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Book reviews

I nventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power and Personhood

Nikolas Rose, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996,35.00, viii + 222 pp.

In I nventing Our Selves, N ikolas Rose aims to explore the hetero-geneous ways in which the modern self is constituted. As a majorwriter in the Foucauldian tradition, Rose embarks on this task bybeginning to question some of the certainties about the kinds ofpeople we take ourselves to be (p. 1). In the process, he traversesa number of empirical domains but his resolute focus is a com-plex of issues that entail the psy disciplines (psychology, psychia-try, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis), and their links togovernment and subjectification. For Rose, psy disciplines areintellectual technologies that serve to render visible and intelli-gible certain features of persons, their conducts, and their rela-tions with one another (p. 10). But psy is also intrinsically tied toa range of accredited professionals and acknowledged techniquesthat administer persons and rationally manage human resources.Now, while psy features heavily in administration, management,visibilization and so on in a variety of fields such as the military,education, the family, Rose claims something more. Psy, by virtueof its claims to access, map and shape the interiority that under-pins human conduct, is inextricably interwoven with all thosemore or less rationalised programs, strategies, and tactics . . . foracting upon the actions of others, in order to achieve certainends (p. 12) that is, government in Foucaults sense. Inresourcing Western liberal government, psy has been partlycomprised of the invention of technologies for governing indi-viduals in terms of their freedom (p. 16). As such, psy has alsocontributed to the technical means by which persons are governed

The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.


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through, rather than in spite of, for example, their autonomy andenterprise: the forms of subjectification that recent governmenthas entailed forms that stress freedom of choice, authenticity,enterprise and so on are shown to be linked with psy techniquesthat focus on the enhancements of self-esteem, social skills,empowerment.

This summary can do very little justice to Roses complex andvariegated project. As is to be expected, this is brilliantly realised.Rose comes at this overarching problematic from a number ofangles and addresses, en route, a wide array of issues that havebeen a mainstay not only of critical studies of psychology but ofthe social sciences in general. For instance, in asking what it mightmean to write a critical history of psychology, he unravels thepoverty of social constructionist critiques of psychology (dispens-ing some of his choicest barbs in the process) and clarifies the roleof psychology in psychologizing human subjects. Contrary tothese standard critiques which, amongst other things, in one wayor another, bemoan the means by which psy has imposed uponand debilitated potentially free individuals, Rose traces, thoughmostly in outline, the techniques, practices, strategies of psy thathave been instrumental in the definition, valorization and imple-mentation of the free person.

From this seemingly limited observation, Rose develops a muchbroader argument that encompasses the thorny question of thepossible role of agency in resistance. In Roses view, the very termsof this question need to be problematised. Agency as a love ofliberty or the pursuit of empowerment is not outside of govern-ment and psy; resistance or rather, contestation and conflict

becomes the upshot of the fact that persons live their lives in aconstant movement across different practices that subjectify themin different ways and therefore techniques of relating oneself as asubject of unique capacities worthy of respect run up againstpractices of relating to oneself as the target of discipline, duty anddocility (p. 35). But how is one to theorize this getting ofagency? Here, Rose draws on Deleuze. Agency is generated inpractices through which desires, intelligencies, motivations, pas-

sions . . . (p. 189) are folded into us by our psychotechnologies.These foldings, are realised through heterogeneous and distrib-uted means, and because of this heterogeneity and distributed-ness, render agency (but also such, albeit problematic, givens asthe body) altogether contingent. Here, Rose folds into a theoret-ical vanguard of those who have begun to develop languages for

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tracing the constitutive heterogeneity and distributedness of thehuman for example, Haraways admixing of irreducible genres,or Latours quasi-neutral vocabulary of actants, hybrids and asso-ciations.

In light of this esteemed company, it is ostensibly disappointingthat Rose doesnt address, or even raise, the issue of how psymight relate to the ways in which the natural sciences have alsocontributed to government. As authors like Wynne and Irwin, aswell as Haraway and Latour, have noted, seemingly innocentexpert advice on natural or technological risk (eg followinstructions) shapes, always contingently, comportment not onlyin relation to self and human others, but also to technology andnature. A supplementary project would, then, begin to interro-gate the ways in which these perhaps disparate techniques inter-weave. This becomes all the more urgent when one takes seriouslythe notion that self and human others are distributed across thesenatures and technologies. However, having made this point, itshould be apparent that articulating in this way would be nigh onimpossible without Roses book. I nventing Our Selvesis essentialreading.

L ancaster U niversit y Mike Michael

Construct ing Identi t ies: The Social, T he Nonhuman and Change

Mike Michael, Sage, London, 1996, 12.95, viii + 179 pp.

Social psychology has over the past decade profited enormouslyfrom a special relationship with Science and Technology Studies

(STS). As with all such relationships, there is doubtless the ques-tion of the precise role played by each partner and the regard theone has for the other. Construct ing I denti t iesis, to my knowledge,one of the few full length attempts to explore how far insights andpractices from STS can be viably translated to address social psy-chological concerns, and is worthy of attention on these groundsalone. Almost inevitably, STS comes across in the text as the moreinteresting project, which will doubtless do little to reassure social

psychologists already unsettled in their professional identity.For Michael, contemporary social psychology, notwithstanding

its resuscitation through social constructionist critique and post-structuralist thought, is beset with at least two ills. F irst, itsreliance on the determination of personal identity by the macro-level: big culture, long-wave historical narratives, or, in its

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Foucauldian dialects, institutions. Although such a position issupported by a wealth of detail (especially in the power/know-ledge led investigations of the latter) there is nay sight of a con-vincing mechanism. Second, that the turn to discourse, for all itsadvances, has left all that is properly extra-discursive unexplainedand inexplicable. Michael ably demonstrates the interpenetrationof the two problems; it is the expulsion of the extra-discursive thatleads directly to the difficulties in uniting the various levels ofanalysis. Between persons and big culture (or big history orsnug institutions) are whole chains of intermediaries bodies,artefacts, animals and machines upon and through whom theefficacy and durability of social ordering depends.

The way is thus paved in the text for the entrance of ActorNetwork Theory. With the emphasis firmly switched toward net-works of heterogeneous elements a multiplicity of humans andnonhumans, materials and techniques (p. 53) Michael setsabout substituting ANTs vocabulary of interessement, transla-tion and enrolment for that of rhetoric and argumentationmore familiar to social psychologists. Drawing upon Singletonsstudies of the network forged around the UK Cervical ScreeningProgramme (CSP), a convincing display is given of how ANT cantease out the operations and ambiguities of power as it emergesfrom a process of network building: the British Government con-structed the identities of a variety of actors, including women,pathology laboratories, cervical cells and GPs . . . In terms of thesocial ordering of the network, it is this very multiplicity that ren-ders it durable (pp. 834). Michael also goes one better, workingup the case for ambivalence as a strategy engaged in by actors,

where they at once occupy the margins and the core (p. 65) ofthe network. GPs who constitute an obligatory point of pas-sage for the screening network are described as switching backand forth between taking the role of spokespersons for the CSPand, in contradictory fashion, stressing their own autonomy.

Identity is the key here. Ambivalence is a way of negotiatingdifferent identities, a means of seeming to be both inside and out-side of the network, without having to compromise on multiplic-

ity. Although Michael uses ambivalence to draw attention toANTs blindspot, namely the managerialist implications of net-work building, he stops short of exploring what are essentially themore problematic aspects of the approach. Whilst ANT is capa-ble, as the text suggests, of giving an account of how certain iden-tities (and networks and actors and intermediaries) have arisen

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and how they have persisted (p. 77), it can only make such anaccount possible by first enfranchising the nonhuman other, thatis, by restricting their identities and capacities to those made pos-sible by the network. ANT is then itself fairly ambivalent in howit conceptualises the dis-ordered or, as Star puts it, the as-yet-unlabelled.

Michaels use of ANT is less convincing in some of the otherstudies reproduced in the book, dealing with discourses aroundanimal experimentation and ionizing radiation. Suggestive as theyare of how networks of researchers, participants and natural non-humans may be constructed in the course of social science, thereis a greater sense of the Theory of actor-networks being appliedhere to case material, rather than a network-materialist approachper se. One of the obstacles faced by the text is that in addressingitself to social psychology, it simply has a great deal of ground-clearing work to get out of the way before finding its own voice.

