black seminoles in the bahamas by howard, rosalyn

Reviews

Benson, Rodney, and Erik Neveu (eds.).2005. Bourdieu and the journalistic field.Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press.xii + 267 pp. Hb.: £55.00/$59.00. ISBN:0 7456 3386 2. Pb.: £16.99/$24.95.ISBN: 0 7456 3387 0.

The book Bourdieu and the journalistic fieldhas been designed by the editors andcontributors as an attempt to reflect onpossible ways of applying Pierre Bourdieu’sfield theory to studies of journalism and themedia. Bourdieu’s writing on the media ismostly known to an English-speakingaudience through his book On television,published in 1998, which has sometimes beencriticised for its polemic and not strictlyacademic character. Benson and Neveu seekto emphasise the innovative theoreticalapproach signalled in that book but which hasbeen largely overlooked by a scholarlyreadership. Thus the focal point of the volumeunder review is a translation of the lecture‘The Political Field, the Social Field and theJournalistic Field’ which Bourdieu deliveredin 1995. The lecture gives insights not onlyinto the field of journalism as such but alsointo its interconnectedness with otherimportant fields. It is a concise andthought-provoking starting point for thefurther scholarly and public discussion of thestructural limitations as well as potential forchange inherent in contemporary journalism.

The book consists of three parts:theoretical, empirical/comparative andcritical. Apart from Bourdieu’s lecture, thefirst part presents an article by his closeassociate Patrick Champagne on the ‘doubledependency’ of journalism on politics andeconomy. The predicament of journalism isseen as stemming from the fact that each ofthose fields imposes a separate legitimatinglogic unavoidably leaving the structure of thefield in internal tension. Another theoretical

contribution by Dominique Marchetti takes aparticular case of specialised journalism inorder to draw a meticulous picture of theways in which the field of journalism isstructured by other fields, such as that of jobmarkets.

The second part contains five chapters.The first of these is by Rodney Benson and isan attempt to apply field theory to thecomparative study of journalism in Franceand the US. The important dimensions ofanalysis drawn from Bourdieu’s propositionsare spatial structure, economic dependencies,public culture, morphology and demographyof the journalistic field. The second article isby Patrick Champagne and DominiqueMarchetti, who demonstrate the dynamics ofthe journalistic field and its multipledependencies on professional expertise andaudience reaction through a particular case ofpublic issue construction (‘the contaminatedblood scandal’). In the third article, JulienDuval analyses economic journalism in Franceas a particular case of specialised journalism.Field theory and its correspondingmethodology allow the author to grasp themultiple directions and consequences of thedependencies between this sub-field and theeconomic field. The article ‘Mediaconsecration of the public order’ by EricDarras is a comparative analysis of politicalfields’ autonomy and inter-relation withjournalism in the US and France. Finally, EricKlinenberg’s article explores whether andhow the ‘objects’ of journalism can ‘exertforce on the journalistic field’ (p. 175) thoughthe analysis of American youth mediaorganisations’ interaction with the field.

The third, critical part of the book openswith an article by Erik Neveu. In it, heattempts to define the relation of Bourdieu’swriting on journalism to the Frankfurt Schooland the tradition of Cultural Studies. Neveuclearly differentiates Bourdieu’s theorising

Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale (2007) 15, 1 113–129. C© 2007 European Association of Social Anthropologists. 113doi:10.1111/j.0964-0282.2007.00004.x Printed in the United Kingdom

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from these two approaches and points to theinstances and processes of misunderstandingand inaccuracy in scholarly production thathave led to an unjustified conflation of thefield theory of journalism with them. Thesecond critical reflection is an article byMichael Schudson in which he questions thestatus of the category of autonomy of thejournalistic field – central to most othercontributions to the volume – and states thatit ‘cannot be a value for its own sake’ (p. 222).The third article, by Daniel Hallin, confrontsfield theory with the differentiation theory ofTalcott Parsons and Jeffrey Alexander.Pointing to some weaknesses of field theory,the author acknowledges that the bookBourdieu and the Journalistic Field usefullyenriches and clarifies it. Thus, he views thesetwo approaches as complementary andallowing for a fuller understanding of thefunctioning of journalism within the widersociety.

The book under review is a valuablecontribution to the formation anddevelopment of the field theory of journalism.However, readers could be slightlydisappointed by it if they were expecting tofind a systematic picture of the field. Thebook is yet another proof that, unfortunately,anything comparable to Distinction or Therules of art in subtlety of theoretical thoughtand richness of empirical evidence has notbeen written on journalism, despite the factthat Bourdieu and his journalism researchgroup at the Centre for European Sociologywere engaged in an intensive study of thisfield in the late 1990s.

ANNA HOROLETSWarsaw School of Social Psychology (Poland)

Dore, Gianni. 2004. Scritture di colonia:Lettere di Pia Maria Pezzoli dall’Africaorientale a Bologna (1936–1943). Bologna:Patron Editore. 266 pp. Pb.: €22.00. ISBN:88 555 2761 4.

Post-modern approaches to the textualinterpretation of ethnographies havecontributed to a renewed interest in a variety

of writings, be they the reports of colonialadministrators, travellers’ notes, letters andjournals. Reflexivity, a focus on the writer’sgender, as well as social and ideologicalposition, sensitivity to the reifying anddistancing of other cultures typical ofmodernist thinking – all have given greatdepth and relevance to Dore’s edition of PiaMaria Pezzoli’s letters home from East Africa(1936–1943). Thanks to his knowledge ofEritrea, where he conducted anthropologicalfieldwork and extensive archival research, inaddition to his interviews with members ofPia’s family in Bologna, Dore’s introductoryessay is a strong contribution to Italy’s longneglected colonial history.

Pia was born in Bologna in 1905; in 1928she obtained a law degree – one of six womenas against 177 male students. In 1936 shemarried a fellow lawyer, Gian Battista Ellero,‘Gion’, and with him left for Eritrea, where hewas to pursue his career as Italy’s colonialadministrator. Through the letters we followthe couple’s moves from Adigrat to Addi Qa’Yeh, Enda Selassie, Maqalle, Om Hager andAddi Remoz.

After the British conquered Eritrea, in1941, Gion temporarily continued in his workas resident in Akkala Guzay under thesupervision of Sigfrid Nadel, then seniorpolitical officer, with whom he enjoyedinteracting. But, as the British met someItalian and local resistance, Gion was internedin a POW camp. In his last letter to Pia, dated11 November 1942, he tells her that theBritish will soon transfer him and otherprisoners to South Africa. Tragically, his hopethat he and Pia might soon be reunited wasbrought to an end by his death, when the shipNova Scotia, carrying hundreds of Britishmilitary and Italian prisoners to Durban, wassunk by a German submarine in theMozambique Channel.

During Gion’s internment, and for sometime after his death, Pia found work in Eritreaas a secondary school teacher. She returned toItaly in July 1943, when the country was inruins, and soon to be under Nazi occupation.After the war ended, she was to suffer theburden of her family’s association with

C© 2007 European Association of Social Anthropologists.

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fascism. But she did resume her legal career,and was deeply respected thanks to hercompetence and dedication.

