Reviews

Armstrong, Karen. 2004. Remembering Karelia:A family’s story of displacement during and after theFinnish Wars. Oxford: Berghahn. x + 160 pp.Hb.: £40.00/$59.95. ISBN: 1 57181 650 X.

Borneman, John. 2004. Death of the father: Ananthropology of the end of political authority.Oxford: Berghahn. xii + 240 pp. Hb.:£40.00/$59.95. ISBN: 1 57181 111 7.

Kaneff, Deema. 2004. Who owns the past? Thepolitics of time in a ‘model’ Bulgarian village. Oxford:Berghahn. x + 220 pp. Hb.: £35.00/$49.95.ISBN: 1 57181 534 1.

The Finnish anthropologist Karen Armstrong hasproduced a monograph that is unusual in more thanone way. Remembering Karelia describes a borderregion stretching between Finland and Russiaknown as Karelia that today is part of theindependent Russian nation-state, but for almostfifty years formed part of the Soviet Union. At theend of the war, almost 11 per cent of the Finnishpopulation of the region (about 420,000 people)were evacuated to Finland while Karelia remainedwithin the territory of the Soviet Union.

What I find fascinating in this study is that whileit does not concern Russians and the Soviet state perse they are structurally embedded in the Karelians’plight as represented in the diaries and letters ofHelena Kuisma and those of her descendants. Thebook is thus a re-reading of autobiographiesre-written by members of an extended family whoseroots are traced back to the mythical village ofInkila. The author and family members visited thissite, but as the small team meanders through sitesdescribed in the ancestral histories they must cometo terms with a sober reality: the Soviet state caredlittle about history as most buildings, the cemeteryand family houses were completely erased. Thissection is the most moving part of the book as wewitness Karelian sites that do not exist any more asvillagers’ memories of events are placed on a virtualmap preserved in written texts of formerresidents.

Armstrong has given us a milestone study infamily history and autobiographical accounts froma region that received has little or no attention fromanthropologists. Unfortunately, it seems thatArmstrong’s manuscript did not receive a possiblefinishing touch-up job (certainly not by anEuropeanist anthropologist) since her latest sourcesare from 2000, with a few books published in 2001.This hiatus is especially noticeable because whileshe cites V. Skultans’ earlier article she does not citeSkultans’ book on Latvians. More glaring is that shemisses recent anthropological literature onnationalist imaginary as well.

Incidentally, while Armstrong reveals a strongsympathy for Balibar, Levi-Strauss, Bourdieu andHeidegger, a host of other scholars on nationalism(E. Kedourie, E. Gellner, R. Brubaker, K. Verdery)are nowhere to be found. However, Armstrong’s isnot a haphazard study of Finnish patriotism andidentity. Despite its one-sidedness, this study is anovel look at the Finnish national communityexperiencing displacement as the result of WorldWar II, a topic not well known in anthropologicalcircles aside from that of Scandinavia and alsoFinland. Even more refreshing is the uniqueness ofthe sources used: Armstrong samples Finnishautobiographical narratives (four volumes in all)from the first half of the twentieth century. For thisreason alone, Remembering Karelia is a book thatnicely compliments that of V. Skultans’ publishedearlier.

Different in scope and nature, the book edited byJohn Borneman, asks pertinent questions aboutmajor ruptures in history as he refers to the dates of1945 and 1989. Death of the Father started as apanel in 1995, followed by several workshops andall the while kept alive as an interactive virtual site(http://cidc.library.cornell.edu/DOF). The centraltenet of the volume is that twentieth-centuryregimes of authority were both totalising in theirclaims on sovereignty as well as patricentric in theirleadership. The authors focus on moments ofcaesurae: the end of political regimes, and the menwho fell with them in 1945, when fascism andNazism came to an end, and 1989, when Soviet

Social Anthropology (2006), 14, 3, 399–422. © 2006 European Association of Social Anthropologists 399doi:10.1017/S0964028206212874 Printed in the United Kingdom

hegemony collapsed across the former East bloc.Focusing on the personalities and characteristics ofthe leaders does not, however, imply that this is avolume on psychological anthropology. Only theeditor makes a respectful bow to Freud and Lacanwithout entering into a serious discussion ofpsychoanalytic theories about the power of thepaternal. Similarly, the loss of the father, as in thecase of regime collapse, is also untheorised from apsychological vantage point. It would have beennice at least in one chapter to read howpsychoanalytic theory would either strengthen oralternatively subvert anthropological analyses aboutFreud’s theoretical paradigm of melancholia andmourning of paternal losses including the nations’‘fall in self-esteem’ resulting from injuries sufferedthrough such oedipal losses.

While this edited collection is about history,aside from Borneman’s and Di Bella’s analyses,most chapters seem rather ahistorical as mostauthors are firmly anchored to second-handmaterials. While most of the authors’ footing is surewhen describing the past three decades, they walkon tightropes when reassessing earlier eventsinvolving these historic figures. This of courseforces them to look for new ways of approachingpatriarchal leaders, a subject long familiar tohistorians and political scientists.

Surprisingly, the reader rarely finds statements bythe leaders themselves. L. Brezhnev and N. Kruschevwrote profusely and their explanations of theirpolicies and actions were printed in numerous inter-views at the time. Similarly, Josif Broz Tito producedvolumes, just as N. Ceausescu did in Romania, eventhough they all pale in comparison to those tomespublished by Lenin and Stalin. None of these worksare analysed and only Kideckel cites the speechesof Romania’s infamous leader, N. Ceausescu.

Contributors seem strikingly to manage to omitimportant works; for instance, previous analysespublished on Ceausescu (G. Almond, D. Deletant,J. Hale, U. Gabbanyi) are not to be found in thechapter on Romania. Similarly, Schoberleindiscusses Lenin and Stalin but R. Medvedev andR. Stites had already published on them but theirworks were not consulted by the author. Readingthis discussion on the death of fathers, it issurprising to find that only two of the contributors(Schoberlein and Bringa) cite Katherine Verdery’sbook on the very same subject.

Most chapters deal with Europe, but there is asingle chapter on Japan’s Hirohito. Its inclusion, asthe editor claims, adds a nice comparison with theEuropean material while it remains rather an ad hoc

addition. Hirohito, who was dethroned after 1945by General MacArthur, but not killed, cannot bereally compared to Hitler, Mussolini or Ceausescuwho all met their violent deaths without receiving apompous state funeral like Stalin or Tito. All thesewere, however, delegitimised as soon as they weredead, but not Hirohito. The volume deals withpatricentric regimes but in some chapters womendo appear. Kideckel rightly mentions themegalomaniac Elena Ceausescu. The editor perhapsassumes too much when he claims that inopposition to the ‘wicked mother’, the leader‘Nicolae became a good father’ (Borneman p. 17).In actuality, he was never that. In the chapter onMussolini we are provided with a treatment of hismistress (Claretta Pettacci) as well as his widow;Bringa discusses Tito’s failed marriages (three in all),but his rule over the family, unlike that over thecountry, remains highly conjectural.

With such a range of figures discussed,other totalitarian fathers are missing. The HabsburgEmperor Francis Joseph, Franco, Hungary’s MatyasRakosi, Imre Nagy or Janos Kadar would havebeen significant additions. Albania’s Enver Hoxha,and Gomulka-Gierek-Jaruzelski and Gottwald-Novotny-Dubcek were different types of repressivefathers (of Poland and Czechoslovakia respectively)and could have been included, as well as Bulgaria’sTodor Zhivkov, Mao-tse Tung, Kim-il Sen, Ho-chiMinh, not to mention Kadaffi and Fidel Castro.

Deema Kaneff, in Who owns the past?, offers arefreshing twist for the anthropology of EasternEurope long thought to be the discipline of villagestudies. Similar somewhat in concern for history tothe Borneman volume, she deals with Talpa, asettlement identified by a pseudonym to which shereturns as an ancestral place. Yet, it is not a familyethnography per se even though there are constantreferences to members of her extended family. Whatmakes this settlement especially suitable for ananthropological study is that Talpa is famous inBulgarian history: it is the native village of the wifeof Todor Zhivkov, leader of the country and itscommunist party. The book focuses on the past –‘the way in which it was represented and utilised’(p. 3) – and how it shapes social and politicalrelationships between members of the communityas well as between the community and the state. Sheuses this notion as an ideological construct forhistory, folklore and tradition through whichTalpians positioned themselves with respect to statepower.

In the model village studied, citizensunanimously supported socialist state policy and

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ideology and as the changes wrought havoc incollective property and ownership during the early1990s, support and nostalgia for the good old daysbecame even more observable. Kaneff’s studymeticulously details the hidden connections to thestate with which her ancestral village were able toassure the title ‘model village’ at the late date of1987. Actually, this is already a questionableentitlement because Talpa itself was anything but‘model’ especially since it was incorporated asBulgarian in 1878 after the original Turkishinhabitants had left forever. Unfortunately, thisinteresting aspect of Talpa’s history, from theseventeenth century to events leading up to WorldWar II and to the eventual rise of socialism, isoffered in shorthand – a mere one-page description.What, for instance, happened before the 1960s?How did the forced collectivisations andnationalisations take place? Why did it seem sonatural that the villagers were indifferent to theChurch and its prominent place before? We do notreally get a sense of why the people of Talpa optedfor secular state funerals instead of thoseadministered by the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodoxchurch. Kaneff provides a detailed ethnography offunerals that were on the surface secular, but oncloser inspection turned out to be mixed withChristian and pre-Christian beliefs and practices.She claims that ‘state views held death to be part ofa normal, unrelenting and irreversible law of naturewhich could not be escaped’ and thereforeaccording to local philosophy ‘everything that isborn, dies’ (p. 118). This, however, does not followlogically as an automatic acceptance of secular(socialist) morality concerning death. Such a matterof fact rationality concerning man’s death may beascertained from numerous earlier village studiesacross the European continent well before statesocialism.

Similarly, some aspects of Kaneff’s analysis begthe following question: whose perspective is sherepresenting when, for instance, she describes thenon-official ritual of Zarezan (local celebration ofviticulture in February)? She claims that because ittook place in the tavern, vineyard and ‘inhouseholds or public sites with no historicalsignificance’ it remained in the realm of tradition‘which not only lacked historical – and thereforepolitical - significance, but also held an importancewhich in many ways was based on its conceptualand actual opposition to history’ (p. 125). However,a few pages earlier she cites informants explainingreligious Zarezan celebrations before 1944 wherethe ritual was strictly connected to the feast of the

local saint (Saint Triffon) where all men participatedin a mass before they (together with the priest)progressed to the vineyard where they weresprinkled by the priest. Clearly, these places andpractices cannot be called insignificant andapolitical, especially so since the strong anti-Churchattitude of the communist party following WorldWar II forced a secular state ideology on thepopulation in order to delegitimise the OrthodoxChurch. The fact that some villagers during the late1980s had an indifferent attitude towards such ritualshould have been questioned by the author.

Kaneff’s study offers scant treatment ofBulgarian minorities, the Turks and the Pomaks inparticular. Only in Chapter 6 does she recognisethat in Talpa a funeral of a Turkish man took place.However, since she missed the entire event, herone-sided analysis is based solely on what someobservers (Bulgarians) told her about this funeral,thereby giving a sense of ethnocentrism to her bookwith regard to Bulgarian minorities.

The three books under review highlight the factthat the new post-socialist states in Europe aremortgaged to a socialist heritage constantly needingto struggle with their earlier identities, areas ofinquiry that will be investigated for some time tocome.

L A S Z L O K U RT IUniversity of Miskolc (Hungary)

Biolsi, Thomas (ed.). 2004. A companion to theanthropology of American Indians. Oxford: Blackwell.xxiv + 567 pp. Hb.: £85.00. ISBN: 0 631 22686 9.

