Comedy and Tragedy in the Andean Commons

Abstract

Early on, the author expresses disenchantment with the theoretical excesses of "interpretive anthropology" which in effect destroy the discipline. He sets out to be as objective and scientific as possible. "I intend to disappear sometimes from the scene," he writes (p. x). Reading this rewritten doctoral dissertation, one discovers that the key word in that proclamation is "sometimes." The text is frequently and extensively interpretive, as though the author placed one foot in the scientific tradition and one in the interpretive current. Moreover, Trawick deliberately seeks to "eventalize" (a Michel Foucault term) the local historical process.