Carmen Kordick, The Saints of Progress: A History of Coffee, Migration, and Costa Rican National Identity (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2019), pp. xx + 268, $49.95 hb.

Abstract

to understand struggles over nature and capital in artisanal fisheries. Coastal Lives would be of interest to scholars of anthropology, sociology, geography and Latin American studies who are engaged with theories of globalisation, capitalism, neoliberalism, inequality and commons theory. While debates around the commons are not necessarily central to the book’s purpose, it makes an important contribution to scholarship on the commons. It advances novel theoretical insights into asymmetrical power relations that underlie claims and contests over modernisation, symbolic dispossession, and its implications for social justice and equity. The authors draw attention to disparities in wealth, privilege, power, political participation, and disenfranchisement with careful analysis of its implications. Such processes illuminated by a focus on coastal lives are not necessarily unique to Peru.