Changing places

"Changing Places chronicles contemporary social and ecological changes occurring in rural Honduras as the result of the twin effects of development projects and globalization. The study area has been subject to dramatic forces of change through the construction of the El Cajon hydroelectric dam, which flooded extensive areas of agricultural land, as well as the less dramatic but equally important changes associated with globalization. The book examines the environmental consequences of the dam, the response of local people to dam-induced changes, the ecological effects of changing land use patterns and the challenges to local livelihoods posed by globalization. Local responses to these changes include agricultural intensification, increased rates of migration for employment in maquiladora plants and to the U.S. The work combines a variety of methodologies including remote sensing and GIS, along with extended participant observation and other anthropological methods. Geographic and ethnographic sources are integrated using an actor-centered political and historical ecology framework, with explicit consideration of how cultural power and social capital shaped the course of local change."--BOOK JACKET.