This is the third volume published in Blackwell’sCompanions to anthropology series, which aims tooffer ‘comprehensive syntheses of the traditionalsubdisciplines, primary subjects, and geographicareas of inquiry for the field’. The book comprisestwenty-seven substantive chapters, grouped undersix headings: environments and populations;political, social and economic organisation;knowledge and expressive culture; colonialism,native sovereignty, law and policy; cultural politicsand the colonial situation; and, anthropologicalmethod and post-colonial practice. Political issuesloom large throughout the book, and for goodreasons, which makes the division of chapters intothematic parts difficult, and at a first glance thedistribution of chapters under the six themes

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appears indeed somewhat arbitrary. However, thereader soon discovers that there is a logic to thesegroupings, although alternative arrangements mighthave been equally appropriate.

In the first part, Kenneth Ames and RussellThornton establish the broader context in terms ofecology and demography. This is followed in part 2by essays on gender relations (Martha Knack),continuity and change in American Indian politics(Loretta Fowler), indigenous law (Bruce Miller),and culture and economy in the reservation context(Kathleen Pickering). The third grouping bringscontributions on knowledge systems (EugeneHunn), oral traditions (Rodney Frey), religion(Raymond Bucko), music (Luke Lassiter) and art(Rebecca Dobkins).

Parts four and five deal with many very similarissues, but from different perspectives that providecommon threads. The political and legal status ofAmerican Indians in the ‘Lower 48’ states –excluding Alaska and Hawaii – is discussed byThomas Biolsi, followed by a chapter on Alaska byCaroline Brown. George Castile argues that a focuson tribal pasts rather than futures has meant thatanthropology has played a surprisingly marginalrole in the development of federal policy towardsAmerican Indians. Randel Hanson considers theprospects for tribal sovereignty in the context ofcontemporary political and economic globalisation.The past and present role of treaties for AmericanIndians is examined by Larry Nesper, and AliceLittlefield discusses education, in particular thefunction of schools as arenas of domination andresistance. The role of anthropologists as‘image-makers’, creating and critiquingrepresentations of culture at various levels, is thesubject of Pauline Strong’s contribution. A criticalappraisal of land-based claims and the politics of‘having’ a distinctive culture is provided by KirkDombrowski, followed by Tressa Berman’s analysisof the appropriation of native culture byinstitutions of colonial power, including museums,and of indigenous people’s responses to this.Cultural citizenship, as a way of claimingmembership of the larger community as a groupwith specific cultural characteristics, is discussed byRenya Ramirez in the context of communityhealing as a political response to colonialism andracism. Cari Kapur’s chapter reviewing the situationin Hawaii concludes this section.

The final part raises key issues of anthropologicalmethodology and relates these to the specificcontext of the anthropology of American Indians inthe context of post-colonial practice. Peter Whiteley

reviews the complicity of ethnography in thecolonial endeavour, but also highlights itssubversive capacity. Drawing on case studies of thereturn of native heritage, language revivals andstruggles for political recognition, Les Fieldsketches some lessons for genuine partnershipbetween communities and academics in an ‘applied’anthropology. James Collins assesses thepoliticisation of native languages as badges ofcultural identity, and the different visions that existwith regard to the importance and future of theselanguages. The way native culture has beendocumented visually has altered as a result of bothadvancing technology and changing anthropologicaltheory, and this is considered by Harald Prins withparticular emphasis on how native peoples seethemselves in, and deal with, these changingrepresentations. Finally, Larry Zimmermannsurveys the interactions between American Indiansand archaeologists, from early encounters to thesignificant changes initiated by the 1990 NativeAmerican Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,showing how different worldviews have createddeep conflicts over native heritage.

Earlier remarks concerning chapter structurenotwithstanding, this is an extremely well-producedvolume that certainly meets, for the anthropologyof American Indians, the series’ objective ofpresenting ‘both a contemporary survey ofanthropology and a cutting-edge guide to theemerging research and intellectual trends in thefield’. Intriguingly, and appropriately, it treats both‘American Indian’ and ‘anthropology’ as ‘movingtargets’; the reader should approach it in that spirit,as explorative rather than definitive. The authorsshare a concern that anthropology now and in thefuture should matter, not just to academics whobuild careers on it, but first and foremost to nativepeoples themselves.

U L L R I C H K O C K E LUniversity of Ulster (UK)

Buckley, Thomas. 2002. Standing ground: YurokIndian spirituality, 1850–1990. Berkeley and LosAngeles: University of California Press. xii + 325 pp.Hb.: $50.00/£32.50 ISBN: 0 520 23358 1.Pb.: $19.95/£12.95. ISBN: 0 520 23389 1.

In what is without a doubt a beautifully constructed(and making the world ‘beautiful’ is an important

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theme here) historical ethnography of Yurok andneighbouring peoples’ spiritual practices, Buckleytouches on a broad spread of issues that range fromspiritual training to ideas about wealth, the world,healing and cultural revival, within a subtleanalytical framework that pushes dialogue andmulti-authorship to the front. This is anethnographic work that is extremely sensitive to theinherent debt owed to a ‘large pool of voices’ –Yurok, academic and others – without arrogating toitself any special authority, seeking rather to situateits own interpretations in the ‘polyphonic’dialogues it describes (p. 23). It is appropriatelypunctuated with quotes that bring together andmake alive this multiplicity of voices, whilemaintaining enough ‘editorial authority’ to allowthe reader to be seduced without being bedazzled.

In part 1 of Standing Ground Buckley outlinesthe social and historical milieu of Yurok andneighbouring peoples, and those who have writtenabout them, including ‘native authors’,anthropologists and the author himself. Particularlyinteresting is his consideration of the ‘changinghistorical consciousness’ (p. 75) of ‘native’ writersthroughout the twentieth century, through a carefulanalysis of the production and reception of fivetexts published between 1916 and 1994. These texts,and their reception, reflect not only individual, butalso collective struggles to come to terms with, andovercome, ‘near-silences’ about the legacy ofnineteenth-century genocide, spirituality, and theoften far-off-the-mark ethnographic representationsof outside academics. Unsure of commonplacedifferences between ‘native-authored history andethnography’, Buckley states firmly his intention to‘participate in a conversation that started longbefore’, recognising that ‘all accounts are renderedtentative and incomplete by the ongoing . . .

diversity of native and anthropologicalunderstandings alike, and by the continuingemergence of local cultures through vital andchanging historical processes’ (p. 84).

It is in this emphasis on change – culture asemergent historical process – that Buckleydistinguishes his approach from that of Kroeber, hismost formidable anthropological predecessor whodismissed the possibility of ‘Yurok cultural survival’by insisting in 1948 that ‘no authentically Yurokculture could be said to have existed since 1850’(p. 13). If Kroeber’s work epitomises a certain brandof Boasian, salvage ethnography, then Buckley’sbook is decidedly post-salvage. Yet Buckley alsoseeks the continuities of Yurok cultural practicesand beliefs, and this is most clear in chapters ten and

eleven, where he explores both the emergence of theIndian Shaker Church in the first half of thetwentieth century, and the later revival of the Yurokjump dance in the 1980s.

Buckley is also driven by a recognition of adeficit in anthropological understanding of Yurokspirituality, which he argues is central to Yuroksocial organisation. The chapters in parts 2 and 3(entitled ‘testimony’ and ‘understandings’respectively), provide a sophisticated andhistorically aware ethnographic account of theinter-relationship of ‘thinking and acting’ (p. 107) –between the spiritual, mental and physicaldimensions of personal discipline and training, ofhealing and doctoring, and of dancing on ‘mountainseats’. He describes a spirituality that is at oncesocial, historical and political; of individualexperience but also of collective purpose; and, ofcourse, material, in the arduous physical practisesassociated with sweat houses, as well as the ‘lives’ ofobjects and especially the dance regalia which ‘criesto dance’ (p. 211); and that is marked by specificpoints on the mountainous landscapes ofnorth-western California itself. Chapter 6 exploreshow claims over mountain training sites werearticulated in the context of resistance against theproposed ‘Go-road’; protests which ‘contributeddirectly to the resurgence of world renewalceremonialism in the region’ in the late 1980s(p. 201).

Although Buckley’s eloquent ethnographyrepresents a kind of dialogical, post-salvageethnography, there remains at the heart of this bookan unresolved tension. Buckley is keen to emphasiseculture as ‘process’, yet simultaneously seeks tohighlight the continuity of Yurok spirituality. Thereis a certain timelessness about the narrative, butmuch more serious is the fact that much of the bookis decidedly apolitical. The micro-politics withinand between Yurok and neighbouring groupsappears only thinly, in scattered places. This is mostfrustrating in chapter eleven, where, for example,readers are told Hupa activists avoided the 1988Pecwan dance because they ‘were embroiled in aparticularly bitter altercation over the formalsplitting of the reservation that they still sharedthen’ (p. 277). But there is no further elaboration, sothe reader is left with the enduring impression thatdespite the author’s conscious efforts atmulti-authorship, he himself was complicit inobscuring some of the nitty-gritty politics of Yurokdaily lives. It is unfortunate that, as a result, the kindof processual and emergent culture being promotedby Buckley still appears, at times, romantic and

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idealistic, for otherwise this is a book that makes animportant contribution to not only NativeAmerican studies, but also to ongoing debates aboutthe way that ethnography is practised and written.

J O O S T F O N T E I NUniversity of Edinburgh (UK)

Carrier, James (ed.). 2004. Confrontingenvironments: Local understanding in a globalizingworld. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. viii + 198 pp.Hb.: $72.00. ISBN: 0 7591 0562 6. Pb.: $26.95.ISBN: 0 7591 0563 4.

In this collection, Carrier and a team ofinternational researchers work from the perspectiveof anthropology to reveal the complexity of the waythat people understand the environment, a task thatCarrier feels has been neglected in previous works.These revelations are premised upon two notions:that there is more to the environment than thatdeemed to be ‘natural’, the result being thatunderstandings of the environment shouldadditionally examine, ‘landscape as shaped byhumans and even the built environment’ (p. viii);and that the social interactions of individuals mayimpact upon the relationships they have with theirenvironments. As with other relationships, thosepeople have with the environment are subject toconstant negotiation, with the result that powerwithin them should be acknowledged. This, in turn,may impact on how people relate to theenvironment and communicate this relationship. Inparticular, the chapters in this collection show theextent to which local and global discoursesintervene and are variously and simultaneouslyemployed by individuals in their relationships withthe environment.

The first two chapters focus on the way thattourism has caused local populations to re-evaluatethe meanings that they give to the environment.MacLeod examines Bayahibe, in the DominicanRepublic, to demonstrate that power dynamics areat work in the definition of space, which hasconstantly been contested throughout history, notonly with the onset of tourism in the region.Economic wealth is instrumental to power, with themeaning of the environment being dictated by thewealthy. Theodossopoulos’s chapter, a study of theconflict between conservationists and local tourismon Zakynthos, shows how the impact of social

context on the relationship between humans and theenvironment may result in diverse, and conflicting,views of the same environment. Underlying theseconflicts are diverse understandings of what isdeemed to be ‘nature’ and ‘natural’.

The third chapter by MacDonald also deals withthe impact of tourism on a local community.However, rather than focus solely on what theenvironment can mean to the individual, thischapter commences a more thorough investigationinto how these relationships are negotiated.MacDonald’s primary concern, using as his mainexample ibex hunting in Northern Pakistan, is howthe discontinuities between local knowledge andglobal ecology are resolved, in this case, through theredefinition of social relations.

Kirby demonstrates further how the meaning ofthe environment is negotiated, studying how peoplemove from positions of detachment to engagementwith the environment. Prompting this, in the case ofindividuals in a Tokyo community, is the experienceof toxic illness, with the response that they start toemploy global discourses on environmentalism totranslate their bodily symptoms, and further, topursue environmental justice. Carrier continues tochallenge universal environmental thought byshowing that environmental views can be shapedand constrained by institutional environments.Taking as his example ex-patriots living in Jamaica,he demonstrates how personal histories may betransformed under institutional pressure.Transforming private into public in this manner,their efforts at conservation achieved greater power,credence and, consequently, persuasion in particularsocial contexts.

