The Interpretation of Caste. by Declan QuigleyReview by: Filippo OsellaThe Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Jun., 1996), pp. 389-390Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3034141 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 389

judge their correctness when it comes to cul- tures with which the reader has no first-hand familiarity?

The book is embellished with helpful photo- graphs taken by the author, though one would have wished for more. The argument could have been illustrated more forcefully by using e.g. the splendid colour photos of kakechikara or of the impressive Nukiho-no-Gi ceremony per- formed by the priests of the Ise Grand Shrine and published by the Shinto Shrine Association in Sokui-no-Rei.

RJ. Zw WEnRLowsKcv Hebrew University ofJerusalem

PALSSON, GISLI (ed.). Beyond boundaries: under- standing translation and anthropological discourse (Explor. Anthrop. Ser.). xii, 260 pp., illus., bibliogr. Oxford, Providence, RI: Berg, 1993. ?35.00

This is a refreshing collection of essays that ad- dresses the issue of what doing anthropological research is like once you have done away with the image of a world that is neatly divided up into discrete and internally coherent 'cultures', an epistemological premiss that made a space for the anthropologist as a specialist in transla- tion between cultural systems that were be- lieved to be autonomous.

The authors of this book collectively repudi- ate these premisses, not only because the world is changing and societies are now all bound to- gether economically and culturally (so-called 'globalization'), but also on epistemological and ethical grounds. Instead of viewing culture as a logical system, the authors see it as practical ac- tivity. Therefore 'culture' in its traditional an- thropological sense is a reification of what are in fact collections of signifying practices. From an ethical standpoint, treating culture as a sys- tem that needs de-coding tends to isolate the anthropologist from the communicational re- quirements and longings of his or her 'inform- ants' and it also creates a false image of the an- thropologist as the main communicating agent between specific people and the dominant forms of knowledge and publicity in national societies.

Although these arguments are familiar to many anthropologists today, they are usefully organized for a general readership in this vol- ume's theoretical introduction by Gisli Palsson as well as in a polemical piece against 'culture' by Tim Ingold. Both of these articles are clear in their renunciation of an older style of an- thropological research, both convincingly show the theoretical and political problems of the no- tion of culture as it was developed under the influence of structuralism and hermeneutics, and neither is ready to spell out a new pro- gramme. Instead, the book as a whole offers us a series of modest and interesting incursions

that collectively illustrate what our range of en- deavours may be today.

The empirically based essays in the collection cannot be summarized here, for reasons of space, which is unfortunate since I found each piece to be of some interest. I will, therefore, illustrate with only some examples. Deshen puts anthropology to work in attempting to create a framework for dialogue between relig- ious and lay Israeli Jews; his goal is to position anthropological work in such a way that it can be useful in solving international conflict. Stefansson provides a fascinating study of the ways in which Icelandic sagas have been assimi- lated both by the Japanese scholarly commu- nity and into Japanese popular culture by way of the comic book industry. In so doing, he demonstrates that the issues of translation and of cultural appropriation today require subtle work, since these must take account of cultural production in highly segmented markets that have multiple and differentiated effects in the formation of ideologies such as nationalism or sexism. Edelman explores the ways in which skills are culturally constructed among Swedish railway workers. Her study demonstrates the relevance of participation in practical activities for adequate ethnographic understanding and it raises interesting issues regarding the implica- tions of boundary construction between ethnog- raphers and subjects of study. Finally, Wlkan's provocative essay discusses the perils of exotici- zation that are generated by our concepts of culture and of language. She presents her expe- riences in Bali and explores the importance of empathy for anthropological understanding. Communication, in her view, is ultimately linked to understandings that arise out of shared participation in situations; it is not prin- cipally the result of analyses of verbal discourse. This is, in fact, the premiss of all anthropologi- cal understanding (which has been encoded in the notion of 'our common humanity'), but a full recognition of this fact must lead us to the discussion of practical situations, and not only of cultural codes.

In all, the essays in this volume offer much material for discussion. The book could be profitably used in advanced undergraduate seminars, and students who are thinldng about carrying out field research will be stimulated by the variety of personal solutions to the question of what doing anthropology today is all about.

CLAUDIO LOMNITZ

University of Chicago

QUIGLEY, DECLAN. The interpretation of caste. x, 184 pp., illus., bibliogr. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. ?30.00

This book is an ambitious attempt to synthesize and systematize various criticisms moved against Dumont's theory of caste into a coher- ent argument and, re-evaluating Hocart's work,

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390 BOOK REVIEWS

to present a comparative analysis of the caste system centred around 'power'. Caste emerges as a form of political structure resulting from the inability of kingship or kinship to provide political stability (pp. 162, 166, 168). Existing explorations of caste perfunctorily dismissed (pp. 2, 3, 13), Quigley targets Dumont's central propositions: that Hindu society is ordered hier- archically into castes along a purity-pollution scale, Brahmans topmost and Untouchables lowest, this itself premissed upon a fundamen- tal ideological disjunction of status from power and the encompassment of the latter by the for- mer. For Quigley, this disjunction is a feature not of the caste system, but of Brahmanical ide- ology, whose prominence is contingent upon particular historical conditions - colonial de- struction of the indigenous political system.

