In 1977 concern for the long-range effects of policy-making prompted President Carter to direct the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State to study the “probable changes in the world's population, natural resources, and environment through the end of the century.” The projections of that commission, as detailed in The Global 2000 Report to the President (Barney et al. 1981), foresee a growth in the world's population of as much as 70 percent, combined with staggering increases in demand for the world's resources of water, minerals, soils, and forest products.

The most prevalent criticism of U.S. policy toward Latin America is that it takes Latin America for granted or that Latin America would be better off if it did. According to this view, Latin America is either neglected or treated shabbily. The florid rhetoric that U.S. policymakers sometimes use to describe the “special relationship” with Latin America raises expectations that are never fulfilled. Abraham Lowenthal has repeatedly described this policy cycle as “a burst of interest followed by concrete decisions that contradict the very policies just announced.” He continues, “Whether calling its approach a ‘Good Neighbor Policy,’ an ‘Alliance for Progress,’ [or] a ‘Mature Partnership,’ one administration after another has promised to improve U.S.-Latin American relations,” but all have failed.

Lima is one of several cities in Latin America that have been the subject of a relatively large number of studies by anthropologists. About thirty years' worth of anthropological research in Lima has accrued, yet little has been done in the way of synthesis, although Millones (1978), Osterling (1980), and Lloyd (1980) have made summary comments toward this end in introductions to their recent books. No ethnography of the entire city has been attempted, and in many ways, the research has been concerned only with relatively smaller units and bounded groups, particularly squatter settlements and highland migrants. Nor have the linkages between studies and groups often been made. I will briefly discuss here, within a typological framework, the ethnographic studies carried out in Lima with an eye to describing and integrating the nature, focus, and methods of these studies.

Within a number of disciplines such as anthropology, demography, economics, history, and sociology, renewed interest recently has been manifested in research on family and domestic groups. In contrast to traditional studies that sought universal patterns of family structure and function, contemporary research tends to devote greater attention to the diversity of historically specific patterns (Yanagisako 1979). Many scholars are currently focusing on the relationship between changing forms of production and the domestic group formations through which the immediate material needs of most individuals are met.

Barring the outbreak of internecine conflict in Central America, the greatest challenge to the Nicaraguan Revolution lies in rural Nicaragua. As in most developing countries, the severest poverty in Nicaragua has always been found in the rural areas. Somewhat paradoxically, however, the rural areas of the country are also the source of the nation's wealth: 90 percent of the foreign exchange, so necessary to a small state like Nicaragua, is derived from agriculture. Moreover, around 70 percent of the population earn their living from the land. Consequently, meeting the promises of the revolution depends crucially on the performance of the agricultural sector.

Mucho se ha escrito y especulado sobre las culturas negras de América. Y cuando pensamos en ellas en abstracto, casi siempre acuden a la mente las mismas imágenes: dioses africanos, sistemas esotéricos de adivinación, collares de colores, medicina mágica, fieles en estado de trance. Esto se debe, en primer lugar, a que éstos han sido y siguen siendo elementos importantes del patrimonio cultural de numerosos grupos negros de nuestro continente. Se debe también a que, gracias a la paciente labor de investigadores tales como Roger Bastide, Fernando Ortiz, Lydia Cabrera, Alfred Metraux y otros, hoy poseemos una riquísima—aunque no exhaustiva—información acerca de la cultura de muchos de esos grupos. Existe, sin embargo, otro mundo negro casi totalmente inexplorado. En éste, el recuerdo del Africa no se advierte a flor de piel y las raíces de su tradición oral y de sus prácticas religiosas son, al menos en ciertos aspectos formales, más europeas que africanas.