In the final two chapters of the collection, thefocus is on the nature of distinctions between thelocal and the global. Berglund questions theassumed universal nature of these distinctions,specifically the position of the national inopposition to the local. Using the case of Finnishenvironmental debates, she argues that the nationalis inherent in both the local and the global, furthercomplicating the alleged distinction between thetwo. Milton continues on this theme through herexamination of the change in Britishenvironmentalism over the course of the 1990s. Inparticular, she shows how, while localunderstandings of the environment initially heldlegitimacy, the latter is now gained from a broader,more abstract attachment, transforming localunderstandings. People’s understandings of placeare in constant flux, operationalised by particularevents, showing that global processes significantly

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impact on the national contexts ofenvironmentalism.

Josiah Heyman concludes the collection with anoverview of the chapters. He sees that there is anongoing struggle for power in environmentaldiscourses, with the local and global emerging asboth specific and dynamic. Individuals adopt globalenvironmental discourses as tools. As a result,globalism impacts on understandings of theenvironment, even at the most local of levels. Bycritically examining the role of the local and globalwithin the lived experiences of the environment,this collection is a valuable addition to the debate onenvironmental understanding in the social sciences.

M I C H A E L A L O R DUniversity of Hull (UK)

Coleman, Simon and Peter Collins (eds.). 2004.Religion, identity and change: Perspectives on globaltransformations. Aldershot: Ashgate (Theology andReligion in Interdisciplinary Perspective Series).xii + 214 pp. Hb.: £45.00. ISBN: 0 7546 0450 0.

Se referant a une conception de l’identite commeprocessus dynamique et intersubjectif, lescoordonnateurs de cet ouvrage se proposentd’aborder un certain nombre de questions qui seposent aujourd’hui dans le champ du religieux. Uneapproche postmoderniste de l’identite conduit apenser les affiliations, en particulier les affiliationsreligieuses, dans les termes d’une deterritorialisationet d’une detraditionalisation. Cependant, c’est apartir d’expressions localisees du religieux enGrande Bretagne que les differents auteursanalysent les articulations a l’œuvre dans le mondeglobalise, entre religiosite et differents modes deconstruction identitaires.

L’ouvrage regroupe un certain nombred’interventions presentees dans le cadre du groupede sociologie des religions au cours de la reunion del’Association britannique de sociologie a Durhamen 1999 et un certain nombre d’autres articleschoisis en fonction de leur possibilite de couvrirl’ensemble des pratiques religieuses et des zonesgeographiques du Royaume Uni.

Le lien etabli entre identite religieuse et ethnicitemet en lumiere les formes jusque la marginales dureligieux et conduit a repenser les formesdominantes comme etant plurielles, complexes,transcendant le groupe local et meme l’Etat-nation.

Simon Coleman et Peter Colins donnent le ton, encommencant leur introduction par une descriptionde la fete hindou rassemblant plus de 15 000personnes, dans un parc situe au nord-est deLondres en 2001. Cette fete, a laquelle l’archevequede Canterbury et le prince Charles ont apporte leurbenediction et ou le premier ministre fit un discourssaluant la complementarite du religieux et dunational, montre l’intrication des differentsprocessus identitaires. Ils ne sont pas seulementd’ordre religieux mais aussi generationnels,ethniques, nationaux et globaux. La manifestationd’une foi specifique offre l’opportunite deproclamer un reseau d’appartenances pluscomplexes, rassemblant Gujaratis et Bengalis,hindous et chretiens, leaders britanniques etasiatiques. L’un des acteurs de cette fete, un pretrehindou vient du catholicisme irlandais et sareference a cette origine est caracteristique d’unenouvelle conscience de soi et d’un nouveau rapporta l’autre. Il est egalement representatif de lamultiplicite des appartenances et d’une nouvellecondition de l’existence religieuse dans la grandeBretagne contemporaine.

Cette manifestation eclaire le caractere changeantet non exclusif des frontieres identitaires qui estdeveloppe dans les differentes contributions. Ellessont repertoriees en fonction des groupes religieuxconsideres mais elles traitent de themes transversauxcomme religion et identite nationale ou religion etmigration. Plusieurs articles mettent l’accent sur leschangements auxquels les eglises chretiennesdoivent faire face, en raison de la perte du sensd’appartenance a une communaute paroissiale et dela fragmentation des constructions identitairesindividuelles et collectives. Le role du clerge estconduit a se transformer avec celui des paroisses et as’adapter aux demandes des fideles, concernant enparticulier l’ordination des femmes et deshomosexuels. C’est aussi la deconnexion entrereligion majoritaire et identite nationale qui conduitles institutions a une reorientation de leursactivites – le cas de l’eglise galloise qui se consacre ala preservation de la culture locale – et a unediversification des religiosites, invalidant leparadigme de la secularisation.

L’articulation entre religion et ethnicites’exprime de facon visible dans les manifestations –festivals ou parades – organisees par lesmouvements chretiens qui representent des groupescharismatiques, comme les immigrants caribeensevangelistes, ou des groupes radicalises, comme lesprotestants de l’Ordre de l’Orange en Irlande duNord. Ces mouvements produisent des formes de

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spatialisation identitaire a travers le marquage deterritoires et la separation avec l’autre, societemajoritaire ou voisins catholiques. Les religions«immigrantes» enfin - islam, hindouisme ousikhisme – offrent une grande visibilite tout enayant une influence sur la culture nationalebritannique. L’analyse de ces productionsidentitaires religieuses remet en question leparadigme occidental de la modernite et de sa visionessentialiste de l’autre. Elle met en lumiere, aucontraire le pluralisme des identites aboutissant al’emergence d’une sphere publique musulmane, parexemple, comme ce fut le cas au moment de l’affaireRushdie. La fluidite et l’heterogeneite des identitesreligieuses ressort des recherches ethnographiquessur la mobilite des affiliations.

L’interet de cette somme reside dans l’effort dedeconstruction des categories, generalementassociees au religieux, comme la tradition, l’identiteprescriptive ou la memoire collective. Elle le fait apartir d’analyses localisees des relations complexesentre institutions et formes de religiosite, d’unepart, pluralisme culturel et affiliations individuelles,d’autre part, dans un monde globalise.

A N N I E B E N V E N I S T EUniversite Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis etLaboratoire URMIS/CNRS (France)

Dalsgaard, Anne Line. 2004. Matters of life andlonging: Female sterilisation in northern Brazil.Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.253 pp. Pb.: DKK. 275. ISBN: 87 7289 901 8.

In Matters of life and longing, Anne Line Dalsgaardexplores the role, perception and experience oftubal ligation among poor Brazilian women,situating sterilisation within a context of survivingpoverty and seeking a better life. In so doing,Dalsgaard attempts to broaden scholarlyapproaches to fertility, taking ‘into account the factthat giving life (or not) to new human beingsacquires meaning from life as already lived’ (p. 33).Dalsgaard draws on phenomenologists such asMerleau-Ponty, Schutz and others in establishingrecognition as the central theme of her analysis.

The author has taken care to translate herinterlocutors’ words in a manner that seems tofollow very closely the sense of the originalPortuguese, not – as is often the temptation –cleaning up idioms or digressions. (A caveat: the use

of ‘abortion’ for aborto, a word which – asDalsgaard mentions – can mean either miscarriageor abortion, seems incautious; it would have beenbetter to leave the word untranslated to emphasisethe ambiguities.) As a result, the quotes ring trueand, taken in conjunction with her meticulousdescriptions of Camaragibe society, do an excellentjob of giving the reader, in Susanne Langer’s terms,a sense of ‘felt life’. Dalsgaard’s own constantpresence within the text is a further, and intentional,reminder to the reader that her findings come out ofher own interactions with the people and place shestudied, and were not produced in a vacuum. In linewith this aim, Chapter two is an honest and oftenpoignant description of the realities of doingethnography, as Dalsgaard analyses her ownrelationships with informants using the same criticaleye she later turns on Brazilian social worlds.Chapter three, an ethnographic setting, permits theauthor to reflect on what home and hometownmean to her subjects: both comfort and limitations.

Chapter four explores why sterilisation hasarisen and remains prevalent in the Braziliancontext. Brazil’s caesarean section rates are some ofthe highest in the world, as more pregnancies aredefined as high risk and as struggling doctors opt toschedule births and earn the higher caesarean fee.One result of this high rate is that sterilisationsbecome ‘medically necessary’ after three caesareanbirths. Caesareans also became a common‘cover-up’ for elective sterilisations, which wereonly unmistakably legalised in 1997. It is in thischapter that the real depth of Dalsgaard’s analysisappears; she shows how relatively recenttransformations in Brazilian society, from rural andagricultural to urban and industrial, meant that highfertility is no longer desirable. In response to thesechanges, despite the non-existence of a publicfamily planning program or population policy,Brazil’s birth rate declined sharply. Far from beingpawns of the increasing urbanisation andmedicalisation of their society, Brazilian womenfrequently choose sterilisation as a method ofgaining some measure of control over an uncertainworld. The women consistently call the operationtubal ligation rather than sterilisation, a linguisticchoice which, as Dalsgaard emphasises, paints awoman as still essentially fertile – central to her roleas wife, mother and friend.

Chapter five returns to the theoretical anchor ofrecognition, positing that both caesareans andsterilisations have the effect of making a poor,powerless woman into someone who is worthy ofsocial recognition. Following on this, Chapter seven

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situates tubal ligation within the social relations thatmake up a woman’s world, asking what itsymbolises to the social network of which a womanis a part. Dalsgaard argues that to be a good mother,a woman must bear only those children she canafford to raise; to be a good daughter, a womanmust take care not to impose a severe economicburden on her own mother, who might one daybecome responsible for the children should thewoman remarry.

The author’s discussion of politics is somewhatlimited (pp. 85–7) which becomes frustrating whenit is revealed that many women (nearly one third ofDalsgaard’s survey respondents) were able to besterilised only when a politician paid for or carriedout the procedure, ostensibly in exchange for votes(pp. 115–18, 188). This seemingly common actsuggests that there is in fact a deep connectionbetween global and national population policy,municipal politics and local sterilisations, and itwould have been helpful to see a sharper analysis ofthese relatively unexamined connections betweenpolitical capital and the female body. Overall,though, it is a pleasure to read the writing ofsomeone so clearly enthusiastic about her fieldsiteand interlocutors, the importance of her research,and the anthropological project more generally.

J E S S A C A L E I N AW E AV E RUniversity of Manitoba (Canada)

Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2004. What isanthropology? London: Pluto. 180 pp. Hb.: £40.00.ISBN: 0 7453 2320 0. Pb.: £12.99.ISBN: 0 7453 2319 7.

As anthropologists battle to define a place for theirdiscipline and for themselves in a rapidly changingworld, one of the ways of doing so is to produceintroductory textbooks that aim to explain to thebroader public what anthropology is all about.What is Anthropology? is an introductory textintended for this purpose. Written by ThomasHylland Eriksen, and published in Pluto’s ‘Theory,Culture and Society’ series, this little book isintended as an introduction to the topic both forstudents with no background in anthropology andfor laypersons. The book is a product of Eriksen’sconsiderable experience as a teacher (not only in hisnative Norway, but also in various places aroundthe world where he has lectured in recent years)

who is well aware of some misrepresentations andmisunderstandings that the discipline confrontsalmost on a daily basis. As such, its language andarguments can seem deceptively simple; Eriksentackles some very important issues, but at the sametime presents his own idea of what anthropology isall about, with all the risks of being misunderstoodand misrepresented himself.