Thus, the great dualisms of social psychology (micro/macro;self/other; realism/relativism) are paraded, one by one, beforebeing dispatched by judicious recourse to a well defined facet ofANT. But, as Latour, Law and Callon have been at pains to stressin their recent writings, the ability of ANT to level dualismscomes at the price of generating its own untheorised others, suchas selfhood and embodiment, to name but two.

It is in the moments where the programmatic concerns areallowed to lapse that the text is most intriguing. Some importantlinks are made, for example, between Latours position on the dis-ciplining of the body by artefacts and Deleuzes reworking ofFoucauldian visibilities. This leads to a description of how net-

worked environments make possible, or afford (in J.J. Gibsonssense) certain embodied powers. Pressed a little further, this mightlead to a richer engagement with Deleuzes thought on the rela-tion between semiosis and materiality that Michael seems to be allbut reaching for elsewhere. Towards the end, the text starts tounravel in a suggestive fashion, questioning its own hybrid net-work of ANT and psychology Too linear? Not enough fluid-ity? (p. 159) it asks. Well perhaps. But there is certainly enough

here to hold social psychologists wondering where to go after thediscursive turn. This may though be a place to pause for breathand reorientate, rather than to begin rebuilding the discipline.

Keele University Steven D. Brown

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The State Nobil it y: Eli te Schools in the Field of Power

Pierre Bourdieu, translated by Lauretta C. Clough, Polity Press,Cambridge, 1996, 45.00, 475 pp.

This book, first published in France in 1989, is seen by Bourdieuas the first, provisional statement of his general theoretical posi-tion on power and its relation to the reproduction of the domi-nant classes in France. His aim is to compare the structure of theeducational field to the field of power, using the statistical homol-ogy between them as an indicator of specific causal relations inthe field of power.

His argument is that modern societies show a progressive differ-entiation of social spheres, and he explicitly aligns himself withSpencer and Durkheim on the matter of social differentiation.Bourdieu describes the production of distinct and autonomousfields of powerin which specific forms of capital are generated.

The separation of military and hierocratic spheres (the state andthe Church) in feudalism gives way to a more complex system offields, ranging from the economic (the sphere of industrialistsand managers) to the cultural (the sphere of the intellectuals).Between these two, combining economic and cultural elements invarying degrees, are the fields of politics, the civil service, theprofessions, and the universities.

Bourdieu builds on the argument ofDistinction, originally pub-lished ten years earlier, which explored the relationship betweenmaterial (de facto) power relations and their transformation intosymbolic power relations that define legitimate rights and obliga-tions. His question was that of how arbitrary economic and polit-

ical power is transformed through symbolic strategies oflegitimation into a conception of aristocratic excellence. In TheState Nobilit y, he combines these concerns with those of earlierpapers on social fields and on strategies of reconversion to presenthis most comprehensive account of class and status in contempo-rary societies.

The dynamics of power are seen as resulting from the clusteringof reproduction strategies into distinct modes of reproduction.

Reproduction strategies are the ways in which people attempt tosecure the perpetuation of their own advantages and of the partic-ular types of resources on which they depend. Feudalism and cap-italism, he argues, involve different modes of reproduction, andcapitalism itself shows a transition from the mode of reproductioncharacteristic of its early competitive stage to that of its later,

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monopoly stage. While in feudalism the Church transformedlandlord power into political authority, in late capitalism theschool sanctifies social divisions through the bestowing of acade-mic credentials.

Contemporary capitalism, then, has shown a transition fromthe direct reproduction found in the family enterprise of liberalcapitalism to the school-mediated reproduction that operates atthe level of the class structure. In an economy based around fam-ily businesses, strategies for developing a business are directlylinked to and dominant over strategies for reproducing the family.In an economy organised around large bureaucratic enterprises,on the other hand, entry to top positions depends upon the pos-session of specific educational credentials. Networks of sponsor-ship based around the school group becomes more importantthan the direct transfer of privileges through the family. In con-trast to the direct mechanisms involved in the reproduction of lifechances, this new mode operates at the level of the bourgeois classas a whole. The bourgeoisie employs economic strategies, fertilitystrategies, marriage strategies, educational strategies, legitimationstrategies, and so on that allow the reconversion of one form ofcapital into another and that reproduce the whole class ratherthan simply its individual members.

The continual use of the term strategy implies a conscious anddeliberate process, but Bourdieu emphasises that much of thisoperates at the level of the unintended consequences of action. Ina class-based system, he argues, academic judgements uncon-sciously reflect class and status distinctions. The system of eliteeducational organisations convert various forms of capital into

the kind of capital that is required for access to positions of com-mand. The major schools are differentiated according to their rolein class reproduction. The cole Normale Suprieure mainly val-orises the assets of the cultured bourgeoisie (school teachers andothers) and so enables its children to enter cultural positionsthrough the study of subjects such as French, classics, and mathe-matics. The cole Polytechnique and the cole des Hautes tudesCommerciales mainly valorise the assets of the haute bourgeoisie

(commercial and industrial executives) and so allow its children toenter business positions. The cole Nationale dAdministrationvalorises both the economic and the cultural capital of those frompolitics and the civil service to allow their children to enter thesesame professions.

The book consists of a massive and very impressive marshalling

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of empirical data on economic and political recruitment, and datadirectly on the structure of the academic field. Much of thiscomes from Bourdieus early research in 1963, which has beenmined in many of his publications over the years. The argument isdeveloped through a series of separate diagrams essentially fac-tor analyses of schools and disciplines that he uses as models, ormaps, of the educational field. Combined with systematic andpowerful theorising, these produce a compelling and plausibleaccount of the structure of power in France an account thatBourdieu sees as rooted in a more general model that can beapplied to all complex industrial societies and not only to France.

A major theoretical limitation is the failure to theorise a con-cept of class itself, or to allude to any particular theories on whichBourdieu draws. As a result, the term is used rather loosely, and itis not clear in what sense and in what respects the various bour-geois groups that he discusses are in fact members of a singlesocial class and have shared economic interests rooted in propertyownership. It is striking that Bourdieu engages in no debate withany of the leading theorists of class in contemporary society.Weber is, of course, considered, but none of those who havelooked at the contemporary capitalist class (for example,Poulantzas, or Wright) are even referenced in footnotes. Neither,incidentally, is there any engagement with other theorists ofpower or any significant consideration of class and power. (Thereis not even any attention to the work of writers such as Marceau,who have made interesting uses of Bourdieus own work.)Bourdieu is a man who has made up his mind.

This lack of engagement is particularly noticeable when he

goes beyond the question of the owners and controllers of eco-nomic capital. In relation to those involved in this the core ofthe bourgeoisie by any definition Bourdieu is excellent, explor-ing the complex historical interplay of economic capital andsocial status in industry, commerce, and finance. When heextends his concerns to the top civil servants and politicians, whoare considered much more briefly, he is less compelling. In partic-ular, he does not show how the changing mode of reproduction

well demonstrated for those who depend on economic capital impinges on those in politics and the state administration. Theyare recruited through similar mechanisms, but what is it thatmakes them members of a single bourgeois class with distincteconomic interests? Bourdieu does, however, show how status con-siderations can tie diverse groups together into a state nobility

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that is at the heart of his bourgeoisie. The role of the state as guar-antor of academic titles allowed the old noblesse de robeto betransformed into the contemporary technocrats of the state andthe economy.

The language of this book is cumbersome and dense quiteunnecessarily so. This is not the fault of the translator, as all ofBourdieus books have this character, both in translation and inthe original French. This makes his work a pain, rather than apleasure, to read, and it frequently leaves his meaning and hisarguments frustratingly oblique. This reader, at least, is left angryand disheartened that one of the leading social theorists of ourtime should have such disdain for his readers that he does notbother to try to write clearly. I t means I am certain thatBourdieus work has had less impact than it deserves. The StateNobilityis likely to become yet another largely unread classic.

University of Essex John Scott

Cultures of I nternet : V irtual Spaces, Real H istories, L iving Bodies

Rob Shields, (ed.), Sage, London, 1996, viii + 196 pp.

A number of writers have recently pointed to the strong whiff ofutopianism that emanates from much writing about cyberspaceand the Internet. I f there is one group for whom the topic of theInternet has clearly come as a kind of manna from heaven then itis the publishers of academic books in the broad field of culturalstudies. This book is just one of an ever growing number ofrecently published collections concerned with the Internet, cyber

or virtual culture as their theme.This particular example of the genre contains short introduc-

tion from the editor and eleven essays, of variable approach,length and quality. The essays cover a wide range of questionsincluding: free-speech on the Internet; the development of Minitelin France (not strictly part of the Internet); the use of e-mail in

Jamaica; the relationship between the body and the Internet; thehistory of virtual reality; the Internet and the dissolution of the

polity; the Internet and the resurrection of the polity; on-linereactions to the death of a bulletin board administrator; questionsof community and belonging in Multiple User Dungeons(MUDS); the application of psychoanalytic ideas to on-line com-munication; and, finally, the (almost obligatory) article by SadiePlant.