Most of Pia’s letters are addressed to hermother, but they are meant for her father andsiblings as well – indeed they were sometimesread aloud to a wide circle of relations andfriends. As well as documenting Pia’s life inAfrica, they thus offer some insight into socialand family life in 1930s Bologna. Pia wasanxious not to lose touch with her family, andjust as she was generous with her news, shewas eager to be kept informed about herparents’ activities and state of health, hersiblings’ studies and any changes in the livesof her cousins and friends.

The letters are full of lively descriptionsof Eritrea’s varied landscapes and climate, thegreat heat and dust in the plains in the dryseasons, the torrential rains, violent storms,and muddy dirt roads in the wet seasons, andthe freezing air in the mountains. Thanks toher experience in riding and mountainclimbing in Italy, she eagerly joins variouscaravan trips and she delights in seeing ‘thatAfrica we read about in books, and which Ithought did not exist any more’ (p. 110).

As Dore points out, she projects an imageof herself as a strong woman; she helps herhusband in his work and is fully prepared toshoulder the labour involved in making goodhomes in the most unpromising premises.Hygiene is a constant preoccupation, as oneach of their transfers she has to make do withwhatever housing is offered: a hut in Adrigrat,where, as she writes to her mother, she doesnot mind the humidity, but she does ‘resentthe fleas that are very numerous andresistant’. In Addi Qa’ Yeh, she and Gion areactually assigned a stone house, but thefurnishings are so ‘filthy’ that, armed withrags, water and petrol, she gets down toscrubbing the floors and the walls, whilethe servants are ‘stunned to see suchactivity’ – obviously not usual for colonialwives.

An unquestioned attachment tobourgeois proprieties is always in evidence inPia’s accounts of relations with Eritreans;

‘even high ranking persons cannot resist thetemptation of eating with their hands’, andshe finds their exchanges of gifts quiteexcessive: ‘the trouble is that gifts cannot berefused, but they must be reciprocated’. Themost persistent and frequently recurringstereotype is that of ‘Africans as children’. Shefinds black servants ‘comical’, but ultimately‘all right . . . if one rubs them the right way’.For their part, Pia’s Eritrean servantsgenerally consider her ‘a man’, because shecan write, and they treat her with deference(Dore rightly wonders what they were reallythinking!). Children they may be, but Pia isnot altogether indifferent to their respect andaffection, ‘they are very fond of me . . . for theCopts I am no less than Saint Mariam, and forthe Muslims Chadija’. Pia’s husband tooiterates a vision of Ethiopians as children, ‘sowise and yet so puerile’. Yet he concedes thatexperience of Africa has led him and Pia toalter ‘some false ideas concerning a supposedLatin mentality, as well as notions weunderstand in a very limited way, like those oftime and space . . . There is much to learn fromthem’. He nonetheless hastens to reassure hismother-in-law that, although he and Pia havelearnt to calculate the daytime hours from thesun, they are not ‘going kaffir’. On thecontrary, they both keep their minds awakeby seeing people and reading many books.

Thanks to Dore’s anthropological andhistorical treatment, and his careful weavingof Pia’s letters and life story into the socialhistory of Italy and Eritrea in the 1930s and1940s, we gain a great deal of insight intocolonial society. In Eritrea attitudes to socialclass seem to replicate those dominant in Italy.Both Pia and Gion dislike the socialsnobberies of Asmara’s newly rich colonialbourgeoisie; they are not entirely free of asense of social and intellectual superiority;they are, Gion writes, ‘pure . . . solitary . . .

bush Africans’. Pia has no time for the wivesof other colonial officials, ‘I avoid meetingwith some of my peers, who are thequintessence of womanly stupidity’, and shecontemptuously describes immigrants fromthe South of Italy as ‘Siculo-arabi’. In fact, as


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Dore recalls, some of the poorest immigrantswere so badly treated that some localsthought the Italians had brought along theirown slaves!

Boundaries were all the more rigidbetween the colonisers and the colonised;bringing a wife along was a precaution againstinter-racial relations, since whiteness, likehonour, was thought to be vulnerable andcould easily be lost, while mixed marriagesor long-term liaisons and their offspringwere viewed as leading to degenerationand those who transgressed could bepunished with a prison term from one tofive years.

An important question discussed byDore is to what extent the letters can actuallybe defined as an example of ‘women’swritings’, given that they are ‘internal’ to anessentially male-centred colonial discourse. Inhis view, Pia’s intense desire to know allfamily news and all details of daily life inBologna, and her strong expressions ofsolidarity with her mother, are certainlyfeminine, as are her minute descriptions ofher numerous house moves. Pride in thepioneering spirit and ability to make ‘goodItalian homes’ out of strange shacks,buildings and furniture, is a recurrent toposin many memoirs of women in the colonies,but, he points out, Pia’s ironic referencesto her domestic skills may imply agradual distancing of herself from the‘unattainable’ fascist and Catholic model ofwomanhood.

Together, Pia’s letters and Dore’s readingleave us with an image of an upright,intelligent and adventurous woman, yet onedeeply influenced by the prejudices andideologies of her time. Her life trajectory,with her early acceptance of Italy’s colonialaspirations, followed by her gradualdisenchantment, then her realisation of theevils of racism (especially after Italy’s racelaws of 1938), and finally her experience ofthe country’s military defeat and politicaldisintegration, is emblematic of a troubledperiod of Europe’s and Africa’s past. Thanksto Dore’s introduction and extensive notesand bibliography, the book is essential reading

for anyone interested in gender, women’swriting and colonial history.

LIDIA SCIAMAUniversity of Oxford (UK)

Edgar, Iain R. 2004. Guide to imagework.Imagination-based research methods.London: Routledge. xii + 161 pp. Pb.:£18.99. ISBN: 0 415 23538 3.

In imagework, the researcher draws on theimagination of the respondents, working withdreams and images to, as Edgar hypothesises,‘elicit and evoke implicit knowledge andself-identities of respondents in a way thatother research methods cannot’ (p. 2). Thisapproach, in a similar way to arts-basedresearch methods, seeks to unlock memoriesand images that may be difficult to explorethrough direct questions. However, whilearts-based approaches generally involve someform of performance, imagework does not.Nevertheless, imagework may involvedramatic performance or mime to reveal howgroup members feel about the topic underdiscussion.

The author discusses three differentforms of imagework: introductoryimagework (where participants explore agiven topic through images, sculpture, mimeor dance and then collectively contribute tothe analysis), memory imagework (whereparticipants recall their earliest memories andwork towards issues in the present) andspontaneous imagework, which involves animaginary journey leading towards asking aresearch question. Dreamwork can also belinked to spontaneous imagework and Edgardevotes considerable space to discussion ofthe place of dreaming in ethnographic work,and the facilitation of dreamwork groups.

Dreamwork allows the participants to actin turn as narrators, questioners andinterpreters, collaboratively developing adream analysis through group discussion. Inone example, a dream about the loss of teethled to an exploration of gendered workplaceissues – what the author describes as a processof making ‘sense out of nonsense’. This


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making sense was often aided by the use of‘gestalt’: making the dream part of the presentself rather than the unconscious. The authoralso writes of the value of reflexivity and theuse of one’s own dreams during fieldwork.He describes how he kept a dream diaryduring fieldwork, which revealed bothanxieties around his research and a greaterawareness of his relationship with thecommunity of his field site.