The book is divided in two parts; the first one(‘Entrances’) presents a general introduction, somekey concepts, an outline of the importance offieldwork, as well as basic ideas of four major‘forefathers’ (Boas, Mauss, Malinowski andRadcliffe-Brown). In the second part (‘Fields’),Eriksen discusses in some detail reciprocity, kinship,nature, thought and identification — what seem tobe the ‘core concepts’ in his idea of anthropology.

It should be clear from this very brief outlinethat his presentation will seem very convincing tosome, and less to people who disagree with him.For example, why include the ‘core concepts’mentioned above and not some others (likepolitics)? Why not include in greater detail some ofthe very influential more recent theorists, such asLeach, Geertz or Strathern? It seems obvious thatany one of us who teaches history and theory ofanthropology will have some other topics ortheorists that we believe should find their place inthis kind of general text. However, this is first andforemost an introductory text, meant to explaincertain key terms to a non-specialist. As such, itserves its purpose well, presenting anthropology asa lively and exciting field that deals with manyimportant aspects of contemporary life. Eachsection also introduces a couple of importanttheorists and provides a few recommendedreadings, which helps the general introductorycharacter of the work. The book avoids scholarlyjargon, which should make it very accessible.

Some of the minor problems of this type of workare related to its main strength: the level ofgeneralisation. For example, Levi-Strauss’ work LaPensee sauvage is referred to through an Englishtranslation (from 1966) – even though it is widelyrecognised today that this translation is extremelybad (bad enough for the translator not to be signedin that edition!). Also, Malinowski certainly did not‘invent’ fieldwork (as popular anthropologicalimagination would have it) – he took to theTrobriand islands the edition of Notes and Queriesedited by W. H. R. Rivers, with detailedinstructions based on Rivers’ intensive fieldworkamong the Todas in 1901/2 (and was probably alsoaware of the pioneering efforts by the Russian

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geographer, N. N. Mikluho-Maklaj, in Papua NewGuinea in 1871/72). Another problem has to dowith the publisher’s attempt to get the book out assoon as possible, resulting in some inaccuracies: forexample, Franz Boas was not born in 1864 (p. 13),but in 1858 (so it would be quite interesting tocompare his intellectual trajectory to that of EmileDurkheim, born in the same year)!

However, even with these minor criticisms, thisis an important, lucid and highly readable book thatcertainly serves its purpose in presentinganthropology in a broad and accessible manner forthe general public.

A L E K S A N D A R B O S K O V I CInstitute of Social Sciences,Belgrade (Serbia & Montenegro)

Forment, Carlos A. 2003. Democracy in LatinAmerica 1760–1900: Volume 1, Civic selfhood andpublic life in Mexico and Peru. Chicago: University ofChicago Press. xxx + 454 pp. Hb.: $35.00/£24.50.ISBN: 0 226 25715 0.

At the end of this book, Forment states his pointboldly: ‘the greatest strength and the greatestweakness of democratic life in nineteenth-centuryLatin America stemmed from a single source:antipolitics, the tendency for citizens to live withtheir backs toward the state’ (pp. 441–2). Formentfinds that Latin Americans broke with colonialtraditions and built their own democratic habits inthe face of poverty, civil war, bureaucracy, and soon. However, these democratic habits weredifferent from those of Europeans and NorthAmericans. New Englanders relied on douxcommerce to turn private vice into public virtue,French Republicans looked to state governance toturn particular interests into the general will, whileLatin Americans drew on but modified the colonialCatholic opposition of egotistical passion andcivilised reason. Association was the key to reason,they concluded, and they formed voluntaryassociations of all kinds. They did so, Formentargues, in civil and economic society, which theywere anxious to defend from an authoritarian state.However, because they did so ‘with their backstoward the state’, Latin Americans left the politicalterrain to authoritarian governments. Thisdistinguished the Latin American experience fromthe experience of Europe and North America.

This is itself a provocative argument. ButForment is also quite specific about the periods andregions in which Latin Americans cultivated thesedemocratic habits. To begin with, he focuses thisfirst volume on Mexico and Peru, arguing thatassociations were more common in Mexico than inPeru. Within each country, rather than focusing onthe capital city, he also looks at associations inparticular regions. Moreover, he covers a very widerange of associations, ranging from banks to votingclubs, from self-help to community developmentgroups. Crucially, he produces a detailedclassification of these, breaking them down intocivil society, economic society and political society.This also enables him to compare democraticpractices in different periods of the nineteenthcentury. He argues, for example, that in Mexicothere were relatively few associations in politicalsociety, but that associational practices in civil andeconomic society developed up to the 1880s, whenthey were repressed by President Porfirio Dıaz.

In the process, Forment provides an impressivecorpus of information about the period. The bulk ofthis comes from an exhaustive trawl of national andprovincial newspapers, across two countries andover a century, for mentions of voluntaryassociations. Not only does the book have aninteresting argument, in other words, but it offers agreat deal of fresh information. The author alsodraws on numerous studies by other scholars,including many regional studies, and gives usefulsummaries of various bodies of literature.

That said, I did find myself wondering what allthis really added up to. To begin with, Formentadmits that he focused on the ‘vanguard’, ignoringthe authoritarian ‘periphery’, and it is difficult toget a sense of how prevalent these democratic habitswere. He is also lumping together under the rubricof ‘associations’ a vast array of organisations, even ifhe does break these down into different categories.At times he is too keen to play the numbers game,complete with graphs measuring civic spirit.Moreover, he does not always explain how theseassociations connected with each other, although hedoes provide some tantalising glimpses. Forexample, he makes some reference to public debateswithin particular associations, he discusses thepublic intellectuals who address national concerns,and he provides a fascinating reference to the ‘chainof scribblers’ that linked local with nationalintellectuals. But I would have liked to see himpursue these connections further and to assesswhether these associational practices added up tosome kind of national civil society. He might have

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engaged, for example, with the work of theanthropologist Claudio Lomnitz, who argues thatthe Mexican public sphere remained highlyfragmented in the nineteenth century and that‘public opinion’ was conjured out of the air by ahandful of national intellectuals and politicians(Deep Mexico, silent Mexico: An anthropology ofnationalism [University of Minnesota Press,2001]).

Another doubt concerns the municipaltownships that feature heavily in Forment’s materialand yet are not much considered in his analysis. Arethese municipal townships part of the state? Or arethey associations – perhaps not voluntary but stillassociations? He gives many examples of municipaltownships working closely with voluntaryassociations – was this an exception to the politicsof antipolitics? It used to be a commonplace thatthe early modern tradition of urban citizenship wasreplaced by national citizenship and there are stillsome scholars who argue this position. Others havedisputed this, however. Tamar Herzog, for example,has argued that urban citizenship survived alongsidethe development of national citizenship innineteenth-century Spain (Defining Nations:Immigrants and citizens in early modern Spain andSpanish America [Yale University Press, 2003]).Given that the Spanish urban tradition was used as atemplate for New World colonisation, it is possiblethat this was also true in some areas of LatinAmerica. This is not something that has been muchaddressed in the literature – Forment offers muchpertinent material but he does little with it.

The book should still be of considerable interestto scholars of citizenship and democracy, whereverthey work and in whatever period.

T R E V O R S TA C KUniversity of Aberdeen (UK)

Forte, Maximilian C. 2005. Ruins of absence,presence of Caribs: (Post)colonial representations ofaboriginality in Trinidad and Tobago. Gainesville:University Press of Florida. xv + 283 pp. Hb. $59.95ISBN: 0 8130 2828 0.

Indigeneity is an important anthropological topic:conferences are held, papers delivered, positionsdebated. Part of the reason for this is the growingvisibility of people like Amazonian Indians, Maoris,Australian Aborigines and the ranks of North

American groups that claim indigenous status andthe rights that they say accrue with it. The spreadand changing nature of these claims to indigenousstatus have led to a concern with a politicaleconomy of indigeneity that approaches it in abroader frame than that of descent and culturalcontinuity.

Forte’s book is a sustained political economy ofindigeneity in unlikely territory, the islandCaribbean, where the native population iscommonly supposed to have disappeared early inthe colonial era. More specifically, Forte isconcerned with a set of people who claimindigenous status as Santa Rosa Caribs, centred onArima, in Trinidad. These people are an interestingcase: they cannot be distinguished physically fromtheir neighbours, the most distinctive aspect of theirancestry appears to be links with Spanish-surnamesettlers, many of their rituals are recentlyborrowed from groups in Central and NorthAmerica.

Forte does not aim to adjudicate the indigeneityof these people. Instead, he describes the ways thatindigenous people in Trinidad (primarily termedCaribs, fierce and cannibalistic, or Arawak, friendlyand non-violent) and in Arima have beenunderstood by others and understand themselves.The records of this understanding begin withColumbus and run through different colonial andnational regimes, supplemented by Forte’s extendedfield work and practical involvement with the SantaRosa Caribs in the years around 2000. A centralfeature of these understandings is the work ofcultural brokers who seek to represent these peopleto others, in Trinidad and elsewhere.

Forte’s question, then, is how the category‘Carib’ survived and became associated with a set ofpeople in Arima. The book provides twocomplementary answers, informed by the sameanalytical approach. One is concerned with thehistorical record, in which those identified asindigenous are relatively silent and the processes atwork are relatively invisible. The other is concernedwith what Fortes studied in the field, where theactors and processes were especially visible.

The details of Forte’s answer are too voluminousto present. Broadly, though, the category wasshaped over time in different ways that reflected theinterests of non-Caribs (Caribs and theirdescendants being silent in most of the historicalrecord). Early Spanish imperial bans on slaveryexempted cannibals: suddenly Caribs (as cannibals)were highly visible. The Catholic Church sought tosecure its missions in the area: Caribs disappeared

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and good-tempered Arawaks blossomed. Sugarplantations run by the English flourished: Caribsand Arawaks disappeared and African slaves andIndian indentured labourers appeared. Trinidadbecame independent, and Caribs (as fierce resistersof colonisation) appeared once more. And so on.

This broad-brush history is complemented byForte’s description of cultural brokers from his fieldresearch. With this we can see in detail thepositions, resources and constraints that shape theway that their representatives present Santa RosaCaribs to the world. Here, UN declarations andforeign funding meet desires in the tourism industryfor profitable attractions, desires in government toprovide historical roots for the country and itspeople, desires of North American indigenousgroups to find profitable investment opportunities.The intersections of such forces are mediatedthrough a handful of Carib advocates, concernedfor the well-being of their fellows, the success oftheir cause, their own authority amongst the SantaRosa Caribs and their relationships with thoseoutside the group.

This book will appeal to two sets of people. Oneis those interested in indigeneity. They will beattracted by its sustained study of a claim toindigeneity that has attracted little attention. Theyalso will be attracted by its analytical focus, theways that the existence of the Santa Rosa Caribssprings from the articulation of, on the one hand,the category of indigeneity, and, on the other, theinterests and positions of people and institutions inTrinidad and elsewhere. It will also appeal to thoseconcerned with the Caribbean, a region wherecolonisation and creolisation are central topics,explored in terms of those from Africa, India andEurope. In its specific consideration of TrinidadianCaribs, and in the implications of that case for therest of the region, this book complicates thatacademic rendering and alerts Caribbeanists tochanges beginning to occur with growing claims toindigeneity by sets of people and by states seekingroots that transcend Columbus’s arrival.

J A M E S G . C A R R I E RIndiana University (US) and Oxford BrookesUniversity (UK)

Gibson, Thomas. 2005. And the sun pursued themoon: Symbolic knowledge and traditional authorityamong the Makassar. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i

Press. xi + 262 pp. Hb.: $52.00. ISBN: 0 82482865 8.