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This book suffers from many of the problems of all such booksof which I want to highlight just three.

First, we still know remarkably little quantitatively about theInternet and its users or the uses to which they put the techno-logy. Without a more substantial base of information, we have noidea about how typical the experiences of the Internet (or otheronline services) reported here actually are. Valuable as qualitativework is, without some wider frame of reference, it always threat-ens to lapse into the merely anecdotal (as do some of the essayshere). Of course, it is possible to give the kind of subjective experi-ence reported here some wider relevance by relating it critically tosome broader body of theory. However, with the exception ofMark Lajoies essay on Psychoanalysis and Cyberspace, there islittle more in this book than a light coating of fashionable con-cepts that are uncritically used to provide a little academic scaf-folding.

Second, much of this book is, like many of the current bookson new technologies, technically out of date at the moment that itis published. The pace of change in this area is, or at least isclaimed to be, breath-taking, and the detailed descriptions of text-based systems may seem anachronistic today. No one can blamethe authors for this. However, the effect on the reader is height-ened by lack of a diachronic dimension to many of the essays.Many important questions about the changingculture of theInternet are not really addressed, for example the effects of theadvancing commercialisation and corporatisation of the net orchanges associated with the expansion of the Internet beyond itshome base amongst researchers and academics. At the same time,

there is, with a few exceptions (notably Ken Hillis essay onVirtual Reality and, to a lesser extent, Andr Lemos essay onMinitel) little sense of where these technologies or, more impor-tantly their associated cultures, came from and the (social) forcesthat have shaped them.

Finally, there seems to be a massive process of forgetting associ-ated with new information technologies, as though many writerson the topic have fallen for the hype and imagine that these tech-

nologies really have transformed society, rendering all that wehave learned about communications technologies redundant. Thisleads to process of rediscovering things that we have known forseveral decades. Most of the essays in this book exhibit just thiseffect checking the references reveals that few, if any, of theworks cited were published before the mid 1980s. Hence, anyone

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with a background in media or communication studies will berather underwhelmed by many of the findings of these essays, forexample, that communications technologies have their roots milit-ary technology development, that ordinary folks dont justadopt, but rather actively adapt, these technologies.

Reading this book is rather like surfing the Internet itself thecontents are of wildly differing quality; there is little coherence tothe whole, there are the characteristic tropes of the Internet (a cel-ebration of the demotic posturing as a celebration of the demo-cratic, the millennial mixture of the apocalyptic and utopian), andso on. What is more this book is often as much a part of Internetculture one might even say hype as that which it tries todescribe and analyse: what we could describe as internet.acade-mic.cultural-studies.anglo-canadian. What is surprising, in suchsupposedly reflexive times, is that these writers seem to have sucha problem reflecting on this fact.

University of Newcastle upon Tyne James Cornford

Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cult ures of Technological

Embodiment

Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows, (eds), Sage, London,1995, 13.95, 280 pp.

What is it to be human in an age of increasingly blurred bound-aries between the body and technology? Do virtual reality (VR)and other emergent technologies offer the potential for new andliberatory forms of post-bodied, post-human subjectivity? Are we

all cyborgs now? As outlined in Mike Featherstone and RogerBurrows excellent introduction, these and other pressing ques-tions are the themes addressed in this wide ranging and stimulat-ing collection.

In keeping with the utopian impulses of numerous other com-mentators, certain of the accounts offered are broadly celebratoryin tone. Michael Heim, for instance, whilst cautioning against therisks of misuse, nevertheless extols the potential benefits of VR

technology, his enthusiastic yet teacherly stance curiously remi-niscent of the commentaries on LSD offered by figures such as

Timothy Leary in the 60s. Elsewhere, Sadie Plant weaves a com-pelling and provocative blend of history, psychoanalysis, anthro-pology and philosophy, her cybernetic feminist accountchronicling womans place in the development of the computer,

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whilst claiming the space beyond the screen as female and dan-gerous: the place of womans affirmation (Plant, 1995: 60). ForPlant, cyberspaces liberatory potential lies in its offer of the pos-sibility of activity without centralized control, an agency . . .which has no need of a subject position (Plant, 1995: 54).

The majority of the contributors are more cautious however,with several highly critical of the transcendentalist positionwhich Plants stance arguably represents. In their analyses of vari-ous literary and cinematic texts, Kevin McCarron and SamanthaHolland both point to the hostility to the flesh apparent withinthe Cyberpunk genre, examples of which tend to reproduce andreinforce the Cartesian mind/body dichotomy, re-asserting theposition of the (masculine) subject in the face of encroachmentsby technology (Holland, 1995: 166167). As Holland also pointsout, whatever thepotentialfor post-gendered cyborgian identities,in actualcyborg texts (Holland, 1995: 165) masculine and femi-nine characteristics tend to be heightened rather than subverted(see also Clark, 1995: 1256).

Moving away from such textually-oriented analyses, the contri-butions by Deborah Lupton, Vivian Sobchack and AnneBalsamo are also highly critical of claims surrounding the post-bodied, post-gendered potential of the new technologies, each, indifferent ways, stressing the continuing and undeniablematerialityof our lived, fleshy selves: as Lupton somewhat ironically notes,while [t]he demands of the fleshly body compel computer users todistract themselves from their pursuit to seek nourishment . . .[t]he idealized virtual body does not eat, drink, urinate of defe-cate (Lupton, 1995: 100). In thinking through Baudrillards

(1991) appraisal of J.G. Ballards Crash, which displays a view ofthe body always as thoughtobject, never as livedsubject,Sobchack wishes the former a little pain to bring him (back) tohis senses (Sobchack, 1995: 207).

For Anne Balsamo, our analyses of the techno-body need tomove beyond a focus simply on the body of the user/consumer,and also consider the laboring body: often invisible in postmod-ern discourse. But . . . centrally involved in the reproduction of

various technological formations (Balsamo, 1995: 227). KevinRobins, similarly, reminds us that the techno-cultural develop-ments currently underway are not taking place in a vacuum, andmust, if we are to properly understand their implications, be situ-ated in the broader context of social and political change andupheaval (Robins, 1995: 146). Arguing that we urgently need to

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de-mythologize virtual culture (Robins, 1995: 153), Robins iscritical of notions such as virtual empowerment, which he seesas solipsistic, entailing a refusal to recognize the substantive andindependent reality of others and to be involved in relations ofmutual dependency and responsibility (Robins, 1995: 144).

As I hope to have indicated, then, this is a far-reaching andwide-ranging collection, which, in grappling with the sorts ofquestions noted, should be of substantial interest to a far wideraudience than the title might suggest. There are some minor mis-takes here and there Robert Wilsons paper on prosthetics, forinstance, misleadingly perpetuates some of the myths surroundingmale genital piercing (Wilson, 1995: 255). More importantly, Iwould have liked to see greater consideration given to the lived-(sub)culture of cyberpunk. Those who Featherstone and Burrowsdescribe as keen to devise experimental lifestyles and subcultures(Featherstone and Burrows, 1995: 3) dedicated to living out thecyberpunk aesthetic, are mentioned in the editors introduction,but this theme is not taken up in any of the subsequent papers.

That said, this is a strong, provocative and important edited col-lection, which deserves to be widely read. Well balanced in termsof material, it is not only suggestive of many avenues of furtherresearch, but should also prove invaluable in the teaching ofrelated undergraduate courses in sociology and cultural studies.

University of Southampton Paul Sweetman

References

Baudrillard, Jean, (1991) Jean Baudrillard: Two Essays translated by Arthur B.

Evans, Science Fiction Studies18: 30920.

Feminism and Criminology

Ngaire Naffine, Polity Press, Oxford, 1996, 39.50, paper 12.95,vi + 192 pp.

In her preface to I nternational Feminist Perspectives inCriminology(Rafter and Heidensohn, 1995), Meda Chesney-L ind

asks the question: What would criminology look like if womensexperience was at the centre rather than the periphery of theinquiry? (p. xiii). There have been several attempts to answer thatquestion (for example, Gelsthorpe and Morris, 1990; Howe, 1994;Rafter and Heidensohn, 1995) but none as elegant and imagina-tive as Ngaire Naffines latest book, Feminism and Criminology.