Although Edgar insists that nopsychoanalytic expertise is necessary, hesuggests that the researcher may benefit fromengaging a trained ‘groupworker’ to assistwith or lead the group facilitation. He assertsthat in his extensive experience of using thesemethods, there has been little or no cause forconcern for the well-being of participants.Although painful memories can be andsometimes are elicited during group sessions,participants often found these sessions to becathartic. The author asserts that qualitativeinterviews in general are designed to elicit adepth of detail from participants and that theytoo may elicit discussions that are painful toparticipants. Nevertheless, he suggests thatthe researcher should remain vigilant for anysigns of distress and to be aware thatparticipants may continue to dwell on someof the issues raised after the group session hasended. For this reason, it is important to havein place a system for ensuring that furthercontact is made available if participantsrequire this.

Despite the author’s assurances to thecontrary, I remained unconvinced in anumber of areas. Firstly, Edgar previouslytrained and practised in social work and I amunsure whether he really takes account of theskills that his experience brought to thisresearch technique, since his group facilitationskills would almost certainly be far in advanceof most research students or possibly evenmore experienced researchers. This might alsoensure that he was better able to detect signsof latent distress in participants and to bringsessions to a safe and effective closure. For thisreason, I have reservations around whetherimagework would be an appropriate methodfor novice researchers. Furthermore, although

he states that it might require a few daystraining, he gives no indication where or howthis might be accessed. A final criticism wouldbe that Edgar leaves a little imagework for thereader to do themselves: although he clearlyshows the potential for eliciting a depth ofimplicit or embodied knowledge through thistechnique, he fails to connect the groupworkexamples to an anthropological analysis, saveby passing reference to some previouslypublished papers. As an enthusiasticsupporter of non-positivist approaches, I haveno doubt that imagework offers a valuablecontribution to researching the anthropologyof emotion and experience, but fear thatothers may not be as easily convinced.

FIONA HARRISUniversity of Edinburgh (UK)

Ferrandiz Martın, Francisco. 2004.Escenarios del cuerpo. Espiritismo ysociedad en Venezuela. Bilbao: Universidadde Deusto. 229 pp. Pb.: €13.50. ISBN: 847485 950 6.

Driving into the city of Caracas, the visitorwill be surprised by a big statue of a nakedwoman on the expressway median. Heavilymuscular and sexuated, she is sitting on adanta (an indigenous wild tapir) holding apelvis bone up into the air. The statue, madein the fifties by artist Alejandro Colina,poetically recreates Marıa Lionza, anindigenous deity of supposed prehispanicorigin, the centre of contemporaryVenezuela’s most important cult of spiritualpossession.

Escenarios del cuerpo uses severalethnographic lenses to analyse therelationships between the emergent spiritistcult of Maria Lionza and the more generalhistorical, spatial and cultural processes goingon in the country. At makeshift altars withimages of the deities, during long trancesessions at night, in the midst of candles,tobacco and liquor offerings, well-trainedmediums are possessed by spirits from a livelypantheon that includes national heroes such asSimon Bolivar, el Cacique Guacaipuro and the


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canonised figure of the doctor Jose GregorioHernandez. The pantheon is continuouslychanging, reflecting the vicissitudes of dailylife. Presided by Queen Marıa Lionza, thespirits are organised in cortes (courts) – thelibertadores, indios, chamarreros, medicos,encantos, africanos, vikingos, malandros andseveral others – each with a distinctive style ofperformance and revelation. Through theirmediation, the materias (mediums) are able toforesee the future, cure and give spiritualadvice.

Ferrandiz claims that this cult as weknow it today is the outcome of an ‘inventionof tradition’ associated with themodernisation of the country, heavilydependent on an early development of the oilindustry. A variety of social agents seem tohave taken part in the complex processes ofinvention of the Marıa Lionza cult – of hermythification, divulgation, dissemination,prosecution, nationalisation, appropriation,contestation and transformation into aspectacle. Among these agents are the politicaland cultural elites, the media, the State, theChurch, the medical profession, but mainlyand above all the popular devotees of the cult,present all around the country. Significantly,they proliferate particularly in the poorestsettlements of Caracas (cerritos). Accordingto Ferrandiz, these are indeed the verysubjects and bearers of the cult in its currentform.

When analysing the social constructionof the cult, the author emphasises its stubbornresistance to normalisation, its proliferatinghybridity in both form and content, as well asthe tendency of the many small spiritistsocieties that form the social basis of the cultto disperse in a myriad of scattered,autonomous centres. The book also focuseson the body as the key locus for both politicalresistance and everyday transcendence – abody treated, in Ferrandiz’s words, as a‘project of reform’ in a ‘wounded space’.

This monograph convincingly showshow a religious cult can be taken as a strategicvantage point from which to consider nationalsociety and its crises. Escenarios del cuerpoaccomplishes this goal in a thorough manner.

The book’s 230 pages combine brave andsensitive ethnography, enjoyable writing andwell-informed analysis. The references switchwith mastery from the biopolitical concernsof a Foucauldian anthropology of the body(Scheper-Hughes, Lock, Csordas) toVenezuelan cultural sources (Barreto,Amodio, Salas); from the classics of visualethnography (Rouch, MacDougall) toupdated work on Latin urban youth culturesof survival (culturas de urgencia); fromincursions in biomedical theory to carefulfootnotes on reflexive fieldwork.

Venezuelan anthropologists have alreadyrecognised the important contribution of thiswork, in particular the discovery of a wholegamut of new spirits now emerging andentering the cult: malandros, africanos andvikingos. These spirits are associated with anew imagination of the body in which socialsuffering takes embodied forms, such as theexhibition of bloody wounds that themediums inflict on themselves during thepossession seance. The wave of violence thathas razed Caracas neighbourhoods since thelate eighties thus finds an afflictive, redressiveexpression.

Wisely, the book ends with the words ofDaniel, key informant and medium of thecult. Asked about future trends, he foresees aspark of hope. For him, the encantos, a courtof innocent children spirits from the forest,will displace the present moment of violentlymurdered malandros with their characteristicdeployment of wounds and suffering. This isa sign of hope to be shared by the reader, afinal gift from this beautiful book.

FRANCISCO CRUCESUniversidad Nacional de Educacion aDistancia (Spain)

Howard, Rosalyn. 2002. Black Seminoles inthe Bahamas. Gainesville, FL: UniversityPress of Florida. xviii + 150 pp. Hb.:$55.00. ISBN: 0 8130 2559 1.

Howard is a Florida-based African (Native)American who has written an engaging andlucid ‘ethnohistory’ (p. xiii) and perhaps


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‘redemptive ethnography’ (p. 108) – thoughshe denies it – of the Black Seminoles of TheBahamas, some 300-odd inhabitants at RedBays on Andros Island. These Bahamians livea subsistence life from the trees and the seawith traces of pre-industrial trade byharvesting and selling sponges, weavingbaskets and making charcoal for otherBahamians and the occasional tourist. Forother Bahamians, they are ‘wild hogs’ livingin the ‘Land behind God’s back’ (there areunattributed echoes of the Gmelchs’ Theparish behind God’s back set in Barbadoshere). Yet, for these proud Outer Islandinhabitants, those Bahamians are no longerself-sufficient, living in their ‘sardine cans’,surrounded by imports and consumingimported food and water. Furthermore, theydo not have a claim to an exotic identityevinced by ‘bright’ eyes and skins,high-cheekbones and long-hair characteristicssuch as those of Red Bays; nor are they able tolive with hurricanes and tropical storms as dothe Black Seminoles in their ‘chickee’ thatchstructures which give with the wind; and theylack the riveting traditional stories whichstretch back to the time before the AmericanCivil War – to the time of bountifulhunter-gathering across the Plains.

