The Subversive Tradition in Spanish Renaissance Writing (review)

at the hands of the state, or perhaps NGOs, as in the minds of indigenous activists—but it is one strand in a much more complex field of identity formation. Finally, an organizing thread for the book is the intersection between a culturalist discourse of difference and ethnic revitalization, often practiced at a local level, by those who see themselves on the “inside,” and a rights-based discourse of sovereignty and autonomy, usually linked to transnational concepts and practiced by those on the frontiers between “inside” and “outside” and those who engage directly with the institutions of the state in seeking to carve out spaces for indigenous rights. Thus the bilingual educational program falls broadly in the first camp, while regional political leaders tended to be in the second. A strength of the book is that this distinction is never reified, but is teased out in different contexts: for example, the same tension could be found within the educational program itself, between different educators and curriculum designers. Rappaport’s book is a rich, sophisticated and much-needed ethnography of how a “social movement” works in practice. At once depressing, due to the frequent mention of assassinated indigenous leaders, it also inspires with its portrait of indomitable spirit.