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Naffine takes as her starting point a belief that something hasgone wrong with criminology as a discipline, that it has beensubject to intellectual closure as a consequence of its unwilling-ness to reflect on and question its own world view, or to engagewith feminism. Her aim is to explore this mindset from anexplicitly feminist perspective (p. 10). To achieve this objective,she embarks first on a re-appraisal of the history of criminologicalideas and then, using the examples of rape and feminist crime fic-tion, suggests ways in which an ethical relation between the sexesmight be constructed which might, in turn, enable us to re-envi-sion justice, not [just] to assure equal access to our justice systemas it is currently constructed (K lein in Rafter and Heidensohn,1995: 233).

Naffine divides the history of criminological ideas into threebroad traditions: empiricism, interactionism and discourse ana-lysis. The empiricist, or conventional scientific, tradition withincriminology has assumed the existence of a neutral, investigating,knowing subject (criminological man) and an investigated, know-able object (criminal man). Interactionist, or partisan, criminol-ogy produced appreciative standpoint (male) researchers andworking class (male) offenders, who should be regarded as truesocial critics, rather than real criminals (p. 44). Left realists dis-covered victims and Foucauldians discovered power and disci-pline but always through a masculinist prism which purportedto be gender-neutral.

Feminist criminologists (Naffine uses the term very loosely)have engaged with all three traditions, attempting to redress thebalance of gender visibility. Feminist empiricism has contributed

primarily to understandings of victimisation and the treatment offemale offenders. Standpoint feminism has demonstrated that theexperiences of crime and criminal justice are different for womenand deconstructionist feminist research has raised awareness ofthe significance of language for the maintenance of genderedpower relations within both criminal justice and criminologyitself.

The aim of the second part of the book is to explore ways of

thinking differently about women, men and their relation tocrime. Naffine starts this endeavour with an exciting and risky dis-cussion about the law of rape. She suggests that a reconceptualisa-tion of the law from a feminist perspective might empowerwomen, not by strengthening their claim to victimisation but bymaking it possible for them to negotiate sexual relationships with

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more confidence and authority. Such an approach might invite thecriticism of victim blaming but this would be ill-founded. Usingthe example of the courtesans of Lucknow, Naffine argues thatwomen gain strength in their sexual dealings with men by satiris-ing the demands of conventional femininity, mimicking them,while distancing themselves from them. Women, she claims,appreciate that they are more than they are putting themselvesout to be (p. 116). This, for me, is the high point of a book whichseems to lose its way a little from here. Rather than pursue theimplications of this for the law of rape, Naffine then turns herattention to a different (though ultimately complementary) issue the emergence in crime fiction of the female investigator. Usingthe work of Sara Paretsky, Patricia Cornwell and Helen Zahavi,Naffine traces the portrayal of strong, independent women whocan handle and understand male violence and, in the case ofZahavis Bella, a female serial killer, respond in kind, inverting thepower relations in sexual encounters.

The purpose of the second part of the book is to challengestereotypical representations of the relationship of women tocrime and the received wisdom about the nature of consent in sex-ual relations. The hypothesis that women are constantly engagedin ironic acts of negotiation with female life (p. 117) and that thisperspective is absent from criminological and legal literatureseems to be an important and original insight and it is frustratingthat this was not pursued further. Instead Naffine seems to takean easier way out, leading to a more obvious and less provocativeconclusion.

In the final chapter, Naffine asks how we might construct an

ethical non-violent relation between the sexes. This involvesopening up conventional criminology through an appreciation ofthe Otherness of Woman, through an acceptance of differencerather than succumbing to the desire to assimilate and deny sepa-rateness. It means bringing in women and other exiles from thecold and listening to what they have to say.Feminism and Cr iminologyis beautifully written and Part 1 in

particular communicates a sophisticated theoretical analysis in a

very accessible way. The strength of Part 2 lies in its creativity andits invitation to think differently about women, men and crime.It is a fine contribution to feminist scholarship in a disciplinewhich persists in pushing women to its margins and which,according to Naffine, has a lot of catching up to do (p. 141).

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References

Gelsthorpe, L. and Morris, A., (eds), (1990), Feminist Perspectives in Cr imi nology,Open University Press.

Howe, A., (1994), Punish and Cr it ique: Towards a Feminist Analysis of Penali ty,Routledge.Rafter, N.H. and Heidensohn, F., (eds), (1995), I nternational Feminist Perspectivesin Criminology: Engenderi ng a D iscipli ne, Open University Press.

Keele University Anne Worrall

Cr imes of Style: U rban Graffiti and the Poli t ics of Criminali ty

Jeff Ferrell, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1996, 19.00,xii + 236 pp.

I hope this wonderful study of the heavily criminalised Denverhip hop graffiti scene in the 1980s and early 90s will disprovepublishers denials that there is a market for ethnography, bybecoming a mainstay of reading lists. It evokes the spirit ofBecker and Polsky, the excitement of classic Social Problemsarti-

cles and, with few numbers, creates its epistemic authority from arhetoric of presence: deep immersion in an urban netherworldand the bringing of its richness to textual life with the arts ofthick description. A tendency to romanticise the deviant is asmall price to pay for meeting characters like Eye Six, who,though young, poor, black and with limited schooling, developedcrude territorial tagging into complex displays of technical andthematic virtuosity in the more expansive throw ups and pieces

with which they turned drab walls and billboards into defiant artgalleries of the streets.Following Jack Katz, Ferrell blends the phenomenologists pre-

cise attention to situational detail with the interactionists concernfor the situations social negotiation and construction . . . Anights tagging . . . evolves out of prior tagging experiences, net-works of friendship among the writers and technical and aestheticexpertise developed over the course of writers careers (p. 167).

These elements interact with interruptions, episodes of conflictand other contingencies of shared experience. Intense rivalriesbetween crews of writers over their aesthetic status as kings ordisparaged toys were played out through complex codes of prac-tice, including dissin the spraying out of rivals work.

However, this local subcultural activity was embedded in the

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wider national hip hop movement and also evolved through com-plex dialectical interaction with coalitions of moral entrepreneurs urban managers, politicians, police and commercial interests who demonised the writers. The coalitions had, by the early1990s, become networked into a nation wide movement to stampout the phenomenon, or at least to tame it through regulation andthe restriction of writing to inoffensive, safe locations. In turn, thewar themes of anti-graffiti discourse linked with a series of otherwars (eg against drugs and gangs), which targeted the youngfrom poor places and social groups. The wider context for thesesocial control offensives was seen as the domination of social andcultural life by consortia of privileged opportunists and reac-tionary thugs; the aggressive disenfranchisement of city kids, poorfolks, and people of color . . . and . . . the careful and continuouscentralization of political and economic authority (p. 16).

The final chapter sets out a broader agenda for anarchist crimi-nology, which is viewed as a critical tool to oppose all hierarchi-cal systems of domination, including capitalism, the nation state,the organised church and patriarchy. I t draws on the work of theBirmingham cultural studies school, the aesthetic visions ofBritish punks and new wave musicians, with The Clash, BillyBragg and The Smiths making cameo appearances; and thedemonisation of young people is countered with the claim of TheWho that the kids are all right.

For Ferrell, political economic domination has a counterpart inepistemic claims about universal knowledge and truth, in thisinstance, through a hegemony of style. The appreciation of build-ings stripped of unsanctioned notices and posters, of well-land-

scaped yards cleared of weeds and clutter, of streets swept free oflitter (and bums) of cities free of graffiti is in fact an aesthet-ics of authority (p. 180), which legitimates political control overproperty and space. In opposition, graffiti as a crime of styleoffers active, playful anarchistic resistance (p. 187) to this hege-mony, in the name of an aesthetic diversity or pluralism (p. 187).

This is seen as part of a wider battle to reclaim control over thestreets and other so called public spaces, seen as increasingly

under the control of government and corporate authorities. Thisembrace of pluralism is reinforced in Ferrells echoing ofK ropotkins critique of the laws intolerance of human ambigui-ties and the way that legal authority involves an inequitable intru-sion into every corner of our lives (p. 191).