These few Black Seminoles have a richoral history which Howard has tried tocapture in her traditional anthropologicalmonograph. They are descendents ofSeminole Indians and freed or escaped Africanslaves who lived together and interbred – thelatter living first as ‘tenant farmers’ (p. 17) –and came together in resistance to, primarily,American planters, slavers and colonisers,before first migrating to Florida where theyclaimed sanctuary under the Spanish, andthen fleeing to the Bahamas (1820–1855) inthe wake of the Seminole wars and growingofficial Native American Indian persecution.They lived undiscovered on Andros Islanduntil ‘happened upon’ by a customs official in1828, and they subsequently remainedpractically cut off from the outside worlduntil 1968, when road construction gave themaccess to the rest of the world and the rest ofthe world access to them.

Black Seminoles in the Bahamas containssome accounts of Red Bays lives and familyhistories, but the primary materials are scantand rely upon the words of several Reverendsin the community. As a history of thesepeople, Howard’s volume advances upon alocal pamphlet written by one of theseReverends, as well as the work ofanthropologist John Goggin from the 1930s.It skips through some fascinating southern USNative American Indian history – particularlythe ‘slave’ categories, and the allegiances andenemies created which resulted in the BlackSeminoles’ move to The Bahamas – thoughassuming some background knowledge in thereader. It also contains sections, or paragraphsrather, on topics such as contemporaryreligion (pp. 101–2), folklore (pp. 102–3),recreation (pp. 103–4) and so forth amongstthe Black Seminoles. Here, Howard couldhave developed these brief descriptions: muchmore analysis and discussion would have beenwelcome, and there is the space for it (‘TheMeaning of Heritage’, chapter seven, is butfour pages). Howard’s strengths lie in herlucidity, and her way of articulating Africanand Seminole cultural and genetic inheritancewith local Bahamian adaptation andidentification. The two run together, in herwords. And yet, there are the occasional, andperhaps contradictory, passages in heraccount where distinctive ‘blood concepts’ areinvoked: the author, following the principle ofhypodescent, is of African (with NativeAmerican) ancestry (p. 1); Daisy Jumper is a‘full-blood’ Red Stick Seminole Indian whovisits the Red Bays (p. 55); and, as Howardreports from the press, the Red Bays BlackSeminoles are denied tribal membershipduring her stay with them because theirbloodline has been thinned too much bygenerations of intermarriage (p. 113) –watered down by overseas migration too? Insum, this book is a good light read forAmerican Indian and Caribbeanist scholars aswell as undergraduate and postgraduatestudents looking for research areas to develop.

JONATHAN SKINNERThe Queen’s University Belfast (UK)


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Inda, Jonathan Xavier, and Renato Rosaldo(eds.). 2002. The anthropology ofglobalization. A reader. Oxford: Blackwell.xii + 498 pp. Pb.: £19.99. ISBN: 0 63122233 2.

Cet ouvrage presente le point du regard del’anthropologie, largement americaine, sur laglobalisation. Il interessera etudiants etchercheurs car il reunit une somme decontributions qui balisent le champ de laquestion, sans avancees theoriques majeuresneanmoins.

Au-dela d’articles aussi riches qu’inegauxillustrant des phenomenes en rapport avec laglobalisation en Chine, Amerique du Sud,Afrique, la reflexion theorique sur la naturede la globalisation laisse le lecteur sur unefaim relative. Evoquer les flux mediatiques, lesmusiques et les cinemas, les decrire, lesanalyser, ne tient pas lieu de theorieanthropologique de la globalisation, qui n’estcertes pas uniformisation, mais demande desoutils plus ambitieux que ceux produit par unpost culturalisme a la fois intelligent et mou.A cet egard, ni Ulf Hannerz, ni Appadurai,qui font figure de theoriciens dans cetouvrage, ne sont en mesure d’echapper a ceneoculturalisme. Les ‘narratives’ neparviennent pas a boucher tous les trousconceptuels d’une pensee qui, chez beaucoupd’auteurs, decrit beaucoup, analyse pas mal,mais parvient peu a penser la globalisationau-dela d’une approche culturaliste apolitique,occasionnellement anecdotique. Ces limitesmentionnees, l’ouvrage se signale par uneriche introduction des editeurs quiproblematisent bien le champ et par plusieursarticles d’un grand interet sur la Chine(Aihwa Ong, Mayfair Mei Hui Yang)montrant l’emergence d’un nouveau sujetindividuel et politique. On notera aussi leremarquable article de James Ferguson,presque le seul article politique du recueil,qui, a partir de la Zambie, analyse ladeconnection qui exclut, evacue, jette,expulse, en un processus global posterieur a lafin du developpement. Cet article introduittres a propos les dimensions politiques del’exploitation et de la domination qui sont

indissociables de la globalisation. Et celahors des postures culturalistes, apolitiquesou idealistes observees chez plusieursauteurs.

Parmi d’autres articles interessants, il fautsignaler Carla Freeman sur les usagesvestimentaires dans les entreprises a laBarbade, Bill Maurer qui repense laglobalisation aux ıles vierges a travers l’impactdes entreprises minieres et Birgit Meyer surles marchandises diabolisees. L’article le plusimportant au plan theorique est peut etre celuid’Akhil Gupta et James Ferguson ‘Beyondculture: space, identity and the politics ofdifference’. Cette critique culturelle abordel’espace et la culture peuples de communautesimaginees et de distinctions culturellesexacerbees. Ils evoquent des modes deproduction de l’alterite et affirment quel’alterite n’est pas reductible auxrepresentations. La question essentielle del’appartenance est posee alors qu’elle estsouvent occultee par les approches ‘soft’fondees sur les flux, les branchements, lesconnections et deconnections, reels certes,mais peu propices a une elaborationanthropologique condamnee alors auneoculturalisme qui observe sans expliquer.

A cote de ces contributions eclairantes,certaines sont peu eclairees, en particulier laconclusion d’Anna Tsing qui evoque ‘unenthousiasme du marche qui a remplace lecommunisme’ (p. 454). Le global serait‘charismatique’ et pour etre encore plus claire,l’auteure ecrit (p. 462): ‘La circulation appelledes flux de sang et de sante dans le corps et lesechanges stimulants du marche’. Cette‘creative hybridity’, cette extase neo-liberaledu marche, laissent de beaux jours pour uneanthropologie critique et europeenne aussi.Ces debordements ideologiques finauxlimitent la portee de cet ouvrage,theoriquement fragile car un peuamericano-americain peut-etre. Il est toutefoisnotable par la qualite de plusieurscontributions et demeure extremementstimulant par l’insatisfaction meme qu’ilgenere chez tous ceux pour qui laglobalisation n’est pas seulement ni d’abordune question ‘culturelle’.