This book about various sources of knowledge inSouth Sulawesi, today a province of the Indonesiannation state, is designed as a historical andcomparative work. Drawing partly on his earlierresearch on the Philippines and on his comparisonsof Austronesian societies, Thomas Gibson findsthat a ‘cosmology of the Java sea’ is still traceable intoday’s mythologies and rituals of local societies inthis area. After identifiying these earliest traces inthe myths of South Sulawesi, especially in thesoutheastern tip of the province where heconducted field research in the late 1980s, Gibsonadvances chronologically by examining theinfluence of regional and global powers on originmyths as well as on royal and life-cycle rituals ofthe Makassar and Bugis of South Sulawesi.Accordingly, he develops a picture of manifoldsymbolic connections in the region, starting withthe era of the regional empires of Sumatra and Java(seventh to fifteenth centuries) up to the emergenceof global powers and modern institutions throughEuropean colonialism, and Islamic and Nationalistmodernism. In short, this book is a great endeavourof disentangling the diverse layers of meaningprevalent in South Sulawesi’s symbolic realm.

Theoretically Gibson is concerned with aparticular question prominent in cognitiveanthropology, i.e. to what extent symbolic systemsaccount for unequal power relations in hierarchicalsocieties; when symbols strike the path ‘fromcognition to ideology’, as Maurice Bloch put it.Gibson is also engaged in a critical dialogue withthat author. For him, Bloch too easily judges ritualsas manifestations of ideological domination. Inorder to distance himself from such a view Gibsondevelops a concept which he calls ‘symbolicknowledge’, as distinguished from practical andideological knowledge. Whereas practicalknowledge is mainly non-linguistic and acquiredthrough bodily engagement in everyday life(learning a trade, for example), symbolic knowledgereaches from the most embodied forms like ritualand oral myths to explicit forms such as writtendocuments. Ideological knowledge, in turn, is only‘the use of symbolic knowledge to acquire andmaintain power’ (p. 21). Gibson’s argument restsprimarily on his analysis of the rituals of the local,disempowered nobility he could witness during hisfieldwork. In fact, the families concerned stillconduct their rituals, often in a very private manner.Obviously this practice is difficult to interpret as an

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effort to manifest or legitimate political authority.For Gibson, this reveals that rituals contain morethan strategies of power: in particular, theirfunction is more comprehensive in providingsymbols for negotiating one’s way in the world,being part of what he calls symbolic knowledge.

In what I consider the book’s second majorargument, Gibson claims that this complex, broadsymbolic system comprises ‘competing idealmodels’ of regional political authority. He detectssix models of this kind, which he sees as coexistingto this day. They correspond to the six periods inthe history of South Sulawesi analysed by theauthor. Although he promises the reader that hewill cover the role of Islam in South Sulawesi moreclosely in another publication, he nevertheless alsoidentifies six ‘Islamic models of political authority’.Indeed, Islam is treated a bit halfheartedly in thisbook. Yet Gibson’s final attempt to relate the idealmodels of authority based on local and regionaltraditions with those Islamic models brings anothertradition to the fore which is of no less importancefor the predominantly Islamic population of SouthSulawesi, especially when it comes to their life cyclerituals.

This book is highly informative and rich intextual and ethnographic material concerning thehistory of the symbolic realm of South Sulawesi. Itis a detailed account of what we might call,following Appadurai, the ‘ideological flows’crisscrossing this region over the course of time. Inturn, Gibson’s broad concept of ‘symbolicknowledge’ is debatable and – along with hiscritique of the work of prominent cognitiveanthropologists – will hopefully give rise tointeresting discussions in the field.

M A RT I N S L A M ACommission for Social Anthropology,Austrian Academy of Sciences (Austria)

Kalipeni, Ezekiel, Susan Craddock, Joseph R.Oppong and Jayati Ghosh (eds.). 2004. HIV andAIDS in Africa: Beyond epidemiology. Malden, MA:Blackwell. xviii + 398 pp. Pb.: $29.95.ISBN: 0 631 22357 6.

HIV and AIDS in Africa: Beyond epidemiology is acomprehensive examination of the AIDS crisis inAfrica. With contributing authors ranging indisciplines, including medicine, demography,

sociology, anthropology and epidemiology, thebook is able to cover a vast array of topics that havebeen previously neglected in academic discourses.The first section of the volume provides a briefhistory of the disease in Africa with contributionsfrom Brooke Grundfest Schoepf and John LloydLwanda. The following section, offering a regionaloverview, includes articles by several of the editorsdiscussing HIV/AIDS in Eastern, Southern andWest Africa. In the third section, ‘Social Issues’,Anne V. Akeroyd offers an insightful articleconcerning occupational factors pertinent to thetransmission of HIV/AIDS. Also in this section isan informative article concerning the roles of theIMF and World Bank, written by Peter Lurie, PercyC. Hintzen and Robert A. Lowe. In the fourthsection, research methods, ethics and agendas areexplored by Mike Kesby, Carolyn Baylies andSusan Craddock. The final section is placedappropriately as it deals with the repercussions andimpact of AIDS. Noerine Kaleeba’s article capturesthe trauma left by the AIDS virus, while DavidEaton’s article explains how AIDS is understood inpublic lives. Jayati Ghosh, Ezekiel Kalipeni andEmma Guest conclude the volume with articles onthe growing problem of AIDS orphans. Using theunique perspectives and backgrounds of thecontributing authors, the editors have successfullydemonstrated that HIV/AIDS must be approachedin a multidisciplinary fashion in order tounderstand and eventually stem the spread of thisepidemic.

The scope of the book looks beyond the biologyof HIV/AIDS and focuses instead on humanpatterns and interactions in order to understand theincrease of the disease’s prevalence. Through thisholistic approach, HIV/AIDS is understood as notonly a medical and biological phenomenon but alsoas an entity that is contracted and sustained throughcultural conditions, values and subsequentlysocietal behaviour. By avoiding a purely scientificapproach to the study of the disease many popularmedical beliefs are dispelled, including raciststereotyping asserting that Africans have ‘created’the HIV/AIDS crisis through promiscuity and/orignorance. Most importantly the editors of thisvolume counter the theory that people need only tobe ‘more informed’ in order to protect themselvesfrom infection.

This book also contradicts the popular medicalideology, which attributes the spread of AIDS to‘risk groups’, namely migrant workers andprostitutes, and instead demonstrates thesusceptibility that all Africans face due to

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conditions of extreme poverty. Through anextensive discussion of colonialism, globalisationand Structural Adjustment Programmes, the editorshighlight the role the Western world has played inthe predicament exhibited in Africa today.

Lending itself to the discipline of anthropology,the book focuses at length on cultural values inAfrica. Its contributors have thoroughly describedpopular African media messages, religiousideologies and myths circulating in Africancultures. Gender inequalities are also explored, asare the common issues that arise in relationshipsamong both adolescents and adults. Specifically, theuse of sex as a bargaining tool, or as an economicsurvival strategy is discussed in terms of itsrelevance to the spread of HIV. The book clearlyoutlines the disadvantages women face due to theirsecondary place in many African cultures byproviding substantial material concerning the‘feminisation of poverty’, a condition currentlypervading in Africa. While this volume offers someinsight into prostitution, details of commercial sexwork and the regulation thereof, particularly inregions of Africa where it is legal, is somewhatsparse.

What is refreshing in regard to this work is thatthe editors have taken both an academic andpersonal approach in their attempts to grasp theinfluence of this epidemic. With excerpts frompersonal journals, poetry, and the commentary onthe potential impact that AIDS will have uponAfrica, this academic book can be called bothhumanistic and sincere. As the editors explicitlystate, the research agenda on HIV/AIDS needs tobe shifted away from ‘sexual behaviour’. Bothpoliticians and policymakers alike need to adoptthe view that individuals are knowledgeableconcerning the disease yet unable to protectthemselves because of social or economicdisadvantages. The message of this volume is thatthose most affected by AIDS need to be consideredin both research and prevention and treatment: theauthors state that grassroots movements may beintegral to coping with the disease since they areformed from the ‘bottom up’ by the individualswhom AIDS affects most. In conclusion, thisvolume successfully condenses a plethora ofinformation while at the same time includingfeasible recommendations to a burgeoning crisisthat deserves far more attention from theinternational community.

L I N D S AY R E B E C C A S P R A G U EThe Queen’s University Belfast (UK)

Komter, Aafke E. 2005. Social solidarity and the gift.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. xi + 234pp. Hb.: £40.00/$65.00. ISBN: 0 521 84100 3.Pb.: £14.99/$23.99. ISBN: 0 521 60084 7.

Halfway through Martin Amis’ novel London fields(London: Vintage, 1999) one of the main players,Guy Clinch (a good guy, we are told – or a nice one,anyway), helps a blind man cross the street only tohave something strange happen: at the far kerb theblind man taps his way towards the nearest wall anddips his head and weeps. Guy hastily offers furtherhelp, but is ignored and dithers in a rising panic aspassers-by reproach him. Confused andembarrassed, he slinks off home. Later that day,recovered, he recalls something he has readsomewhere – the story of the anthropologist andthe starving tribe (most likely a reference to ColinTurnbull’s The mountain people) and of the tearsprompted by a fleeting kindness the visitor showsto an old woman:

The present seemed perfectly bearable – indeed,hilarious – until you felt again what it was likewhen people were kind. Then the present wasbearable no longer. So the old woman wept. Sothe blind man wept. They can take it, so long asno one is kind. (Amis 1999: 222)

There’s gratitude for you.What is it then, to be kind? This is the question

Aafke Komter sets out to answer in Social solidarityand the gift. Kindness signifies commonality andalso generosity, and the book is a study of both;Komter is especially interested in the ways in whichcommonality and generosity cross tracks, coalesceand fortify one another. The book isinterdisciplinary in intent, seeking to bring togethersociological and anthropological theory (onsolidarity and the gift respectively) into a productivesynthesis. Although much of the book has beenpublished elsewhere, piecemeal – in various journalsand edited collections – this material has beenbrought together with the purpose of creating awhole greater than the sum of its parts, and Komteris successful in this: the book is of a piece andcoherent. Chapters are set within a cumulative,three-part structure, as follows: Part I focuses onthe meanings, motives and patterns of gift exchange;in Part II theories of gift giving and solidarity arebrought together; Part III considers changes incontemporary solidarity prompted by processes ofindividualisation, diversification and globalisation.

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Social solidarity and the gift is a book ofcategories (kinds) and models; types – of giving, ofcommonality, of motives for either – are identifiedthroughout. Early on, Komter outlines a four-foldmodel of the basic forms of human relations, inwhich the following (psychological) motivations areat work: community sharing – relations ofequivalence in group membership; authorityranking – relations of inequality and asymmetry;equality matching – egalitarian relationshipsbetween peers; and market pricing – relationshipsinformed by rational choice and utilityconsiderations. These, it is suggested, can berecognised in motives for giving. This schemeprovides a framework for much that follows, and iscombined with basic dimensions of commonality asthe book builds towards a theoretical model ofsolidarity, set out diagrammatically in the finalpages. Here Komter identifies a movement (in‘contemporary’, ‘Western’ societies) away fromorganic solidarity and towards a ‘segmented’solidarity in which volantariness replacesnecessity and mutual dependency. These are grandthemes, yet the book is best described as modest,in both tone and content. The language is spare –and consequently elegant; the argument carefuland reasonable; the overall approach ‘analyticalrather than normative . . . meant as a tool tounderstand why solidarity takes different forms . . .

[and not] as a signpost for future solidarity’(p. 12).

Although the book aims at an interdisciplinaryunderstanding, it rather more presumes ananthropologically uninformed readership than asociologically uninformed one; much of theanthropology is elementary, in both senses –foundational and unelaborated. It is not a book thatbrings a depth of ethnographic material to the issuesunder discussion. Where I found the book toomodest – limited, really – was in its treatment of the‘negatives’ of reciprocity, the exclusions and hurtthat kindnesses can bring about and do (such asGuy Clinch encounters). Komter is undoubtedlysensitive to the negative complexities of solidarityand gift-giving, but these are more often noted thanelaborated on. Nonetheless, Social solidarity and thegift is a thoughtful exploration of where it is thatkindness gets you, and will be of use and interest toa wide social scientific audience, if less so to aparticular, anthropological one.