However, Ferrells narrowly selective narrative of anarchist

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thought highlights the urban and labour based traditions of theWobblies and Emma Goldman, which temper individual freedomwith social obligations; but this plays down or renders problem-atic other strands. We can cite, for example, firstly, the rural anti-statism which could be said to underpin the racist and survivalistgroups holed up in Montana, elements of which have been incor-porated by Gingrich style neo-liberals; secondly, the egoistic andmasculinist strains of anarchism. I f street criminals can be implic-itly anarchist, does this apply to Katzs (1988) interviewees whosavoured the sadistic pleasures of violence? And what are the pre-cise resistances involved in drive by shootings and the practices ofgangs like LAs Crips and Bloods? Are the kids always alrightto each other? As Stan Cohen (1980) argued, maybe we shouldaccept that young people involved in crime and youth subculturescan sometimes be racist or in other ways malevolent. The imputa-tion of radical motives or resistance is not always convincing. Inaddition, European social democrats (eg the Left Realists) wouldstoutly defend the role of law and the state as instruments whichcan (if minimally) create positive freedoms, protect the weak andeffect a measure of economic redistribution. It would be useful ifFerrell were to engage with European criminologists in the anar-chist inspired abolitionist camps, such as Joe Sim, Willem deHaan and Ren van Swaaningen, who have had to grapple moredirectly with social democratic discourses and practices.

References

Cohen, Stanley, (1980), Folk D evils and M oral Panics. London: Macgibbon andKee.

Katz, Jack, (1988), Seductions Of Cr ime: M oral and Sensual A tt ractions in DoingEvil, New York: Basic Books.

Buckinghamshire College Kevin Stenson

Imagining Cit ies

Sallie Westwood and John Williams (eds), Routledge, London,1997, x + 289 pp.

This book comprises a series of essays mostly taking forward thecultural turn in urban studies by linking it to questions ofethnicity, memory and narrative. This is certainly an interesting

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project. The urban cultural turn, associated with writersreasserting spatiality in social theory, as well as assorted post-modernist and post-structuralist emphases, promises to broadenurban studies from being a rather narrow specialism into an intel-lectually vital current within the humanities and social sciences. Areading of this book, however, indicates rather starkly the prob-lems facing those writers taking forward this intellectual move-ment. It remains unclear how the project goes forward from itswell established and well known critique of positivist and realistorthodoxies and for this reason the movement seems stuck in anintellectual rut it claims to have left behind.

Admittedly, the authors of the various papers in this book doattempt to deploy a number of different strategies to take forwardthe urban cultural turn. Some writers practice a reflexive tech-nique in which they make their own urban experiences part oftheir story and analysis. This sometimes come off very well. I wasparticularly taken by Elizabeth Wilsons fascinating account ofurban nostalgia, drawing upon her own memories of living inLeicester. James Donalds (partly) reflexive piece on imagining thecity, which also draws examples from literary work, does not workquite as well since it lacks focus and direction and lacks the preci-sion and clarity of his other work. Chaneys reflections on subur-bia owes something to his own upbringing. I m not sure if Sojaspaper on six discourses on the metropolis is reflexive, but it iscertainly self-opinionated and self-regarding. I noted, not for thefirst time, that women seem better able to write reflexively, with-out sliding into pomposity, than do men.

Developing another theme, the city as narrative, other con-

tributors explicitly explore the role of literary methods foranalysing the urban. Donald refers to Lessing and Wolffs work,whilst in an interesting essay Roger Burrows considers the lessonswhich we might learn from the science fiction of William Gibson.Neither of these essays really develops this approach with thesophistication and skill of literary urban critics, however. Otheressays in the book offer rather bland accounts of broad issuesaffecting contemporary urbanism, for instance Chaney on subur-

ban culture, Graham on the impact of telecommunications onurban life, MacBeath and Webb on cyberspace. These essays allhad their moments (Chaneys in particular), but in none of themdid I feel that the authors did anything more than recycle theissues in largely derivative style, and in none of them did I feelthat the authors had invested terribly much time and effort.

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The other essays fall into two types. One group is composed ofrather general overviews of particular issues or places. ThusCharlesworth and Cochranes account of Milton Keynes as anAmericanised city offers a fairly familiar account of urbanchange, Hall provides an overview of urban change inBirminghams city centre, whilst Phil Cohens promising study ofcommunity and ethnicity on the Isle of Dogs ends up by retreat-ing into clichs and banalities. Hesses account of the problem ofwhiteness (an essay developing the rather poorly integratedtheme of urbanism and ethnicity) seems somewhat out of placehere since its interest in the city (as opposed to the nation) israther tenuous. There is a second group of papers, however, whichreally appear to care about the places they study, and their enthu-siasm and involvement make them much more readable. MaxFarrars exciting (though at times rather bitty) study of ethnicity,spatialisation and the politics of time in Chapeltown, Leeds wasprovocative, whilst David Byrne writes about Cleveland with typi-cal idiosyncrasy and verve (he even uses a few figures in what isotherwise a fairly data-free book!). Taylor and Jamieson, in per-haps the most rounded piece in the book provide an interestingaccount of the use of images of working class masculinity in theadvertising industry.

These papers are all (apparently) derived from the 1995 BSAConference in Leicester on Contested Cit ies(a companion vol-ume, will have appeared by the time this review is published). Dothe papers in this book really represent the best work being car-ried out in British social science on urban theory, ethnicity, mem-ory and the city as narrative? Although there are some good

essays here, I find it difficult to believe that this is the best overallcollection which could have been put together to explore thesethemes. In particular and with some honourable exceptions the level of theoretical sophistication is really rather weak.Various intellectual currents, such as work influenced by Lefebvre;actor network theory; social anthropological debates about com-munity, space and place; Foucault; Benjamin; the new urban cul-tural history and so on could have been mined much more

effectively than they are here. The result is a disappointing volumewhich does not live up to its promise.

Universit y of M anchester Mike Savage

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Consumer Culture and M odernity

Don Slater, Blackwell, Oxford, 1996, 45.00, paper 12.95, 230 pp.

Theories of consumer culture which predict that we are nowentering a new era of postmodernityhave been at the centre ofacademic discourse for over a decade. A book which argues thatthe characteristics of consumer culture are inextricably bound upwith modernity (p. 9) is therefore long over-due. The strength ofthis book is its clarity of synthesis in associating consumer culturewith a comprehensive range of sociological literature. The broadstructure of the book begins with a survey of classical approaches,followed by contemporary social theory and concluded through acritique of cultural studies.

Slater argues that consumer culture has not only been an inte-gral defining feature of modernity, but that the consumer revolu-tion (p. 18) preceded the industrial revolution. The literature ofrevisionist historians is presented through an original and highlysuccessful looking backwards exercise, through which Slatertraces consumer culture from the present day to the early modernperiod. He thereby highlights the emergence of a new world ofgoods (a wide penetration of consumer goods into the everydaylives of more social classes) (p. 17) in which fashion and tasteemerged as key elements of consumption. Consumer culture wasthus born to modernity.

This book critically explores the contrasting philosophiesthrough which the project of modernity has been understood.Liberalist traditions are discussed in which consumers are pre-sented as private individuals rationally pursuing their self-defined

interests through a mechanism (the market) that socially coordi-nates individuals actions without compromising the autonomy oftheir choices (p. 42). In contrast, theories concerning the ratio-nalization (Weber, Simmel) and reification (Lukacs) of social lifeare then examined. Rather than describing the experience of mod-ern subjects as free and autonomous, these approaches focuson capitalism as constituting a world which is objective, naturaland independent of human action, and which comes to regulate

human life as an all-encompassing power (p. 117).Drawing upon Raymond Williams conception of culture as a

social ideal, Slater shows how an ephemeral modernity dismantlesthe certainties of traditional societies and causes social patholo-gies (p. 98), such as Durkheims anomie, Rousseaus concern withthe authenticity of human values, and Marxs alienation of

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subjects and objects. Through a concise discussion of Adorno andHorkheimers culture industry and Tocquevilles notion thatdesire makes slaves out of men because passion destroys reason(p. 82), Slater illustrates the preoccupation of modernist theoristswith a depthless debased mass culture, which undermines cultureas a social ideal: if true culture retreats to higher ground as thetide of commerce floods its banks, consumer culture wallows in itsmud, an abomination thrown up from its depths. I t is a culturethat can be bought by anyone with the cash; and it is culture thatis produced to be sold (p. 70). This is a theme which can betraced to many postmodern writers such as Baudrillard and

Jameson.Regarding contemporary social theory, Slater focuses on the

claims of Giddens, Bauman and Beck concerning the requirementof individuals to choose and produce the self via, consumergoods and activities through which we construct appearances andorganize leisure time and social encounters (p. 85). This post-tra-ditional self is part of a reflexive project (p. 91) in which peopleare free to choose their identity(ies) but this also makes themresponsible for their choice, a responsibility which involves riskand anxiety. Consumer culture offers guidance through the mediaand experts, but its success receives scant attention. Here thereader is first introduced to theories concerning late moderniza-tion and postmodernism, which Slater astutely criticises for beingconfused, seeming to indicate both ultimate freedom and ulti-mate anomie (p. 205). Again, this ambivalence between anomieand the free subject is nothing new and holds parallels with thetensions found in classical approaches between the sovereign

rational consumer and the social pathologies associated withmass culture.

