Struggling with development : the politics of hunger and gender in the Philippines /

This well-informed and keenly critical volume places a people of classic interest to ethnography--the Ifugao of the Philippines--in the context of contemporary development programs and policies at both the state and international levels. First a Peace Corps volunteer, and later an anthropologist during the 1990s in Northern Luzon, Kwiatkowski captures well the contradictions in ideology and practice of development as it plays out among the Ifugao. Her focus is upon malnutrition and the problem of gender inequality among the Ifugao. She demonstrates that Western-derived and oriented biomedical and international development programs, as historically specific cultural forces, have not substantially alleviated malnutrition in the Philippines. The local structures of inequality are sustained by development experts even though they are often not naive about them. The unintended consequences of development programs require a complex analysis of organizations and local social situations, which this volume performs astutely and with clarity. The treatment of the biomedical influence on malnutrition is particularly original and will be valuable for cross-cultural comparisons. Recommended for upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and professionals. G. E. Marcus; Rice University