Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suffering, and Recovery:Remaking a World: Violence, Social...

BOOK REVIEWS

Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suf-fering, and Recovery. Veena Das, ArthurKleinman, Margaret Lock, Mamphela Ram-phele, and Pamela Reynolds, eds. Berkeley:University of California Press, 2001. viii +294 pp.

TODD MEYERS

Adolescent Health Research GroupJohns Hopkins University School ofMedicine

Remaking a Worldis a collection of essaysexamining social trauma and the remarkabletask of rebuilding everyday life. The book isthe third and final volume in a series examin-ing modes of suffering, violence, and de-spair. The book's editors are part of the Com-mittee on Culture, Health, and HumanDevelopment at the Social Science ResearchCouncil, where this work began. Of the twopreceding volumes, Social Suffering (Uni-versity of California Press, 1997) identifiedmultiple forms of social adversity and politi-cally structured vulnerability, and Violenceand Subjectivity (University of CaliforniaPress, 2000) concentrated on the mecha-nisms by which violence shapes individualsubjectivity. Remaking a World takes a criti-cal look at ways in which individuals andcommunities not only experience violencebut also navigate through its aftermath. Theinsights provided by this volume are devel-oped through comparative ethnographiesbased on long-term fieldwork, with each es-say presenting a unique set of theoretical is-sues within a particular local context. Al-though the book's six essays describedifferent geographic and cultural settings(Canada, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Japan, SouthAfrica, and India), each addresses the process

in which communities have either been mar-ginalized through histories of structural vio-lence or suffered the trauma of collectiveviolence (p. vii).

The essays in Remaking a World fall intotwo broadly defined and overlapping catego-ries: descriptions of communities and eth-nographies of violence (p. 8). Within the firstcategory, essays contrast official historieswith local experiences, examining the im-pact of state policies and colonial practiceson questions of citizenship and identity. Inthe first essay, Komatra Chuengsatiansup'sethnography of the Kui in Thailand exploresthe omission of the Kui from official statehistory. The "social production of marginal -ity" concerning the Kui in Siamese histori-ography is perpetuated in contemporarypolitics, causing their absence from thedominant political discourse. In response,the Kui have constructed an "imagined com-munity" of dissenters, reflecting the inter-subjective experience of suffering and its re-lation to empowerment through sharedexclusion. In the second essay, Naomi Adel-son's compelling description of the Cree inCanada illuminates a history punctuated bypoverty, despair, and institutional racism.Within the public sphere, the inability to shiftrepresentation beyond that of sufferer or vic-tim fuels subordination. To transcend theidentity of historical fatality, the Cree at-tempt to carve out completely alternativecultural, political, and civic spaces, in theform of a physical and psychic nation-state.

Essays in the book's second category aremore exclusively ethnographies of violence.Maya Todeschini's intimate look at thehibakusha (literally, atom-bombed persons)in Japan reveals the role gender plays in the

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interpretation of traumatic events. Femalebodies are constructed as static memorials tothe bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,shaping a woman's sense of sexuality andsubjectivity. No less traumatic is the socialappropriation of anxiety and loss surround-ing the effects of radiation on a woman's ca-pacity as child bearer and mother. In his es-say on the supernatural in ghost stories andnarratives of spirit possession, Sasanlca Per-era travels the surreal landscape of psycho-logical terror in Sri Lanka. After a brutalcampaign of political violence lasting from1988 to 1991, much was left unanswered.Traditional beliefs and mechanisms for re-membering the past through altered states ofconsciousness help, in part, to negotiate theambiguities of justice and revenge. In a par-ticularly absorbing essay, Deepak Mehta andRoma Chatterji examine communal violenceof riots in Bombay and the spaces of memorythey create. The authors note that recoveringthe everyday means coming to terms with thefragility of the "normal" (p. 202). Clashesbetween Hindus and Muslims cause func-tional "moral communities" to be frag-mented and reformed by rumors and distrust.Where one's neighbors may be the perpetu-ators of violence, refashioned spatialboundaries reflect a reordering of both so-ciality and sanctioned memory. Fiona Ross'spoignant work on women's testimonies atthe Truth and Reconciliation Commission inSouth Africa reveals the experiential discon-nect of the narrated subject. Women recount-ing violence speak only as ephemeral ob-servers and not as subjects within traumaticevents. Justice is realized through the voicewhen one overcomes what Ross calls the"suffocation of speech."

In addition to brilliant essays, the mannerin which this book is edited deserves com-ment. The editors strengthen the volume as awhole by thoughtfully weaving togetherideas within a large framework, carefullyavoiding superficial connections. In an ever-expanding body of medical anthropology

literature, few volumes stand out so su-perbly. Remaking a World is a reminder ofthe richness and theoretical depth that can beachieved through comparative and truly col-laborative work.

Health Work with the Poor—A PracticalGuide. Christie W. Kiefer. New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000. xiv +239 pp.

RAHIMA JAN GATES

life Long Medical Care-Over 60 HealthCenterBerkeley, California andCenter for Aging in Diverse CommunitiesUniversity of California, San Francisco

Perplexed by the growing gap betweenrich and poor and the negligible effect theeconomic recovery had on reducing hardcore poverty, social scientists over the past20 years gave rise to a sizable body of schol-arship that tried to explain the enduring exist-ence of the "underclass." These efforts re-vived discussions about the flaws of"official" poverty estimates and provokedrancorous debates about the cultural valuesand behavior of poor people, welfare de-pendency, and the feminization and raciali-zation of poverty. The central question is:Are the problems of the poor a result of theself-perpetuating "culture of poverty" orsystematic structural constraints imposed byracial discrimination and economic and po-litical exploitation?

Right now the poverty amidst plenty di-lemma surfaces in the background of currentbattles over persistent health disparities,Medicare prescription drug benefits, Presi-dent Bush's recent tax cut, and the plight ofAmerica's 40 million without health insur-ance. These controversies are vivid remind-ers that for many, the prosperity of the "neweconomy" has been little more than a sham.What in the dot-com is going on?