Slater then examines the meaning and use of things. A justifi-ably critical account of semiotics is presented in which he indi-cates that while the meaning of things and the concept of needsmay be culturally defined, it is through consumption that wemake social sense and social order not merely within the confinesof a sign system but across a total social field of practices (p.

151). By summarising the work of Mauss, Douglas, Veblen andBourdieu, the use of things is presented as mapping the social,a means of symbolically marking social mobility, classificationand distinction. As might be expected, issues of cultural capitaland information feature prominently in this discussion, but weonly find hints of the enduring significance of social structure.

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While the reader is left with an impression of the main thrust ofthese theories and a newcomer to Bourdieu would benefit fromSlaters clear synopsis, the role of consumption in mediating socialrelations (whether class, gender or interpersonal) is not as fullydeveloped as it might be.

The final chapter presents a nicely packaged discussion of post-fordism and postmodernity, in which the reader gains a clearimpression of the authors position within the modern/postmod-ern debate: most of the issues and conceptual tools of post-modernity, if not its conclusions, come out of the very long-termconcern with consumer culture that is coextensive with moder-nity (p. 209). There is however, a danger that the reader may beleft with the impression that social life has not changed signifi-cantly during the course of the century. Slater could have empha-sised more what appears to be his central argument, thatconsumer culture, while an increasingly prominent mediator ofsocial life, is still to be understood in terms of the dialectic ofmodernity, the tension between rational sober, and hedonistic,emotional and insatiable consumers. The well-developed and clearline of thought which runs throughout the book makes it accessi-ble to the advanced undergraduate, postgraduates and scholars,who will benefit from an authoritative ordering of the key issuessurrounding consumer culture. It is this comprehensive orderingwhich will make this book an important text within the sociologyof consumption.

L ancaster U niversit y Dale Southerton

Popular M usic in Theory: An Introduction

Keith Negus, Polity, Oxford, 1996, 45.00, paper 12.95, 243 pp.

In recent years there has been something of a mini-boom in acad-emic publications on popular music. While still overshadowed bywriting on television and film, there is no doubt that music isgaining in importance as an object of sustained analysis. At leastthree developments suggest themselves to explain this. First, the

perceived importance of music in all sorts of different environ-ments and contexts; second, the way in which cultural forms havebecome increasingly interlinked on a number of different planes;and third, the increased interdisciplinary nature of the social sci-ences and humanities themselves.

Keith Negus welcome and insightful book connects to all these

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dimensions and indeed represents some of the benefits of relatingpopular music to other media; and something that may becomepopular music studies, if it is not already so, to a wider range ofintellectual debates on the topic of culture. In contrast to othercharacterisations of the field which also have designs to functionas textbooks, Negus organises his review and arguments themati-cally rather than through a division between production and con-sumption. His theoretical approach both facilitates and isstrengthened by this.

Negus spreads his attention far and wide, including discussionsof audiences, industry, mediations, identities, histories, geogra-phies and politics. These reviews are never less than informativeand all engage the attention. The opening chapters which movefrom audiences to identities via the industry and mediation areparticularly well-paced and coherent. By contrast, some of thelater chapters seem less well focused and the discussion of politicssuffers from being centred on the idea of the rock era which isvery quickly revealed to have significant shortcomings. A hardertarget would have strengthened the overall significance of theargument at this point.

However, as he suggests himself in the introduction, it is theconcept and discussion of mediation that is crucial to Negussapproach. Negus does not offer this frame as a simple solution tothe vexed questions of the complexity of the distinctions andinterrelations of production and consumption, but it does func-tion in that discursive space. Three senses of mediation areaddressed: as intermediary action, as transmission, and ofsocial relationships. Through consideration of print, radio and

video, Negus points toward the struggles which take place arounddistribution, to argue that There are many mediating links thatconnect the control of the industry with the creativity of theaudience (p. 98). This suggests a new approach to what haveoften been seen as production or audience issues. The case iswell made here and the later chapters of the book, at least implic-itly, attempt to show how the approach might deliver in the con-text of specific discussions.

There is much to admire in this perspective, but it does seem toneed development, especially I would want to argue in the charac-terisation and consideration of the audience. In his specific chap-ter on this topic, Negus seems to end up rather close torecommending a return to Hall and Morleys encoding/decodingmodel as a mechanism for introducing the corrective of industry

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against the perceived excesses of active audience theory. Thisseems to neglect the many difficulties with such a paradigm whichinclude problems with integrating analyses of the differentialsocial bases of decoding, understanding how the approach can bedeveloped beyond current affairs and so on. Perhaps an alterna-tive might be suggested, which starts from the nature of everydaylife.

Negus usefully characterises the complexity and different rolesof music (as linked to other media) in everyday life, but it is con-sideration of the way forward that is on the agenda. In thatrespect, my own view is that the study of popular music is in needof some fresh doses of empirical investigation of the sort of topicsconsidered by Negus, especially space and identity, informed bythe type of theoretical consideration engaged in here and else-where. This might ultimately suggest that on the analytic and sub-stantive focus should not fall on any one medium or practice, butthe complex interactions and re-orderings which seem to be devel-oping with ever increasing speed. One effect of this might be toshow that popular music is related to identity in a devastatingcomplexity of ways, which cry out for ordering. It is to Neguscredit that he so clearly points up the issues and offers new waysto relocate material in a book that functions as both a clearreview that can be recommended to students and as a somewhaticonoclastic re-interpretation which engages the more experi-enced.

In conclusion, this is a significant contribution to both the con-stitution of the body of evidence gathered on popular music todate and a book which tends to suggest ways in which that mater-

ial can be understood in different ways. not the least significant ofits implications is that the bringing together of social sciences andthe humanities in the study of a specific area might tend toexplode the current boundaries of the consideration of the objectof study. Should our focus be on the complexities of everyday lifein a media drenched society, rather than the production and con-sumption of discreet forms and would such a focus be able toovercome such dichotomies and their associated research agen-

das?

Universit y of Salford Brian Longhurst

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Football, Nationali ty and the State

Vic Duke and Liz Crolley, Longman, Harlow, 1996, 10.99, 164 pp.

Duke and Crolley have produced a fine and timely study of therelationships that exist between football, the state and nationaland cultural identities. The book is well researched, being rootedin a wealth of research trips rather than desk-based analysis. I tcombines the sociological scholarship of Vic Duke, who is partic-ularly well informed on football in East Europe and the LowCountries, and the linguistic and cultural studies skills of LizCrolley, most at home in Hispanic nations. The nine chapters alsoinclude one written by Rocco De Biasi, a leading authority on thesociological dimensions of Italian football. Written in an accessi-ble and engaging style, the text conforms to the Longman formulawhich favours short and relatively introductory texts, while stillproviding an academic audience with fresh insights and informa-tion on footballs cross-cultural dimensions. The book is attrac-tively packaged through its concise discussion of particularsub-themes, regular subheadings, an excellent index, and the con-sistent inclusion of photographs from Dukes reliable lens.

In addition to an introductory chapter and a concluding pieceon women and football, the book essentially consists of case stud-ies of the historical and sociological interplay between the state,nationality and cultural identity within a football context. Thesecase studies are separated into two coherent sections. Initially, itexamines those football nations which exist within a single state,such as the four Home Unions in the UK ; the Castilian, Basqueand Catalan nations within Spain; and the Flemish and French

linguistic nations within Belgium. It then turns to examine themore direct, political relationship between football clubs and thestate, such as the patronage of East European clubs by major stateinstitutions; Silvio Berlusconis control of the Italian privatemedia, AC Milan and right-wing political strategy; and theemployment of the militant barras bravas fans found inArgentinian stadia, to assist major politicos within football andpolitical elections.