Data from several ethnographic (Parry, Fuller and Raheja) and historical (Heesterman, Dirks) sources are used to suggest that Brahmans, in their function as brahmans (priests), are far from pure, involved as they are in the removal of patrons' impurity. Contra Dumont, the only pure Brahman is not a brahman (priest) but is transcendentally orientated, an ideal impossible to realize while remaining in this world: as priests, Brahmans are little different from members of other castes having low status by reason of performing pollution-removing tasks.

Caste relations are determined by centrality, the ability to command services (economic as well as ritual), not by hierarchy. While Dumont is correct that endogamy is related to the de- mands of hierarchy, only the political nature of caste hierarchy (i.e. differential access to power) explains variation: hypergamy and isogamy are different faces of the same coin, means of maximizing status within the political constraints of peasant society. Following Hocart, the varna system is a sacrificial one turning around a kingly pivot. Ksatriya, commanding the sacrifice which regenerates the cosmic order, thereby guaranteeing community well-being, is the first caste. Those who rule must be pure: while the ruled guarantee rulers' purity, rulers ensure that the ruled perform ritual tasks. Caste divisions are thus constructed not around caste-specific occupations, but around particu- lar ritual roles connecting groups, within the sacrifice, with a dominant caste. Ideological centrality of the kingly model encourages mi- metic formation at the periphery of corporate kinship groups (dominant castes), continually undermining the king's authority. To counteract centrifugal forces and maintain unity, kingship turns towards kinship, organizing corporate kin- ship groups, asjatis, within a coherent whole.

The myth of castes as born from primordial sacrifice and its continual renewal in kingly sac- rifices are attempts to maintain and legitimize kingly authority. Meanwhile, dominant groups' political and status aspirations lead to practices (notably hypergamy) which weaken kinship

ties' political potential, thereby, paradoxically, undermining groups' potential dominance. The result of the failure of either kinship or king- ship to provide political stability is caste: con- struction of unambiguous boundaries (empha- sizing pollution ideology) to corporate kinship groups, avoiding fluidity of political bounda- ries. That Quigley has perhaps bitten off more than he can chew is often apparent (e.g. confu- sion in discussions on dan and daksina, pp. 62 sqq., 72 sqq., 101). Of many possible criticisms, perhaps the most serious is that, while other anthropologists' work is called into question as based upon 'doctrine' (e.g. pp. 20, 85, 169, cf pp. 15, 66, 81), alternative new ethnography is not offered, nor is sufficient reference made to a vast literature (cf. pp. 39, 40).

FILIPPo OSELLA University of Durham

RAGON., HELENA. Surrogate motherhood: concep- tion in the heart. xiv, 215 pp., tables, bibliogr. Boulder, Oxford: Westview Press, 1994. ?40.95 (cloth), ?11.95 (paper)

Helena Ragone has provided a timely and in- triguing study of maternal surrogacy arrange- ments in the United States from the perspec- tive of both commissioning couples and women acting as surrogate mothers, as well as the directors of 'surrogate mother programs'. She has also, as the subtitle 'Conception in the heart' suggests, made a study of intention and desire in late twentieth-century America. 'Ann is my baby, she was conceived in my heart be- fore she was conceived in Lisa's body' (p. 126). These are the words of an adoptive mother and they emphasize the centrality of intention in becoming a parent. It was her and her hus- band's desire for a child that initiated the process and which ultimately supersedes the biological or genetic links that might be traced between the birth mother and the child. Intention also features in the explanations of women who act as surrogate mothers; they emphasize their in- tention of conceiving a child that they have no intention of rearing. And one feature that ap- pears to unite the directors of 'surrogate mother programs' is an intention to provide 'a much needed and valued service for society' (p. 14).

Based on empirical inquiry, the major part of which was carried out between 1988 and 1990, Ragone provides an account of the ways in which maternal surrogacy services are organ- ized and managed in the United States. The text presents details of, amongst other things, how surrogate mothers are recruited, the social and economic statuses of adoptive and birth mothers, the different kinds of 'programs' available, for example, 'open' and 'closed' (where contact between birth mothers and commissioning couples is respectively encour- aged or discouraged) and the financial cost of surrogacy, with or without in-vitro-fertilization

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