T O M H A L LCardiff University (UK)

Lee, Richard B. and Richard Daly (eds.). 2005. TheCambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.xxiv + 511 pp. Pb.: £24.99/$34.99.ISBN: 0 521 60919 4.

This exhaustive volume celebrates the history,culture and resilience of hunter-gatherer peoplesaround the world. The editors, Lee and Daly, referto this encyclopaedia as an ‘experiment ininternational anthropological cooperation’ (p. xix),and with contributions from eighty-eightanthropologists in the field of hunter-gathererstudies, including such luminaries as NuritBird-David, Tim Ingold, Harvey Feit, Laura Rival,Jane Goodale, Alan Barnard and Howard Morphy,their experiment has indeed been a success. Theencyclopaedia is split into two broad sections. Part I(‘Ethnographies’) divides the world into sevengeographical regions: North America, SouthAmerica, North Eurasia, Africa, South Asia,Southeast Asia, and Australia. Part II (‘Special topicessays’) examines hunter-gatherer life under threeheadings: Hunter-gatherers, history and socialtheory; Facets of hunter-gatherer life incross-cultural perspective; and Hunter-gatherers ina global world.

Part I of the encyclopaedia provides anintroduction to many of the world’s hunter-gathererpeoples, both those who continue to practise ahunter-gatherer way of life, and those who did sountil the recent past. Each section begins with ageneral anthropological introduction to the region,followed by a chapter on each region’s archaeology.Some of these introductions explore hunter-gatherergroups within the social and historical context ofthat particular region more generally, while othersmerely summarise the ethnographic descriptions ofthe ethnographies that follow. The archaeologicalchapters, while fascinating to read, at times seemmisplaced, as they explore the pre-histories ofpeoples who may or may not have any link to thecontemporary hunter-gatherers discussedthroughout the remainder of the volume. For eachregion, there then follow chapters on individualhunter-gatherer groups. Each of these follows thesame pattern, providing introductions to history,ecological setting, economy, kinship, politics,religion, current situation and organisation forresistance. Each chapter concludes with a readinglist, and some chapters also include a film list.

These ethnographies provide a generalintroduction to some of the world’s contemporaryhunter-gatherer peoples, and reflect more general

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regional interests. For example, the South Americasection concerns itself with the subtle distinctionsbetween hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists,while much of the African section reflects anecological approach to hunter-gatherer studies. Thispart of the encyclopaedia reveals the variation incolonial encounters and the variety of wayshunter-gatherers have dealt with these. The secondpart of the encyclopaedia steps away from theseindividual case studies, to explore issues ofhunter-gatherer life more generally. There are essayson such topics as sociality, the myth of the market,gender, ecological knowledge, shamanism, music,art, health, the colonial encounter, nation states andindigenous rights. Each of these essays explores themany similarities amongst the world’shunter-gathers, reflecting on past and continuingcolonial experience, and celebrating the on-goingresilience and strength of hunter-gatherer peoplesworldwide.

As a general introduction to the field ofhunter-gatherer studies, this encyclopaedia is aninvaluable resource. Each chapter contains extensivereading lists to guide the general student towardsfurther studies. The introduction to the volume (pp.1–19) is incomparable. It presents hunter-gathererlife in an unbiased manner, highlighting bothpositive and negative aspects of contemporaryhunter-gatherers cross-culturally, neither idealisingnor romanticising their experience or world-view.This introduction alone would be an excellentresource for undergraduate anthropology students.The encyclopaedia in general avoids victimisinghunter-gatherers; instead, it emphasises theircontinued struggles to maintain cultural integrity inthe face of continuing global challenges.

The choice of hunter-gatherer groups included attimes seems arbitrary, and perhaps reflects theavailability of authors willing to contribute to theencyclopaedia rather than the presence ofhunter-gatherers in a given region. This leads tosome parts of the world receiving more coveragethan others. In a small number of cases theethnographic material is dated, with authorsacknowledging that the ethnographic present is, forexample, the 1930s (Chukchi and Siberian Yupik) orthe 1970s (Aka Pygmies). Much has changed forhunter-gatherers in the past few decades, and thispaucity of up-to-date information on such issues assettlement or subsistence patterns reduces theimpact of these chapters. A few special topic essaysalso fail to deal with more recent phenomena, suchas the decline in hunter-gatherer health that hasresulted from lifestyle and dietary changes. Even in

the six years since the publication of the originalhardback edition of the encyclopaediahunter-gatherers have seen many changes in theirlives, and I look forward to a second, up-datededition.

This extensive piece of work, containing128 illustrations and sixteen maps, is a must for anyanthropological bookshelf, providing anintroduction to specific hunter-gatherer groups, andpresenting some of the most recent ideas inhunter-gatherer studies.

M A RT I N A T Y R R E L LUniversity of Aberdeen (UK)

Matory, J. Lorand. 2005. Black Atlantic religion:Tradition, transnationalism, and matriarchy in theAfro-Brazilian Candomble. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press. 376 pp. Hb.: $60.00/£38.95.ISBN: 0 691 05943 8. Pb.: $26.95/£17.50.ISBN: 0 691 05944 6.

At one point in his study Black Atlantic religion:Tradition, transnationalism and matriarchy in theAfro-Brazilian candomble, J. Lorand Matorypresents himself to his readership as a ‘son’ ofOgum, the god of war and iron: ‘He rules my headand molds my personality. He makes me strong likesteel. Because of him, I am a pathbreaker, ever readyto invent or organise something new, to look atthings in a new way. I detest administrative dutiesand the excessive quotation of classics. Let me seeand judge with my own eyes’ (p. 246). So whoknows – maybe the radicalism underlying thishistorical ethnography is not the result of Matory’straining at the anthropology department of theUniversity of Chicago (always described to me as aplace where one learns how ‘to throw one’s weightaround’), or due to the author’s evident engagementwith issues of identity politics (as understood andarticulated in the USA).

Whatever the reasons, the fact is that BlackAtlantic religion does not offer a fine-tuning ofexisting understandings of the forces that haveshaped candomble in its present form. There are nocautious additions to the research findings of otherscholars in this field, and no polite invitations toconsider a complementary perspective.

Instead, Matory makes a point of offering radicalrevisions. He does so with verve, and one cannotbut be impressed with the audacity of a single mind

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that sets out to cover the vast expanses of the BlackAtlantic, charting a long history of translocaldialogues between West Africa, Brazil and theCaribbean. Moreover, research findings are used toredirect pretty much all the major debates incandomble studies (and beyond). Whether it is thediscussion about the emergence of the characteristicstress on ‘purity’ in cultural self-representations ofcandomble’s dominant ‘Nago’ tradition; the issue offemale leadership in the candomble temples; thedebate about the continuous presence ofnon-African spirits such as caboclos in a cult thatpublicly seeks to restore its African make-up; or thelinks of candomble with the nationalist andregionalist politicians in Bahia; Matory claims thatit all has been misconceptualised andmisunderstood and steps in to set things right.

Doing so, in Matory’s view, means first andforemost acknowledging black agency as the primeforce in the formation of present day candomble.The author fiercely opposes studies a la Herskovits,in which cultists are mindlessly acting out thereligious scripts of African origin for no otherreason than that these scripts have survived in theAmericas. He is equally dismissive of the seminalwork of Beatriz Gois Dantas (and other‘deconstructionists’), which – so Matory claims –suggests that cultists are merely enacting the scriptsof nationalist politicians and intellectuals whoneeded black bodies to embody their dream ofBrazilian miscegenation. What these authors allfailed to recognise is the commitment and capacityof a black itinerant merchant elite that travelledback and forth between Bahia and the African WestCoast, and managed to capture the imagination ofthe community of believers in Bahia with visions ofa ‘Yoruba renaissance’ taking place in distant Lagos,and thus offered alternative, African-centredmodels of self-making. This particularunderstanding of black agency in the formation ofcandomble leads to the second major revisionMatory seeks to establish: the acknowledgementthat candomble as we know it today is less aproduct of ‘place’ than of ‘translocal’ dialogues.

I agree with Matory that both black agencyand translocality merit more attentionin candomble studies. I do not see, however, whywe should give primacy to these factors over issuesof ‘place’, or the involvement of white politiciansin the candomble universe. A complementaryapproach, that does justice to the importantwork done by others, certainly is to be preferred toMatory’s self-proclaimed and somewhat coquettishcontroversiality. Moreover, the author seems to be

so keen on ‘inventing something new’ that at timesone suspects his data have been put under a lot ofpressure to make his argument stick. For instance,the scale and intensity of a nineteenth-century‘translocal dialogue’ between Bahia and the coast ofWest Africa is never substantiated beyond a numberof individual travellers, which leaves many questionsto be answered as to how the disseminationof the ‘Yoruba renaissance’ took place beyondthese priestly conversations. Equally problematicis the fact that the candomble discussed by Matoryis in fact a very particular segment of a widelyheterogeneous field – and whereas some temples arecertainly engaged in translocal dialogue, others arefirst and foremost oriented toward issues of ‘place’.

All of this is not to say that I have not learned alot from this study. I have. And I’m sure that in myfurther writings on candomble I’ll be alwayscurious to know what the son of Ogum had to sayon this or that issue.

M AT T I J S VA N D E P O RTUniversity of Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

Niezen, Ronald. 2004. A world beyond difference:Cultural identity in the age of Globalization. Oxford:Blackwell. xii + 225 pp. Hb.: £50.00. ISBN: 1 40512737 6. Pb.: £14.99. ISBN: 1 4051 2690 6.

This volume is a thought-provoking, intellectuallyexciting analysis of the quest for a global borderlesssociety. Usually globalisation is associated withscience, technology and speed in communicationand the process of bringing American culturalproducts such as Microsoft and CNN tomarginalised societies in rural locations. Niezensuggests that globalisation, like culture, is a‘potpourri of intangibles that constitute identityand way of life’ (p. 35). Globalisation represents theinvention of a tradition that is universal andcosmopolitan.

There are many tensions inherent in theconstruction of a global identity: for example,between cultural univeralism and particularism.However, such oppositions should not be regardedas stark contrasts or dichotomies as they frequentlydraw inspiration from one another. This bookconsiders conflicts inherent in intellectual streamsof thought such as human rights and postmodernmovements. As an anthropologist, one of the mostinteresting dimensions of the book for me is

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Niezen’s ethnographic analysis of societies thatre-assert traditional identities using the tools ofuniversality.

Cultures, and in particular traditional cultures,have been perceived as rooted in a particular place.The locality was of primary importance and one’sculture could only be authentically experienced in ahome context. There was and is a presumption ofdichotomy between tradition and modernity,between old-fashioned lifestyles and moderntechnology which feeds the general impression thatultimately globalisation and modern technologywill eliminate traditional languages and cultures.Many prophets of doom insist that satellitetelevision and computers homogenise andAmericanise traditional cultures and spread the useof English among non-English-speakingpopulations.

Yet Niezen’s analysis suggests that this is notnecessarily the case. His ethnographic examplesfocus on the activities of a Muslim reformmovement in West Africa and the use of technologyby groups such as the Crees in Northern Canada orthe Sami in Northern Europe. Many traditionalcommunities have begun to appreciate the potentialbenefit of modern technology for thecommunication of their culture, which is no longerconfined to a particular location. For example, thegrowth of a feeling of community among Samis inthe Arctic Circle has been made possible throughtechnological innovations. In particular, the use ofradio has overcome physical distances and bordersin a new way. Radio has provided a new andinternational tool for the communication of Samiculture and protects it against the overwhelmingforce of other Scandinavian and internationalcultures.