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Qui est etranger dans le monde global etpourquoi? Comment penser la globalisationen anthropologues sans repondre d’abord acette question de l’appartenance globale et del’exclusion qui explose sous nos yeux. Lareponse n’est probablement ni dans lamusique, ni dans le cinema seulement, memesi les musiques et les cinemas nous en parlentaussi. Elle gıt dans les societes reelles,conflictuelles, violentes, au-dela des fluxculturels virtuels et d’un neoculturalismeirenique, souvent double d’un humanismetransnational aussi sympathique qu’il estinoperant dans la realite des rapports sociauxdes societes reelles. Le global ne serait-il pasd’abord du virtuel qui se prend pour du reel?

BERNARD HOURSInstitut de Recherche pour le Developpement(France)

Moser, Caroline, and Cathy McIlwaine.2004. Encounters with violence in LatinAmerica. Urban poor perceptions fromColombia and Guatemala. New York andLondon: Routledge. xvi + 272 pp. Pb.:£19.99. ISBN: 0 415 25856 0.

Caroline Moser and Cathy McIlwaine’s bookis an interesting contribution to the field ofresearch on violence in Latin Americansociety, but it is rather limited in scope.Through the accumulated weight of data andpresentation of analysis, the book doesprovide a comprehensive picture of and somefascinating insights into specific localsituations. However, the methods used incollecting the data and one of the work’scentral aims – to provide policymakers withquick access to complex situations – meanthat there is little scope to fully explore theseinsights. Ultimately the book lacks depth, thethorough presentation of data leaving littlespace to look in detail at the historical,cultural and personal contexts.

The authors have two main aims: tocontribute to debates on urban violence, witha particular focus on urban areas in LatinAmerica; and to test participatorymethodologies of data collection and

preliminary analysis as a way of bridging thedivide between the worlds of academicresearch and policy action. The initial sectionof the book provides a theoretical backgroundand a brief introduction to the strengths andweaknesses of participatory methodologies.This focuses on newly developed approachesto participatory urban appraisal that havebeen used to collect data in representativeurban areas in Colombia and Guatemala. Inaddition, an attempt has been made toquantify the data collected, as a means tomake it more accessible, and one suspectsmore understandable, to an audience ofdevelopment practitioners andpolicymakers.

The body of the volume is a presentationof the findings of the fieldwork, looking atvarious aspects of the experience of livingwith violence, its causes and its effects. Fivechapters in all (supported by 21 appendices)provide in numbing detail a plethora ofinformation on: the types of violence thatpeople in poor urban areas experience on adaily basis; the ways in which the poor peoplethemselves understand how this violencecomes about; the disturbing manifestations ofviolence within family units; the linksbetween violence and various widespreadforms of substance abuse; and theorganisation of violence in groups.

Two final chapters attempt to draw thisdiverse array of raw data together throughexamination from two perspectives. The firstlooks at violence and the much-malignedconcept of social capital, seeking linkagesbetween the academic debates and the analysisprovided by those who experience violenceon a daily basis. The second examines people’sown solutions to the violent situations thatthey find themselves in and seeks similarlinkages between these and an array of policyapproaches to violence reduction. Thisanalysis does bring to the surface somevaluable insights: that there is a greater trustof external, service delivery organisations thanof local, membership organisations; the effectsof violence on reducing the formal linksbetween social institutions and on informalnetworks between people; and the


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importance and organisation of what aredescribed as ‘perverse’ organisations, or thoseorganisations involved in violence.Unfortunately, there is no further explorationof these insights.

The problems with the book come fromthe methods used and from what thesemethods aim to achieve. The book overall,and much of the data contained in it, lacksdepth, whether historical, cultural orpersonal. While there is historical backgroundinformation that prefaces the presentation ofthe research data, in general the bookprovides only a snapshot of life in urban areasin Colombia and Guatemala, with a primaryfocus on violence. While there are referencesto contextual and ethnic differences, the mainaim in presenting the data is to draw outcommon themes rather than explore thesedifferences and the cultural and socialbackgrounds to them. In particular, the dataare drained of the personal, giving no sense ofthe fears of individuals and the impacts ofviolence on their lives, whether they be theperpetrators or the victims of the violence.The participatory methods used have beendeveloped to provide rapid insights intocomplex and diverse contexts. Like thesemethods, the book lacks the detailed andmore long-term explorations of situations andissues that anthropological, sociological andhistorical research aim for. This effect hasbeen compounded through the quantificationof the results. This gives the data and analysispresented a sanitised feel, giving policymakersthe comfort of representativeness, which isremoved from the reality of ordinary people’slives and giving easy access to what could bemade to see ‘bottom-up’ solutions. The endresult is a book that is rich in data but lackingin the contextual analysis that would give itdepth.

FRANCIS WATKINSIndependent Consultant (UK)

Peabody, Norbert. 2003. Hindu kingshipand polity in precolonial India (CambridgeStudies in Indian History and Society).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

xiv + 190 pp. Hb.: £40.00. ISBN: 0 52146548 6.

This short book is a series of five interlinkedessays with an introduction and a very shortconclusion. They all focus on the kingdom ofKota in Rajasthan between 1720 and 1840 andexamine the ways in which Hindu kingship,Hindu religious sects (in particular theVallabha tradition of Krishna worship),merchant economic and religious patronage,and the British colonial project interacted.

Peabody writes as a historian, but onewho is thoroughly versed in anthropology,and not just the anthropology of South Asia.One of his inspirations is Richard Burghart’sarticle, ‘Hierarchical models of the Hindusocial system’ (1978, Man [n.s.] 13: 519–36);others are Marshall Sahlins, Burton Stein,Rosalind O’Hanlon and Jonathan Parry.Burghart showed how kings, priests andrenouncers each had different,incommensurable models of hierarchy whichput themselves at the summit or centre, andtherefore any theory which posited a singleoverarching hierarchy in precolonial SouthAsia must be a simplification. Peabody aimsto build on, and go beyond, Nicholas Dirks’influential book, The hollow crown.Ethnohistory of a south Indian kingdom(1987, CUP). Peabody’s critique of Dirksrecurs at several points, the main charge beingthat Dirks underestimated the culturalcomplexity and conceptual contestations ofthe precolonial situation, and wronglysupposed that all land grants must be of thesame kind. Even if Dirks was right that thekings of Pudukottai in southern India wereable to give land grants and ensure continuingsubordination of the grantees throughsymbolic means – and Peabody doubts thatDirks interpreted his own data correctly onthis point – he cannot generalise from this toall precolonial kingdoms in the subcontinent.

