Art tells important stories, too, including the work of Japanese American photographer Toyo Miyatake in Arizona’s internment camps, murals by Native American artist Gerald Nailor for the Navajo Nation Council Chamber in Window Rock, and African American themes at Fort Huachuca. Illustrated with 100 black-andwhite photographs and covering a wide range of both media and themes, this fascinating and accessible volume reclaims a richly textured story of Arizona history with potent lessons for today.

You see them as faceless shapes on the median or in city parks. You recognize them by their cardboard signs, their bags of aluminum cans, or their weathered skin. But you do not know them.

In Nomads of a Desert City Barbara Seyda meets the gazes of our homeless neighbors and, with an open heart and the eye of an accomplished photographer, uncovers their compelling stories of life on the edge.

Byrdy is a teenager from Alaska who left a violent husband and misses the young daughter her mother now cares for. Her eyes show a wisdom that belies her youth. Samuel is 95 and collects cans for cash. His face shows a lifetime of living outside while his eyes hint at the countless stories he could tell. Lamanda worked as an accountant before an act of desperation landed her in prison. Now she struggles to raise the seven children of a woman she met there. Dorothy—whose earliest memories are of physical and sexual abuse—lives in a shelter, paycheck to paycheck, reciting affirmations so she may continue “to grace the world with my presence.”

They live on the streets or in shelters. They are women and men, young and old, Native or Anglo or Black or Hispanic. Their faces reflect the forces that have shaped their lives: alcoholism, poverty, racism, mental illness, and abuse. But like desert survivors, they draw strength from some hidden reservoir.

Few recent studies on homelessness offer such a revealing collection of oral history narratives and compelling portraits. Thirteen homeless women and men open a rare window to enrich our understanding of the complex personal struggles and triumphs of their lives. Nomads of a Desert City sheds a glaring light on the shadow side of the American Dream—and takes us to the crossroads of despair and hope where the human spirit survives.

Any university is composed of faculty, students, and staff. But these living components change over time and in varying degrees, while the campus buildings are more permanent, remaining for decades, a century, or longer.

This book looks at the buildings that have graced the campus of Northern Arizona University from its opening in 1898 to the present. The school began with a single building, Old Main, and it was joined by five other structures prior to World War I. In the following decades the campus remained relatively small, expanding to approximately twenty-five structures by the late 1950s. During the tenure of President J. Lawrence Walkup (1957–1979), the university effectively doubled in size, spreading southward and adding more than forty buildings, including an entire south campus academic center. Since 1979 the campus has witnessed the addition of more than thirty structures, most as infill within the existing campus layout.

Arranged chronologically, this extensively illustrated volume briefly describes the history of every building that has been a part of the university’s physical layout. The authors describe various structural aspects of each building and provide entertaining and informative anecdotes about events and people associated with the structures. By combing the university’s archives, Drickamer and Runge have turned up photographs of each building as it looked shortly after construction and at present, providing a fascinating visual time lapse.

With more than two hundred images of campus buildings, many of them never before published, Northern Arizona University: Buildings as History provides a wonderful pictorial chronicle of the campus that will interest architectural historians as well as all those who have called NAU home.