In contemporary times, many traditionalsocieties have become idealised. Unrelatedindigenous groups in different continents appeal toa collective identity which is part of a globalmovement for the protection of traditional nativecommunities. These indigenous communities appealto international law to protect them from furthermarginalisation by state-nations. The extent of thisglobal movement can be discerned from a sample ofnon-governmental organisation such as the NativeAmerican Rights Fund, the Grand Council of theCrees, the Innuit Circumpolar Conference, theRussian Association of Indigenous Peoples of theNorth and the Sami Council.

In his analysis of the James Bay Crees, Niezenexplores their increasing use of computertechnology for traditional language preservation.

The James Bay Crees have developed a culturalprogramme that includes the promotion ofindigenous language on the Internet. In response tothe challenges posed by the dominance of Englishand French in Quebec, the Cree RegionalAuthority has developed a Cree Cultural Institutewhich is devoted to language preservation. One ofits more significant initiatives has been thecultivation of computing resources which facilitatethe Cree syllabic alphabet.

While there are growing indications that acosmopolitan society is emerging, there is acounter-cultural trend towards communities thatseek self-definition and self-determination. Dreamsof a perfect society invariably encounter resistancefrom those who consider their own way of life asalmost perfect. While concepts such as liberationare regarded as universally desirable, how does thisaccommodate societies that ignore principles ofindividual dignity or freedom? How can one‘impose’ the concept of freedom on other groupswithout moral compromise? How can one imaginea global borderless society that is composed ofgroups that loosely combine cultural and politicalself-determination?

This book poses questions rather than providinganswers. It examines many inherent complexities inthe globalisation process and alerts the reader tocultural and counter-cultural trends that enhanceone another. It suggests that instead of obliteratingparticularism, universalism is re-defining it. But thereverse is also true and particularism is alsoimpacting on universalism. The author presentsmany inspired, thought-provoking challenges to thereader and one cannot but be impressed by the logicof his arguments.

M A I R E A D N I C C R A I T HUniversity of Ulster (UK)

Poluha, Eva. 2004. The power of continuity: Ethiopiathrough the eyes of its children. Uppsala: NordiskaAfrikainstitutet. 217 pp. Pb.: 270 SEK/27.00 €/£18.95/$32.50. ISBN: 91 7106 535 0.

Instead of analysing processes of social change, as isusual, Poluha, a Nordic social anthropologist,investigates (the power of) continuity in Ethiopia inher interesting new book. The book, she says, is ‘anattempt to identify and understand mechanisms thatpromote continuity and change in a hierarchical

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society’ (p. 13). It is, unfortunately, not attractive tostudy continuity, she says, because development isgenerally considered as positive change, whilecontinuity is ‘thought of in negative terms, referringto conditions in the past’. Her monograph reliesheavily on the concepts of cultural cognition,cultural schemas, power and discourse (pp. 17–18)and is clearly inspired by the theoretical work ofStrauss and Quinn, who in turn have interpretedBourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital and habitusin quite innovative ways. Poluha has done extensivefieldwork in Addis Abeba, mainly throughparticipant observation and discourse analysis, andher monograph indeed represents an importantcontribution to youth research in school classcontexts. Her monograph is very descriptive anddetailed as she quotes the young informants atlength, and this style of writing and the structure ofthe book gives the reader a lively and intricateimpression of the field but, unfortunately, not asstrong an insight into the theoretical framework ofthe study.

Poluha is, in accordance with postmodernresearch methods, very present and subjective in herown fieldwork. She refers to different kinds ofexpected and unexpected problems and barriers inher daily communication with the Ethiopianchildren and their teachers at school. Herdiscussions on the subject of social and politicalhierarchies in the Ethiopian society are veryelaborated and stimulating, but they refer ratheruncritically to a Swedish/Nordic ideal of equality,which is definitely not an explicit aim in otherregions of the world. The Swedish model is notmore ‘natural’ than the Ethiopian, even if it is moredeveloped and democratic from a Western point ofview. Poluha is courageous and she engages herselfin the life of her informants, for example shesupports a young girl’s revolt against theconservative discriminating rules of the Ethiopianschool and society. It is interesting to follow thefieldworker’s idealistic work, but as anthropologistswe know that societies should be understood ontheir own terms (Fredrik Barth); cultural patternsshould be put in context in order to avoid narrowetic conclusions. This point doesn’t make Poluha’sstrong efforts in the field less valuable, but sheshould, I believe, be more reflexive about theimplication of her cultural background in thejudgement of Ethiopian hierarchical systems.

Be that as it may, this monograph is gracefullywritten and methodologically thorough. Poluhamanages convincingly to present the complexrelation between political/cultural continuity and

change of regimes and formal political ideologies.Students and researchers of Ethiopian and EastAfrican studies have got an important monographwith new scientific perspectives on children’s role inthe political development of societies in Poluha’sbook, which is provocative and ambitious, andwhich strongly propagates the value of democratictraditions: ‘when there is a system which, even ifhierarchical, allows for discussion and the spread ofinformation, and there are secure and predictablerules of the game, these circumstances can only beseen as preconditions which make change possible,in Ehiopia and elsewhere’ (p. 202). Poluha useschildren as a window onto the hierarchical relationsof society. The hierarchical system issub/superordination, she says, based on gender, ageand social status. Poluha has the individual in focus:‘Change perpetually occurs in individuals who allhave their own personalities and do change as aresult of their experiences’ (p. 197). I like the bookbecause it not only describes the context (societyand culture), but also gives possible answers tofundamental questions regarding social continuityand change. Poluha says that the power ofcontinuity is so strong that change is, in Ethiopiaand many other countries ‘an exception rather thana rule’ (p. 202). Children reproduce the dominantEthiopian cultural schema (p. 24). Egalitarianism istherefore not easily introduced in Ethiopia – at leastnot egalitarianism in our ‘modern democratic state’definition of the concept. Continuity of hierarchicaltraditions is stronger. Poluha’s book shows us howimportant it is to take the younger generations intoconsideration in this discussion – a group too oftenforgotten or ignored in fieldwork.

F I R O U Z G A I N IUniversity of the Faroe Islands (Faroe Islands)

Salemink, Oscar. 2003. The ethnography ofVietnam’s central highlanders: A historicalcontextualisation, 1850–1900. London andNew York: Routledge Curzon. xxviii + 383 pp.Hb.: £70.00. ISBN: 0 7007 1570 3.

When Salemink studied anthropology in the 1980sthe recent history of Vietnam was still a topic thataroused considerable interest. Dissatisfied with theway Marxist analysis dealt with ethnic minorities hedecided that he wanted to study that issue inVietnam. He wrote a masters thesis on the French

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ethnography of the Central Highlands, studiedVietnamese in Hanoi and started a Ph.D. project in1989. His original research was expanded toembrace archival sources and interviews with keyinformants in the US as well as in Vietnam. Itresulted in a number of articles in edited volumesand journals that formed the basis for his doctoraldissertation defended at the University ofAmsterdam in 1999. In the meantime he hadbecome Ford Foundation Program Officer inVietnam.

Although it is not unusual in the Netherlands tobe awarded a Ph.D. degree for a collection ofseparately published articles, Salemink rewrote hismaterial and presented it as consecutive chapters.Admittedly he was hard-pressed for time and as thepresent book appears to be an almost unchangedversion of his Ph.D. thesis this may explain a certainamount of unnecessary repetition as well as minordeficiencies in the bibliography and some surprisingomissions in the index. It is a pity that thepublishers did not provide more editorial assistancewhich would have resulted in a better book.Indicative of their negligence is that on the coverthe period dealt with is 1850–1900, whereas thisshould have been 1850–1990!

The book consists of a number of case studies ofhow at various times typical ethnographicdiscourses were generated and used. For Saleminkthese cover almost any kind of knowledge orpractice used by outsiders who wanted to dominatethe inhabitants of the Central Highlands. They weredesignated Montagnards by late colonial Frenchand US scholars, a term which is also often used bySalemink, although their language and culture arefar from homogeneous. However, in practice hisdescription was limited by access to existing recordsand secondary sources, supplemented by interviewswith surviving ‘ethnographers’ and some oralhistory research among their subjects. As a result,his study is biased towards the production ofconventional ethnographies, be it in theencyclopaedic ‘manners and customs’ genre, or ascustomary law manuals for colonial officers, oraccounts inspired by theoretical notions ofacademic anthropology. Their reception and usereceive much less attention. For instance, whenwriting about reports of the Ecole Francaised’Extreme-Orient Salemink notes that ‘records onthe practical use of the ethnographic reports, andtheir impact on the perception of the Montagnardsare lacking’ (p. 86). It is also unknown to whatextent officials used ethnographic notes of Catholicmissionaries, although Salemink believes that this

was a case of ‘unconscious transfer of knowledge’(p. 50).

If Salemink had expanded his timeframe toinclude the relation between ethnography and thecurrent Ford Foundation aims in upland Vietnnamhis analysis could have become reflexive in aninteresting way. According to its website (consulted01/05/05), ‘In the Ford Foundation’s experience themost effective approach to reduce poverty anddisadvantage is to find ways that individuals andhousehold can acquire [,] protect or improve assets.’One way to do so is to focus on ‘marketing systemsthat efficiently transform the goods and services ofthe uplands into jobs and money’. However,Salemink’s own analysis of the presentgovernment’s sedentarisation programme suggeststhat this strategy is doomed to failure. It certainlydoes not contribute to his avowed ideal of ‘theopening up and democratization of theanthropological discipline’ (p. xvi).

When it comes to making theoretical sense of hisfindings Salemink positions himself in the traditionof critical anthropology developed by Scholte andFabian, and jointly with Pels applied by him to thehistory of anthropology in relation to colonialism.The high level of abstraction which characterisestheir argument may be appropriate in anintroduction to a set of conference papers, butappears less useful when Salemink reduces 140 yearsof ethnography of the Central Highlands to ‘anongoing struggle for hegemony betweenevolutionist and relativist perspectives’ (p. xv). Thiskind of analysis runs the risk of having to bequalified by a detailed and subtle historicalcontextualisation to such an extent that its claimsbecome unconvincing. However, it is a meritof this book that Salemink provides abundantevidence to enable one to come to such a criticalconclusion.

J A N J . D E W O L FUtrecht University (The Netherlands)

Stewart, Pamela J. and Andrew Strathern (eds.).2005. Contesting rituals: Islam and practices ofidentity-making. Durham, NC: Carolina UniversityPress. xx + 239 pp. Pb. $30.00. ISBN: 1 594600077 5.

Contesting rituals is a collection of essaysdocumenting the importance of ritual for practising

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Muslims. This focus on ‘ritual’ provides a very wideumbrella under which the contributions – whichdiffer greatly in concern, scope, and style – findtheir place. As the title suggests, one theme thatruns through several of the volume’s chapters iscontroversy over the proper performance of certainrituals, particularly with regard to the role ofwomen as religious actors. Many of thecontributions offer interesting insights into aspectsof Muslim religious practice, their situatedness inwider social contexts, and change over time. Butwhile this editorial policy has the merit of showingthe great variety of ‘ritual’ practices in the Islamictradition, this wide focus is also the chief limitationof the volume. Although the editors cite an interestin gender issues and Sufism in their briefintroduction, the volume lacks a more sharplydefined unifying theme or problematic. Thedown-side of using ritual as a broad thematicumbrella is that it retains little analytical value: itremains unclear what distinguishes ritual fromother forms of practice. For me, this lack of a moreclearly defined project, which would tie theindividual contributions together, makes ContestingRituals at times a less than satisfying readingexperience, despite the quality of many of thevolume’s chapters.