Methodologically, Peabody’s work isimpressively wide-ranging. It draws on arthistory, colonial travelogues, local historieswritten in the vernacular, historicaldocuments, and anthropological studies ofritual and Krishna worship. The second


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chapter adopts the classic anthropologicaltrope of confronting the reader with apuzzling and counterintuitive culturalrepresentation, which the author goes on toresolve. It is effectively a detective story.Peabody begins with the battle of Pandhar in1720 when King Bhim Singh of Kota waskilled by Qilich Khan, a rebel against theMughal Emperor. However, in a monumentalpainting of the battle, dating from some timebefore 1730, Bhim Singh is shown quiteclearly beheading Qilich Khan:

How are we to interpret [the painter’s]apparently shameless misrepresenta-tions of historical facts? Does it makea case for the accusations made byBritish colonial officials in the nine-teenth century of India’s easily excitableimagination and undisciplined histor-ical consciousness? Could it be thatBhim Singh’s defeat and death were soemotionally bruising for the people ofKota that this large painting representsa psychological state of denial and totalrepression of historical facts that weretoo painful to contemplate? Or is it evi-dence of a peculiar Rajasthani historicalsensibility – and if so, what could itpossibly be? (pp. 20–1)

Peabody’s answer to these questions iscomplicated and subtle, but the main point isan assertion of ‘karmic kingship’ or‘karmatological descent’, in other words, theidea that a king and his successor sharesubstance and karma with each other. In factQilich Khan and Bhim Singh were bloodbrothers and had swapped turbans, so that‘even though bodily Bhim Singh was defeatedand killed in battle . . . the fruit of hismeritorious life, or karma, continued to bemanifest in this world; and it did so in noneother than the person of Qilich Khan. Byvirtue of his defeat of Maharao Bhim Singh,Qilich Khan had become Bhim Singh – andBhim Singh, Qilich Khan’ (p. 48).

The following chapter deals with theinternal politics of the Vallabha sect, its gurus,and their competition with each other andwith local kings for the control of powerfulKrishna images and the patronage that goes

with them. The way in which religiousrelationships were presented in politicalterms, and supposedly political relationshipsin terms of altruistic religious service (seva), isshown in subsequent chapters. The finalchapter looks at the evolving relation betweenthe captive king and the all-powerful primeminister in the early colonial period, and theways in which the different parties sought tooutmanoeuvre each other and use themaster/servant idiom to their ownadvantage.

Hindu kingship and polity in precolonialIndia will primarily interest South Asianists,but its appeal is not limited to them. It isessential reading for anyone tempted bymonolithic interpretations of South Asianhistory or society. More widely, thoseinterested in historical anthropology oranthropological history will find much toadmire in its thoughtful arguments andlearned dissection of Hindu kingship.

DAVID N. GELLNERUniversity of Oxford (UK)

Rabinow, Paul, and Talia Dan-Cohen. 2005.A machine to make a future. Biotechchronicles. Princeton and Oxford: PrincetonUniversity Press. 199 pp. Hb.: £15.95.ISBN: 0 691 12050 1.

This book is in some senses a follow-up toRabinow’s (1996) Making PCR. While thatbook examined the formation of anexperimental technology (PCR) at CetusCorporation in California, this bookexamines the more recent developments atCelera Diagnostics, by some turns a corporatedescendant of Cetus with some of the sameactors at the helm. Making PCR wasprimarily about the context in which scientificinnovation takes place, Machine to make afuture is primarily about the process throughwhich scientific innovations (ordeterminations made within the context ofparticular experimental systems) are‘translated’ into other realms. As the authorspoint out, with a nod to Bruno Latour’s


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notion of ‘immutable mobiles’, there is abroader machinery at work that determinesthese determinations. This is a crucial area forinvestigation. The task this book then setsitself is to provide a certain anthropologicalclarification of the nature of this machinery,and to open up a space of productiveencounter somewhere between ‘critical’accounts of science and scientists’ ownaccounts of science, the two being famously atodds with one another. Again, this is animportant task and I applaud the authors’direct engagement with it.

The book also engages with (and raisesquestions about) the politics of writing. Inparticular, it addresses the relationshipbetween writing and academic authority. Theauthors set out at the start they intend toeschew the standard academic account infavour of a narrative form that will ‘produce adifferent kind of result, one that is notintrinsically more valuable but one that willframe a different experience for readers andwriters alike’ (p. 6). Under this rubric theyinvoke two ‘experimental forms’. The first isthe presentation of considerable lengths (somewill say provocative lengths) of interviewmaterial, both with scientists at Celera andalso with informed interlocutors viewing it‘from an adjacent position’. This material isthen refined in order to be representative (butnot too structuring), descriptive (but onlypartially), and to convey insight under theradar of methodological determination.

The second experimental form isintroduced under the rubric of the‘author-function’ – a term Foucault used toargue that the purpose of authorship was tofulfil the need for accountability. The authorsturn Foucault’s insight into an interrogativetechnology whereby one of them(Dan-Cohen) observes the other (Rabinow)undertaking interviews: a ‘structural position[which] contributed to her fresh insights intoa range of dynamics not readily discernible bypeople who already know each other and thuscan take certain things for granted’ (p. 8).However, while this works to a point, thetone of the book remains highly authoritativeand it left me, at least, unsure of the extent to

which the authors really did want to standback from the text.

Regardless, anyone turning to the bookwill find an illuminating story at its heart.After setting out the above sort of approach inthe ‘overture’, the authors then set out theoverall approach that was taken at Celera inChapter 1. Chapter 2 then does two things:first, it conveys to the reader two examples ofCelera Diagnostics explaining its technologyto two different groups (namely, investors andthe authors themselves), which are offered asexplanation of how things work at Celera(and specifically of the approach taken thereto disease association). Second, it uses thedifferences between the accounts given tothese two different audiences to reflect moregenerally on the nature of communicationbetween scientists and others (in the spirit ofthe book, it would be wrong, I think, to say‘non-scientists’).

Chapter 3 then focuses in on themiddling managers of the technologyplatforms themselves, in contrast to what arereferred to as the ‘technocrats’ who runorganisations such as Celera. The stewardsattempt to manipulate the interface betweenscientists and machines so as to fulfil the sortsof claims made to investors that are depictedin Chapter 2. Chapters 4 and 5 ‘exploredeliberations on how a company like CeleraDiagnostics is initiating, shaping, andintegrating a range of relationships betweenitself and the pharmaceutical sector, otherbiotech companies, government regulators,and academic researchers’ (p. 97). Thesechapters therefore cover such crucial themesas trust, confidence and freedom of operationand again, a series of interviews are presentedin some length in order ‘to provide a glimpseinto this process of deliberation, assemblage,regulation, and production as well as the tiesof familiarity, confidence and trust thatpermeate them’ (p. 100). The final twochapters then focus in on the search forparticular disease models (Chapter 6) and outon the possible mergers proposed aroundthese (Chapter 7).

Overall, some readers will find this novelblend of form and function exciting. Others


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may find it frustrating that the story isseparated out into the yolk and the white ofinterviews and reflections. Both responses,however, ought to encourage deeperreflection upon the broader issues of academicsubjectivity that this book raises. Acomparison here might be drawn withMaurice Blanchot’s The space of literature(1982: 41), in which Blanchot noted that ‘it isbeing that tends to speech and speech thatwants to be’. From this formulation he sawthat it was the rich poetic work of literature,and not the descriptive faculties of language,that could best convey the world. In Amachine to make a future explanation appearsto be reined back when it strays beyond alanguage of description, in favour, if I haveread it correctly, of a strategy of elucidation.In place of a conclusion, for example, theauthors tell us they resolved to enjoy theprocess of ruminating over the research in itslast month and to report back to the readerthat they had done so. I acknowledge theimpetus behind this, but does such anapproach enable us to render the worldpoetic in the fullness of the word Blanchotintended?