The studies complement and embellish existing academicresearch within these areas. While there is a growing body of mater-ial available on the situation in the UK , Italy, Spain and Argentina,the book does provide fresh work on these Latin nations, as well asmore ground-breaking introductory studies of Eastern Europe andBelgium. The most intriguing chapter considers those anomalous

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football cases, in which particular teams play across the borderwithin other nations. While the more celebrated cases of BerwickRangers (England into Scotland) and Derry City (North intoSouth Ireland) are examined here, a fascinating short study ofCyprus is also included. Following the invasion of north Cyprusby Turkey in 1974, approximately 165,000 Greek Cypriots wereforced to flee south. Consequently, their football clubs were simi-larly uprooted, but were encouraged to remain within the UEFA-recognised Greek Cypriot league of the south, thus symbolizingthe unjust reasons for their refugee status. Hopefully, the authorswill develop this research area into a full-blown case study.

The book clearly has a contemporary relevance to it, at a timewhen the dissolution and reconstruction of national and culturalidentities has become almost an established social process. Withthe exceptions of Cyprus and Eastern Europe, the content doesincline towards those nations where footballs extensive history isin a sense mirrored by the establishment of relatively longeval, ifcontested, territory-based nation-states. Future academic researchwould do well to use Duke and Crolleys text as a thematic spring-board, for examining the interplay of state-formation, nationaland cultural identity and football, within dissolved or emergentnation-states. Duke and Crolley have pointed the way heretowards addressing the case of old, Eastern European buffernations. Our knowledge of the deeper relationship between thesethemes would be enhanced by further studies undertaken withinthe new republics of the old Soviet Union and Africa, as well asCentral America, the Middle East and south-east Asia, where thenew football cultures are quickly emerging.

Given the books key themes, one weakness is perhaps theincongruity of the final chapter, which examines women withinfootball. Although this is a contemporary issue that will assist inmarketing the book, the specific question of womens football ishardly raised elsewhere, nor are the related themes of masculinityand gender roles. Nevertheless, the book will appeal to a big mar-ket, ranging from academics through a large student readership tothe coveted lay audience with a general interest in football. The

potential size of this latter group is highlighted by the books offi-cial launch at the Manchester branch of the specialist sportsbookshop, Sportspages, in November 1996. It deserves such awide readership.

University of Aberdeen Richard Giulianotti

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Changing Forms of Employment: Organisations, Skills and Gender

Rosemary Crompton, Duncan Gallie and Kate Purcell (eds),Routledge, London, 1996, 47.50, paper 14.99, xi + 281 pp.

The adjective that best describes this volume is worthy. I t is aseries of eleven essays from a conference in 1994 accompanied bya brief introduction. Most papers report detail from recent empir-ical studies about corporations, industrial sectors, the operationof different labour markets and workers experiences of their cur-rent jobs. Such chapters are mostly based on sound researchwhich has generated detailed knowledge about issues of import-ance to the sociology of employment. What can be excavated fromsuch chapters are mostly applications of new data to long-runningdebates about corporate restructuring, labour market processes,skill levels and gender inequalities. For instance, Gallie shows thatmost workers think they exercise more skill, hold more responsib-ility and work harder in 1992 than in 1986. Wajcman provides evi-dence that it is not the characteristics of women managers, but theorganizational culture of even well-intentioned corporations thatcreates the glass-ceiling effect. The occupation of electronic engi-neer in Japan and Britain differs because of the nature of work-place learning (Lam). And Gregory and OReilly suggest that thecontrasting attitudes of British and French women towards part-time employment in the banking and retail sectors derive fromnational systems of social reproduction.Changing Forms of Employmentis primarily a monument of

normal science tentative questioning of the plausibility of gen-eralizations, arguing that the extent of change in particular insti-

tutions has been exaggerated or under-estimated, showing thatsome causes of change are less significant in particular contextsthan has previously been claimed. I certainly do not wish to deni-grate the endeavours and achievements of normal social science;it is essential to have accepted understandings of the socialprocesses surrounding employment tested and confirmed on thebasis of repeated study. Such scholarship is highly commendable,but not always exciting or thought-provoking.

As one would expect of a volume with eminent contributors,there are articles that command attention. Tony Lanes analysis ofthe restructuring of the merchant shipping industry is arresting.

This is partly because it is an industry with some very distinctivecharacteristics but which has received little sociological attention,so the account is highly instructive. But it is mostly because

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merchant shipping offers an extreme, and decidedly shocking,example of how genuinely global and de-regulated industriesmight operate. Flags of convenience mean absence of regulationof the sea-worthiness of vessels or of proper training; and whencrews are recruited from a truly international pool the con-sequence is that they often have no common language in which tocommunicate in a crisis. The safety, employment and environ-mental issues are matters for serious concern. I also appreciatedan analytical and conceptual piece by Bryn Jones which ponderedissues like why skills cannot be commodities, what exactly is amarket, and what is the best way to conceptualise the social con-stitution of labour market processes. Briefly illustrated by twocontrasting case studies of self-employed construction workersand graduate engineers, the essay offered material worthy of sub-sequent reflection.

Overall, this is a volume which experts in British sociology ofemployment will refer to and engage with in some measure, but itis likely to have little impact on the wider sociological commun-ity.

L ancaster U niversit y Alan Warde

Variet ies of Transit ion: The East European and East German

Experience

Claus Offe, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996, 45.00, paper 14.95,viii + 249 pp.

Seven of these nine essays are revised from Claus Offes DerTunnel am Ende des L ichts(1994), a title (The Tunnel at the Endof the Light) which better expresses his view that the transforma-tions in Eastern Europe will be protracted and difficult. F ive ofthe essays have been published in whole or part in English before.

The revised essays are also said to be updated but the only refer-ence later than 1994 is to one of Offes own works.

This volume has two main virtues. First, it concentrates not onthe empirical detail of transition but on the theoretical, philo-

sophical and legal issues involved. As the theorisation of theunprecedented movement from state socialism to capitalismremains largely unwritten, any help Offe can give has to be wel-come. Second, it includes examination of the incorporation of theformer GDR in the FRG. This is interesting both in itself and forthe comparisons and contrasts it affords with the other CMEA

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countries in Eastern Europe. Again this is welcome because mostother commentators have excluded the German case from com-parative analysis.

Offes opening discussion of the structure of industrial societiescontains some nice aphorisms. The assertion that capitalism fet-ters the productive forces and state socialist society unleashesthem is . . . one of the most unfortunate errors of historical mate-rialism (p. 3). State socialism displays control without self-observation, capitalism self-observation without control (p. 4).Also state socialism attempts macro-planning, but promptsmicro-anarchy in the production process; capitalism couplesmacro-anarchy at the level of the national economy with micro-planning at the level of the individual firm. Offe also argues thatthe following order of preferences seems to have a great deal ofmoral plausibility . . . exemplary socialism, exemplary capitalism,factual capitalism, factual socialism (p. 6).

Eastern European societies in transition have simultaneouslyto put in place a new economic order, a new legal and constitu-tional order and new rules of social organisation. They have toeffect the triple transition to capitalism by democratic design. Inthe process they have to handle the frictions inseparable fromchanges in social and distribution policy and they have to changeelites and deal with displaced functionaries from the old regime.Offe stresses how different capitalism by design is from the devel-opment of capitalism in the west and he examines a series of the-ories and scenarios all of which point more to failure thansuccess.

Offe hypothesises that political principles are better than eco-

nomic performance, and economic performance better than cul-tural identity, as a source of macro-integration (p. 11), but he alsosuggests that the ethnification of politics in Eastern Europe mustappear rational to many individuals and collectivities insofar as itaffords possibilities of mobilisation in the associational waste-land (p. 71) where civil society should be.

Why should the restitution of property have a higher prioritythan, say, compensation for imprisonment? And should restitu-

tion extend to property confiscated between liberation and thecoming to power of communist governments? Should it, too, beoffered to those who are no longer nationals of the countries con-cerned not just to migrs but also expellees like the Germansforced out of Czechoslovakia? And which members of the formernomenklaturashould lose their jobs, or even be prosecuted for

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what they did under the old regime? How far should exposure, orwhat the Czechs call lustration, go? Offe provides no easyanswers but he does mount an unusually full examination of theissues for a social scientist, because processes of restitution andlustration are part of a remoralisation of societies whose eco-nomic stagnation was only exceeded by their moral bankruptcy.

