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5 books match the query 'Binford, Leigh'

cover of From Popular to Insurgent Intellectuals: Peasant Catechists in the Salvadoran Revolution

From Popular to Insurgent Intellectuals

Peasant Catechists in the Salvadoran Revolution

Leigh Binford

Rutgers University Press, 2023

From Popular to Insurgent Intellectuals explains how a group of Catholic lay catechists educated in liberation theology came to take up arms and participate on the side of the rebel FMLN during El Salvador’s revolutionary war (1980-92). In the process they became transformed from popular intellectuals to insurgent intellectuals who put their organizational and cognitive skills at the service of a collective effort to create a more egalitarian and democratic society. The book highlights the key roles that peasant catechists in northern Morazán played in disseminating liberation theology before the war and supporting the FMLN during it—as quartermasters, political activists, and musicians, among other roles. Throughout, From Popular to Insurgent Intellectuals highlights the dialectical nature of relations between Catholic priests and urban revolutionaries, among others, in which the latter learned from the former and vice-versa. Peasant catechists proved capable at making independent decisions based on assessment of their needs and did not simply follow the dictates of those with superior authority, and played an important role for the duration of the twelve-year military conflict. 
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cover of Obliging Need: Rural Petty Industry in Mexican Capitalism

Obliging Need

Rural Petty Industry in Mexican Capitalism

By Scott Cook and Leigh Binford

University of Texas Press, 1990

For centuries throughout large portions of the globe, petty agriculturalists and industrialists have set their physical and mental energies to work producing products for direct consumption by their households and for exchange. This twofold household reproduction strategy, according to both Marxist and neoclassical approaches to development, should have disappeared from the global economy as labor was transformed into a producer as well as a consumer of capitalist commodities. But in fact, during the twentieth century, only the United States and Britain seem to have approximated this predicted scenario. Tens of millions of households in contemporary Asia, Africa, and Latin America and millions more in industrialized capitalist economies support themselves through petty commodity production alone or in combination with petty industry wage labor.

Obliging Need provides a detailed and comprehensive analysis of small-scale peasant and artisan enterprise in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico. The authors show how commodity production is organized and operates in different craft industries, as well as the ways in which it combines with other activities such as household chores, agriculture, wage labor, and petty commerce. They demonstrate how—contrary to developmentalist dogma—small-scale capitalism develops from within Mexico's rural economy.

These findings will be important for everyone concerned with improving the lives and economic opportunities of countryfolk in the Third World. As the authors make clear, political mobilization in rural Mexico will succeed only as it addresses the direct producers' multiple needs for land, credit, more jobs, health insurance, and, most importantly, more equitable remuneration for their labor and greater rewards for their enterprise.

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cover of The El Mozote Massacre: Anthropology and Human Rights

The El Mozote Massacre

Anthropology and Human Rights

Leigh Binford

University of Arizona Press, 1996

The 1981 slaughter of more than a thousand civilians around El Mozote, El Salvador, by the country's U.S.-trained army was the largest massacre of the Salvadoran civil war. The story was covered—and soon forgotten—by the international news media. It was revived in 1993 only when the U.S. government was accused of covering up the incident.

Such reportage, argues anthropologist Leigh Binford, sustains the perception that the lives of Third World people are only newsworthy when some great tragedy strikes. He critiques the practices of journalists and human rights organizations for their dehumanizing studies of "subjects" and "victims." Binford suggests that such accounts objectify the people involved through statistical analyses and bureaucratic body counts while the news media sensationalize the motives and personalities of the perpetrators.

In relating the story of this tragic event, Binford restores a sense of history and social identity to the fallen people of this Salvadoran village. Drawing on interviews he conducted with El Mozote-area residents, he offers a rich ethnographic and personal account of their lives prior to the tragedy. He provides an overview of the history and culture of the area and tells how such a massacre could have happened, why it was covered up, and why it could happen again.
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cover of The El Mozote Massacre: Human Rights and Global Implications Revised and Expanded Edition

The El Mozote Massacre

Human Rights and Global Implications Revised and Expanded Edition

Leigh Binford

University of Arizona Press, 2016

In 1981, more than a thousand civilians around El Mozote, El Salvador, were slaughtered by the country’s U.S.-trained army. The story was covered—and soon forgotten—by the international news media. In the first edition of The El Mozote Massacre, anthropologist Leigh Binford successfully restores a social identity to the massacre victims through his dissection of Third World human rights reporting and a rich ethnographic and personal account of El Mozote–area residents prior to the massacre.

Almost two decades later, the consequences of the massacre continue to reverberate through the country’s legal and socioeconomic systems. The El Mozote Massacre, 2nd Edition brings together new evidence to address reconstruction, historical memory, and human rights issues resulting from what may be the largest massacre in modern Latin American history.

With a multitude of additions, including three new chapters, an extended chronology, discussion of the hearing and ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2012, and evidence gathered throughout half a dozen field trips made by the author, Binford presents a current perspective on the effects of this tragic moment in history. Thanks to geographically expanded fieldwork, Binford offers critical discussion of postwar social, economic, religious, and social justice in El Mozote, and adds important new regional, national, and global contexts.

The El Mozote Massacre, 2nd Edition maintains the crucial presence of the massacre in human rights discussions for El Salvador, Latin America, and the world.
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cover of Tomorrow We're All Going to the Harvest: Temporary Foreign Worker Programs and Neoliberal Political Economy

Tomorrow We're All Going to the Harvest

Temporary Foreign Worker Programs and Neoliberal Political Economy

By Leigh Binford

University of Texas Press, 2013

From its inception in 1966, the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) has grown to employ approximately 20,000 workers annually, the majority from Mexico. The program has been hailed as a model that alleviates human rights concerns because, under contract, SAWP workers travel legally, receive health benefits, contribute to pensions, are represented by Canadian consular officials, and rate the program favorably. Tomorrow We’re All Going to the Harvest takes us behind the ideology and examines the daily lives of SAWP workers from Tlaxcala, Mexico (one of the leading sending states), observing the great personal and family price paid in order to experience a temporary rise in a standard of living. The book also observes the disparities of a gutted Mexican countryside versus the flourishing agriculture in Canada, where farm labor demand remains high.

Drawn from extensive surveys and nearly two hundred interviews, ethnographic work in Ontario (destination of over 77 percent of migrants in the author’s sample), and quantitative data, this is much more than a case study; it situates the Tlaxcala-Canada exchange within the broader issues of migration, economics, and cultural currents. Bringing to light the historical genesis of “complementary” labor markets and the contradictory positioning of Mexican government representatives, Leigh Binford also explores the language barriers and nonexistent worker networks in Canada, as well as the physical realities of the work itself, making this book a complete portrait of a provocative segment of migrant labor.

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