SIMON REID-HENRYQueen Mary, University of London (UK)

Spencer, Paul. 2003. Time, space, and theunknown. Masai configurations of powerand providence. London and New York:Routledge. xvi + 287 pp. Hb.: £55.00.ISBN: 0 415 31724 X.

Cet ouvrage s’inscrit pleinement dans labibliographie de P. Spencer qui, enethnographe minutieux, a toujours cherche arendre compte de la variete des pratiques,rituels et institutions des differentes sectionsmaasai, selon lui insuffisamment mise enlumiere dans la litterature. Initialement pensecomme la deuxieme partie – a vocationcomparative – de son ouvrage sur les MaasaiMatapato, il se fonde sur des donnees deterrain recueillies dans les annees 1970 quel’auteur complete par des donnees de secondemain pour etoffer la comparaison.

Comme dans ses autres ouvrages, P.Spencer accorde une large place au systeme declasses d’age, pierre angulaire de l’organisationsociale de tous les Maasai mais qui connaıt desvariations entre les sections, celles-ci influantnotamment sur son caractere plus ou moinsgerontocratique. Le systeme d’age fournit desreperes essentiels a la perception, a la foiscyclique et lineaire, que les Maasai se font dutemps, notamment a travers la maturation deshommes de la periode guerriere a l’aınesse (ch.2). Incorpores dans une classe d’age apres leurinitiation, les hommes traversent differentsechelons d’age par l’intermediaire deceremonies individuelles et collectives. Lerespect des aınes qui constitue la valeursupreme de ce systeme est particulierementprononce et codifie entre les guerriers et leshommes d’age murs. Ayant franchi tous lesechelons d’age, les plus vieux sont en quelquesorte consideres comme au-dela du temps etproches de Dieu. Bien que n’etant pasformellement integrees dans une classe d’age,les femmes sont affiliees aux classesmasculines et leur maturation depend enpartie de la place occupee par leurs maris etfils sur l’echelle des ages. Le systeme d’ageguide egalement leur perception de l’espaceque P. Spencer analyse par le prisme desrapports hommes/femmes qui, bien quelargement en faveur des premiers, evoluent enfonction de l’espace de reference – dans ethors village (ch. 3). Dans ce chapitre, ilconfronte ses donnees a celles d’uneethnologue ayant travaille aupres des femmes.

Dans les chapitres suivants, P. Spencers’interesse au domaine religieux – ce que lesMaasai nomment l’inconnu – le plus souventocculte dans la litterature sur les peuplespasteurs d’Afrique de l’Est. A travers leurfaculte a benir ou maudire, les aınesdetiennent des pouvoirs religieux importants,influant sur la dynamique entiere du systemed’age (ch. 4) Cette analyse de la fortune et del’infortune des Maasai s’appuie pour une largepart sur l’exemple des Samburu dont lesysteme de croyance est, selon P. Spencer, pluselabore que celui des autres sections. Lechapitre 5 est consacre a la dynastie desprophetes Loonkidongi percus comme les


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meilleurs intermediaires entre les hommes etle divin et qui ont historiquement domine lesautres experts rituels. La capacite divinatoireet therapeutique des prophetes Loonkidongise fonde sur la maıtrise symbolique dusysteme numerologique et des cyclestemporels qui organisent le temps collectif desMaasai (ch. 6).

La deuxieme partie de l’ouvrage proposeune illustration des variations entre lessections maasai sur ces themes. Ces dernieressont, comme le precise l’auteur, apprehendeesa la maniere des ideaux-types Weberiens. Lechapitre 7 consacre aux Purko du nord duterritoire maasai reprend les principales etapesqui amenent les jeunes garcons non circoncisau statut d’aınes en passant par le prestigieuxstade guerrier. Chez les Purko, le systemed’age se caracterise par une forte segregationdes guerriers soumis a un puissant controledes aınes. Il se rapproche ainsi du modele desSamburu analyse en 1965 par P. Spencercomme etant le plus gerontocratique de tous.Ce que l’auteur appelle le modele du sud estillustre par les Kisongo de la region deLoitokitok au sud du Kenya (ch. 8). Ici, lesysteme se caracterise par une forte rivaliteentre les classes d’age adjacentes et unerelation privilegiee – qui n’empeche pas lerespect – entre les guerriers et les aınes de laclasse alternee consideres comme leursparrains.

Le chapitre 9 opere un retour en arrierepuisque s’appuyant sur les travaux quel’ethnologue allemand M. Merker publia en1904, P. Spencer s’interesse ici au cœur dupouvoir pendant la periode pre-coloniale.L’auteur y decrit un systeme d’age dans lequelles prophetes avaient davantage d’influencesur les guerriers – aux depens des aınes – etqui fut transforme par les pouvoirs coloniauxbritannique et germanique. Enfin, le chapitre10 se fonde sur l’analyse –transactionnaliste –qu’en 1963 P. H. Gulliver a propose ducontrole social chez les Arusha, agriculteursmaasai du nord de la Tanzanie. Dans laconclusion de l’ouvrage, P. Spencer se centresur le processus de prise de decisions(individuelles et collectives) qui le conduitvers une interpretation generale du systeme a

la lumiere de la theorie des jeux. Celle-ci luipermet de rendre compte a la fois des jeux depouvoir et des contradictions du systemed’age en partie dues aux nombreusestransformations qu’il a connu depuis l’epoquecoloniale.

En depit du fil conducteur que representele systeme d’age, la coherence de l’ouvrage estdifficilement perceptible, les chapitres prenantparfois l’allure d’articles autonomes. Il resteque la reunion en un meme ouvrage dedifferentes analyses du systeme d’age permet al’auteur de produire une analyse originale desrelations de pouvoir a travers la perception dutemps et de l’espace des Maasai. Toutefois,l’anciennete des donnees sur lesquelles il sefonde laisse le lecteur sur sa faim concernantles evolutions recentes que le systeme nemanque pas d’experimenter.

NATHALIE BONINIUniversite Francois Rabelais de Tours (France)

Watson, James, and Melissa L. Caldwell(eds.). 2005. The cultural politics of foodand eating. A reader. Malden and Oxford:Blackwell Publishing. xii + 320 pp. Hb.:£65.00. ISBN: 0 631 23092 0. Pb.:£17.99. ISBN: 0 631 23093 9.

Compiling a good reader that will be of use toboth teachers and students, its primaryaudience, is a rather difficult task, since we allknow that a course book that will not sell ishardly going to be interesting for thepublishers. This is why a reader has to offermore than just a collection of articles whichanyone who is not too lazy to do so couldfind in already published books and journals.Furthermore, since many universities have thepractice of offering course readings in theform of cheap photocopies bound togetherwith a simple stapler, in order to serve itsmain purpose a reader has indeed to offersome outstanding material.