Liberal economists expected a rapid establishment of capitalismin Eastern Europe generally once the shackles of an entrepre-neurialism they assumed to be innate were removed. Theprospects for the former GDR were thought to be even brighter;the FRG had effected one economic miracle in its post-war recon-struction and it was assumed that it could effect another in itsnew eastern Lnder. The reality has proved very different; in somerespects economic regeneration has proceeded more slowly thanin Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Offe gives a numberof reasons for this, but two are especially significant. Poles, Czechsand Hungarians have taken responsibility for the reconstructionof their countries. Citizens of the eastern Lnder(Ossis) have notbeen allowed to take responsibility for their part of Germany.Instead many in public administration, the law and the universi-ties whose loyalties and competences were assumed to be appro-priate only for the old regime have been purged in favour ofpersonnel brought in from the west. Wessis have also taken overas managers in most factories. There is also greater solidarityamong Poles, Czechs and Hungarians than there is betweenWessis and Ossis. Wessis resent the size of the fiscal transfers fromwest to east; Ossis resent their lower standard of living and theirpoorer economic prospects. Complete integration of the former

GDR in the FRG will take well into the next century contraryto the original expectations of all parties.

Universit y of Salford C.G.A. Bryant

The Rise and Fall of State Socialism: I ndustr ial Society and the

Socialist State

David Lane, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996, 45.00, paper 12.95,

233 pp.

An era has ended. State socialism in Europe began with theOctober Revolution in Russia in 1917 and ended with the dissolu-tion of the USSR in 1991. Variants of state socialism may con-tinue in China, Vietnam and Cuba but for how much longer?

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Now is a time to take stock and this David Lane does quite bril-liantly. For most of the book he confines himself to examinationof why and how state socialism rose and fell, but in the final chap-ter he also asks a question dear to him what it all means for thefuture of socialism.

Lane opens with as helpful a set of characterisations of social-ism, state socialism, the Soviet variant of state socialism, Leninism,communism, and market socialism as any student could hope tofind. He then examines the socialist project in connection withvarious socialist movements, Marxism, Leninism and Bolshevism,before describing and accounting for the features of the Sovietmodel and actual developments in the Soviet Union. He stresseshow The profit motive and the market had been abolished andreplaced by planning; the values of collectivism and equality hadsuperseded those of individualism and freedom (pp. 389),abstracts four principles of Marxism-Leninism as an ideology ofdevelopment for the early stages, and another four for the periodfrom 1936 to 1991, outlines the within-system contradictions andconcludes that Rather than being a catalyst for world revolution,the events of 1917 proved to be a cul-de-sac for socialism (p. 51).

Lane then moves to the growth and spread of communism,concentrating on three cases China as an example ofautonomous internal revolution, Poland as an example of theimposition of communist rule, and Cuba as an example of aninternal or military coup which brought to power leaders whoonly later declared themselves to be Marxist or Leninist. He indi-cates how different origins have shaped subsequent developments,and, as throughout the book, what most impresses is the connec-

tion of sociological theories, socialist theories, historical eventsand empirical evidence. I know enough about Poland, however, toquery some of the detail. Poland was not partitioned in 1891 (p.62). Presumably this is a typo for 1791 and a reference to thesecond partition mooted in that year but effected in 17923, butwhy the second and not the first partition of 17713 or the thirdwhich completed the dismemberment of Poland in 1795? Therestoration of a Polish state occurred in 1918 not 1923; the collec-

tivisation of agriculture peaked in 1954, the year the 1950 six-yearplan collapsed, and not 1956, the year of the Polish spring; andthe Workers Defence Committee (KOR) was a product of the dis-turbances of 1976 and not, as is, no doubt inadvertently, implied,an accompaniment of Solidarity in 19801. I just hope readerswith interests in other countries do not find similar

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mistakes. More seriously, I wish Lane had mentioned the innova-tory oppositional strategy of new evolutionism associated withKOR. It proposed the (re)generation of civil society rather than adirect challenge to the party-state the course broadly followedby Solidarity in 19801 and points up the political significanceof the second societies which subsequently developed in Hungaryand elsewhere. Indeed, I suggest that Lane underestimates the sig-nificance of Solidarity in the fall of state socialism generally.

Lanes chapter on market reforms considers theories of marketsocialism and the reforms instituted in Yugoslavia and China andproposed in Czechoslovakia before the Soviet-led intervention of1968. Lane argues that economic reforms have in the past under-mined central political control and are likely to do so again inChina. I t is, however, perverse of Lane to devote space toCzechoslovakia where reforms were not implemented rather thanHungary where the new economic mechanism introduced in the1970s, and the later development of the largest second economy inEastern Europe, did not spare the communists from defeat in1989 but did lead to the exchange of systems.

On the fall of state socialism, Lane is best on the Soviet Union,Gorbachevs misconceived perestroika, and, his major argument,the defeat of a nomenklatura-dependent political class by anacquisition class (Webers Enwerbsklasse) of intellectuals andprofessionals confident in the marketability of their skills. Thereand elsewhere he also stresses the role of the west, including theIMF and the World Bank, as a proxy capitalist class and the irre-sistibility of nationalism, in the absence of any other ideology,once the authority of Marxism-Leninism and its representatives

had been irreversibly weakened.What has been lost for the socialist cause by the collapse of state

socialism? (p. 190). Answer: belief in the achievability of fullemployment and comprehensive social services. How can that berecovered? Answer: it cannot until it is recognised that capitalism isa global system requiring a global socialist response. What then?Answer: just as Lenin once invented a new kind of party, so mustsocialists now. But how can the wish beget the deed? No answer.

David Lanes account of the rise and fall of state socialism andits variations may end lamely, but it is also erudite, bold and,despite its shortish compass, improbably comprehensive. Studentswill find it invaluable; specialists will find it a hard act to follow.

Universit y of Salford C.G.A. Bryant

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Jean Baudril lard: A Study in Cultural M etaphysics

Charles Levin, Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, London,1996, 12.99, xiv + 286 pp.

This study is a welcome and detailed addition to the steadilyexpanding secondary literature on the work of Jean Baudrillard.It has the potential advantage of approaching Baudrillards much-misunderstood theory-fiction from a different perspective, thatof contemporary psychoanalysis, of which the author is a practis-ing member.

The study attempts to cover the entire Baudrillardian oeuvre,from the early 1960s to the present day. This is no easy task how-ever and Levin does not always manage to present a sufficientlyclearly structured meditation on the many twists and turns ofBaudrillards career. At the beginning of his work Levinproposes the term cultural metaphysics (p. 7) to describeBaudrillards general theoretical approach, this is a form of specu-lative or intuitive social criticism. Levins choice of this term is notentirely efficacious for Baudrillard prefers to write in terms of thesocial or increasingly of objects or things, and tends to reservethe term cultural for marginal considerations of art, cinema andphotography. Further, it is not at all clear that Baudrillard offers ametaphysic, indeed anti-metaphysics may be a better term sincealthough Baudrillard is willing to write on behalf of the worldand nature, he rejects any transcendentalism of the subject.

In the opening chapters Levin, rightly, situates Baudrillardswork in relation to Nietzsche, Mauss and Bataille, emphasisingthe importance of archaic festival, the gift, and the accursed share

in the interpretation of Baudrillards notion of symbolic exchange.Levin then seeks to elucidate his subject by drawing on a range ofestablished theoretical terms; Freuds unheimlichor uncanny,Heideggers gestell or framing, and K ristevas chora, thatBaudrillard himself rarely, if ever, uses.

Sections two and three of the study establish the main themesof the development of Baudrillards thought and Levin establishesa range of interesting points. Of particular importance here is the

considerable distance between Baudrillards work and other, moredominant strands of Structuralist and Post-Structuralist theoryrepresented by figures such as Barthes, Lacan, Foucault andDerrida. As Levin makes clear Baudrillards perspective identifiesand challenges a wide-ranging complicity between much suppos-edly radical theory and contemporary market imperatives. This

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occurs through their abstraction or reification of structures, codesand signs, often coupled with a residual ethico-political idealismwhich for Baudrillard aligns them with the shibboleths ofEnlightenment rationalism.

Part four of Levins work turns specifically to Baudrillardsnotion of symbolic exchange and although the author approachesthis subject with wit and assurance, again certain of the terms ofhis study continue to be tangential to Baudrillards own. Levinsdeployment of Freudian psychoanalytic terminology occasionallybecomes strained and incautious. In particular, he does not distin-guish adequately between the Freudian unconscious, Bataillesprofitless expenditure and most importantly Baudrillards criticalre-thinking an

review inventing ourselves

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