Coming of Age in Times of Crisis is an anthropological study of the
intersecting roles of gender and schooling in the lives of rural
Venezuelan youth as they make the transition to adulthood during times
of national political and economic crisis. Strongly grounded in local
detail while speaking to larger comparative issues and the crises that
surround globalization, the study enables us to see how gender roles and
social class are reproduced in a culture experiencing profound upheaval,
and to see how rural Venezuelans have managed to reproduce and change
their culture in these circumstances. This book is based on
two-and-a-half years of ethnographic field research Hurtig conducted in
the Andean region of Venezuela between 1991 and 1993, and again briefly
in 1996.