Here are some of the main criteria thatneed to be fulfilled by a good reader: anintroduction which not only list the texts thatfollow, but also engages with the topic’s past,present and future; and a choice of recent


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articles spanning a variety of ethnographicfields and articles that offer a variety oftheoretical approaches to the subject.Furthermore, a good reader should provide acomprehensive bibliography, which couldhelp the student and the teacher in furtherexplorations of the subject. Last but not least,in order to appeal to wider audiences, a readermust engage with a topic that is of currentinterest and which engages with the debatesthat, at least to some extent, occupy thecontemporary academic world.

The cultural politics of food and eating. Areader scores rather well in most of theabove-mentioned areas. The topic is ofpolitical interest not only because it has theword ‘politics’ in the title, but also because itsucceeds in conveying, through a carefulselection of articles, that buying and/or eatingfood are highly political acts and thatconsumers around the world are not playingpassive roles in the global processes that relateto eating and drinking. In the Introduction,which is good but unfortunately rather short,the editors suggest that the articles are meantto point towards the future of food research.While the intention is certainly a valid one,the fact that many articles were published inthe year 2000 or the ones leading up to it,makes one wonder if this future is not alreadybecoming the present.

The ethnographic background of the 19articles is quite varied, although it seemssomewhat biased towards the Asiancontinent, as five articles are based on Chinaand a further two on India and Japan. Thisprobably reflects the interest of the editors,which is often one of the more importantfactors for the inclusion of articles. Theeditors’ personal interest is further noticeablein the fact that several articles deal withacceptance, rejection or domestication ofWestern fast food outlets in China and othercountries. While this bias could be seen as aflaw, one can observe that all these articleswork rather well together: in fact, they reallycomplement one another and help deepenone’s understanding of how Western foodoutlets are accepted and transformed innon-Western societies.

The book is structured around threesections, which touch on topics such asglobalisation, domestication of taste andfood-related political economy. Out of thethree sections, the second one (on‘Gentrification, yuppification anddomesticating tastes’) seems to have been puttogether most carefully and the selectedarticles really manage to convey the importantand well-known, but too often somewhatneglected, message that taste is a sociallycontrolled cultural construction, which fitswell with the main topic, ‘the cultural politicsof food and eating’.

The reader will surely provide a goodtool for an introductory course on culture andsociety or perhaps a more advanced course onfood, politics and global movements.However, in order to avoid becoming out ofdate very soon after publication, it wouldneed to be complemented with more recentstudies, in order for students to be aware ofthe current issues relating the cultural politicsof food and eating, such as, the revolution ofbiotechnology and organic food production,‘politics of obesity’ and ‘food and ideology’,that are presented in the last section of theintroduction under the subtitle ‘Frontiers offood research’. These frontiers could then beexplored in an updated version of a readersometime in the not too distant future.

LIZA DEBEVECInstitute of Anthropological and SpatialStudies, Scientific Research Centre of theSlovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts(Slovenia)

White, Geoffrey M. 2002. Identity throughhistory. Living stories in a Solomon Islandssociety. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress (Cambridge Studies in Social andCultural Anthropology 83). xvi + 270pp. Pb.: £18.99/$28.00. ISBN: 0 52153332 5.

Identity through history is a new paperbackedition of a volume first published in 1991.The text’s point of departure is the


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intermittent fieldwork the author carried outbetween 1974 and 1988. In the book’s prefacehe explains the work’s general goal: it is anattempt ‘not to find the culture or to give adefinitive portrait of Santa Isabel identity, butrather to explore those processes – bothconceptual and social – that make identity andhistory out of experience’. Collective identityis a social construction built through a steadyeffort to overcome breaks and discontinuitiesand White’s book provides a good analysis ofthis. He investigates the backgrounds andprocedures in which self-consciousunderstandings of tradition are devisedcorresponding to broader political, social andpersonal matters, and, in particular, he showsthe key role of historical reflection for theconstruction of present life meaning. Thiswork of building must be done trying toprevail over the problems and contradictionsof a postcolonial society. The people of SantaIsabel perform this endeavour by ordinaryconversations, storytelling, speechmaking anddramatic performances that compose thematter of the text. The explanation interlinksethnography and history looking for points ofreciprocal relation between events andmodels, accounts and selves.

The book is structured in differentchapters distributed in four parts. In the firstpart, which is titled ‘Orienting’, the authorpresents three structural constants in SantaIsabel society: descent, land and chieflyleadership. The second part is titled‘Transforming’ and focuses on the process ofconversion to Christianity and its impact onthe lives of the people of Santa Isabel and,particularly, on the present understanding ofthose three constants. These two parts allowthe reader to frame the core questions placedin the next ones. ‘Narrating’ is the title of thethird part, focused on local narrations oforigins of a village and stories aboutconversion and about the legendaryencounter between missionary HenryWelchman and chief Figrima. The last partof the book is called ‘Revitalizing’ andcentres on colonial history as a process builtthrough discourses of chiefly identity andpower.

The author provides a good ethnographyincluding description and theoreticalinterpretation of conversations, rituals andsocial discourses. Classical anthropologicalmatters such as chiefdom, myths of origin,redistributive rituals and genealogicalmemory are presented not as static culturalpatterns but as social, changeableconstructions. Everyday conversations andritual narratives about those matters allow thepeople of Santa Isabel to face realities such asstate and church, connecting chiefship withthem. In fact, these discursive products are autility to construct the role of chief as apolitical leader in a colonial conception.Christian moral features and a revision ofquestions like sympathy and the coercivepower of a chief allow the people of SantaIsabel to construct this political meaning.

This revival of the role of the chief is notlacking in ambivalences and dissension. Mostof these come from a colonial past whenChristianity and the modern state becamecentral references for everyday life in theSolomon Islands. For instance, some olderpeople were sceptical about feasts morecoherent with an individualistic conception ofpower and status than with the descentprinciple and young councillors declinedceremonies that were centred on a chief for anentire island and not on a local leader.Through these contradictions, White showsus a process of incorporation of a colonialmeaning of political leadership by the peopleof Santa Isabel. This includes acharacterisation of chiefs as perfect Christiansfrom a moral point of view.

In this book, we can see how narrativecan underpin the construction of an ethniclocal identity in accordance with a story ofcolonial domination. That said, it might beinteresting to mention three questions that Ithink are not answered in this volume. Firstly,what happens with women’s vision ofpolitical power and chiefship and, in general,with female memory? In the Preface, theauthor points out that his male conditioncaused that he didn’t spend more time withwomen. In fact, a male reader could ignorethis question, but this is difficult to do when


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we are talking about a matrilineal society.Probably the author didn’t have a specialinterest in examining the relationship betweenmen, women and social organisation and thesocial representation of political power. Thesecond question is the memory of occidentaldescendants in Santa Isabel. How do they seelocal political power and the role andcharacteristics of a chief? Finally, Whitementions some places of memory related withchiefs and special events, but it seems thatthey are for local people. It could be veryinteresting to know if people of Santa Isabel

have generated projects for museums forforeign visitors and about the relationshipbetween the process of patrimonialisation andthe construction and reproduction of nationalidentity. Nevertheless, the reader willprobably find the volume well rounded,providing more knowledge about classicalanthropological matters and from a differentperspective.

ALBERT MONCUSI FERREUniversitat de Valencia-Estudi General(Spain)


black seminoles in the bahamas by howard, rosalyn

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