In the opening chapter, which is also one of thevolume’s strongest contributions, Kelly Pembertonexamines the role of women as spiritual guides attwo Indian shrines associated with Sufi saints. Sheshows that although their role is limited by formallegal (shari’a) injunctions prohibiting women frombecoming Sufi pirs (or sheiks) themselves, they canplay active and creative roles in the administrationof ritual practice and spiritual guidance ofdevotees. This active role itself is dependent bothon the mobilisation of the women’s social status andassociation with male religious authority (notably ofhusbands and sons), and on the flexible interpretationof restrictions to female religious practice.

In another highlight of the volume, SusanRasmussen examines the changing character ofalbaraka (blessing power) among Tuareg herbalistsand Marabouts in Niger. Rasmussen’s complex andambitious study shows how the changingsocio-political dynamics in Niger, which over thepast decades have undermined many of the socialarrangements that had stabilised traditional formsof albaraka power, have led to new ways in whichalbaraka is evoked and exercised. For instance,Rasmussen notes that while ‘[m]ale medico-ritualhealer’s albaraka is becoming more politicised innation-state level violence . . . female specialists’

albaraka is becoming more “hygienically” based’(p. 97). The chapter by Alaine Hutson offers afurther study of African Islam, examining thelimited but nevertheless changing space available forwomen to participate in Sufi Muslim practices inKano, Northern Nigeria. Hutson shows that duringthe twentieth century a number of femalepractitioners have successfully challenged theexclusion of women from active participation inSufi orders. According to the author, a crucial rolein this opening was played by the recurring visits offoreign Muslim women who held the title ofshaykha (female sheikh) and alerted both men andwomen to the possibility of a more active role forwomen practitioners.

Anna Gade’s chapter on Qur’an recitationcompetitions in Indonesia documents one of themost striking features of the global Muslim revivalmovement of the past decades. As in Muslimmajority countries, in Indonesia a nation-widesystem of Qur’an recitation has emerged that hasgalvanised a growing audience, a hierarchy ofexperts, and performers. Gade’s paper shows howthe tournament system has become a venue inwhich practitioners can self-consciously cultivate –and are urged to cultivate – a long-term engagementwith Qur’anic recitation as a form of religiouspractice. As Gade also shows, however, the formatof the competition, which requires practitioners tobecome highly professional in their approach toQur’anic recitation, makes them open to the chargeof practising ‘for the competition’ rather than forthe merit of the recitation itself.

Sean Robert documents the crucial role ritualperformance has acquired in the nationalist projectof the Uyghur, a stateless group living in theKazakhstan–China borderland. Drawing on avariety of influences (Muslim, Soviet and other),Robert shows how these ritual performancesprovide the only space in which a Uyghur nationcomes fleetingly but recurrently into existence.Shampa and Sanjoy Mazumdar’s chapter isconcerned with the importance of religious ritual inthe endeavours of Muslim immigrants to Californiato create Muslim homes. They show that in thecontext of immigration, where public spaces for theaffirmation of shared religious commitment arelargely absent, the domestic as a site for religiouspractice, and as a protected sphere of continualaffirmation of Muslim commitment, acquiresparticular importance. In the closing chapter of thevolume, Liyakat Takin discusses Shi’i practicesassociated with visiting shrines of the imams. Heagues that the practices associated with the

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pilgrimage are an amalgamation of diverse originand function with a wide range of effects andimplications. Among the most salient of theseeffects are the drawing of sectarian borders and,conversely, the affirmation of Shi’i historicalnarratives and social solidarity.

H E I K O H E N K E LThe University of British Columbia (Canada)

Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2004. Friction: Anethnography of global connection. Princeton, NewJersey: Princeton University Press. 376 pp.Hb.: $59.50/£38.95. ISBN: 0 691 12064 1.Pb.: $17.95/£11.95. ISBN: 0 691 12065 X.

The book under review is an exciting contributionto the growing genre of global ethnography. Theauthor, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, achieved somefame with her In the Realm of the Diamond Queen(1993), which already has become something of ananthropological classic. In Friction, some of theprotagonists and themes of this classic make arepeat appearance. Once again we find ourselves inthe Meratus Mountains of Southern Kalimantan inBorneo, Indonesia, where Tsing has conductedintermittent fieldwork over the past twenty-fiveyears. Friction, however, is not an ethnography ofthis or that place. It is an ethnography of globalconnection that takes the reader along a path thatwinds across space and time. Tsing takes us throughlandscapes of extraction, patiently explaining thecultural logic of swidden shifting cultivation. Shelets us accompany her to trans-shipment centres forexotic woods and on hikes with Indonesianstudents. She unveils to us an international goldscam, the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference that washeld in Bandung, and the New Order regime ofPresident Suharto. She backtracks the globalisationof nature, which involved early modern botanicalclassification, nineteenth-century preservationism(as advocated by people like John Muir), the globalclimate regime that created such issues as globalwarming, and the various institutionalisations ofenvironmentalism. Tsing analyses how globalisedtropes like ‘nature’ are being localised in terms thatreflect specific histories and local, regional andnational contexts.

At issue is how various local, national, and globalactors – actors like the national and regionalpolitical elites, the International Tropical Timber

Organization, Indonesian student clubs for ‘naturelovers’ (pencinta alam) and the Meratus Dayak –interpret and engage with biodiversity. These actorsare in the habit of using universal concepts. Ratherthan writing against the universal (a commonanthropological reflex), Tsing wants to understandits cultural and political dynamics. Friction, then, is‘an exploration of ethnographic methods forstudying the work of the universal’ (p. 1). Tsingdoes this not just by presenting different narrativesand perspectives, but by focusing on the differencebetween narratives and perspectives. How, she asks,could diverse actors collaborate in protecting therainforests of Southern Kalimantan despite theirdisagreements about ‘what are supposed to becommon causes and objects of concern’ (p. 246).Her conclusion is that difference within commoncauses should be considered instances of what sheterms ‘productive confusion’ (p. 247). Rather thanlooking or striving for homogeneity in socialrelations and political activism, both analysts andactivists need to understand that friction constitutesthe very nature of social and cultural interaction: ‘Awheel turns because of its encounter with thesurface of the road; spinning in the air it goesnowhere’ (as it says on the dustjacket). Friction is‘the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creativequalities of interconnection across difference’(p. 4).

The metaphor of friction will probably also be anappropriate metaphor for how some readers take toTsing’s book. Her ethnography of globalconnection may be expected to rub some readersthe wrong way on at least two accounts.Anthropologists with a penchant for ethnographiesthat wallow in intimate details of people’s privatelives will be disappointed to find little to nothing ofsuch details in Friction. Others, who would likeanthropology to approach a social science, are likelyto object to Tsing’s cultural-studies style of writing.In particular, the social scientists among us mayreact to Tsing’s carefree handling of words like‘liberalism’, ‘governance’, ‘rationalization’, ‘order’,‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘globalization’. Viewed from adifferent angle – for instance that of conceptualhistory and global discourse theory, two fields ofstudy Tsing herself contributes to greatly – it wouldhave made sense to investigate the polysemy,contested nature and incantatory power of theseand similar concepts, rather than to define them inaccordance with specific post-colonial knowledgeclaims. This would also have been in keeping withTsing’s realisation that, in the face of a ‘multiplicityof knowledge claims’, we should get ‘our

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knowledge into as good a shape as possible’ (81).What we are left with, then, is the difficult task ofdeciding on what grounds to judge what is ‘as gooda shape as possible’.

In any case, we are invited by Tsing not only toconsider the possibilities of an ethnography ofglobal connections, but also to rethink thepossibilities of political advocacy. Her critique ofpower-resistance narratives on the grounds thatthey have a paralysing effect, and her discussion ofhow universal-particular, top-down-bottom-updialectics open up political spaces, may eventuallyturn out to be the most valuable lessonanthropologists have drawn from a reading ofFriction.

R O N A L D S TA D EMalmo University (Sweden)

Van Dongen, Els. 2004. Worlds of psychotic people:Wanderers, ‘bricoleurs’ and strategists. London andNew York: Routledge. viii + 263 pp. Hb.: £60.00.ISBN: 0 415 30390 7.

This book offers insight into psychiatric patients’situation in contemporary Western society. In manyways, this is a depressing insight as it demonstratesthat there are still substantial obstacles to overcomein creating a liberating and respectful attitude to andlife for some of the most vulnerable members of oursocieties. Psychiatric treatment is ruled bydistancing practices and notions grounded in thestill, or perhaps increasingly, dominant biomedicalapproach to mental illness. Van Dongendemonstrates how the psychiatric perspective splitsthe patient into a ‘healthy’ and a ‘sick’ part, and thatthe latter is silenced and intended to be tamed oreliminated through the treatment regime.

The book was first published in Dutch in 1994and is based on the author’s five years ofethnographic fieldwork in a Dutch psychiatrichospital. During two periods in the late 1980s andearly 1990s Van Dongen immersed herself in the lifeand various activities of two psychiatric wards, andtook a more focused approach to study theinteraction between patients and therapists, usingaudio- and video-recordings of one-to-onetherapeutic conversations. The structure of thebook reflects this, presenting two distinct blocks ofempirical data and discussions placed between theintroduction and theoretical context in chapters oneand two and the conclusion in chapter ten. The

discourse-interactional data are presented inchapters three to six, and the data on the subjectivelife worlds of the patients are presented in chaptersseven to nine.

It was my impression that the two datasets couldhave been better integrated, or that they perhapseach could have been afforded more attention.Given the book’s title it felt wrong to have to get topage 149 before being introduced to the experientialworlds of the psychiatric patients. Up till that pointthe author takes us through careful examinations ofrecorded conversations between therapists andpatients, illustrating how, again and again, patients’experiences and perspectives are being overpoweredand corrected, or simply overheard and ignored.This detailing of power and resistance in thetherapeutic interaction provides importantempirical evidence to critique psychiatric practice.Van Dongen makes it evident why patients may feeloverpowered, belittled and disrespected. They aresimply not listened to and taken seriously. Theauthor suggests that one reason for this may be theincreasing focus on treating the patients’ behaviour,rather than affording attention to the meaningpatients ascribe to their psychotic experiences.

In the last half of the book Van Dongen providessome detail on the lives and personalities of a few ofthe people living for shorter or longer periods aspatients on the psychiatric wards. However, thesedescriptions remain rather superficial and neverreally succeed in getting under the skin of individuallives. The feeling of these peoples’ elusiveness isreflected in one of the book’s key messages: thatpsychotic people engage in ‘cultural nomadism’,wandering ‘from one cultural “pasture” to another’(p. 184). As ‘bricoleurs’ they use whatever they findto describe the world, only to discard itsubsequently. While undoubtedly true in manyrespects, there are, in my view, some seriousproblems with this analysis and the more generalapproach taken in the book. Firstly, by using theterm ‘psychotic people’ the book contributes to the‘othering’ of people with mental health problems,presenting and reifying them as a certain categoryof people, sharing a certain experiential ‘world’.This is accentuated by the author’s frequent andcrude generalised claims about ‘psychoticpeople’.

A related problem is that the book doesnot seem to provide any real insight into psychoticexperiences. Van Dongen appears to assumethat everything these people do, say or experienceby definition is part of their ‘psychotic world’,and she does not acknowledge the episodic nature

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of psychosis. In her critique of the psychiatricseparation of ‘sick’ and ‘healthy’ parts of patientsshe seems to have forced herself into the oppositeposition, resulting in a static and essentialistrepresentation of people who have experiencedpsychosis. In this perspective there is no possibilityfor people to take a ‘healthy’ approach to findmeaning in their psychotic experiences or to livetheir lives without these being labelled as ‘psychotic’.

When preparing the book for this English editionit could have benefited from being rewritten, taking

into consideration the most recent relevantpublications. Nevertheless, this remains a valuablebook providing empirical evidence on patients’encounter with therapeutic interventions tosupplement the growing anthropological researchon the experiential and sociocultural aspects ofmental illness.

J O H N A G G E R G A A R D L A R S E NUniversity of Surrey (UK)

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