Book Reviews

Goodale, Mark (2009) Dilemmas of Modernity: Bolivian Encounters with Lawand Liberalism. Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), xv + 245 pp. $65.00 hbk,$24.95 pbk.

To a longstanding student of Bolivia, this may appear to be just another book on theIndian people of northern Potosí. But it is unusual in two respects – it is full of humanand intellectual curiosity, and it constantly asks profound questions that often lead toexplorations of distinctive components of society. It focuses on one province – AlonsoIbanez – in the north of Potosí department – one of the most extensive areas of povertyin Bolivia and one whose situation has changed little according successive BolivianHuman Development Reports.

The structure of the book is original. Its approach and its series of imaginative ideasare explored using accessible language in such a way that it both catches and holdsthe attention of the reader. The book focuses on issues surrounding human rights,often seen in the context of the universality of rights, but recognised in successiveBolivian constitutions since the foundation of the republic in 1825. It is also careful torecognise fundamental differences in attitudes to ‘development’ between urban-boundBolivian (and global Northern) intellectuals and rural people in northern Potosí who seeit meaning cleaner water and higher-yielding potato varieties untrammelled by globalpatterns of power. This is, alas, an unusual recognition but one that is of fundamentalimportance in trying to make sense of the attitudes and priorities of women and menfrom small towns, villages and very isolated rural areas.

The book aims to stimulate the reader to view and then interpret people, theiractions and their attitudes through lenses that are formed by knowledge of a range ofintellectual debates but that recognise immediate concerns of both people in outlyingrural communities and the hamlets and small towns that link villagers with nationaland even international priorities for positive change.

Two empirical centres of the book are the work of legal authorities at different levels,from province to canton and to community or ayllu, and also the work of specific legalindividuals, in particular Lucio Montesinos, who was director of a human rights legalcentre operating in Sacaca between 1995 and 1998.

© 2010 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2010 Society for Latin American StudiesBulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 29, No. 4 549

Book Reviews

Recourse to legal authority in order to resolve disputes is commonplace and Goodalerecounts how every Sunday the corregidor titular of Sacaca receives a small number ofpeople seeking to initiate legal action or to respond to another person’s legal actionagainst them. Others come simply to seek legal advice. Elsewhere in the town is thejuzgado de instruccion where other, more formal, legal matters are attended to. Theestablishment in 1995 of a legal resource centre for women and children in Sacacawas facilitated by funds from the Claretian Order, who provide priests in this area,and with the support of the office of the Under-Secretary of Gender Affairs of thenational Ministry of Human Development, and was directed by Lucio Montesinos – aBolivian specifically trained in human rights and family law. Women and children camefrom all over the province to seek advice and help and quickly filled the associatedhostel that had been established. The juez instructor – whose office contains ‘explicitpornographic images’ was unsympathetic to the activities of the centre, few cases wereresolved and the growing demand from women coming great distances for help waslargely unsatisfied. The centre closed in 1998. Goodale’s account of this episode wellilluminates how gender is an important component of human rights needs in rural areassuch as northern Potosí.

There is a further excellent image that illuminates another part of the argumentabout conflicting components of a modern occasion from which rural people are felt(by city-based technocrats) to benefit – the workshop! In this theatrical setting rural andurban actors play games intended to heighten their understanding of human rights. Theoutcome may be enjoyment among the participants – and this reviewer’s workshops areusually enjoyed – but this seldom directs subjects’ minds to new ways of viewing thematters of concern.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating book that deserves the attention ofall whose research is associated with people in rural areas, whatever their intellectualbackground. It provides no answers but raises questions in original ways from whichwe should learn to understand our rural subjects better.

David PrestonUniversity of Oxford

© 2010 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2010 Society for Latin American Studies550 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 29, No. 4