While anthropology went through a period of disturbing self-reflectivity and profound epistemological doubts, its classical field of study changed dramatically. Instead of small and relatively homogenous face-to-face societies, today�s anthropologists are studying the social transformations triggered by the pressure of globalization. Yet the more these societies adapted themselves to the conditions of modernity, the greater the significance of the ethnographic data collected by anthropologists since the end of the eighteenth century. For indigenous peoples, these data often represent the only written sources on their history, becoming increasingly important in their struggle for land and cultural rights.